They Used Dark Forces gs-8

by Dennis Wheatley

  'No, Excellency.' Gregory stood up. `You seem to have thought of-every- thing. First thing tomorrow, or today rather, I'll get down to work.'

  In the morning Kaindl produced a tailor, who measured Gregory for his uniforms; then he spent the best part of the rest of the day going round the house. By blackmail, bribery and outright theft Goering's agents had filled it with treasures the value of which it was impossible to estimate, but they would certainly have fetched many millions of pounds. Museums and palaces all over Europe, and some even in Germany, had on one pretext or another been looted of old masters, statuary, gold altar pieces, gem-encrusted crucifixes, jade carvings, precious porcelain, jeweled snuff boxes and thousands of rare books that were housed in a great, domed library, making ft the most magnificent art collection in the world ever assembled by any private individual. In five or six hours Gregory had time to examine only a tithe of it, but he promised himself many more hours of similar enjoyment before leaving Karinhall to again risk his life.

  That evening the dossiers arrived and the following morning, with Kaindl's help, he started to study them, while Malacou took notes of birth days and important dates in the lives of those people who, since January 16th when Hitler had made his H.Q. in the bunkers under the Reich Chancellery, had been his most frequent companions.

  Martin Bormann, it emerged, was now forty-five. He had been an assistant to Rudolf Hess and first came into prominence as the head of the Party Chancery; but he had won a high position in Hitler's favour by becoming his successful financial adviser. Subservient, self effacing, but extraordinarily watchful and competent, he had gradually made himself indispensable and assumed the role of confidential secretary. As Hitler took special pride in his abilities as an architect, Bormann had won further favour by supervising for him the building of his mountain palace, the Berghof, at Obersalzberg. Then, after Hess's flight to Scotland, Bormann had succeeded in slipping into his old chief's shoes as Controller of the Partei, a post which, while not making him as conspicuous as the other Nazi leaders, gave him immense hidden power. He was loathed by the others, who realized his insatiable ambition, but he had now achieved a position in which they could not harm him and had to discuss their business with him before he would even arrange for them an interview with his master.

  Dr. Josef Goebbels was the only one of the Nazi satraps who had even a working agreement with Bormann, and that only because both were intelligent and respected one another's capabilities to the extent of feeling it wiser not to quarrel openly. The little club-footed doctor was now forty-eight. He had been a star pupil at a Jesuit seminary, and had acquired an extraordinary ability to argue a case convincingly however dubious the facts on which it was based. Even after the tide of Germany's defeat had clearly set in he had continued to persuade the greater part of the people that victory was still assured by the simple device of putting out in his broadcasts the same flagrant lies repeated again and again with conviction and vigour. Politically, he led the extreme Left of the Nazi Party. Privately, he led an unusual dual existence; for on the one hand he was a devoted family man with several children, while on the other it was well known that as Films came under his Ministry, no good looking woman could get a leading part in a film unless she first agreed to sleep with him. He was unquestionably devoted to Hitler and was one of the few people still completely trusted by him.

  Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was another of those few and, now being close on seventy, was by some years the oldest of Hitler's courtiers. He had reached the top of his Service through a combination of being both a highly competent officer and a convinced Nazi. Wisely, he had refrained from mixing himself up in the political intrigues of the others and, as a hard, cold man, he had carried out without argument Hitler's wish that the war at sea should be waged with complete ruthlessness. The Army, Hitler had always distrusted and now hated; the Luftwaffe had failed so lamentably that he had come to despise its officers; the Navy alone, in his opinion, had never let him down; so Doenitz had become his favourite of all his Service Chiefs.

  Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, aged sixty-three, had, from 1938 when Hitler had taken over as War Minister, deputized for him as Chief of the Armed Forces and was still his principal military adviser. Tall, distinguished-looking, correct, he was the lick-spittle to outlick all lick-spittles, and lacked even the courage to say a word in defence of his brother Generals when their troops were forced to abandon their positions on being attacked by overwhelming odds. In his dossier Gregory was amused to read that when, at last, Montgomery had broken out from the Normandy beachhead and von Rundstedt had reported what had happened, Keitel had wailed over the telephone, `Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?' to which von Rundstedt had replied tersely, `Sue for peace, you bloody fools. Sue for peace. It is the only thing you can do.' And for that, within the hour, on Keitel's reporting it to Hitler, Germany's greatest General had been sacked as G.O.C. West; although Hitler had seen no alternative to asking him to come back a few months later to launch the Ardennes offensive.

  Under Keitel, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, recovered from the wounds he had received when the bomb went off at Rastenburg, was again filling the role of expert on land strategy, and doubling up with him was the Panzer General, Guderian, whom Hitler had chosen as his latest Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht, not because of his undoubted ability but because he was hated and distrusted by all the other Generals.

  On a lower strata, but wielding more influence because he was hand in glove with Bormann and Goebbels, was General Burgdorf-another toady. He was both Hitler's personal Wehrmacht adjutant and Chief of its Personnel Bureau.

  The principal representatives of the Luftwaffe were Generals Karl Koller and Eckard Christian; the former an elderly, much harassed, long-suffering man; the latter a youngish, ambitious Nazi who had married one of Hitler's two women secretaries. But, as Hitler blamed the failure of the Luftwaffe on Goering, he regarded its officers with less rancour than those of the Army, and for his personal Luftwaffe adjutant, Colonel Nicolaus von Below, he had a high regard.

  Heinrich Himmler, who was the same age as Bormann, forty-five, still held a very high place in the Nazi hierarchy and appeared to be the most likely bet as Hitler's successor should he ever be persuaded to rescind his decree of 29th July, 1941, by which Goering had been appointed as Heir Apparent… Yet Himmler's potentialities seemed more apparent than real; for he now rarely saw Hitler and there was good reason to believe that Bormann had deliberately flattered him into asking for the command of an Army Group in order to get him out of the way.

  Why Himmler was allowed to continue as the Supreme Head of scores of divisions of fighting troops, large bodies of pro Nazi partisans all over Europe and countless thousands of civil and secret police, Gregory could not imagine; for he was clearly as mad as his master, hopelessly incompetent and suffering from a series of nervous breakdowns to boot.

  Although theoretically commanding an Army. Group against the Russians on the most vital sector, he was now spending most of his time in a clinic at Hohenlychen, where he was completely dominated by three people-his doctor, Karl Gebhardt, his masseur Kersten and his astrologer Wulf, whom, from time to time, he lent to Hitler. But he remained Reichsfiihrer and Hitler still often referred to him affectionately as 'Reichheine'.

  It was evident that Himmler's empire was being run for him by his principal lieutenants: Kaltenbrunner who, after the assassination of Heydrich, had become the head of the R.S.H.A.; Ohlendorf, the head of the S.D.; Grauber, Eichmann, Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Political Police; von dem Bach-Zelewski, the Partisan Warfare Chief, and others less senior of their kind; all depraved blood-lusting sadists who for years past had been torturing and murdering people by the tens of thousands and continued to do so as the only means of postponing defeat and being called to account for their appalling crimes.

  Himmler's liaison officer at Fuhrer Headquarters was Obergruppenfiihrer Hermann Fegelein. He was a detestable little man who had started life as a horse
coper and jockey, then been an early member of the Waffen S.S. In spite of being almost illiterate he had risen to command an S.S. cavalry division. With it he had achieved a spectacular success on the Russian front and it was this, coupled with his abilities as an unscrupulous intriguer, that had led to his further promotion.

  Joachim Ribbentrop, vain, pompous and self-opinionated, now aged fifty-two, was both hated and despised by the other members of Hitler's court. They blamed him equally with Goering for the disasters that had befallen Germany, but with more justification. Goering's aircraft replacement programme had, as Gregory knew, been hopelessly sabotaged during the past two years, whereas Ribbentrop had suffered no such handicap at the Foreign Office. From the beginning Hitler had given him a free hand, and by his puffed-up insolence he had made innumerable enemies for Germany among the statesmen of both her allies and the neutrals. Yet nothing could persuade Hitler to change his belief in Ribbentrop, who was a very frequent visitor at Fuhrer H.Q: and was always warmly welcomed by him.

  Albert Speer, aged forty, was a satrap of a very different kind. In his early thirties he had become Hitler's favourite architect. With unlimited millions to spend and the backing of such an enthusiastic builder as his master a brilliant career had opened for him. His outstanding ability and genius for organization had led, in 1942, to Hitler making him Minister of Armaments and War Production. Delighting in his work and totally immersed in it, he played no part in politics and was he one member of the court who, apparently, had no enemies. After these Princes of the Nazi State there came the less prominent courtiers, although some of them were said to posesess more influence over the Fьhrer than his Ministers. For instance his physician, Professor Theodore Morell and his surgeon, Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.

  Morell was probably the worst criminal ever to have held a medical degree. Having begun his career as a specialist in venereal disease among the demi-monde of Berlin, he was sent for to treat the court photographer, Hoffmann,` but soon acquired Hitler as his patient and for the past nine years had been in constant attendance on him. He was a repulsive servile old man who knew little and cared less about the practice: of medicine, but had sufficient brains to use it with complete unscrupulousness as a means of gratifying his insatiable avarice. Within a few years he had a number of big laboratories going in which were manufactured vast quantities of quack remedies’, some of which were actually condemned as harmful by the medical profession. But that did not deter him, and Hitler, whose faith in him knew no bounds, both granted him monopolies for certain of his products and made the use of his ` Russia ' lice-powder compulsory throughout the armed forces.

  Stumpfegger was a more recent acquisition. He was a giant of a man with very little brain but an unlimited capacity for hero-worship, and Hitler was his idol. Always prone to adulation, the Fuhrer had taken to him at once and now often chose him for his companion on the walks he took every afternoon round the Chancellery garden.

  Others who had frequent access to Hitler were Heinz Lorenz, who brought the news bulletins from Goebbels' Ministry, Artur Axmann the Nazi Youth Leader, the secretaries Frau Jung and Frau Christian and his vegetarian cook Fraulein Manzialy, with whom he often took his meals. In addition to these, there were a score or so of junior staff officers, guard commanders, detectives and servants, all with long service and of undoubted loyalty, who had their quarters in the basement of the Chancellery.

  As well as files on- all these people, the contents of which Gregory was striving to memorize, there was one that he studied with special interest. Hitler had always presented himself to, the German people as so entirely devoted to their welfare that his every thought was given to it, to the exclusion of all private pleasures, including sex. That this was not the fact Gregory was aware, as he had seen British Foreign Office Intelligence reports recording occasions in pre-war days when. Hitler had been known to retire from very private parties with young women-generally blonde acrobats, for whom he apparently had a particular penchant. There was also the unedifying case of Frau Goebbels whom, it was reported, he had forced to perform certain services for him that had so disgusted her that she had fled to Switzerland, and had been induced to return by Gestapo agents only when threatened with thee death of her children.

  But what Gregory had not known was that Hitler had had a regular mistress for twelve years. This woman had first come to his notice as the assistant of his photographer, Hoffmann. Her name was Eva Braun, but it was forbidden to refer to her except by her initials, and mentions of her as E.B. were made by members of Hitler's entourage only in whispers. That the secret of their intimacy should have been kept for so long, Gregory decided, must have been mainly due to her personality and Hitler's.

  Other dictators, with such an inexhaustible choice of female companions to amuse them in their leisure hours and with whom to disport themselves in bed, had always taken for their mistresses women who were universally acclaimed either for their beauty, intelligence, wit, charm, breeding or chic; but Eva

  Braun did not possess a single one of these qualities. Had she done so she would, no doubt, like the great courtesans, have insisted on recognition and demanded houses, a retinue of servants, splendid- jewels and to be the best-dressed woman in her country. As it was, she was no more than a moderately good-looking blonde with a passable figure, lacking both intelligence and wit, and completely unambitious. Hitler had made her independent by making over to her one half of the royalties on his photographs but, although she had been for many years, in all but name, the dictator's wife, she still lived like an ordinary German Hausfrau, content to preside over the teacups, to make small talk with his men friends and to sleep with him when required. But that had suited Hitler, for he had never succeeded in sloughing off the mind and habits of a common man, and Eva was a common woman.

  These, then, made up the devil-inspired maniac's court of which Gregory was shortly to become a member. Apart from a harem and eunuchs it had, he realized, all the elements of that of an Eastern potentate of the eighteenth century: the unpredictable, tyrannical, sadistic Sultan who handed out rewards, or orders to have people executed, entirely according to his mood of the moment; the groveling flatterers who throve upon his vanity; the high priests of the Nazi religion, ever urging him to greater blood sacrifices by the murder of countless Jews; boastful paladins who at heart were men of straw; petty thieves who had swollen in that hothouse of opportunity into crooks defrauding the Government of millions; medicine men who kept their Lord alive on drugs only for their own profit, and even soothsayers by whom he allowed himself to be guided. The more Gregory read the more he marvelled that such a cesspool of hatred, intrigue and corruption could have continued for so long as the fountain-head of power in Germany.

  During those February days, while Malacou worked tirelessly on horoscopes, Gregory got to know the members of Goering's entourage. General Koller he found to be a pleasant, elderly man but one whose nerves had been frayed almost. to breaking point since, as the Reichsmarschall's chief liaison officer with Hitler, he had daily to listen to furious diatribes by the Fuhrer about the failures of the Luftwaffe. Koller's deputy, General Christian, Gregory liked less, and he seemed stupid enough to believe that in spite of everything Germany might yet emerge victorious. But with Nicolaus von Below Gregory got on extremely well, although he met the Colonel only twice at the dinner parties Goering continued to give, dressed in ever more fantastic costumes, as an Indian Rajah, Inca Emperor or in some other array of silks and satins that enabled him to display his fabulous jewels.

  At length the period of preparation on which Gregory had insisted ended, and on the morning of Thursday, March 1st, General Koller took him and Malacou into Berlin. The Air Ministry had been partially wrecked but the damage from bombs had not harmed its basement and, down there, an Administration Officer showed them to cheerless quarters that had been prepared for them. Kaindl had seen to it that they were equipped with everything that an officer and his servant would normally require and, leaving Mal
acou to unpack their things,. Gregory accompanied Koller up the Wilhelmstrasse to the Reich Chancellery.

  The vast building was one of Speer's major achievements and in former days its huge Egyptian-style hall, staircases and galleries must have been most impressive. But in-the past year bombs had destroyed its upper storeys and brought masses of plaster down from the ceiling of the lofty hall. No serious attempt had been made to clear up the mess and, instead of the seething mass of busy people whose clamour used to fill it, it was now a mausoleum of shadows, the silence of which was broken only by the crunching of the rubble under the feet of a few men in uniform hurrying to and fro from the staircase that led to the several underground bunkers.

  At the head of the stairs there was a cloakroom, not for garments but for weapons. Since the bomb plot positively no-one had been allowed to enter Fьhrer H.Q. while armed. Even Goebbels and the other Ministers had to submit to being searched before they were allowed into the quarters of their master and, as Gregory found, the search was a really thorough one.

  On going down into the depths he expected to find some similarity to the fortress basement in Whitehall, in which Churchill’s staff officers planned the High Direction of the war. But it was totally different. The underground accommodation A the British War Cabinet and Joint Planning Staff consisted of the best part of a hundred rooms with every facility which would have enabled its inmates to withstand in reasonable comfort a siege of several weeks; whereas the bunker from which Hitler now directed his war had fewer than thirty rooms, many of which were no more than cabby holes, and the only spaces large enough to hold conferences, or in which a number of people could feed, were the passages. There were other bunkers in which junior staff and servants had their quarters, but these were some way off, and the whole system presented a picture of muddle, acute discomfort and inefficiency.