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Prologue

One

September 18, 1931

The Franz Kabarett

Munich

THE FRANZ KABARETT NEAR the city center was a vision in gold, from its wallpaper to the lanterns that hung from the ceiling to the gilded bar in the corner serving every possible liqueur. Seats rose on platforms two stories high, with gold chairs arched around each table, while high-tops with white linen tablecloths dotted the main floor around the stage. Onstage, a small jazz band belted out “Ich bine die fesche Lola” as tobacco smoke rose to the ceiling painted in hues of gold and green, a glittering mural of dragons and other creatures. It was a place to escape reality, at a time when people were looking to do so.

Humiliated in defeat just over a decade earlier, the German people as a whole felt saddled by the reparations demands made by the victorious Allies in the Treaty of Versailles, humbled by the crushing worldwide economic depression, and altogether skeptical of the fledgling post–Great War democracy that had thrust austerity programs upon its citizens. The people wanted new. They wanted better. They wanted something—anything—different.

No political party understood the nation’s mood better than the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP. Known in English as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or—by the critics who derided them and the intellectuals who dismissed them as unserious, opportunistic, bigoted hacks—as the Nazis.

The Nazis had stunned all political observers and captured the second-highest number of seats in last year’s national legislative elections. Their leader was a man who knew how to appeal to their particularized interests. He seemed able to quench the thirst of whatever group he addressed, to touch the masses with speeches so electrifying and intimate as to border on the erotic. A man who was addressed not by name but only by title: the Führer.

“He’s here. That’s his car!”

Over the clamor of chatty merriment and jazz music inside the club, Rudolf Hess, a square-jawed and handsome man in a gray double-breasted horsehair suit, clutched the arm of the club’s owner as they looked through the window onto the street, the black Mercedes limousine pulling up to the curb. “I must confirm once more the details of the show tonight. There will be no political humor?”

“None,” said the owner, Walter Kubizek. “I screened the content of every performer, as you asked.”

“Will there be nudity of any kind or sexually suggestive dance?”

“No—”

“And nothing…” The man lowered his head and his voice. “Nothing portraying homosexuality, I trust.”

“No, Herr Hess,” Kubizek sighed. The cabaret, known for its hedonistic nightly revue of burlesque dancers, sexually liberated performances, and political humor aimed in all directions—including at the Führer—had drastically toned down its show that night in anticipation of its guest of honor, Adolf Hitler.

Joining Rudolf Hess, the Führer’s personal secretary and adjutant, were the rest of the inner circle of NSDAP. Hermann Göring, the portly war hero, stood alongside his sickly wife, Carin, the Swedish baroness. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, NSDAP’s security unit, stood next to Bunny, his mistress and personal assistant. Then there was Joseph Goebbels, the only one nearly the Führer’s equal in understanding the power of propaganda—a good man, the Führer believed, so much so that he was willing to overlook Goebbels’s deformed foot and unsightly limp. With him was his fiancée, Magda Quandt.

Goebbels crushed his cigarette in an ashtray and handed it to a waiter. Der Führer was vehemently opposed to tobacco, having dropped the habit years earlier.

“Oh, one moment, my dear,” Hess said to his wife, Ilse. He rushed back to the club owner and whispered in his ear. “There are no Jews in attendance, I hope?”

“This I could not say, Herr Hess.” Kubizek’s eyebrows rose. “I can think of no reason why I would bother to ask such a thing.”

Hess, displeased, straightened his tie and patted down his suit coat. “I assured him this cabaret would be tasteful.”

“I’m surprised he’d want to come at all, Herr Hess.”

“He didn’t.” The hint of a frown appeared on Hess’s lips. “She did.”

The chauffeur opened the rear door of the limousine. Out stepped the Führer, wearing a black trench coat, his hair slicked and sharply parted as always.

Hitler stood at attention a moment, looking over the Franz Kabarett before he put out his hand for the woman accompanying him. She took it with her delicate, manicured fingers and emerged from the Mercedes.

As the couple entered the cabaret, the bustle and gaiety inside ceased with the suddenness of a gramophone needle screeching off a record.

“Heil, mein Führer!” Hitler’s trusted lieutenants and their women extended their right arms at forty-five-degree angles in the familiar (and among party members, mandatory) salute. Other patrons quickly followed suit, heels clacked together and arms thrust outward. The room was split in that way, roughly two-thirds of the people on their feet in salute, the others looking at the man with the truncated mustache whom they’d heard so much about during the last elections. Some were energized by the charisma of the movement, others suspicious and wary, but all agreed that this man was a force.

While the jazz band played onstage before the festivities were to begin, the Führer worked the room. He wore a black tailcoat and waistcoat, cut in Bavarian provincial fashion, with the Iron Cross First Class on his lapel and his ever-present riding whip on his side. He shook hands and waved, spoke briefly to patrons congregating around him, smiled and even laughed. He was, in this way, a politician like none Germany had ever known. No politician had ever tried to charm them before.

Upon his release from prison six years ago after the unsuccessful coup attempt, Adolf Hitler had started building a coalition of followers—town by town, beer hall by beer hall, speech by speech—claiming to feel their pain and share their outrage, and pinning all the blame for the loss of the war and the decrepit state of the democracy at the feet of two groups: the Communists and the Jews.

But if the Führer held the room’s respect and curiosity, nearly all the attention was devoted to the young lady who had entered on his arm, with her expressive eyes and wide smile. She wore a sleeveless blue silk dress with a low-cut tight bodice, and a form-fitting skirt that complemented her curves.

Twenty-three-year-old Angela Raubal, called Geli, was the Führer’s niece—more accurately his half niece, daughter of his half sister.

They were the perfect pair: the authoritative, severe-looking politician and the sweet, demure lady at his side, lighting up the room with their charm and chemistry. Geli complemented her uncle—whom she called Uncle Wolf—in every way, attentive to his comments, smiling broadly, laughing easily, playfully grabbing his arm, deflecting praise onto the Führer. “Uncle Wolf is being modest,” she would say, or “I owe it all to Uncle Wolf.”

It was, said many patrons that night, as if they were man and wife, not uncle and niece.

“Pardon the interruption, Herr Hitler.” The tuxedoed owner, stooped at the waist, hands together, nodded to the Führer. “We’re aware that among her many talents, Fräulein Raubal is quite the vocalist. Would she honor us with a song?”

“You’re kind to ask, Herr Kubizek.” He turned to Geli, her face colored in a blush.

“Oh, I am certain nobody wants to hear me sing,” she said. She had taken years of lessons but had never performed before an audience.

“But you have a lovely voice, my dear.”

“Thank you, Uncle Wolf.” She looked at the owner. “You’re very gracious, Herr Kubizek, but I don’t know…”

The Führer surveyed the table where he stood, then raised a hand. “I think it would be an excellent idea! It’s decided. One song, Geli.”

The others at the table, and the crowd surrounding them, joined in until Geli broke out into a nervous smile. “Well, maybe just one short song,” she said.

Two

ALL EYES IN THE cabaret were on Geli, standing onstage by the microphone. She cut a striking figure, with her long legs and chestnut curls. But her nerves were evident from the start.

“Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to sing, Herr Kubizek,” she said into the microphone with a slight tremble to her voice. “And Uncle Wolf, thank you for all the vocal lessons in Vienna.” The audience chuckled politely. The Führer nodded, beaming with pride.

The song, “Wenn Ich die Blonde Inge,” was light, upbeat jazz, perfect for the small band present, a tune the audience knew well. Geli was shy, standing still at the microphone, nearly overwhelmed by the accompanying horns and strings and piano. The song was a safe choice, and she delivered a pleasant performance. A fine, enjoyable piece with a fine, enjoyable vocal performance. A song nicely sung but no more.

Geli looked relieved when it was over. She wiped sweat from her brow self-consciously.

Nobody clapped more loudly than the Führer, soon joined by the remainder of the room. Geli blushed and curtsied and moved away from the microphone.

The owner, Herr Kubizek, placed his hand on her arm. “Encore? That was lovely!” He looked directly at the Führer, as did Geli. “Why not another song?”

The Führer paused only a beat before calling out, “Why not, indeed?”

As the audience applauded, the musicians conferred briefly with Geli. The lights dimmed slightly, the central spotlight casting a more radiant glow on Geli. When the music began again, it was only piano. No more hiding behind instruments. The song was “Das Bist Du!,” a playful, upbeat piece that better showcased her talent and range.

Geli’s soprano voice resonated throughout the room, velvety and melodic. Her confidence seemed to pick up with the pace. Suddenly, the microphone was in her hand; she was slow-walking about the stage like a veteran performer, voluptuous and confident. The song ended on a higher octave, Geli belting out and holding the final note masterfully, as if she had sung the song countless times, as if it belonged to her and her alone.

The crowd was momentarily silent, stunned, by all accounts, by the sheer command of her voice. Geli looked out over the crowd, blinking hard, as if awed, as if she hadn’t realized her potential.

She no longer seemed like the Führer’s cute, bubbly niece. She seemed like a sensual woman.

The Führer was speechless, gazing at Geli as if spellbound.

The pianist took advantage of the pause and began playing another tune, this one “Sag Warum?,” a softer, mellower piece where the piano merely faded into the background, giving the vocalist full and free rein. Geli again rose to the occasion with her hypnotic, silky soprano voice, swaying, eyes closed, head tilted upward, consumed in the moment, lost in the music. Whatever self-consciousness she’d had when she began had now evaporated. It was not merely a song well sung; it was a commanding performance.

The room was hers. In no more than ten minutes, Geli Raubal had transformed from a sweet girl with a nice voice to a star dominating the stage.

When it was over, Geli had tears in her eyes. She had surprised her audience—she had surprised herself—with the power of her voice.

The audience rose to their feet, clapping and cheering wildly as Geli handed the microphone to the club owner. She hugged the pianist, embraced the other musicians, then stepped off the stage.

The lights came back up, but the cheering continued as Geli reached her table. The Führer remained standing, opening his hands to his niece as she gave a final thanks to the audience and took her seat.

“Wonderful,” said the Führer, beaming. He looked about the table. “Was my niece not wonderful?”

Three

OUTSIDE THE CABARET, JULIUS Schreck, Hitler’s chauffeur, bodyguard, and longtime loyalist, smoked a cigarette as he leaned against the grille of the black Mercedes, a black 1929 630 K limousine. The vehicle was a gift from Helene Bechstein, the wife of the owner of the Bechstein piano company and a fervent nationalist who had supported Hitler since long before his botched coup attempt in 1923, and who continued to bankroll his endeavors.

Schreck startled to attention and cast aside his cigarette as Hitler, with Geli in tow, emerged from the club far earlier than expected. “Heil, mein Führer,” he called out, posture erect, arm extended, heels clacked together.

He opened the rear door as Geli bounded inside without a word.

Geli, still buzzing from her performance, nudged a sweaty strand of curls from her forehead and turned to her uncle as he sat at the far opposite side of the spacious rear cabin. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why did we have to leave so soon?”

For a moment, she thought Hitler would continue stewing, punishing her with his silence as he was wont to do. “Uncle Wolf—”

“It was a disgusting spectacle,” he spit. “I could tolerate it no longer.”

Geli frowned. In private, when he would shed his meticulously molded public face, Uncle Wolf could be moody, distant, bitter, recalling petty grudges—the wannabe artist twice rejected by Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, the man convicted of treason after an embarrassingly ill-conceived coup attempt.

Sometimes, she had confided in friends, it seemed as if his only true motivation was getting back at those who had disrespected him.

“Disgusting? A spectacle?”

Hitler looked out the window. “One song is enjoyable,” he said. “Three songs is a spectacle. I am the future leader of Germany. I am not to be upstaged.”

“Upstaged? I—but—you told me to sing. It was your idea. The encore was your idea, too—”

“Sing a nice song and be done!” he exploded. “But prancing around onstage like some common whore? This is the thanks you show me?” He shook his head furiously. “It was a mistake to come. I do you this favor, and you repay me with sabotage!”

“A… common whore? I was only singing a song, Uncle Wolf. And I didn’t sabotage you. People enjoyed it!”

The Führer belted out a hearty, mocking laugh. “You think they applauded because they enjoyed your performance? They applauded because I applauded. They followed my lead. They were just as embarrassed by your performance as I was. But they wouldn’t dare say so.”

Geli fell back against the seat, brooding. She’d experienced such a wonderful high on that stage, and now she was being yanked firmly back to earth.

“We’ll finish this conversation at home,” said the Führer.

“I don’t want to go back to that…” She shook her head, her curls bobbing.

“That… what? That what, Geli? What was it you were going to say to your Führer?”

She turned to him. Though he was in shadow, his eyes, steely and intense, shone bright.

“Nothing,” she said.

Four

Prinzregentenplatz 16

Munich

ALONG THE BOULEVARD, NEAR the right bank of the river, was a fashionable square called Prinzregentenplatz—Prince Regent’s Square—which featured not only the theater and a large stadium but a series of residential buildings, a fountain, and, in a small park area, a massive stone monument of the composer Richard Wagner—Hitler’s favorite—in a seated pose modeled after the famous Tischbein portrait of Goethe.

Among those residential buildings was Prinzregentenplatz 16, a gray, four-story granite structure. Hitler had lived there in a luxurious flat since 1929, courtesy of another devotee, the Romanian princess Elsa Bruckmann.

The lavish, sprawling fifteen-room flat occupied the entire third floor, including a parlor, study, and library, four bedrooms plus servants’ quarters, two bathrooms, and a spacious dining room overlooking Prince Regent’s Square. The furnishings, also purchased by Elsa and her publishing magnate husband Hugo Bruckmann, were relatively modest, in keeping with Hitler’s desire to cultivate an image of humility.

Previously, Hitler had lived in an ordinary Munich flat where his half sister, Angela, served as his housekeeper, a not-uncommon arrangement for widowed siblings. Angela had arrived in 1925, bringing along her two daughters, including seventeen-year-old Geli. Hitler was immediately entranced with his half niece, soon squiring Geli around Munich and the surrounding countryside, bringing her to the opera, to cafés, the cinema, and on picnics near his mountainside retreat in Berchtesgaden.

When Hitler was bestowed the flat at Prinzregentenplatz 16, he determined that Angela would go to care for his Berchtesgaden chalet, and Geli, then twenty-one years of age to Hitler’s forty, would move in with her uncle.

As soon as the Mercedes pulled up to Prinzregentenplatz 16, Geli sprang out and rushed straight inside. Hitler followed briskly but refused to chase her, certainly not while in public view, so unbefitting as it would be for a man of his stature.

When he reached the flat, he first looked into the parlor, with its walnut paneling and embroidered armchairs, then caught a glimpse of Geli moving toward her bedroom.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” asked the Führer. “We have not finished our conversation.”

“I’m going to bed,” she said.

“No, you’re not. There’s something I want first. You know what it is.”

Geli stopped dead in her tracks. She slowly shook her head. “No, I’m not doing that. I won’t do that anymore. Not ever again!”

“You certainly will, mein prinzesschen. You will do as I say. I’ve already prepared things for our routine.”

A shiver visibly ran through Geli. She continued to her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Hitler stood in the hallway, stunned. She would come back out. Of course she would. Her Führer had given her a command, had he not?

He would give her a moment to come to her senses. She always did. She could be willful, but she understood her place. It wasn’t the first time she started with no. It would change to yes.

His fury rose to a boil over the next five minutes, as he waited futilely for his niece to obediently reappear. Finally, he marched down the hall and pushed through the double doors into her bedroom, a lovely and spacious room decorated at Geli’s direction with dainty furniture and light green walls, several works of art—including one by Hitler of a Belgian landscape—a pricey radio/phonograph in one corner, and a bed with a canopy and embroidered sheets next to a vanity with a mirror.

When he entered, he found her seated at her desk, a piece of antique oak purchased in Vienna two years ago. Geli was writing a letter on her personal stationery but jumped to her feet when he burst in.

The Führer looked over at the bed, on which lay an old, coffee-colored leather portmanteau with some clothes already packed inside.

“What is this nonsense?” he demanded.

“I’m leaving,” she said, moving toward the bed. “I’m going to Vienna.”

“That trip is not for several days—”

She turned to face him. “I’m going tomorrow! I can’t be here anymore. I can’t live in this… this…”

His eyebrows rose. “Again, you don’t finish your—”

“This prison!” she shouted, though it came out more as a plea.

“Prison? This luxury home you have? All the privileges you enjoy? The way you’re treated as royalty in this town?” Hitler put his hands on his hips. “I have spoiled you. This is the problem. You’ve become an ungrateful brat. We need reminders, clearly. Now it’s time, Geli. You know what I want. I want it right now.” He moved to the corner of the room, to a box atop a mounted shelf near the double doors, and flipped a switch.

Geli walked to her dresser, removed some clothes, and threw them into the suitcase. “You make me do disgusting things. You never let me leave without your henchmen following me. You never let me go anywhere—”

“I let you go to Vienna for your precious vocal lessons,” he said. “But I can see from your performance tonight that this instructor must have no talent. So those lessons are canceled. As of now, no more trips to Vienna.”

Geli went back and forth from the dresser to the suitcase, dropping in more clothes.

“Stop that,” he said. “Your Führer is ordering you to stop.”

She did stop, leaning over her suitcase on the bed. She took a deep breath. “I just want my own life,” she said quietly.

“A life as an ordinary, common girl?” he said with a mocking laugh. “Are you sure? You haven’t enjoyed all the attention and privilege of your association with me? Everyone laughing at your jokes? Currying your favor? Doing your bidding?”

“Not anymore.” Geli arranged her clothes, then buckled the portmanteau. She took a breath and turned to face him. “I’m leaving. I’m going to Vienna.”

“You are not. That instructor is a talentless hack. I’ve long suspected he’s a Jew, as well—”

“I love him.” She stood tall, lifted her chin, though he could see that it took considerable effort for her to maintain eye contact.

The look on her face was like nothing the Führer had ever seen from his niece. He’d seen defiant. He’d seen stubborn. He’d seen determined. But never had he seen Geli look at him with a full measure of conviction, calm and collected, leveling him with her eyes.

“He wants to marry me,” she said. “And I want to marry him.”

Five

THE FÜHRER ABSORBED GELI’S words like a punch. He was momentarily stunned by her stupidity, her arrogance. Silence hung between them like a curtain.

Suddenly, Geli pulled the heavy, boxy portmanteau to the floor. Hitler’s eyes narrowed with anger.

“No!” he yelled at her. “You will not leave this house.”

He was the Führer. He didn’t reach his high position through weakness. He’d risen as the undisputed leader of NSDAP not by compromise, not by give-and-take or negotiation, not by asking permission. He took it. He declared absolute authority, even infallibility—it is right because I say it is right—and he didn’t stop until he got it. The political graveyard was filled with bodies—Strasser, Stennes, von Salomon, to name a few—who had dared challenge him.

He removed his tailcoat, already overheated with rage. He raised a finger. “You will not… go to Vienna,” he said, his voice strong, commanding. “Not tomorrow. Not ever. You will not marry him. You will never see him again or even talk of him in my presence.”

Geli moved toward him. Her back straight, jaw set, eyes up, she said: “I am marrying him. I’m not asking for permission. And as long as we’re clearing the air—yes, you’re right, he is Jewish—”

The Führer’s fist flew forward, striking Geli hard on the nose, his knuckles breaking cartilage. Arms flying out, she flailed backward, butting hard against the dressing table. Bottles of her perfume and makeup flew. A mirror fell from the wall, crashing onto the vanity.

Geli landed awkwardly on her side and an elbow. She made no immediate sound. She was stunned. In shock. Clearly hurt.

The Führer fished a handkerchief from a pocket and tossed it to her. “Clean yourself. You’ll need makeup tomorrow. We will speak again at breakfast.”

“No.” Blood spilling from her nose, her eyes watering, she stumbled to her feet. “No! No! No! Not anymore. I don’t belong to you.”

He bull-rushed her, grabbed both shoulders, shook her hard. “You little fool. Do you not understand what sacred privilege you have? The status you enjoy? The things you and I do together—”

“They’re disgusting,” she hissed. “The things we do make me sick to my—”

“Enough!” He shook her one last time then shoved her away.

It was only then that he saw the gun in her hand.

“You sneaky girl.”

He hadn’t felt her hand, hadn’t noticed the sly movement. He patted his side, feeling his holster, searching for his sidearm. The Walther pistol he carried for security—it wasn’t there.

Now Geli raised the pistol. Both of her hands were trembling.

“Give me the gun,” he demanded. “I won’t ask a second time. I’ll call my guards. They will kill you, Geli.”

“I’m leaving Munich. I’m leaving you!” she screamed. An ugly bruise was already forming across her face. Her nose was surely broken. Maybe a concussion.

He grabbed the gun’s barrel and pulled hard, yanking the gun from Geli’s hand. Her body was shaking terribly.

“You’ll see a medic in the morning. Hess will see to it. You tripped and fell. Yes. You tripped and fell. You can’t be reasoned with in this condition.”

He turned away from her and started for the door.

“My… condition,” she whispered.

“Yes, your condition. You’re hysterical and emotional. Like most women—”

“I’m pregnant,” Geli said.

He turned his head, almost as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“I’m pregnant with his child. We’re going to marry—”

Hitler responded instantly. He pulled the trigger of the Walther. He heard the loud report of gunfire. He smelled cordite.

Then he lowered the gun to his side and watched. Coldly. Objectively. He saw the hole blown through her chest, above the diamond brooch on her bodice. The expression of shock on her beautiful face; the small o her mouth formed; the rush of blood from the wound; the slurping sound as she struggled for air; the panic in her eyes; her long legs buckling before she fell face forward to the carpet.

“Nobody says no to the Führer,” he said. “No one. Not even you. Stupid cow.”

He left the bedroom, finding the telephone down a long hallway.

His voice was deep and hoarse, in command, as he spoke into the phone.

“Rudolf,” he said, “I need you at once.”

Six

Present Day

Prinzregentenplatz 16

Munich

IF YOU’RE READING THIS book, then I am both grateful and surprised. Grateful, because while pieces of this puzzle have emerged over time, this book—if it ever even sees the light of day—will be the first time they are put together in a coherent story. And surprised, because if you are reading this, I must have survived at least long enough to get a draft of this manuscript to a publisher. (Unless, I suppose, someone else finished my work.)

My name doesn’t matter, except to me, but it is Eleanor Robbins. I am two years shy of sixty, blind in one eye, divorced, and now childless after the death of my daughter to cancer six years ago. I have led what I call a “small life” as a tenured history professor at the University of Chicago until one morning a month ago, when a man named Francis Linderman requested a meeting. He had materials he wanted to show me, he said, that he felt I could turn into a book for publication.

The materials? They included letters, notes, newspaper articles from Germany in the 1930s, and other assorted documents. But the most significant part consisted of two journals, written by two different men—and for very different reasons.

Luckily for me and for you reading this, he sent those materials in advance.

Luckily, I say, because before we could ever meet, Francis Linderman took his own life.

I pored over the materials again and again, over many days and nights. At first I found the pages difficult to believe, yet impossible not to take seriously. Reading the old-fashioned German handwriting was a struggle, but as you will soon find for yourself, the contents are quite extraordinary.

They included a brilliant plot to murder Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1945.

What’s more, the plot succeeded.

So I took a leave of absence to write this book. But there are holes in the research given to me. Some proof I do not yet have, that I must find in Europe. And if my instincts are correct, there will be people who desperately do not want me to find it.

I stand on the street in Munich, looking at the once-residential building where Adolf Hitler’s half niece, Geli Raubal, died. I lift the lid on my coffee and take a small sip. The warmth feels good going down. The morning weather is cooler than forecast.

Prinzregentenplatz 16 is now a Bavarian government building, including the Munich Police on the floor that Hitler once inhabited. Outwardly, it looks no different, save the POLIZEI sign, and that is by design. Germany does not hide from its past, but neither does it wish to advertise this building, lest it become a shrine for sympathetic neo-Nazis—who are unfortunately a growing movement in Germany (though outlawed) as well as throughout Europe and America.

I can’t help but marvel at the sheer oddness of Hitler and Geli’s relationship. But perhaps it wasn’t so odd to Hitler. After all, his mother and father were in some way related, such that they had to get a papal dispensation to marry; Hitler’s extraordinary attempts to conceal the details of his childhood have left scholars debating whether his parents were also uncle and niece, or cousins. But we know this much of a startling parallel: Hitler’s father, Alois, was twenty-three years older than his wife, Hitler’s mother, Klara, not so very different from the nineteen-year difference between Hitler and Geli. And throughout his parents’ marriage, Klara referred to her husband as Uncle Alois, not unlike how Geli called Hitler Uncle Wolf.

Indeed, by the time of Geli’s death, Angela later said, she had assumed that her half brother and her daughter would marry one day.

Just thinking about it sends a shudder through me.

A man approaches me, a police officer in a light blue shirt, dark vest, and a white cap with blue bill. “Brauchen Sie Hilfe?” he asks. Do you need help? Then he asks if I’m a tourist or journalist.

Given my current mission, “journalist” is not far off, but to the officer, I opt for “tourist,” as it makes things easier.

I am under strict instructions from my brother Tyson, three years my junior, an attorney who lives just outside St. Louis, not to talk about my research. For your safety, he told me, don’t let anyone know what you’re doing in Europe. That said, I am a harmless, half-blind woman in her late fifties. Who would ever consider me a threat? James Bond I am not.

The officer departs, confident that I’m not some neo-Nazi coming to pay homage. Why am I here in this location, precisely? Perhaps because this is where I feel things truly began.

How did Hitler manage to rise within his party, the National Socialists? It’s not hard to understand how a struggling, bitter, vulnerable nation succumbed to his divisive rhetoric and political skills. But how did Hitler convince a nation that he was not only its one and only leader, but a demigod, a “leader-pope,” as he put it? How did he get away with claiming “political infallibility,” and saying things like he did in 1930: “I never make a mistake. Every one of my words is historic”? Who talks like that with a straight face? More to the point, who buys it?

I look again at the small blue POLIZEI sign protruding from this building. Though they had yet to assume power, the Nazis already had a cocky, bullying presence in the streets of Munich in 1931. It’s probably why they felt they could push around the cops, cower the elected officials, and stifle any investigation into Geli Raubal’s death—and at that time, in Munich’s bruised and vulnerable state, they were right.

But they didn’t count on a cop like Thomas Bauer.

Part One

“We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons.… We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies: As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.”

—Joseph Goebbels, Reichstag delegate for the National Socialist Party, in his paper Der Angriff, April 30, 1928

1

1931

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR THOMAS BAUER dropped his bag on his desk and nodded to the others—Brecht and Frank, a couple of kriminaloberassistents, and a young kid, a new kriminalassistent named Helldorff.

“Bauer?” said Brecht, with his walrus mustache. “Since when does a kommissar work the early shift?”

Bauer dropped into his chair. “Since his wife enjoys too much shopping at the Oberpollinger and he needs the extra pay.”

They all bellowed out a laugh, Helldorff the kid more than anyone, eager to please.

“Gentlemen! Death under suspicious circumstances.” The chief inspector’s assistant, a woman named Ilse, walked into the detectives’ room. Spotting Bauer, the highest rank in the room, she handed him the slip of paper. “Early shift, Bauer?”

“Just can’t stay away from this place, Ilse.”

Brecht and Frank seemed to sink in their chairs, as if the thought of doing actual work, especially a suspicious death, came as an unwelcome surprise. Bauer smirked and looked at the slip of paper. “Prinzregentenplatz 16,” he read. He glanced at the kid, the junior detective’s assistant with rosy cheeks and a mess of blond hair. “Hellman?”

“Helldorff, sir.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Peter, sir.”

“You feel like doing some police work, Hoffman?”

The kid didn’t correct him. Maybe he knew it was a test. “Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Two rules. One, don’t call me sir. This isn’t the infantry. And two, I drive.”

Bauer curbed the police vehicle, an olive Horch 400 Polizei-Mannschaftswagen, by the granite building numbered Prinzregentenplatz 16, alongside two patrol cars that had responded. It was gray and cold and felt like rain might be coming. A patrol officer was waiting outside on the street for Bauer.

“Inspector,” said the officer, greeting Bauer. “Dead female, age twenty-three.” He directed them to the flat.

Bauer craned his neck, looking up at the building, a stone gargoyle staring down at him. “Name?”

“Angela Raubal. The niece of Adolf Hitler. This is Herr Hitler’s flat.”

“Oh, sweet Mary, mother of God,” Bauer mumbled. Head still turned upward, he closed his eyes a moment, wondering which deity he had managed to piss off. “Fine,” he quickly said. He shepherded young Peter Helldorff over to the side of their car. “Listen, kid, I wouldn’t normally care about your politics. But you know who this guy is, right?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Are you one of these Nazis? A member of the National Socialist whatever they call themselves now?”

Like any other institution, the members of the Munich Police Department had varying political views. There were those who had already jumped firmly on the bandwagon of the Nazi Party, especially some of the war veterans who were drawn to Hitler’s constant attacks on the Communists. And there were a few open antisemites in the department, too. However, as both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis engaged in antigovernment insurrections like vandalism or guerrilla attacks on government institutions, most cops didn’t like either one.

“No, sir, I am not,” said Helldorff.

“Okay.” Bauer looked around, assessed their surroundings. A small crowd had formed—just a few curious onlookers, which happened whenever the police congregated—but it was no spectacle. Meaning that nobody had yet figured out that a suspicious death had occurred inside the flat of Germany’s fastest-rising political star. “One chance, Hartmann. I’ll give you one chance to walk away if you don’t want to be a part of this, no questions asked, no hard feelings. Maybe you’re feeling a touch of the flu all of a sudden.”

The kid blinked. Bauer couldn’t tell if he was surprised by the question or contemplating his answer. “Are you walking away, sir?”

“Me? Hell, no. But if I had half a brain, I would. Do you have half a brain, Heinrich?”

“Apparently not, sir.”

“Good man. Let’s go.”

When they walked through the imposing front doors, they were greeted by four men dressed in brown uniforms. “Heil Hitler!” they cried with the forty-five-degree stiff-arm salute.

“Why, is he sick?” Bauer said, a common joke that was only funny in German.

The brownshirts, with their red swastika armbands, black belts, and holsters, were not among those who found it humorous. They closed ranks, blocking passage to the staircase.

“Your name?” asked one of the brownshirts, tall and blond with bright blue eyes, as Aryan as Aryan came.

Bauer, in plain clothes like his assistant, showed his police card. “Detective Inspector Thomas Bauer. This is Assistant Inspector Peter Helldorff.”

“Bauer,” he said. “That… was not the name we were expecting.”

“No?” Bauer lifted his chin. “What name were you expecting?”

The brownshirt didn’t answer that question. He nodded to one of his underlings, who started up the stairs.

Bauer made to follow.

The lead brownshirt blocked his way. “This is not possible. We were not made aware that you would be coming.”

“You were ‘not made aware’? We’re not reserving a table at the Künstlerhaus. We’re kriminalpolizei, conducting a police investigation. Either you let us pass or you’ll be under arrest for interfering with it.”

“You are aware, Inspector, who lives here?”

“Are you aware that it makes no difference to me who lives here?”

“The Führer was very upset to learn of his niece’s suicide. He is on his way back to Munich now.”

Bauer looked the men over. “Out of the way, gentlemen. I’m not asking for permission. And I’m not going to repeat myself.”

The inspector started to move past the two remaining brownshirts. One of them put a hand on Bauer’s chest, a good hard stiff-arm. Bauer flipped his own arm under the man’s, spun him around, and forced him down to the marble floor of the lobby in one swift movement. The guard was face down and submissive within the beat of two seconds.

“You’re under arrest,” Bauer said. “Obstructing an investigation and assaulting a law enforcement officer.” He cuffed the man and left him on the floor as he rose to his feet. “What about you two? Feel like spending the next six hours in a kripo holding cell? It’ll give you plenty of time to salute each other.”

The lead brownshirt did not soften his posture, but allowed a slow smile to cross his face. “Inspector, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“You know, one day, you brownshirts may be running this country,” Bauer said. “But for now, you’ll submit to the authority of the kriminalpolizei like everyone else. So? This is your last chance to let us through.”

The men parted, giving room for the inspectors to pass.

Bauer nodded to Helldorff, and they headed up the stairs.

2

Prinzregentenplatz 16

BY THE TIME THOMAS Bauer reached the flat, he was out of breath, but not as much as the brownshirt who had run up the stairs ahead of them, and who was now standing by the door.

“You going to give me trouble, too, kid?” Bauer asked.

“No, Inspector.” He stood to the side.

He pushed past the brownshirt and was immediately surprised by the breadth of the flat. “Does this place take up the whole floor?”

The brownshirt, heading down the staircase, simply nodded.

“Must be nice,” Bauer mumbled, stepping into the parlor area, paneled in walnut. He noted a large phonograph positioned between two armchairs, and on the wall, a watercolor painting of a bridge in Vienna with A. Hitler painted in the bottom corner.

He looked to his left down the long hallway and spotted a kripo—a patrol officer in a dark uniform and peaked cap—standing outside a doorway. Standard operating procedure, holding the scene pristine for the kriminalinspektor.

Down the hall to his right, the part of the flat overlooking Prince Regent’s Street, he heard voices, conversation in hushed tones. Two more kripos emerged from a room, but another man stepped in front of them. He had movie-star good looks and wore a crisp double-breasted suit and an immaculately knotted tie.

“Inspector!” the man called out, extending a hand as he approached. “Rudolf Hess. The Führer’s personal assistant. I hope the boys downstairs caused no trouble.”

“No, we made fast friends. We’re meeting for drinks next week.”

Hess clearly wasn’t sure how to respond, but he was quick to snap back to the party line. He said, with a wrinkled brow, “The Führer was very upset to learn of his niece’s suicide. He is on his way back to Munich.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Bauer. “From where?”

“The Führer was on his way to a campaign stop in Hamburg when he learned of Fräulein Raubal’s suicide.”

Another mention of suicide. As far as Bauer was aware, not a single inspector, much less a medical examiner, had taken a look at the girl’s dead body yet, but everyone seemed to be confident of her manner of death.

Bauer decided not to press the point. “Who else is here right now?”

“My assistant, Herr Martin Bormann, is in the study with the housekeepers, Frau Anni Winter and her husband, Georg.”

“And why are you here, Herr Hess?”

“Georg found the body and called me,” Hess explained. “I came over at once and called my adjutant, Herr Bormann. And of course, I alerted the Führer, who was very upset to—”

“To learn of the suicide, yes. You and Herr Bormann are excused.”

Hess cocked his head to the side. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’d like you to leave. This is a police matter. I need to examine the scene and interview eyewitnesses. That includes the Winters. It does not include you.”

“No, that is—that is not acceptable. This is a private residence.”

“But it’s not your private residence, Herr Hess. And it is now the scene of a police investigation. So the kriminalpolizei has custody of it. Don’t worry, we won’t break any of the crystal.”

It took a long moment for Bauer’s words to sink into Hess’s brain. Several objections seemed to cross his lips but were not uttered.

“I will be in touch with you later,” Bauer continued. “I know where to find you. The mansion on Brienner Straße. The Braunes Haus, yes?”

“Yes, the Brown House. But… the Führer asked me to stay. This is his flat, and he asked that I remain here until he returns. I take direction from the Führer.”

“Right now, Herr Hess, you take direction from the kriminalinspektor assigned to investigate a suspicious death. This is not open to debate.”

“Really, Herr Hess, it is best for all concerned.” The assistant, Helldorff, spoke up for the first time. “This is a difficult enough situation without reading in the Post that senior officials with NSDAP were interfering with a criminal investigation.”

That seemed to blink Hess out of his intransigence. “Yes, well—very well, then. Your sensitivity to the situation is noted and appreciated.”

“Yes, we’re both very sensitive people.” Bauer even managed to smile.

After Hess and his assistant, Bormann—a dark, pudgy man—left the flat, Bauer turned to the kripo standing post by the bedroom door. “Has anyone entered the room since you arrived?”

“No, Inspector. I’ve preserved it since arriving.”

“Good man.” Bauer turned and watched Hess and Bormann leave. “I assume Hess was here before you?”

“Yes, sir. Him and Bormann. And the Winters, who live here.”

God only knew what took place before the kriminalpolizei arrived.

3

EVEN IN GARISH, UNFLATTERING death, Angela Maria “Geli” Raubal was beautiful. She lay prone on the rug of her bedroom floor, her face turned in profile, her right arm away from her body, soaked in blood. Not far from her outstretched hand was a Walther pistol.

Bauer started with a quick, first-impression look over the corner bedroom. It was more than twice the size of his own, and unmistakably feminine in its décor. A room of pastels, from the light green of the walls to the chiffon window treatments. A large radio-phonograph rested on a linen-covered table with several dozen records in a bin just beneath it. An antique writing desk had stylish pens lined up neatly, and a bin for stationery labeled A. Raubal.

Bauer poked his head into the dressing room, a spacious area lined with two levels of poles for dresses and other outfits, a good number of shoes for various occasions, and a narrow bureau with a dish of jewelry on top. Next to it in the corner sat a battered leather portmanteau.

Bauer moved to the corner, toward the girl’s dead body. Geli was lying near the queen-sized bed with its canopy of scalloped embroidery, matching sheets, and a half dozen pillows. Next to it, a vanity lined with makeup and hair products, with a pink chair nestled into it, faced a blank wall.

The room was well kept, pristine. Almost alarmingly so.

“She must have been out earlier last night,” Bauer said, noting the blue silk dress Geli was wearing. “That dress is not for staying in.”

Helldorff nodded as he scribbled a note on a small pad.

Bauer squatted down, gently moving a strand of curly locks from the victim’s face. “See the bruising? Discoloration by the eye? Her nose is broken.”

“Which could have happened from the fall.”

“Maybe,” Bauer conceded. “Not likely. Bruising doesn’t happen after death.”

“She could have lived for a while after the fall to the rug. Look there—she didn’t die from a head shot. She was shot… hard to tell, somewhere in the torso. So it could have taken a long time for her to die.”

“Maybe.” Bauer grimaced. “But once she hits that rug, falling face-first, she’s going to bleed out fast. Simple law of gravity. I don’t think she lives long enough for that much bruising to form. But the RM can tell us for sure.” The rechtsmediziner, he meant—the medical examiner.

“You think this will require a postmortem?”

Bauer didn’t answer. Lost in thought, he walked gingerly around the room, keeping a wide berth from the body. He moved over by the bed, examined the walls and the floor, the dresser and vanity, leaning over and squatting down, peering and poking and checking matters from different angles. He spent about ten minutes doing this before he turned to Helldorff.

“We’ll need the tatortfotograf,” he said.

Helldorff looked up from his notepad. “You’re already sure of that? We only take photographs if we suspect foul play.”

“Good for you, Hofmeister.” Bauer gestured toward the bed. “Blood spatter on the floor, beyond the rug. See that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hedwig, if you call me sir again, there will be two dead bodies. Call me Bauer.”

“Okay, Bauer. I see the blood spatter on the floor.”

“A bit on each side of the rug, right?” Bauer stood less than a foot from the bed, facing Helldorff, pointing down to each side of himself.

“Yes, okay, I see that.”

“So she was probably standing right here when the bullet enters. Blood spatter to the front and each side. The front, that’s the rug. She’s lying on top of it now. But to her sides would be… each side of the floor.”

“Right.”

“And look there,” said Bauer, pointing at the wall near the vanity.

“Blood spatter on the wall, too,” said Helldorff. “A few places.”

“Including here.” Bauer gestured to an area of the wall that looked cleaner than the rest of the light green paint. It was just above and centered over the vanity; the clean area was bordered by a boxy outline the size of a large picture frame. And near the top was a single nail hole.

“What is that?” asked Helldorff.

“What do you think it is?”

“Well, something was hung there. Something rectangular. Hung by a nail.”

“Probably a mirror,” said Bauer. “Right above the vanity? This is where she put on makeup, brushed her hair.” Bauer waved to the items on the vanity—hairbrush, makeup, and hair products of various kinds. “You do that stuff in front of a mirror.”

“Okay, so a mirror was there.”

“But now it’s not. So where did the mirror go?”

Helldorff shrugged. “Who can say?”

“Maybe it got knocked over.” Bauer looked him in the eye. “Maybe it got knocked off the wall during a struggle. It fell off its perch.”

“Maybe she knocked into the vanity after she shot herself, and the mirror fell off the wall.”

“After she shot herself?” Bauer pointed to the blood spatter in the middle of the rectangle. “Then the blood would have spattered onto the mirror, not the wall behind it. That mirror was not on the wall when she was shot.”

“Okay, that’s right, that’s right.” Helldorff chewed on his lip. “But we don’t know when that mirror came down. It could have been down for a long time. Days, weeks. It could have nothing to do with what happened last night.”

“Sure, maybe.” Bauer gave him a wry smile.

“Look here.” Helldorff gestured to the top of the vanity. “The vanity is spotless. If a mirror falls, it crashes down on top. It breaks into pieces. We would see shards of glass everywhere.”

Bauer nodded. “Unless…”

Helldorff was ready to finish that sentence. “Unless it was cleaned up afterward. But how do we prove that?”

“Oh, Heidelberg.” Bauer sighed. “We are inspectors, are we not? So let us inspect. Come closer. Careful of her body.”

Helldorff got as close as he could, approaching the vanity from the opposite side to Bauer.

Bauer placed a hand delicately on the pink chair tucked into the vanity. He rolled it backward, exposing to Helldorff’s view for the first time the remainder of the interior side of the chair, including the seat.

A few shards of glass sparkled from the overhead light.

“They cleaned up the vanity,” said Helldorff. “But they missed the glass that caught in the fabric of the chair. It would be easy to miss.”

“And this wasn’t days or weeks ago. I doubt Fräulein Raubal would have tolerated sitting on broken glass while she did her hair and makeup.”

“Agreed.” Helldorff nodded. “It just happened. The mirror just recently came off the wall. And it was just recently cleaned up.”

Bauer put his hands on his hips. “And why clean it up, Hofbrau?”

Helldorff stepped back from the vanity, shook his head. “To hide any sign of struggle before the gun went off. But,” he added, raising a finger, “playing the other side of this…”

“Good, yes—play the other side. You should always do that.”

“If the victim was in a state of depression, on the verge of suicide, she could have knocked the mirror off the wall.”

“Okay, but then why clean it up? Why remove all the glass entirely from the room? Why do any of that, if there’s nothing to conceal?”

Bauer walked around the corpse and reached Helldorff. He put a hand on his shoulder. “And if you were going to kill yourself,” he added, “why shoot yourself in the chest? Why choose a slow, painful death over a quick, easy head shot?”

Helldorff nodded. “So you want to bring in the full forensic team?”

“The full team,” said Bauer. “If this was a suicide, then I’m the king of Spain.”

4

Food pantry

Kaufingerstraße

“SPREAD THE BUTTER THIN, everyone. We’re low today. Sprinkle some sugar.” Fritz Gerlich wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve as he looked over the twelve volunteers inside the sweaty kitchen. “No, look here, Greta.” He grabbed a piece of the thick toast from the young woman. “Butter one half. It can fold over so the other half is covered. We’re just trying to give it some flavor. Yes?”

“We’re almost out of sugar, Fritz.”

“Then use salt.” Gerlich stepped clear of the kitchen, looking through the window. The food line was as far as the eye could see, winding all the way down Kaufingerstraße, adults and children wrapped in blankets over their heads as if they were religious attire, moving their feet in place to stay warm, many with dirt on their faces from spending the night in a dingy alley or sidewalk.

“Where’s Klaus with the buttermilk?” Gerlich called out. The shelter took buttermilk from the local molkereien—dairies—which considered it a by-product, a leftover. When the shelter ran out of water, they offered buttermilk as a beverage; otherwise they used it for leavening.

Gerlich stepped through the side door into the alley, enjoying the rush of cool air. A journalist by trade, the editor in chief of Der Illustrierte Sonntag, Carl Albert Fritz Michael Gerlich typically spent Saturdays and Sundays volunteering at the food pantry from six in the morning to six at night, with time built in only for Catholic Mass each day, as befit his upcoming conversion.

He reached into his trouser pocket and removed a small case containing his rosary. Clutching the rosary’s crucifix, he closed his eyes, made the sign of the cross, and began reciting the Apostles’ Creed.

“Fritz!” The door popped open. “Someone’s here for you. Someone from your newspaper.”

Fritz gently returned the rosary to its case and walked inside to find Gunther, his deputy editor, waiting for him.

“There’s a police matter, a suspicious death. I think it might require your attention,” Gunther told him, looking alarmed.

“My attention? Why? Who died?”

Gerlich parted the crowd that had formed around Prinzregentenplatz 16. He didn’t stand out. He wore no uniform. He was not especially striking to look at. He was fastidious in appearance, bespectacled and bow-tied, hair slicked and mustache carefully trimmed.

Though a virulent anti-Communist and generally conservative in nature, Gerlich had long ago become wary of Adolf Hitler, and began warning others as far back as 1923, after Hitler’s aborted putsch to overthrow the Bavarian government. Hitler was a two-faced con artist, Gerlich cautioned, with an uncanny ability to draw people to his cause. Years ago, in an editorial for his old periodical, the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, Gerlich had described Hitler as surrounding himself with people “who all share one common objective: the desire to destroy.”

Now, as Gerlich looked over the many police vehicles, the officers moving in and out of the granite apartment building, he counted just as many brownshirts as cops. He approached the front entrance, where a police officer stood. “I am Fritz Gerlich from Der Illustrierte Sonntag. I would like to ask some questions of the kriminalinspektor.”

“No. No. This man must leave.” A brownshirt grabbed Gerlich by the bicep.

“Excuse me, but I am a member of the press.” He worked his arm free, but the guard shoved him, causing Gerlich to lose his balance and fall to the sidewalk.

Before he knew it, four brownshirts surrounded him. The police officer gave him a sympathetic look but did nothing.

Gerlich got to his feet and brushed himself off. “I am a journalist.”

“We know who you are,” one of the guards sneered.

“Then you also know that I have the right to be here.”

“Leave at once,” said the guard.

“I will not.”

The guards looked at each other, nodded, and grabbed Gerlich by both arms.

“You have no right!” he shouted, as the guards dragged him across the street. “The press will not go away!”

The crowd parted, cowed by the brownshirts’ show of force. The guards shoved Gerlich against a wall. He hit it hard, unable to use his hands to soften the impact. He collapsed to the sidewalk, dizzy and disoriented, pawing the ground for his glasses; he was as good as blind without them.

“Here you are, mister.”

Gerlich blinked hard, trying to focus. A young boy held out his steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Thank you, son.” Again, Gerlich got to his feet and brushed himself off.

“Spare a mark, sir?”

Seeing the boy’s ragged, mismatched clothes, Gerlich fished out a five-reichsmark banknote from his pocket. “This is all I have, son,” he said. “God be with you.”

He looked back at the building, where the brownshirts had returned, standing sentry. Why were the police so willing to defer to them?

“God be with us all,” he added.

5

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

THREE HOURS LATER, INSPECTOR Thomas Bauer closed the door to one of the interview rooms, where Anni and Georg Winter sat. Bauer had spent his time thus far examining the flat at Prinzregentenplatz 16 and directing the forensic team. He hadn’t wanted to speak with the Winters—Hitler’s only live-in servants—at the flat. He wanted them away from the aura of their boss, to sense the weight of the police presence, which might compel them to speak truthfully.

Anni, the housekeeper, was a pleasant-looking woman with cropped brown hair and a youthful face. At twenty-six, she was only three years older than Geli. She gathered a light shawl over her shoulders and kept her eyes down.

Her husband, Georg, was several years older, rather forgettable in appearance, thick in the shoulders with rough hands that spoke of manual labor, a grim-looking man with a trimmed beard and flyaway hair. He, too, kept his eyes low.

“Thank you for your patience,” Bauer said. “I thought it would be best if we spoke here.” He looked at each of them, though neither made eye contact. “Let’s start with last night. Herr Hitler and Fräulein Raubal were out, yes?”

Georg cleared his throat with a grimace. “Herr Hitler and Fräulein Raubal left the house around dinnertime. We did not serve them dinner, so we assume they ate at a restaurant. We did not hear them return. Herr Hitler was scheduled to leave last night for a campaign rally today. We assume he left, but we heard nothing. We were sleeping. Our work leaves us very tired at the end of the day.”

Well, Bauer thought, that was a well-prepared speech. The servant snuck over a glance, gauging a reaction, but Bauer only continued with his questioning. “Your quarters are on the same side as Geli’s bedroom, yes?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“You heard no gunshot?”

He shook his head. “No, Inspector.”

“There was a row last night, I understand. An argument. Shouting.”

Bauer didn’t have that information. It was a prompt, a bluff.

“If they did, Inspector, we did not hear it.”

The more he let questions glide off him, the more Bauer’s suspicions hardened. He’s been well coached.

“Let’s come back to that,” Bauer said. “Who discovered Fräulein Raubal this morning?”

“I did,” said Georg. “Anni called out for her several times, but the bedroom doors were locked, you see.”

“The doors were locked?”

“Yes. At ten o’clock, I forced the double door open with a screwdriver.”

“It was you who forced the doors open,” Bauer clarified.

“Yes. I stepped into the room and found the young lady lying on the floor, dead. She’d shot herself. I can’t give any reason why she should have. But she did.”

Yet another expert on manner of death, Bauer thought.

“And what did you do?”

“I… well, Anni called Herr Hess.”

Anni made eye contact with Bauer and nodded. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.

“Why was that your first call, Frau Winter?”

She cleared her throat and glanced at her husband, who nodded back. Permission to speak, apparently.

“I did not know how to reach the Führer. Herr Hess always knows how to reach him when he is traveling.”

Bauer nodded and thought for a moment. “Was Herr Hess the one who removed the mirror from Fräulein Raubal’s bedroom?”

“Oh.” Anni’s eyes trailed up to the ceiling. “That was the night bef—”

Georg landed a decisive hand on Anni’s, cutting off his wife mid-sentence. “What mirror?” he asked.

Bauer silently cursed. Outwardly, he opened his hands, as if the answer were obvious, as if his question were not controversial in the least. It was a common tactic of his, to ask an important question out of the blue, hoping for an unscripted response. Which is exactly what he’d been in the process of receiving before Georg’s intervention.

“We know the mirror above Fräulein Raubal’s vanity was moved,” Bauer said. “Herr Hess told me as much.” That was untrue, of course; Hess had told Bauer nothing of substance. “I was just unclear on which person moved it or when. It happened last night, I think you were saying.”

Anni, properly admonished, gathered her hands together.

“If Herr Hess told you, Inspector, then you should ask Herr Hess,” said Georg. “We do not remember a broken mirror.”

“I never said the mirror was broken, Georg.” Another common tactic; give them information but leave something out to see if the witness fills it in. Which Georg just had.

“Well, we do not remember any kind of mirror.”

Anni, head bowed, said, “The Führer is very upset to learn of his niece’s suicide—”

Bauer sprang to his feet, feeling the venom rising within him. “Georg,” he said, “I’d like to speak with you alone.”

A look of uncertainty crossed Georg’s face, but he seemed relieved to be back in charge of the conversation. Clearly the plan had been that he would do the talking.

Bauer led him through the detectives’ room to a different interview room with an identical long wooden table and simple chairs. “Have a seat, Georg.”

Georg took a seat and settled in.

“Just a moment,” said Bauer. “I will be right back.”

Bauer walked back through the detectives’ room, catching the eye of Helldorff, who was busy transcribing his notes to a secretary, and avoiding the looks of Inspector Brecht, who had shrunk in his seat earlier today when the assignment for this murder investigation had been first doled out.

He returned to the room where Anni Winter sat. She looked up at his reentry, confused. “You… wanted to speak to my husband alone?”

“Yes, I do. I will. But I want to talk to you first. Is that okay?”

She didn’t answer. Bauer thought he detected a shiver run through the young woman, as she pulled her shawl over her shoulders once more.

“You called her Geli, is that right?” Bauer said softly, trying to break the ice.

Anni nodded. Fresh tears streamed down her face. She accepted a handkerchief from Bauer and wiped her cheeks. “In the Führer’s presence, she was Fräulein Raubal. But when he was gone, I called her Geli. She always treated me like…” She choked up again, stifled a sob. “Like a friend,” she whispered.

Bauer watched her, waited for his moment. “If something bad had happened to you, she would have stood up for you, wouldn’t she? No matter what.”

“Yes, she would,” said Anni, taking a breath and nodding with more conviction. She looked Bauer in the eyes. “All right. Ask me your questions.”

“You heard them come home last night,” he said, not wasting any time.

“Yes.”

“They argued.”

“Yes.” More tears welled up in her eyes. “My husband and I were in our room. We stayed in there. We didn’t see anything. But we heard.”

“Herr Hitler was still there when the gun—?”

A knock on the door. Ilse, the chief inspector’s assistant. “The chief needs to speak with you right now, Inspector.”

Now? Right at this moment, just as I am breaking through?

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“The chief wishes to speak with you immediately.”

“Tell him I’m in the middle of an interview.”

“He knows that. He told me to interrupt your interview.” A hint of apology crossed her face; she was just relaying a message.

Bauer sprang out of his chair. “I will be right back,” he told Anni.

6

THE CHIEF’S OFFICE WAS on the floor above the detectives. Bauer followed Ilse upstairs and walked through the door without knocking.

The chief inspector, Heinrich Müller, looked up from the work on his desk. At thirty-one years old, he had risen quickly through the ranks of the Munich Police Department after his service in the war. Stiff and aloof, with thick eyebrows and penetrating coal-black eyes, he was the picture of discipline and command.

But Bauer was no fan. Though he respected his war service, Bauer saw Müller as too ambitious. Aggressively so. He always managed to be front and center when credit was being doled out but vanished into thin air when it came time to assign blame. He had reached the level of chief well ahead of his years and, in the eyes of many, well ahead of his merits.

“Chief,” said Bauer, “I’m in the middle of a witness interview.”

“Bauer. Sit. This won’t take long.” The chief leaned back in his chair, twirling a pen in his fingers. “Tell me about the case. I want a full report.”

“I’ll have a lot more to tell you after my interview. I’ll give you a full report when I’m done. I’m finally getting somewhere with this witness—”

Müller pursed his lips. “Oh, she can wait.”

So the chief knew exactly who the witness was.

Müller said, “The incident you’re investigating—the suicide, from what I hear?”

“It doesn’t look like a suicide to me.”

“No?” Müller sounded disinterested. “Already you can be so sure?”

“Sure? No, not sure,” said Bauer, struggling to contain himself. “But I know a staged scene when I see one. I know a coached witness when I interview one.”

“Ah, well, it sure sounds like a suicide to me.” The chief gave him a hard look, as if Bauer were supposed to take direction from the cue.

“Based on what?” Bauer asked. “What evidence have you seen? Which witnesses did you talk to? In fact, who told you it looked like a suicide?”

The chief worked his jaw.

“Let me do my job, Chief,” Bauer said.

A heavy silence hung between them as they stared at each other.

Then the chief waved a hand. “Obviously you must do your job. But the department needn’t be blind to the sensitivity of the matter. You know how volatile politics are in Munich right now.”

Bauer shrugged. “I’ll follow the evidence where it leads me. I promise I’ll be very sensitive when I do so.”

“You already arrested one of Herr Hitler’s bodyguards, I hear.”

“Because he blocked my access to the crime scene. And he put his hands on me. The last I checked, we don’t tolerate that kind of obstruction.”

“Of course not, of course not.” The chief raised a hand. “We’re on the same side.”

“Are we? Because it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like you are trying to prevent me from talking to my witness.”

Müller let out a low chuckle. “Thomas Bauer, always thinking he knows everything. Like he’s the only cop in all of Munich.”

“Seems like I’m the only cop in this room,” said Bauer.

The chief took a moment to recover, stunned by the insubordination. He directed a finger at Bauer but took a moment to find his words. “Inspector,” he finally said, his voice low and trembling, “you are done for the day.”

“No,” said Bauer, chin up. “I’m not even close to done.”

“You are done, Inspector! I don’t want to see your face around here again until Monday morning. You’ll report to me then, and we’ll talk about your future in this department.”

Bauer, fists balled, chest burning, poised to come over the table at the chief, silently counted to ten, his wife’s advice. “Tell Hitler I say hi,” he hissed before storming out of the office.

Helldorff was standing at the bottom of the staircase when Bauer returned to the detectives’ floor. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Bauer. “The chief complimented me on my findings so far and asked me to continue investigating with all deliberate speed.”

“Where are you going?” asked Helldorff, trying to keep up with him.

“To continue my interview with Anni Winter.”

“They’re gone, Bauer.”

He stopped in his tracks, turned to Helldorff. “Say again?”

“Inspector Brecht sent them home. On orders of the chief, he said. They walked out of the station five minutes ago.”

“Brecht, that little guttersnipe.” Bauer walked over to the conference room to see for himself. Sure enough, it was empty. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled. He marched into the detectives’ room, but Brecht’s desk was empty. “Where is he?” he called out. “Where’s Brecht?”

Nobody seemed to know.

“Bauer—what’s going on?” Helldorff asked again.

Bauer drew a breath and looked over at his kriminalassistent. Helldorff was fresh, just a rookie. He hadn’t developed a layer of tough skin yet. And for this case, he’d need a full suit of body armor.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said. He put a hand on Helldorff’s shoulder. “But you need to stay as far away from this case as you can.”

7

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

“I AM RUINED. YOU know this, don’t you? I am ruined. I have nothing left. There is nothing. Nothing!”

Adolf Hitler, dressed in a robe, his hair mussed and fallen into his face, his eyes deep-set from lack of sleep, stood at the window of the cottage, looking out over picturesque Lake Tegernsee nestled in a rolling wooded hillside. A number of Nazi flags hung from the docks; several NSDAP officials also had homes on the lake.

“Nonsense, mein Führer.” Hess stood a distance from Hitler. It had been years since he’d seen him like this, despondent and disheveled. Hess had smuggled Hitler to this house, owned by the publisher of Mein Kampf, roughly an hour south of Munich, to shield him from both the police and press. “We will navigate this problem and move forward. You will be back campaigning in no time—”

“Campaigning? Do you not see, Rudolf?” He turned to Hess, fists clenched. “This scandal is exactly what my enemies have been waiting for!” Hitler reentered the cottage and began to pace now, striding across the main room, with its dark wood paneling and rustic furniture. “Oh, how they will rejoice! How they will positively marvel at my fall! Why, I can imagine the look on Fritz Gerlich’s face when he hears of this. It will not matter,” he added, “that this was not my fault. Such questions will not even enter the conversation. Oh, no. All that will matter are the salacious headlines! The things they will say!”

At once the Führer stopped his pacing and collapsed onto a sofa. His head dropped into his hands. “Do you not see that it’s over, Rudolf? Are you the only one who does not see?”

Hess squatted down beside the Führer. “I believe in mein Führer, as do the others. Look out over the lake. Look at those flags. Think of all the people who only think of you when they think of the National Socialists. We are nothing without you.”

The Führer laughed, a bitter chuckle that sounded more like a hiccup.

“You need sleep, mein Führer. You need to eat. Let me have them prepare some liver dumplings, your fav—”

“No. No!” He sprang off the couch. “No meat! Not ever again! I cannot fathom the thought of eating the flesh of animals, not after seeing—no. Leave me, Rudolf. Leave me to my misery.”

Hess watched the Führer head back out onto the patio, the wind lifting his hair and flapping his robe.

“His name is Bauer,” said Hess, back in the cottage’s kitchen. “Thomas Bauer. A high-ranking inspector, a kriminalkommissar.”

Joseph Goebbels lit a cigarette and blew out smoke. “What do we know about him?”

Hess reviewed the paper he’d received from the boys at the Brown House. “Born in Munich. Signed up for the war when he turned eighteen. Served with the 11th Infantry Division on the western front. Promoted to deputy battalion commander. Received the Iron Cross First and Second Class for bravery and the Military Merit Order—”

“All right, so he served faithfully. What else?”

“He has a wife and two children. The wife is a Jew.”

“That may be useful.” Goebbels pointed his cigarette at Hess. “Go on.”

“We were told the senior inspector would be a man named Brecht. Brecht, we were assured, would be pliable, manageable. But it so happened that this Bauer, a more senior inspector, was working that day and took this assignment.”

“And we know all this from the police chief?”

“Yes,” said Hess. “Heinrich Müller.”

“The Munich police have not been a friend to the National Socialists. My understanding is that this Müller, in particular, has been hostile. Why is he suddenly now willing to help?”

“Because he’s a pragmatic man.” Martin Bormann, Hess’s pudgy and dark-eyed assistant, entered the room. “And an ambitious one. He is not stupid. He knows that the National Socialists will soon take power. He wants to be on the right side of that outcome.”

“Now, that,” said Goebbels, pointing at Bormann, “is a man I can work with. Speaking of men we can work with, Martin, what can you tell us about Gürtner?”

Franz Gürtner, he meant, the Bavarian minister of justice, a fervent nationalist with long and solid ties to Hitler and NSDAP.

“I’ve just come from speaking with him,” said Bormann. “He is quite sympathetic to our predicament. He will not be our problem. Nor will Chief Müller. No, our only obstacle will be Bauer.”

“And the press.” Goebbels stubbed out his cigarette. “We must work on our message.” He got to his feet gingerly, given his club foot, and arched his back. “Surely a frivolous young girl cannot be expected to behave in a rational manner. Perhaps, for example, she was on medication. Or she suffered from depression of some sort.”

“She wasn’t on medication,” said Hess. “And did she seem depressed to you?”

“Rule nothing out, Rudolf. Perhaps she was nervous about an upcoming musical recital.”

“Nobody would believe that,” said Hess. “You were there, Joseph. You saw Geli’s performance. She was magnificent. Who would believe that she suffered from nerves?”

Goebbels let out a long sigh and slapped a hand down on Hess’s shoulder. “Oh, my good Rudolf, you still think that truth matters. I have so much to teach you.”

8

September 20, 1931

Bauer residence

Oberföhring

Munich

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR THOMAS BAUER lay awake, eyes wide open, listening to the sweet, raspy breathing of his wife, Amalie, her auburn hair swept across the pillow.

The Bauers lived in a small flat in Oberföhring, a quaint neighborhood of mostly rental apartment buildings, the most a police officer and a schoolteacher could afford.

Though Bauer tried to raise himself from bed as gingerly as possible, her eyes popped open. “Are you okay?” she mumbled.

He didn’t want to wake her. But she had a mother’s ear; the tiniest stirring roused her from sleep.

“I’m fine.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I told you I needed an early start.”

“What time is it?” She started to raise her head.

“Shh. It’s three thirty. I’ll be back before you’re up. I promise.”

She seemed content with that, settling back in. She was not unaccustomed to Bauer’s odd hours as a cop. Some of his best work, he always told her, happened when decent people were sleeping.

He threw on a dress shirt and hiked up his trousers. As he headed to the door, he heard his wife mumble something. It was barely audible, but that didn’t matter; he knew what she always said to him when he left for work.

“Come home to us, Tom.”

Bauer traveled in darkness through the cobblestone streets of northeastern Munich. Shadowy figures receded into alleys or sublevel porches, and the homeless, whose numbers had swollen to overwhelming proportions since the economic crash of 1929, huddled under blankets outside the city’s overcrowded shelters. People slept in alleys and train stations, on the trams that wound through the streets, sometimes in the kripo jails if arrested for vagrancy.

The lighting was poor; nearly half the city’s streetlamps were busted out, courtesy of marauding Nazis who drove through the streets after hours, shattering the windows of Jewish shopkeepers and painting their trademark red swastikas.

Bauer wrapped his scarf around his face, lifted the collars of his trench coat, and wore his gray trilby hat low, bracing himself against a fierce wind as he walked along the empty sidewalk toward the municipal square that housed his branch of the police department—Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District.

The presence of the Nazis in Munich was more than evident here. Wrapped around streetlamp posts, inside storefronts, draped along brick walls, were propaganda posters for NSDAP: one of a worker raising a swastika flag and declaring “The people will rise!”; one advertising NSDAP under the words Freedom and bread; one showing a soldier giving the Hitler salute behind the words The German who loves freedom belongs in the National Socialist S.A.

The worst poster, in Bauer’s view, was of a Nazi sword plunging through a red Star of David that took the form of a snake’s head. Spilling out of the snake’s corpse were words representing everything for which the Nazis blamed Jewish people: usury, the Treaty of Versailles, unemployment, the loss of the Great War, Marxism, Bolshevism, betrayal, inflation, prostitution, financial inequality, and scandal.

Bauer ripped down the poster and shredded it to pieces.

Rather than walk through the plaza to enter headquarters, he entered through the courtyard to the west. The outside door was locked, but Bauer had a key. It was a key he was probably supposed to have returned at some point, but Bauer had become quite the expert in cutting silly bureaucratic corners that prevented him from doing his job efficiently.

The heavy door opened into a basement, a series of dank, musty corridors with little signage, though Bauer knew the way. He unwrapped his scarf and unbuttoned his coat as the heat intensified while passing the boiler room. Then it was just another short staircase until he reached the metal door with the warning, LEICHENHALLE: ZUTRITT VERBOTEN. Morgue: Entry prohibited.

He braced himself, though by now he should have been accustomed to the smell of death, after his two tours in the infantry and many years with the kriminalpolizei. Still, he was hit by the pungent, sickly odor of decomposing flesh combined with disinfectant.

Smells like rotting eggs with a heavy dose of garlic and shit, he thought.

“Who is there?” a voice called out. “Who is there, please?” The voice sounded scared.

“Charlie Chaplin,” said Bauer.

The door to the morgue’s principal examination room popped open and the rechtsmediziner—the medical examiner—walked out. His old friend, the stooped and curmudgeonly Dr. Elie Achterberg, wagged a finger at him.

Bauer had suspected Achterberg would be working the overnight shift. Despite his advancing age, he often worked those hours since being widowed three years ago. Nights without his wife were the hardest, he’d said.

“Even now, he jokes,” said Achterberg. “Even now, when he is not supposed to be here.”

“News travels fast.”

“Is it true you have been suspended? That you punched the chief?”

Bauer couldn’t help but chuckle. “I still have my card, Elie. At least for now. So where is she?”

He looked around the room. The body on the slab was a hairy, overweight man who, judging from the peeling skin at the extremities, had probably been found in one of the canals. A large surgical saw lay next to his swollen head. Bauer was glad to have gotten here before the dissection began.

“By ‘she,’ you mean the niece? The Raubal woman. No, she is not here.”

Bauer did a double take. “What? How could she not be here? I ordered her to be brought here for a postmortem—”

“And she was.”

“Well? Did you perform it?”

Achterberg’s skinny shoulders rose. “And now the inspector will get me in trouble.”

“I was never here.”

“But what if someone knows you were? And then I lie and say you weren’t?”

“Very well—I was here, but you refused to talk to me.”

Bauer’s old friend seemed to deflate. “I did not get very far at all before I was ordered to stop. Her body was moved.”

“Who ordered it moved? Chief Müller?”

Achterberg shook his head. “This goes higher than our chief.” He let out a shaky sigh. “The body was moved on orders of the justice minister.”

Franz Gürtner, he meant. The Bavarian minister of justice.

“So, there isn’t a postmortem report?”

“Oh, there’s a report.” Achterberg flipped his hands. “Would you like to see?” He angled past Bauer and pulled a document out of a basket. “Here,” he said. “Here is your report.”

Bauer looked it over quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading:

The fall forward to the floor caused a fracture in the nasal septum, resulting in antemortem edema and swelling.… The trajectory of the bullet’s path suggests self-infliction.… The stippling around the dress suggests a gunshot at close range.

By the time Bauer got to the conclusion, it was anticlimactic:

Cause of Death: Self-inflicted gunshot wound

Manner of Death: Suicide

Bauer shook the paper in his hand. “Do you agree with this, Elie?”

“Does it look like I agree with it?” Achterberg’s eyes were watering, his lips quivering.

Bauer checked the signature line. “You didn’t sign this.”

“I would not. No.” Achterberg shook his head.

Bauer put a hand on his shoulder. “Just tell me, no one else,” he whispered. “Do you think the broken nose came from the fall?”

Achterberg shuddered, as if shaking away a memory. “The angle of the break… it’s all wrong. No, she was struck.”

“And the swelling?” said Bauer. “That came before the gunshot?”

“That is almost… inescapable.” The old man spoke so softly that Bauer had to draw closer.

“What about the range? Close range, like the report said?”

Achterberg raised a wrinkled hand to his face. “Intermediate range. One meter, maybe one and a half, based on the stippling.”

Too far away to be self-inflicted, in other words.

“And the trajectory of the bullet?”

Achterberg looked up at Bauer, his eyes tearing up, his mouth twisted in a frown. “I could not examine the body conclusively. But judging from the entry wound, a downward trajectory is overwhelmingly likely. It is almost impossible to believe it was self-inflicted.”

Bauer nodded. “You never said a word of this to me, understand? If anyone asks, I came here, and you sent me away. That will be my story if asked. Okay?”

Achterberg wiped away a tear. “I am sorry I cannot be brave. I’m an old man.”

He was braver than he credited himself. He had refused to sign a bogus autopsy report and, in doing so, surely had endangered himself.

“You’re a good man, Elie.” Bauer placed the report back in its basket.

“Be careful, Tom,” Achterberg whispered. “Everyone will be watching you.”

Bauer left the same way he entered. As he walked out into the courtyard, closing the heavy door behind him, he felt the chill of the wind in a way he hadn’t earlier.

9

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

ADOLF HITLER, STANDING IN the living room in the retreat, still dressed in his robe, spread out the newspapers before him. He’d spent the last two hours clipping out passages and headlines from the tabloids and newspapers reporting over the last two days.

The Münchener Post:

A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR: HITLER’S NIECE COMMITS SUICIDE

The Fränkische Tagespost:

MYSTERIOUS DARKNESS SURROUNDS SUICIDE OF HITLER’S NIECE

Die Fanfare:

HITLER’S LOVE COMMITS SUICIDE

Der Illustrierte Sonntag, written by Fritz Gerlich:

HITLER’S NIECE DIES VIOLENT, MYSTERIOUS DEATH

“My lover. My lover, it says.” He pushed his hair off his face. “The Post says we had a ‘violent quarrel’—a violent quarrel the night before she was found dead. They say we were arguing over her leaving for Vienna. They cite ‘informed sources.’ Who are these sources spreading such nonsense?”

Around him, some of his men—Rudolf Hess, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann—stood silently.

“And Fritz Gerlich—oh, how he must relish taking his revenge on me. Ever since the putsch, that man has had it out for me.”

Goebbels, hands clasped behind his back, cleared his throat. “It is good that they are focusing on the suicide, mein Führer. That is the first step in the process—”

“But they’re blaming me,” Hitler hissed. “Listen to this.” He picked up another scrap of paper. “They’re saying my private life with Geli ‘took on forms that obviously the young woman was unable to bear.’ And this one here, from the Echo, did you read this? It says we had a physical relationship that was ‘beyond her strength’ to endure.” He threw down the paper. “Did you not read this, Joseph?”

“Of course, mein Führer. And we will counter it.”

“How? How will we counter this?”

“Methodically, mein Führer. We have already firmly established suicide. Nearly all the periodicals are adopting it. That is the most important thing.”

Hitler released a harsh breath, waved his hand, and sat on the couch. “Go on.”

“Once we have removed any hint of criminal culpability on your part—”

“Of which I have none.”

“Of course not, mein Führer. But once we have eliminated any criminal culpability, then all that is left is moral culpability. And really, who is to say what drives a young woman to take her life? It is a question that can never be satisfactorily answered. There will be competing theories that ultimately will cancel each other out.”

Hitler moaned, running his fingers through his hair. Goebbels had seen the Führer in casual attire before, but never disheveled like this.

Still, he saw something else this morning, for the first time since Geli’s death—a hint of the Führer’s former self returning, if fleetingly.

“Yes, perhaps,” said Hitler. “Perhaps you are right. But Gerlich is like a dog with a bone. The truth will not matter to him.”

“Fritz Gerlich, mein Führer, has been a sworn and very public enemy of NSDAP for nearly a decade.”

“Exactly my point, Joseph. How do we attack his story?”

Goebbels nodded, felt a smile creep onto his face. “When you cannot attack the message, mein Führer, you attack the messenger.”

Hitler paced through the living room, now freshly bathed and dressed in his beloved Bavarian lederhosen and chocolate-colored hiking boots. “I loved Geli only as an uncle would love a niece,” he said, one hand on the riding whip at his side. “I did not object to her travel to Vienna. I encouraged it. We had no violent quarrel the night before her suicide or at any time before that. She was not engaged and had no plans to marry that I knew of. Though if she had, I wouldn’t have objected.”

Goebbels, Hess, and Bormann all nodded dutifully.

Hitler turned to Hess. “Get Hans Frank on the phone. I want lawsuits prepared.”

“You wish to sue the periodicals, mein Führer?” asked Hess.

“No, I wish to threaten to sue,” he said. “And I want Himmler to make sure the messages are delivered in a way only the SS can deliver them.”

“Very well, mein Führer. Anything else?”

Hitler thought a moment. “Yes, one other thing,” he said. “I think it might be nice if I were seen with Eva Braun again soon.”

10

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

“YOU WANTED TO SEE me, Chief?” Detective Inspector Thomas Bauer walked into Chief Müller’s office on Monday morning but stopped short of the desk. In the corner, a flag of the Weimar Republic, with its horizontal stripes of black, red, and yellow. Behind the chief, a tapestry adorned the wall of the Munich Coat of Arms, a robed figure holding a book.

The chief looked up from his paperwork. “Have a seat, Bauer.”

“No, I’m fine standing.”

“Bauer, I told you to sit.”

“I heard you the first time. I’ll stand.”

The chief let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “I’m ready for your apology.”

“My apology.” Bauer repeated it like a statement, not a question. “My apology. Okay, Chief. It was disrespectful of me to suggest that you were a politician and not a cop. It was disrespectful to imply that you were more concerned with currying favor with an up-and-coming politician than in solving the murder of a talented young woman. Both of those things were disrespectful.”

The chief ran his tongue against his cheek, eyes narrowed.

“True, every word of it, but disrespectful,” Bauer added. “I should keep my opinions to myself. The next time you disgrace the uniform, which I assume will be any moment now, you will not hear it from me—that’s a promise.”

After a long pause, the chief started shaking his head, allowing a bitter grin. “Bauer, I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I could fire you right now, and nobody would blink.”

“Then fire me, sir. But I don’t think you will.”

“No?”

“No.”

Bauer was right, and they both knew it. The inspector assigned to the Raubal investigation, fired after the body was mysteriously moved and virtually every protocol of the kriminalpolizei was disregarded? The press was all over this story. Surely the Nazis whispering in Müller’s ear didn’t want to give this narrative any new oxygen. Bauer would be free to tell the newspaper his side. No, the chief had to handle Bauer, keep him on a leash, keep him right where he was.

At least for now.

“Oh, I thought you might want to know.” The chief wagged his finger at Bauer and gave him a satisfied smile. “The Raubal suicide—”

“It wasn’t a suicide,” said Bauer.

“The Raubal suicide,” the chief continued, jaw clenched, “is no longer our case. The investigation has been taken over by the Justice Ministry. The JM has taken custody of her body and performed the PM. So your work is completed.”

Bauer had already figured as much after his conversation with Elie Achterberg at the morgue.

“And I’m sure you know, Inspector Bauer, that meddling with a JM investigation could get you brought up on charges. So if you have a single functioning brain cell left in that thick head of yours, you won’t go anywhere near it.”

“Well, congratulations, Chief. I didn’t think you could sink any lower.”

“Get out of my sight, Bauer. And remember—the spotlight on this case won’t last forever. When it’s gone, when everyone’s forgotten about poor Geli Raubal, you’re mine.”

11

The Brown House

Brienner Straße 45

ON THE GROUND FLOOR of the Brown House, a three-story, neoclassical stone mansion built in 1828 and sold to the Nazis in 1920, was the revered blutfahne, or blood flag—the swastika flag carried by Hitler’s SA during his botched coup attempt in 1923. The flag, still stained with the blood of a fallen SA officer from that day, was always attended by an SS guard of honor.

Hitler’s office was on the building’s top floor, overlooking the Königsplatz (the King’s Square), and featured a life-sized portait of American automaker Henry Ford, a bust of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and a massive painting of the Prussian king Frederick the Great.

Down the hallway was the Senatorensaal conference room, with portraits of Hitler and swastikas and Nazi flags draping the walls. Beneath a banner featuring the Nazi crest—an eagle atop a swastika—Hitler’s closest aides huddled over plates of roast duck and cabbage, and glasses of schnapps.

Between bites, Joseph Goebbels said, “I still think mental instability plays best. Geli was always an impetuous girl. Who is to say she did not suffer from mental illness?”

Hermann Göring, busy chiseling the last bit of meat from a bone, grimaced. “We have no evidence of that, Joseph. None.”

“Perhaps she confided in the Führer and only the Führer,” said Goebbels.

“No.” Rudolf Hess pushed himself out of his chair. “That would require the Führer to give evidence. We cannot have that.”

“Then… we’ll just say it,” said Goebbels.

“What do you mean?” Göring refilled his glass of schnapps. “We cannot very well say something that we can’t prove.”

“Why not?” Goebbels lit a cigarette. “Of course we can.”

Göring wiped his mouth and left the table, carrying his schnapps to the leather couch, where he dropped his heavy frame. “Something more subjective is better, Joseph. She was flustered about her lack of musical ability.”

Hess flapped his arms. “Again, this idea. How many people heard Geli sing that night? She was magnificent. Nobody would believe she was insecure about her talent.”

“Fine. Not insecure.” Goebbels lifted an ashtray, holding his drink and cigarette in the other hand, as he paced along the long red carpet. Despite his limp, it was how he did his best strategizing. “Frustrated. She believed she deserved more.”

“And what?” asked Hess. “The Führer stifled her growth? Refused to let her pursue it? We obviously cannot have that narr—”

“Rudolf, really, you’re giving me a migraine.” Goebbels sighed, then raised his chin and closed his eyes in thought. “Everyone saw the Führer applauding and encouraging her at the kabarett. Of course, he supported Geli in any and every way to be happy. But this frustration angle seems workable.”

Göring waved his glass. “You’re the propagandist. I’m just a fighter pilot. And where, by the way, is the chicken farmer?” he asked, referring to Heinrich Himmler by his former occupation.

Martin Bormann entered the room and shrugged off his coat. “Himmler is meeting with Hans Frank, the lawyer. And preparing for tomorrow.”

“Ah, here now.” Goebbels raised his hand. “Geli believed in herself but was being rejected in her attempts at advancement.”

“What attempts?” Hess moved closer to Goebbels.

“Unspecified. She was hoping for advancement but was unsuccessful. Her applications were denied. Her wonderful singing at the kabarett only added further to her frustration. She grew despondent. In a fit of immature, melodramatic rage, she took her life.”

“That’s a lot of words,” said Göring.

“That’s hardly the biggest problem,” Hess added.

“No, no—Hermann is right.” Goebbels squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. “It must be a short phrase. No different from a political slogan. No more than three or four words.”

As Hess started to protest again, Goebbels raised a hand like a stop sign. “Rudolf, please. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. All we need is something catchy, and then we repeat it again and again. People will eventually believe it. Isn’t that what our Führer constantly reminds us?”

“Joseph—”

“Here.” Goebbels set down his drink and ashtray. His hands free, he framed them as headlines. “Unsatisfied artistic achievement,” he said.

12

Der Illustrierte Sonntag newsroom

Munich

“THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE could not be reached for comment, comma, though credible sources indicate that a JM vehicle known to transport corpses was seen leaving the police inspectorate for the Bogenhausen District in the wee hours of Sunday morning, period.” Fritz Gerlich paced his office while dictating to one of his assistants, who scribbled in shorthand on a small pad of paper. “I think that’s all for now. Type that up and I’ll have a look.”

“Thank you, sir.” The assistant stood to leave.

“Oh, wait. How is your father?”

The young assistant bowed her head. “He’s home now. It’s been a slower recovery than we expected, sir.”

“And still unable to work, then?” Gerlich reached into a drawer and removed an envelope. “Take this, dear.”

“Oh, no, sir—”

“An advance on your wages. That’s all. I’m praying for your family.”

The young woman took the envelope as her eyes watered. “Thank you, sir.”

Gerlich’s deputy editor, Gunther, popped his head into Gerlich’s office. “I’m getting dinner down the street. Do you want to join me?”

“I’m not hungry.” Gerlich removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “Did you find out where the body was moved?”

“Not yet. We’ve checked every morgue in Munich. We’ve used all our sources.”

“Even our source at the Justice Ministry?”

“Even her.” Gunther pulled down on his tie. “I think she knew something but was too scared to tell me. Everyone’s scared, Fritz.”

“Herr Gerlich.” His secretary walked in. “I have Martin Gruber from the Post on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”

Gerlich drew back. The editor in chief of the Munich Post was calling him? “Okay, well, put him through.” He waited a moment until his black rotary-dial phone rang, then punched a button. “Martin? What can I do for you?”

“Fritz, are you okay?” Gruber spit out, sounding frantic.

“Am I—well, of course—”

“—give you fair warning—”

“Slow down, Martin. What are you talking—”

“—any minute, I assume—”

“Martin, my old friend, what in the name—”

A loud crash, the sound of glass breaking, came from the pressroom. Gerlich dropped the phone and got to his feet, just in time to see a number of brown-clad, jackbooted, uniformed Nazis march directly toward his office. SS guards.

“Excuse me! You can’t just come in here!”

The guards did not break stride. The first one shoved Gerlich in the chest, knocking him to the floor, narrowly missing the corner of his desk. Another threw Gunther against the door and ordered him out.

“This is… a press… office!” Gerlich gasped, struggling to keep his breath as the SS guards started kicking him in the midsection with their sharp-pointed boots.

As he lay balled up in the fetal position, absorbing blow after blow, he heard a gunshot, people screaming, a thundering vibration on the floor as over two dozen employees of Der Illustrierte Sonntag raced for the door on the SS’s command.

Then it was quiet. The pressroom had been cleared. The guards stopped kicking him. Gerlich managed to sit upright against the wall, cringing in pain.

“Ah, now we can speak privately.”

Gerlich’s blood went cold. He knew that voice, even before the guards parted to reveal Heinrich Himmler, smiling with one side of his mouth. “Good evening, Fritz. It’s been a long time.”

“Get out… of my office,” Gerlich managed between gasps of air. “Take your jackbooted thugs… with you. I’ll… call the police.”

“Will you, now?” Himmler smirked. Both knew that Gerlich calling the police would yield nothing. “There’s no need for such drama. I just wanted to have a chat.” He sat down in the editor’s chair, making himself comfortable. “I always wondered what it was like wasting away in an office, editing a newspaper that nobody reads.”

“If nobody read it, you wouldn’t be here,” Gerlich managed. Beyond his office, he could hear crashing and scraping and hacking—the sounds of the SS guards looting the pressroom, breaking furniture, destroying file cabinets.

“What do we have here?” Himmler leaned over, taking a look at Gerlich’s desk. “Copy for tomorrow’s edition, Fritz?”

“You can’t… see that!”

“And yet, here I am, seeing it.” Himmler clucked his tongue as he read the article. Then he ripped the copy into pieces. “Herr Gerlich, you have the wrong story. I’ve brought our lawyer, Herr Frank, to explain.”

Hans Frank, Hitler’s personal lawyer and counsel to NSDAP, stepped forward. Well dressed, with receding dark hair, Frank handed several documents to Gerlich. “We will sue Der Illustrierte Sonntag and you personally, Herr Gerlich,” he said. “And as always, we will win.”

“Only because the Munich judges are in your pocket.” Gerlich looked over the papers. One contained a draft of a lawsuit against him. The other was a single piece of paper, what looked like a press release. “What is this?”

“That,” said Himmler, “is the true story. Which you will print tomorrow.”

Gerlich looked it over. “‘Unsatisfied artistic achievement’? This is a joke. We will not print such rubbish! If Geli Raubal committed suicide, why has the government whisked away her body so she cannot be examined?”

Himmler sighed. He removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “Yet again, you have incorrect information, Fritz. And you have reached the end of the road on this story. Is that clear?”

“Never,” Gerlich growled. “We will never stop telling the truth.”

Himmler looked Gerlich over, then nodded to the SS troopers. Himmler got to his feet and came around the desk. A moment later, the guards turned over Gerlich’s desk with a furious crash, papers flying everywhere. They lifted his typewriter off the back desk and threw it against the wall.

“You have no right to do this!” Gerlich shouted.

Himmler looked him over again. “Do consider the press release we gave you, yes? I think you’ll find that other newspapers have reconsidered their editorial positions. You wouldn’t want to be left alone, twisting in the wind.”

“I am never alone,” he whispered.

“Ah. Ah, yes. Your religious conversion. I’ve heard.” Eyes narrowed, Himmler bent at the waist, moving closer to Gerlich. “God has given us the Führer, Fritz. You’d do well to fall in line like a humble servant.”

“Never,” Gerlich hissed. “I will not bow to a false prophet like Hitler.”

“What did you call him?” Himmler straightened up, removed his sidearm, and aimed it at Gerlich’s face. “I dare you to say that again.”

Gerlich closed his eyes and silently began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

“Say it again, Gerlich! I dare you!”

Gerlich, chin up, looked Himmler in the eyes. “Hitler is a false prophet. A demigod. A charlatan. I will never bow to such a hateful, bigoted—”

Himmler discharged his firearm, a single shot, before Gerlich could finish the sentence.

13

Autopsy theater

Munich

THE FÜHRER DREW A deep breath and put a shaky hand against the wall. He looked through the glass partition into the room. “Promise me again, Rudolf,” he whispered. “I don’t want to see that part. I can’t see it.”

“They’ve already performed the necessary incisions, mein Führer.” Hess stood close to Hitler but did not touch him. “They’ve assured me.”

“All right,” he said to Hess. “I only care about two things.”

“Yes, mein Führer.” Hess knocked on the glass wall. In the adjoining room, two doctors in scrubs and masks nodded back. They turned to the body and pulled back the sheet. They removed their instruments and began work on Geli Raubal’s body.

Hitler immediately broke into a sweat, though the room in which they sat was quite cool. His knees buckled. Hess reached for him, but Hitler maintained his balance.

“Perhaps we should sit, mein Führer?”

“No,” Hitler whispered. “I must see this.”

In reality, there was little to see. At Hess’s insistence, the doctors had their backs to the glass partition, so to the extent the surgeons were required to navigate their instruments through Geli’s organs, the Führer would not see it.

“Oh, mein prinzesschen!” Hitler suddenly wailed. “Why did you make me do this? Why?” He pounded his fists on the glass. The surgeons turned at the sound, but Hess waved them off.

“This was not your fault, mein Führer. I am so sorry. Come, let us sit.”

Hitler relented, dropping into a chair, his head in his hands, trembling and sobbing uncontrollably.

Hess stood next to Hitler, a hand on his shoulder. It was out of the ordinary to casually touch the Führer, but this situation was out of the ordinary.

After a very long ten minutes, the principal surgeon turned and nodded to Hess.

“Mein Führer, I will be back in a moment.”

Hess left the room and met the surgeon, a tall, bearded fellow with thick glasses, in the adjoining quarters. The surgeon handed Hess a small container that housed the bullet taken from Geli’s body. “It was lodged in her lung,” he told Hess.

“Very good.” Not that Hess cared, but the Führer might. For some reason he didn’t explain—the Führer never had to explain himself to anyone—he wanted the bullet removed from Geli’s body before burial.

“And the question?” Hess asked, steeling himself.

“The answer to the question is yes,” said the surgeon.

When Hess reentered the room, the Führer looked up at him, broken and despondent, his eyes bloodshot and deep-set, his face washed out.

“For you, mein Führer.” He placed the container into Hitler’s outstretched hand.

“And?” Hitler asked.

Hess nodded. “It is confirmed, mein Führer,” he said. “She was pregnant.”

14

September 23, 1931

Zentralfriedhof (Vienna Central Cemetery)

THE DRIVE HAD BEGUN at three in the morning under the cover of darkness. Joseph Goebbels sat silently in the back cabin of the Mercedes with the Führer and Rudolf Hess. They had decided that Heinrich Himmler would stay behind if any further exertions of influence were necessary, and Martin Bormann would maintain contact with the Justice Ministry.

A heavy sorrow continued to engulf Adolf Hitler, his eyes frequently downcast or shut entirely, his movements tentative. Though he had begun to rebound and regain his old form, his mood swung wildly; he would still revert to the abject torment that plagued him immediately after Geli’s death.

Goebbels watched him carefully, if circumspectly. He’d never known the depths of Hitler’s relationship with Geli. There were rumors, of course. And there was no doubt that Hitler had been entranced with his niece, and deeply, jealously possessive of her. Yet he had routinely renounced the notion of marriage—his only bride, he often said, was Germany.

“Rudolf,” said Hitler now, his head rising from his hands, “tell the staff at Prinzregentenplatz that the door to her room shall be locked. No one shall enter but Frau Winter, who shall place fresh flowers in the vase by her bed every day. Otherwise, the room shall not be changed.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“Chrysanthemums,” said Hitler. “Those were her—” He could not finish the sentence, choking on his words. He hooded his face with a hand.

“I will see to it, mein Führer.”

After a long silence, Hitler cleared his throat. “I want busts commissioned. And portraits. In every bedroom in the flat and at the cottage. I want busts and pictures of Geli. And of my mother.” A tear zigzagged down Hitler’s cheek.

“Yes, mein Führer.”

Goebbels felt his stomach rumbling. He’d had nothing to eat since a light dinner. But eating had been a sensitive subject around the Führer since Geli’s death. Hitler had sworn off meat and could stomach nothing more than an occasional plain toast.

They soon arrived at the Zentralfriedhof, the Vienna Central Cemetery, a one-square-mile plot of land filled with lush greenery and Art Nouveau architecture. Established in 1874, the cemetery was a reflection of Viennese history, including among the buried composers Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Strauss.

Angela, Geli’s mother and Hitler’s half sister, had chosen this resting place. Father Johann Pant, the priest here, had been the family’s confessor when Angela and her daughters lived in Vienna, before Hitler had summoned them to Munich.

“When is she arriving?” Hitler asked while staring out the window.

Hess cleared his throat. “Mein Führer, your sister will not be arriving for another two hours.”

Hitler nodded and glanced over at Goebbels. “And you’ll handle this, Joseph.”

“Of course, mein Führer.”

Goebbels exited the car as the sun peeked its head over the horizon. Two other Mercedes pulled up from behind, carrying other NSDAP dignitaries, a significant presence of SS troopers, and of course the hearse containing Geli’s coffin.

The St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery Church towered over the cemetery’s Catholic section. At the top of the building’s grand exterior staircase stood a priest.

Noting Goebbels’s obvious limp, the priest walked down the stairs to greet him. “Herr Goebbels,” he said.

“Father Pant.” They shook hands. “Is there somewhere we can speak privately?”

Father Johann Pant was a rather tall man with kind eyes and a lined face. He walked with his head bowed but spoke in crisp and even tones. “Yes, Herr Goebbels,” he said. “Of course, I understand the sensitivity.”

“And I understand that our conversation will remain… confidential?”

“Our conversation is protected by the confessional seal, Herr Goebbels. I would be forbidden to repeat it.”

It helped to hear the priest say the words.

Because if this conversation ever became public, it could blow the lid off everything.

Goebbels discussed with Father Pant the family’s desire to have Geli buried in the Catholic cemetery. “You must understand that the Führer—”

“Herr Hitler. I’ve known him for twenty years, Herr Goebbels, though it’s been quite some time since we’ve spoken.”

“He speaks quite reverentially of you, Father. He holds you in the highest regard. And surely you understand that he is a man of great prominence.”

“Indeed. But surely you must understand that those who die by suicide cannot be buried on consecrated ground,” Father Pant reminded him. “It is against Catholic doctrine.”

“Yes, of course, Father. Which is why I wanted to speak with you. Fräulein Raubal is guilty of no such sin.”

“Suicide was the official pronouncement of the Bavarian authorities, was it not?”

“Indeed it was, Father. But what we know for certain is that Fräulein Raubal would have never committed suicide.”

“Ah.” Father Pant looked up at the sky. “I must tell you, having known Geli as a girl, I would’ve never believed it. She was such a lively, energetic spirit.”

“And that vibrance and love of life—it never left her, Father. She was a young woman of great promise. Her death is the greatest of tragedies.”

“Then—”

“Father, I will be blunt. Like any man of great stature and power, especially one all but certain to be the next president of Germany, the Führer has many political enemies. We believe that one of these enemies killed poor Geli in the home they shared for the express purpose of injuring him politically. Embarrassing him. And likewise allowing them to smear him with innuendo. I trust you’ve read many newspaper accounts.”

“I have, I have.”

“All with smears against the Führer. Suggesting an improper relationship and the like. Perhaps even implicating him personally in the murder. Which of course is ludicrous. The media is playing directly into their hands. Giving them the very result they desired.”

“I would agree that the accounts have been… unflattering, yes.”

“Just so. They are engaging in the most vile of political axioms—if you say something enough times, no matter how ridiculous, people will start to believe it.” Goebbels struggled to keep a straight face while quoting his personal motto for propaganda but assigning it to Hitler’s enemies instead.

The priest let out a small chuckle. But then he grew quiet. “My understanding, though, is that Herr Hitler’s political party has embraced the suicide theory. Something about unresolved artistic—I cannot remember the exact phrase—”

“Father, rest assured, we do not believe for one moment that Fräulein Raubal took her life. But right now, we are lying low, if you will. We are trying to unveil the true killer. But the Weimar government is against us. Why, did you see that the Munich Police were kicked off the case? That the Bavarian minister of justice took over the investigation? That is highly, highly unusual. So we must work under the cover of secrecy. We must act without anyone knowing we are doing so. We will bring the killer to justice, but we have to do so without drawing attention.”

Propaganda was propaganda, whether conveyed to the masses or to a naive, somewhat sympathetic man of the cloth. Goebbels and his associates had orchestrated every last bit of the cover-up, but here he was, standing before a priest, blaming it all on unknown “political enemies” within the Weimar government.

Father Pant stopped and turned to Goebbels. “You are Catholic, my son?”

“I am, Father.”

“I have your word that Fräulein Raubal did not take her life?”

Goebbels made the sign of the cross. “You have my solemn vow,” he said.

Father Pant looked him over, wet his lips.

“And if I may,” Goebbels added, “it would absolutely break Angela’s heart if she could not bury her daughter here, with you, her beloved priest, presiding.”

Goebbels bowed his head. He didn’t need to hear the father’s answer. He already knew it.

The justice minister had already shut down the investigation into Geli Raubal’s death. In just hours, they would bury her body. Yes, there would still be stray news stories, but the trail would go cold.

The worst was over.

15

Present Day

Viktualienmarkt

Munich

“WIE BITTE,” I SAY to the young woman I accidentally bump into in the farmer’s market.

Munich’s largest market in the heart of Altstadt—literally “old town”—spans from Petersplatz to Frauenstraße. Vendors sell fresh fruits and vegetables, spices and flowers, cheeses and sausages from wooden bins under tented stalls, with separate pavilions for fish, fowl, and other meats, and bakery items, to say nothing of the beer tents.

“Professor Robbins?”

I’m seated at an old-fashioned wood picnic table near the tents, snacking on a plate of sausage, when I spot a girl wearing a white puffy coat and stocking cap.

“Monica?”

We have spoken by phone but this is our first meeting. Monica looks almost cherubically youthful, younger than the grad student I know her to be. Like me, she’s also from Chicago, but has been living in Munich this past year, studying at LMU—Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

I offer to buy her a cup of cider.

“Oh, thanks, that’s so kind of you. It’s nice to see you in person,” Monica says, sitting down. Her curls sneak out from under her cap, but it’s her lively and probing eyes that give away her lineage as the great-granddaughter of Thomas Bauer, whom I’ve come to feel I know so well from reading his diaries.

“Are you enjoying Munich? I assume you’ve been here before?”

“Several times, but my last visit was over a decade ago,” I say. “And yes, I love it.” The truth is I’ve always had mixed feelings being here, where all the evil and madness started in the 1930s. Most of the people living here back then committed the sin of blindness, often willful, of not wanting to believe that they were led by a monster, of not reacting quickly or forcefully enough when it became clear that he was assuming full and absolute control, of allowing themselves to become numb to the coercive propaganda machine.

“What about you?” I ask. “Have you enjoyed your time here?”

“I have. I really have.” She chuckles. “My German’s much better, that’s for sure. I’m only a semester from completing my master’s in international studies. I’ll miss Munich when I go back home to Chicago. But…” Her smile fades. “I can’t stop thinking about Francis Linderman’s suicide. It was so unexpected.”

I bow my head. “I never actually got the chance to meet him,” I say. “I only saw the research materials he sent me.”

“I never met him, either,” she sighs. “But I met with his grandfather, in this market, actually, right over there. He’d heard that my great-grandfather kept a journal. And he had one, too, from his father. When we compared them, we realized we had the makings of an important story.”

“Why did the two of you decide to have Francis send the journals to me, of all people?”

“‘Of all people’?” Monica gives me a sidelong glance. “Don’t be modest, Professor. You’re one of the leading American scholars on Nazi Germany.” She grinned. “You were the obvious choice.”

I bow my head at the praise. “Well, then, to honor Francis’s memory, let’s continue the work. Did his grandfather give you the remaining evidence to pass along?”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t give it to me. He wants to give it to you directly, Professor. I think, in part, he wanted to test your commitment by seeing if you’d come here. But he’s also extremely cautious. Extremely. He’s written out explicit instructions on how you two are to meet. That’s what I’m supposed to give you today. I apologize for all the cloak-and-dagger. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you, Professor. It’s just that after Francis’s death, his level of caution has amped up considerably—”

As Monica reaches into her pocket, I sense something not quite right among the mass of people casually strolling among the vendor tents. A blip on my internal warning system too tiny to even acknowledge until it’s too late, and a lone man suddenly darts in our direction and swipes my purse without breaking stride.

In an instant, he dashes between two vendor tents and disappears onto the streets.

The snap of a finger, and my purse is gone.

I am frozen, stunned, still processing, as Monica calls out “No!” and jumps up from the table.

“Monica, don’t,” I manage. “Please.”

“Oh, my God.” Monica, on her feet, staring in the direction of the thief who is now long gone, turns to me. “I’m so sorry, Professor.”

The after-adrenaline hits me. I take deep breaths and try to keep still. “It’s—it’s—it’s—it’s just a purse.” I bring a trembling hand to my face.

Just a random purse snatching, a crime of opportunity. The kind of thing that happens every day in public places all around the world.

Or was he targeting me specifically?

No. I’m sure it was a garden-variety purse snatching. A middle-aged woman who didn’t secure her purse. I was an easy target. That’s all.

“Well, we should report this,” Monica says. “We should get the police. Was your wallet in there? Your passport?”

That’s the good news. I pat my midsection. “Lucky for me, I always keep my passport, phone, and credit card in a travel band under my coat.” I look up at her. “It was just some euros and odds and ends like my hand sanitizer. Nothing I can’t easily replace.”

Monica leans forward. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“It’s just a shock, that’s all.” I stand up from my seat. “No need to report this. I can’t imagine what that would get me, other than a lot of paperwork and hassle.”

“You’re shaking.” Monica loops her arm in mine. “Let’s at least get a change of scenery. You poor thing.”

We walk through the market, past the maypole, a blue-and-white-striped wooden pole with wooden banners protruding on each side depicting the various aspects of Munich entertainment, and stop and sit on a bench near St. Peter’s Church.

“So here is the information,” Monica says, handing me two sheets of paper. “I thought the directions were overly cautious. But now I’m beginning to wonder…”

“My bag getting stolen had nothing to do with our meeting or the book I’m writing. I’m sure of it.” I read over the paper she handed me. She’s right. Cautious is an understatement. It reads more like a treasure map than a set of instructions.

Monica still looks concerned. “And you’re sure you’re okay?” she probes once more. “You call me for any reason—any reason at all, yes?”

“Of course, yes, I will. Thanks, Monica. I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “Absolutely fine.”

“If you’re sure…” She doesn’t seem convinced.

I’m not, either. But I’ve gotten this far. I’m not stopping now.

16

September 24, 1931

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

“NO. NO! THIS IS unacceptable!” The Führer, still hiding out at his publisher’s cottage on Lake Tegernsee, dressed comfortably in his lederhosen, threw snippets of newspaper headlines he’d cut out into the air.

QUESTIONS STILL REMAIN IN DEATH OF HITLER’S NIECE

SUICIDE OR MURDER? HITLER’S INVOLVEMENT REMAINS UNKNOWN

DID HITLER MURDER GELI RAUBAL?

“How can they do this?” he demanded, his face glowing red. “How can they continue to spread this poison?” He pointed at Rudolf Hess, at Joseph Goebbels, each of whom stood patiently at attention. “You said this would stop! You said you would make this stop!”

“We are making it stop, mein Führer,” said Hess, hands clasped behind his back. “Most of the major newspapers have stopped—”

“Not all of them! Not all of them, Rudolf! I want satisfaction!” Hitler grabbed Hess by the arm. “Get Himmler. This will stop now!”

The plaza was quiet at night. The Viktualienmarkt was empty, the vendors long having closed down their tents and packed up their wares. Two men, wearing trench coats and fedoras, stood silently at the foot of Peter’s Hill by the market’s shuttered butcher hall.

The imposing Gothic clock above Danatbank bellowed its echoing midnight chime. The two men started walking through the empty market, then turned right on the Tal, passing the raucous Sterneckerbrau beer hall, and stopped two doors down next to a large picture window that bore the words FREIE PRESSE MÜNCHEN.

They looked around. Saw nothing that concerned them. Then one of them pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on and off twice before the men continued walking.

From down the street, the tires of two vehicles squealed into action. Two bright red Opel pickup trucks raced toward them and screeched to a halt at the curb. Men dressed all in black emerged from the back beds of the trucks, carrying weapons. Hatchets smashed the picture window, glass raining down onto the street. The men stepped inside.

They rifled through every desk in the newsroom, pulling out papers and throwing them into a heap in the middle of the room. They found the printing presses in a rear room and used their hatchets, hacking off the beds and platens and rollers and levers until the machines were in twenty pieces. Then they doused the entire newsroom with gasoline, including the heap of paper in the middle of the room. On their way out, the last person lit a stick of dynamite and tossed it inside before rushing to the truck.

A ball of fiery orange and black smoke burst through the window as the trucks sped away.

Three miles to the north, in the Schwabing District, live jazz played in the Taverne der Künstler on Kaulbachstraße, a favorite of the bohemian crowd. In the dimly lit room with velvet booths and drapes, people drank and smoked and swayed on the black-and-white-tiled dance floor until someone standing by a window called out, “Look! Come look! What is that?”

Patrons gathered at the window, looking at a large metal contraption lying in pieces on the sidewalk. Moments later, a number of men dressed in all black ran out of the building, having come from the floor above the tavern, the home of the Täglicher Zuschauer—the Daily Spectator.

And then a boom rocked the entire building. Licks of flame rained down on the street. The patrons sprinted for the exit, logjamming as pieces of plaster began to crumble upon them. It took nearly ten minutes, by most accounts, for the tavern’s ceiling to cave in, by which time everyone inside was standing outside on the street, watching black smoke plume from the home of one of Munich’s left-leaning newspapers.

By sunrise, four newspapers serving Munich, each of them critical of the NSDAP generally and Adolf Hitler specifically, were nothing but charred remnants.

17

September 25, 1931

Franz Kabarett

Munich

BAUER ENTERED THE CABARET just after his shift ended at five o’clock. It hadn’t opened to the public yet; preparations were being made for the evening’s entertainment. Round high-top tables covered in white cloth filled most of the floor space; otherwise the place was nearly all gold, from its wallpaper to the lanterns to the ceiling, painted in gold and green, depicting dragons and other fictitious creatures that, to Bauer’s eye, were more reminiscent of the Orient than anything else.

On the stage that occupied the west wall, six women in top hats and heels wearing faux-tuxedo tops and the shortest of black shorts kicked out their silk-stockinged legs as they rehearsed a dance number while a piano played in the corner.

“More energy, girls, more energy!” shouted a woman in an aqua-blue sequin dress, looking as much like the evening’s entertainment as the dancers onstage. She caught sight of Bauer in her peripheral vision and frowned at him.

“Excuse the interruption.” Bauer pulled out his card. “Kriminalpolizei. I’m looking for Herr Kubizek.”

She gave Bauer a good long once-over, enough to indicate her opinion of the Munich police force. “Can I tell him what this is about?”

“A murder investigation,” he said.

She excused herself. Bauer stuffed his hands in his pockets. The dancers up on the stage seemed intrigued but wary of him. He wondered if they had any useful information, which had been hard to come by. His only sources thus far were the prostitutes, who routinely provided information for a price.

Before he could strike up a conversation, the woman in the sequin dress returned. “I’m afraid Herr Kubizek is not available, Inspector. But he will gladly telephone the police station later tonight—”

“Can’t wait until tonight.” Bauer edged past her and headed down the same hallway from where she had reappeared, pushing through a red velvet curtain and up a flight of stairs.

“Excuse me, Inspector!” she called after him, probably to warn her boss as much as object. Bauer didn’t care. At the top of the flight of stairs was a door with the word MANAGER.

He pushed through it and found a man, meticulously attired in a black double-breasted suit and red tie, seated behind a desk with a woman on his lap who was half his age and a lot less attired. “I need a minute with you, Herr Kubizek.”

“Now, just a minute, Inspector! This is highly improper.”

The woman on his lap fastened her green dress, grabbed her heels, and left them alone. Herr Kubizek had slicked hair and a tight mustache. His face colored with anger, if not embarrassment.

“I agree, this is improper,” said Bauer, noting the wedding band on Kubizek’s finger. “But I won’t mention it to your wife.”

With a harrumph, Kubizek raised his chin and looked Bauer in the eye. “Very well, then. How can I be of assistance to the kriminalpolizei?”

“Geli Raubal,” said Bauer. “She was here on Friday night with her uncle, Adolf Hitler. She was found dead the next morning in his apartments.”

Kubizek double-blinked. His expression intensified. “Geli Raubal… Geli Raubal…” He massaged his temple, as if straining the depths of his memory. “I do not recall this woman.”

“The woman who sang three songs that night? The woman you introduced to the crowd?” Bauer moved closer to his desk. There were a number of folders settled neatly on the leather surface, along with an ornate pen set and several photographs in silver frames. “The woman who came in with Hitler, the self-proclaimed King of Munich? Or did you forget the tables full of Nazi fascists at your place on Friday?”

“The Führer? I don’t believe I recall him being here.” Kubizek shrugged. “It’s certainly possible that he was, but I’m so busy—”

Bauer slammed his fist down on the desk. “Try that again, Kubizek. Next time I don’t like the answer, I’m hitting something besides this desk.”

Kubizek seemed to wilt in his chair. “You’re a police inspector. You can’t go around hitting—”

“I’m a police inspector who’s getting the runaround. And I’m sick of it.” Bauer got his hands under the desk and leaned it forward, the contents of the desk spilling onto Kubizek’s lap. “What’s the matter, Walter? Did they get to you? Warn you off talking to me? Believe me, you have more to fear from me than them.”

“I highly doubt that.” Kubizek was on his feet now, back against the wall.

“So they did get to you.” Bauer got in the cabaret owner’s face. “I pick up that phone and make one call, the entire evening shift of the kriminalpolizei will be down here searching every corner of your place. Think we’ll find some sort of contraband? I’ll bring in some health inspectors, too. We’ll shut this place down for a week, easy.”

“Please, Inspector.” Sweat had broken out on Kubizek’s considerable forehead. “You know what these men are capable of.”

“So help me stop them. Tell me what happened that night. Confidentially.”

The owner considered that. But he clearly didn’t know whom to trust. The Nazis must have put a pretty good fright in him.

“Herr Hitler and his niece left earlier than everyone else,” said Bauer. “Yes?”

Kubizek nodded, blinking his eyes furiously. “Long before the show ended.”

“How soon after Geli finished singing?” Bauer had heard from his prostitute sources that it was almost immediately after, but he wanted to hear it from Kubizek.

“Right away,” he whispered. “Within a few minutes.”

“Why?”

“How can I know such a—”

“Because you escorted Geli back to her table,” said Bauer. “You were right by them.”

“I heard nothing!” he cried.

Bauer gripped the man by his wool suit, pinning him against the wall. “Kubizek, I swear to God, I’ll put your head through this wall—”

“You’ve upstaged me enough!” Kubizek shouted.

“Upstaged?” Bauer didn’t understand. “You’re going to be a lot more than upstaged when I’m through with you—”

“No, no, I’m telling you what he said to her.” Kubizek began to falter. Bauer was now propping him up.

“Tell me word for word.”

Kubizek looked away, his body trembling, beads of sweat dripping down his face. “He said to her, ‘You’ve upstaged me enough for one evening.’”

18

THOMAS BAUER PUSHED HIS way through the double doors of the cabaret with a sigh, letting the brisk air splash his face. He didn’t get much from the owner, but he got what he needed, a missing link in a working theory.

He walked down the street, toward the tram on Rheinstraße that would take him back to the station. Across the street, the Obdachlosenheim München—one of the city’s homeless shelters, with its recognizable green awning—was turning people away, handing out blankets and cushions and small meal packets.

The sun had lowered behind the buildings, casting him in relative darkness. As he headed south, he heard a set of footfalls that seemed to match his, step for step.

Yes. He was sure of it. Someone was following him.

Bauer picked up the pace without being obvious. He reached an alley just short of Rheinstraße and turned and waited. He heard the footfalls pick up.

He counted down, waiting, senses at full alert, heartbeat kicking his chest, drawing his Walther PPK 9-millimeter.

A man turned down the alley. Bauer jumped him, tucking his arm under the man’s, bending his arm behind his back and driving him into a brick wall. He shoved the pistol into the man’s neck. “I’m police,” he hissed, “and if you make one move, you’re the next body I bring to the morgue.”

“I mean no harm, Inspector.”

“No? Sneaking up behind a cop just for laughs?” Bauer kicked the man’s feet to spread them apart. With his free hand, he patted him down. He removed a pistol from a holster clipped to the man’s belt, a crappy old six-shooter. He flipped open the cylinder and let each bullet fall from its chamber, clattering on the pavement. Then he took possession of the pistol.

“I have a license for that,” the man whined.

“Don’t we all.” Bauer spotted a bulge at the bottom of the man’s pant leg. “You got a second one down there?”

“Y-yes. An ankle holster. But I told you. I am no threat to you.”

“Pretty heavily armed for a guy who’s no threat to me, mister.” Bauer removed and pocketed the second firearm. “Now tell me your name.”

But already this was feeling wrong. This guy wasn’t muscle. He had some size, but he was soft, ill suited for combat. He wore glasses, an oversized wool coat, and a homburg hat—at least he had, before it had fallen off. No, this guy looked more like a professor than a thug.

“The name’s Fritz Gerlich,” the man said. “I’m a journalist.”

“If you’re lying to me, the only thing you are is a corpse.” His gun pressed into Gerlich’s neck, Bauer fished into the man’s pocket and produced a small case. He shook it and heard a rattle inside.

“That’s a rosary, Inspector.”

Bauer tried the other pocket and got Gerlich’s wallet. He flipped it open awkwardly with one hand and saw the man’s ID: Carl Albert Fritz Michael Gerlich, editor in chief, Der Illustrierte Sonntag.

“My God.” Bauer stepped back and took a long breath, the after-adrenaline filling him. “You have any idea how close you came to getting shot?”

“I do now, yes.” The man turned to face Bauer, straightening out his coat and dusting it off with his hands, fixing his glasses.

“So what the hell does a journalist want with me?”

“We can help each other. On the investigation into Geli Raubal’s death.”

“Who said I was investigating that? That case is closed.”

Gerlich raised his eyebrows. “Is that why you just went to the Franz Kabarett, the last place Geli was seen before her death? Because the case is closed?”

Bauer didn’t have a quick answer for that. At least not one Gerlich would believe. Besides, he admired the guy’s initiative.

“You and I both know he killed her,” said Gerlich. “Let me help you prove it.”

19

Munich beer hall

“YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES. I have somewhere to be.” In a corner booth inside the beer hall down the street from where he encountered Fritz Gerlich, Thomas Bauer raised his pint and took a sip of foamy lager. The restaurant, all paneled wood with framed political cartoons on the walls, was packed, boisterous, even rowdy, but that was fine with Bauer; less chance that they would be overheard.

Gerlich was a nervous sort, fidgety and agitated. He kept adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, playing with his bow tie, and pushing around his glass of juice (he did not drink alcohol). “You don’t think Geli committed suicide,” he said.

“Let’s say I don’t.”

“Do you know he’s done something like this before?”

“Hitler, you mean. What has he done before?”

“He was with another underage girl. About the same age as Geli was when he started up with her. Geli was twenty-three when she died, but she was a teen when it started.”

Bauer’s eyes moved around the room, just to ensure they weren’t attracting attention. “I’m listening,” he said.

“Maria Reiter. Mimi, they called her. Mimi Reiter. He started up with her when he was thirty-seven and she was sixteen. She ended up trying to commit suicide.”

“Trying?”

“She tried to hang herself. Her brother found her and saved her. But look at this pattern. Mimi had no father to speak of. Not one she loved, at least; she said he was terrible to her. Just like Geli never had a father. He died when she was a toddler.”

Bauer leaned back against the booth. “So he was like a father to them?”

“Exactly. He was twenty-one years older than Mimi, and nineteen years older than Geli. He manipulates them. He dominates them. He uses them. The only difference is that Mimi tried to kill herself. I think Geli fought back.”

Bauer thought so, too, based on the crime scene. The broken mirror, Geli’s broken nose. A struggle of some kind had occurred.

“This man is a sexual deviant.” Gerlich drilled a finger into the table. “He’s a sick, twisted man. He’s a deceitful con artist who has no ideology other than power lust and sadism.”

“Other than that, how do you feel about him?” Bauer joked.

“I know this man,” Gerlich snarled. “I’ve known him since he was hustling around the back rooms of Munich beer halls ten years ago, talking to ten drunks at a time, spewing his anti-Semitic hate. I watched him grow in popularity, appealing to the lowest instincts of nationalism and bigotry. I’ve watched him galvanize crowds of hundreds and thousands and take over the National Socialist Party. I’ve seen him look men in the eye and lie to them, betray them. I was there firsthand for the putsch.”

The Beer Hall Putsch, he meant. Adolf Hitler’s earlier attempt to seize power in 1923 by using the National Socialists’ paramilitary troops, the Sturmabteilung (Storm Division) or SA, to capture Bavaria’s Commissioner General Gustav von Kahr and compel his allegiance at gunpoint. The coup failed when von Kahr and others managed to alert the Bavarian army, which crushed the rebellion in a shootout on the street. Hitler had narrowly survived.

“You were at the Bürgerbräukeller when it happened?” Bauer asked.

Gerlich nodded. “I was there. And I was present a week earlier when Hitler pledged his allegiance to von Kahr personally.”

“Damn.”

“And I was there, Inspector, at Hitler’s trial for treason. I watched him give speech after speech to a crowd of roaring spectators in the courtroom. Even one of the judges was smiling at him by the end. They sentenced him to five years but gave him probation after nine months. Nine months! Nine months for staging a coup against the government.” Gerlich waved a hand.

“I remember.”

“He even managed to grow in popularity while in Landsberg Prison,” Gerlich went on. “They put him in a suite nicer than most bedrooms. He dictated Mein Kampf to his cellmate and lackey, Rudolf Hess. And he plotted his comeback. He strategized. He got smarter, Bauer.” Gerlich put his index finger to his temple. “He adapted. He realized that violent overthrow wasn’t the way. The way was political. To win elections. Did you see how well the Nazis did in the last parliamentary election?”

“I did.”

“He’ll be our next reichspräsident,” said Gerlich. “You mark my words. By pure force of will, he will win. And then there will be no stopping him. He will indoctrinate the nation with his hatred and plunge us into war, internally and externally.”

Bauer held much the same opinion, but hearing someone else say it aloud was validating. He’d spent the better part of the last week trying to pry information from witnesses who were either unwilling or afraid to stand up to Hitler.

Bauer took another sip of his beer and glanced around the room again, checking if anyone was paying them particular attention. “Four newspaper offices were ransacked and torched in the last forty-eight hours,” he said. “If you’re such a crusading journalist, why were you spared?”

“I don’t know how spared I was,” said Gerlich. “I received a visit from Himmler. He fired a bullet about an inch over my head. His storm troopers ransacked my pressroom.”

“He didn’t torch it, though?”

Gerlich chewed on his lip. “The newspapers they attacked were of smaller circulation. It was a warning to the rest of us. But they’ve threatened my publisher already. I’m getting pressure to cut back on my ‘anti-Hitler bias.’ I am now required, for the first time, to run my editorials past my publisher.”

“Sorry for your troubles.”

“Well, it won’t be for long, Inspector. I’m going to start a new periodical. I’m calling it Der Gerade Weg.”

“The Straight Path?”

“Yes. And then I will be free to say whatever I want to say. It’s the only thing I know to do, Bauer—shine as much of a spotlight on Hitler as I can before it’s too late.”

Bauer wondered—was Gerlich the real deal? Was this bow-tied, spectacled intellectual really going to stand up to the thuggish Nazis?

Bauer checked his watch. He had to leave. “Look, Gerlich, do you have any proof that Hitler killed Geli?”

Gerlich’s expression dropped. “I’m working on a source. I’m doing what I can. When I know more, you’ll know more. But that’s not the important question.”

“No? What is?”

“The important question is, what are you going to do with the information, Bauer? The case has been closed. Your boss has warned you off the case. That hamster of a justice minister will never sign off on an arrest, much less a prosecution. So what is a mid-level cop like you going to do?”

Bauer moved out of his seat and stood, buttoning his coat. He leaned into Gerlich. “Whatever it takes,” he said. “I will do whatever it takes.”

20

Bauer residence

Oberföhring

“BUTTON ME, PLEASE.” THOMAS Bauer’s wife, Amalie, turned her back to him. He buttoned up her blue dress. “You’re wearing a tie?”

“I thought I would. Need to impress the in-laws, right?”

She turned to him and reached for the tie. “Well, at least tie a decent knot, then.” She pulled it apart and retied it. “You’re like a child.”

“You clean up pretty nice, Frau Bauer. And you tie a perfect tie.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Is that sweet-talking supposed to make me forget that you were late tonight?”

He shrugged and checked his tie in the mirror. “I had to make a quick stop after work.”

“I don’t want to know, do I?”

He laughed. “Probably not.”

“Might this concern a certain investigation that you’re not supposed to be investigating?”

“Mom! I can’t find my shoes.”

They both rolled their eyes. It was Maxine, their six-year-old.

“They’re by the front door, sweetie!” she called back.

The Bauers left their small flat in Oberföhring and traveled to a quiet, leafy street in the Neuhausen neighborhood, one of Munich’s most exclusive. Though it was night, the massive stucco five-bedroom villa still managed to intimidate Bauer, reminding him that he couldn’t afford his in-laws’ place even if he pooled every last reichsmark he’d ever earn in his entire career as a kripo.

“Ready?” Amalie asked her husband.

“Well, I faced down the Allied forces on the western front, so I can probably handle dinner with your parents.” He glanced over at his wife. She gave him one of those wry half smiles that left him defenseless. Eight years and two children later, Bauer still couldn’t believe that he’d convinced Amalie Geiger to marry him.

“They’re not that bad,” she said.

“No? What’s the bet tonight? I say two minutes.”

“Two minutes? No chance. I’ll take that bet.”

“Take what bet?” This from Maxine, who took after her mother, a mess of curls. Next to her, their five-year-old boy, Ridley, with his thick brush of dark hair, just like his father.

“Nothing, Mouse,” said Bauer.

“Oma! Opa!” the kids called out as his in-laws appeared at the front door. Seligmann Geiger, Bauer’s father-in-law, put out his arms as the kids rushed into them. Amalie’s mother, Marina, beckoned the children inside while Bauer and his wife headed up the stone front path, past the ornate fountain that belonged more in a public park than in someone’s parkway.

“Mein prinzesschen!”

“Hi, Papa.” Amalie gave her father a big hug. He was tall and silver-haired, dressed in a beige cardigan and trousers. Amalie was an only child and thus the apple of her father’s eye. Dad had been none too pleased in her choice of husband, and not because Bauer wasn’t Jewish. Selig was the owner of the Geiger Department Store, a popular houseware and haberdashery store—the third largest in Munich—and one of the only stores in Munich that featured escalators. As a man who had amassed a fortune, Selig had envisioned his daughter marrying a man of means, not a basic cop.

“Tom.” Selig extended a hand, the warmth drained from his greeting.

“Selig. Good to see you.”

“Congratulations on your promotion. I hear you’re a kommisar now.”

“I guess they couldn’t find anyone else to promote.”

“Does that come with a pay raise?”

“Papa,” Amalie scolded him.

“I was just curious, mein prinzesschen. I’m not as familiar with compensation for municipal employees. Come, let’s go inside.”

Her father stepped into the house. Bauer leaned into Amalie. “That wasn’t even one minute,” he whispered.

Bauer and his father-in-law drank aperitifs in the study while Amalie joined her mother in the kitchen and the kids played with Helmut, the golden retriever.

I love my wife, Bauer reminded himself.

The study was approximately the size of the entire ground floor of Bauer’s flat. The carpet was the color of a putting green; Selig had gone to the German Open in Baden-Baden a year earlier and come away with a new obsession. One wall was all bookshelves, filled with volumes sure to impress: financial journals and biographies, Greek tragedies and poetry, essays and studies. Another wall was adorned with stuffed heads—a wild boar, two deer, a moose. The third was the vanity wall, photographs of Selig posing with men of high finance, celebrities, politicians, even one with Kaiser Wilhelm before his abdication.

They sank into gorgeous and exceedingly comfortable leather chairs. Bauer could easily take a nap right there; he was certainly tired enough.

“So how is… police work?” Selig asked, as if forcing those words from his mouth, as if nothing could interest him less. “Oh, say.” He snapped his fingers. “Were you involved with the investigation into the death of Hitler’s niece?”

“A bit,” said Bauer.

“Yes, that’s quite awkward for him, isn’t it? It was beginning to look like nothing was going to stand in his way of being our next president.”

“I don’t think this will, either.”

“Hm. Too soon to tell. He’s a force, no doubt. He has a bright future.”

Bauer took a hard look at his father-in-law. “You like him, Selig?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘like.’ In the world of commerce, we have to keep our friends close and our enemies closer. He’s spoken to the leading businessmen in the city. He and Göring. The war hero?”

“I know who Hermann Göring is.”

“Hitler, he’s full of rhetoric on the campaign trail, but he’s assured us that he understands that a robust nation requires a robust economy. He’ll be fine.”

“He’ll be fine?” Bauer sat forward in his chair. “Hitler is a rabid anti-Semite, Selig. Have you heard the things he says about the Jews? He calls you swine. He calls you vermin. He’s talking about you. He’s talking about Marina. He’s talking about Amalie.”

“Yes, of course. I don’t like it, obviously.”

“You don’t like it? Selig, a guy like Adolf Hitler should never be anywhere near the presidency.”

Selig let out a long sigh. “Tom, let me explain something to you.”

Bauer drained his glass and poured another.

I love my wife. I love my wife.

“Hitler is just a politician,” Selig said. “Now, here in Germany, we’re not accustomed to politicians. We’ve had kaisers and now this—this sorry Weimar government forced down our throats by a war treaty. We’re not accustomed to people like Hitler. But if you work in business, you need an international perspective. Look at other democracies in Europe. Look at America. These countries are accustomed to these politicians. They say whatever they have to say to get elected. They have to appeal to their constituents for support. But they don’t actually do most of the things they promise. Hitler’s a blowhard, Tom—a carnival barker. His bark will be much worse than his bite, trust me.”

“You’re wrong, Selig.”

“For people like us,” said his father-in-law, motioning around the room, all the trappings of wealth, “it doesn’t matter who’s in power.”

“I can’t listen to this anymore.” Bauer popped out of his chair. “Selig, you’re deluding yourself. It’s people like you looking the other way that will allow this to happen. What, Hitler and Göring whisper sweet nothings to you and you think you’re safe? You’re not. And you know why? One reason and one reason only—you are Jewish. When that man takes power, that will be the only thing that matters. If you want to tell yourself otherwise, be my guest. But my wife is Jewish. My children are Jewish. And I’m not going to sit around and just hope for the best. So while you’re counting your money and redecorating your mansion, I’m going to fight for my country.”

“Really, you’re being naive.”

Bauer stopped at the door. “I’m being naive? Read your history books, Selig.” Bauer pointed at his father-in-law. “When a politician spews hate, believe him. Because by the time you realize he wasn’t kidding, it will be too late.”

Bauer slammed the door behind him.

21

Gerlich residence

Haidhausen

“EVEN DURING HIS TIME serving faithfully in the List Regiment of the Imperial Army on the Belgium front, comma, Hitler was known to be at odds with most of the other officers, period. He was aloof, intense, judgmental, puritanical, even unwilling to undress around the other soldiers. Period, with commas between the adjectives.”

“I know where to put commas, Fritz,” said Sophie, Gerlich’s wife of eleven years, looking up at her husband, her fingers poised over the keys of the portable Underwood typewriter on their circular oak kitchen table. Since the attack, Gerlich had been reluctant to spend much time at his office at the Illustrierte Sonntag, preferring instead to work out of a vacant flat owned by a landlord friend or, in the evenings, at home with Sophie in their small bungalow near the city center in Haidhausen.

“Hitler doesn’t like to undress in front of others?” Sophie asked him now. “Why?”

“Hard to be sure. The soldiers I interviewed said his genitalia were ‘freakishly underdeveloped,’ that he only had one testicle. He won’t even let doctors examine him.”

“Oh, my.”

“Or maybe his modesty owed to his unnatural affection for his mother, whose death appeared to be the end of him until the war came along and gave him some direction. All I know for certain is that his personal life is bizarre, and his sexual appetites run to the extreme, if not Oedipal.”

“If not pedophilic,” agreed Sophie. “And your theory is that these sexual oddities are a window into his character?”

“Wouldn’t Freud say so? But he wants the public to see only a serious, patriotic man committed to a cause, not the sadistic, twisted, manipulative savage beneath.”

Sophie scooted her chair to face him. “Fritz, you’re worrying me.”

“I’m worrying you?” He put a hand on his heart. “Hitler should be worrying you.”

“He is, love. He worries me a great deal.” She walked over to him and put her hands on his chest. “My serious journalist, with the pen that’s mightier than the sword.”

“Don’t make light.”

She rose up on her toes and kissed him softly. “Don’t lose your sense of humor, Fritz,” she whispered. “Don’t become so possessed with that man that you lose everything else about you. You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. Even when you’re here, you’re not. You walk around mumbling this or that about him.”

“I just can’t sit back and watch our nation be deluded by this charlatan, Soph. They think he’s giving them something to believe in. He’s not. The only thing he believes in, besides his hatred of the Jews and the Communists, is that he should hold absolute power. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do everything in my power to stop him.”

He looked at her, saw the concern in her expression.

“You know who you married, Sophie.”

“Yes, I am well aware of the man I married. Just promise me you’ll be careful, Fritz.” She tapped his nose with her finger. “That tiger you’re poking may one day be let out of his cage.”

22

Vacant flat

Ludwigstraße

IN THE BEDROOM OF an empty, otherwise dark flat illuminated only by the flashlight he held in his left hand, Fritz Gerlich put the finishing touches on his lengthy diatribe—per Sophie’s characterization—about Adolf Hitler. His lower back screamed at him for huddling over the card table for hours on end, writing by hand, the rickety table rocking to and fro as he furiously scribbled out his final draft. His wrist ached from poising the flashlight steady all this time. But there was no electricity in this flat, and he dared not draw attention to himself—if not for self-protection, so as not to betray his friend, the landlord of this building who lent him this vacant flat to complete his article incognito.

The flat, generally reserved for students at the University of Munich, reminded Gerlich of his time there, nearly thirty years ago now, when he studied natural sciences before switching to history. So young and eager and idealistic he was, drafting his dissertation on Henry VI and formulating political theories, debating and pondering philosophy with his fellow students over pints and cigarettes at the Augustinerkeller. How uncomplicated life felt then; how uncomplicated it truly was in hindsight.

He put down his pen and picked up the rosary, the cluster of three beads. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” he began in a whisper.

He heard a banging below him, the front entrance of the apartment building. A door opening and closing. Then footfalls on the stairs.

Gerlich picked up the six-shooter lying by his notes on the card table and walked gingerly toward the bedroom door. Bauer had given both his guns back to him. The flat was tiny, of course; from his vantage point, he could see past the stove to the front door. He moved forward slightly to improve his position, though the cheap floorboards groaned with every step.

Through a thumping heartbeat echoing between his ears, he saw the knob on the front door turn.

Gerlich dropped to one knee and aimed his gun, which he supposed was what one did when preparing to fire. He’d never actually used a firearm. His arms shook. He was doubtful of his aim and of his vision, which was bad enough to deny him entry into the Imperial Army during the war. But perhaps simply firing the gun would be enough to scare away—

“Hey. Don’t shoot.” Inspector Thomas Bauer raised his hands in mock surrender. “In fact, I think we’d both feel better if you lowered that gun. Does it even work?”

Gerlich carefully placed the gun on the floor and leaned back with relief against the wall. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I hope not. If that’s how you greet all your guests, you won’t have many friends.”

Gerlich pushed himself to his feet, shook out his nerves, and headed into the bedroom, his makeshift office. “I don’t have many friends,” he said. “Only colleagues. My wife is the social one.”

“You don’t drink and you don’t socialize.” Bauer followed him into the room. “What do you do for fun?”

“I pray the rosary. I attend Mass. I read the Bible.”

“We have different ideas of fun.” Bauer nodded toward the rosary atop the card table. “You’re for real with that, huh? Catholic.”

“I was a Calvinist, but really an agnostic. I didn’t believe. Now I do. It changed my life, Bauer. It may not be ‘fun’ in the sense that you mean, but I feel a fulfillment, a purpose I never have before. I’ve never been happier. I’ve never felt richer. I’ve never felt more alive.”

“Yeah, okay.” Bauer nodded. “I can respect that.”

“What about you?”

“Lutheran.” Bauer waved a hand. “But I don’t go to church. My wife is Jewish. She takes the kids with her to temple. I haven’t been inside a house of worship since I got back from combat. After the things I saw—well, anyway.” He looked away. “I didn’t come here to talk about religion. Let me see the article.”

“This is unbelievable. This is damning.” Bauer, sitting on the floor—there was only one chair—finished reading the partially typed, partially handwritten long-form piece. “This is all true?”

“I confirmed every word.”

“This girl, Mimi Reiter, was only sixteen when Hitler propositioned her? Her father had just died? And he made her call him Wolf?”

“Yes. That was one of the nicknames Geli used for him, too.”

Bauer shook his head as he read through the article. “Hitler once got syphilis from a Jewish prostitute in Vienna?”

“Indeed. So his anti-Semitism is a bit selective, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re publishing this tomorrow. Your publisher’s okay with that?”

Gerlich removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “I’m following the principle that I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.”

“I thought you told me you had to run everything by him.”

“I did. But I’m publishing this article. This may be our last chance, Bauer.” Gerlich paced the small room. “Von Hindenburg is an old, sick man,” he said, referring to the current Reich president, Paul von Hindenburg. “He doesn’t even want to run again. But who else could beat Hitler? And even if von Hindenburg manages to win, the Nazis have too many seats in the Reichstag. They’ll demand Hitler be appointed chancellor. Can you imagine? Hitler in the number two position in government, with an ill, frail octogenarian in the top spot? It will just be a matter of time. Hitler’s too smart. Too strategic. And once he gets power, he will hold on to it like a dog to a bone. He’ll never give it up.”

“And you’re hoping this article opens people’s eyes.”

Gerlich thought about that, then allowed a small chuckle. “It should,” he said. “But do I think it really will? Honestly, Bauer, I have my doubts. Hitler has people under a spell. People are despondent. The economy is the worst it’s ever been. Inflation, unemployment, homelessness are at all-time highs. We’re still paying taxes for reparations from the war. Hitler’s giving them scapegoats—the Jews, primarily, and the Communists. He knows exactly what buttons to push, how to appeal to prejudices and fears and anger and make people believe that there is a better tomorrow for Germany with him. I’m not sure anything I say is going to make people change their minds at this point. They won’t listen.”

“They don’t want to listen,” said Bauer.

“Exactly. They don’t want to hear anything that snaps them out of their spell. Even if I produced a photograph of him shooting Geli in cold blood, most of his supporters probably wouldn’t care.”

Bauer stood up. “Then why write this article and put yourself at risk?”

Gerlich shrugged. “The same reason you’re investigating Geli’s death. Because we have to try, no? Because we won’t forgive ourselves if we don’t.”

Bauer went quiet, studying Gerlich. “You seem like a guy who fights fair,” he said.

“Fights fair? Well, yes, I suppose I do. I fight for the truth.”

Bauer sighed. “All right, Gerlich. All right.” He left the room and returned with the six-shooter Gerlich had left in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” Gerlich asked, alarmed.

“I’m going to show you how to use this thing,” he said. “Because I have a feeling, one day soon, you might need more than the truth.”

23

September 26, 1931

Gerlich residence

Haidhausen

“I CAN EAT NO more.” Fritz Gerlich pushed away his plate and patted his stomach. “As always, my dearest, you spoil me.”

Sophie had prepared his favorite, schweinebraten und kohl—braised pork roast with cabbage—as a celebratory dinner now that his article had been published. She clinked her glass of wine to her husband’s glass of apple juice.

The wind-up phonograph on a small table in the corner played Gerlich’s favorite, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 conducted by Otto Klemperer. He swayed side to side and air-conducted the furious strings of the third movement. The phonograph, housed in a brown leather case with a sterling silver stylus, was a birthday gift from his wife.

“Now, perhaps,” said Sophie, “we could go at least twenty-four hours without mentioning his name? Maybe some articles on economic liberalism or the renegotiation of reparations payments?”

Gerlich, smiling, promised. “I will do my best to control myself.”

“No easy chore, that.” She glanced over at her husband’s article in Der Illustrierte Sonntag published today, the headline blaring FÜHRER ODER BETRÜGER? ANFÜHRER ODER MÖRDER?

Leader or Fraud? Leader or Murderer?

“Subtlety was never my strong suit,” Gerlich admitted. He unwound his bow tie and unbuttoned the collar. “Right now, honestly, all I can think of is getting into my dressing gown and sleeping. But first, let me help you with the dishes.”

“I won’t hear of it, love. You’ve earned a night off—”

A loud crash—the shattering of glass—brought Gerlich instantly to his feet. He rushed from the dining room toward the sound, the small study at the front of the bungalow. Cold air swept in through the broken window. A rock, the size of a fist, lay on the wood floor near shards of shattered glass. Gerlich went to the window, trying to avoid the glass, and looked out onto the dark street. He spotted a truck that seemed out of place on the quiet residential street but saw no men.

“Fritz!”

He turned as he heard a loud crash by the back door, the kitchen. Brownshirts stomped in, wearing their red Nazi armbands, carrying rifles. He reached Sophie before they did and stood in front of his wife. The first of the half dozen guards knocked Gerlich to the floor with the butt of his rifle.

“Leave us, woman,” the guard said, grabbing Sophie by the arm and yanking her from her chair.

“Go, Sophie, run!” Gerlich cried, just as a boot connected with his ribs. He rolled over in agony.

“Turn off that Jew music!” the guard shouted. One of the SS troopers picked up the phonograph and threw it down on the floor with a violent crash.

Another guard attacked the china cabinet, crashing through the glass doors and smashing every single porcelain plate and cup.

Before Gerlich could catch his breath, he was pulled to his feet, his glasses falling to the floor. With his impaired vision, he could only see the blurred image of a guard before he landed another punch to Gerlich’s stomach.

Gerlich struggled for oxygen, sucking in deep, wailing breaths. Though his vision was spotty, his sense of hearing was intact—the sounds of windows shattering, an axe taken to his dining room table, artwork and photographs being knocked from the walls.

He heard noise all through the downstairs, the study and the parlor room—windows smashed out, furniture torn and upended, souvenirs and antiques destroyed. He half stood, propped up by the guards, his knees not far from the floor. Then he heard another voice, an authoritative one, and all was quiet.

“Give him his glasses. The man is blind as a bat without them.” Heinrich Himmler, dressed in full black uniform and Nazi armband, waltzed into the dining room as a guard forced Gerlich’s glasses back onto his face.

“Himmler,” Gerlich managed as he caught his breath. “You rat-faced guttersnipe.”

Himmler nodded, though not to Gerlich. Another punch landed squarely in Gerlich’s gut, doubling him over.

“I like you better when you’re not talking,” said Himmler. “In here, in here. I want him to see it.”

Gerlich’s glasses had fallen from his face again. They forced his spectacles back on and held his chin up. Gerlich’s legs gave out completely, but the guards held him steady.

Slumped and woozy and barely conscious, he heard several loud thumps and saw brownshirts dumping something from large bags.

“We took the liberty of buying up as many copies of your filthy rag of a periodical as we could find,” said Himmler. “Well, I suppose we didn’t buy them. Confiscated would be a better word. Wouldn’t want your publisher turning a profit on this rubbish, would we?”

“You have no right!”

“Gerlich, you pathetic excuse for a journalist—not one more word about the Führer. The next word you write will be your last.”

Gerlich’s head dropped, but then he smelled something. Gas. Gasoline.

And then, just as the guards released their grip on him, just as he was collapsing to the floor, he saw a stripe of orange and heard the whoosh of flame, as over two hundred copies of today’s edition of Der Illustrierte Sonntag were set ablaze in his dining room.

24

September 27, 1931

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

AT HIS DESK, DETECTIVE Inspector Thomas Bauer read the morning’s edition of the Munich Post. It was the day after the publication of Gerlich’s detailed, inflammatory missive in his periodical.

“You got a rise out of him, Fritz, I’ll say that much,” he mumbled. “You definitely got his attention.”

“Sir.”

Bauer flipped to the next page of the paper, continuing the article, ignoring his young kriminalassistent, Helldorff.

“Sir.”

“I told you I don’t answer to ‘sir.’” Bauer looked over the paper at him, with his mop of blond hair and skinny neck.

“Sir—Bauer—may I have a word?”

“Go ahead.”

The inspector’s office was buzzing, with new work coming in every day. Given the band of roving Nazi patrols every night, there was no shortage of crime in Munich these days.

“If you’re still working the Raubal investigation, Bauer, I’d like to help.”

Bauer’s internal radar clicked on. There were spies throughout the kriminalpolizei. Munich was no different from any other department. “I’m not,” he said.

“I believe you are.”

Bauer flipped his newspaper back to the previous page, folded it, and showed it to Helldorff. “Read this, Hergenmeister. Did you see it? Hitler responded for the first time to all the news accounts about Geli.”

Helldorff leaned forward and took a look. Bauer read Hitler’s words along with him:

It is not true that I was having fights again and again with my niece Raubal and that we had a substantial quarrel on Friday or anytime before that.

It is not true that I was decidedly against her going to Vienna. I was never against her planned trip to Vienna.

It is not true that she was going to get engaged in Vienna or that I was against an engagement. It is true that my niece was tormented with the worry that she was not yet fit for her public appearance. She wanted to go to Vienna to have her voice checked once again by a voice teacher.

It is not true that I left my flat on September 18 after a fierce row. There was no row, no excitement, when I left my flat on that day.

“See?” Bauer said. “That clears up everything. The Führer is innocent!”

Helldorff shot him a look. “Come now with the sarcasm, Bauer. I’m young. I’m not stupid.”

“You wanna grow old someday, Heinecke?” Bauer rolled up the newspaper and whacked the kriminalassistent in the arm. “Stay away from this.”

“Sir—Bauer.” Helldorff straightened his back. “I did not join the kriminalpolizei to look the other way.”

Bauer sighed. “Look, kid, I appreciate your—”

“I’m Jewish,” said Helldorff.

Bauer measured him up. The kid’s shirt collar was too big for his neck, and somebody needed to teach him how to knot a necktie. He seemed way too young to take this project on. But then again, Bauer almost got his head shot off on the western front when he was that age.

In truth, he could use all the help he could get. If this young cop was willing to get his hands dirty, who was Bauer to make life choices for him? He leaned closer to Helldorff. “Let’s get a few things straight. You can’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”

“Agreed.”

“We don’t discuss it here. We don’t work on it here. This is off-time only. Evenings, mostly.”

“Understood. Accepted.”

“And one more thing, Hergenhoffer.” He put a finger on Helldorff’s chest. “And this is the most important. Because I know you’re a young, idealistic cop, and I don’t want to be corrupting your principles or anything.”

“Go ahead, Bauer.”

Bauer glanced around to ensure that he was still merely blending in with everyone in the office. “I’m done playing fair. I’m not going by the book on this one.”

“Fine with me, Bauer.” Helldorff even allowed a slight smile.

Bauer took a moment, then nodded presumptively. “Are you hungry? I could use some decent schnitzel.”

When they were outside in the open air, each man lifting his coat collar on a cold, gloomy day, Bauer felt freer to speak. “So what did you make of that letter from Hitler in the Post?”

“I thought it was very defensive,” said Helldorff. “And it left out a lot.” He looked over at Bauer. “What did you make of it?”

“That he’s worried,” said Bauer. “Which means there’s something out there that worries him. Something or someone. And that, my good kriminalassistent, is what we have to find.”

25

Gerlich residence

Haidhausen

Richard-Wagner-Straße 21

“SOPHIE! SOPHIE! YOU HAVE to see this!” Fritz Gerlich came in through the front door of his house, holding groceries from a shop two blocks away, and a newspaper under his arm. “He responded!”

Sophie, on her knees with a hand sweeper, still searching for tiny shards of glass, looked up with an exhausted expression. “Who responded?”

“Who? Hitler, that’s who! In the Post. He wrote a letter to the Munich Post. You know what that means?”

“No. What does it mean?” she said with no enthusiasm, struggling to her feet with a moan, a hand on her back. She hadn’t slept; neither of them had. It had taken until dawn to board up all the broken windows, nailing pieces of wood over the openings, and right the upended furniture, though the cushions had all been torn open.

The dining room table had collapsed in the middle from the axe hacking by the brownshirts. The wood floor near the table was destroyed from the fire, leaving a dark black scorch. It would almost surely have to be replaced. Thank God for the brandblusser—fire extinguisher—to contain the fire, or they might not have had a house left.

At least the small kitchen table remained intact. Gerlich put the food there. “It means we’re making a mark,” he said. “We have him on the run.”

Sophie reached into the bag. “I’d dare say the Nazis have us on the run, love. Wouldn’t you?” She glared at him. “They nearly killed you. They nearly destroyed our home. And you’re declaring victory? Have you completely lost your senses?”

Gerlich bowed his head. “I understand, Soph. If this weren’t important—”

“Am I important, Fritz?” she cried. “Are we important?”

“Of course—”

“Because if you don’t stop, they won’t stop. And the more you threaten them, the more harshly they’ll respond.” She pulled him toward her by the lapels of his coat. “They’ll kill you, Fritz. And if that isn’t enough to scare you, if you’re so damn committed to some ill-fated journalistic ethic that you’re willing to die for the cause, then how about the fact that they’ll kill me, too? Does your wife factor in anywhere in this calculus?”

“Sophie, my dearest.” He put his hands on her cheeks. “This is just what they want. They want to cow us into submiss—”

“Well, then consider me cowed.” She removed his hands and walked back toward the dining room. Then she stopped and turned. “I love you, Fritz, but don’t ask me to stand by and watch you put a gun to your head.”

26

Wirtshaus tavern

Au

THE TAVERN WAS LOCATED in the proletariat Au neighborhood. The clientele was working class, which ordinarily was the kind of tavern Thomas Bauer preferred—dark wood, dim lighting, no nonsense, strong beer, breezy conversation.

But Bauer wasn’t here for pleasure and he wasn’t here to debate local or even national politics. He wasn’t even especially thirsty.

He found a place at the bar and sat next to a man drinking alone, nursing a dark beer. The man was large and burly, with dark wavy hair and a trim mustache. He carried a generally menacing scowl, seemingly content to keep to himself.

Bauer ordered a beer, too. After it arrived, he raised his glass. “Heil Hitler,” he said to the man.

The man glared at him. “You don’t say that as a toast. You say it as a salute.”

“Yeah, but my arm’s tired.”

Bauer’s new friend shifted in his seat, eyes narrowed. “Do we know each other?”

“No,” said Bauer. “You just look like one of those Nazi fascist animals.”

“Say again, friend?” The man grabbed Bauer’s arm.

Bauer slapped down his police card on the bar.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” the man snarled. “Kripo or not, I’ll give you a beating.”

“Keep your powder dry, Emil.”

Emil Maurice, former personal bodyguard and chauffeur to Hitler, loosened his grip on Bauer’s arm. “What is this?”

“I have questions for you, Emil. And you’re going to answer them. If I’m pleased with your attitude when it’s over, you won’t spend the night in a kripo holding cell.”

He sneered. “I’m not afraid of the kriminalpolizei.”

“No? Are you afraid of Himmler? How about the Führer?”

By now, Maurice was off-balance, uncertain of Bauer’s information or motives. “Nobody would question my loyalty to the Führer. I have served him honorably since I became a member of the SA and the NSDAP.”

“Right, right,” said Bauer. “You served time with him in Landsberg Prison, too, right? For your part in the Beer Hall Putsch? You and Hess and a few others?”

“Sieg heil,” he said.

“Remind me, Emil—why is it you stopped your chauffeuring duties? Was it because you’re a bad driver? A poor conversationalist?”

Maurice drained the last of his drink and slammed down the glass. “Go away, kripo.”

“Or,” Bauer nudged him, “could it be because he caught you in bed with Geli?”

Maurice spun to face Bauer, breathing heavily, eyes welling with venom. “What the hell do you want?”

“You loved her,” said Bauer. “And she loved you.”

“And? So?”

“So be a man,” said Bauer. “Help me figure out who killed her.”

He belted out a laugh. “Oh. Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you say so? Tell you what, friend.” He slapped his meaty hand on Bauer’s shoulder. “How about you put away that police card, and you and I settle this in the alley?”

Bauer rolled his neck. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy. “What the hell,” he said. “I could use the exercise.”

Bauer followed Emil Maurice through the exit door. Once in the alley, he shed his overcoat. Maurice had left his inside.

Once upon a time, before the defeat in the war and the formation of the new Weimar Republic, it was unusual to see a fight in an alley. The police presence was heavy; people respected the rule of law. But the Weimar government had brought a loosening of the police presence, an expansion of individual rights that came with a democracy. Fine with Bauer, generally speaking, but people respected the kriminalpolizei less and less with each passing year.

Bauer sized up his foe. They were about the same age, but Emil Maurice had several inches on Bauer and a longer wingspan. Maurice had been in countless fights over the years. But only Bauer had been in a war.

“You’re the tough guy, Emil,” said Bauer. “Throw the first punch.”

Maurice did, a clumsy haymaker. Bauer ducked under it and drove his left fist into Maurice’s chin. That was more than enough to stun him. Bauer followed with a right hand to the nose; in his experience, you always went for the nose as early as possible.

Then the body. Bauer bull-rushed the chauffeur, driving him into a line of garbage cans. Maurice’s head banged against the brick wall of the alley.

Bauer jumped on top of him and held him down. “We can keep going, Emil. One way or the other, you’re going to talk to me. Or I spill your secret to the Führer.”

Maurice was woozy, shell-shocked. He’d underestimated his opponent. Bauer didn’t think he broke Maurice’s nose, but the jaw might be another story. “He already knows about Geli and me,” he said.

Maurice looked like he might vomit, so Bauer turned him over on his side. “Not that secret,” he said. “I heard that when he caught you in bed with Geli, Hitler pulled out his riding whip and you had to jump out a window to avoid being lashed. But I mean the secret you really don’t want Hitler to know. Come on, Emil, you know what I’m talking about.”

Maurice spit blood. “No, I do not, kripo swine.”

“Have it your way. It’s probably not a big deal, anyway.” Bauer leaned in, whispering harshly into Maurice’s ear. “I’m sure the Führer won’t care that you’re part Jewish. See you around, Emil.”

Bauer got up, leaving his opponent lying among the garbage. He shook his left hand; his knuckles would be sore tomorrow. He was out of practice.

He reached the door to reenter the tavern and pulled on it.

“Wait,” Maurice called to him. “Just… wait.”

27

A BLOCK AWAY FROM the Wirtshaus tavern, young officer Peter Helldorff sat in the front seat of a beige Stutz M coupe, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He startled when the rear door opened and Bauer jumped in.

“Nice car. This is yours?”

Helldorff turned to face him. “Belongs to my parents. Where’s Maurice? I thought he was coming with you.”

“He is. He will.” Bauer pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his dirty face, tried to clean off his overcoat, too.

“Did you get into a fight with him, Bauer?”

“We had a spirited conversation.” Bauer looked out through the rear window.

“But you’re sure he’s coming?”

“Oh, he’ll be here.” Bauer regarded Helldorff a moment. He looked all of eighteen years old, with his straw hair and skinny neck. He was just a pup. Not for the first time, Bauer wondered if he should allow the kriminalassistent to be a part of this.

The rear door on the car’s opposite side opened, and Emil Maurice angled himself into the back seat next to Bauer. His lower jaw was already beginning to color into a bruised purple. His lip was split and swollen. “Who’s the driver?” he snarled.

“My associate.”

“No.” Maurice shook his head. “I will talk only to you. I do not agree to this.”

Bauer slapped his knee. “Well, damn, Emil, it’s too bad you don’t get to set the terms.”

“If anybody knows that I talked to you, I am as good as dead.”

“This is all confidential. We don’t reveal sources. Nobody will know.”

Maurice didn’t seem convinced. He looked out the side window, gently touching his wounded jaw.

“Did Adolf Hitler kill Geli Raubal?” Bauer asked. He didn’t want to waste any time. He didn’t know how long he could keep this man in the car.

Maurice quietly shook his head. “What do you think?”

“I think he did. But I can’t prove it.”

“Neither can I.” Maurice turned to him. “I wasn’t there.”

“Who was?”

“I don’t know, Inspector. How would I?”

“No, I mean—who would you expect to be there?”

Maurice thought about it, then shrugged. “That time of night? Only the servants. Anni and Georg. But they won’t talk to you. They know what would happen to them if they did.”

That was true enough. “Then tell me what you heard, Emil. There’s no chance the circle around Hitler hasn’t gossiped about this.”

Maurice blew out a nervous sigh. “I heard he called Rudolf Hess. Which sounds right. Hess would be his first call. And Hess’s first call would have been to Martin Bormann. My guess is Julius Schreck, who replaced me as chauffeur, would have been there but he might have stayed outside in the car.”

“So if someone cleaned up the place before calling the police, they would be part of it.”

“Hess and Bormann? Yes.” Maurice glanced up at Bauer, wincing as he did so. “But they will never tell you a thing. None of them will. Not Himmler, not Goebbels, not Göring, either.”

“Tell me what else you heard. Tell me about the cover-up.”

He threw up his hands. “They—there was a suitcase they unpacked. The clothes were put back in her drawers.”

Bauer remembered seeing the empty leather portmanteau.

“And the vanity by her bed. I heard that a lot of things were knocked over. A mirror came off the wall. There was a bunch of broken glass. All the trash was put into a bag and given to Julius to drive away.”

“Where did Julius dump it?”

Maurice shrugged. He didn’t know.

“Why the suitcase? Is it true she was going to Vienna?”

“She wanted to.” Maurice’s head dropped. He rested his elbows on his thighs. “The man she…” With that, he began to cry. This rough, burly man burst into tears and let out a high-pitched sob.

Bauer glanced at Helldorff, who returned an I-have-no-idea expression.

“Look, I know this is hard, Emil,” said Bauer. “I know you cared about her a—”

“I loved her!” he wailed. “But he wouldn’t let us marry. We waited, like he asked. But he would never let us. So eventually I told her she should…” He waved a hand.

“You told her she should move on.”

“Right.” Maurice drew a deep breath, wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat. “She met a man in Vienna. She wanted to marry him.”

“What’s this man’s name?” Bauer asked.

“I don’t know. He was an art teacher. I think he lived near Linz. That’s all I know.”

Bauer sat back in his seat. This was helpful information, but Maurice would never publicly testify to it. “Can anyone confirm any of this?” he asked.

“Nobody who would talk to you.”

“Then you haven’t given me anything I can use. Sorry, Emil. Our deal is off.”

“What?” Maurice shifted in his seat. “The deal was I tell you what I know. That’s what I know. It’s not my fault if none of the Führer’s closest advisers will talk to you.”

Bauer considered that for a moment. Maurice was right. The cover-up of Geli’s murder would be among close-knit loyalists. Even if some of the details leaked out via gossip to people on the fringe of the circle like Emil Maurice, nobody would ever admit to the crime.

Maybe he needed to back up one step. Start with a more fundamental fact.

“Well, perhaps the cover-up is sealed tight,” he said. “But what about Hitler’s relationship with Geli? That lasted for years, yes? There must be people outside Hitler’s inner circle who would know about that. Geli must have talked to people about it. She must have talked to you about it, Emil. Yes?”

Maurice steeled himself, eyes squeezed shut, gripping his greasy hair as if waging a battle against the memories.

“Yes,” he whispered. “But you wouldn’t believe the things she told me.”

28

THE CAR WENT SILENT. Thomas Bauer held still. As if on cue, a streetlamp flickered and burned out, casting the automobile in further shadow on the chilly evening.

Bauer had heard and seen a great many sordid things in his life, between the front lines of the war and police work. He had witnessed up close the depths of cruelty and depravity and suffering. He thought he’d heard everything. Until now.

“You have to understand,” Maurice pleaded. “Geli, when she met the Führer, was an impressionable young girl. And he was already a celebrity in Munich. She was flattered by his attention. She enjoyed it. She was taken in by it—”

“I understand, Emil. I understand you cared about this girl, and you don’t want her memory tarnished. But this isn’t a reflection on her. None of this is her fault. This is all about an older man preying on her. Nothing more.”

Maurice, wiping tears from his eyes, appreciated that comment. “I will tell you once what they did together but then never again. So pay attention.”

Bauer nodded, held his breath. He caught the eye of Peter Helldorff, and silently communicated the importance of this moment.

“He would make her undress while he lay on the floor. Once naked, she would… she would squat down over his face so he could get a good, up-close view, while he… pleasured himself. And when he began to reach the height of excitement, that’s when he… he would demand that she urinate on him.

“Apparently this brought him maximum pleasure.” Maurice pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. Bauer gave him space, not wanting to rush, but also not wanting to wait too long. Once the dam burst, you let everything flow through. He’d been close to that with Anni Winter before he was interrupted. He couldn’t let that happen again. “And Geli—”

“Geli never liked it,” said Maurice, smoke billowing from his nose. “But at first, she tolerated it. She was flattered. He told her he’d never done that with anyone else, that she was special. But the longer it went on, the more he restricted her movements and put controls on her life—” Maurice put his hands in the air. “She found it revolting. Degrading. Humiliating. Disgusting.”

“What else?”

“He liked to be punished,” said Maurice. “He would lie on the floor and condemn himself as unworthy. He would beg and grovel to be kicked, to be punished.”

“Kicked?”

“Apparently this caused him great… arousal, too.” He shook his head. “The man is sick.”

But not stupid, Bauer thought. This would be yet another motive for Geli’s murder. Not only was Hitler losing his suffocating grasp on her, not only was he suffering her personal rejection, but she knew things that could put a stake through the heart of his meteoric political rise. He wouldn’t have been able to just let her walk out.

“Who else can corroborate this? Here.” Bauer handed Maurice a pen and small notepad. “Write down the names of other people who know these things.”

Maurice opened the side door and tossed his cigarette. Then he took the pen and paper and started writing. “I can’t be sure of all these people. But these are the people she might have confided in, besides me.”

They remained in silence while Maurice scribbled down names. When he was finished, he handed back the notepad. “I trust there are no more questions?”

“I have one,” said Helldorff from the front seat. “If you think this man is such a monster, why do you still follow him?”

Bauer winced. He’d been trying to handle Maurice with kid gloves. But it was a valid question. And he sensed that he’d gotten all he could from the man.

Emil Maurice buttoned his coat, preparing to leave. “At first, a decade ago, he inspired me. He showed strength. Our government was so weak, and he showed resolve, courage. I believed in his version of a proud and mighty Germany. I believed in him. I went to prison for him. I would have done anything for him. But now…” His voice broke. He took a moment, wiping his mouth, before raising his hands. “I’ve cast my lot with him. I have a position. I have respect. If I leave NSDAP, I will not be safe here. I will have to leave the country. And I do not want to leave. So you tell me: Where else will I go now?”

Maurice opened the car door.

“There’s a word for that,” said Bauer. “That word is cowardice. You have the power to help stop this man, but you do nothing.”

Maurice gave Bauer a long look. Then he slowly nodded. He pushed himself out the door but paused in the effort, then slowly sank back into the seat.

“All right, Bauer,” he said. “You want proof. I know where you can find it.”

29

Present Day

Munich

AFTER LEAVING MONICA BAUER, Thomas Bauer’s great-granddaughter, I give myself a pep talk. It was just a random purse snatching, I tell myself again, before I reread the directions she gave me, draw a deep breath, and start my journey.

I pass Marienplatz, a square block of a plaza best known for its glockenspiel, the giant mechanical clock in the Gothic town hall building that puts on a show at least twice a day for the tourists, a fifteen-minute display of life-sized figurines parading and dancing and jousting on horseback as the bells chime.

I reach Residenzstraße and stop at Spatenhaus, the granite multi-story restaurant near Max-Joseph Plaza where Hitler used to dine with Geli before the opera. My instructions are to go inside and have lunch. I eat in the more casual ground-level dining room, decorated with fresh flowers and a frescoed ceiling.

An hour later, I leave the restaurant and continue past the infamous Viscardigasse without even glancing down the alley. Though my instructions don’t include it, I stop as I approach the Odeonsplatz, to touch the noses of each of the four bronze lions guarding the entrance of the Alte Residenz for good luck—though I’ve heard locals feel that touching all four is greedy. Still, after my experience with the purse snatcher, I’m looking for all the good fortune I can get.

This spot on Residenzstraße is the location of the standoff during the Beer Hall Putsch between the Bavarian State Police and Hitler and his supporters. I stand on the manhole in the middle of the street where Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring, was shot in the groin. (Maybe he’d forgotten to rub the lions’ noses.) He somehow managed to survive and escape to Sweden, where two significant things happened: he met the baroness he would later marry, and he became addicted to morphine.

When the shooting began, Hitler hit the ground immediately and crawled to a waiting car to escape. Some say he was protectively thrown down by his bodyguard; others say he hit the ground cowardly while others fought. Guess which version was the Nazis’ official account of events? We know this much—the man who stepped in front of Hitler died after taking eleven bullets. How different might history have gone if even one of those bullets had hit der Führer.

I continue onward, past the Feldherrnhalle on the Odeonsplatz and down the way to the other end of the plaza, to an Italian restaurant called Tambosi, situated in the yellow-stucco Annast-Haus. Having just eaten lunch, the last thing I want is food, but my instructions are to enter the restaurant, go to the bathroom, and remain there for ten minutes.

I walk inside to the smell of strong Italian coffee and tomato sauce. The restaurant is ornate—stained glass, gold chandeliers, checkered floor—but was once a simple coffeehouse called the Café Heck, which Hitler and his cronies frequented in the years between his incarceration and when he became chancellor. Hitler would hold court here at his reserved table, his various minions and admirers joining him for coffee and cake.

I spend my ten minutes in the bathroom, using the facilities and checking my phone, before I walk back out of the restaurant and retrace my steps toward the south end of Odeonsplatz and the Feldherrnhalle (loosely translated, the Field Marshal’s Hall). Built in the 1840s to honor the Bavarian Army, in the 1930s the granite memorial became the site of annual Nazi rallies to honor the fifteen fallen “patriots” who died in the Beer Hall Putsch. Fifteen torches would adorn the stage, as uniformed Nazi soldiers lined up in formation on the Odeonsplatz and saluted. On the east side of the Feldherrnhalle where the shootout occurred was once a memorial called Mahnmal der Bewegung—a stone tablet bearing the names of the “martyrs” under the Nazi crest, with three wreaths hanging below them.

I stop and touch the wall, where the nail holes for the wreaths remain today. When the Nazis assumed power and erected this memorial, they placed it under ceremonial guard and required citizens to give the Nazi salute as they passed.

Not everyone loved that idea. Those who wished to avoid having to pass the memorial and give the salute would duck down a small alley known derisively by some at the time as Drückebergergasse—“shirker’s alley” or “dodger’s alley.” The narrow, cobblestone pedestrian walk became a subtle symbol of resistance.

Today, a series of gold stones creates a meandering path through the alley to celebrate the “shirkers” of that time. I follow that path and find a stooped, elderly man dressed in a long black coat and muffler awaiting me at the end. He has a walrus mustache, long sideburns, and tiny spectacles.

“Professor,” he says to me. “Pardon the precautions.”

“I essentially walked up and back, the same route,” I say. “I assume that was to ensure I wasn’t followed?”

“Who would take such a nonsensical route but someone instructed to do so?” he says. “Or someone tailing that very person? But you were not followed, Professor.”

I can’t deny a sense of relief.

He hands me an envelope. “Instructions for tomorrow,” he says. “You did not book the trip yet, correct?”

“Correct,” I say. “I’ll buy the ticket at the station when I go. That feels like overkill, I must say. You really think anyone would bother to track my credit card purchases? But I’ll do as you ask.”

“Very well. Please follow the instructions in that envelope to the word.” He gives a slight bow, an old-fashioned gesture. “Safe travels to Vienna.”

I return to my hotel near the Isar River, feeling the need to lie down with a cold washcloth on my forehead.

This is all a bit more drama than I prefer in one morning.

I exit the elevator and pull out my key card. But when I reach the room, the door is ajar.

Housekeeping? But there is no cart anywhere in sight. A wave of dread sinks through me. I push the door open and step back.

My room is in shambles. My suitcase has been overturned. The mattress has been removed from the bed. Artwork has been taken from the walls.

I take a step inside. The room is small. It’s obvious that whoever was here is gone. I use the room phone to call security. Then I see a number spray-painted on the wall: 8 8

I drop into an armchair and let the adrenaline wash over me. What have I gotten myself into?

“Hotel Security! Frau Robbins?” A very young man in a suit and tie sticks his head into the hotel room. “Are you all right?”

“I’m—I’m fine,” I say, finding words difficult.

“I will call the police at once.” The man talks into a radio, then asks me, “Was anything taken?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so. My computer?” I rush out of the chair and go to my work bag. My laptop is gone.

“You must make a list, please.” The man walks over to the wall. “Do you understand this? Why would they spray eighty-eight on the wall?”

“It’s not eighty-eight,” I tell him. “It’s the number eight twice.”

“Ah.” The man nods but still doesn’t understand.

“For the eighth letter of the alphabet,” I say. “H H. It stands for Heil Hitler.”

30

November 8, 1931

Bürgerbräukeller

Munich

EAST OF THE ISAR River, the black Mercedes rolled along Keller Street and stopped behind the rear entrance of the Bürgerbräukeller, one of the oldest, largest, and most famous beer halls in Munich. Inside the Mercedes, Hitler removed his leather gloves and turned to Joseph Goebbels. “You still think this is wise? Not too soon?”

“Not too soon at all, mein Führer. We have weathered the storm. It is time to regain our momentum. They need to see you in uniform. They need to hear you.”

Hitler winced. “I do prefer my lederhosen. But it is one of the many sacrifices I must make for Germany.”

“Just so, mein Führer.”

Thousands had poured in from the entrance on Rosenheimer Street, under the granite arch bearing the name BÜRGER BRÄU KELLER, past the magnificent outdoor beer garden and into the spacious hall in the rear of the building.

The grand hall held three thousand people at maximum capacity, if chairs were placed side by side on the floor and in the balconies, as they were this night in early November. The Nazi crest was on full display, adorning the balconies and hanging from the ceiling on banners.

Every chair, every seat in the balcony, was filled. They spoke in hushed tones, eager with anticipation and curiosity. When Joseph Goebbels emerged, his introductory remarks were brief. Goebbels understood the importance of not overshadowing his Führer.

But the crowd of party faithful leapt to their feet, exploding in shouts and applause, when Hitler walked onto the stage.

“This,” Hitler said. “This is the place.” He surveyed the room. “This is the place where we first undertook to restore our Fatherland. And very near this place is where blood was shed, where people were shackled and imprisoned for their patriotism, where fifteen martyrs gave their lives for their country.”

The Bürgerbräukeller was, indeed, the site of the infamous Beer Hall Putsch on November 8 and 9, 1923. Goebbels had thought it the appropriate venue to rekindle the spirits of the party faithful.

“And you, here with me today, are the Alte Kämpfer,” Hitler said—meaning “old fighters” but more aptly “true believers,” those who’d joined the Nazi Party before its electoral success in 1930. “You are the ones who shared our vision before it became popular to do so. You are the ones who have weathered adversity, fear, threats, ridicule, and remained true. For this you have your Führer’s undying gratitude.”

Good, thought Goebbels. This was exactly the right tone to strike, the one he had laid out, though he never knew how closely Hitler would hew to a script.

“My friends, six years ago I stood before you in this very hall, commemorating what was then the two-year anniversary of our putsch. And it is with great sadness that what I said to you then remains true now.”

Hitler paused, then pointed, reciting nearly verbatim the speech he gave in 1925, not long after his release from prison. “If you were to leave this hall right now and travel to Berlin, to the Friedrich Strasse, you would see Jewish youths and more Jewish youths with German girls in their arms. Bear in mind that thousands and thousands of our blood are destroyed in this way every night, and children and children’s children are lost to us. We can restore our nation’s pride, we can rip up the Treaty of Versailles and rebuild our military, but once the blood is poisoned it can no longer be changed. It remains and multiplies and presses us lower from year to year. If today you are surprised that our people are inwardly so torn, remember this: out of the torn German people speaks its torn blood.”

The crowd erupted in applause. Hitler raised his fist in the air and continued: “Everything beautiful that we see around us today is only the creation of the Aryan, his spirit and industry! Only the bad things are the heritage of the Hebrew!”

From there Hitler returned to his twin political lessons, which he had hammered endlessly into his followers, by which he had raised himself from his political grave, lessons that would succeed in propelling the National Socialist German Workers’ Party to the heights of political power.

First, he appealed to emotion, dismissing logic. “Reason can treacherously deceive a man,” he said, raising his finger in the air. “Emotion is sure and never leaves him. So go to the masses, to the unemployed, to those who struggle financially, to the bitter and frustrated and disheartened, those whose possessions are meager. For possessions, whether of a spiritual or material nature, will always paralyze the desire for power.”

To keep the emotional message simple, he focused on one goal: “It is critical to choose only one enemy, so that everyone can see that he is guilty. Especially in a people like the German people, it is absolutely necessary for psychological reasons to point to only one enemy, to march against one enemy.

“To make a struggle intelligible to the masses, it must always be carried on against a person and against a cause. Against whom did England fight? Against the German kaiser as a person and against militarism as a cause. Against whom do the Jews fight with their Marxist power? Against the bourgeoisie as a person, and against capitalism as its cause.

“Against whom, therefore, must our movement fight? Against the Jew as a person, and against Marxism as its cause!”

The attendees jumped to their feet again. Seated just offstage, Goebbels released a breath of relief as he watched and listened to his Führer, the color returning to his face, perspiration dotting his forehead, the flare in his eyes, the energy to his entire being—a battery recharging after several turbulent weeks. Hitler fed off crowds as if they were his nourishment, his only source of oxygen.

It was time, Goebbels knew. Time to return to the campaign trail. Adolf Hitler had a presidential election to win.

31

The Brown House

Brienner Straße 45

THE POST-SPEECH CELEBRATION LASTED well into the night. In the Senatorensaal conference room of the Brown House, several dozen loyalists drank champagne and feasted on ham-wrapped figs, liver dumplings, onion tarts, spinach maultaschen, potato pancakes, and marinated cheeses. The mood was heady, electric, as the invitees discussed the upcoming presidential election. Hitler had yet to formally declare—he was still Austrian, not even a German citizen!—but there was no doubt he would be a candidate.

Near ten o’clock, Hitler excused himself. The party continued, if anything growing more raucous as his inner circle and their wives or mistresses consumed over sixty bottles of some of the finest sparkling wine, from Giesler to Pommery to Pol Roger.

One particular invitee who had scrupulously minded his alcohol consumption was the clean-cut and bespectacled Father Bernhard Stempfle. Though Stempfle had long stopped serving as a Catholic priest, pouring more and more of his effort into his anti-Semitic writings, including promoting acts of violence against Jews en masse, he chose to retain the moniker. He had become a close confidant to Hitler, in no small part due to the perceived confidentiality of their conversations. And had likewise served time in Landsberg Prison after the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

As Stempfle chatted with Heinrich Hoffmann, the Führer’s personal photographer, Rudolf Hess entered the room and caught Stempfle’s attention.

“The Führer will see you now,” Hess told him.

Stempfle entered Hitler’s office. The Führer was not at his desk overlooking the King’s Square but in the sitting area, where an embroidered couch and matching chairs faced a wood-burning fireplace. On a walnut coffee table, alongside a bowl of fruit, lay a leatherbound copy of The International Jew by Henry Ford, the only American who received favorable treatment in Mein Kampf. Stempfle, who had edited those passages, was well aware of the mutual admiration between Hitler and the American carmaker.

“Bernie. Please, sit.” Hitler looked exhausted but relaxed, having now changed back out of his uniform into lederhosen and stockings. “Franz told me of your request for party funds.”

“Yes, mein Führer,” Stempfle said. He had brought his appeal to the NSDAP treasurer, Franz Xaver Schwarz. “I thought it best to talk to the treasurer and not bother you with the matter.”

Hitler brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “Franz said you needed the funds to purchase drawings of mine from a seller. What type of drawings?”

Stempfle took a moment, gathered his thoughts. “They are… very personal sketches, mein Führer. Of Fräulein Raubal.”

“Personal sketches?” Hitler’s face began to flush.

“They are, mein Führer.”

“Have you seen them?”

“I would not dare do so, mein Führer. They were described to me.”

“And how were they described to you?”

Stempfle broke eye contact. “They were described as… extremely intimate. And anatomically explicit.”

Hitler looked up at the ceiling. His eyebrows rose. “How many drawings?”

“I was told four.”

“Only four?”

“I was told four, mein Führer.”

Hitler pushed himself off the couch and stood over the fireplace, which was not currently in use. “Who is this seller, Bernie?”

“I do not know his name, mein Führer. He approached me, I believe, because he was aware of our acquaintance. My plan was to buy them, and then, of course, destroy them immediately without looking at them.”

Hitler, arms crossed tightly, shook his head. “How did he come into possession of these drawings?”

“He did not say, mein Führer.”

Hitler nodded. “Franz said he is asking for five hundred marks?”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“Very well. Proceed as planned, Bernie. You can tell Franz that I authorize the expenditure of the funds. But do not destroy the drawings.”

“What would you have me do with them, mein Führer?”

“Bring the drawings to me,” said Hitler, his eyes stone cold. “I should like to keep them.”

32

November 9, 1931

THE FOLLOWING DAY, BERNHARD Stempfle found the NSDAP treasurer, Franz Xaver Schwarz, in his office at the Brown House. Schwarz, a pudgy man with round glasses and a full mustache, had long been the most trusted financial adviser to Hitler, meticulous in his accounting and efficient in his administration.

“It’s all there, Bernie.” Schwarz slid an envelope across his desk. “Five hundred marks. And needless to say, we’d like as much information as possible on this mysterious… uh, benefactor. The Führer is especially interested in how this man obtained these drawings. They were kept inside the Führer’s residence at Prinzregentenplatz. And there were five sketches, the Führer said, not four.”

“Of course, Franz.” Stempfle stuffed the envelope inside his trench coat. “This mystery man has been anything but forthcoming, but I will do my best to learn what I can.”

“When does this exchange happen?” Schwarz asked.

“Over lunch,” said Stempfle. “I’d best be on my way.”

Stempfle left the Brown House and caught a tram at Luisenstraße. He got off at Theresienstraße and walked a half block to the Maximilian Hotel, an old inn with a grand chandelier in the lobby. The NSDAP rented several rooms here for special guests staying in town, as Stempfle often did. He took the lift to the fourth floor and entered his room.

He reached under his bed and removed the five pornographic sketches. He had spent a fair amount of time with them since he’d stolen them from Hitler’s flat. Yes, he had quite enjoyed looking at them.

The first one—well, he appreciated Hitler’s care and detail in the up-close anatomical drawing, but it was almost too close, almost too obscene even for Stempfle. He preferred the one of Geli with her back arched, naked, allowing him to get a better look at her curves. And the added benefit of that particular drawing was that it was unsigned—unlike the other sketches, on which A. Hitler was inscribed in the corner.

Yes, that one, then, the unsigned one. That would be the one he would keep. He carefully laid the single drawing back under his bed.

He rolled up the other four and placed them inside a cardboard tube. He stashed the envelope of reichmarks into his luggage. He lay down on his bed and took a short nap. He awoke but made sure he waited a full hour before his return.

He took the tram back to the Luisenstraße stop near the Brown House. Franz Schwarz was waiting for him at his desk when Stempfle entered the office. He handed the tube to Schwarz, who took it gingerly.

“How was the lunch?” asked Schwarz.

“Very businesslike.”

“Well, thank God you got them, Bernie. That’s the last thing we need right now. They’re in here?” he asked.

“They’re all there,” said Stempfle. “The man wouldn’t give me his name. And he insisted he only had the four sketches.”

Stempfle traced the route back to the Maximilian Hotel. He whistled all the way to his hotel room door. He was now five hundred marks the richer, and with a souvenir to boot.

When he entered the hotel room, the pornographic sketch was lying on top of the bed.

“Afternoon, Father Stempfle.”

Stempfle jumped. To his left, a man emerged from the bathroom. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“The name’s Bauer,” the man said, showing his police card. “And I might ask you the same thing, Father.”

33

Maximilian Hotel

THOMAS BAUER CURSED UNDER his breath. He was too late. Barely too late. He’d just missed catching Bernhard Stempfle in the act of transferring the purloined pornography.

Bauer had to figure out a way to salvage this situation.

“I heard about the blackmail, disguised as a collector’s sale,” said Bauer. “And that you were the one playing both parts.”

“Where would you get an idea like that?”

“I have my sources, Father. Let’s leave it at that.” Bauer wouldn’t burn Emil Maurice.

Bauer looked at the sketch lying on the bed—not at the drawing but at the lack of attribution. “He didn’t sign this.”

“Who didn’t sign it?” Stempfle put up a brave front. “I have no idea—”

“Oh, this wasn’t drawn by Hitler?” Bauer asked innocently.

“The Führer? Why, of course not!” Stempfle forced out a laugh, an award-worthy performance.

“Oh, splendid, then I’ll just take this to him and tell him that I found it in your hotel room.” Bauer rolled up the sketch and shook it. “Bye, Bernie.”

“No—wait.” Stempfle stepped in front of him. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

“I want the truth. Right now, or I take this to Hitler.” Stempfle might have been scum, but he wasn’t especially good at hiding his guilt.

“There was no blackmail, was there, Father? You stole them from his flat on Prinzregentenplatz. You pocketed the money.” Bauer could see the man crumbling. He pressed on. “I’m going to give you one chance to extricate yourself from this situation, Father. One chance and only one. If you lie to me, I put this sketch into Hitler’s hand personally. So what do you say?”

Stempfle dropped, defeated, onto the bed, and buried his face in his hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Bauer. “Where are the other four drawings?”

“He wanted to keep them, he said.”

“None of them are signed?” Bauer gritted his teeth in frustration. True, the girl’s face did very much resemble Geli. But without the familiar attribution of A. Hitler, this drawing proved little.

“He signed the others,” said Stempfle. “The other four.”

Bauer sighed. That helped, to be sure. But he needed something more. He needed to push harder.

“He would just claim his name was forged on these sketches. Which means you’re no help to me, Father. And you know what that means. So I would suggest you improve your memory quickly.”

Stempfle went quiet. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the ceiling, his feet drumming nervously on the floor. Finally, he released a sigh and turned to Bauer.

“To forge a name on a drawing might be simple,” he said. “But not an entire letter.”

34

“HE WROTE A LETTER?” Thomas Bauer asked. “To Geli?”

Bernhard Stempfle nodded. “It was on his private stationery, too. He wrote it in 1929. He never sent it to her. And for some reason I will never understand, he left it lying around his flat. The landlady’s son found it. He demanded money for its return.”

“And you know this because… ?”

“Because the blackmailer contacted me,” said Stempfle. “He knew I was close to the Führer. I’m the one who paid to get the letter back.”

Bauer nodded. “That’s what gave you the idea to pull this scam with the pornographic sketches. Because you’d been the bag man before. This time, you were both blackmailer and bag man. Clever, Father.”

Stempfle didn’t answer, but Bauer was clearly right.

“So tell me about this letter,” said Bauer.

“The letter was… quite graphic.” Stempfle shook his head. “As intimate as you could possibly imagine. Lurid details.”

“Give me an idea of how intimate, how lurid.”

Stempfle smirked. “Are you familiar with the term undinism, Bauer?”

“No,” he answered. “But I’m going to guess it has something to do with getting aroused when someone takes a piss on you.”

Stempfle drew back, startled and impressed. “You do have good sources.”

“Okay, so here’s my next question,” said Bauer. “Where is this letter? Don’t tell me it was destroyed.”

“No, but it might as well have been, for your purposes.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s locked in a safe inside the Führer’s office at Nazi headquarters.”

Two hours later, Bauer entered the Barhaus Hilda, a dive of a place known for its pig’s knuckles, warm beer, and an outdoor patio overlooking the Isar River. It no longer served dinner; the economic downturn had killed that market. But the place still drew people looking to drown their sorrows. Alcohol was one product that flourished during hard times.

Bauer walked across the sticky floor and found his kriminalassistent, Peter Helldorff, at a corner table with Fritz Gerlich.

“Peter filled me in on the details,” said Gerlich. “Sounds like bad news.”

“Peter?” Bauer sat down. “Who’s Peter?”

Helldorff raised his hand. “Me, Bauer. The guy you’ve been working with for the last six weeks.”

“You don’t even know your kriminalassistent’s first name?” asked Gerlich.

“I’m not sure I know his last name.” Bauer gestured to a passing waitress for a beer. “Why so glum, Fritz? Your dog run away or something?”

“Why so glum?” Gerlich threw up a hand. “We keep hitting roadblocks. We find out that Hitler drew obscene sketches, but we can’t obtain them. We learn about a letter where he describes his sexual perversions in the most explicit manner, but we can’t get our hands on it. Nobody will talk to us. And the closer we get, the more violent the Nazis get. So yes, I’m feeling glum.”

“That’s about to change,” said Bauer.

“It is? How? You have some masterful plan to uncover all these secrets?”

“Not masterful. Difficult, but not masterful.” Bauer slapped his hands down on the table. “Gentlemen, we’re going to break into the Brown House.”

35

The Brown House

Brienner Straße 45

STEP ONE. THOMAS BAUER drove the beaten-down truck as it coughed and hissed with every rotation of the tires. The sides were dented in multiple places; there was a tear in the top; the windshield was missing altogether. The side panel bore the words ZUVERLÄSSIGE ELEKTROINSTALLATION UND REPARATUR—Reliable Electrical Installation and Repair. The business no longer existed, which is why the truck had been donated to Fritz Gerlich’s charity. Bauer would have preferred something related to heating, not electrical, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

It was all they had, so it would have to do.

He stopped the truck just short of the Königsplatz. To his right was the three-story Brown House, which towered over Brienner Straße. The property was draped with Nazi flags, surrounded by a metal gate, and secured by guards who walked the perimeter in their heavy fur-lined coats, clutching rifles.

Clipboard in hand, Bauer left the van, and took the short walkway to the main entrance.

The front door opened. Two brownshirts emerged, blond-haired and blue-eyed, the taller one holding a leather portfolio, the shorter one with his hand on his sidearm. They were dressed in standard uniform—brown shirt and black tie, dark trousers, knee-high boots, a billed cap with a strap around their chins, swastika armbands.

“You guys called about a heating problem?” Bauer glanced at his clipboard.

The guards looked at each other. The taller one with the portfolio opened it. “We’ve had a problem with the heat for weeks.”

Bauer knew that, of course, courtesy of Emil Maurice, who said everyone had been complaining about the temperature inside the building for the last month.

“But we don’t have a record of any appointment with…” Squinting at the name on the side of the truck. “… Reliable.”

“Yeah, we’re way behind schedule,” said Bauer. “And we do it all nowadays. You have to change with the times, right? I’m your guy for steam heat.” Bauer flipped the clipboard around so they could see the work order. “And they sent me here next.”

“We need a record of your appointment. Without a record, you can’t enter.”

“Okay, well. Maybe you want to call your supervisor?”

“He’s gone. You’re here after work hours.”

That, too, was by design, thanks to more intel from Emil Maurice. The shift changed at six in the evening.

“So you want me to leave? Fine by me.” Bauer shrugged. “We have a long list of customers behind you. It’s like everyone in Munich lost their heat all at once. We can always reschedule.”

“Yes.” The tall brownshirt nodded. “Could you come back tomorrow morning?”

“No, once the order’s canceled, it’s canceled. But you can call and get back in at the end of the line. With any luck, we’ll be back before Christmas.”

“Christmas? That’s over a month away!”

“Tell me about it. Our backlog is crazy. Oh, almost forgot.” Bauer removed a pen from his pocket. “I need a name.”

“A name?”

“That’s what my boss tells me. If a customer turns us away, I need the name of the person who told us to leave. That way, if the customer calls back and complains, we can prove we were here and identify who told us not to do our work.” He poised the pen over the work order. “Your name?”

The tall brownshirt considered this. “Fine, just come in. The service entrance is around the corner.”

Here we go, Bauer thought as he returned to the van and brought it around to the service gate. Don’t screw this up.

36

THOMAS BAUER DROVE THE truck through the wide gate, and the guard closed it behind him, effectively locking him inside the property. Bauer killed the engine and grabbed a toolbox from the truck’s side panel.

The guard slipped a key into the service door and turned the knob. Bauer followed him in.

“You are beginning a service appointment this late?” the guard asked.

“We’re working day and night,” said Bauer. “This is our high season. Let’s start with the boiler.”

The guard led Bauer down a long set of stairs. The basement was a stone tunnel, the walls painted a garish yellow. The scent of fried food and grilled meat filled the air. The Brown House had its own cafeteria.

“My name’s Goran, by the way,” said Bauer.

“Karl. Here we are.” Karl the guard removed a key ring latched to the left side of his belt. He found the correct key and slid it into the lock.

With Karl’s attention focused on his keys, Bauer crept closer, his focus on a different ring of keys latched to the right side of the guard’s belt. “You guys lock your boiler room?”

“We lock everything here.” Karl turned the key with a loud jolt and shoved the heavy door open, just as Bauer squeezed the latch and liberated the smaller key ring from the guard’s belt. He shoved the keys into his pocket.

Inside, the heat was nearly overpowering. The room held three identical steam boilers, each as tall as Bauer, each in the approximate shape of a pentagon. The arrangement of the various valves and center latch gave the impression of three ugly metal faces staring back at him.

“You think the problem is with the boilers?” asked Karl. “They sure seem like they’re working.”

“That’s where you always start.” Bauer set down his toolbox. “You look at the rotator and crossover valves, you check the pressure pump for efficiency, then you have the circulator pipes—”

“That’s fine. I’ll wait in the hallway.” The guard fanned his face with his clipboard. “I don’t know how you guys can stand working in this heat.”

“You get used to it.” Once the door was closed, Bauer removed from his pocket the small key ring. He slipped off one particular key—bearing the engraving A.H.—and placed the key ring, minus the one key, on the floor.

Then he angled between two boilers, shuffling his feet until he reached the back of them. He removed a cigarette case from his left pocket. But there was no tobacco inside. The case was lined with modeling clay.

He placed the key carefully but firmly into the modeling clay and made three impressions of it, each side and a vertical. He wiped off the key with his shirt and returned to the entrance area of the boiler room. He gently placed the A.H. key back on the key ring, laid the key ring back on the floor, and squatted down by the gauges on the front of the boiler.

A moment later, Karl burst back into the room. “Did you—oh. Oh, never mind. How did that happen?” The guard picked the key ring up from the floor.

“How did what happen?” Bauer asked without looking up from his work.

“Nothing.” The guard latched the chain back onto his belt.

“I can already tell this is going to be the rotary valve,” said Bauer. “You know what a rotary valve is?”

“I have no idea.”

Good, because neither did Bauer. He’d heard the term before, something to do with gas pipes. “It ensures the induction pipe circulates the steam into the proper valves,” he said, which sounded good enough. “But I don’t have one in the truck. I’ll come back tomorrow morning.”

“In the morning?” said the guard. “You promise it will be tomorrow morning?”

“I promise,” he said, and technically, he meant it. He would be back after midnight.

Now it would just be a quick trip to Eno’s Hardware, where the proprietor, an old Italian immigrant named Eno Randazzo, was keeping the store open for him. Randazzo owed Bauer, who’d cut his son a break after catching him fencing a stolen watch. Randazzo would take the modeling clay and make a replicate key.

And Emil Maurice had told Bauer that the key to Hitler’s office was actually a master key that opened all doors, exterior or interior, inside the Brown House.

So Bauer had his way into the Brown House tonight. Now it was just a matter of not getting caught.

37

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

AMID A VIEW OF the Bavarian Alps through the picture window, Adolf Hitler set down his plate of fine china, which dated back to the reign of Mongolian Emperor Möngke Khan. “I must say, my dearest Helene, you spoil me to no end. If I keep this up with these cakes, I should inflate to the size of—”

“The size of Göring?” Helene Bechstein laughed, seated next to him on the couch of imported linen.

“Yes, our Hermann does have his appetites, doesn’t he? But he is a good man. He is a true man.”

“He is not disciplined like you, Wölfchen.” She tapped her little wolf’s nose lovingly. “No man is as disciplined or devoted as you.”

Helene Bechstein had married into the C. Bechstein piano company and quickly became one of the leading socialites in Berlin. Thirteen years Hitler’s senior and a rabid anti-Semite, she had first met him in 1921. She taught him manners and social graces, bankrolled a proper wardrobe for him, and advised him on matters of politics and society. She lavished almost motherly praise on him, filling the coffers of the Nazi Party and hosting soirees where Hitler mingled with the elite of Berlin high society. Helene saw Hitler as representing the future of Germany, and hoped that one day he would marry her daughter, Lotte.

“Come.” Helene opened her arms to him. “Come, my Wölfchen.”

Hitler laid his head against her bosom and sighed. “You are too good to me.”

“You seem as if you are recovering from Geli’s death,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “But I still see darkness behind those eyes. Do find time, as you attempt to cure the ills of our country, to heal yourself as well.”

“You have my solemn vow. Now I must leave you, Helene. I have an early morning and a two-hour drive tonight.”

She showed him to the door, where Hitler kissed her hand. “Just as you have taught me,” he said. “You have my undying devotion.”

His driver and bodyguard, Julius Schreck, came to attention as he stood by the Mercedes, a gift from Helene. “Home, mein Führer?”

“Yes, Julius, home.” Hitler slid inside the rear compartment. He leaned back and closed his eyes. But sleep would not come, no matter his exhaustion, not even a brief nap. He reached into his pocket for his billfold and removed a photograph of Geli, one taken at his villa in Berchtesgaden not far from Helene, as the two of them lay on the grass, a cherubic Geli in the midst of laughing.

He stared at the photograph so long that his eyes and mind played tricks. He could hear her laughter, that delicate tickle in her throat. He could smell that grass, the perfume she favored from that small store in Vienna near the opera house. He could see those wide, wondrous eyes fixing on him and only him as the side of her mouth curled upward.

He checked his pocket watch. They’d been driving for over an hour. It would be only another forty minutes or so before he returned to Prinzregentenplatz, which now felt more like a funeral parlor than a home. He unlocked the French doors to her bedroom every morning, to ensure that Anni had replaced yesterday’s flowers with fresh ones. He swore that he could still catch the scent of her wafting from the room when those doors opened.

Geli’s death was the greatest loss of his life, next to the death of his mother. Two wonderful, magical women lost to him forever.

He almost couldn’t bear it.

38

November 10, 1931

The Brown House

Brienner Straße 45

THE TROOPERS GUARDING THE Brown House traveled in groups of two. They would emerge from the entrance in their fur-lined coats and walk the perimeter before returning to the main entrance. The lap around the building took roughly fifteen minutes. Every ten minutes, a fresh pair would exit the main door and conduct their patrol. So at any one time, there were four guards circling the grounds.

Across the street in the Konigsplatz, Thomas Bauer stood on the steps among the Doric columns of the Propylaea—a memorial erected in honor of King Otto of Greece, a son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria—monitoring the guards through his binoculars. He was dressed in black from his knit stocking cap to his sweater to his pants and shoes.

“This is a suicide mission,” said Gerlich, standing next to him.

“Too risky,” Helldorff agreed. “We should abort.”

“Get in positions,” said Bauer. He picked up his old, cracked leather overnight bag and wrapped his arms through the long handles, wearing it like a backpack. He walked slowly through the Konigsplatz toward the trees that lined his side of Arcisstraße.

A pair of guards soon emerged around the corner from the front of the Brown House. One of them told some joke and the other one laughed, expelling frozen breath into the air. They walked along the perimeter, moving in and out of the faint illumination from the streetlamps, a shadowy pair with rifles slung over their shoulders, flashlights dangling in their hands, passing the service entrance and continuing until they disappeared around the corner.

Now.

Bauer split through the foliage and crossed Arcisstraße. He hit the fence in full stride, grabbing on to the top, swinging his left leg over and then his right, but his hand slipped and lost its grip, the top more slippery than he’d expected. Instead of an easy drop, Bauer twisted through the air and landed hard on his right shoulder, his head banging against the hard earth.

The ground felt like it was spinning. Stunned, dazed, a wave of nausea passing through him, ignoring the shooting pain in his shoulder, he raised his head and listened. He was all in now, no turning back, no matter how injured. And he didn’t have long.

Bent low, recalling his days in the infantry, Bauer rushed to the service door. He reached into his pocket for the skeleton key. The simple move brought agonizing pain in his shoulder, the pain shrieking between his ears. But he got out the key, inserted it in the lock, pulled open the heavy door, and closed it behind him.

He was inside the Brown House.

39

FROM HIS POSITION A block away from the Brown House, Fritz Gerlich came alert as he saw the three bursts of a flashlight coming from the Propylaea.

The signal from Helldorff. Bauer had made it inside.

Gerlich staggered forward, barely able to keep his balance, or at least seemingly so. He crossed the street and ran his hands along the Brown House fence, catching the attention of two guards coming around to the front. He started tugging on the locked front gate. “Open up!” he shouted in his best impression of a drunk.

“What business do you have here?” asked one of the guards.

“I want to… join your party!” Gerlich shouted, slurring his words.

“You want to join the National Socialists?”

“Yes!”

“It’s after midnight, comrade. And you look—and smell—like maybe you’ve had a few too many pints.”

Gerlich had spilled several beers on his coat for just that reason. He shook the gate. “Let me in! I want to be a part of the Socialist National—I mean the National—”

“Come back tomorrow! The building is closed and you’re drunk.”

“That, sir, is a defamatory statement! Let me in, I say! Let me in!”

Another pair of guards hustled around from the side of the building. “What’s going on?” one of them called.

“This fellow wants to join the NSDAP! Right now, at half past midnight!”

The guards got a good chuckle out of that. The door to the front entrance opened, and several guards got a look at Gerlich, who was struggling to stand up.

“This is an outrage!” he cried, thrusting his finger in the air. “I demand to join your party at once!”

While the guards’ attention was diverted, Bauer snuck up the back stairs, reaching the top floor. He peeked into the hallway, red and black with a patterned tile floor, Nazi crests and photos of Hitler everywhere. He saw nobody, heard nothing. He jogged on the balls of his feet to minimize footfalls, passing the grand staircase that led from the ground floor to this top floor, lit by an impressive chandelier. Soon he reached the large office in the corner. There was no name or title on the door; it was nothing but a standard stained oak door. He thrust the key inside the lock. It turned. He entered the room.

The lights were off, but the windows overlooking the Konigsplatz offered decent illumination. In one corner, Hitler’s primary desk and work area, though he couldn’t make out details especially well. A small table with a lamp and vase of flowers stood in the middle of the room. The other corner featured a sofa and chairs.

Bauer shrugged off his backpack with considerable effort and pain. He removed his flashlight and shone it around the room until he found the radiator, tucked behind a wooden panel beneath a portrait of Frederick the Great, the Prussian king whom Hitler idolized. He removed a set of tools from his bag and placed them by the wood panel, every step taking longer than he preferred because he was doing everything with his left hand.

Keeping the flashlight low, he walked along the carpet—in Nazi blood-red—toward Hitler’s work desk. Behind it was a bureau with a door in the front that, according to Emil Maurice, contained Hitler’s safe.

Bauer squatted down and opened the front panel door. Inside was a two-foot-high rectangular safe made of iron or steel, with a manufacturer’s crest and a combination lock with rotating dial.

Maurice had given him the combination: eight to the right, eleven to the left, twenty-three to the right, 8-11-23, the eighth of November, 1923, the date of the Beer Hall Putsch. Maurice had learned it from Geli. As far as he knew, she was the only person Hitler had ever told.

The latch popped open. He shone the flashlight into the interior of the safe.

A handful of envelopes. Bauer swept all of them into his leather bag, closed the safe, and got to his feet.

He heard something outside. Footfalls. Not directly near the office. More distant. A heavier echo to them. The grand staircase leading to the top floor. Someone was taking the stairs up. Surely it was a patrol and nothing more. The guard would walk the floor, see nothing, and move on. Hitler’s office was dark; there was no indication of an intruder’s presence.

But Emil Maurice had told him that patrols within the building were rare, that most of the guards just stayed near the front station while they took turns patrolling the exterior. So who was coming up?

Bauer pulled off his black sweater, forcing his right arm to operate, the pain so agonizing that his eyes watered. Underneath the sweater was the same Reliable Service uniform he’d worn earlier.

The footsteps grew closer, headed in his direction. Not slow, just-patrolling-the-halls casual. The footsteps were purposeful. They had a destination.

Bauer reached the table in the center of the room. He turned on the lamp light, not wanting to draw attention from the outside but needing cover in case someone entered. It would be hard to explain away why he was working in a completely dark room. At the radiator, he unscrewed one, then another bolt from the wall.

Bauer’s heartbeat raced. He reached into his bag and removed the Walther PPK 9-millimeter and shoved it into his left pant pocket.

The footsteps stopped, just outside the office door. Without hesitation, a key was inserted into the door. It popped open.

His heartbeat drumming against his chest, Bauer reminded himself to stay cool. Cool was the way to play it, if possible, before it turned ugly.

The flick of a switch, and suddenly the room was awash in light from the overhead.

“Whoa,” he said, shielding his eyes, trying to sound casual.

“What—who exactly are you?” a man demanded.

Bauer took a moment before blinking hard and turning to the man.

The Führer, Adolf Hitler.

40

I’M DEAD, BAUER TOLD himself. There’s no way out of this.

But there was always a chance. And only one way it could work: to stay in character, no matter what.

“I’m fixing your radiator,” Bauer said, reminding himself to be as nonchalant as possible. “Almost done.”

“My radiator?” Hitler looked back toward the door, as if about to flee or summon a guard. “Nobody mentioned this to me.”

“It was someone at the front gate, didn’t get a name. Feel free to call them.” Bauer knew it was the riskiest of bluffs, but he hoped he was projecting enough confidence, enough casualness, to assuage him. “You guys have had a heating problem. They said to start on the top floor.”

“Oh, very well, if you’re finishing up.” Hitler waved him off. “I could use the company. Someone who doesn’t expect anything from me.”

Bauer used the screwdriver, left-handed, to drive the screws back into place, firming the radiator cover against the wall. Hitler settled in behind his desk as Bauer threw the tools into the bag, over the envelopes he’d taken from the safe, which Hitler was now sitting directly in front of. One glance inside, one phone call to the guards downstairs, and Bauer would be finished.

“I see you’re favoring your right side,” Hitler commented.

“Oh, yeah. War injury. How do you like that—a one-armed radiator repairman?”

“Ah, you served your country, comrade. Where?”

The last thing he wanted was a conversation. But he had no choice.

“Eleventh Infantry,” he said.

“The western front. Yes, yes. You were at the Somme?”

Why did I give him my real information? he thought. But there was no turning back now. Besides, in his experience in interrogations, it was best to keep your lies as close to the truth as possible so you had less to remember and reduced your chances of getting tripped up.

“That’s where I screwed up my shoulder,” he said.

“Oh? How did that happen?”

“We were a few kilometers east of Le Sars. One of the men had his foot blown off by a British bomb. I tried to carry him over my shoulder and avoid the tail gunners. We took a tumble down a valley. Probably saved our lives but beat the hell out of my shoulder.”

That story was true, minus the permanent injury to his shoulder. Hitler was at his desk, dressed in a gray double-breasted suit with a red-striped shirt and one of those fancy tab collars that Bauer’s father-in-law favored. There was a puffiness beneath his eyes. Gone was the charismatic electricity he generated in his public speeches. One-on-one, in person, Hitler seemed… ordinary.

Hitler appraised Bauer, nodding with approval. “You were rewarded, I trust? The Iron Cross?”

“First and Second,” said Bauer. “I should probably get back home.”

“I served, myself.”

Bauer, standing with his bag, itching to leave, felt like he had no choice but to follow up. “Where were you deployed?”

“I was an Austrian citizen,” said Hitler.

You still are, Bauer thought.

“I petitioned to volunteer. I was granted leave to enlist in a reserve infantry regiment—Sixteen.”

Bauer knew it. The first company of the List Regiment. “You were at Somme, too?”

“I was.” Hitler leaned back in his leather chair and crossed a leg. “I took shrapnel in my leg. Not a permanent injury like yours.”

Bauer couldn’t believe he was finding common ground with this. How could two men, serving in the same battle on the same side, have such starkly divergent concepts of what it means to be a nation?

But all he really cared about was leaving as soon as possible. At any moment, a guard could pop in, a phone could ring.

“My wife is waiting up for me,” said Bauer. “I should leave.”

“Then off you go.”

Bauer started toward the door, then stopped and turned. “By the way, who are you?”

Hitler thought for a moment, eyes lifting. “I am the man,” he said, “who will restore Germany to greatness.”

Bauer said nothing more, and closed the door behind him.

There were no guards in the upper hallway. He walked as quickly as he could on the balls of his feet to minimize the sound of his footfalls. He reached the back staircase and listened. He heard no voices, no noise, in the rear stairwell. He took the stairs down one floor, seeing and hearing no one. He took the first half of the final staircase and stopped on the landing before the final turn to the bottom floor.

He could hear guards down near the front entrance. What he wouldn’t give for another distraction from Gerlich, but it would have been impossible to time.

Bauer heard the guards down the hall react to something with approval. Whatever it was that occupied their attention—some food? a bottle of booze? a nudie magazine?—he would have to take the chance.

Head down, Bauer quickly and nimbly took the final staircase and turned toward the service entrance.

He heard nothing behind him, though his heart pounded so fiercely it was hard to be sure.

He pressed his ear against the service door, listening for any sounds outside, the latest sentry patrol. Between the thumping of his pulse and the extraneous chatter of the guards down the hall, he realized that he couldn’t hear a thing outside. He had no way of knowing if any guards were outside. Sooner or later, he’d have to take a leap of faith.

Sooner, then.

His bag hiked over his shoulders, Bauer pushed through the service door, looked out once, and sprinted toward the fence. He hit the fence in stride, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder, certain that he would have only one chance. He pulled himself over the fence and landed cleanly on the pavement on the other side.

He sprinted down Arcisstraße three blocks and found Helldorff in his Stutz coupe. He handed him the bag through the car window. “Take this and go. We’ll meet in an hour at the rendezvous.”

“You’re not getting in?”

“They know my face. You take it. Go to the meet point. I’ll find my way there. Go!”

Without another word, Helldorff sped away. Bauer drew one deep breath of satisfaction before sprinting in the other direction.

41

Vacant flat

Ludwigstraße

NINETY MINUTES LATER, LOOKING much the worse for wear and out of breath, Thomas Bauer met Peter Helldorff on Ludwigstraße, near the University of Munich, by the vacant flat where Fritz Gerlich worked.

“Any trouble?” Bauer asked.

“None,” said Helldorff, handing him the bag. “I drove around the university most of the time, waiting for the hour to pass. Let’s get inside. You must be freezing.”

Bauer had no coat, just the black sweater he wore over his repairman uniform. It had helped that he had jogged almost the entire way here, taking a circuitous route, staying off the main streets. Perhaps being overcautious, but who knew how quickly it would come to light that someone had emptied the safe? And the man who had been in Hitler’s office would be the obvious suspect.

They entered the apartment building, where a single naked light bulb illuminated the wooden staircase. “The last time I walked up these stairs, Fritz nearly shot me,” Bauer said as they climbed up to the second floor.

Gerlich was awaiting them in the chilly, dark flat. The temperature inside was cold enough for the men’s breath to linger in puffs thick as clouds.

“You got it?” he asked.

“We got it.” The bag in his hand, Bauer followed Gerlich into the bedroom where he worked at an old rickety table. Gerlich handed them both flashlights. “No electricity or heat,” he apologized to Helldorff.

“Better that way,” Helldorff said. “Nobody will think to look here.”

“What’s wrong?” Gerlich asked Bauer. “You’re favoring one side.”

“Think I dislocated my shoulder.” Bauer walked over to the doorway, reared back, and slammed his right shoulder against the doorframe. It hurt like hell for a moment but then felt a little better.

Bauer opened the bag and laid out the contents of Hitler’s vault on the table.

Five envelopes.

One was stuffed to capacity, and, not surprisingly, contained the pornographic sketches of Geli—lewd anatomical drawings, unmistakably showing Geli’s face but with her body in obscene poses that prominently and explicitly featured her genitalia. Bauer could hardly look at them.

“These were the drawings Father Stempfle stole from Hitler’s house and pretended to buy back from the thief?” asked Helldorff. “So these help establish an… intimate relationship between Hitler and his niece. It’s a start. A good start.”

Bauer opened the second envelope. It contained a two-page memorandum written by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, and was entitled “The Plan.” It began with this summary:

While we of course would hope for the Führer’s election as president in 1932, we should remain realistic that the incumbent, von Hindenburg, is likely to prevail. We should focus on two results: (1) forcing a runoff election in which the Führer commands a strong second place, and (2) most importantly, retaining the strongest position in the Reichstag. If NSDAP can control the parliament, we can demand that von Hindenburg appoint the Führer as chancellor. Once the Führer is chancellor, it will take but one national emergency to issue executive decrees assuming the reins of total power.

“Damn.” Bauer shook his head at this proof of the Nazis’ plan to take over the country.

“Mary, mother of God.” Fritz Gerlich threw up his hands. “A ‘national emergency’? Of course. Once they get into power, once Hitler holds the number two position in the government, they will manufacture a crisis. They’ll declare martial law, suspend civil liberties, and hand all power to Hitler. And never mind von Hindenburg. He’s, what, eighty-four years old? They’ll shove him aside. Probably kill him if need be. All in the name of national security. Hitler will have full control of the country despite not being elected president.”

“And once he has it, he’ll never let go,” said Bauer.

The third envelope contained another memorandum, this one from Hermann Göring, entitled “The Aryanization of the Jewish Economy.” It read in part:

Our approach will be gradual, of course, so as not to jeopardize the economic vibrancy of the country. We will begin with bans on Jews holding certain professions and general boycotts of various establishments. We will impose more and more stringent limitations on how and when Jewish-run businesses may operate and what goods and services they may sell.

Over time, as our position strengthens, we will dispatch emissaries to the more robust of the Jewish establishments under the guise that it would be advantageous to have a friend of the Party affiliated with that company. We will then arrest the owner of the company for undefined reasons and the “friend” will intervene, telling the Jewish owner that it was only because of his connections to the Party that the owner was not sent to a concentration camp.

We will repeat this process. The owner will feel increasing pressure and allow the “friend” greater access and control within the company. Ultimately the Jewish owner will relent and turn the business over to the Party, for fear of either financial failure or being sent to a concentration camp and never returning.

And once this is accomplished, with all Jews either expelled, in concentration camps, or forced into designated ghettos, we can proceed with the Final Solution.

“Concentration camps.” Bauer’s blood ran cold. “They’re going to set up detention camps and ghettos. They’re going to separate the Jews from everyone else.”

“The final solution?” Gerlich turned to Bauer. “What does that mean, the final solution?”

“What do you think it means, Fritz?” Bauer said. “It means once they’ve effectively removed all Jews from every sector of German society, they’re going to round them all up and exterminate them.”

It was worse than Bauer could have imagined. Before they’d even assumed power, the Nazis were plotting, in detail, the removal and ultimate eradication of the Jewish people. Including his wife, children, and in-laws.

“We’ll publish these tomorrow,” said Gerlich. “The Nazis will deny them. They’ll say anyone could have typed these words on a piece of paper. They’ll blame it on their political enemies. They’ll blame it on the Jews. They’ll claim political persecution and cast themselves as victims. But we have to try. We have to show the world what these monsters plan to do.”

“Good. And we’re not done,” said Bauer. “Two more envelopes to open.”

42

PETER HELLDORFF PICKED UP the fourth envelope, a smaller one, meant to hold a standard posted letter. The envelope was not sealed. He shook it, and out spilled a single small sheet of paper.

Stationery, pink with white flowers, personalized A.M. Raubal, for Geli’s full name, Angela Maria Raubal. It contained handwriting, the start of a letter:

Wenn ich nach Wien komme—ich hoffe sehr bald—werden wir gemeinsam zum Semmering fahren un

Thomas Bauer read it aloud. “When I come to Vienna—I hope very soon—we’ll drive together to Semmering an—” He looked at Gerlich. “Cut off mid-sentence.”

“Cut off mid-word,” Fritz Gerlich noted.

He was right. The word and was missing the final d.

“We’d have to do a handwriting analysis to confirm it’s Geli,” said Helldorff. “But I assume that won’t be a problem.”

Bauer was more interested in the contents of the letter. “Who stops writing a letter mid-word? Someone who’s been startled. And she never got back to it.” He thought for a moment. “Seems like she’s looking forward to meeting this person. Semmering? That’s a resort area south of Vienna, right?”

“Sounds like a romantic getaway for two,” said Gerlich.

It sure did. Bauer moved from the table and paced the small bedroom. “I’ll bet she was in the middle of writing that letter when Hitler accosted her. Which means it was there at the crime scene, and Hess, or Bormann, or another of his aides removed it.” He stopped and turned to the others. “Someone writing a letter like that is not contemplating the end of her life. She’s contemplating the beginning.”

“It doesn’t necessarily prove that Hitler killed her,” said Helldorff.

“No, but it all but rules out suicide. Which gets us one step closer. This is good.” Bauer started nodding. “This is good.”

The room went silent. These were highly incriminating pieces of evidence. None of them, by itself, was conclusive. But the case against Hitler was getting stronger and stronger.

And they still had one envelope left.

Bauer walked over and picked it up. “Feeling lucky, Fritz?” he said.

43

GERLICH TOOK THE FIFTH envelope and shook out a single piece of paper. Stationery again, but this time bearing the name A. Hitler. It was obviously written with a dip pen, as smudges of ink appeared by some of the words and elsewhere on the parchment.

“‘My dearest Geli,’” Bauer read aloud. “‘I am writing this letter because I know how difficult it is to speak of these matters.

“‘What you see as private and disgusting, I see as you in your most natural, vulnerable, and intimate state.’”

“My God,” said Gerlich. “He’s talking about what they do when they’re alone.”

The letter was nearly a full page. Bauer could hardly believe it, much less read it. In graphic and literal detail, the leader of the Nazi Party was admitting to deriving sexual pleasure from his young half niece urinating on him.

“He makes her do it,” Gerlich said, “even though she says she hates it.”

As the letter wore on, that became the theme—a domineering uncle, a young niece eager to elude the prison he built around her.

Bauer read: “‘I cannot deny that you dominate my thoughts, even that my obsession with you has become unhealthy.’”

And this line that, in Bauer’s opinion, stated that theme all too starkly:

“‘You and I both understand that you can never be with another man. As much as I have tried to tolerate the idea, I cannot permit it.’”

When he was finished, Gerlich looked at Bauer. “Who can now claim it’s far-fetched that Hitler might have killed Geli to stop her from leaving him?”

“Nobody.” For the first time, Bauer allowed himself optimism. This felt different. This was as close to conclusive as he could hope for. “And that’s not the best part,” he said. “Look there in the corner.”

Gerlich leaned forward. “Just another ink smudge, no?”

“It’s a lot more than an ink smudge, Fritz.” Bauer pointed. “It’s a thumbprint, dipped in ink!” He gripped Gerlich’s jacket and shook him. “We can prove it’s his handwriting and we have a fingerprint to back it up. He won’t be able to deny this.”

The room went silent again as the men took in the gravity of everything they’d seen. They paced, looked at each other, stared at the ceiling, shut their eyes, and considered the possibilities.

“It’s still not airtight proof of murder, though,” said Helldorff.

“No, Peter. No, no, no.” Gerlich waved his hands. “You’re not seeing this on a wide enough scale. Quit being a cop for two minutes. This exposes the man for the monster he is. The people need to know this. Of course I care about solving a murder, but don’t you see? Didn’t you just read those same memos about how they’re going to take total power and eradicate the Jews from this country? This is about more than a murder, Bauer. This is about the fate of our nation!”

He was right. Bauer, slowly nodding, knew it, too.

They finally had something they could use to take down Adolf Hitler.

44

THE MEN PACKED UP the contents of Hitler’s safe, returned the documents to their respective envelopes, and placed them inside Thomas Bauer’s tattered leather bag.

“So how soon can we get this stuff published?” Bauer asked. He checked his watch. It was already near 3:00 a.m.

“Tonight,” said Fritz Gerlich. “We publish it to all of Munich, to all of Germany. We force the justice minister and your Chief Müller to properly investigate. We turn the tide of sentiment against the National Socialists before it’s too late.”

“Can we go to the printing press right now?” Bauer asked.

Gerlich shook his head. “I need technical assistance. I do a lot of things at my newspaper, but not that. At least, not by myself. And I need to write at least a short article introducing all of this. Readers will need context.”

“Okay, so what do we do with these papers right now?” Bauer thought for a moment. “We have to assume that Hitler has discovered his safe is empty. And it will take him no time at all to figure out that the radiator repairman he spoke to in his office wasn’t a radiator repairman. I’m the last person who should hold these papers.”

Peter Helldorff took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll take them home.”

Bauer gave him a look. Despite Helldorff’s insistence on participating, Bauer could not help but see him as a kid in over his head. He felt responsible for the eighteen-year-old’s safety. “No,” he said. “Too dangerous.”

“We’ve been over this, Bauer. I’m not a child. I’m in this as much as you are.”

“I’ll take them,” said Gerlich.

“No.” Bauer paced the room. “You’re one of the first people they’ll suspect of being a part of this, Fritz. From their perspective, as far as journalists go, you’re enemy number one. For all we know, they’re raiding your office right now. If not your home.”

Gerlich blinked hard at that last sentence. So did Bauer. Their homes. Bauer’s wife and kids. Gerlich’s wife. What if the Nazis showed up there tonight?

“We need to get home right now,” said Gerlich.

“Right.” Bauer grabbed the bag. “None of us should have this in our possession. Let’s—why don’t we leave it here? Nobody knows about this place, do they, Fritz?”

“Nobody,” he said. “My friend’s the landlord. Nobody would think to look here. It’s brilliant, actually.”

Bauer closed the bag. “Any loose floorboards we can hide it under, by chance?”

“None that I know of.”

Using his flashlight, Bauer followed his illuminated path into the kitchen. A few cabinets and a sink, an oven—

“There,” said Bauer, shining his light on the gas oven. He opened the door and threw the bag in. He looked at the men. “Write whatever article you need to write, Fritz. And tonight, publish all of this. Before anyone has a chance to filter it.”

“Will do.” Gerlich rubbed his hands together, in anticipation if not warmth.

“I’ll report to headquarters and then come to you. I’ll be there in case there’s any trouble.”

“Me, too,” said Helldorff.

Gerlich breathed a heavy sigh. “Godspeed until then, gentlemen. Godspeed.”

45

AN HOUR AFTER THE men said their good-byes and left the vacant flat, a man wrapped in a heavy wool scarf, his tweed cap pulled low, entered the building on Ludwigstraße and climbed the stairs to the second floor. It only took him five minutes to pick the lock and enter.

He kept the beam of the flashlight low out of caution but satisfied himself that he was alone. He went to the small kitchen area, opened the door of the gas oven, and removed the bag containing the contents of Hitler’s safe.

He undid the top of the bag and looked at the envelopes inside. He did not remove any from the bag. But he did place an additional one inside.

Then he closed the bag, returned it to the oven, and left the same way he came.

46

Bauer residence

Oberföhring

BAUER DIDN’T SLEEP. HE spent the remaining hours of the night lying next to Amalie, listening to her gentle breathing, watching the contented expression on her face as she remained blissfully asleep. He checked on his sleeping children, Ridley and Maxine, still so innocent, so exuberant in their discovery of the world.

Bauer had risked his life for his country in war, had strapped on his G98 bolt-action rifle on the front lines while avoiding machine-gun artillery and aerial bombing, and he considered his current mission no less patriotic. But he had been a young, single man back then. Now he had a family. What it would mean for his children, for Amalie? He couldn’t ignore that they would be put at risk, too, by his actions.

As the sun crept over the horizon, Bauer rose and dressed. He kissed his wife good-bye, her familiar words—“Come home to us, Tom”—taking on a deeper poignancy that morning.

He treated this day like any other. Dressed the same, took the same morning tram, huddled among teachers and shopkeepers, dishwashers and janitors, cooks and street cleaners. When he arrived at Directorate 22 headquarters, he ignored the feeling of dread like acid in the pit of his stomach, sitting down to start work on his cases—an assault near Herzogpark, a residential burglary in Priel.

Helldorff was already there, though they only curtly acknowledged each other, bringing nothing of their off-duty mission to the office. Helldorff’s eyes were heavy after their long night, but his wild, strawlike blond hair gave away his youth. He’s not yet nineteen, Bauer thought, and I’ve drawn him into something dangerous.

“Bauer.”

He looked up. The chief’s assistant, Ilse, nodded at him. “The chief would like a word.”

“Sure.” Bauer nodded, as if nothing at all were unusual, casting a quick glance at Helldorff, who caught his eye.

He followed Ilse upstairs. The door to the chief’s office was closed. She knocked and opened it.

Bauer entered, first setting his eyes on the Weimar flag in the corner before noting the number of officers standing in the room. Chief Heinrich Müller sat behind the desk, flanked by two deputies and two other men, dressed in uniforms that identified them as officials from the Ministry of Justice.

“Come in, Bauer.” Müller wiggled his fingers.

Bauer took three steps forward. He considered a sarcastic quip, but the lump in his throat held him back. His heartbeat ratcheting up, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood at attention.

“Bauer, you have one chance to tell me what you did last night and why.” Müller leaned back in his chair. “One chance to avoid arrest and dismissal from the department. One chance to salvage your life.”

Bauer cast his eyes to the carpet. He didn’t know what, how, or how much the chief knew.

“My memory fails me, sir,” he said.

“Your memory of last night? You don’t remember what you did last night?”

“Oh, it’s coming back to me.” Bauer looked at the chief. “I was at a ballet lesson.”

“Well, we know you didn’t act alone,” said the chief, having none of Bauer’s bullshit, obviously holding the upper hand. “Do you want to protect your friends? Because I’m giving you that chance. Admit what you did, and we’ll show lenience to the others.”

Müller was no dummy. Bauer had always known that much.

“I acted alone,” he said.

“Acted alone in doing what?”

“Whatever it is you think I did, sir.”

“Where is it, Bauer?” Müller rose from his chair and leaned forward, bracing his knuckles on his desk. “And don’t be coy.”

The only card Bauer held, he figured, was that the Nazis surely wanted back what he took, wanted it returned safely to Hitler’s possession and out of the public eye. They didn’t know where he’d stashed it. That was his leverage.

Bauer could think of nothing to be gained from saying a word. So he didn’t.

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. It’s right here.” The chief leaned down behind his desk and, with much bravado, held up Bauer’s bag—the same beaten leather bag Bauer used last night when he stole the contents of Hitler’s safe. The same one he’d left inside the oven at the flat on Ludwigstraße only hours ago.

For all his ability to keep a straight face, Bauer was sure that his expression gave him away. How had the Nazis tracked him? What had they done wrong?

“You’re under arrest, Inspector Bauer.” The chief nodded at his deputies, who placed Bauer in handcuffs and marched him out, each taking an arm.

They walked him down the stairs, intentionally taking him past the detectives’ room, a way to humiliate him before his colleagues.

They brought him down to the last of six cells, concrete cages meant to hold up to a dozen detainees.

But only one other person sat inside, hunched over on the bench bolted to the wall, wearing spectacles and a crooked bow tie.

“Hello, Fritz,” said Bauer, as they uncuffed him and pushed him inside the cell.

47

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

“IT’S OVER, BAUER,” SAID Fritz Gerlich, once the guards had left them alone in the cell.

“No. Don’t say that. It’s never over. You still have a story. You read those letters. You can still write about it.”

“Even if I’m ever given the opportunity to print it, it will be dismissed as lies,” said Gerlich. “I no longer have the documents. Joseph Goebbels will turn any story I write into a rallying piece against the Jewish sympathizers. We have no proof.” He turned. “They followed you to the flat? Is that how they caught us?”

Bauer shrugged. “I was careful. I’ve done plenty of surveillance in my day to know whether someone was following me.”

“But I don’t have that experience. They probably followed me, Bauer.”

Bauer loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and leaned against the cell wall. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They have the information. We have to come up with something else.”

“Did you tell them anything, Bauer?”

“Of course not. You?”

“Nothing. Maybe they don’t suspect Peter. Maybe he can still help us. Unless he’s the next one to be thrown in here.”

As if on cue, they heard the entrance to the holding cells clang open, then the sound of light footsteps. Soon enough, Peter Helldorff approached. He was alone, and uncuffed. “Are you guys all right?” he whispered.

“Hardly.” Gerlich walked over to the bars of the cell. “They found our bag at the flat.”

“They did?” Helldorff drew back. “But… how?”

“I must have been followed,” said Gerlich.

“You weren’t followed.” Bauer pushed himself off the bench and joined Gerlich at the bars. “I know how they did it.” Bauer waved Helldorff closer.

Helldorff leaned in. Bauer shot his hands through the cell bars and gripped his shirt, the boy’s face slamming against the bars. “I think you know, too, Peter.”

“Let go of me!” he cried.

“Bauer, what are you doing?” Gerlich tried to intervene, but Bauer wouldn’t budge.

“What did they promise you?” Bauer hissed. “A promotion? Money?”

“You’ve got this all wrong!” Gerlich shouted.

“Are you even Jewish, Helldorff? Or was that a lie, too?”

Bauer released the kriminalassistent with a shove. Helldorff stood for a moment, stunned, then straightened his shirt, fixed his hair, touched his nose, and checked his finger for blood. He wouldn’t make eye contact with either Bauer or Gerlich. The silence hung heavy between them.

Finally, Helldorff’s chin dropped. “That’s the first time you ever called me by my real name,” he said quietly.

“Peter, tell Bauer he’s wrong,” said Gerlich, his anxiety clearly growing.

But Helldorff remained silent. A sheen appeared in his eyes, his face reddening. He cleared his throat, readying to speak, but kept his eyes down. “It wasn’t what they promised me if I cooperated but… what would happen if I didn’t. I’ve just become a cop. It’s all I ever wanted to be. I didn’t want it to end before it even began—”

“You have no idea what you’ve done, kid. You have no idea how you’ve hurt your country. Get out of my sight.” Bauer turned his back on Helldorff. Fritz Gerlich was still too stunned to speak. Bauer walked to the back of the cell and placed his head against the wall.

“Maybe you’re right, Fritz,” he said. “Maybe it is over.”

48

Present Day

Vienna

“ELEANOR, LISTEN TO ME. You have to stop this research business before you get yourself killed.”

“Come on now, Ty,” I say into my phone to my brother Tyson. “Nobody cares that much about a fifty-eight-year-old history professor on sabbatical.” Almost by instinct, by self-deprecation if not outright denial, I brush aside Ty’s concerns, though I can’t deny having the same thoughts.

“Your purse was stolen,” Tyson says. “Your hotel room was ransacked, and your computer was swiped. Not to mention that awful white supremacist Heil Hitler graffiti was spray-painted on your wall. Who’s to say you won’t be hurt next?”

“I’m being careful,” I say, which is true—if by careful I meant following the instructions given to me in Munich. I’d been told to take a certain route to the train station; to purchase a ticket to Vienna on my credit card but actually travel via an earlier Railjet train ticket bought in cash; to not communicate with anyone via email or text about my comings and goings. Oh, and to purchase a burner phone, which is what I’m using to talk to my brother right now.

All the cloak-and-dagger is exhausting. But it will all be worth it if the man I’m going to meet here in Vienna, Francis Linderman’s grandfather, can deliver to me the contents of Adolf Hitler’s safe.

“Are you trying to prove something, El? It seems like you are.”

You have no idea, I think. Maybe this search is what I needed after an uneventful life in academia. Maybe I’d like to make some history instead of just teaching it.

I check the burner phone for the time. I’m due at the meeting point soon. I’m staying on the main strip in the center of Vienna, Kärntner Straße, not far from the Casino Wien and a number of glitzy shops that remind me of the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

My instructions were to wear a brown coat and orange hat. The latter I purchased from a souvenir shop, a silly Euro Disney cap that looks ridiculous on a woman my age, but I already had a beige corduroy jacket. I’ve had it for seven years. It was a gift from my daughter Annabelle.

She’d bought it for me while shopping for antiques in the Netherlands. Thrifting was one of her favorite hobbies. The seller claimed that the jacket had once belonged to Johanna Naber, a Dutch feminist historian. I laughed when Annabelle related that to me, for who could verify such an assertion? But then again, who would lie about it? Johanna Naber was a personal hero of mine but hardly a household name.

I’ve worn it ever since.

The meeting point is a fifteen-minute walk, so I leave the hotel twenty-five minutes before three, the appointed hour, to give myself some cushion. A pedestrian avenue of stone, closed to vehicles, Kärntner Straße is a touristy walk to be sure, with plenty of chain stores and restaurants familiar to Americans, but the overall vibe is swanky and high-end, the avenue dotted generously with outdoor cafés. It’s not lost on me that this is the perfect avenue from which to surveil me. I quickly give up any pretense of trying to detect, much less avoid, a tail.

I soon reach Stephansplatz, the plaza featuring the Stephansdom—St. Stephen’s Cathedral, an immense Gothic limestone structure with Roman towers of notably different heights, including one of the largest in the world, a roof of hundreds of thousands of colorful glazed tiles, and over a dozen altars and nearly as many chapels. The seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, the site of the marriages of both Haydn and Mozart, and during the 1600 Turkish wars a de facto military command center, the cathedral is one of the top tourist attractions in Vienna.

Near the Giant’s Gate where tourists enter is a small engraving—OS, a symbol of the Austrian resistance to the Nazis after Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. (Austria, in its native language, is Österreich, but in most other languages the Ö is written as Oe, with the letter E being the fifth letter of the alphabet. Thus, O5.)

I could spend all day inside this massive cathedral but was directed to one place among many: the high altar, built in the 1640s and one of the few altars that survived the Allies’ shelling in World War II.

As instructed, I sit in the penultimate pew on the far right side, leaving space for a visitor. I am six minutes early, but I sit alone for the next thirty, occupying myself by counting all the figurines of local saints around the altar (Leopold, Florian, Sebastian, and Rochus), imagining how painful it must have been to be stoned (very), and wondering how long I’ll wait before giving up (not much longer).

I spend some time admiring an oil painting above the altar featuring Saint Stephen being stoned to death, while he looks up to Heaven and beseeches Jesus and God the Father, the dramatic lighting on Stephen’s face meant to look angelic. Then I move my attention to the elaborate stained-glass windows that bookend Pock’s masterpiece. Then to a sculpture of the immaculate conception. But by 3:45 p.m., my appreciation for the altar is overcome by the growing ache in my lower back, and I am ready to leave.

“My personal favorite is Saint Florian.”

I turn to see a man roughly my age, dressed in a long wool coat, scarf neatly tied around his neck, and a gray fedora. “May I sit?” he asks.

This is not who I was expecting, or at least not what my contact was supposed to be wearing.

I slide over, but when he sits he leaves no space between us, our shoulders touching. For one panicky moment I expect to feel a sharp object sliding between my ribs, something stealthy, allowing him to slip away while I slowly bleed out.

“Saint Florian.” He gestures toward the altar, one of the figurines. “Do you know what he is best known for?”

I try to calm myself and find my voice. “Putting out fires.”

“Just so. He was part of an elite firefighting brigade for the Roman army. Who later refused to persecute Christians and sacrifice them to the Roman gods. A true and honorable man.” He smiles. “You know your history, Professor. You wrote your doctoral thesis on the fissures and distrust between Hitler and Mussolini during World War II. And you’ve taught courses.” He nudges me with his elbow.

“You want me to know how carefully you’ve researched me,” I say.

He chuckles, an admission, and puts out his hand. “I am obviously not who you were expecting. And that man is obviously not coming. He is more competent than I would have thought at spotting surveillance. And here I thought we were being discreet.”

“And who are you?”

“I think of myself as a firefighter as well. I come for a preventative purpose.”

“Preventative,” I repeat. “As in preventing me from obtaining certain items?”

“Just so. But only for your safety.” He clears his throat. “We are not so naive as to think that stealing your computer will erase the knowledge in your head. I daresay you could rewrite what you’ve already completed in a week’s time from memory.”

“But it could be dismissed as speculation unless I have corroboration.”

“I could not have said it better, Professor. What you have learned from the notes and those journals you obtained from Francis Linderman is not proof. It was enough to get you started on this journey. Even enough to write an engaging book proposal, however inconclusive it may be. But not enough for a historian, at least not one with any integrity, to print as fact. You want facts. You want proof. That is why you’re here.”

“Fair enough,” I say. “But why do I need you to tell me what I already know?”

“Because I don’t want to see you killed, Professor.” He raises a hand. “Your death would only call attention to your research. It would lend credibility to it. Others would take up your cause.”

“Then you shouldn’t kill me.”

“I might agree, but this is not my decision alone. Do you think there is but one leader of our movement? There are many factions that are autonomous. And all are aware of what you’re trying to obtain, Professor. Any one of them could act against you at any time. The harder you try to obtain this information, the greater your risk.”

“But as you noted,” I begin, trying to still my nerves, “it will backfire. Give credibility to my cause.”

“Unless they do it properly, make it look like a suicide,” he says. “As they did with Mr. Linderman.”

My head whips in his direction. What was he telling me about Francis Linderman’s death?

“He… didn’t commit suicide?”

The man makes a guttural noise but remains motionless, eyes forward, looking at the altar. “For the first time you surprise me, Professor. Surely you’re not that naive.”

It feels like someone flipped the thermostat inside me, my blood going cold. Francis, the man who sent me the Nazi-era information, who started me on this journey… was murdered?

“Perhaps now you will take my admonishment more seriously,” he says. “Do I have your attention now, Professor Robbins?”

49

“YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION,” I say to the man sitting next to me in the pew.

“Then let us speak plainly,” he continues. “I will not insult your intelligence and pretend that the man you came to meet does not have the contents of the Führer’s vault. We obviously suspect that he does, which is why we have been pursuing him.” He turns to me. “But then do not insult my intelligence, either. We both know that you only care about one of the six items that Inspector Bauer removed from the Führer’s safe.”

Did he say six items? I only know of five.

“The one of most use to you, of course, is the letter from the Führer to Geli. And not only for its graphic content.”

“Because of Hitler’s thumbprint, stained in ink,” I say. “Proving that he wrote it.”

“Of course. But the information in the other five envelopes is of no use to you.”

Again, the other five. Indicating there were six envelopes total.

“Are you really so sure the other items aren’t of use to me?” I ask, mainly to keep him talking. I want to hear more about this mysterious sixth item.

“Come now, Professor,” he says. “The memos from Goebbels and Göring would have been absolute bombshells in 1931, had Gerlich been able to print them, but now they are old news. And the sketches of Geli? Easily deniable—you can’t prove the subject of the drawings is Geli, you can’t prove that the Führer drew them, et cetera. Likewise Geli’s unfinished note. So what that it’s on her stationery? No one could say to whom that was written or when it was written. Nobody could definitively connect it to the day of her death.”

And that covers the five items of which I’m aware.

“And last but not least?” I ask, flailing, reaching in the darkness.

“Quite obviously the last item is of no use to you, because it no longer exists,” says the man. “My understanding is that it was damaged beyond recovery when it was returned to the Führer. Bauer likely compromised it when he tried to view it. Apparently the Führer was quite upset that it was unusable.”

When Bauer tried to view it, he said. Hitler was upset because it was unusable. That sparks many thoughts, but I don’t know how to probe further without revealing that I have no idea what he’s talking about.

But this man is no dummy. He figures that much out on his own. “Bauer never knew what was on it, did he? Which means you, Professor, do not know, either, do you?”

There doesn’t seem to be any point in denying it. “First I’ve heard of a sixth item in a sixth envelope,” I admit. “Though now I am curious.”

He throws up his hands. “Unfortunately you will have to remain so. Rest assured it is of no import. It is long gone, destroyed, in the dustbin of history, as they say.”

“But not the letter Hitler wrote to Geli. Or his thumbprint.”

“We must assume that your contact possesses it, yes,” he says. “The only surviving evidence that could incriminate the Führer and that would be very difficult to disavow. Your odds of obtaining that letter are quite slim, anyway. I suspect your contact will not resurface.”

“You may be right,” I say. “I may never obtain it. But there will be someone after me. Someone will find a way to get this information out. History is written by the victors, is it not?”

“Just so, but are you so sure who is the victor, Professor? Look around the world right now. Which movement is gaining momentum, yours or ours?”

For a moment I am silent, shaking out my nerves. Thinking of my mortality, my life, my legacy, my purpose. Thinking of my brother Tyson, of my daughter Annabelle, whom I lost to cancer six years ago, just as she was on the verge of completing her PhD in behavioral psychology and making her mark in the world.

“Funny thing about Saint Florian,” I say. “The man who fought fires? Who refused to persecute the Christians? The Roman emperor ordered him burned at the stake for his disobedience. You know what Florian said to the soldiers as he stood at his funeral pyre?”

The man nods. “He said he was not afraid of the fire, that he would gladly step into it in the name of God and righteousness.”

“You know your history as well, then.”

The man stands and straightens his coat. “They will be erecting no statues of you. You will not be canonized. You will just be dead, nothing more. And that could happen anytime, starting now. Go back to Chicago, Eleanor Robbins.”

50

I REMAIN ALONE IN that penultimate pew, surrounded by dozens and dozens of other tourists but alone in any real sense, for an amount of time I could not quantify. I have no idea what next steps to take or whether to take any, whether I should heed the man’s advice and fly back home.

I do believe him, though. I will be no match for anyone meaning me harm. And I likely won’t even see it coming.

It could be that guy right there, I think, as I leave the high altar and head for the exit, the man wearing a pinstriped Yankees jersey and blue jeans, taking a photo with his phone.

Or that muscle-bound bald man in a navy turtleneck, whispering to a darker, shorter man as they join the cascade of tourists exiting the cathedral.

Or that young Asian woman with piercings on her face and hair dyed lime green, who is calling out to someone and headed straight toward me—

She runs into me, her left shoulder slamming mine, and I brace for a knife slicing into my stomach, the prick of a needle dispensing poison, a bullet between the ribs. But she merely mumbles something to me, probably some version of excuse me or watch where you’re going, and moves on.

I am frozen for just a moment, adrenaline coursing through me. She was no assassin. She was just a distracted teenager.

But it could be anyone, anywhere, at any time.

I am moving through the crowd on Kärntner Straße rather aimlessly, no plan, no idea of what to do next, when a woman headed in the opposite direction, carrying a toddler on her arm, drops her bag of groceries, spilling out the contents onto the stone walkway.

I bend down to assist. As I hand the last apple to her, the woman takes it and whispers in English, “Save the whales, Professor. Save the whales.” Then she stands with her shopping bag, lifts her child, and leaves.

Save the whales?

I continue walking forward. And then I see the sign, in the center of the crowded pedestrian street, not far from the Ambassador Hotel. A sign that reads GREENPEACE.

I connect the dots. Up ahead, I see a number of young people, dressed in fluorescent green shirts, handing out brochure packets. “Stoppt den kommerziellen Walfang!” one man shouts through a megaphone. Stop commercial whaling.

A young man with a skinny neck and curly chestnut hair puts a brochure in my hands. “Professor,” he says, before turning and handing out the next brochure to another passerby.

I take the brochure. It’s heavy, but I refuse to look at it, treating it as nothing more than some uninteresting leaflet to discard at the first opportunity. Not until I reach the lobby of my hotel do I look down at what I am holding.

It is a three-page document of thick embossed paper. The first page discusses the international moratorium on commercial whaling and Japan’s flouting of the decree. When I flip to the next page, I can see little of it, as taped to it is a piece of plastic.

And inside the plastic is a piece of stationery bearing the name A. Hitler.

With an ink-stained thumbprint on the bottom.

I double-blink and refocus, to make sure I am seeing this for what it is. It’s real. I thought it was, I always believed it, but now I know.

It’s real. And I will show it to the world.

My heart pounding like never before, sweat breaking out on my face, I take the elevator to the fifth floor. When I get off, a man appears from the corner of the hallway, wrapped up in a coat and hat, similar to the man at the cathedral.

“Professor,” he says. From his pocket he removes a gun, which he holds low.

Before the words no no no have even formed on my lips, he yanks the pages from me and steps back. He examines them, then places them carefully in his coat pocket.

I don’t answer, still in a state of disbelief. It was right there in my hands, verifiable, and now it is gone. Like a dream, whisked away upon waking.

The elevator dings. The man steps inside. “I suppose now you know how Inspector Bauer felt,” he says as the doors close.

Part Two

“Within ten years our movement has won a place as the second strongest political party in Germany.… That Germany that today hails us into court will someday be glad that our movement was begun. National Socialism will convert this defeatist and pacifist state into a nation of iron strength and will.”

—Adolf Hitler, testifying as a witness before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig on September 25, 1930

51

December 1932

Osteria Bavaria

Schellingstraße 62

THOMAS BAUER, HIS HEAD shaved and wearing a thick beard, stood in the dank, humid cellar, huddled over a sink, elbow to elbow with other men, sweat dripping into his eyes, his forearms burning, as he scrubbed the last of the pots used to make the dough for brötchen, crusty rolls eaten with jam or butter. Then he dried the pots, stacked them, and placed them on trays on the dumbwaiter that would send them upstairs to the kitchen.

“Shift!” the supervisor called out when the clock hit 6:00 a.m.

Bauer wiped off his pruned hands. He was bone tired. The night shift was brutal, but it was the only one he could manage, and it paid an additional five marks a week.

Bauer trudged up the stairs to the ground floor of the Osteria Bavaria, the popular restaurant in Maxvorstadt, not far from the Konigsplatz and Brown House. The brisk December wind slapping his face was a relief after the thick air of the basement. He hopped on the tram, where he stood holding a pole, his sweat-soaked undershirt stuck to his chest and back, then switched to another tram before jumping off three blocks away from Police Directorate 22.

Bauer had narrowly escaped prison for his break-in at the Brown House a year ago. The Nazis did not want the publicity and thus declined to press charges. For much the same reason, Chief Heinrich Müller did not want the administrative hassle of justifying Bauer’s dismissal. Instead, the chief had demoted him as far as possible, to lowly patrolman, hoping that Bauer’s pride would force him to resign.

That had been Bauer’s first instinct, of course, but the economy was at an all-time low in Munich. Work was scarce. He needed the pension and the benefits for his family. Between the lower wages he received as a patrolman and the few extra marks washing dishes, he was still short of the salary he once received as a kriminalkommissar, but he was determined to continue providing for his family. He always remembered the words of his father, who busted rocks in a stone quarry in Buchenwald for thirty years: Don’t ever let pride get in the way of putting food on the table.

At the station, Bauer got dressed, throwing on his dark trousers, buttoning up his dark tunic, buckling his leather belt, and clipping on his whistle, handcuffs, and baton.

“I don’t get you, Bauer,” said another officer, named Werner. “Why work a nightmare shift at that fancy restaurant when you could work nights next door at Wursthaus for more money?”

Bauer laced up his black leather boots and threw on his gray peaked hat. He had his reasons for working at Osteria Bavaria, but he wasn’t going to share them with Werner. “What can I say? I love the ambience there.”

“The ambience in the sweaty basement?”

Bauer ignored him, setting out onto the streets of the Bogenhausen District, starting his patrol shift at 7:00 a.m. sharp. These days, every morning in Munich looked like a clean-up after a wild party, only not one of merriment but of anger and looting and violence. Jewish shopkeepers swept glass from broken store windows and fastened boards over the open spaces, scrubbed swastikas from their doors or pig’s blood from their doorsteps.

Bauer’s morning patrol was not especially unusual: breaking up a fight between two homeless women in an alley outside the Bogenhauser Hof restaurant, chasing a pickpocket off the 17 tram (a homeless child who had lifted a billfold off a woman holding a sack of groceries), and, finally, responding to a robbery at Samuel Phelan’s hardware store that required a call into headquarters for inspectors.

“It’s nearly every other day now,” said the store owner. Sam Phelan, whom Bauer knew from cadet training before the war, was a man with a flat nose and thick cheeks and wavy hair. “They have nothing to lose, these homeless. Either they get away clean or you guys arrest them and provide them shelter. They have no reason not to rob me.”

The poor will steal was one of the first lessons a cop learned. And with over six million people in Germany unemployed and homelessness at an all-time high, Munich looked less and less like the charming, vibrant city he once knew. He was tempted to analogize a stroll through Munich to a trip through a funeral parlor, but that wasn’t quite right. Funerals are sad and final. The city Bauer loved so dearly, where he had lived his entire life, was infected by an air of nervous uncertainty.

“Police inspectors!” a voice boomed.

Bauer recognized it instantly. Moments later, Inspector Brecht, with his thick stomach and walrus mustache, walked in. Behind him came Peter Helldorff, now promoted to Bauer’s previous rank of kriminalkommissar despite his young age, a reward for snitching thirteen months earlier.

Bauer’s blood went cold. Every time he’d run into Helldorff since the betrayal, the young man had shrunk into the woodwork.

“Officer Bauer,” said Brecht, huffing his mustache. “A shaved head! A beard! I see you’ve changed your look, along with your change in rank.”

Bauer didn’t reply. He had only recently grown a beard, which to his surprise had come in with streaks of gray.

“What do you have for us, patrolman?” Bauer kept his eyes down, but could hear the relish in Brecht’s voice.

“A smash-and-grab. Shouldn’t be too hard, even for you, Brecht.” Bauer brushed past the men and out into the street.

“Bauer,” Helldorff called after him. “Got a minute?”

“Not for you,” said Bauer. “Not ever.”

“Please.” Helldorff followed Bauer down the street. “Just let me talk!”

Bauer ignored him and kept walking. He finished his patrol shift at 3:00 p.m., returned to the station, put on a suit and tie, and jumped back on the tram.

Twenty minutes later, he was back at Osteria Bavaria. He ducked into the kitchen and walked over to the side door that led into a private dining room. A hostess was throwing a party for her beau in there, but it was set to end at 3:30. He put his ear to the door. Sounded like the party was breaking up.

He bided his time until he could hear the waiters coming in and out of this door clearing plates of braised beef and omelets, imported oranges and apple strudel. He knew the waiters would later divide the leftovers and take them home to their families.

After the crowd had filtered out, Bauer opened the door into the private room. The hostess sat alone, finishing her glass of champagne.

Her name was Eva Braun.

52

WITH EXPRESSIVE BLUE EYES, blond hair curling under her sequined hat, and a floral jacket and white skirt, the slim-hipped Eva Braun was the perfect picture of a high-class hostess. But more than anything, Thomas Bauer was struck by her youth. He knew that she was twenty-two, but she did not look even that old.

“Fräulein Braun.” Bauer stood at a respectful distance, hands clasped behind his back, stooped slightly in a bow.

She set down the glass of champagne she was finishing. She looked Bauer over and seemed to approve.

“My name is Berger,” he told her. “I am a correspondent for Photoplay magazine.”

“Photoplay!” She clapped her hands together. “I just adore that magazine. The cover featuring Gloria Swanson? I’ve kept that issue for years! She’s—well, she’s so enchanting, isn’t she?”

“Yes, yes,” said Bauer.

“You’ve just missed the Führer.”

Osteria Bavaria was Hitler’s favorite restaurant—hence why Bauer had chosen to work at that particular establishment. But he had avoided the Führer today.

“I did not come to meet him, Fräulein Braun. I came to see you.”

“Me?” Braun lit up, her rosy cheeks coloring further, her bloodshot eyes widening. She set down the bottle of champagne; she’d been about to pour herself another glass. It was clearly not her first—or second—of the day.

“Yes, you,” said Bauer. “I would like to interview you. I would like to photograph you. The powerful woman behind the powerful man.”

Braun considered that idea, seeming to savor it, her tongue peeking out between her deep-red lips.

“We were thinking of shooting at Prinzregentenplatz,” said Bauer.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes cast downward. “I don’t spend much time there. How about the chalet in Berchtesgaden? It’s a humble cottage, but the views of the Bavarian Alps are breathtaking!”

No. That won’t work.

“My publisher insists on Prinzregentenplatz,” said Bauer.

Bauer left the Osteria Bavaria, wrapping his scarf tight, and walked two blocks to the tram. He took it to a stop on Adalbertstraße and got off. On the way to his destination he was approached by no fewer than a dozen homeless people; he always tried to carry some coins with him to hand out but constantly reminded himself that every mark he gave to someone else was one that didn’t provide for his family.

He soon reached the beer hall off Georgenstraße. It was a tavern his father had once frequented and was still popular with the men who worked the quarries. The carved wooden sign outside for Maximilian Haus hung sideways from a single nail, but everyone knew the place. Bauer had walked these sticky linoleum floors since he was eight years old, when his father and his crewmates would hoist their steins and sing “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit” until they were falling off their chairs, leaving Bauer to prop his father up to get him on the tram home.

He reached the door to the private hall at the rear and knocked on it. The man who answered was Fritz Gerlich, Bauer’s erstwhile partner in crime, who had also managed to avoid incarceration for his role in the Brown House burglary for much the same reason Bauer did.

“Almost didn’t recognize you with the beard and bald head,” Gerlich said.

“That’s the whole point, Fritzie.”

Inside the private room, eight other men were gathered around a circular table, each of them with a stein of foamy ale and papers in front of them. They looked like ordinary men, dressed in ordinary clothes. They ranged in age from thirty-one to seventy-four. They had ordinary jobs—shoemaker, barber, student, salesman, musician, shopkeeper, and two university professors. A collection of men Bauer and Gerlich had brought together covertly, subtly, and very, very carefully over the last few months.

What they had in common were two things: Firstly, they desperately loved their country, all—save Gerlich, who had been medically disqualified—having bravely fought for the Imperial Army in the war. And secondly, they would be damned if everything they fought for was taken away by Adolf Hitler.

Ten men who had come together through various friendships, calling themselves the ZP, for die zehn Patrioten or Ten Patriots.

Bauer took the vacant chair and sat down. “I’m in,” he said. “We’re meeting at his flat in Prinzregentenplatz next week. We’ll only get one chance to do this.”

“I’ll have the flat by then,” said the barber, a Polish immigrant named Rolf who’d served in a reserve field artillery regiment in the war.

“The tech will be no problem.” This from Erich von der Haas, a medical student who’d served as a signals-intelligence officer for Abwehr, Germany’s spy agency. Von der Haas was a mousy sort, with wiry hair, glasses thicker than Gerlich’s, and a tiny frame—five foot four at most.

“That’s great, Bauer,” said Gerlich. “But I have even better news. My sources tell me that the president refuses to appoint Hitler. Tomorrow, he’s announcing that General von Schleicher will be the new chancellor.”

As if he’d been holding his breath for the last three weeks since the parliamentary elections, Bauer exhaled in relief. At least there was still some sanity left in the country. President von Hindenburg was a frail octogenarian, but he was moderate and reasonable and, most important, he embraced democracy. Kurt von Schleicher was a political chameleon, but he detested the Nazis, and Hitler in particular. Germany didn’t need flawless politicians or a perfect government. They just needed a democracy.

“That’s the best news of all,” said Bauer. “That gives us more time. But we can’t slow down now. Because we know Hitler won’t.”

53

The Brown House

45 Brienner Straße

ADOLF HITLER SAT AT one end of the long walnut table in the Senatorensaal conference room in the Brown House, shaking his head, drumming his fingers.

The others at the table—Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Rudolf Hess, and Joseph Goebbels—noted the darkening of his eyes, the reddening of his face, the clenching of his jaw. They knew an explosion was forthcoming.

Hitler had finished in a respectable second place in the runoff presidential election. But, more important, the National Socialists had won the most seats in the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, preventing President Paul von Hindenburg and his appointed chancellor, Franz von Papen, from forming a moderate coalition government.

Even after the chancellor was forced to call for new parliamentary elections in November, the Nazis still remained the party with the largest plurality of seats by far, with one-third of the elected Reichstag.

The question had remained: who would the president appoint as the new chancellor of Germany?

Von Papen’s failure to form a coalition government had wounded him terribly. That left two principal candidates: General Kurt von Schleicher, the defense minister, a moderate who had pushed hard for Papen’s downfall; or Adolf Hitler, the undisputed leader of the National Socialists and, of course, the second highest vote-getter in the previous presidential race.

Von Hindenburg’s decision had just come through.

“That swine,” Hitler mumbled. “He chooses that pimple Schleicher over me?” He slammed his hand down on the table and pushed himself out of his chair, walking over to one of the many portraits of himself inside the room. “That position is rightfully mine,” he hissed, his hands balled in fists, his face a deep scarlet, the veins in his forehead and neck threatening to pop. “Mine!”

“And it will be soon, mein Führer,” said Goebbels.

“You know what will happen now, Joseph.” Hitler wagged an angry finger. “Schleicher will try to negotiate with Strasser. He’ll try to divide our party.”

He was referring to Gregor Strasser, leader of the liberal wing of the National Socialists, who had butted heads often with Hitler over the years about party ideology, resulting in only the most fragile of truces to date.

“He will try that very thing,” said Goebbels. “Schleicher, I predict, will offer Strasser the vice-chancellorship, with the intention of marginalizing you. So we will have to ensure that Strasser does not accept.”

“And how do we do that?” asked Rudolf Hess.

“We marginalize Strasser,” said Goebbels.

“Yes, yes,” Hitler agreed. “We force Strasser to resign from all party offices. We leave him without a party. Then he will be unable to speak for the National Socialists.”

“And then Schleicher will be marginalized,” said Hermann Göring. “He will be politically wounded. Like Papen, Schleicher will be unable to form a coalition. The government will be paralyzed. President von Hindenburg will have to do something.”

“And that is where we come in.” Goebbels rubbed his bony hands together. “We play one off the other. We appeal to Papen’s ego and thirst for revenge. Papen largely blames Schleicher for undermining his chancellorship, yes? He thinks Schleicher sabotaged him. So we give Papen the chance to sabotage Schleicher right back.”

Hitler leaned forward. “Go on, Joseph.”

“We offer Papen a deal, mein Führer. You are named chancellor, and he is named vice-chancellor.”

“And you think Papen will agree to that?” asked Hitler.

“I do, mein Führer.” Goebbels turned to Göring, who had been elected to the Reichstag and who, given the Nazis’ status as the largest party, had become its leader. “Do you concur, Hermann?”

“I do.” Göring nodded. “Papen is a political animal through and through. He wants a title, a position. A compromise will allow him to turn the tables on Schleicher—to oust the man who just ousted him—and at the same time, keep himself close to power. He will sell it to the president. He will say it allows him to placate you, mein Führer, while also keeping a watchful eye on you.”

Everyone around the table nodded.

Hitler took a moment to warm to the idea. “So then I become chancellor,” he said, pacing slowly. “And it doesn’t matter who the vice-chancellor is, whether it’s Franz von Papen or Kurt von Schleicher or Mickey Mouse. Not after we trigger our… our…” He turned to Goebbels. “What are we calling it, Joseph?”

“Unsere nationale Krise,” said Goebbels.

“Yes, our national crisis.” Hitler clapped his hands together, then slapped them down flat on the table. “Gentlemen, we have work to do. Starting with you, Martin.” He turned to Bormann. “I want you to convene a meeting of party leaders at once. On the agenda will be the future of Gregor Strasser in the National Socialist Party.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“I must be chancellor within days, not months,” said Hitler. “At which time, we will remember those who tried to stop us. And in that vein, Hermann?”

“Yes, mein Führer.” Göring sat up straight.

“Strasser? Schleicher? I want to add them.”

“Add them, mein Führer?”

Hitler leveled his coldest stare on Göring.

“Add them to the list,” he said.

54

Prinzregentenplatz 16

ADOLF HITLER CLOSED HIS eyes, at peace in his embroidered chair in the parlor of his flat, as the phonograph blared Wagner’s masterpiece, Götterdämmerung, the last of the four operas in his acclaimed Ring cycle. With his hands the Führer conducted the music, stilling the horns and inviting the strings’ dramatic introduction with his fingers.

He heard Anni Winter, his housekeeper, approach but stop short. She knew better than to interrupt him while he listened to his favorite composer. But the scent of peppermint was enough to make him open his eyes and summon her.

“Your tea, mein Führer, and a bit of cake.” Anni set down the Nymphenburg porcelain teacup and plate on the round walnut table.

“Thank you, my dear. Please tell Julius that he may send Father Stempfle up with his guest. But I should like to first speak privately with the father.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“And please retire for the night, Anni—you and Georg. I am in the mood for privacy.”

She nodded. “Good night, then, mein Führer.”

Hitler quickly devoured the apple cake baked with raisins and nuts, and took a sip of hot tea before rising from his chair. He lifted the needle from the record spinning on the phonograph, bidding good night to Wagner. A moment later, after a knock on the door, Father Stempfle appeared, dressed in a suit but with no tie.

“Good evening, mein Führer.”

“Good of you to come, Bernie. She is here, I take it?”

“Indeed, mein Führer.” Stempfle bowed slightly. “She is outside the door. I think you will agree she looks the part.”

“Where did you find her?”

“Near a shelter in Alter Hof,” said Stempfle.

“She is clean, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, mein Führer. I made sure of it.”

“You’ll be reimbursed by Franz.” Hitler placed a hand on Stempfle’s shoulder. “I appreciate your discretion, Bernie. I depend on it.”

“Always, mein Führer. You can trust me unconditionally.”

Father Stempfle left out the door. A girl walked in. She had the look of a homeless child, the mismatched clothes and torn shoes, but otherwise she was perfect: cherubic face, long frame, dirty-blond curls, and large blue eyes.

“Hello, my dear.” Hitler bowed and extended his hand. “What is your name?”

“Helga,” she said quietly.

“How lovely. I should like to call you by a different name. Would that be all right?”

The girl nodded, uncertain.

“I should like to call you Geli. And you may call me Herr Wolf.”

Hitler fed the girl cake and poured her a cup of peppermint tea. She consumed the food as if she hadn’t eaten in days. He looked away, finding her manners unladylike, but she was only fifteen years old, after all.

She was young, but she understood. She had lived on the streets long enough. She knew the thirty marks Stempfle had paid her did not come for free.

“You understand what we’ll be doing?” he asked her.

She slowly nodded, avoiding eye contact.

He brought her into the bedroom. The tarp was already placed on the floor. The girl eyed it with suspicion.

“Please remove your clothes, Geli,” he said, recognizing a tremble in his voice but feeling aroused all the same at the familiar line—words he had not uttered in over a year.

Hitler undressed to his underwear. He lay down flat on the tarp.

“I am ready, Geli,” he said.

Helga walked over to him as he lay on his back. She turned around so her back was to him, straddling him. She squatted down, her rear end very near his face.

Hitler was fully aroused, his breathing quickening, his heartbeat spiking, heat surging through his body.

“Now, Geli,” he said. “Give me what I so richly deserve.”

55

Bauer residence

Oberföhring

“TOM. TOM, WAKE UP.”

Bauer awoke with a start, nearly spilling out of the chair he had set next to the children’s bunk beds in their room. He looked up with hazy eyes at Amalie, dressed in a pink sleeping gown, who stroked the beard on his face.

“You fell asleep.”

Despite his complete lack of vocal talent, each night Bauer sang to his children, now six and seven years old, until they fell asleep. He had little in terms of repertoire, so he relied on the traditional lullabies his mother used to sing to him: “Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen,” “Guten Abend, gute Nacht!,” “Der Mond ist aufgegangen.” He joked that the kids would feign sleep just so he’d stop singing.

Amalie took his hand and led him to the bedroom. “You’re not getting enough sleep.”

“I know.” Bauer felt shaky on his feet. He tried to go to bed as soon as the kids were down in the evening but rarely managed. Getting up at 1:00 a.m. to make it back to Osteria Bavaria for the night shift was taking a toll on him both physically and mentally.

“This can’t continue,” she said. “You’ve been doing this for a year. It’s too much. It’s breaking you.”

Bauer looked at his wife. It was taking a toll on her as well, the dark circles under her eyes.

He rarely compared himself to his father, who’d worked over thirty years in the quarry, fulfilling what he considered the most vital function of a father—providing for the family—but was either too tired or too drunk after working to then spend any meaningful time with his children. Bauer had been determined to be a more involved father. And he had been. He’d helped the kids with schoolwork and music lessons (violin for Maxine, piano for Ridley). He’d wrestled and played games and listened to radio shows with them. He had helped get them dressed in the morning and ready for bed at night.

But over this last year, he’d begun disappearing from their lives. If he even made it home by dinner, he would often nod off from lack of sleep, and was at his second job before the kids woke in the morning.

“I know what you’re doing with these men, whatever you call them—the Ten Patriots?—is important,” Amalie said.

“That’s just a silly name,” he said. “But yes, it’s important.”

“Your kids are important, too, Tom.”

Bauer ran a hand over his bald head, feeling the whiskery nubbles. “Who do you think I’m doing this for, Am? I don’t want Max and Ridley being treated like second-class citizens. I don’t want them to feel ashamed of the religion they follow. I don’t want them spat on and ridiculed—”

“But do you have to take this on all by yourself? Tom against the world?”

Bauer threw up his hands. “I have two choices. Fight for my country or leave. Do you want to leave Munich? Do you want to leave Germany?”

Amalie deflated, her eyes downcast. “Of course I don’t want to leave. But are you so sure it’s as bad as you’re painting it, Tom? I know Hitler’s a wretched person, but he’s one man. He’s not the entire government. A lot of people are opposed to the National Socialists—President von Hindenburg among them. He beat Hitler handily in the election. Can’t we trust that our process will work? Can’t we trust that more people will continue to vote against the Nazis than for them—”

“I don’t trust him,” said Bauer. “If he gets hold of the levers of power, he’ll never let go. He’ll figure out something. Our votes won’t matter anymore. You think this guy wants a democracy?”

Amalie nestled her head against his shoulder. “My brave soldier,” she whispered. “I know you’re trying to do what’s right. But if you’re wrong—”

“I’ve never wanted to be wrong so badly,” he said. “But I’m not. I need you to believe in me, Am. I can’t do this without you.”

“Hey.” She touched his face, turned his cheek so they were nose to nose. “I always believe in you, Thomas Bauer. And I always will. But you have to keep your promise to me, too. Every night.”

“I will.” He pressed his lips softly against hers. “I’ll always come home.”

56

Der Gerade Weg office

Färbergraben 12

THOMAS BAUER SPENT HIS day off with his family, kicking a ball with the kids in the morning, later visiting the Altstadt neighborhood, where they had lunch at the Hofbräuhaus and went to a cinema that was still showing the animated picture Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed.

Bauer left his family at five o’clock with the promise to shortly return. He walked to the intersection of Färbergraben and Hofstatt, where a news periodical known as Der Gerade Weg—the Straight Path—had recently begun operation.

It was the brainchild of Fritz Gerlich, who had tired of publishers and editors succumbing to the pressure of the Nazis. Gerlich finally wanted to say whatever he believed was worth saying, and Der Gerade Weg had already begun to stick its thorn firmly into Hitler’s side. With the combination of scathing editorials warning of the dangers of the Nazis and mocking satire (not least of which suggested that Hitler was of Mongol blood, turning his racism against him), Der Gerade Weg routinely spawned angry responses from pro-Nazi publications and threats of lawsuits and violence from the National Socialists.

When Bauer entered, he found a smattering of journalists seated at tables, handwriting or pecking away at typewriters. Gerlich, as ever with his bow tie and thick spectacles, stood by a large desk, huddling over copy for the next edition of his newspaper. Next to him was today’s edition, which prominently featured a cartoon of Adolf Hitler as a baby, dressed in an infant’s one-piece with a pacifier dangling from his mouth, above the words OBERSÄUGLING HITLER (“Hitler, the exalted infant”).

“Jesus, Fritzie, how long do you expect to pull this off before they send someone after you?”

Gerlich’s head rose from the draft article he was editing, blinking his eyes. “I’ve answered that question many times,” he said. Gerlich had been saying since January that he would be among the first hanged if the Nazis ever gained power. From someone else, Bauer might have thought of that as self-righteous boasting. But he had come to know Gerlich and his ever-deepening commitment to the Catholic faith well enough to recognize him as someone truly willing to martyr himself for a cause he believed in.

“Follow me, Bauer,” he said, as he walked to his office in the back of the pressroom.

Inside Gerlich’s office sat Erich von der Haas, the medical student, who patted the top of an antique clock that rested on a glass table beside him. “Here you go,” he said. The clock looked both old and valuable, roughly six inches high, made of rosewood and gilded bronze.

“A clock?” said Bauer.

“Not just a clock.” Von der Haas got to his feet. “An Italian clock from the 1700s. A replica of one owned by Frederick the Great. You said he likes Frederick the Great?”

“Yeah. He has a fucking portrait of the guy in his office at the Brown House.”

“Okay, so he’ll like this. Look.” Von der Haas turned the clock around, where an opening in the rosewood panels at the back exposed a black apparatus with a winding mechanism. “This is how you wind it, right?”

“Right,” said Bauer.

“Yeah, well, I embedded a tiny capacitive membrane connected to a quarter-inch wavelength antenna inside this thing.”

Bauer looked at Gerlich, who shrugged and said, “I don’t know what that means, either.”

“It acts as a passive cavity resonator,” said von der Haas.

“Oh, thanks,” said Bauer. “That clears it all up for me.”

Von der Haas shook his head. “It’s basically a tiny microphone,” he said. “It activates when a radio signal hits it.”

Bauer peered down at the clock. “And this works?”

“It worked when a British brigadier general was laying out field operations for the counteroffensive at the Somme.” Von der Haas waved a hand. “Yes, it’ll work.”

“This clock looks pretty expensive,” said Gerlich. “Where’d you get this, Erich? How did you afford it?”

Von der Haas pushed up his glasses on his nose, his eyes meandering about the room.

Bauer burst into laughter. He knew several intelligence officers in the war. They were all the same, whether their covert work was in person or, like von der Haas, behind-the-scenes signals technology: they specialized in vagueness, never letting themselves be pinned down to anything, as evasive as smoke.

“I don’t think you want the answers to those questions, Fritzie,” Bauer said. “It might offend your delicate churchgoing sensibilities.”

Gerlich looked at Bauer, then at von der Haas. “You stole this clock?”

Bauer raised a hand. “Just swear to me it works, Erich.”

“You get that clock as close to them as possible, and as close to a window as possible.” Von der Haas pointed at Bauer. “It will work.”

57

Prinzregentenplatz 16

BAUER FELT A BIZARRE sense of déjà vu when he entered Hitler’s flat at Prinzregentenplatz 16, this time with a camera around his neck and leather bag in hand in his role as Herr Berger from Photoplay. The last time he’d come here, he was a kriminalinspektor investigating a suspicious death, held up by SA guards before fighting his way in. Now he took the stairs as an invited guest.

His inside man—Emil Maurice, the Führer’s disgruntled former chauffeur who had loved Geli—told him that Hitler was in Berlin for the week and that his housekeeper, Anni Winter, whom Bauer had grilled at the police station, had been given the week off with her husband to visit family. Bauer figured that there would be no one else here who might recognize him from a year ago. Still, the shaved head and thick beard provided a measure of insurance.

“Hello, Herr Berger.” Eva Braun was in the parlor near the front door, dressed in a red floral dress and holding a champagne flute in one hand, a bottle of Moët in the other. Her eyes had the glassiness of intoxication, the curve of her mouth the hint of mischief.

“So glad to join you, Fräulein Braun.” He extended his hand, but she opted for the alternating cheek kisses. Her floral perfume could not hide the smell of booze and cigarettes.

“Let me show you around,” she said, looping her arm through his like a natural hostess. She guided him through the parlor, the elaborate study and library, the simple dining room, and various bedrooms. When they reached the corner room—Geli’s room—Braun said, “That one is locked. Nobody uses it.” Bauer didn’t press the point.

“How did you and the Führer meet, Fräulein Braun?” he asked as they walked, though he already knew.

“It’s Eva, silly,” she said, squeezing Bauer’s arm. “We met five years ago, when I was working in Heinrich Hoffmann’s studio. You know Heinrich, the photographer? The Führer came in. Heinrich introduced him as Herr Wolf. He was so imposing. He had a force of will about him, you know? But he’s always had a soft spot for me. Even back then, when I was seventeen. I have no doubt that we’ll marry one day soon, once he settles these political matters.”

Bauer thought otherwise—the word was that, for political purposes, Hitler deemed it advantageous to remain single—but assured his hostess that she was surely correct.

“The parlor will be the most comfortable place to chat,” she said. “We’ll get some champagne and sit.”

One hour and one bottle of champagne later, Bauer and Braun remained in the parlor, still not a photograph taken, with Braun sinking deeper and deeper within herself as the alcohol worked through her. She talked about her parents (Fritz, a schoolteacher, and Fanny, a seamstress), her sisters (Ilse and Margarete, or Gretl, with whom she remained close), her schooling (Catholic secondary school in Munich, then a year of business school at the Convent of the English Sisters), and her favorite activities (swimming and skiing and, more recently, photography).

Through it all, Eva Braun continued to press Bauer as to whether he was bored, if he found her interesting, if it was all right for her to continue, if she was prattling on too much. It took little time for Bauer to recognize that, beneath her elaborate makeup, her long lashes and rosy cheeks and dyed blond curls, her cheerful banter and coy flirtation, Braun was incredibly lonely, unaccustomed to people showing any particular interest in her, constantly seeking validation. She was Hitler’s hostess but nothing more, never given a status of any substance, never allowed to be seen with the Führer in public.

“His public image is political,” she explained. “He says that his bride is Germany. He can’t be seen with a woman. Not romantically, at least.”

Bauer nodded and ignored the obvious—that the Führer had routinely been seen in public with Geli before her death.

Braun touched Bauer’s arm. “That will all change, obviously, when we marry, which should be very soon now, once the politics are sorted out.” It was the second time that, without solicitation, she had predicted soon becoming Hitler’s wife.

A second bottle of champagne was summoned. As Braun drank—more than Bauer would have believed possible, given her petite size—her words grew more slurred, her thoughts more scattered, her mood considerably darker.

“I hope I have not bored you to tears,” she said as she lit a cigarette.

“Not at all,” said Bauer.

“It’s just that…” She turned to him. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be defined completely by your relation to someone else? To have no identity of your own?”

“I cannot imagine. But I am sure the Führer realizes how lucky he is to have you.”

It was a rather standard compliment, though it seemed to trigger something. A sheen of emotion came over her eyes. “Sometimes he needs a reminder,” she whispered.

She pulled down her neckline. For a moment, Bauer thought she was about to expose herself, to flash him like a prostitute. Instead, she uncovered a thick scar above her heart.

“Did—?”

“No, no.” She shook her head and readjusted her dress. “He wouldn’t bother. He wouldn’t deign to touch me. No.” Her lips curled downward. “The word is self-inflicted.”

She had tried to kill herself? Bauer hadn’t heard that. But then again, the intelligence on Eva Braun was next to nil.

“Oh, but I got his attention, didn’t I?” She popped off her chair, waving her arms. She was intoxicated enough that Bauer feared she might fall to the floor. “Can’t have a second suicide in two years, can we?”

She rested her hand against the wall, her head drooping. She looked as if she might vomit.

Bauer did not know what to do or say. The silence hung heavy. “Eva—”

“I am alone,” she whispered. “I am always and completely alone.”

Bauer felt a pang of guilt for playing on her loneliness and lack of self-esteem, making her feel important enough to be featured in a famous American magazine.

He felt a surge of anger, as well. Eva Braun was clearly placed on an island much like Geli—a prison, more aptly stated, forced into seclusion except when Hitler beckoned. He was dominating this young woman the same way he dominated Geli.

“My goodness, I am so sorry, Herr Berger. Promise me you’ll write none of this.”

“Of course not,” said Bauer. “I would never print a word without your permission.”

She turned to him. “Thank you. I am clearly not at my best right now. Perhaps we could continue at another time?”

“Of course. If I may, before I leave,” said Bauer, “I brought a small token of appreciation.” He reached into his leather bag and removed the antique clock. “It’s a replica of a clock owned by Frederick the Great. I understand the Führer is an admirer. I thought it might look nice in the library.”

“Yes, he is.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “And yes, it would.”

She led him there, a long room near the front of the flat overlooking Prince Regent’s Square, surrounded on three sides by generous bookshelves full of Hitler’s favorites, from political and philosophical works by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Gandhi to more classical literary texts—Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a collection of writings by Kleist, and leather-bound copies of Müller’s translations of Shakespeare.

A thick red rug ran through the room. A round oak table with eight chairs took center stage beneath a chandelier. One large window brought sunlight into the room. On each side of the window, small cabinets of shelves held various statuettes and framed photographs, including busts of Frederick the Great and Benito Mussolini.

“Perhaps here,” Braun said, making room on a shelf beside the window, inching over a photograph of Hitler with his staff at the mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. Very near a window and very near the round table where Hitler met with his aides. “It fits in perfectly.”

Yes, Bauer thought. It certainly does.

He extended his hand. “Eva, may I speak frankly with you?”

“Please,” she said, her eyes welling with tears.

He lowered his volume. “You are a talented and formidable woman,” he said. “Don’t let anyone take that from you. Not even him.”

58

December 23, 1932

Wirtshaus tavern

Au

AFTER HIS PATROL SHIFT ended, Thomas Bauer sat in a tavern east of the city center. He nursed a single dark beer, as he wanted to keep his wits. The lighting was dark and the mood roughly the same, save for some drunken laughter. A Christmas tree, dilapidated as it was, wore bright ornaments and long strings of candy in the front window, a festive gesture in an otherwise depressing establishment.

At least business was good. The sale of alcohol thrived during the devastating economic hardships Munich faced, probably even more so as Christmas approached. Holidays in Munich, in Bauer’s experience, always led to upticks in crime and suicides.

Emil Maurice, dressed in his long winter coat and fedora, leaned over the bar next to Bauer and called out to the barkeeper for a stein of ale.

“Wednesday,” he said without looking in Bauer’s direction. “Seven o’clock.”

Bauer lifted his glass to his mouth but didn’t drink. “Topic?”

“I don’t know. All I know is Himmler and Goebbels are arguing.”

“Is that unusual?”

“The minions always argue among themselves. Hitler prefers it that way. But this must be important, because the Führer is getting involved.” The beer arrived. Maurice nodded and grabbed it. “Fröhliche Weihnachten,” he said, wishing Bauer a Merry Christmas.

Bauer gave it ten minutes, long after Maurice had retreated to the corner with his beer. He finished up his drink and set down five marks. Then he headed to the telephone booth down the street. The windows had been busted, so it provided no relief from the frigid temperatures. “Wednesday, seven o’clock,” he said into the phone.

Wednesday at 7:00 p.m., in a flat across the street from Hitler’s place on Prinzregentenplatz, Fritz Gerlich greeted Bauer as he entered. “I trust you had a pleasant Christmas?” he said.

“My family is Jewish, Fritzie.”

“Ah, of course.”

“Shh.” Erich von der Haas was huddled over a beat-up wooden contraption the size of a toaster, with a small antenna protruding from the back and a glass face. Von der Haas was screwing back in one of the knobs.

“That’s your transmitter?” Bauer got a closer look. “Can we listen to jazz on the Reich Broadcasting Network?”

“This is short-wave only,” said von der Haas. “Unless you have an extra amplifier tube and capacitive tuner lying around.”

Bauer patted his pockets. “Sorry, fresh out.”

“He’s a comedian, too.” Von der Haas nodded toward the wall. “Plug it in.”

Bauer plugged in the power cord. A large hissing sound shot through the speaker. “Hang on, hang on.” Von der Haas worked a dial. The hiss changed to fuzz, then to the sound of human voices, albeit crackling with static:

“—question is premature, mein Führer.”

“That’s Goebbels,” said Bauer. “You did it, Erich!” He slapped him on the back.

Gerlich and Bauer huddled over the makeshift radio, Gerlich with a notepad.

“I say it is not premature. The purity of the German race is at stake.”

Bauer didn’t recognize the voice. “Is that—”

“That’s Himmler,” said Gerlich. “That race-baiting sociopath.”

Goebbels and Himmler talked over each other, arguing, shouting, their words incomprehensible through the speaker. And then, in the snap of a finger, the men stopped talking. Utter silence. The quiet was so pronounced that Bauer was sure they’d lost the signal.

“I will decide if it’s premature. Let me hear the details.”

Bauer and Gerlich looked at each other. They both recognized that voice.

“Hermann,” the Führer continued, “tell me the plan in full.”

59

December 28, 1932

Prinzregentenplatz 16

AT THE ROUND TABLE in his library, Adolf Hitler awaited Hermann Göring’s explanation of the proposal as his fingers mined a dish of pralines on the table, popping them into his mouth one at a time. Though recently turned vegetarian, he still tended to gorge himself on sweets and salty snacks.

“Yes, mein Führer,” said Hermann Göring, the heavyset war pilot, opening a file before him. “I will be happy to explain the proposal.”

The other men sitting around the table—Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler—sat quietly, friction in particular between Himmler, the true believer, and Goebbels, the strategist.

Göring cleared his throat. “First, of course, the Citizenship Law: only people of true German blood will be citizens of the Reich. Jews will not count as citizens.”

“Obviously,” said Hitler.

“Marriages between Germans and Jews will be illegal,” Göring went on. “Marriages between Germans and Jews already consummated will not be recognized. And naturally, extramarital relations between Jews and German citizens will be illegal as well.”

“Hear, hear,” said Hitler. “That day cannot come soon enough.”

“Jews will not be allowed to display the German flag or German colors. They will not be permitted to vote or hold office. They will not be allowed to hold any position of civil service whatsoever.”

“A good start,” said Hitler. “Now Joseph will preach caution in rolling out these changes. He will fear reprisals should we act too quickly.”

“Indeed I will, mein Führer,” Goebbels agreed. “We must begin with restraint. We must appear moderate. We will ease in a few restrictions and allow the citizenry to become comfortable with them. Then we will add to them. It cannot happen all at once or we risk a backlash. But it will not be long, mein Führer, before we will eradicate Jews from all societal positions.”

“Perhaps, Joseph, but some things must happen immediately. The practice of medicine, for example. And law. We don’t need these vermin infecting our system of justice or contaminating our children any longer.”

Göring raised a hand, reasserting himself. “Gradually—at whatever rate you see proper, mein Führer—we will extend these laws to their logical conclusion. No Jews owning any business. No Jews in the public schools, either as students or teachers. No Jews in the cinema, the opera, concerts, restaurants—public life in general. They will be stripped of all rights and liberties.”

“Yes, yes!” Hitler raised his fist.

“The criminal laws will likewise distinguish between crimes committed against German citizens, which will be prosecuted harshly, and those committed against the Jews, which will not.”

Hitler gently pounded the table. “Excellent.”

“But then the more difficult question of how we define the Jew,” said Göring. “As we have currently drafted it, an individual with three Jewish grandparents is a Jew.”

“Naturally. But what of the mischlinge?” asked Hitler, a word that politely translated to people of mixed race but more colloquially meant mongrels.

“We will divide into mischlinge of the first and second degree,” said Göring. “An individual with only one Jewish grandparent is a mischling of the second degree. The initial thought is that this individual will be eligible for German citizenship and will not be considered a Jew, provided they denounce their faith, of course.”

“Too lenient.” Himmler shook his head. “How can we ensure the purity of our blood if we allow someone with any Jewish grandparents to propagate with pure Germans?”

“Noted, Heinrich.” Hitler raised a calming hand. “Go on, Hermann.”

“Mischlinge of the first degree—those with two Jewish grandparents—that is our question. The thought is that they will not be considered Jews unless they marry a Jew or practice Judaism. Others would say we should simply declare this person a Jew.”

Himmler started to speak but realized his place.

Hitler reached over to Himmler and placed a hand on his arm. “Your heart and your head are in the right place, Heinrich. This will become law. Precisely when we unveil this plan is something I will decide. Certainly not now. I am not yet even chancellor.”

Hitler rose, standing at his seat.

“Let us first take power,” he continued. “Let us first purge our enemies. Let us control all the levers of power—the government, the media, all channels of information. Then we will appraise the state of affairs.

“But until then, gentlemen, we must appear moderate. We must keep our true plans utterly and completely confidential. I am the wolf, am I not?”

“Yes, mein Führer,” the men at the table answered in perfect sync.

“Well, for now,” said Hitler, “I shall remain a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

60

THOMAS BAUER, FRITZ GERLICH, and Erich von der Haas sat silently in the rented flat, as they listened to the meeting across the street break up. Gerlich was busily scribbling notes on a pad of paper, shaking his head all the while.

“Good God,” Gerlich whispered.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said von der Haas.

It wasn’t unexpected, but hearing it stated as fact, as a blueprint for government policy—

“Print it,” Bauer said to Gerlich, realizing that his voice was trembling with anger, with fear, with something. “Print all of this in your newspaper.”

“I’ll run a special edition.” Gerlich got to his feet and grabbed his coat.

“Fritz,” said Bauer, “what are you hearing about Hitler becoming chancellor?”

Gerlich shrugged. “We aren’t hearing much from Berlin. Schleicher is trying to form a coalition government. I would imagine he wants to appease the National Socialists, but he despises Hitler and the Nazis almost as much as President von Hindenburg does. Everything slowed down over the Christmas holiday. My guess is we won’t see any real action in Berlin until mid-January.”

Gerlich left. Bauer leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Long live President von Hindenburg,” he mumbled. “And long live Chancellor von Schleicher.”

61

Hermann Göring’s office

Berlin

IN THE CAPITAL CITY of Berlin, where Fritz Gerlich’s small Munich periodical Der Gerade Weg made little impact, Adolf Hitler met with Franz von Papen, the man who until recently had held the position of chancellor of Germany.

“Chancellor,” he greeted von Papen, using his former title. “A pleasure as always.”

“Herr Hitler.” Von Papen shook his hand with only a mild expression of displeasure.

“May we sit?” said Hermann Göring. As the newly minted Reichstag president, Göring hosted the meeting in his spacious office, amid flags of the Weimar Republic and portraits of President von Hindenburg and the current chancellor, von Schleicher.

“If I may begin.” Hitler folded his hands together. “We have not always seen eye to eye, but I have always greatly respected your intellect, your courage, and your sense of fairness.”

“You have not always said so.” Franz von Papen was a career diplomat and aristocrat, the son of a wealthy landowner who had served as military attaché to the German embassy in Washington, DC, during the Great War. With his upper-class privilege and high-minded carriage, fluency in French, English, and German, von Papen embodied everything that Adolf Hitler resented.

“The political arena is ripe with overstatement and exaggeration.” Hitler gave his brightest smile. “I have never varied in my private opinion that you are a formidable statesman with many gifts, not the least of which is your love of country. And your long memory.”

“My long memory.” Von Papen raised his eyebrows.

“However I may have fought for the same appointment as you, I was appalled at how von Schleicher undercut you.” Hitler wagged his finger. “You deserved better. And I must add, the thought of von Schleicher remaining chancellor is frankly intolerable.”

“Yes. On that we most certainly agree.” Von Papen nodded, his eyes narrowing. “And speaking of undercutting—I could not help but notice that the National Socialists expelled Gregor Strasser from the party this week. Just as Strasser was poised to accept the position as vice-chancellor.”

“We had no choice but to do so.” Hitler nodded gravely, Göring doing the same. “Whatever the timing may have been, Chancellor, I can assure you that his expulsion had nothing to do with politics. Strasser was insisting on policy positions that were firmly at odds with the majority plank of our party.”

“Nothing to do with politics. I see.” Von Papen sat back in his chair, not hiding his smirk. “Well, Herr Hitler, you asked for this meeting. It seems you have a proposal. I suggest you get to it.”

62

PRESIDENT PAUL VON HINDENBURG sat in his office, fighting back a nasty cough and wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “You must forgive me, Hermann. The ailments of an old man.”

“Not at all, Mr. President.” Hermann Göring’s reputation as a war hero, and his outsized personality, had allowed him to transcend party politics. He’d always had a strong relationship in particular with von Hindenburg, a war hero himself of not only the Great War but the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. For much that reason, Göring wore his gray military uniform today.

“Hermann, I’m eighty-five years old. I was never much for bullshit, and I sure as hell won’t start now.” Dressed in his dark horsehair three-piece suit, his thick mustache curling on each end, with a strong but weathered face, the president leaned forward on his desk. “I respect you. Hell, I even like you. But I don’t like that son of a bitch you call your leader.”

Göring opened his hands. “He is… an acquired taste, Mr. President. I understand that. But he is more bark than bite. He is a skilled politician who can appeal to his base, but as a leader, he would be far more pragmatic than dogmatic.”

The president cleared his throat, akin to the starting of a stubborn engine. “Not so pragmatic that the National Socialists will agree to a coalition government. You’ve boxed in von Schleicher the same way you did von Papen.”

Göring acknowledged as much. “And there are only so many times you can replace a chancellor and ignore the man who ran second to you for president.”

“Oh, you think that’s my only option? It’s not, Hermann.” Von Hindenburg unleashed another coughing spasm, reaching for a glass of water. After a moment, he continued. “Do you know what von Schleicher wants me to do? He wants me to disband the Reichstag and rule as a dictator. I am seriously considering that.”

Göring had heard the rumors. He knew a bluff when he heard one. “Mr. President, you have been the most fervent supporter of democracy I’ve known. And here you are presented with a political party that has garnered the most seats in parliament, and whose leader received the second-most votes for president. A lover of democracy would say that you should appoint this man Reichskanzler.”

“If that man weren’t a hateful fascist, yes. This business about stripping Jews of citizenship and removing them from society? Outlawing their marriages to German citizens? Classifying them by the number of Jewish grandparents?”

Göring was annoyed that the news in Der Gerade Weg had reached the president. Hitler had directed the SA to forcefully confiscate as many copies of the special edition as possible, and the Nazis had filed a lawsuit to shut the paper down.

Pro-Nazi newspapers printed editorials—penned by Joseph Goebbels—accusing the “radical Communists” of propagating these “craven lies” and rhetorically asking, “Will the Communists stop at nothing to deprive the National Socialists of their rightful place at the table?”

“Lies, Mr. President,” Göring said now. “All lies from a rag of a newspaper in Munich looking to make a name for itself. And surely the KPD is behind this,” he added, referring to the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or the Communist Party of Germany. “Why, the Communists will stop at nothing to slow our progress in the Reichstag. Mr. President, the Führer has personally assured me that he has no such plans.”

The president took another drink of water. He was not one to easily cave, but he knew that he was boxed in. Göring was just trying to make the pill go down more easily.

“You trust von Papen,” Göring said to the president. “He will be vice-chancellor. He will curb any excesses, though I doubt it will be necessary. And you trust me, Mr. President.”

The president looked over Göring. “I trust you, yes.”

“Then please trust me now,” he said. “You will not be sorry.”

63

January 29, 1933

Geiger residence

Neuhausen

THOMAS BAUER’S FATHER-IN-LAW, SELIG Geiger, feigned embarrassment and winked at his grandkids as his wife, Marina, set down the apple cake adorned with thirteen burning candles (each representing five years) to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday.

Maxine and Ridley, sitting on their parents’ laps, burst into applause as their opa blew out the candles after they sang “Zum Geburtstag viel Glück” to him. They took their slices of cake into the living room, with its eighteenth-century chandelier and fireplace of imported marble. The room was adorned with magnificent Romantic landscape paintings, including Constable’s The Hay Wain and, most notably, above the fireplace mantel, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich. Bauer always suspected, though he’d never dare say, that his father-in-law saw himself in the man depicted in that piece, standing atop a high rock, looking over the valleys and mountains below shrouded in a misty fog. Selig viewed himself as a titan, a captain of industry, often forgetting that he was born into privilege, was schooled abroad, and inherited the Geiger Department Store from his father.

“What is this?” Selig asked, a tumbler of brandy in his hand, reaching out with his toe to tap a large wrapped box on the Italian coffee table.

“It’s called a present, Papa.” Amalie smiled. “What do you think it is?”

“From you? Honey, I told you—” He turned to his wife, Marina. “I thought you told her not to buy me anything.”

“It’s just a little something.”

“I just want you to be—no offense, Tom,” he said, glancing at Bauer. “Shouldn’t you be conserving your money?”

Bauer forced a smile while Amalie, sitting beside him on the couch, put a hand on his knee. I love my wife, he reminded himself. I love my wife.

“We’re getting by just fine.”

Selig looked Bauer squarely in the eye, then blinked away. “Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem like you’re getting by just fine.”

“Selig, if you have something to say to me, say it.” Bauer leaned forward on the couch.

“Ridley! Maxine! Let’s go downstairs and play with Helmut. I hear him barking.” His mother-in-law gathered the kids, taking them by the hand. “This is a birthday party,” she hissed at her husband on their way out of the room.

“Papa, you’ve had too much to drink,” said Amalie. “And you’re overstepping.”

“Oh, sure, I get it.” Selig ran his hand through his silver hair. “You think I only care about money, right? I’m just some shallow, materialistic ass? Well, let me tell you something.” He directed a finger at Bauer. “I don’t care what a man does for a living, as long as it means something and provides for his family. But you? Almost getting thrown in prison for breaking into that Nazi building? Scrubbing dishes in a basement and chasing pickpockets around the streets of Munich?”

“Papa, enough—”

“But oh, wait, that’s not all.” Selig got to his feet. “In your free time, you chase after a man who you think got away with murder. Nobody else does, but you do. And you justify it by claiming that he’s going to single-handedly destroy our country.”

“Selig.” Bauer stood as well. “I may not be earning a lot of money, but I’m doing something a lot more important for my family, something money can’t buy. You of all people should recognize the threat—”

“Me of all people?” He put a hand on his chest. “Why, because I’m Jewish? You think I’ve never experienced anti-Semitism? I’ve experienced it my whole damn life. My first year in boarding school, I had to change rooms because the other students didn’t want to live with a Jew. I hire extra security at the store to keep away nighttime vandals. What exactly is so different about Hitler? He’s nothing but a blowhard politician making promises he’ll never keep. He’ll come and go like the rest of them. The difference between you and me, Tom, is that I don’t obsess about it. I deal with it. I handle it. You—you’re stuck in the mud. You can’t let him go. And I wouldn’t care, except you’re taking my daughter and grandchildren down with you!”

“Stop!” Amalie said. “You will not make my decisions for me. I believe in what Tom is doing, and I support him. That should be your only concern.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang, a chime echoing through the house. The three of them stewed in silence as the housekeeper answered the door.

A moment later, she entered the living room. “Herr Tom, a man is here to see you.”

“To see me? Here?” Bauer awkwardly removed himself from the room, following the housekeeper to the front door.

Fritz Gerlich was standing there in his overcoat, fedora in his hand.

“How did you even find me, Fritzie?”

“You said you’d be here. I’m a reporter.” He let out a deep sigh.

“Okay, well, you’re here. What’s going on?”

“I just talked to my correspondent in Berlin,” he said. “Von Schleicher is out.”

“Out? But he only became chancellor six weeks ago.”

Gerlich bowed his head. “The Nazis cut a deal, Tom. Tomorrow, the president will be appointing Adolf Hitler chancellor.”

Part Three

“Hindenburg has tasked Hitler as chancellor. There is trouble brewing. Poverty cannot be abolished, but freedom can. Hardship cannot be banned, but the press can. Hunger cannot be exiled, but the Jews can. The constitution still prevents the gravest abuse of power but, to quote Goebbels, its bonds have worn paper thin.”

—January 30, 1933, editorial, Vossische Zeitung, Berlin

64

February 10, 1933

Sportpalast

Berlin

JOSEPH GOEBBELS, IN HIS immaculate double-breasted suit, stood on the podium of the indoor arena holding fourteen thousand people. It was lined on all sides with SA and SS troops, the seats filled with the party faithful, National Socialists bubbling with energy, giddy with celebration before the first speech delivered by their leader, their Führer, in his new role as Reichskanzler.

“This evening,” Goebbels said into the standing microphone, “you are eyewitnesses to a mass occurrence, which in this size in Germany, and probably throughout the world, has never before taken place. I do not think it is saying too much to claim that tonight, at least twenty million people, in Germany and across the German frontier, will be listening to the speech of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.”

The crowd rose to its feet, men and women, uniformed SA and SS troops, their arms outstretched in the Nazi salute.

“When the Jewish press complains how the National Socialist movement is being allowed to speak on all German radio stations because of its chancellor, then we can answer that we are just doing what you have done in the past.”

Goebbels paused as laughter rippled through the arena.

“And if the Jewish press today believes that it can make veiled threats against the National Socialist movement, and if they believe they can get around our defensive measures, they shouldn’t keep lying!” Goebbels wagged a finger. “For, one day, our patience will reach its end, and we will shut these Jews’ insolent, lying mouths!”

At his father-in-law’s home, Bauer hovered near the radio, listening to the announcer prepare the audience for Hitler’s speech:

“We are here in the Sportpalast as witnesses, both eyes and ears, of this wonderful, unique mass event, the like of which has probably never been seen before on such a scale in Germany. I believe we are not exaggerating when we say that at least twenty million people in Germany are witnessing this unique event.”

“That’s the same thing Goebbels claimed, but it can’t be true,” said Selig, in his cardigan sweater, lighting the tobacco in his pipe. “There aren’t enough radios in Germany for that to be true. How many times will they repeat the same lie?”

“Over and over again,” said Bauer. “Remember the Nazi philosophy. It doesn’t have to be true. Just keep repeating it, and people will start believing it.”

“Our eyes are presented with the imposing sight of a ravishing, unique, large mass rally, a people’s rally in the truest sense of the word—men and women, workers, citizens, students, all around them SA and SS men. The whole crowd is filled with an intense, feverish excitement, and a vibrating expectation—the same intense, feverish excitement and expectation that has settled over the entire city of Berlin this evening.”

“That’s a lot of feverish excitement.” Bauer closed his eyes. “This guy is no reporter. He’s reading a script Goebbels wrote for him.”

“You can already hear by the multiplying noises how the feverish excitement is beginning to grow. The men and women have risen from their seats. The whole Sportpalast resembles a swarming anthill. Everywhere you can already hear shouts with enthusiasm, approval, cheers, and salutes. It is as if the Sportpalast had never before witnessed such a mass rally!”

“Nonsense. They witness rallies like that every week.” Selig drew from his pipe, the tobacco crackling. “Every political party uses that stadium.”

Bauer put his head in his hands. “Not anymore,” he said.

They spared no pomp or circumstance parading Adolf Hitler in, led through the aisle by marching Nazi soldiers carrying the swastika flag, senior officers of the SA and SS in front and behind him, a cadet banging his snare drum in a military cadence. The Führer, dressed in full brown uniform with swastika armband, wore a pleasant but stoic expression, returning the salute as always, raising the palm of his right hand to the ceiling.

When he reached the podium, he stood silently, drinking in the adulation, waiting until the cheers died down, adjusting the notes that lay on a table next to him, scooching the table closer to him. Finally, the audience quieted. Hitler did not move, did not speak, letting the silence grow ever more piercing.

He appeared to some observers nervous, awkward with his hands, alternating between crossing his arms, clasping his hands at his waist, and gripping his black belt. When he finally spoke, his tone was moderated.

“German national comrades,” he said, then paused. “The reasons that caused me to bring this movement of millions into existence are known to me. But I want these facts laid clearly before you once more by me personally, as to why I once began, called this movement to life, and, for the present, call it to action in the second, decisive phase in the fight for German resurrection.”

Hitler spent the next hour railing against the “men of November 1918” for their surrender in the war and the Treaty of Versailles, for the Weimar Republic’s fourteen-year reign that oversaw a ravaged economy, hyperinflation, unemployment, and cultural decadence, for their embrace of “Marxist principles” that plummeted the nation into the depths of ruin.

Bauer largely sat silent, eyes closed, concentrating on the words, what Hitler was saying literally and what was hidden between the lines.

“The fundamentals of our life are founded on values that no one can take away from us except we ourselves; they are founded on our own flesh and blood and willpower and in our soil. Blood and soil—those are the two roots from which we will draw our strength and upon which we propose to base our resolves.”

“Blood and soil,” Bauer whispered. “Good God.”

“And this brings us thus to our sixth item, clearly the goal of our struggle: the preservation of this blood and this soil, the preservation of this blood for the future, in the realization that this alone can constitute our reason for being.

“We must eliminate the causes of our own disintegration and thus bring about the reconciliation of the German classes.

“There can be only one victor: either Marxism or the German people! And Germany will triumph!

“We desire to bestow once more upon the people a genuinely German culture with German art, German architecture, and German music, which shall restore to us our soul.”

Bauer saw something in his father-in-law’s expression. Nothing like outright panic but a furrowed brow of concern, his eyes cast upward, as if he were remembering all the times he’d experienced hate firsthand. He claimed to still experience it now, even as a respected businessman—a bigoted comment here, an anti-Semitic trope there—but his skin had toughened over the years, and there was nothing like achieving great wealth and prominence to act as a salve to overcoming daily grievances.

That’s what it had become for Selig, Bauer realized. He’d grown so accustomed to a certain amount of bigotry that he’d become numb to it, and in the process had underestimated its power to galvanize many, many people to a cause. He hadn’t realized the threat that Hitler might become. But now he was beginning to.

“At least he never specifies Jewish people,” he said.

Bauer shrugged. “Marxist is code for Jew. And the purity of German blood?”

Selig allowed for that, slowly nodding. “He’s finishing now.”

They listened to the conclusion of Hitler’s hour-long address:

“People of Germany,” he said, “give us four years’ time and then pass judgment upon us. People of Germany, give us four years, and I swear to you, just as we, just as I have taken this office, so shall I leave it.”

“Well, so there’s hope right there.” Selig threw up his hand. “Hopefully the next four years go quickly. And that assumes Hitler can even keep a coalition government together. No chancellor has been able to accomplish that feat in years. There are parliamentary elections in two weeks, right?”

“Wish I could share your optimism.” Bauer shook his head. “He’s not going anywhere,” he said. “He’ll never leave office. He’ll think of something.”

65

Reich chancellery

Wilhelmstraße 73

REICHSKANZLER ADOLF HITLER SAT at his new desk in his spacious new office, the swastika banner dominating the wall behind him, the Nazi flag next to that of the Weimar Republic. With him was Hermann Göring, now the president of the parliament, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, and Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA, the Nazi paramilitary unit.

Röhm, a stocky man with a crew cut, had been part of the military his entire life and had helped build Hitler’s storm troopers into a million soldiers, a feared band of mercenaries who targeted Jews and Communists on the streets of German cities.

“They merely tolerate me.” Hitler sneered. “Von Hindenburg, von Papen, the cabinet—they can barely hide their disdain. As if those simple inbreds are the superior minds.”

“That dynamic will change soon enough,” said Goebbels.

Hitler nodded. “And thus the purpose of this meeting. Martin, the decree?”

Bormann, who had become Hitler’s personal secretary as his influence grew within the inner circle, handed Hitler a chancellery decree that deputized members of the SS, led by Heinrich Himmler, and members of the SA, run by Ernst Röhm, as members of the auxiliary police.

“There, Ernst.” Hitler signed the decree. “The SA now has the powers you wanted. That puts us in position to implement the plan.”

By the stroke of his signature, Hitler had just bestowed upon the brownshirts and his personal protection unit the equivalent of police powers throughout all of Germany.

“Thank you, mein Führer.” Röhm, as always, sat erect as a statue.

“So that brings us to the plan, to the—what are we calling it?—the moment of ‘national crisis.’ When will this happen, Hermann?”

“Sunday, mein Führer,” said Göring. “We are ready.”

“And Ernst, how many of your men will be involved?”

“Three, mein Führer,” said Röhm. “Three of our men, and then the Communist immigrant.”

“Yes, yes.” Hitler sat back in his chair. “Tell me about this man.”

“A Dutch immigrant,” said Göring. “A bricklayer, currently unemployed, due to an accident. A simple man. He does not appear to be completely of sound mind. But most importantly, an avowed, documented Communist. He is perfect.”

Hitler looked at Röhm. “I am placing great faith in your choice of men, Ernst.”

“My men are loyal and reliable, mein Führer. I take full responsibility for them.”

Goebbels leaned forward. “Perhaps this is as much detail as you care to have, mein Führer?”

“Yes.” Hitler nodded. “Yes, yes. And this will happen on Sunday?”

“Yes,” said Goebbels. “You will dine at my flat. There will be others there, as well. Reliable individuals who are not affiliated with us politically. They will be witness to our expressions of great shock and horror when I receive the news of the national crisis by phone.”

“Yes, witnesses will be critical. We must be very surprised when it happens. In disbelief, even.” Hitler stood, and thus did everyone else. “Gentlemen, our putsch failed nearly ten years ago due to a failure of execution and a failure of will. That cannot happen this Sunday. If our national crisis goes as planned, everything we have fought for will come to fruition. If it does not, then many of the people in this office will go to prison.”

66

February 27, 1933

Reichstag building

Platz der Republik 1

ON THE LEFT BANK of Berlin’s River Spree, resting on the east end of the Königsplatz, stood the magnificent Reichstag building, home to Germany’s parliament. A neobaroque rectangular structure, the building featured a dome of steel and glass with towers at each of the four corners, representing the four kingdoms of Germany.

At 9:00 on Sunday night, a young theology student named Hans Flöter looked up as he walked along the southwestern corner of the parliament building, hearing the sound of broken glass. Through a window, he saw a man carrying a flaming torch. The student rushed to find a police officer, but by the time the first responding officers appeared, bursts of orange flame were shooting out from the Reichstag dome. Nearly the entire building was ablaze.

Fires set throughout the building had traveled with little resistance past the dry wooden paneling, upholstered furniture, and heavy curtains that dominated the old building.

The police found and detained one man inside, attempting to light a fire under an old leather couch. He was dirty and sweaty, seemingly disoriented even once subdued. From his pockets, police recovered a knife, a passport, and numerous brochures from the local Communist Party.

His name was Marinus van der Lubbe, a twenty-four-year-old unemployed Dutch immigrant—and, most important, a documented Communist sympathizer.

Chancellor Adolf Hitler arrived at the scene along with Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring after the fire had been largely contained and the damage irreversible. Hitler and Goebbels had been dining, they explained, at Goebbels’s Berlin flat on Reichskanzlerplatz with other luminaries, celebrating the Führer’s one-month anniversary as chancellor, when they got word of the tragedy.

Rudolf Diels, chief of the Prussian political police, arrived at nearly the same time. He climbed over the bulging hoses of the Berlin Fire Brigade and entered the building. A police captain directed him to the area where the suspect was detained. He had been moved to one of the few areas of the building not under threat, the conference room for the Federal Council in the southeast corner. Diels was in the midst of a briefing from the responding officers when Martin Bormann, secretary to Chancellor Hitler, approached him. “The chancellor would like to speak with you,” he said.

Bormann led Diels to one of the balconies overlooking the legislative chamber, where the fire brigade was still spraying out remnants of flames. Hitler was there with Goebbels and Göring, who cried out in a voice heavy with emotion, “This is the beginning of the Communist revolt! They will start their attack now! Not a moment must be lost!”

Hitler turned away from the fire and approached Diels, his jaw set tight. “There will be no mercy now,” he said. “Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down. The German people will not tolerate leniency. Every Communist official will be shot where he is found. The Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. Everybody in league with the Communists must be arrested. There will no longer be any leniency for Social Democrats, either!”

“Herr Reichskanzler,” said Diels, hands clasped behind his back, “it is our preliminary observation that one man alone set this fire.”

“Nonsense!” Hitler shooed away the notion with a hand slicing the air. “This is something quite cunning, prepared a long time ago. The criminals have thought all this out beautifully!”

As Hitler continued his rant, Diels pulled Göring aside. “The man we have detained appears mentally unstable. It is unlikely this was a coordinated—”

But Göring cut him off. “This is clearly an attempt by the enemies of the National Socialists—the Communists and Social Democrats—to undermine the leadership of this country. I want the police on an emergency footing,” he said. “Shoot to kill, and any other emergency regulations that might be appropriate in such a case. On my order!”

Diels was skeptical, but one of Hitler’s first moves as chancellor had been to appoint Hermann Göring the Interior Minister of Prussia, making him Diels’s boss. And if Diels knew nothing else, he knew how to follow orders. “A radio message will be sent to all police stations in your name,” he said, “putting them in a state of alert and ordering the arrest of all Communist officials.”

“This is an attempted coup,” Göring said, putting his hands on Diels’s shoulder. “No Communist or Social Democrat traitor must be allowed to escape!”

Diels issued the order.

By daybreak, more than four thousand people had been arrested. Most were leaders or members of the Communist Party, though other enemies of the Nazis, including many lawyers, journalists, and doctors, were likewise detained. Most of the men taken into custody were roused from their beds in the dead of night. The parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats voluntarily surrendered to the police to demonstrate the “untenable” nature of the charges.

Within only a few hours, the vast majority of the leadership of the Nazis’ rival political parties had been locked up and branded traitors.

67

February 28, 1933

GERMANY WOKE UP ON Tuesday morning to an official government account of the events, claiming that the “burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war” by the Communists that would include “large-scale pillaging in Berlin” and “acts of terrorism” planned “against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population.”

The government announced that “warrants have been issued for the arrest of two leading Communist Reichstag deputies on grounds of urgent suspicion,” and “other deputies and functionaries of the Communist Party are being taken into protective custody.”

Hitler made the most of his opportunity. That morning, he presented an emergency decree for President von Hindenburg’s signature. The principal provision began with chilling modesty: “Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice.”

Those constitutional provisions were not very different from the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. As the decree hauntingly explained:

“It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom, freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications. Warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

President von Hindenburg, stricken with lung cancer and largely confined to his bed, felt that he had no choice. Though no fan of Hitler, he despised the Communists, having led the Germans in battle against the Russians during the Great War. And regardless of the credibility of the information on which it was based, the news this morning had created a massive public alarm throughout Germany. Hitler played directly into the president’s fears and biases and political pressure.

Von Hindenburg signed the decree almost immediately.

It created the functional equivalent of martial law throughout Germany. Without the input of parliament or the president, Chancellor Hitler’s government could now detain citizens indefinitely without criminal charge or judicial oversight. It could ban political parties. It could shut down newspapers. It could outlaw organized protest or any criticism whatsoever of the government. It could eavesdrop on citizens. It could seize property and search houses randomly.

Overnight, Adolf Hitler had become the dictator of Germany.

68

Der Gerade Weg office

Färbergraben 12

“IT CAN’T BE TRUE. It simply cannot!” Fritz Gerlich examined the blueprints of the Reichstag building laid out on the table in his office. “There is no other means of entry or exit. The only way an arsonist could have entered the building is via the underground tunnel from the building that houses the Reichstag president—who happens to be none other than Hermann Göring. Whose offices are surrounded by SA guards day and night!”

Gerlich’s deputy press editor scribbled notes.

“The SA had to be involved in this fire. Yet nobody is questioning Göring’s account of events.” Gerlich turned to the editor. “Write it up. And be quick. We’re publishing this afternoon.”

As the editor departed, Gerlich’s wife, Sophie, entered his office carrying a small wicker basket. “I brought lunch,” she said. “I assume you’ve not eaten.”

Gerlich hadn’t eaten since the night before. He’d hardly slept, either.

“What is this editorial I heard you mention?” she asked.

“It’s about Göring. He tells the press he has overwhelming evidence of the Communist Party’s guilt for the fire. Reams of evidence, he says. So? Where is this evidence? When will he show it to us? Will he ever show it to us?” Gerlich opened the basket, pulled out an orange, and started peeling it. “He won’t. He won’t ever show this so-called proof because he doesn’t have any. Because it was Hitler’s men who set the fire and then blamed their political enemies. Emperor Nero would be proud!”

“Fritz, you promised me,” said Sophie warningly.

Gerlich set down the fruit. “I promised you what, Sophie? That I’d be careful? I’m being careful. I’ve hired a guard. You passed him as you walked in.”

“You’re going after people who have the power to shut you down right now, Fritz. To close your office and detain you indefinitely in—what do they call it, protective custody?”

“Which is precisely the time to expose them, Sophie.” He took her arms. “Don’t you see? This is when journalism is most crucial.”

Sophie deflated. They’d repeated this argument endlessly. “Listen, the next round of parliamentary elections is next week, right?”

“March the fifth,” said Gerlich.

“Can you wait to see how those elections turn out? The public should be disgusted by what Hitler is doing.”

Gerlich shook his head. “Most of the nation believes what they read in the official press. They think the Communists and the Social Democrats burned down the Reichstag and were plotting a coup! I don’t think they’ll fare well in the elections, do you? And most of the candidates are currently being detained in some unknown location by Hitler’s SA troops. And the ones who aren’t detained aren’t exactly campaigning—most of them are in hiding from the SA.” He flipped his hand. “Hitler could not have stacked the deck more in his favor.”

“What about President von Hindenburg?”

“The man is seriously ill.” Gerlich shrugged. “The only reason he agreed to seek reelection in the first place is that he didn’t want Hitler to win. I’m told he has little over a year at most, and he’s so frail as it is. He’s not going to stop Hitler. I’m telling you, Sophie—this is when a journalist is needed the most: to expose the truth.”

“But you can’t expose anything if you’re locked up,” she said. “Or if you’re dead. Do I have to become a widow to win this argument? Can’t we move to Switzerland like we discussed? You can publish your newspaper from there.”

Gerlich threw up his hands. “This is exactly what they want, you know. To scare us into abdication—”

“Oh, yes, I know, Fritz. I’ve heard it a hundred times. Here’s what I don’t know.” She was silent a moment. “What is your greatest commitment? Is it to this job? Or is it to me, your wife?”

“Sophie, don’t ask me to—”

She turned and slammed the door behind her.

Gerlich dropped into his seat with a heavy sigh. “Sophie,” he whispered. “You deserve better.”

Then he started writing his editorial.

69

March 9, 1933

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

THOMAS BAUER, RUNNING LATE from his dishwashing shift at the Osteria Bavaria, threw on his patrol uniform. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Some special assignment,” he was told.

Bauer didn’t dare let his imagination run wild. The city was essentially under martial law, Hitler’s armed SA and SS thugs having at least as much authority as the police.

He began his shift as always, responding to purse snatchings and robberies and various acts of violence. The city was on edge since the Reichstag Fire Decree, as it was called, which had suspended all civil liberties throughout the country. Violence against immigrants and Jews, already high, was on a grand upswing. Jewish rabbis and community leaders were disappearing by the day.

As Bauer turned the corner in a small neighborhood in northeast Bogenhausen, he saw a mob down the block and a number of uniformed officers as well. He heard chants of “Communists, leave! Communists, leave!”—a common refrain over the last several days.

He saw the police chief, Heinrich Müller, in full dress uniform, standing with a bullhorn outside the Munich branch of the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. “All members of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands shall voluntarily remove themselves from the premises and submit to protective custody,” he called out. “You will be taken by force if necessary.”

The crowd continued its chant—“Communists, leave!”—as members of the Munich Police Department thrust men onto the cobblestone street, even those surrendering peacefully, slapping them into handcuffs and loading the detainees onto large trucks.

“What’s going on?” Bauer asked a fellow patrol officer as Chief Müller repeated his orders via megaphone.

SA troopers, in their brown uniforms and swastika armbands, rifles slung over their shoulders, started kicking the detainees lying prone on the ground. “Traitors!” they shouted. “Bolshevik sympathizers!”

“Hey! Stop!” Bauer forced his way through the throng of officers and onlookers. “These people work for a political party. They aren’t resisting! They aren’t traitors!”

“Arrest that man!” one of the SA troopers shouted, pointing at Bauer. “Those who defend traitors are traitors themselves!”

Two detectives—men Bauer knew well, had worked with for years—did not hesitate to grab him by each arm. Bauer lashed back, knocking one of them off-balance, before turning to the second detective and raising his fist.

“Stop! That is a direct order!”

Bauer turned and saw Kriminalinspektor Peter Helldorff rushing to intervene. “I will handle this man. Return to your affairs, detectives.”

Helldorff turned Bauer away from the crowd. “Bauer, get out of here right now!” the young man hissed. “Before they arrest you!”

“They can’t arrest me.” Bauer whipped his arm free.

“They can and they will. They can place anyone they want in protective custody. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

As they stood looking back at the headquarters, a member of the local KPD came out denouncing the aggression of the “fascist regime.” SA storm troopers beat him with the butts of their rifles, leaving him stumbling and bloody before he lost his footing and, to the cheers of the mob, face-planted on the cobblestone street.

“They’re going to kill that man,” Bauer said, stunned. “Right in front of half of our police force. And we’re doing nothing!”

More brownshirts came from the KPD offices, carrying pamphlets and various papers, throwing them into a pile in the middle of the street. With the exuberant encouragement of the crowd, they set fire to the papers, a blaze of orange flame.

Helldorff grabbed Bauer by the shirt. “You were right,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You were right, and I was wrong. I made a grave mistake. If I could go back and change what I did, I would. But I can’t now.”

The KPD leader lying bloody on the street tried to crawl forward. The SA troopers kicked him, spat on him, tore his shirt. One guard went so far as to urinate on the man’s back.

All the while, the crowd pumped their fists and cried out in wild celebration as the Munich police officers stood by silently.

“What’s happening to this country?” Bauer mumbled.

“It’s already happened,” said Helldorff. “There’s no turning back now.”

70

Der Gerade Weg office

Färbergraben 12

FRITZ GERLICH FINISHED READING the draft prepared by his deputy editor.

“This is good, Gunther, but it’s missing the larger point. Even with all the propaganda surrounding their principal rivals, the Nazis still couldn’t get a majority of the vote in the March fifth parliamentary elections. They barely cracked forty-three percent.” He grabbed his deputy editor’s arm. “That proves my point—Hitler does not have the mandate he claims. Even with all the lies he conjured up about his opponents!”

“Okay. I understand.”

“And yet—and yet, he’s going to try to govern as if he has that mandate. Will the Communists and Social Democrats who were elected even show up to parliament? Will they be arrested immediately? Will the ones currently in ‘protective custody’ be allowed to show up to cast votes as legislators? This—this is madness, is it not?”

“Understood, Fritz. I’ll make some revisions.”

“And do it fast. We need to get this issue out tonight. There is no time to waste!”

The editor started toward his desk, then stopped. “Fritz, will this be our last edition?”

Gerlich removed his glasses and wiped them with a cloth. “Gunther, I have told you before and I say it again—you are free to leave, as the rest of our staff has. If I must be a one-man periodical, I will. You will have my understanding and my deepest gratitude for staying this long.”

They both heard the noise and turned toward the front door. It was locked. A guard was present, standing outside, but he was no match for the six brownshirts, rifles in hand, looking through the large window.

“Go, now,” said Gerlich. “Out the back door. Now!”

“Fritz—”

“Go, Gunther! Go with God, my son.”

Gunther did so, disappearing through the rear door into the alley.

Gerlich put on his glasses and reached into his pocket, taking the rosary in his hand.

The brownshirts busted the door down. Gerlich closed his eyes and said a prayer.

“Fritz Gerlich!” The lead storm trooper, rifle slung over his shoulder, faced him squarely. “We are here pursuant to the authority of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State,” he said, referring to the official title of the Reichstag Fire Decree.

You’re here pursuant to Adolf Hitler’s monstrous but fragile ego, Gerlich thought.

“We are placing you in protective custody. We will take custody of your offices immediately. We are prepared to use force to effect these orders.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Gerlich put out his hands to be cuffed. “I am ready to respond with my life for what I have written,” he said. “I will not retract. I am a Catholic.”

He was handcuffed and led from his office as SA troopers smashed desks and windows with billy clubs. He could smell gasoline dousing the furniture.

“Forgive me, Sophie,” he whispered, catching a glimpse of a photograph taken on a wedding anniversary trip to Vienna. He remembered how truly fortunate he’d felt when beautiful Sophie Botzenhart said yes to his marriage proposal. He thought then, as he thought now, that he didn’t deserve her.

And then he thought of his beloved country, one to which he had devoted his life’s work. A country he no longer recognized.

“God save Germany,” he whispered, as they threw him inside a car. “I did what I could.”

71

Present Day

Vienna

“EXCUSE ME, MA’AM. ARE you okay?”

I look up to see a man and woman, French judging by the accent, looking down on me. I can hardly blame them for their concern. I can’t imagine how I must look, a middle-aged woman sitting on the floor of a hallway in a Viennese hotel, my back against the wall, my head in my hands.

No, I am not okay. Twenty minutes ago, in this very spot, I held in my hand an artifact that would have proven Hitler’s obsession with Geli, his unwillingness to ever let her go, complete with his ink-stained thumbprint on the stationery. And then, just like that, it was gone, snatched from me at gunpoint.

“I’m okay.” I try to smile while I get to my feet. I don’t remember collapsing to the floor.

I make it back to my hotel room, tapping the key against the sensor to open the door without even considering the possibility that someone might be waiting for me. That, fortunately, is not the case; the room is empty.

I no longer need the outfit they asked me to wear for the meet, so I shrug out of my beige corduroy jacket and let it drop to the floor. I remove the ridiculous orange Euro Disney hat from my head and Frisbee it across the room. I pull on a wool turtleneck sweater and run my fingers through my hair. It’s times like this, when I’m questioning things, when my life is taking one turn or another, that I feel my daughter’s loss most palpably, that I long to hold her, feel her, talk to her. They have words for women who lose their spouses (widows) and for children who lose their parents (orphans) but not for a mother who loses her child.

My burner phone buzzes. It’s my brother Ty, no doubt checking up on me again. Unexpectedly—as if anything happening to me of late is expected—I burst into tears. I put my hands on the bathroom counter and sob uncontrollably, shoulders bobbing, chest heaving, tears dripping into the sink.

The buzzing of the phone stops, but I know Ty will keep calling until we speak. I draw a deep breath and towel off my face, grab the burner phone, and leave the room.

I need fresh air. There may be someone awaiting me out there on the streets of Vienna. But I’m the furthest thing from an expert at surveillance or countersurveillance. Besides, if they want me, they’ve made it clear that they know how to get to me.

“I’m fine, Ty,” I say as soon as he picks up the phone. The cool air, as I step out onto Kärntner Straße, is a welcome relief. I turn the direction opposite the Stephansdom, where I had my nice chat with Stranger Danger in the church, and walk instead toward Vienna’s magnificent opera house. But I’m not really looking at anything. I simply move forward as I recount the events, with as much detail as I can, to my brother. I should probably edit my account, as Ty will worry, but I feel the need to unburden myself, and I know that if the roles were reversed, I’d want the truth from him, warts and all.

“I don’t want a lecture, Ty,” I tell him when I’m finished, when I’ve walked the better part of a mile, moving in and out of the various side streets off the main boulevard, nightfall quickly approaching.

“So the man you were supposed to meet, you never met,” he says. “But then he slipped you the artifact via a Greenpeace volunteer, hidden inside a brochure about whaling?”

“Right.”

“But the man you did meet with—Stranger Danger, as you call him—his people saw the exchange and took the artifact from you at gunpoint?”

“That about covers it.”

“Well, sister of mine—all of that tells me two things. One, these people are very good at what they do. And two, the thing you were trying to obtain is now in their hands. So you have no reason to stay in Europe. You did your best, but it’s time to come home. You took great risks, Eleanor. Now it’s time to make the right decision.”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Sounds like a speech you had prepared, Ty.”

“It doesn’t make me wrong. Let me just say one more thing.”

As I walk along a side street, passing a bustling café, Tyson giving me his non-lecture lecture, my internal radar forces my eyes to a woman standing at the corner, leaning against a lamppost, looking at her phone—but who was looking at me a moment earlier.

A young, pretty Asian woman in a leather jacket with cropped dark hair—

I stop in my tracks and focus.

Is that the same young, pretty Asian woman who bumped into me at Stephansdom as I was leaving the grand church? The woman with lime-green hair and facial piercings?

No lime-green hair now, no piercings, but…

I cross the street and beeline in her direction. Without looking up, the woman peels herself from the lamppost and disappears around the corner. I pick up my pace, rushing across the cobblestone street, but I’m surely no match for her in terms of speed. By the time I reach the corner and turn, she is gone.

“You sound like you’re running, Eleanor. And not listening to a word I say.”

“Right on both counts,” I admit after catching my breath. “I think someone is following me. Remember I told you, when I was walking out of the church, bumping into the Asian—”

“She’s following you? Are you sure it’s her?”

“I’m—yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Then I rest my case,” he says. “It’s time for you to come home. There’s nothing left for you to find.”

But if there is nothing left to find, why are they still following me?

“The sixth envelope,” I mumble.

“The what?”

“The man I spoke with—Stranger Danger? He said there were six envelopes in Hitler’s safe.”

“I remember,” says Ty.

“He said Bauer must have accidentally destroyed whatever was in the sixth envelope when he tried to ‘view’ it. He said Hitler was upset afterward that it was ‘unusable.’ What could that be, Ty? What do you ‘view’ that could be rendered ‘unusable’? That doesn’t sound like a document or a photograph.”

“I appreciate your curiosity, El, but didn’t Stranger Danger also tell you that it no longer exists?”

“Am I suddenly required to believe everything he told me?” I start walking back toward my hotel, ideas flashing in and out. “On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t lying, Ty. Maybe he was mistaken.”

“I’m… now I’m not following, Eleanor.”

I reach the entrance of my hotel and look around me. And once more I find the young Asian woman, this time wearing straight blond hair—she has many wigs, apparently—sitting at a table outside the Burger King across the street.

“Maybe I’ve been looking at this wrong,” I say. “Maybe I missed a critical fact. Something even Thomas Bauer didn’t know.”

“Oh, Eleanor.” This time, my brother heaves a sigh rivaling my mother at her most disappointed. “Based on rank speculation that there might be a sixth envelope from Hitler’s safe that might contain something incriminating and might still exist?”

“Between seeking the truth and letting it slip away forever? Absolutely. Love you, Ty.” I end the call on the burner phone before he can object.

I try to make eye contact with the Asian woman, but she won’t allow it. So I simply nod at her. She certainly knows where to find me.

And it won’t be on a plane to the States. I’m not done here yet.

72

March 20, 1933

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

“I’M SORRY, FRAU GERLICH,” said the police officer standing behind the desk. “I have no further information.”

“Telling me my husband’s in protective custody tells me nothing!” cried Sophie Gerlich. “Where is he? What is he accused of? How can I see him?”

Sophie turned. Behind her, a line had formed out the door and down the block. Everyone wanting to know the same thing—the location and status and well-being of a loved one, scooped up by SA storm troopers and dragged off into “protective custody” pursuant to the Reichstag Fire Decree.

“Is that what you’re going to tell every single one of us? Protective custody? You have no idea—”

“They tell us nothing, Frau Gerlich. By now, you should know that. You’ve come here every day for almost two weeks—”

“And I will keep coming every day. You’re the police. How could you not know?”

The officer, an older man with a kind face, raised his hands. “We are the police, yes, but we have no control over the SA or the SS. We don’t even—”

“Please.” Sophie grabbed his arm, tears welling in her eyes. “Please. I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

He patted her hand. “If I knew something, I would tell you. All I can tell you is to wait for them to contact you. I’m sure they will.”

73

March 23, 1933

Dachau concentration camp

Dachau, Germany

HE WAS WITH HIS beloved, stroking her hair, gently rubbing her back, taking in her flowery scent, when he heard, off in the distance, the tinny echo of percussion. Then something clicked inside him and ripped him from his dream. The sound was a gong. The gong that signaled the wake-up call at four thirty in the morning.

Fritz Gerlich started awake, sitting up on the rickety bed, screaming pain running up his neck, the top of his head scraping the ceiling overhead. He felt for his glasses, which were buried somewhere in the thin wool blanket in which he was wrapped. Before he could see, he could smell—smell the stench of two hundred men forced into hard labor during the day but not allowed to bathe or even change their clothes at night. In the mornings it felt like waking up inside a barn full of livestock.

“Day fourteen,” he whispered to himself. Keeping track of the days of his confinement was a small way for him to keep his sanity, to remember the world outside this prison.

Below him, his bunkmate groaned. Christian Grotewald was one of the first to arrive here nearly a month ago. He told Gerlich he’d been roused from bed and taken into custody on the night of the Reichstag fire on February 27. While under arrest, he was reelected to a third term in the Reichstag as a Social Democrat. “Welcome to the Hotel Dachau” was how Grotewald had first greeted Gerlich.

A wave of frigid air whooshed into the barracks as the doors burst open, an SS guard marching in and banging a metal spoon against a pan. “Roll call in thirty minutes!” he yelled, moving through the garrison filled with fifty bunks on each side.

Gerlich’s body ached from sleeping on a cushion so thin he could feel the wood logs beneath it, with a wool blanket that did not even reach his toes. He managed to climb down to the floor, where he found his bunkmate with his eyes squeezed shut.

“On your feet, Christian,” said Gerlich. “We haven’t much time.”

“I can’t move.” Eleven-hour days of hard labor, eating next to nothing, and sleeping almost directly on logs every night had more or less broken him.

“You’ll feel better once you get to your feet.” Gerlich grabbed Grotewald’s wrist and pulled. “Let’s get in line for the sink.”

By the time they reached the line, men were stacked forty, fifty strong, hoping for the minimal opportunity to rub a small nub of soap between their fingers and wash some part of their body before roll call. Never before had Gerlich felt so inhuman—his uncleaned teeth covered in a grimy film, a dirty beard formed on his face, his skin itchy and blotchy from this striped coverall through which he had sweated for several days in a row now.

“What day is it?” Grotewald asked as they stood in line.

“Thursday, March twenty-third.”

“The vote is today,” Grotewald said. “The Enabling Act. Or I should say, it was supposed to take place today.”

Hitler had proposed legislation—entitled the Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich, but known colloquially as the Enabling Act—that essentially codified into law the Reichstag Fire Decree that was supposed to be temporary. The law allowed Hitler to enact any law, even those that violated the Weimar Constitution and without the approval of President von Hindenburg. It would cement Hitler’s dictatorial stranglehold over the nation of Germany.

“How do you know?” asked Gerlich.

“A guard was listening to the radio. But most of the Communist members of the Reichstag are in custody here, and at least half the Social Democrats. They need a two-thirds quorum, and they don’t have it.”

Gerlich let a bitter chuckle escape his lips. “They’ll just say they have a quorum, whether they do or not,” he said. “Nobody will challenge them. And anyone who does will answer to the SA guards who will be surrounding the legislative chamber.”

He’d come to adopt Thomas Bauer’s view: to the Nazis, truth was irrelevant and rules didn’t matter. They did what they wanted, and anyone who got in their way, by definition, was treated as an enemy of the people.

He clasped Christian Grotewald on the shoulder. “It pains me to say this, my good man, but that law will pass today.”

The detainees trudged out for roll call in the center of camp, the ground cold and hard, the sky gray. They lined up in rows of ten, separated by blocks. Nearly a thousand men stood at attention, shivering in their coveralls, their breath frozen, wincing against the severe wind. The camp was surrounded by fences of electrified barbed wire twenty feet high and a moat, courtesy of the River Amper, as wide as eight feet. A tower loomed at each corner, housing an SS guard manning a machine gun.

Gerlich looked around. Lined up to his right was a biology professor from Berlin, to his left an attorney specializing in civil rights. Along the rest of his row were a rabbi from Munich, a Düsseldorf man elected to parliament as a Communist, a banker from Berlin who was openly gay, a Jewish judge from Frankfurt, a Hamburg journalist who had written of Hitler’s “petty tyranny,” and two others from Munich, a Jewish pediatrician who had contributed heavily to Hitler’s opponent in the presidential election and an essayist who had once criticized Hitler for his role ten years ago in the Beer Hall Putsch.

The Führer was not just jailing his current enemies. He was settling old scores.

SS guards patrolled the detainees in formation, heavy winter coats covering their black uniforms, rifles over their shoulders. In succession, from Block A to E, SS guards counted heads and reported a final tally to a guard holding a clipboard, who would confirm that the count matched up with official records.

They counted each block twice to ensure all detainees were present. There was an inconsistency in the count of Block C, which required yet another recount. The roll call, as usual, took over ninety minutes, with detainees being forced to stand completely still and weathering unbearable cold in their thin coveralls.

When roll call finally finished, the SS guards stood at attention as a door opened from the administration building, a log cabin in the camp’s infancy. Out strode the lagerkommandant, the camp commander, carrying a bullhorn to address the detainees. Hilmar Wäckerle was a longtime National Socialist and classmate of Heinrich Himmler’s back at the Technical University Munich.

“Today you will again focus on the construction of the barracks,” Wäckerle announced.

Gerlich winced, not so much at the grueling labor ahead—chopping and lifting logs, nailing boards together, driving shovels into cold, hard earth—but the sentiment behind it. The prisoners were being made to build and expand their prison.

“You have no right to hold me! I demand to be released!”

Gerlich turned as he heard these words shouted to the kommandant by a detainee many rows behind him. Gerlich braced himself as the SS guards moved toward the man, but the kommandant intervened.

“Bring him forward,” said Wäckerle through the bullhorn. “Let the man speak.”

SS guards shoved the man forward until he stood near the commander. The prisoner was thin, of average build, with dark eyes. He faced his fellow detainees.

“My name is Karl Litten!” he called out. “I am an elected member of the Reichstag. I am needed in Berlin for a crucial vote. I demand to be released at once!”

Wäckerle raised his bullhorn. “Who among you agrees with this man?”

Gerlich raised his hand. A few others did, as well, and then others became more emboldened and followed suit. Nearly five hundred hands went up.

Kommandant Wäckerle, standing behind Litten the prisoner, nodded to one of his guards. The guard removed his baton and swung it at the back of the prisoner’s knees, knocking him to the ground with a cry. The SS guard swung the club like a hammer down on the prisoner’s head with a hideous crunch. Then he slammed down the baton again, this time drawing blood from the prisoner’s skull. Then again, and again and again, as if hammering a stubborn nail into the floor, until the prisoner’s skull was nothing but a mash, blood and brain matter spraying everywhere with each successive blow.

The kommandant turned to the rows and rows of prisoners. “I ask again,” he called out through his bullhorn. “Who among you agrees with this man?”

At no other time that day did the camp at Dachau grow more silent.

74

Reich chancellery

Wilhelmstraße 73

Berlin

“NO!”

Inside the chancellor’s office, a wall-wide swastika as his background, Adolf Hitler ripped the press releases into pieces and flung them through the air. “A boycott of German goods? An international Jewish boycott? I will not stand for this!”

“Indeed, you should not, mein Führer.” Joseph Goebbels, sitting across Hitler’s desk alongside Hermann Göring, sat forward. “Countermeasures are in order.”

“Yes—countermeasures! Precisely! Countermeasures.” Hitler shook his head, fuming, veins prominent on his forehead. “The rest of Europe thinks it can intimidate me? The Jews in the United States think I care for their threats? I will not compromise. I will never show weakness.” He marched to the window and looked out over the plaza. “That’s what they want. They want me to react with weakness.”

“Never apologize,” said Goebbels. “Instead, I suggest a boycott of our own, mein Führer. A national boycott of Jewish businesses within Germany.”

Göring cleared his throat. “We must be careful, mein Führer, not to harm our self-interests. For the time being, Jewish businesses provide a substantial share of our economy. That will change, of course, but we cannot end it abruptly. Should economic conditions sour dramatically, we will have to answer for it.”

“Then a boycott just for one day,” said Goebbels. “To show them what we are capable of. And we let it be known: if the worldwide Jews persist in their attempts to intimidate us, the boycott will be resumed until German Jewry has been annihilated.”

Hitler pointed at Goebbels. “And say just like that! ‘Until German Jewry has been annihilated.’ Those words verbatim!”

“As you wish, mein Führer.” Goebbels made a note on his pad.

“What else?” Hitler asked himself, rubbing his hands together. “We continue on our legislative path. The civil-service law.”

“Mein Führer,” said Göring. “We just passed the Enabling Act, granting you unfettered power. Perhaps a short pause might be in order before—”

“No, Hermann!” Hitler pounded his desk. “No delays. No pauses. I don’t want them in our government service. I don’t want them poisoning the minds of our children. I don’t want them in our courts. I don’t want them laying their hands on our German citizens!”

Göring knew better than to argue.

“I want that law passed next week! And what little of the Jewish intelligentsia remains will be gone.” He removed a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “Speaking of the intelligentsia—where is its fearless leader? Have we located him?”

“Not yet,” said Göring. “We’ve searched his flat in Berlin, his cottage in Caputh, his university office. We understand he is out of the country but returns soon.”

“Well, find him!” Hitler shouted. “And lock him up! They listen to him. Everyone listens to him.”

“Don’t you worry, mein Führer.” Goebbels rose to his feet. “In no more than a week’s time, intellectualism in this country will be dead. And with it, any meaningful resistance to our cause.”

75

Port of Antwerp

Belgium

IT WAS GRAY AND gusty as the Jewish professor disembarked the boat with his wife, Elsa. They clutched each other as they walked down the ramp, the winds whipping off the Scheldt and threatening to blow the professor’s hat from his head.

He was returning from a two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology. He’d intended to return to Berlin, his home, and resume his work at the Prussian Academy of Sciences. But while in Pasadena, like everyone else in the United States, he had listened with horror to the details of the Reichstag Fire Decree and the subsequent roundup of intellectuals and political enemies.

Waiting for them at the port was Ludwig, a former student now living in Brussels. The professor had always remembered Ludwig as vibrant, full of life, eager to learn and conquer the world of physics. Today, however, the young man’s eyes were down, his head hung low.

“Ludwig, thank you for meeting us. Is it as bad as I’ve heard?”

“What have you heard?”

“That most of our department was taken into protective custody the day after the fire. That the SA stormed through the Academy and rounded up every great mind.”

“And not only the Jewish ones,” said Ludwig with a sigh.

“Of course not,” said Elsa. “The Nazis wouldn’t stop there. They fear nothing more than intellectual independence.”

They walked with Ludwig to his black town car as a porter trailed behind with their luggage.

“Professor, they ransacked your office,” said Ludwig, wincing. “They searched your place in Berlin twice. They destroyed the interior.”

“So I’ve heard,” said the professor.

“I took the liberty of visiting your cottage in Caputh, and—”

“It’s all right, Ludwig. We already heard. They ransacked it, too. And confiscated our sailboat.” The professor let out a dismayed chuckle.

“I can’t imagine how they could claim a right to do any of that,” said the young man.

“Then welcome to Nazi Germany,” said the professor. “Whatever Hitler says is the truth, no matter how obviously false. Whatever Hitler does is legal, no matter how blatantly immoral. And anyone who dares challenge either of those principles is an enemy of the state.” He shuddered at the gravity of those words.

They reached the car. The professor and his wife sat in the rear. Ludwig started up the vehicle and turned back to them.

“Professor, I also bring a message from your friend Georg at the consulate in Berlin.”

“Oh?”

“He said that if you return to Germany, and this is a quote: ‘They’ll drag you through the streets by the hair.’”

“He’s probably right.” The professor rubbed his face. “I’ve publicly denounced Hitler for years, but even I confess that the degree of his brutality and cowardice has been a surprise.”

“Agreed,” said Ludwig. “So where shall I take you?”

“The German consulate, if you would.”

It was a mere fifteen-minute drive. The professor clutched Elsa’s hand all the while. He glanced over at her. He knew this would be hardest on his wife; she had called Germany her home her entire life.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her.

“Don’t you dare apologize.” Elsa squeezed his arm and nuzzled her nose to his. “I only thank God that we were in California when this happened. Or I would be visiting you in Dachau.” She shook her head. “The only apology I will accept is one from a petty little tyrant with a funny mustache. And I don’t expect that anytime soon.”

“I committed the most unforgivable of sins, my dear. I publicly criticized him.”

“But drag you through the streets by the hair?” She chuckled.

“Well, I have plenty of it.” The professor removed his hat, ran his hand through his unkempt white hair.

The town car rolled up onto a cobblestone street, before the Consulate of Germany, a large gray-stone structure. The professor and his wife strode in and filled out some paperwork at the desk.

They approached the counter marked CUSTOMS. The professor handed over his and Elsa’s passports along with the papers.

The clerk, a young woman, looked everything over. “You are both renouncing your German citizenship?”

“We are.”

“I see.” She held up the passport and looked at the professor. “Well, let’s get started, Professor Einstein.”

76

Maximilian Haus

Georgenstraße

Munich

THOMAS BAUER WAS LATE for the meeting with the Ten Patriots, now down to nine, after Fritz Gerlich was whisked away by the SA. They were going to discuss options and ideas to think of any way imaginable to bring Fritz home. They had a working sketch of the Dachau camp’s layout, the names of the guards who manned the gate, the timing of the delivery trucks’ arrivals and departures.

Bauer checked his pocket watch. It was half past eight in the evening, brisk and windy. He would hear it from the other members, who had come to expect Bauer’s tardiness. They would give him an earful, all right.

As he approached, a large truck, painted brown with a bright red swastika across the side, skidded to a halt in front of the Maximilian Haus, where they always met.

Oh, no.

A dozen armed SA troopers spilled out of the rear of the truck and entered the beer hall. Bauer was unarmed, no match for the four SA troopers who stayed outside, rifles in hand.

Bauer watched helplessly as five of his comrades were marched out of the beer hall with their hands behind their backs and shoved forward, some falling to the pavement. The shoemaker. The barber. The salesman. The shopkeeper. The musician. Each was forced into the rear cabin of the truck.

Bauer watched the truck speed away, surely whisking the group away into protective custody.

For a long time, Bauer did not move, too stunned and horrified to process his next move. After a while, he walked into the tavern. The door to the private room they used stood open, the room empty, the large table overturned. He made eye contact with the bartender. Ernest, a bald war veteran with only three fingers on his right hand and half a right ear, courtesy of a British explosive device, gave Bauer a knowing nod.

Bauer approached the bar and ordered a stein of ale.

Ernest delivered a foamy mug. “Be glad you were late,” he said under his breath.

Bauer kept a poker face, nodding matter-of-factly and sipping his beer. “They got five. Where are the others?”

“The one who does spycraft, he didn’t show. The professors I assume were rounded up earlier with the academic purge.”

Bauer continued to nod, like he was just making conversation, though his heart dropped. “How did they know about us?”

“Don’t know,” said Ernest. “But they pay for information. They threaten for information. If you know something and don’t say, you’re just as guilty. They have people everywhere, listening, watching.”

Bauer looked around the crowded tavern at customers enjoying their beers, some laughing heartily. It could be any of them.

Bauer slid money across the bar for his beer. “Just one more question,” he said. “And I want you to look me in the eye.”

Ernest did not, in fact, look him in the eye. Instead, he focused on wiping the bar counter with a rag. “I had no choice,” he said. “They’d lock me up. They’d burn down my tavern.”

Bauer grabbed his arm. “Those were brothers-in-arms you betrayed. Veterans who fought for this country. And for what? So you’d betray them to the first fascist who comes along?” He swatted the beer, knocking the mug over, and left the tavern.

Outside, he looked both ways before proceeding, watching out for SA thugs. A man stepped out from the alley and walked under a streetlamp.

“Erich,” said Bauer.

“So we’re down to two patriots,” said von der Haas, looking every bit the spy with his diminutive frame, his mousy face, his wandering eyes. “Let’s see how long it lasts.”

77

April 1, 1933

Geiger Department Store

Jakobplatz

SELIG GEIGER CLEARED HIS throat as he stood before some four hundred employees on the top floor, the third floor of the building, the section of the store reserved for household wares.

“You all know what is happening today,” he began. “The government is urging a one-day boycott of Jewish-owned stores. I do not expect this to deter us. I hope business will be as prosperous as always. I can’t be sure. I wish I knew.”

Selig looked over his employees, people as young as fifteen and as old as seventy, of various nationalities and creeds.

“I’ve never hidden my Judaism,” he continued, walking among his workers. “But neither have I mixed my personal life with business. Did you even know I was Jewish? Have I ever asked any of you about your faith? The Geiger Department Store isn’t a Jewish store or a Christian store or a Nationalist store or a Communist store. It’s a store, period. A store that has served Munich for ninety-eight years, since my grandfather founded it. If I have anything to say about it, it will serve Munich for ninety-eight more. We have expanded over the years. We now employ over eight hundred people with well-paying jobs, and we provide fine goods to the people of this city—people of whatever faith. We have weathered storms before. We survived the Great War without closing for a single day. We will survive today’s boycott. Let’s just stick to—”

“Herr Geiger! Herr Geiger!” Selig’s store manager came rushing up the escalator. “You have to come outside now!”

Selig raced down the escalators, nearly toppling over. As he ran along the tiled floor toward the main entrance, passing the men’s formal clothing area, he looked through the large glass doors to see a commotion, a gathering of people.

He pushed through the doors into the cool spring air. A half dozen members of the SA, in formal brown uniforms and swastika armbands, were setting up barricades. One was blocking a woman in a fur coat who was trying to enter the store. Another was painting a Star of David in yellow and black on the window. Others were posting cardboard signs: DEUTSCHE WEHRT EUCH and KAUFT NICHT BEI JUDEN!

Germany, beware.

Do not buy from Jews!

“You can’t do this!” Selig cried. “People can enter this store if they please! You have no right to harass them or us!”

The brownshirt who appeared to be the leader chuckled and nodded at Selig. “We have no right? Is that what you say? And who are you to say such a thing?”

“I’m the owner of the store,” said Selig.

“You? You’re the owner of this store?” The brownshirt tapped the end of the rifle against the glass entry door. “This one here?”

“Yes,” said Selig. “I am Seligmann Geiger.”

The guard took his rifle with both hands, reared it back, and slung the butt against the glass door, shattering it into pieces. The crowd that had begun to gather gasped in response.

“No!” Selig yelled. Another storm trooper shoved Selig, nearly knocking him to the pavement. He regained his balance and turned to rush the man, only to see six brownshirts, armed with rifles and pistols, gearing up for just that moment.

“This is not legal,” he said, as controlled as he could, his entire body shaking with rage and horror. “I am reporting this to the authorities.”

The lead brownshirt found that amusing. “Who exactly do you think we are?”

“No, I’m reporting this to the police.”

Selig stormed away as they laughed. He broke into a jog, running across Jakobplatz and Sebastianplatz as a light rain began to fall. He reached the police directorate within ten minutes and rushed inside. The station house was abuzz as he’d expected, officers in uniform milling about and moving men in handcuffs into a holding cell. But there were brownshirts inside the station, too.

“I am here to report a crime,” he said to an officer behind a desk. “Members of the SA are preventing customers from entering my store.”

The officer, a jowly man with tired eyes, looked up at him. “You are Jewish?”

“I am. My name is Seligmann Geiger. I own the Geiger Department Store. The boycott that the chancellor called for was a suggestion. Customers weren’t required to follow it. But these SA men are preventing entry to my store. They are posting signs. They shattered the glass of one of my doors.”

“You are speaking of my men?” A man wearing an SA uniform approached Selig.

“Yes,” said Selig with hesitation. “Your men are acting illegally.”

“That is most concerning. Come with me, Herr… ?”

“Geiger. Selig Geiger.”

“Come with me, Herr Geiger.”

Selig followed him through the station, passing detectives seated at desks, the smell of burnt coffee. The man nodded to a handful of brownshirts talking in the corner, who nodded and joined their leader, following behind Selig. The leader opened the door to a room that contained only a single chair, alone in the space.

“Come, Herr Geiger, have a seat,” the leader said. “I would like to hear all about your mistreatment.”

78

SELIG GEIGER WAS ON the floor almost immediately, brownshirts kicking him with their sharp boots and clubbing him with their batons. It happened so fast, from so many directions, that for a moment Selig saw nothing, heard only mocking laughter, before the pain crashed down on him.

He lay motionless. He spit a tooth out, tasted blood in his mouth. Every breath brought a sharp sting in his ribs. When he raised his head, he vomited.

“The Jew has two choices,” said the leader. “One, we take you into protective custody. Would you like to hear the second option?”

Selig staggered out of the police station, barefoot, his pants removed, leaving only his long underwear. Around his neck they’d hung a sign: Ich bin Jude, und ich werde mich nie mehr bei der Polizei beschweren.

I am a Jew, and I will never again complain to the police.

They marched him through Munich. With his broken ribs and concussion, navigating cobblestone streets in his bare feet, Selig could hardly move himself forward. They prodded him with their rifles, mocking and ridiculing him. Selig refused to reward the SA any more than possible. Blood dripped into his throat from his missing teeth.

They paraded him around the Karlsplatz—the central square—and ultimately led him back toward his store. Passersby wore a mix of reactions. Some looked away entirely. Some looked on with pity, others with outright derision. Some saluted Hitler and taunted Selig. One even spat on him.

He passed police vehicles and foot patrolmen, none of whom reacted. As if the members of the SA were superior in rank.

By the time he turned onto Rosental, Selig had fallen down three times. His knees were scraped bloody, his feet raw and blistered. He heard cheers coming from down the street. It was a moment before he realized how close to his store he was, that the SA thugs who had first accosted him outside his store were still there, now laughing and jeering at him.

Then he collapsed, about fifty feet from the front door, as his employees looked on, as pedestrians and shoppers stopped and gawked. The last thing he remembered was his wife, Marina, running toward him, calling out his name, before everything went black.

79

Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital

Munich

THOMAS BAUER SAT WITH his children, Ridley and Maxine, one on each knee, in the waiting area as his wife, Amalie, emerged from the hospital room where her father was being treated. She tried to put on a brave face for the children, who were not allowed to see their opa and were told only that he had had an accident.

That “accident” had included missing teeth, broken ribs, a perforated left eardrum, a broken nose, a concussion, and contusions all about his body.

“You guys sit right here,” Bauer said to the children, placing them on the chairs.

“Oma is crying,” Ridley whispered. “She’s trying to pretend she’s not, but she is.”

Bauer turned back and saw his mother-in-law leaving the hospital room, her hands obscuring her face.

“Well, she’s upset because Opa got hurt,” said Bauer. “But the important thing is that he’s going to be just fine. So sit here for right now.”

Bauer found Amalie down the hall, embracing Marina, each of them trembling as they broke down, letting their emotions pour out. It occurred to Bauer that the two of them may never in their lives have seen Selig in a position of weakness.

Amalie, her chin on her mother’s shoulder, locked eyes with Bauer. “He wants to see you, Tom,” she said.

“Okay.” Bauer braced himself as he entered the room. As a soldier and a kripo, he’d seen all manner of injuries and death. But Selig was unrecognizable. His skull was heavily wrapped, his nose in a splint, his face a swollen blob of purple and black. His blue eyes barely showed through the swelling. He managed to raise a hand and summon Bauer closer. Bauer stood over him, ear close to his face.

“You were right all along,” Selig whispered.

Bauer took Selig’s hand. “I have never wished more to be wrong.”

“So tell a stubborn old man. What would you do now, if you were me?”

Bauer pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed, leaned on the guardrails. “Selig, you’ve made a fortune. More than enough to live a comfortable life.” He sighed. “Look, I know it’s been in your family for almost a century. It’s your life’s work. But Munich? The whole country? It’s changed, and it’s only going to get worse. They’ll extort you, they’ll threaten you, and one day they just might take it from you.”

“You’d sell the business?”

“Yes, I would. I would retire.”

“Not stay and fight?”

“Fight for what?” said Bauer. “More money than you’ll ever need? Some things are worth fighting for, Selig. But that’s not one of them.”

With some effort, Selig sat up in the bed. “You know something, Tom? When they paraded me around the town, I was sure I was going to die. I thought they would walk me up to my store and execute me—just shoot me in front of my employees.” He paused a moment, a tear rolling down his battered, swollen cheek. “And that whole time, I didn’t think once about that store. I didn’t think once about profits or money. All I could think about was my family. Marina and Amalie, my grandchildren.”

He put his head back on the pillow.

“Not me, though,” said Bauer. “You never thought about me.”

They both laughed, though Selig clutched his left side in pain.

“So this is Munich now,” said Selig. “This is Germany. They can do whatever they want to us because we’re Jews.”

Bauer stood. “They do whatever they want to anyone,” he said.

80

Bauer residence

Oberföhring

AMALIE BAUER STIRRED IN bed as her husband brushed his rough-shaven face against hers with a gentle kiss. “See you tonight,” he whispered.

“Come home to us, Tom,” she whispered back, as she always did. She didn’t need to look at the clock to know that it was just past one in the morning. Tom was off to his brutal shift as a dishwasher.

She awoke again at six, bathed, and dressed for work. She was glad to be returning to routine after spending most of last week at the hospital with her father and mother.

She went downstairs and laid out breakfast—brötchen with honey for Maxine, muesli with milk for Ridley, hard-boiled eggs for her. Then it was time to wake the children. Ridley, his thick dark hair standing on end, eyes barely open, protested as usual. Maxine, one year his senior at age seven, rubbed her face and wandered to the bathroom.

They were on their way by seven thirty. They held hands until arriving at the elementary school that her children attended and where she worked, Neue Tagesschule. Amalie let out a quiet sigh when Ridley ran off to the other first-graders, Maxine the second-graders, putting last week’s ordeal with her father behind her, rejoining the comfort of routine at her school.

First period was math. They were beginning a section on patterns and sequences. Twenty-three children filled the wooden seats inside the classroom, pencil and paper at the ready. Amalie was at the chalkboard, writing equations, when the school principal knocked on the door.

“Yes, Herr Teague?” she said.

“Ah, excuse me, Frau Bauer.” The administrator, a thin man with a receding hairline, cast his eyes downward. “I require you in the office a moment.”

Once Amalie was in the hallway, the principal turned to her. “This was not my decision, Amalie. Far from it.”

“What decision?”

An SA officer emerged from the principal’s office. “Frau Bauer? Frau Amalie Bauer?”

She stopped short of him, her blood boiling. “That is my name.”

The man cleared his throat. “Pursuant to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, you are hereby terminated from your position as teacher.”

“What?” Amalie actually laughed, then immediately frowned and looked at the principal. “I’m fired?”

The principal simply nodded.

“Well, that’s ridiculous!” she cried. “I’ve taught here for eleven years. You can’t just fire—”

“It’s a new law they passed on Friday, while you were out,” said the principal.

“What law?” Amalie demanded.

“The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” the SA trooper repeated. “Banning Jews from civil-service employment. Now, please.” He opened his hand. “Please leave the building.”

“I will not.” Amalie raised her chin. “This is completely ridiculous. I don’t indoctrinate children with my religious faith. I teach them math, science, language.”

“It is hardly the point. Will this be a problem?”

Four more SA troopers emerged from the principal’s office, surrounding Amalie.

She balled her fists and gritted her teeth. Tears formed in her eyes, but she was determined not to let them fall. She thought of her father, beaten within an inch of his life, only now able to return home to heal.

“We can discuss this at the end of the day,” she said to the principal. “For now, I am returning to my class.”

She turned. The SA trooper grabbed her by the arm. She spun and slapped him across the face. Before she could say a word, troopers seized both her arms and forced her to the floor.

The lead trooper, still touching the side of his face that she slapped, looked her in the eye. “Apologize at once,” he said.

“I will not!” she cried, struggling. “Let go of me!”

The leader nodded at the troopers holding her. “Off to protective custody, then,” he said. “We’ll see how your attitude fares in Dachau.”

81

April 8, 1933

Helldorff home

Bogenhausen District

THAT EVENING, THE TEMPERATURES dipping, a spring frost forming on the grass, Thomas Bauer paced at the door of a home only a mile from his in the Bogenhausen neighborhood, a simple A-frame cedar house on a tree-lined street.

An attractive young woman with bobbed red hair answered the door with an infant boy in her arms.

“Good evening, ma’am. My name is Thomas Bauer. I’m a—”

“Of course, I know who you are! Peter speaks so highly of you.”

Bauer nodded. “If I might have a word with your husband.”

“Would you like to come in?”

“I’m fine outside, ma’am. Thank you.”

A moment later, Peter Helldorff appeared at the front door, wearing a sweater and trousers, looking older than his twenty years. “Bauer?” he said.

“They took my wife,” said Bauer. “The SA kicked her out of her job as a schoolteacher and put her in protective custody.”

“Oh, no.” Helldorff brought a hand to his forehead. “I’m—I’m so sorry—”

“I didn’t come here for your condolences,” said Bauer. “I came for your help.”

“My help?”

“I doubt they would have moved her yet. She’s probably being held somewhere in Munich. Probably one of the directorates. I don’t know which.”

“And you want me to find out?”

“You owe me,” said Bauer. “This is how you’ll repay me. I know you can find her.”

“But…”

“Just tell me where she is,” said Bauer. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Helldorff’s face went through several iterations of uncertainty. Bauer would never forgive him, but he knew that Helldorff had a conscience, that he was full of remorse. “Wait here,” he said. “They keep an updated list of detainees. I have a copy.”

Bauer stood silently outside the house. Five minutes passed. Helldorff’s wife reappeared, this time without the baby in her arms. “You’re sure you won’t come in?”

For reasons he couldn’t identify, Bauer could not bring himself to enter Helldorff’s home. “I’m fine out here.”

She nodded. “He used to speak about you constantly,” she said. “I was sorry you couldn’t attend our wedding.”

Bauer wasn’t invited, of course, nor would he have gone. But it appeared that Helldorff’s bride did not know the details.

She looked over her shoulder, then turned to him again. “May I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“It will sound odd. Did…” She stepped outside, half closed the door. “Did something happen to my husband at work? Something he regrets?”

Bauer let out a breath. “That’s a question for him, ma’am.”

“Please call me Rebecca.”

“Why do you ask, Rebecca?”

She looked forlornly back at the door. “Peter hasn’t been himself for quite a long time. Over a year now. Not long before we married. At first, I thought it was second thoughts about our wedding. But that’s not it. It’s something to do with work. He got this wonderful promotion—he was made a kommissar—but he’s been, well…” She lowered her voice. “He’s been miserable ever since.”

Before Bauer could answer, the door swung open again. Helldorff nodded.

“I have your answer,” he said.

82

Neuhausen Police Directorate

Munich

PATROL OFFICER THOMAS BAUER, dressed in full uniform from beveled cap to polished shoes, approached the police directorate in Neuhausen, a large stone structure at one end of the public square. Parked nearby was a long SA truck, painted its trademark brown with red swastikas on the sides, a transport vehicle for the detainees in protective custody to be taken to Dachau or some other hastily built concentration camp.

He passed the truck and entered the station through glass doors. To his left, a large community bulletin board, just as in Bauer’s directorate in Bogenhausen, a haphazard collection of papers pinned up, mostly advertisements of people needing work, announcements of civic group or religious gatherings, or notices of public meetings.

Immediately in front of him, the receipt sergeant, an old, jowly sort, who processed every entry to the directorate. Behind the receipt desk, the inspectors’ squad room, largely empty this time of night. Bauer did a quick count. Two plainclothes inspectors, conversing casually while typing up reports. Three SA brownshirts, chatting in the corner. Two SS officers in their black uniforms, their feet up on desks, listening to a radio.

Sparse this time of night, no different from Bauer’s directorate.

Before Bauer could speak, the glass doors opened behind him. In walked a man, short and stooped, with long gray hair under a flat cap, thick glasses too large for his face, a sack over his shoulder. “May I post a bulletin?” the man said in a weak voice. “I’m looking for work.”

The receipt sergeant gave the man a once-over. “Go ahead. I hope it’s not for manual labor, old-timer. I’m not sure you could lift a shovel at this point.” Then he looked at Bauer with a question.

“Evening,” said Bauer. “Got a request for a transfer to Bogenhausen.” He unfolded a piece of paper. “The prisoner is an Amalie Bauer. B-A-U-E-R.”

“This time of night?”

Bauer shrugged. “I do what they tell me.”

“Amalie Bauer… Bauer…” The receipt sergeant looked up and down a list. “Oh. She’s not held by kripo. She’s one of the PCs. It’s not my decision. It’s up to the SA.”

“All the PCs are in the cellar?”

“Right.” The sergeant lowered his chin and his voice. “These days, we have a lot more protective custody than regular custody.”

“Same with us in Bogenhausen. So the SA officer’s in the cellar?”

“Yeah.”

“Very good.” Bauer braced himself, then headed down a flight of stairs to the cellar. Five oversized cells linked together, a capacity of 125 detainees. Bauer glanced at the cells and estimated that they were about half capacity. But he didn’t dare attempt eye contact with Amalie. He had to stay as emotionless as possible.

Sitting at a metal desk was a brownshirt, a young man with rosy cheeks and a thick frame who looked half asleep. Stacks of papers lined his desk.

Just one guard down here. As Bauer expected and hoped, but you never knew.

“Kriminalpolizei,” said Bauer. “I have a transfer order for an Amalie Bauer to the Bogenhausen directorate for questioning.”

“No,” said the guard without looking up.

“No? I have a transfer order right here.” A doctored and fraudulent one, of course, but no less a seemingly valid transfer order.

The guard shook his head. “The SA doesn’t answer to kripo.”

“C’mon, comrade. I’m just following orders here. I already filled out the form. All you have to do is sign it. Don’t get me in trouble with my superiors.”

“We’re shipping her and the others off tomorrow morning.” The guard pointed at himself. “If you don’t bring her back, I’ll be in trouble with my superiors. You want to talk to her, you do it right down here.”

Bauer sighed. “I’ll need some privacy to question her. Is there a room?”

“Only room down here, friend, is this one you’re standing in. Unless you want to use the WC over there.” He smirked. The bathroom could not fit more than a single person by design.

Bauer had few options. At the end of the hallway was a metal door, an emergency exit per Munich regulations. But the SA had disabled it, same as they’d done in the Bogenhausen station. They’d broken off the push bar and nailed wooden planks across the doorway in a criss-cross fashion. There was no way through that door from inside the cellar.

“Well, can I at least get her out of the cell?” Bauer tried. “So I’m not questioning her in front of a group? Give me that much.”

The guard thought about it. “Fine.” He pushed himself out of his seat with a moan and waddled down the long hall of cells. “Amalie Bauer!” he called out. He stopped at cell three. Amalie walked up to the front of the cell. Bauer’s heart pounded.

“Kriminalpolizei wants to talk to you,” said the guard, as he opened the cell door.

Bauer looked down at some papers, not wanting to make eye contact with her, hoping she would understand that he was in role. Without looking up, he said, “Are you Frau Amalie Bauer?” He intentionally mispronounced her name, emphasizing the second syllable, not the first, to drive the ruse home.

“I am,” she answered, stoic, emotionless.

He glanced at her. She was disheveled—her hair a mess, her dress ripped at the neck, bruises on her forearm, smears of dirt on her face—but still wore the clothes from her workday, though barefoot.

“All right.” He looked at the guard while switching the papers to his left hand. “Where should I take her to talk?”

“If it were me…” The guard raised his arm, gesturing toward the area by the bathroom. Bauer took that moment, with the guard’s arm extended, to land the hardest punch he could muster to the guard’s stomach, knocking the breath from him and forcing him to double over silently to the floor. Bauer removed his sidearm and brought the butt crashing down on the guard’s head, knocking him out cold.

He grabbed the cell key from the man’s hand. Then he found a pen on the desk, scribbled a signature on the transfer order, and took Amalie by the arm. “Are you okay?” he whispered, shoving the key into his pocket.

“I’m fine, but one of the women in custody is four months pregnant. None of these people committed any crimes except speaking out against the Nazis—”

“I know. We don’t have much time.” They started up the stairs, still speaking in whispers. “Your parents and the kids are in a car down the alley. I’m getting you out of here and you’re going straight to them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but what about you?”

“Let’s see how everything goes. If I say run, then run and don’t look back.”

They reached the top of the stairs. She turned, grabbed his face, and kissed him urgently. Then she nodded.

“Argue with me,” said Bauer. “That should come naturally to you.”

Now back upstairs, they walked through the inspectors’ area. “Let go of me!” Amalie said. “You have no right! I didn’t do anything!”

They reached the receipt sergeant. The stooped man with the gray hair was no longer in the station.

“Here you go.” Bauer held up the transfer order, now with a signature approval.

“They approved it, eh? That’s a first.” The receipt sergeant looked around his desk. “I need to stamp this.”

Bauer, impatient, kept his mouth shut. He glanced around the room to see if anyone was taking any notice. He heard the thump of a stamp.

“Great,” said Bauer, not wanting to seem anxious, ready to whisk his wife away.

“Oh, would you look at that? Stamp’s out of ink.”

Shit.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Bauer.

“No, no. Just give me a minute. I’ll need to refill the ink.”

“It’s fine,” Bauer repeated, forcing himself to remain otherwise still.

“Gotta have a legible stamp.” The sergeant opened drawers, looking for the ink.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bauer saw one of the brownshirts set down his coffee mug and head for the stairs to the cellar. Bauer had no way to stop him.

Not good.

“Another minute won’t kill you,” said the sergeant.

83

THE SA TROOPER DISAPPEARED down the stairwell toward the cellar.

Bauer spun in a half circle, facing the glass doors, and removed the beveled cap from his head.

Six… five…

“Where is that bloody ink for the stamp?” said the receipt sergeant.

… four… three…

Bauer’s heartbeat rose to a banging drum. Any moment, the SA trooper would find his colleague unconscious in the cellar.

… two…

Then he heard the man’s shout from the cellar—

“Hey!”

—followed immediately by a commanding boom, an explosion, a fiery ball lighting up the darkness outside, enough to rattle the windows of the station house.

“Fire!” shouted the receipt sergeant. “Fire outside!”

Every officer in the station—kripo, SA, and SS alike—bolted to their feet, grabbing their weapons and rushing out the entrance doors. The SA transport truck parked outside was now a ball of flame, plumes of gray smoke billowing from the top.

Bauer held Amalie close as the men raced by. He drew his weapon and directed her back from where they had come, toward the cellar door but also the rear exit of the directorate. As they passed the door leading to the cellar, the brownshirt who had found his colleague unconscious was on his way back up the stairs, his sidearm drawn. His eyes widened when he saw Bauer—and the barrel of Bauer’s gun.

Bauer fired once, striking the trooper in the midsection, sending him spiraling backward down the stairs.

“Let’s go!” He and Amalie ran down the hallway to the rear exit. He shoved open the door, the cold air smacking them as they stood in the alley. “The car’s down there. Run!”

She gripped his arm. “Not without you.”

“I’ll meet you. Go now!” He ran back inside, took the stairwell down, moving belowground. He fit the key in the lock of the heavy metal door to the cellar. He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Amalie. “Our kids are waiting for their mother!” he hissed.

“And their father,” she pleaded, her voice cracking.

Bauer looked at the cellar door, then back at her. “I can’t leave them in there. You have to go now! Don’t wait for me!”

She looked at him for one long moment, then turned and disappeared.

Bauer pulled the heavy door open, immediately encountering the criss-crossed wooden planks nailed into the other side. He gripped the sides of the doorway, leaned back, and kicked at the planks until they disengaged, falling forward into the room.

He entered the cellar with his weapon in one hand, the key in the other. The guard he had shot was immobile at the bottom of the staircase, but was starting to stir.

“Here.” He handed the key to the outstretched hand of one of the detainees in the first cell. “Unlock them all and get out! Hurry!”

He approached the awakening guard as he heard the cell doors clang open, the sound of countless footfalls as the inmates rushed out of the cells to the exit.

The guard, recovering, blinked twice and peered up at Bauer.

“Heil Hitler,” said Bauer, before kicking the man in the face, knocking him out again. Then he turned and ran out the exit door.

He rushed up the stairwell and sprinted two blocks, jumping into a waiting car. The driver was Erich von der Haas, no longer wearing a gray wig, no longer stooped, no longer carrying the stielhandgranate he used to blow up the SA truck.

“That was fun,” von der Haas said, putting the car in gear and driving away. “Haven’t mashed potatoes since the war.”

The stick hand grenade von der Haas had used, with its long hollow wooden handle and sheet-steel cylinder containing the explosive charge, resembled a potato masher, thus its nickname.

“Your wife’s getting out of the country?” asked von der Haas.

Bauer nodded. “Tonight.”

Von der Haas looked over at him. “Does that mean you’re leaving the country, too?”

“It won’t take them long to figure out which police officer helped her escape.” Bauer shook his head. “There’s nothing left for me here.”

They went quiet, driving in silence for several minutes.

“You sure about that?” asked von der Haas.

84

Bad Reichenhall

Near the Germany–Austria border

ERICH VON DER HAAS and Thomas Bauer drove for hours along dark, empty roads. The meeting place was on a hill near a barley farm, only five kilometers from the border crossing into Austria. They easily found Selig Geiger’s Mercedes 770, the carmaker’s newest and largest model, parked facing the view of Salzburg with its headlights on.

The family emerged from the Mercedes. Amalie all but leapt into her husband’s arms. They gripped each other as if holding on for dear life, their bodies trembling. Bauer felt tears on his cheeks for the first time in memory.

“I knew you’d come,” she whispered to him. “I just knew it.”

The kids were bundled up for the frigid air. Their eyes looked dark and tired; it was long past their bedtime, but they were excited for this sudden adventure, the details of which were currently unexplained. Would they adjust to leaving the only home they’d ever known?

The answer, Bauer knew, was twofold. On one hand, the answer was yes. Their kids were resilient and happy. They’d make new friends. They’d have their family surrounding them. For kids their age, Bauer realized with a pang, Munich would soon become a distant memory.

But more to the point, the answer didn’t matter. There were no options for them in Munich. By tomorrow, the Nazis would hunt for them. Their home would be raided. Selig and Marina’s home would be, too. Bauer would be wanted for assaulting an SA trooper and countless other offenses. Amalie would still be on a list destined for protective custody.

Bauer told himself, as well, that it was only going to get worse for Jews in Germany. Amalie could no longer teach. And how long before they banned Jewish children from attending schools? It was best they left now, before it was too late.

Selig was a week removed from his ordeal. The swelling and discoloring had just started to recede, but he was looking better. He gripped Bauer’s hand and placed his other hand on Bauer’s shoulder, the closest he would come to a hug. “You saved my baby, Tom,” he said, his voice faltering. “You’re a truly great man.”

Bauer introduced Amalie to his “spy buddy.” Von der Haas was not exactly social, his eyes meandering as he offered a hand to Amalie. But she pulled him into a hug, thanking him for his part in her rescue.

Though it was close to midnight, they took this moment to eat, sitting inside the running Mercedes for warmth. Marina had made biscuits and pork sandwiches. Amalie hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was too nervous for food as she wondered whether she would ever see her husband again.

Bauer could not eat, his insides roiling. He stuffed his hands in his pocket as he stood on the hill, looking at Salzburg in the distance. His body began to tremble. Not from the cold. Not from the warmth of embracing Amalie, whom he loved so fiercely that it stole his breath.

No, it was rage, frustration—pain. It was almost unfathomable how quickly it had happened. Less than two months after taking the chancellorship, Adolf Hitler had seized full control of the country. And yet less than eighteen months ago, that same man had killed his young niece, his lover. Bauer could have caught him. He could have stopped him.

And at the Brown House. The Brown House! Bauer, in his repairman’s uniform, had a gun in his pocket while standing across a desk from the man.

“I should have killed him right then,” he whispered.

Behind him, a car door opened and closed.

“Hey.” Amalie walked up, looped her arm with his. “It’s cold out here.”

Bauer felt a lot of things, but cold was not one. “Amalie,” he said. “Listen—”

“I know, Tom.” She leaned against him. “I know.”

He turned to her.

“I knew when you went back and helped all those other people locked up with me in the jail,” she said. “I knew it before then, if I’m being honest.”

“I’ll never be a cop again.”

“Oh, c’mon, Tom.” She faced him, putting a trembling hand on his cheek. She forced a smile on her quivering lips. “You’ve never been a cop. Not really. You’ve always been a soldier. A fighter for things you believe in. It’s…” She shrugged, shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s why I love you.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “I don’t think I can stop him.”

“Oh, honey.” She wrapped her arms around Bauer. “I don’t think you can, either. But I know you’ll never be able to live with yourself if you don’t try. Just do one thing for me.”

“Anything,” he whispered.

She stepped back, held his face in her hands. “Don’t you dare say good-bye to me,” she said. “As soon as you can, Tom. As soon as you can, come back to us.”

85

Present Day

Vienna

I TAKE THE ELEVATOR up to my floor. When I step off, I feel a chill run through me. This was the precise spot earlier today where the man pulled a gun on me and took the letter from Hitler to Geli that I had just obtained. It was the first time I’ve ever had a gun pointed at me. I hope it was the last.

I card my way into my hotel room. The first thing I see is my corduroy jacket lying on the floor. I dust it off, fold it, and place it neatly in my suitcase. This will be my last night in Vienna.

I look out the window, down at the street level by the garish Burger King. The young Asian woman is no longer at the table outside, but I spot her down the way, seemingly browsing through books at an outdoor bookstand.

I will need to lose her, as a spy might say. And I think I know how. I pick up my burner phone and make a call.

The next morning, I check out of my hotel and take an Uber to the Vienna train station. There I buy a cup of magical Viennese coffee. I swear, even purchased from a bistro at a train station, the coffee here is better than any in the world.

Next, I buy a train ticket with my credit card. When I turn away from the ticket window, I see the Asian woman, now in a blond wig, pretending to be looking at her phone.

I am getting better at imagining the creativity of these spies. I assume, for example, that she sees not only that I purchased a ticket to Berlin, but also that it will be leaving in forty minutes from platform 11, and that I will be sitting in car 9, seat A-1.

When it’s time, I walk down the lengthy platform and line up for the train. I find my seat, the one closest to the door, and keep my rolling bag with me, my knees nearly touching it.

I settle in for the ride. It’s a good eight hours to Berlin. I scribble my thoughts on a small notepad I carry with me. I don’t know if my suspicions are correct. It’s possible I’m chasing something that can’t be found.

I nod off for a while, too, jarring awake with my head craned unnaturally forward. Odd that I could fall asleep, given how tense I am. It shows the depths of my exhaustion. The past few days have been a bit more than I’d been prepared to handle.

Regensburg is the first stop, a large Bavarian town some three hours into the journey. A few people get up from their seats to disembark.

I am one of them. But I don’t do it right away. I wait until most passengers have filtered out and others have begun to climb onto the train, starting to hunt and peck for their seats. At the last moment, as I sense the doors about to shut, I pop up from my seat and slip out, mumbling wie bitte several times as I hurriedly rush off the train.

Was the Asian woman watching me? Was she ready for that maneuver? Did I telegraph my plan? Was I too obvious in allowing her to see that I had paid for a trip all the way to Berlin? Maybe. I am entirely out of my league in this world of espionage.

At the exit from the train station, I step into a small red car waiting at the curb. Monica Bauer, Thomas Bauer’s great-granddaughter, winks at me as she puts the car in drive.

However far removed she is from him in lineage, I like to think I see something in Monica that I surely would have seen in Thomas, if I’d the pleasure of knowing him. A spark, an energy, a soft-spoken power.

“Just over an hour to Munich,” Monica says as she looks in the rearview mirror. “Did we shake your tail, Eleanor?”

We both laugh. She’s trying to break the ice. But she is not unaware of the danger. I heard imminent relief in her voice over the phone last night, when I called her, just knowing I’d survived the encounter, even though I didn’t return with the prize.

“I want to hear this theory you mentioned on the phone,” she says.

“Go back to the night it all happened,” I say. “The night that your great-grandfather robbed Hitler’s safe. What do we know from his journal?”

She thinks it over. “He opened the safe. Everything was in envelopes. He swept all the envelopes into his backpack and closed it up. So the next thing he does once he leaves the Brown House… is hand off the backpack to Peter Helldorff.”

“Exactly,” I say. “If he gets caught by the SS, he doesn’t want them finding the backpack. So he gives it to Peter, who drives away in one direction, while Thomas runs in the other direction on foot. The plan is to meet later, to rendezvous at Fritz Gerlich’s hideaway—their safe house, so to speak—ninety minutes later.”

“But we don’t know what Peter did during those ninety minutes.” Monica glances over at me.

“No, but we know one critical thing that Peter didn’t do,” I say. “He didn’t turn it over immediately to the Nazis or Chief Müller. Why not? Once Thomas has handed it to him, Peter has everything he needs. Why not go directly to the chief? His work is done. The Nazis can then arrest Thomas and Fritz Gerlich whenever they wish. But he didn’t do that. Why not?”

Monica doesn’t know. She’s trying to catch up with me.

“There can only be one reason that Peter didn’t immediately tell the chief that he’d recovered the contents of Hitler’s safe. He wanted to have a look inside first.”

“Ha!” Monica pounds the steering wheel. “Peter was a devious one.”

“Well, we already know that, don’t we? Look what he did to your great-grandfather and Fritz. He pretended to be on their side and betrayed them.”

I shift in the front seat. The faster Monica drives, the better I feel. The Asian woman with the colored wigs couldn’t possibly be keeping up.

Monica asks, “Why would Peter take that risk?”

“He wanted some insurance,” I say. “Something incriminating to potentially reveal later.”

Monica nearly jumps in her seat. “You think Peter kept something?”

“I do. Think about it. When he arrives at the rendezvous with Thomas and Fritz that night, the backpack has five envelopes in it. But back at the church in Vienna, it was accidentally revealed to me that there were six envelopes in Hitler’s safe.”

“So Peter kept whatever was in the sixth envelope,” says Monica. “Maybe for insurance. Maybe to reveal later. But if so, then how did that man at the church know about the sixth envelope?”

“Well, he said when Peter returned the contents of Hitler’s safe the next morning, whatever was in the sixth envelope was destroyed. It was ‘unusable.’ It couldn’t be ‘viewed’ anymore.”

“That doesn’t sound like a document,” says Monica. “Possibly a photograph?”

“Maybe,” I agree. “But that’s not my best guess.”

She looks over at me. “What is?”

86

“MY BEST GUESS,” I tell Monica, “is that the sixth envelope contained an incriminating film.”

“Video?” Monica nearly swerves into a different lane of traffic.

“The 1930s version of video,” I say. “A reel of film. When I was a kid, all our family videos were on Super 8 film reels. My father would play them over a projector on a screen for us to watch.”

“Okay, I’m following.”

“Reels of film were fragile,” I say. “They could rip, melt, become overexposed, all kinds of things. You could accidentally destroy them. And if they were fragile in the 1970s, imagine how they were in the 1930s.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Monica raises her hand. “So this is what you’re saying. Peter finds a reel of film in the sixth envelope. He plays it, he watches it. And it’s really bad, really incriminating to Hitler. He keeps it, like we said, for insurance or to reveal later.”

I nod.

“Then he substitutes a different reel of film, but it’s ripped or overexposed or something. Something that renders it useless.”

“Exactly,” I say. “So when he returns it to Müller, to Hitler ultimately—the reel of film is unwatchable. Hitler can’t ‘use’ it. He can’t ‘view’ it. Thomas was probably blamed for treating it carelessly or something and inadvertently destroying it. That would be totally believable.”

“But Thomas never actually knew about it. He never knew there was a sixth envelope.”

“Correct,” I say. “No one knew but Peter Helldorff. My guess is that Peter replaced the actual reel of film in the sixth envelope with something else. Hitler would be expecting film, right? Only what Helldorff returns is a reel of destroyed film.”

“And he keeps the original.” Monica gives a decisive shake of the head. “Wow. So it might still be out there?”

“Possibly,” I say. “If so, that film reel surely contains something highly incriminating. And I’ll bet that Francis Linderman’s grandfather has it.”

“That’s the proof,” Monica says. “That must be the proof he wants to give you.”

“Right,” I say. “So you have to put me back in touch with him. You have to get me face-to-face with Peter Helldorff’s son.”

87

May 10, 1933

Opernplatz, the Opera Square

Berlin

BOOKS HAD ARRIVED BY the truckload, as many as twenty-five thousand. Works of poets and novelists, essayists and philosophers, scientists and scholars—penned by Jews and foreigners, by leftists and pacifists, sharing the trait only of being decidedly “un-German.”

The light rain falling in Berlin did not dissuade the crowd of fifty thousand from dancing and chanting around the pyre, though they’d been forced to bring in the fire department to douse the books with gasoline. At midnight, the crowd roared at the arrival of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who stood at a lectern on a small set of risers near the bonfire.

“The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end!” he bellowed to the delight of the crowd. “The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you.”

Students and Hitler Youth members, along with SA troopers, tossed heaps of books into the bonfire while giving the Hitler salute and chanting Nazi anthems.

“You do well in this midnight hour,” Goebbels cried, “to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past!”

Across the street, on the roof of the university library building, Thomas Bauer lowered his Gewehr 98 bolt-action rifle. “He didn’t come,” he mumbled. “He was supposed to be here. You said he would be here.”

“That was the intelligence I received.” Lying next to him on the roof, Erich von der Haas lowered his binoculars. “Hitler’s elusive. He’s paranoid. He gives out misinformation about his schedule. But his propaganda minister isn’t a bad consolation prize, if you have a clear shot.”

“I don’t.” Bauer rolled over, facing the dark sky. “Too much smoke. And too many young people around him. It might be worth the chance if it were Hitler, but not this guy.”

“Sorry, Bauer. I only have so many sources.”

“I know.” Bauer slung the rifle over his shoulder and slunk away from the roof’s edge, where they were visible. “Killing Hitler won’t be easy, Erich. We’ll have to get creative. And we might need some help.”

88

May 1934

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

“IT’S NOT ENOUGH!”

Chancellor Adolf Hitler looked out over the Bavarian Alps from his vacation home, which he had recently purchased after renting it for years. The majestic view typically brought him peace, a momentary distraction from his rage. But not today.

He held in his hands copies of The New York Times, The London Times, and Le Figaro. “These attacks from these foreign so-called journalists are merciless! They are never-ending! They are patently unfair! What have I done to deserve this, I ask you, other than try to restore pride and greatness to my country?”

“You’re quite right, mein Führer,” said Hermann Göring.

“Patently unfair,” agreed Martin Bormann.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Hitler cried, throwing the newspapers down on the veranda. “No other law we can pass?”

Five months earlier, they’d put into effect a law that placed the German press under the direct control of Joseph Goebbels. The so-called Editor’s Law barred all “non-Aryans” from journalism, required journalists to be licensed, and forbade the publication of any information that “tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich, outwardly or inwardly.” Whether newspapers followed that directive was entirely at the discretion of Goebbels, who could pull a journalist’s license at any time.

“Unfortunately, we cannot control the foreign press,” said Goebbels. “They are free to print this rubbish.”

“Excuse me, mein Führer.” One of Hitler’s house servants stood with his hands together on the veranda. “Fräulein Braun was hoping you’d accompany her on a walk.”

Hitler turned his head away in disgust. “Tell Eva I’m busy. Open another bottle of champagne. That should occupy her awhile.” Then he turned back to Bormann. “What are they saying about me specifically, Martin? I can’t bear to read these articles past the headlines anymore.”

Bormann bowed his head, hands clasped behind his back. Delivering bad news to the Führer was never enjoyable. “They are digging up rumors about Geli,” he said. “They are suggesting you two had an improper relationship.”

“And?” Hitler closed in on Bormann. “That can’t be all.”

“And that you killed her because she was going to break off your relationship.”

“This again!” Hitler drilled a finger in the air. “What else, Martin?”

Bormann cleared his throat. “They claim you drew pornographic images of her. And you paid ransom to retrieve them after they were lost.”

“Do you hear this?” Hitler said to Göring. “They will resort to anything to stop me! Dredging up long-forgotten, debunked fantasies!”

Göring nodded. “It makes one wonder who is talking to these foreign reporters.”

Hitler wagged his finger at Göring. “Yes, it does. My enemies, of course. The people who spread these vicious lies in the first place.”

“They are liabilities, clearly,” said Bormann.

“Perhaps I have been too lenient.” Hitler turned again toward his view of the Alps. “Perhaps I have been far too lenient.”

89

June 30, 1934

Dachau concentration camp

Dachau

FRITZ GERLICH BELIEVED MORE than anything in eternal Heaven. Which meant he also sincerely believed in an everlasting Hell. But he never thought he’d experience hell on earth like the concentration camp at Dachau.

The sun falling, the air cooling after a hot, humid day, Gerlich trudged along the path back to the Appellplatz, the site of the evening roll call, pausing every so often to readjust the glasses that slid down his nose. The military march song “Fridericus Rex” blared over the loudspeakers, as if to lift their spirits, though the only thing prompting Gerlich to keep pace with his fellow prisoners was the punishment he would face if he fell behind. Only yesterday, his bunkmate, Christian Grotewald, had collapsed on the return walk to camp. They’d beaten him so severely he had to be carried on a stretcher by his fellow detainees.

Almost instinctively, like breathing or moving one foot before another, Gerlich patted his pockets. His rosary in the left one, the most recent letter from Sophie in his right. Despite his urging, his insistence that she flee the country, his wife had refused to leave without her husband.

“Gerlich.” One of the SS guards, holding a clipboard, waved him away from the crew line. “Follow me.”

What had he done? Gerlich had been quietly defiant, refusing to let them break his spirit, but he had complied with orders. Still, it took so little to warrant punishment.

They walked him out of the camp, through the huge wrought-iron gate bearing the words Arbeit macht frei—Work sets you free—to the woods. The sounds of the marching music from the loudspeakers faded as he left the camp and entered the dark, tree-shrouded path. Gerlich heard new music. Live music.

Music of the “Dachau Orchestra.”

Up ahead, torches rose along the path. He approached his fellow prisoners, the makeshift orchestra of detainees chosen from among the many artistic men in the camp. Mostly violins, a few cellos, some horns, often ordered to play on the SS’s command. It would not be unusual for drunken SS guards to rouse the detainee-musicians from sleep to play for them while they drank wine into the wee hours of the night. Some guards would make the musicians perform cruelly buoyant, lively pieces while they dished out punishment behind Barrack F to other detainees—a flogging on the “whipping horse” to “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, beatings on the knuckles with a cane while they played “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

The detainee orchestra playing in the woods tonight was lined up in two rows, on one side the horns, the other the strings, creating a middle aisle down which Gerlich walked. The musicians did not look at Gerlich, keeping their eyes down as they blared their horns or bowed their strings at gunpoint. How many men had come before him down this aisle tonight? Gerlich wondered. And how many more would come after him?

He had never known exactly when this day would come, only that it would.

Gerlich didn’t recognize the tune the orchestra played. It was a waltz, fanciful and upbeat, as if he might take Sophie’s hand and gleefully dance across a ballroom floor.

When Gerlich reached the middle of the aisle, his fellow prisoners on each side of him, the guard behind him ordered him to his knees. Gerlich mumbled a prayer as he landed on the dirt. His body shook, but he kept his head held high.

“O my Lord and Savior,” he whispered, “support me in my last hour in the strong arms of Thy sacraments and by the fresh fragrance of Thy consolations.”

They tossed a gun in front of him, a Walther pistol. He knew, without them saying, that it held a single bullet.

“I will not commit suicide,” he said. “I am a Catholic.”

The waltz the prisoners played reached a crescendo, the violins at a fever pitch. Gerlich felt the barrel of a gun against the back of his head.

“I will see you again, Sophie,” he whispered.

90

“STEMPFLE!” THE SS GUARD shouted over the din of the loudspeaker, piping in orchestra music in the Dachau camp cafeteria. “You’ve been summoned!”

Father Bernhard Stempfle looked up from the plate of disgusting beef tripe. “Finally!” he called out. “It’s been over a week.”

Since he’d been brought to the camp a week ago, Stempfle had complained to anyone who would listen that someone had made a mistake, that he was exceptionally close to the Führer, who would be furious when he learned that Stempfle had been mistakenly rounded up with other members of the clergy.

He was taken from the cafeteria to the wrought-iron gate of the camp’s entrance, where he was greeted by several men, all in black uniforms with swastika armbands save one, a fresh-faced young man in a double-breasted gray suit and dark tie.

“Father Stempfle,” said the man. “I am Peter Helldorff, a lieutenant with the Geheime Staatspolizei. I’ve been ordered to escort you personally.” He extended a hand.

“Ah,” said Stempfle, shaking his hand, eminently relieved. “I’m so glad to see you. I couldn’t understand why they brought me here.”

“We apologize for the confusion, Father. Please come with me.”

They walked from the camp gate toward the parking area.

“So, you’re with the Gestapo?” said Stempfle, now more relaxed. “Göring’s new creation. You’ll be the secret police for all of Germany, I hear.”

“Yes,” said Helldorff.

“Are you from Prussia, Lieutenant?”

“Munich, Father.”

“Ah, you must be one of Chief Müller’s men.”

“I am, Father, yes.”

“He must like you. I understand only his best men joined him in the Gestapo.”

Helldorff did not respond. They walked past a group of cars toward the woods.

“Where are we going, Lieutenant?” asked Stempfle.

“Just through those woods, Father.” Helldorff stopped. “We must keep up appearances. We don’t want the other inmates to see you drive off to freedom. It will raise unrealistic expectations.”

“Ah.” Stempfle looked back toward the gate, then to the woods.

“These men will escort you through the woods to a landing on the other side, where a car is waiting. They will drive you home.” Helldorff gave the stiff-arm salute. “Heil Hitler.”

Stempfle nodded and returned the salute. “Heil Hitler.” He started toward the woods, only ten yards away, joined by two black-uniformed SS guards. When he reached the dark path, he stopped and turned back to Helldorff. “Is that music I hear? In the woods?”

“It is, Father. Think of it as a bon voyage celebration. You are not the only person who will be freed tonight.”

Stempfle wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he resumed the path, disappearing into darkness.

91

PETER HELLDORFF CLOSED HIS eyes as he watched Father Bernhard Stempfle march into the woods. He awaited the sound—maybe one crisp pop, perhaps a litany of gunfire—amid the sickeningly upbeat classical music.

Stempfle didn’t know Helldorff, but Helldorff knew him. Stempfle was the one who’d “recovered” Hitler’s pornographic sketches of Geli. And as the Führer’s sometime confidant, Stempfle likely knew a lot of other dirty secrets.

He is not the only one who knows too much, Helldorff realized, as he heard the cock of a pistol from the officer behind him.

“Sorry, Peter,” said the officer. “It’s not personal.”

That, of course, is what Helldorff had told himself when he’d betrayed Thomas Bauer and Fritz Gerlich. It isn’t personal. Now it had come full circle. The incriminating information Helldorff had turned over to the Nazis to obtain his promotion was the same information that now made him a liability.

He should have seen it coming. He’d prepared for it, saving money for his wife, Rebecca, and their infant son, Franklin. He’d never told her what he’d done to get promoted. He’d never told her that he’d blocked good people from trying to stop Adolf Hitler’s rise. He didn’t tell her of his overwhelming shame. He didn’t tell her that she had married a coward.

And Helldorff didn’t tell her about the reel of film he took from Thomas Bauer’s backpack the night he robbed Hitler’s safe.

He’d placed the film inside a small metal box and taped it shut, leaving his wife with only this instruction: If anything happened to him, she was to deliver the box to Thomas Bauer.

But now Bauer was nowhere to be found. He was either dead, on the run, or living abroad. Rebecca would not know what to do with the box.

“March forward,” said the officer holding the gun.

He walked toward the sound of the prisoners’ orchestra in the woods. The song they were playing was lively, a foxtrot. It reminded him of his wedding two years earlier. That was one of the last times he remembered feeling right.

92

July 1, 1934

Food pantry

Kaufingerstraße

Munich

SOPHIE GERLICH SPENT THE morning at the volunteer food pantry that her husband, Fritz Gerlich, had founded years ago when the Depression first hit. She’d thrown herself into the work since his arrest, sick with worry for her husband, unable to sit at home. She spent her afternoons and evenings working as a typist at a private hospital in Munich. Anything to avoid her empty, lonely home.

Her love for Fritz, she found, had only grown since his detention thirteen months ago. Before then she had scolded him for thumbing his nose defiantly at Hitler, all but daring the Nazis to come for him. But in the months since his arrest, Sophie had seen so much cowardice around her. She’d lost many friends, people who now sided with the regime. The sheer spinelessness and opportunism of the “March Violets” who’d eagerly embraced Nazi ideology since Hitler became dictator in March 1933 only highlighted Fritz’s courage.

At noon, she walked two blocks away to a café run by a woman whose husband had likewise been taken into protective custody, in June 1933. Over time, Sophie had found a community among women like her, whose loved ones had been detained. They met to share information, tidbits of gossip and rumor, any information they had gleaned from letters they received from their loved ones at Dachau. They consoled each other. They gave each other hope. They prayed together.

Now, after more than a year had passed, the general tone of the meetings had moved from urgent and horrified to more funereal, a sense of resignation replacing desperation.

But this day, a Sunday, the café was so full of people that the crowd spilled onto the cobblestone streets, buzzing with the rumors they were hearing. A mass murder yesterday, they said. A purge. The Nazis had killed hundreds of political dissidents and opponents.

Some of the names rumored to be casualties were shocking. Like Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, the Nazi paramilitary unit. Had the group grown too powerful, its leader too arrogant? Or was it due to Röhm’s homosexuality, which was an open secret? Röhm’s top aides were also said to have been rounded up and executed in various locations throughout Germany.

Political opponents, too, like Gregor Strasser, who’d once fought for control of the National Socialists and now headed its opposition. And General Kurt von Schleicher, the chancellor who’d preceded Hitler. As well as several of the remaining opposition leaders in the Reichstag—Georg von Detten, Karl Ernst, and Hans Hayn, among others.

Sophie took the first tram toward home, jumping off and sprinting through the Konigsplatz to her flat on Richard-Wagner-Straße. As her door at No. 21 came into view, she saw two black-uniformed SS officers walking away and jumping into a truck. They had left behind a box on her front stoop.

She arrived at the stoop, breathless. The box was almost weightless, something rattling inside. She ripped off the tape.

Inside were Fritz’s steel-rimmed eyeglasses, slightly bent, and spattered with blood.

Part Four

“I believe we Germans make a serious mistake inasmuch as we are measuring the political adversary by our own decent yardsticks.… This chivalrous attitude, however, must be seen as madness if applied to Jewry or to Bolshevism, which have immorality, fraud, and lies as a prerequisite… we Germans must at long last learn that the Jew and any organization trained by Jews should not be viewed as humans of our species or exponents of our way of thinking.”

—Heinrich Himmler, confidential speech, spring 1936

93

December 1936

Nuremberg

TWO AND A HALF years after Unternehmen Kolibri (Operation Hummingbird), better known as the Nacht der langen Messer or Night of the Long Knives, Thomas Bauer and Erich von der Haas stood together at the window of a hotel room in downtown Nuremberg, trading a pair of binoculars while they surveyed the train station a block away.

By now, the Nazis had made official much of what Hitler had long planned. Under the Reich Citizenship Law, the government would issue citizenship papers only to people of “German or kindred blood” who agreed to “serve loyally the German people and the Reich.” Jews were stripped of citizenship and political rights and made subjects of the state. They were banned from marriage or even sexual relations with “pure” Germans.

But for public-relations reasons, the Nazis largely held off on enforcing these laws until after the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, when they displayed to the world a new and vibrant Germany but downplayed their anti-Semitic and oppressive ways.

Once the Olympics ended in August, it was time to start enforcing those laws. And enforce them they did. Jews who married or even interacted romantically with Aryans were prosecuted. Establishments run by Jews were shunned. Jewish students were banned from all schools. Jews were not allowed to partake in any profession that required licensure by the government—which was most professions.

SS leader and now chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler established the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion. Units were devoted specifically to tracking down men suspected of homosexuality, including raids on establishments popular with the gay community and mass arrests. Many men would be given short prison sentences, only to be transferred to a concentration camp by the Gestapo upon their release.

If Bauer and von der Haas were not unwelcome enough before, they certainly were now. Bauer was a “Jew” by virtue of marriage. Erich was not only Jewish but gay as well.

“He is a university student named Helmut Hirsch,” said von der Haas. “He studied in Stuttgart until they outlawed Jews attending university. He emigrated to Prague. He’s been involved with Otto Strasser’s opposition group, the Black Front.”

“And he’s been discreet?”

“I am told even his family is unaware of his work with the Black Front.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Tomorrow afternoon, two suitcases will arrive on a train from Paris. Those suitcases will contain explosives. They will be checked at the train station. The person dropping them off will be given claim tickets. He—or she—will deliver those claim tickets in an envelope to the front desk of this hotel addressed to our room.”

Bauer nodded. “So that brings us to our student, Helmut Hirsch.”

“Yes. He has purchased a ticket from Prague to Stuttgart for tomorrow. But he will not make it to Stuttgart. He will disembark here in Nuremberg at 5:09 p.m. He will disembark from car 4.”

“Car 4,” Bauer repeated. “5:09 p.m.”

“You will meet him on the platform near the lamppost in the center. He will be dressed conservatively, I’m told, but he will have an orange scarf around his neck. You will be leaning against the lamppost and reading a copy of Der Sturmer.”

“Orange scarf. Okay. And I hand him the claim tickets?”

“Yes. That’s it. The student will retrieve the two suitcases.”

“And he’ll travel later that night to the Nazi rally in Nuremberg,” said Bauer.

“Yes.”

“Where you’re absolutely sure Hitler will be.”

“Yes.” Von der Haas raised a hand. “As sure as we can be.”

Bauer grimaced. He grabbed a bottle of beer off the nightstand and took a swig. He hadn’t eaten since this morning. He and von der Haas were living a nomadic, spartan existence, traveling from spot to spot, gathering intelligence, engaging in acts of sabotage, meeting with fellow members of the Nazi resistance, sleeping in different quarters nearly every night, always looking over their shoulder, never knowing if they might be betrayed.

“I don’t like it,” said Bauer. “It should be me. I should take the suitcases to the Nazi rally. I’ll make sure we blow up that asshole.”

“I agree, Bauer, but that is not how the Black Front operates. They don’t know you. So they don’t trust you. This student, Hirsch, is one of their own.”

Bauer let out a long sigh. As soon as you can, come back to us. Amalie’s words, the last time he saw her face-to-face. Thank God his family was safe in Vienna, for the moment. As soon as you can, thus far, had been over three years. Three years of plans gone awry, aborted plots.

His plan to assassinate Hitler with a rifle across the street from the Berlin book burning, thwarted when Hitler did not attend.

The officers in the German Foreign Office plotting a coup but showing their hand too soon—putting their plans in writing, for God’s sake—and getting caught by the Gestapo.

Bauer’s plan to place a bomb under the grandstand in Olympic Stadium, where Hitler would be sitting during the Berlin Olympics, was nullified when the insider who was going to deliver him the uniform and credentials necessary to get him access failed to show up.

Bauer picked up the most recent letter from Amalie, who mailed letters to the home of a sympathetic member of the resistance. She only used initials—R for their son Ridley, M for Maxine—and described how M had found an outstanding violin instructor and was thriving, while R was now more interested in sport than piano. Both were taking English lessons and becoming quite adept. They all missed their father.

Talk about missing. Bauer was missing their childhood. He couldn’t take much more of it. He was becoming a stranger to his children.

He looked at the last photos she’d sent, too. Ridley, now ten years old, was starting to fill out, and Maxine, now eleven, was a miniature version of her mother.

“This operation has to work,” Bauer told von der Haas.

“For your sake?” he asked. “Or for Germany’s?”

Bauer nodded. “Both.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your leather bag?”

Von der Haas dropped onto the bed, exhausted, and bellowed out a sigh. “Why do you need it?”

94

THOMAS BAUER STOOD ON the platform at the Nuremberg train station, leaning against the lamppost in the center, trying to read the most recent edition of the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer as he battled the frosty wind. In his pocket were two claim tickets for the explosives-containing luggage, checked at the station earlier today.

The bell tower across the street told him it was 5:09 p.m. Time for the train from Prague.

He glanced over the top of the newspaper at his surroundings. A few other people had gathered on the platform, bracing against the wind, also awaiting passengers.

He heard the sound of the train arriving, the pitch of the whistle, the rumbling of the tracks. The train rolled into the station and hissed to a stop.

Bauer trained his eyes on the car marked 4. Looking for a young man wearing an orange scarf.

Dozens of passengers got off. Mostly couples, a few families, some singles. Some put out their arms to embrace people awaiting them on the platform. Others carried their bags or slung them over their shoulders and ambled toward the concourse.

Nobody with an orange scarf got off. Nobody approached Bauer.

Bauer steeled himself. What had happened? Where was this student, Helmut Hirsch? Maybe it was something innocuous—the kid had missed his train, or had fallen asleep and missed his stop.

Or maybe the plot had been exposed. Which could mean Bauer was, too.

He needed a cover, fast. His mind racing, Bauer spotted an older man disembark as the conductor called out that the doors were closing. The man seemed to be alone, carrying a heavy bag.

With a big smile on his face, Bauer moved off the lamppost and approached the man. “Let me help you carry that luggage,” he said, patting the man on the back.

With a whistle and a chug, the train started up again.

“Ah, well—I won’t say no!” The man’s face brightened with Bauer’s offer. “Very kind of you.”

“Not at all, not at all. How was your trip?” Bauer continued chatting with the man, carrying his suitcase into the concourse. It wasn’t much of a ruse, but it was better than nothing.

He saw that the suitcases from Paris had not been claimed. There wasn’t any kind of elaborate system—the suitcases and bags were simply lined up inside the door to the platform with bright red luggage tags on them. There were only four in total.

Two of them would detonate when opened.

He slunk away after putting the old man in a taxi, taking a long route back to the hotel. When he opened the door to their room, Erich von der Haas was standing by the window, looking out with his binoculars.

“Am I blown?” Bauer asked.

“Not that I can see. Nobody followed you.” Von der Haas lowered the binoculars. “Nice job, pretending that you were waiting for that old-timer.”

“Best I could do to blend in.” Bauer removed his coat and hat.

“I don’t get it,” said von der Haas. “The kid lost his nerve? They caught him?”

Bauer shrugged. “One of those two, probably.”

“If it’s the latter, he probably confessed the whole plan. Or someone else at the Black Front did. The Gestapo could be waiting to see who picks up those suitcases.”

Bauer threw on a thick sweater. “You said you didn’t see signs of an ambush.”

“No, I said nobody followed you out. But I can’t see into the concourse, Bauer. There could be ten undercover Gestapo agents inside there waiting to pounce.”

Bauer threw on a second, even thicker sweater. “I’m going back.”

“Now?” Von der Haas’s head whipped around. “No. No, Bauer. The station is nearly empty right now. You’re out in the open. Let’s go back tomorrow morning, when there’s a large crowd. We’ll plot something up, some diversion—”

“We can’t wait until tomorrow,” said Bauer. “The rally at Nazi headquarters is tonight. Hitler will be there tonight. And if that kid won’t deliver those explosives, I will.”

“Then I’ll go with you. Let’s think of something—”

“You stay here, Erich. If something does happen, better one of us goes down than both.”

Bauer didn’t give von der Haas a chance to counter. He left, closing the door behind him. Wearing his two sweaters and winter cap, Bauer jogged the two blocks back to the train station. Though he kept his head facing straight ahead, his eyes moved from side to side, looking for anything suggesting that Gestapo officers were lying in wait. He saw nothing to set off internal alarms.

He arrived at the station and hustled through the concourse, with its arched ceiling and tile floors. The place was relatively empty. Employees in uniform, individuals, and families milled about. It was nearing six o’clock in the evening, after most of the trains had come and gone, but Bauer still passed at least thirty people. Any of them could be Gestapo.

He found the checked luggage, still sitting near the train platform outside. The same four pieces of luggage.

Bauer scooped up one of the bags from Paris, turned, and started down the concourse.

A door burst open near the ticket counter. “Stop! Stop there!” A man in a trench coat and fedora trained a gun on Bauer.

Undercover officers converged from all sides. Four men in plainclothes, all pointing guns at him.

“Staatspolizei!” they shouted.

The Gestapo.

95

BAUER SET DOWN HIS piece of luggage and showed the Gestapo agents his palms.

“Don’t move! Keep your hands up!”

They were good, he had to hand them that. They didn’t show themselves immediately. But as soon as they saw him grab one of the checked pieces of luggage from the Paris train, they leapt into action, quick on their feet and with their guns drawn. Bauer never had a chance.

“Je ne comprends pas,” said Bauer.

“This is your bag?” asked one of the Gestapo, presumably the lead officer, with a thin face and even thinner mustache.

“Monsieur, parlez-vous français?” asked Bauer.

“We are in Germany. So we speak German.”

“Ah… yes. May I help you?” Bauer asked tentatively, as if German were not his first language, leaning hard on a French accent.

“Is this your bag?” the man asked again.

“Mais oui. Of course, yes.”

“Let me see your papers,” said the agent.

“My papers?”

“Your passport.”

“I do not have passport with me,” Bauer said, as if struggling with the language. “I come from… hotel.”

“Do you have a claim ticket for this luggage?”

“Ticket? Ah, yes.” Bauer produced the claim ticket for the leather bag. “I saw nobody here to give ticket to. Was that… mistake?”

“Do you have any other claim tickets?”

“Other?” Bauer acted as if he didn’t understand. “I have just this ticket… ?”

“Search him,” said the agent.

The others put Bauer’s hands against the wall and performed a not-very-friendly frisk. They found nothing in his pockets or on his person.

“What is your name?” asked the agent.

“Jean-Claude Bouvier,” he answered. It was the name on the claim ticket.

The agent’s eyes narrowed. “When did you arrive in Nuremberg?”

“I arrive… this day… this afternoon on train from Paris.”

“Why are you here?”

“Je suis architecte… uh, I am…”

“You’re an architect?”

“Yes.” Bauer nodded.

The agent looked at the bag at Bauer’s side. “What is in that luggage?”

“Ah, I show you.”

“Wait!” The agents fanned out backward, creating considerable distance from Bauer and his bag, keeping their weapons trained. “Open it slowly,” the lead agent said.

“Je ne comprends pas,” Bauer said again. He bent down and opened the leather bag—Erich von der Haas’s leather bag, which Bauer had checked at the train station at the same time the train from Paris arrived earlier today.

He dumped out the contents for the Gestapo agents to see. Architectural drawings of a building, a manual of Parisian architectural standards, assorted other journals and books, along with a set of pens and pencils.

This was not the first time in his stint in the Nazi resistance that Bauer had needed a cover story.

“Is there… problem?” Bauer asked.

“Why did you check this bag?”

“Why check… ? Ah. Il y avait trop de choses à transporter.” He rounded his arms. “Too much bags to… carry? I come back for this.”

“Where do you live?” asked the agent.

“Paris.”

“Where in Paris? What is your address?”

“I live in the thirteenth arrondissement. Near L’Église de Notre Saint-Père on Le Rue San Miguel. Do you know this neighborhood?”

The agent sighed. “No.”

That was good, because neither did Bauer. He’d made it up on the fly.

The agent looked at his fellow Gestapo officers, then nodded at Bauer. “You may go.”

Bauer gathered his bag and its contents and thanked the officers. Then he calmly walked out of the concourse.

When he reentered the hotel room, von der Haas was shaking his head. “I was about to have a heart attack, Bauer. They stopped you inside, I assume?”

“Oui, oui.” Bauer threw down the bag. “Call me Jean-Claude.”

“You made it out, at least.”

“Yeah, but not with the explosives. Another plan that didn’t work out. I’m tired of relying on other people, Erich.” Bauer found a half-empty bottle of schnapps and unscrewed the top. “Next time, it’s our plan. And we execute it.”

96

November 7, 1939

Bürgerbräukeller Hall

Munich

WORLD WAR II HAD begun.

In March 1938, Hitler had forced the Austrian chancellor to acquiesce to Germany’s annexation. Overnight, Germany added one hundred thousand soldiers to its burgeoning army. Then, in September 1938, Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia containing a large segment of German natives. In the Munich Accord, European leaders from Britain, Italy, and France agreed to the annexation in exchange for Hitler’s promise not to seek further expansion or military conflict.

That promise lasted six months. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and easily took it. England and France condemned the move in words only.

It was not until September 3, 1939, after Hitler invaded Poland and swiftly captured it, that England and France were prompted to declare war on Germany.

For Thomas Bauer, Hitler’s maneuvers had a more personal cost as well. His wife, children, and in-laws had been living in Vienna, but when Hitler annexed Austria, they knew better than to wait around to see what the Nazis would do. They emigrated again, this time to the United States, settling near Chicago.

How many times since they’d first left in 1933 had Bauer stared at a passing train and thought, All I have to do is jump on a train, and I can be with Amalie and the kids?

But now, his family was much more than a train ride away. They were on the other side of the world.

His family was front of mind as Bauer greeted Georg Elser inside the Bürgerbräukeller Hall. A large room holding three thousand people, the hall tonight featured rows of long tables and patrons raucously and heartily downing their ale.

Georg Elser was a handsome man with a head of thick, dark hair, a carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade who had worked in an armament factory as well. He stood in a corner, quietly nursing a stein of beer. He was perspiring, though it wasn’t hot inside, and fidgety with his free hand.

“Relax,” Bauer whispered to him. “You’re making me nervous just watching you.”

They slowly made their way toward the stage, where people often gave speeches, though not this night. A door led behind the stage and into a series of rooms. It was in these rooms on November 8, 1923, that Adolf Hitler and his comrades had held Bavarian officials at gunpoint before announcing their would-be overthrow of the government.

Now, Bauer and Elsner waited inside the smallest of these rooms, a broom closet, and turned off the light. They waited there for well over an hour, until the hall closed and the establishment finally shut down for the night.

Once they were alone inside the massive hall, Bauer flipped on a flashlight but dimmed it, covering the light with a blue handkerchief.

They approached the stage from the rear, squatting low. Behind the speaker’s rostrum was a series of brick pillars covered in plaster. They approached the one closest to the rostrum. Using a screwdriver, Elsner pried open a small chamber he had carved earlier that week, also with Bauer’s help.

Inside the chamber was a bomb, with over a hundred blasting cartridges and detonators. Attached to it was a twin-clock mechanism that would trigger the detonators.

It was set for tomorrow night, November 8, at 9:20 p.m. Square in the middle of the time that Adolf Hitler would be standing at the rostrum, delivering his annual address to the party faithful on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.

“Looks good,” Elsner whispered. He closed up the false door and banged it in place with the butt of his hand. “Perfect.”

They snuck back off the stage and returned to the back rooms. They had little to do now but wait, and perhaps sleep, until the establishment reopened in the morning. Then they would sneak out a rear door.

Bauer leaned against the wall in one of the more spacious back rooms. “You’re sure it’s enough blasting capacity?” he asked.

“We’ve already discussed this.” Elsner looked at him. “It’s enough to kill anyone within fifteen or twenty meters—meaning everyone onstage. At worst, it will take out the pillar entirely and destabilize the roof above them. It will literally bring the house down.”

Bauer nodded. “Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Bormann, Hess, Himmler—they will all be on that stage tomorrow night,” he said. “If this works, then November 8 will not be remembered for the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. It will be remembered as the day in 1939 that the entire Nazi leadership was decapitated.”

97

November 8, 1939

THE NEXT EVENING, BAUER and von der Haas stood on the street outside the arched gateway of the beer hall. The streets were abuzz with the festivities. Advance security was in place.

The time was 7:00 p.m. Hitler’s speech was scheduled for 8:30 and expected to last, as always, about two hours. But if everything went as planned, Hitler’s speech would not make it through the first hour.

It was unusually foggy, due to the recent drop in temperatures. That was fine by Bauer, who was not in the habit of making himself seen and known these days. He pulled up the collar of his ratty wool coat as he and von der Haas walked down a nearby alley.

“If his speech is at eight thirty, he won’t arrive until just before then, escorted by the Führerbegleitkommando,” said von der Haas, referring to the SS’s elite eight-person bodyguard team that accompanied Hitler everywhere. “He’ll enter through the front.”

“And hopefully never exit,” said Bauer, his breath lingering before him.

“But if he survives the blast, they will evacuate him out the emergency rear exit. The Führerbegleitkommando will have an armored car ready.”

“I’ll shoot him before he gets in that car,” said Bauer. He looked up at the building kitty-corner to the Bürgerbräukeller, an abandoned warehouse. Bauer had staked out a position on the third floor. His sniper rifle was already hidden inside that building.

Von der Haas looked up as well. “That fog is heavy. You think you’ll be able to see him?”

He was right. The fog was thicker than normal fog. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that. You’ll be on the radio?”

“Got mine right in my pocket,” said von der Haas. “Good luck.”

Bauer opened the window on the third floor of the warehouse. Nothing to see yet. It was only 7:58 p.m., another half hour before Hitler’s speech.

He lifted his sniper rifle and aimed it. His scope was good, so he was able to see the rear exit despite the fog. He preferred greater visibility, but the good news was that the SS officers outside wouldn’t be able to see Bauer easily, either.

It shouldn’t come to that, he reasoned. Not if the bomb was true. He placed his pocket watch on the interior window ledge, along with the two-way radio. That was something new, this radio, a recent invention that von der Haas had managed to procure through his various contacts in intelligence.

“Anton, this is Berta. Over.”

Bauer almost jumped out of his skin at the cackling of the radio. He lifted it and pressed the button. “Berta, this is Anton. Over.”

“He’s pulling up right now. Right now. Over.”

Bauer looked at his watch. “Now? He’s not scheduled to arrive for another half hour. Since when is that guy ever early to anything?”

“I don’t know, but the motorcade just pulled up.”

Sure enough, not two minutes later, the armored car pulled up to cover the rear emergency exit. A few moments after that, a gigantic roar emerged from the beer hall, easily loud enough to reach Bauer’s ears, celebrating the arrival of the guest of honor.

For some reason, Hitler was starting his speech a half hour early.

Bauer had hoped to close the window for a while, given the lack of heat in the building and the falling temperatures outside. But now that it was open, and the SS guard was not too far away down there, the window would have to remain open. Opening it and closing it made too much noise, and he couldn’t risk drawing the attention of the Führer’s personal guard, the SS Führerbegleitkommando.

He sat against the wall, out of view, and listened. Every few moments, the beer hall would erupt in cheers and applause. One thing about the Führer, he knew how to work up the party faithful.

It went like that for quite a while, the audience cheering every thirty seconds or so—presumably after every sentence Hitler uttered. Bauer scooped his pocket watch off the ledge and checked it. 8:15 became 8:30 became 8:45.

Bauer thought of his family, now in the United States for the past year and a half. They had settled outside Chicago, in a town called Downers Grove. His children were both teenagers now: Maxine was fourteen, and played violin in the school orchestra. Ridley was thirteen and had recently developed a love for the American game of baseball.

The photos Amalie sent showed Maxine to be in her awkward teen years, but she still took so much after her mother. Ridley now reminded Bauer more and more of his father.

Bauer made sure to also send his family photos of himself—not because he enjoyed taking them, but because he did not want the kids to forget their father entirely. He ached so badly to join them but wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave until this business was finished. If everything went as planned, that business would be finished in exactly twenty-two minutes.

Bauer stood up, outside the view of the window, and stretched, while he continued to listen to the ebb and flow of the crowd’s applause. He probably wouldn’t need to do anything—the bomb would likely take care of everything—but if somehow Hitler were to escape, Bauer would have to be poised to shoot at the rear exit. And then he’d have to escape himself, which wouldn’t—

Wait. Hold on—what—

Something was off.

The applause, the cheering. It wasn’t stopping. It was sustained, continuous.

Bauer grabbed his watch. It was only three minutes after nine. It was too early—

He peeked through the window, looked through the fog. He couldn’t see well, but well enough.

The armored car stationed at the rear exit was doing a three-point turn. It was turning around to leave.

Hitler’s speech was concluded? Impossible! Hitler never spoke for less than two hours at these events.

He grabbed his radio. “Berta, this is Anton, over.”

“Anton, this is Berta, over.”

“What’s happening? Is the speech over?”

“Over? How could it be over? Let me look. I’m a few kilometers down the street. I don’t see the motorcade leaving.”

“The armored car at the emergency exit just left.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Keep me posted.” Bauer didn’t know what was going on inside that beer hall. There could be any number of reasons why the crowd was engaged in sustained applause. Maybe Hitler was introducing the other officials present like Goebbels and Göring, and it was one continuous applause line. Or maybe—

But then the applause began to subside, and Bauer could no longer hear it. He listened intently, eyes squeezed shut. Then his radio squawked again.

“Anton, the motorcade is leaving.”

Bauer grabbed his watch. It was 9:07 p.m.

“No!” he cried, throwing down the watch. “No!”

The bomb detonated on time, at 9:20 p.m. on November 8, 1939. It caused a partial collapse of the roof of the Bürgerbräukeller Hall and left a mountain of rubble. Seven people died and over sixty were injured. But not Adolf Hitler or his top aides, who had all left the beer hall just thirteen minutes earlier.

It was due to the fog. Hitler was preparing for the invasion of France and had wanted to fly back to Berlin the next morning. But the fog would prevent air travel, so Hitler changed plans and prepared to travel by private train to Berlin. So he’d moved up his speech by half an hour and had limited it, uncharacteristically, to one hour.

Later, while on the train, Hitler was informed by Joseph Goebbels of the bombing and the attempt on his life. “Now I am completely at peace!” said the Führer. “My leaving the Bürgerbräukeller earlier than usual is proof to me that Providence wants me to reach my goal.”

98

September 1940

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

“THIS HAD BETTER WORK,” Thomas Bauer said to Erich von der Haas, as they stood at a table over a large map of Obersalzberg, a region outside Munich and the location of the Berghof, Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps. “Do we even know he’s here?”

“He’s here, Bauer,” said von der Haas.

“How do you know?”

“Two things. Before he arrives, they fly the big swastika flag from the flagpole on the carpark in front of the Berghof, his chalet. The flag is flying right now.”

“And what else?”

“Wherever Hitler goes, so goes the Führerbegleitkommando. Several of his security detail were seen at the tavern at the Hofschaffner Inn in Berchtesgaden last night. He’s here in Obersalzberg, Bauer. He’s staying at the Berghof.”

Nearly a year after their last attempt at the Bürgerbräukeller, Hitler’s influence and power were at their zenith. Over the last several months, Germany had rolled through much of western Europe, invading, defeating, and occupying Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg—and, most notably, France. The Germans had just begun aerial bombing of England, targeting its large population centers—mostly London—and military and industrial facilities. The new prime minister, Winston Churchill, was pleading with the United States for intervention.

“Fair enough.” Bauer leaned on his hands, looking over the map. “Show me.”

“This is the newly renovated Berghof and the surrounding property the Nazis purchased.”

“They bought all this from the other owners and farmers?”

“Well, they bought it or just took it. Who’s going to say no to Hitler?”

“All right, so this is all Nazi property,” said Bauer. “And you want me to enter it by crossing the Larosbach River?”

“Yes, there’s a bridge right… here.” Von der Haas pointed on the map. “You’ll head toward the compound. The area is mostly wooded. Some shrub and undergrowth. At times you’ll be covered, other times you’ll probably have to crawl. You will reach this spot here, this x that I’ve drawn where these roads intersect, Oberau and the Führerstraße. There is a concrete bypass right there. See where I’ve marked?”

“I see it. But why do I care about being within sight of a concrete bypass?”

“Because at some time between ten and eleven on any given morning, Adolf Hitler will walk across it.”

Bauer drew back, then looked at the map again. “The red dotted line,” he said.

“Exactly. That meandering half circle red dotted line reflects a path Hitler will walk every day he’s at the Berghof. It’s a ritual, rain or shine or snow, any time from ten to eleven in the morning—he walks from the Berghof to the teahouse on the Mooslahnerkopf.”

“I’ve heard of it. The teahouse on the hill.”

“Yes. Sometimes he walks only with his two German shepherds. Other times, he is with guests. They eat tea and cake at the teahouse. Sometimes Hitler gets sleepy, and they drive him back to the Berghof. But he always walks there.”

“So I have to get him on the way there,” said Bauer. “What is this orange line?”

“The orange line is a wire fence. You’ll be on the other side of the fence.”

Bauer shook his head. “So I’ll have to shoot him through a wire fence?”

“You’ll have to cut a hole through it. But not too big a hole, or they’ll notice.”

“That sounds easy!” Bauer threw up his hands. “Okay. So around ten.”

“Yes, but not before then. The RSD runs a dog patrol through there before he takes his walk, so the key is to arrive right around ten, not earlier.”

“And SS patrols,” said Bauer. “I take it the red lines on the map are SS patrols?”

“Yes. They patrol the path routinely. When Hitler walks it, they keep a respectful distance. So you should have a clear shot. But they won’t be far away. And there are sentry towers—one near Göring’s residence here, and a second by the theater hall they are building here.”

“So a lot of visibility.”

“Yes. And some measure of unpredictability. I cannot tell you precisely where the SS patrol units will be at any given time. All I know is that they rarely patrol beyond the wire fence. But that’s not a guarantee, Bauer. And the escape? The escape will be tough.”

Bauer chuckled. “Tougher than the approach?”

“Yes,” said von der Haas. “But not impossible. I have an idea.”

99

AT MIDNIGHT, BAUER AND von der Haas crossed the bridge over the Larosbach River and walked through the wooded area. They again used flashlights covered with blue cloths, no more light than minimally necessary to see their way. They remained constantly on guard for sentries and SS patrols, but the good news was that the patrols would reveal themselves through their flashlights or car lights.

Ten minutes into their slow walk, Bauer saw movement to his left. “Ten o’clock,” he whispered. He raised his gun and turned as a shape rose up.

A sentry emerging from a crouch? Or an animal, a wolf or fox?

A low growl came from the figure. An animal.

Von der Haas raised his weapon as well, but Bauer pushed it down. He picked up a fallen branch and tossed it at the animal. “Go!” he hissed as quietly as he could. The animal turned and sprinted away.

He took a deep breath as his heartbeat decelerated.

“I forgot to mention the wildlife,” said von der Haas. “Deer and foxes, maybe wolves.”

After a careful, slow, half-hour walk, they reached a spot at the edge of the woods and crouched behind a large tree. Before them was the compound, bordered by the wire security fence. Though dark, Bauer could see that the compound was still in the middle of construction but already had houses and quarters, roads and bridges and paths—a community carved out of the Bavarian mountainside.

“So there’s your wire fence,” whispered von der Haas. The wire was too tightly coiled to allow for a clean gunshot through it.

“I see it,” said Bauer. “I’d have to line the angle up perfectly. Shoot right through the hole and hit the target with a head shot. No margin for error.”

Von der Haas crawled closer toward the fence. The measurement would be tricky. They knew Hitler’s height—173 centimeters, or five foot eight, according to Austrian army records—but Bauer was on higher ground than Hitler would be while crossing the concrete bypass. Von der Haas used a tape measure, then he used wire cutters to open a hole in the fence of four square centimeters.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. And they’d pray the SS wouldn’t notice the hole in the fence before tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

“Okay.” Von der Haas rejoined him in the wooded area. “Let’s lay down the explosives.”

Staying low, they moved along the perimeter of the wire fence, setting down explosives every ten meters or so. They laid over a dozen in all—nothing very powerful, mainly good for a loud pop and little more. Anything more flammable risked alerting the dog patrol.

“The explosives are detonated by sound,” von der Haas told Bauer. “They’ll probably detonate when you discharge your rifle. And if not then, as soon as the SS returns fire—that will be more than enough to set them off.”

“It will sound like gunfire from every direction,” said Bauer.

“And hopefully, that chaos buys you enough time to make it back to the bridge.”

Bauer drew a deep breath. The hole in the fence was where it needed to be. The explosives were set. It was the best they could do.

But it would require luck. Luck that the SS didn’t spot an obscure hole cut in the fence. Luck that the SS sentries weren’t patrolling the wooded areas beyond the fence tomorrow morning. Luck that Adolf Hitler would indeed leave the compound tomorrow for his daily sojourn for tea and cake.

“Now that I’m seeing this up close,” said von der Haas, “it’s too risky. Your chance at success is maybe one in twenty. Your shot must be perfect. And your chance of escape is even worse than I thought. You’d have to be crazy to do this.”

“I’ve been called worse.” Bauer looked up at the trees. “Don’t even try to talk me out of it, Erich. I’m doing this.”

100

AT DAWN, FROM THE first appearance of the sun, the SS patrol units fanned out over the Nazi compound carved out of the Bavarian Alps. A group of four officers drove in a military jeep around the wooded territory beyond the security fence. All four black-uniformed guards had Luger or Walther sidearms, and two of them carried MP40 submachine guns. Thankfully, the unit did not travel particularly close to the fence, having no reason to do so, leaving intact the sound-sensitive fireworks that Bauer and von der Haas had laid a few hours earlier.

Some of the wooded area was too dense for vehicular travel. On occasion, the guards would leave their vehicle and walk through the denser areas. At one point, the unit parked its jeep right at the edge of the wooded area, precisely at the point where Bauer planned to assassinate Adolf Hitler in thirty minutes.

Bauer observed all of this from his perch high up in a spruce tree that he had climbed before dawn, preferring the cover of trees to the ground. He could see Hitler’s house, the Berghof, with his binoculars. He could see the sentry towers by Hermann Göring’s residence and by the theater hall still under construction.

It was sunny outside. The brightness, he thought, helped obscure the four-square-centimeter hole that von der Haas had cut in the fence.

He checked his wristwatch. It was coming up on ten in the morning. Only a moment later, he heard the RSD dogs, sent along a path that not long thereafter would be walked by the most dangerous man on the planet, quite possibly the most dangerous man of the twentieth century. Then he heard the hum of a vehicle driving along the path. An SS vehicle providing forward cover.

Bauer didn’t have a shot from his perch in the tree, didn’t have the position to shoot while straddling a branch. It was time to climb down.

He couldn’t place the position of the jeep that was patrolling the woods. His ears told him it was not close, but he couldn’t see. This was not ideal. But it was now or never.

Bauer slowly climbed down, dangling from a low branch and then trying to land as quietly as possible, as softly as he could with a sniper rifle slung over his back. He got into a crouch and hewed close to the tree trunk. He got into position, aligning the sight on his rifle with the hole in the wire fence.

He was exposed, no question. He had the shadow of tree cover but nothing more. Anyone looking in this direction with purpose would see him. The best he could do was remain absolutely still.

He heard voices. “Sieg heil!” they shouted in unison. Patrol officers saluting their leader. Hitler was on the path. It would be a matter of minutes now.

Bauer looked over his sight. He could see Hitler walking with his two dogs, German shepherds. He had no shot from here; the fence was too high; a bullet wouldn’t make it through unmolested. But he could see the man. He could hear his voice, too, though he couldn’t make out the words, speaking to his dogs.

Enough. Hitler would be in the target range in only a minute or two, and Bauer would only have one chance to do this, one shot. He raised the rifle again and poised the sight over the hole in the fence.

But then he heard barking—rabid, violent barking. Bauer looked over his sight again. He could see what was happening well enough.

A wolf or fox or coyote—some wild animal—was on Bauer’s side of the fence, pawing at the wire, growling and hissing at Hitler’s dogs, which rushed toward the fence in response. Hitler shouted and waved his arms. One of the SS patrol cars raced forward.

“Do something!” Hitler shouted. “Get that animal away from my dogs!”

Bauer’s heartbeat ratcheted up.

Two SS guards jumped out of their patrol jeep with their rifles raised.

“No,” Bauer whispered. “No, God, don’t shoot—”

Both guards discharged their rifles, possibly to scare the wild animal away, maybe to kill it. But it didn’t matter why. The noise from the rifle shots did the trick.

The first explosion came almost instantly, within a few meters of where the melee was occurring, the first of the sound-sensitive detonators doing its work. Then another, and another, a ripple of pops, tiny plots of earth erupting along the fence.

Through the dust and dirt and confusion, Bauer saw the SS guards race toward Hitler, who was bent at the waist, moving toward them.

Bauer jumped to his feet and opened fire with his rifle, spraying bullets in Hitler’s direction, hoping that something would connect despite the fence. He knew his chances were slim, but he had to try something—

The tree next to him exploded with bullets. Bauer fell to the ground and emptied the last of his artillery at the jeep heading his way, aiming for its tires. He was on his feet, retreating, before he heard the crunch of the vehicle crashing.

He started running but stumbled soon after. He returned to his feet and started running again, his legs heavier now.

“I tried,” he whispered, as he felt his energy drain, his lungs burning. “I tried.”

He kept running through the shadows of the woods, lumbering as if moving in water, as if running in slow motion, but he didn’t stop.

He didn’t think he would make it to the bridge. But it didn’t matter. All he could do was run. Run to Amalie, run to the children, take them in his arms and hold them tight and protect them and love them forever in a world where there was no war, there was no hate—

“Bauer!”

Erich von der Haas rushed across the bridge. Bauer fell forward into his arms. “I tried,” he said.

“Oh, God, you’re hit, Bauer. You’re bleeding badly. We have to get you out of here!”

“Tell Amalie I tried,” he whispered, before he slid to the ground.

101

Present Day

Munich

TWO DAYS AFTER THOMAS Bauer’s great-granddaughter Monica whisked me away from the train station, it’s finally time to meet the man I’d been supposed to meet in Vienna: Franklin Helldorff, son of Peter Helldorff, who changed his last name to Linderman as an adult.

Appropriately enough, I find myself at Färbergraben 12 in central Munich, now a pharmacy but once the site of Der Gerade Weg, the last newspaper Fritz Gerlich ran, where he was working on the day the Nazis arrested him and sent him off to Dachau. A memorial plaque, purchased by the newspaper that succeeded his, remains on the stone wall.

I was told to go to this memorial plaque and then, at 10:00 a.m., to walk down Hotterstraße to its intersection with Hackenstraße.

As far as I can tell, I have not been followed. No sign of the young Asian woman with the wigs and facial piercings, not since I jumped off the train prematurely two days ago and quickly sped away in Monica Bauer’s car.

I reach the intersection as directed, standing next to a hotel and a café that advertises Turkish food. Several cars are parked along Hackenstraße. I start walking toward them. The one closest to me is a silver SUV. The driver’s-side door opens.

It’s the Asian woman. Her face is free of piercings and her hair is short and dark—no wig, from what I can tell.

I stop in my tracks, unsure of myself.

She cocks her head, confused. She waves me forward.

I don’t understand. What does she expect? Why is she waving to me?

The woman looks around, gets back into the SUV. I am completely confused. Have I been wrong about her?

I slowly approach the car. The rear passenger-side window buzzes down. An elderly man with a weathered face, dark sunken eyes, and a gray beard attempts a smile. “Professor,” he says in a weak, raspy voice. “I am Franklin Linderman.”

I walk around to the other side of the car and get in, carrying my small roller suitcase with me. “Eleanor Robbins,” I say, extending my hand once I’m inside the car.

He reaches over with some effort to take my hand, and gently squeezes it. Franklin was born in 1933, putting him north of ninety years old, and he looks every bit of it. “It’s my great honor to meet you, Professor. I apologize for the precautions. You’ve met Jenny.” He nods toward the woman in the driver’s seat.

“Honestly, I saw her following me around Vienna,” I say. “I didn’t realize she was with you. I thought she was with the… others.”

“Ah. Oh, listen to that. You thought she was a threat to you.” Franklin says something to the Asian woman in a language I don’t understand, but sounds vaguely Germanic to my ear. Franklin manages a chuckle. Jenny does not. She is continuously checking her surroundings, reminding me that people are looking for Franklin, that we are in danger.

“I do not worry for my safety,” he tells me. “I am quite near my expiration date.” He brings a fist to his mouth and lets out a prickly cough, then clears his throat. “It is your safety that concerns me, Professor. I was reluctant to meet with you for this reason. But I did very much want to address you face-to-face.” He scoots in his seat with some effort and looks at me.

“May I record our conversation?” I show him my phone.

“Yes, yes, of course. A fine idea.” He coughs once more as I hit the Record button. “May I call you Eleanor?”

“Of course.”

“I do not remember my father, Eleanor. He was killed a year after my birth, on the Night of the Long Knives, the Röhm Purge, whatever you may call it. You know this already.”

“Yes, I do.”

“My mother? She adored my father until the day she died. She became aware over time of his… mistakes. She learned what he had done. It pained her deeply. It pains me as well. I always hoped in my lifetime that the truth would emerge.”

I nod. What goes unspoken is that his grandson, Francis, died trying to bring out that very truth.

“I do not ask you to gloss over my father’s role. I only ask that you treat him humanely. He was a young man with ambition. He surely did not appreciate the gravity of what he was doing at the age of eighteen.”

“I will make sure to be clear about that,” I say. “I’ve read as much in his journals, and in Thomas Bauer’s journals, by the way. As have you, obviously.”

“Yes. Monica was very kind to show them to me.”

“Franklin,” I say. “May I get to business? There was a sixth envelope in Hitler’s safe the night that Thomas Bauer stole it, correct? Your father took it, yes?”

Franklin nods. “He did, of course. And kept it.”

“Was it a reel of film?”

“It was.” Franklin’s eyes narrow. “I don’t… I don’t understand.” He turns and speaks to Jenny, who says something in response.

And then Franklin lurches forward as the rear glass windshield shatters. Blood explodes from Franklin’s face, splattering the seat in front of him.

In the blink of an eye, the man sitting next to me is slumped forward, dead from an assassin’s bullet.

102

“NAY!” JENNY SHOUTS FROM the front seat. “Nay!”

As I sit there immobile, in shock, Franklin’s head resting against the front seat, blood gushing to the floorboard, Jenny races the car forward, swiping the vehicle in front of us but not stopping, speeding out onto the road. She calls back to him frantically, but she seems to understand what has happened. I can see the raw gash of an entry wound at the rear of Franklin’s skull.

As she speeds forward, Jenny waves her hand at me, a downward gesture, which I finally understand to be instruction to duck down.

I brace myself with a hand on the back of Jenny’s seat, as we race forward, Jenny navigating the streets of Munich expertly but chaotically, horns sounding and tires squealing.

After a moment, it crashes down on me, and I hear myself wailing. “This can’t be how this ends,” I lament. “This can’t be.”

After a while, the herky-jerkiness subsides, though we remain moving at high speed. We are on the highway. Jenny is all business now, and I realize that she’s taking me to the airport.

The car skids to a halt at departures. “Go!” she yells in English.

I look up. “The film,” I say to her. “Where is the reel?”

She turns and looks at me. “Go!”

“Film!” I shout at her. “The film?”

She yells something at me in response, but I can’t make it out.

“Go!” she finally says, tears in her eyes now. “Go, go, go!”

I push open the door and pull out my suitcase. I take one last look at Franklin, who risked his life to meet with me and died for it. Before I can even close the door, the SUV speeds away, leaving me outside departures with my suitcase.

I am still trying to process everything that just happened, my body quaking from the aftershock, when I gather myself and realize that I should probably not be out here in the open. I should get inside, get through the security line, where it would be exceptionally difficult for anyone to follow me, much less with a weapon.

I find the nearest bathroom to look at myself. A few spatters of blood on my face, more on my long gray coat. My hands are shaking but I fold my coat and force it into my roller suitcase. I wipe my face with a wet paper towel.

I reach into my pocket for my phone and realize it’s still recording—meaning I will now have a memory of an ordeal that I will never forget, anyway. I hit the red button to stop it.

I put my hands on the bathroom sink and close my eyes, fighting back emotion.

I would never compare myself to people like Thomas Bauer or Fritz Gerlich or Erich von der Haas, who risked their lives trying to stop an evil man who caused so much death and destruction in the name of hate. I am no hero. I am just someone viewing things from the cheap seats. But I admit I felt a kinship with them. I was trying to do my small part to reveal more about that evil man, who to this day inspires so many people around the world.

I failed. I did my best, with whatever meager tools I had. But I failed.

“I tried,” I whisper to nobody, to Thomas Bauer, to Fritz Gerlich, to Franklin Linderman, to Monica Bauer, to my precious daughter Annabelle. “I tried.”

Part Five

“Today I am at the head of the strongest army in the world, the most gigantic air force and of a proud navy. Behind and around me stands the party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the two thousand years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.”

—Adolf Hitler, addressing the Reichstag in declaring war on the United States, December 11, 1941

103

April 1942

The Deutscher Hof hotel

Nuremberg

A FEW CITY BLOCKS from Nuremberg’s train station and next to the opera house, the five-story Deutscher Hof was Adolf Hitler’s favorite hotel. In 1936, the hotel had added an extension that included spacious apartments for Hitler and a Führer Balkon, or Führer balcony, overlooking the street, where Hitler would wave to crowds.

Today, Hitler was scheduled to enjoy a formal dinner with party superiors in the luxurious hotel dining room before giving a speech. But first, at 4:00 p.m., he was to address the Nuremberg chapter of the Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth, from the Führer balcony.

In anticipation, Hitler’s elite security team, the Führerbegleitkommando, in concert with other units of the SS, cordoned off the street outside the Deutscher Hof and the park directly across from it, creating a one-block perimeter. SS officers stopped civilians in the area, demanding their papers and inquiring about their purpose. If anything remotely suspicious arose, orders were to arrest first, ask questions later.

Hitler was traditionally fond of standing on the Führer balcony, built as it was exclusively for him and offering him a nice view of the center of Nuremberg, one of his favorite cities. Would Hitler step out onto the balcony today before the festivities began, before his 4:00 p.m. address to the Hitler Youth, while the street was empty and quiet?

Thomas Bauer, for one, was counting on it. Because he’d rather kill Hitler alone than in front of a thousand young men marching in the street.

Bauer, now more than eighteen months removed from nearly dying at Hitler’s mountainside retreat, had spent countless weeks in recovery. Thank God Erich von der Haas had been able to bring him to trusted medical attention in time. Bauer’s recovery had been slow and painful, but he continued to gain strength.

And his dedication to targeting Hitler never wavered.

World War II had taken decisive turns in the past year and a half. Hitler had swept through Europe, invading Yugoslavia and Greece, and continuing to shell England by air. Over eight months of bombing by the Luftwaffe, London had suffered damage to more than a million buildings, and had lost over forty thousand civilians.

Though Hitler had signed a nonaggression pact with Russia’s Stalin, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia—in June 1941. “With Russia smashed,” Hitler had told his generals, “Britain’s last hope would be shattered. Germany will then be master of Europe and the Balkans.” And in December, Japan, Hitler’s Axis partner, had bombed Pearl Harbor, now drawing the United States of America into the war.

Tonight, Bauer was positioned in an administrative building across the street from the opera house. He was over a block away from his target and did not have a great angle. Bauer had been in the building since last night, hiding inside an industrial closet behind an old exhaust fan, until the SS had declared the building vacant and secured.

Bauer edged the window open, cool air rushing in, and looked through his binoculars. It was coming up on 3:30 p.m., half an hour before the young men of the Hitler Youth would begin their march. “Your choice, mein Führer,” he mumbled. “I kill you by yourself or in front of a bunch of kids.”

He grabbed his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Berta, this is Anton. What’s your status?”

“I thought I got to be Anton this time,” squawked Erich von der Haas.

“You want to handle the dirty work while I sit in a getaway truck, you can be Anton.”

“Being the intelligence guy is boring. I should’ve been a pilot.”

“You wanted to fly?”

“Oh, yeah, I went through aviation training and everything. Then someone saw my score on some aptitude test and forced me into signals intelligence.”

“I didn’t know that. You can fly a plane?”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me. You want my life story, or do you want to know if the exit plan is ready?”

“Your life story can wait.”

“The exit plan is ready. What’s your status?”

“Nothing. Not even the FBK.”

The Führerbegleitkommando, Bauer meant. Before Hitler would step out on the balcony, Bauer would expect the FBK to walk out first and inspect the surroundings.

“Well, they’re not on the street anymore,” said von der Haas. “So they’re probably up in the apartment with him.”

Just then, Bauer twitched at the sight of one of the FBK guards, with his gray coat and Walther pistol, walking onto the balcony. He was followed by two other guards, who reached the edge of the balcony and looked around, two of them with binoculars.

“FBK on the balcony. Going dark.” Bauer pulled back, his heart pounding, removing the barrel of his sniper rifle from sight. It would all be timing now. Count to five, give them a chance to sweep across his position and find nothing.

No, ten. Count to ten. He steeled himself, forced himself to hold back. If he jumped out with the rifle too quickly, he could reveal himself.

He rose again, slid the barrel of his sniper rifle out the window, and looked through his scope. Just the same three FBK guards, though one of them was turning—

And then he appeared, the trademark slicked black hair with the single bang falling over his forehead, the toothbrush mustache.

Bauer had him. His target was in his sights.

It felt like slow motion now, as the man he’d so longed to assassinate walked to the railing of the balcony and rested on it.

“Look at me, you fascist pig,” Bauer whispered. “I’ll blow that stupid mustache off your face.”

As if summoned, Hitler did, in fact, turn in Bauer’s direction. Bauer squeezed the trigger.

It felt like an eternity. He relived all those years separated from his family in that one instant, as he locked eyes with his sworn enemy and watched the top of his head explode from the impact of the bullet.

104

BAUER TOSSED HIS WEAPON and rushed down the stairwell and out the rear exit, where von der Haas waited in a large truck bearing the name Hultquist Metzgerei, a butcher shop. Bauer jumped into the rear of the truck, filled with hanging slabs of meat, and the truck sped away.

He was buzzing. He had to concentrate on escaping, on getting out of Nuremberg alive, on returning to his family, but his body shook with the realization of what he’d done. As he held on to a railing along the rear meat locker, as the truck skidded and swerved and the sides of meat swayed side to side, one word kept springing to his lips.

“Finally,” he whispered.

Nazi leadership immediately departed Nuremberg and holed up in a secured concrete bunker in nearby Fürth on Beim Korwinkel Straße, guarded by nearly an entire regiment of SS guards. Fifty feet belowground, two hours after the shooting, Martin Bormann entered the dimly lit bunker with the latest developments.

“It appears to have been a lone gunman, who remains at large,” he said. “They recovered the rifle used. It was,” he read from a piece of paper, “a Gewehr 98 bolt-action rifle.”

“An older weapon,” said Hermann Göring. “Not the Kar 98s our troops are using now. But a reliable sniper rifle. The shooter probably fought in the first world war. Or it’s the best weapon he could get hold of.”

The room went silent. Bormann knew the next question.

“But was it him?”

These words came from the corner of the room, where the Führer, Adolf Hitler, stood with his left arm curled behind his back.

“Was it him?” he repeated. “The same man who tried to kill me at Berchtesgaden? The man who nearly blew me up the Bürgerbräukeller? What is the name they call him—der Jäger? Was it him?”

Bormann cleared his throat. “Mein Führer, to answer that, we will want to recover the bullet from your body double’s skull. We have yet—”

“You told me that would-be assassin was dead!” The Führer was furious. “You told me that the man who tried to kill me at Berchtesgaden was dead!” He paced the small, poorly lit room with its concrete walls. “You told me you found too much blood on his escape path, that he couldn’t have survived! You told me this, Heinrich!” he said to Himmler. “You told me this, Hermann!” to Göring. “You, Martin, told me this!”

The men bowed their heads. They’d never guaranteed to their Führer that the man at Berchtesgaden had perished. They’d allowed him to believe it, but the truth was that the SS and Gestapo had searched high and low for der Jäger—“the hunter”—to no avail.

“Why do you fail me like this?” Hitler mumbled, continuing to pace with his halting, stooped shuffle, the veins nearly popping on his forehead. “Perhaps you wish it had been me whose head just exploded on that balcony?”

The others quickly denounced the thought, assuring Hitler of how grateful they were that Providence spared him once more, how eagerly they would trade their lives for his.

“It was him. I know it was him. I can…” Hitler stopped, cupped his right hand. “I can feel it. It was him.” He turned to Himmler. “I want this man found.”

“We will find him, mein Führer,” said Himmler, snapping to attention. “We will find him and fill his body with bullets.”

“No. No, no, no!” Hitler slammed his hand on a table. “You will find him and bring him to me.”

105

May 1943

Jodenbuurt

Nieuwe Kerkstraat Amsterdam

IN A FLAT LOCATED on Nieuwe Kerkstraat in the center of the Jodenbuurt, or Jewish Quarter, Lars von der Haas lifted his head from the pillow. He blinked himself out of his sleepy trance and tried to focus on the words coming from the street outside.

“Alle Joden moeten zich voorbereiden op hun vertrek!” a male voice bellowed.

Lars looked over at his wife, Annika, who had not stirred. In the corner of the room, their eleven-year-old daughter, Dahlia, also remained in blissful slumber.

Lars moved to the window in the den and pulled the curtain that looked out from their ground-floor flat onto the street. A truck rolled slowly by with a loudspeaker on top. Walking alongside it were men carrying rifles and automatic weapons. The Ordnungspolizei—the Order Police, shorthanded as Orpo by some, by others as the Grüne Polizei or Green Police for their uniform color.

“Niemand mag zonder begeleiding op straat zijn!” blared the voice through the loudspeaker. “Alle bruggen in de wijk zijn verhoogd!”

Lars felt something sink in his chest. It was happening. He always knew it might. The Jews, already confined within the Jewish Quarter, were now being rounded up for departure to labor camps. And though the entire Jewish Quarter was enclosed by a fence, the Nazis were announcing that they’d pulled up all the bridges, too, to prevent any escape.

Lars craned his neck to see the end of the street, where he confirmed that the Magere Brug, the narrow bridge over the Amstel River, was raised to nearly ninety degrees.

“What’s happening?” asked Annika, pulling on a housecoat.

Lars tried for a grim smile. “It’s time.”

The door to the other bedroom opened. Lars’s father, Diederik, his wispy white hair standing on end, squinted at his son. “They’ve come for us? This is it?”

“It will be all right,” said Lars, trying to convince himself as much as the others. “We have made this decision.”

The decision was not to run, not to hide. Jews who tried to hide, when caught, had met with certain death, when the Nazis invaded and easily captured the Netherlands in 1940. And running and hiding with their young daughter—not to mention his parents, who’d already fled Germany following Hitler’s rise to power ten years earlier in 1933—would be exceptionally difficult. His mother, Verena, had terrible asthma and needed considerable medical attention. And his father was not in the best of health, either.

The decision, instead, was to keep their heads down, draw no attention to themselves, and try to live a normal life—as normal as one could while wearing yellow badges on their arms with the Star of David, being forced from their chosen occupations (Lars, a university physics professor; Annika, a pediatrician), remaining locked in a ghetto, forbidden from driving to work or using telephones, not to mention enduring daily insults and occasional beatings.

They’d decided that if the Nazis deported them, they would do their best to survive the labor camps. The men would do hard manual labor. The women would work in munitions factories or in cleaning jobs.

But they would live—live in the hope of a better future. Not an easy decision, but there were no easy decisions for Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.

They’d long ago packed their rucksacks for this contingency. Lars’s contained three sweaters, two pairs of trousers, underwear, and a canteen. He now stuffed a pair of shoes in the side compartment and a rolled-up wool blanket under the flap on top.

“This is my fault,” Lars’s father said to him as they readied their luggage. “If you did not have your mother and me to worry about, you could have fled.”

“Nonsense, Papa.” Lars cupped his hand behind his father’s neck. “We made this decision as a family. And we will endure it as a family.”

As Lars filled a sack with bread, apples, and some sugar cookies that Dahlia liked, he heard pounding on the outside door of the tenement building. He opened it to the Green Police.

Clutching his wife and daughter, his mother and father behind them, Lars marched with the other Jews to the corner of Weesperstraat. They were put on trams to the Muiderpoort railway station and loaded onto trains. “We will stick together,” Lars von der Haas whispered to them. “We can handle anything together.”

They were taken to a camp in Westerbork, a facility that had been set up originally to house Jewish refugees emigrating to the Netherlands. The Nazis, now in control of the country, announced that they would repurpose it as a hub for deporting Jews to labor camps in the east. The camp was roughly 120 acres in size, surrounded by fences of barbed wire, with watchtowers at each corner.

For four days, Lars and his family were kept in a cottage with two rooms (a bed in each), a bathroom, and a hot plate. They ate rations of soup broth and chunks of bread. They went outside but avoided interaction with any of the other detainees, wanting no trouble from the guards patrolling on horseback. In the evening, Lars would play the guitar he brought, the best rendition he could muster of “Korenbloemen blauw” (“Cornflower Blue”), “Breng eens een Zonnetje” (“Sprinkle a Little Sun”), and whatever other upbeat songs he could remember.

The fourth day, Lars awoke to a banging on the cottage door. He opened it to an SS guard. “You shall leave by train in one hour,” said the guard.

“Yes, sir. Where are we going?”

“Sobibór,” he said. “Eastern Poland.” He put out his hand. “Your card?”

“Ah, yes.” Lars pulled out his Dutch identity card, marked with a black capital letter J on both sides, and handed it to the guard.

The guard nodded and handed back the card. “All right, Lars von der Haas,” he said. “Be at the train with your family in one hour.”

106

Sobibór camp

Sobibór, Poland

THE TRIP SPANNED THREE days. Three thousand Dutch Jews, Lars von der Haas and his family among them, traveled by cattle train. Twenty cars with a capacity for fifty people each instead held one hundred and fifty. The passengers stood shoulder to shoulder with only a small portal for ventilation. The heat and stench were overpowering. Children struggled to breathe. Infants cried relentlessly. Baggage was stacked to create seating, with children and the elderly taking turns.

Lars was particularly worried about his daughter and his mother, with her asthma problems. Dahlia was too grown for Lars to hold in his arms, so he put her on his shoulders for as long as he could. His family encircled his mother to give her extra space to breathe.

At least ten different people passed out at one time or another during the trip and were placed on stacked baggage until they could recover. One man died on the second day from a heart attack. His wife did not stop crying for the remainder of the trip.

The village of Sobibór was a swampy and sparsely populated hamlet on the eastern border of Poland. The Nazi camp was cocooned within a dense forest of birch and pine trees and was not visible from the popular Lublin-Chelm-Wlodawa railway line. A spur off the railway, however, allowed the Nazis to roll the train right up to the camp.

When the doors on the cattle cars clanged open outside the camp, morning sunlight streamed into the car, blinding the detainees. A row of inmates, Jews dressed in blue jumpsuits, were lined up to help them off the cattle cars like bellhops at a hotel. Behind them was a row of armed SS guards in gray uniforms.

The three thousand Jewish detainees slowly spilled out of the cattle cars, taking the hands of their Jewish counterparts in the blue jumpsuits, who were stoic and largely avoided eye contact. Lars jumped out before the rest of his family and made sure to keep his wife, daughter, and parents near him, each carrying their luggage.

Beyond the greeting committee, Lars was pleased with what he saw. The camp looked, in a word, charming. The officers’ quarters were quaint cottages painted in vibrant colors, with meticulous landscaping, intricate gardens, and picket fences, each with a pleasant name like Schwalbennest (the Swallow’s Nest), Lustiger Floh (the Merry Flea), or Gottes Heimat (God’s Home).

The camp’s only mark of being a detention facility was its double barbed-wire fences enclosing the camp, though the fences were thatched with pine branches—whether to keep inmates from looking out, or others from looking in, Lars did not know.

On the front porch of the administrative building, the Obersturmführer—the camp commander—approached a microphone while holding a piece of paper. “Quiet. Quiet. Stand where you are and be quiet.”

Lars looked at his family and put a finger to his lips. Jews from Nazi-occupied territory understood the price of disobedience. Three thousand people quickly grew silent.

“Welcome to Sobibór,” the commandant continued, speaking slowly while reading from the paper, as Dutch was clearly not his first language. “This is a labor camp. You will be treated well. You will be given adequate food and shelter as long as you work hard and comply with our orders. For temporary purposes, we will ask you to separate into groups. On this side,” he said, gesturing to his left, “women and children. On that side, men and boys aged fourteen or older. I say again, this is only temporary.”

Lars untucked his arms from his wife and daughter. “It’s okay,” he whispered to Dahlia, kissing her on the forehead. “Do not worry.” He kissed his wife. Then he and his father took their positions, while Annika and Lars’s mother stood on the other side with their arms looped with young Dahlia’s.

The separation took a long time. Spouses were reluctant to split apart. A man, a widower with two young daughters, refused to leave his children. SS guards used whips to force him into compliance. Senior SS officers, however, were quick to quell the overly violent reaction. The point, clearly, was to remain as calm and orderly as possible.

“Very good,” the commander said through his microphone, his voice echoing. “We are looking for individuals with particular skills. If you have experience in woodsmithing, tailoring, or goldsmithing, raise your hand.”

A smattering of hands went up. SS guards walked down each column, questioning those who raised their hands. Most of those people were then told to step out of their lines, placing them in the middle of the two columns.

As the SS guards worked their way down the line, Lars debated whether he should raise his hand. He did, in fact, have considerable experience in woodwork. After being forced to resign his position as a physics professor at the University of Amsterdam in 1941, he’d worked as a carpenter, principally building furniture. Yet he was reluctant to set himself apart from the rest of his family. Would he be sent to a different labor camp? Nothing was more important than staying together as a family.

He looked across at Annika. Her brow furrowed as she nodded at him. Why did she think he should raise his hand? Perhaps, Lars reasoned, having a unique skill would grant him an elevated status with the Nazis. And perhaps that heightened status would allow him more leverage in keeping his family together.

“Raise your hand, boy,” his father whispered to him.

Lars raised his hand.

An SS guard soon reached him. “What is your trade?” the guard asked in Dutch.

“Woodsmithing,” Lars answered in German. “I build furniture.”

“You speak German.”

“I grew up in Munich. I moved to Amsterdam for university and stayed there.”

The guard, far younger than Lars, probably no more than twenty, nodded. “Step out of the line,” he said before moving on.

Lars complied. He stood perfectly still between the two columns, but his eyes moved to his wife’s. Annika gave him a tight smile. Had he made the right decision?

Across from Lars, an SS guard approached a small woman with dark hair. “I am a seamstress, sir,” she said in Dutch. “I can tailor clothes.”

“All right, step out of line.”

The woman gestured to her right, to her son, whose hand she was holding. “And my son, too,” she said. “We must stay together.”

“You have a son?” The guard shook his head. “Never mind. Get back in the line.” The woman didn’t understand, pausing, before the guard barked at her. “Back in line!”

“Very good,” said the commander when the questioning of all prisoners was completed, by which time over a dozen Jewish detainees had been separated out. “As I said, you will be put to work. Some of you may remain in this camp. Some of you may be transferred to other camps temporarily. But be assured, we will not separate mothers from children. And we will do our best to keep entire families together.

“First, we must address hygiene,” the commander continued. “Some of the labor camps have been infiltrated with lice and typhus. So each of you will now be provided a hot shower. And your hair will be cut short. While you are showering, we will disinfect your clothes. You may leave your baggage here. It will be returned to you after your baths.” The commander turned to one of the guards. “Oberscharführer Michel?”

The Oberscharführer waved the column of men forward. “Follow me!”

Lars reached out his hand. His father took it. “I will see you soon, Papa,” he managed to say, his voice breaking. He watched his father march with over a thousand men through an arched gate bearing the sign SONDERKOMMANDO.

Then it was time for the column of women and children, ranging in age from their eighties to merely newborn. Elderly women hobbled forward. Mothers held the hands of their children or carried their newborns or infants in their arms. The children looked about with wonder.

With tears in his eyes and a dull ache in his stomach, Lars von der Haas blew kisses to his wife, to his daughter, to his mother, as they looked back at him before disappearing beyond the arched gate.

107

Fall 1943

Berchtesgaden, the Berghof

Bavarian Alps

AT HIS MOUNTAINSIDE COMPOUND in Berchtesgaden, Adolf Hitler leaned over a table full of battle maps, surrounded by his generals and field marshals in their gray uniforms. He stared at the maps, with their different colors and symbols to signify the advance and retreat of various columns of troops, with disbelief. The tide had turned against the Nazis.

It had been a tactical mistake to commit three million soldiers to the Russian front. Nazi forces had bogged down and stagnated during the brutal Russian winter.

In Italy, Axis ally Mussolini, whom Hitler had revered as an inspirational leader, was deposed and arrested.

They’d lost the Battle of Britain. And the Allies had initiated a counteroffensive, American and British forces intensifying bombing raids that pummeled German cities. Half the factories in Hamburg had been destroyed, and forty thousand people died.

This was no longer an offensive war. The Nazis were now undeniably playing defense. And their resources and manpower were dwindling.

“We lost Leningrad,” Hitler said. “We lost Stalingrad. We lost Kursk. And now you tell me we are losing Kharkov and soon will lose Kiev? Is there no place in the Russian front where you have managed to win for your Führer?”

Hitler straightened with his question, as straight as his posture would allow. These days, he was stooped, typically curling his left arm behind his back to conceal the nearly constant tremor in his hand.

The generals and marshals stayed silent, taking it as a rhetorical question. What remained unspoken was that Adolf Hitler, though a masterful politician and orator, thought far too highly of his skills as a military tactician. What he laid at the feet of his military commanders were largely strategic mistakes of his own making.

“Leave us,” said Hitler.

The generals and field marshals wasted no time in saluting, then exiting the room, leaving Hitler only with Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels.

“They have failed me,” said Hitler, pounding his right fist on the table. “Every last one of these incompetent fools has failed me!”

“Quite so, mein Führer,” said Bormann.

With a huff, Hitler trudged off with his hobbling, hunched gait into the parlor room, where he could enjoy a view of the Bavarian Alps. “I need Theo,” he said. “Tell him to bring me my medicine.”

For some time now, Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell, had administered Hitler a cocktail that included amphetamines on a daily basis to boost Hitler both mentally and physically. Hitler’s aides privately deemed Dr. Morell a quack and speculated that Hitler had developed an addiction. It was not a subject they felt free to raise with the Führer, whose moods swung dramatically depending, in large part, on the status of his medication.

“And if this were not enough, I am all but confined,” Hitler complained, looking out the window. “A prisoner. Confined to bunkers and armored cars. Constantly looking over my shoulder. Using body doubles and fake schedules, worried that I’ll be betrayed, fearing yet another attempt on my life.” He pointed a finger in the air. “It is no kind of life!”

“The sacrifices you have made for your country know no bounds, mein Führer,” said Joseph Goebbels. “We are eminently honored and grateful.”

“I do have positive news, mein Führer.” Heinrich Himmler stood at attention.

“Please, Heinrich, please!” Hitler swept a hand.

“Our progress with the Jewish extermination camps has been excellent.”

“Must we have this conversation again, Heinrich?” Bormann threw up his hands. “We never say extermination. We say evacuation. We are evacuating the Jews.”

“Evacuation to the east for forced labor,” said Goebbels. “Or resettlement, if you like. But never extermination, Heinrich. Never annihilation. Good God, we’ve enough trouble with outside perception as it is. Our citizens want us to eradicate the Jews, but they do not want to hear the gory details. We must protect them and ourselves.”

“And can you imagine, Heinrich,” said Bormann, “how difficult it would be to get the Jews on those trains if they knew they were traveling to their deaths?”

“You’ve lectured me before. I know this. But I don’t have to like it.” Himmler shook his head. “These euphemisms. As if we must apologize for ridding the world of this vermin. Though I must admit, I’d love to see the looks on their faces when they go for their ‘showers.’ They look up expecting hot water and instead get cyanide gas or carbon monoxide.”

Goebbels chuckled. “All the more reason to take care in our public comments.”

“Heinrich.” Hitler put a hand on Himmler’s shoulder. “Your mission is noble. Your commitment is unwavering. But we mustn’t give our enemies any more ammunition against us. Outside of this room, for the purpose of maintaining order, for the purpose of mitigating public perception—do as they say. This is what I want. Never again speak of exterminating or liquidating or eradicating or killing these Jewish parasites. We are evacuating them to labor camps in the east.”

“Understood, mein Führer,” Himmler sighed.

“Good, Heinrich.” Hitler patted him on the back. “And those evacuations? Do them fast, my boy. Do them fast.”

Thus what began as an operation of persecution, forced relocation, and ghettoization now turned into a systematic campaign of extermination—what the Nazis termed the Endlösung der Judenfrage, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. In Russia, Nazi death squads followed behind German troops, first targeting men of military age but later killing all Jews, either by gunfire or with mobile vans filled with poisonous gas.

The Nazis developed extermination sites throughout occupied Poland, setting up secret camps in Chelmno, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Sobibór. In a single day as many as twelve thousand to fifteen thousand people would arrive at these six camps, and nearly all were put to death immediately after being lured into the showers.

It is estimated that in the death camps alone, the Nazis murdered at least 2.7 million Jews.

108

December 1943

Nordhausen

Germany

AS THE SUN FELL over this province in central Germany, an armored truck drove away from a munitions plant, headed for the train station, where the explosives and armaments would be unloaded and transported to German troops in occupied France.

The driver and his passenger, both corporals in the German Army, took a special route, a narrow road through the woods that was closed to civilian traffic and provided direct access to the airport. The road was dark and winding, but without other cars, the transit truck made good time.

Until, that is, the driver saw something on the road up ahead. He slowed the vehicle as he approached, his headlights capturing a fallen beech tree that blocked the road. The driver quickly determined that he could not drive around the obstruction, given the sloping shoulder on each side of the road.

Which was precisely why Bauer and von der Haas had chosen that spot to cut down a tree. Bauer, lying flat on a hill sixty yards away, looked through the telescopic sight of his Kar 98K, an upgrade over the sniper rifle he had left behind in Nuremberg—and this one had a suppressor to minimize the sound of gunfire, too.

Bauer watched the two officers step cautiously out of the truck. And he watched as two more officers spilled out from the rear.

“Four,” von der Haas whispered, lying next to Bauer, looking through binoculars. “Damn.” They had hoped there wouldn’t be guards in the truck’s rear by the armaments. Two soldiers would be easy to overtake without violence. Four would be bloody.

The four officers, each clutching an MG42, a light machine gun, looked around. It would not take them long to realize that the tree blocking their passage had been cleanly cut, an act of man, not of nature. Which would mean only one thing to the officers—an ambush.

The officers turned toward the dark woods that surrounded them and sprayed gunfire, a precautionary tactic. Smart, but it gave Bauer an opportunity. During the five-second rat-a-tat-tat cacophony created by the automatic fire, Bauer squeezed the trigger and hit one of the rear officers square in the cheek. By the time the officers had finished spraying the forest with gunfire, Bauer had cycled the bolt on his Kar 98K and chambered the next round. His second shot hit the other rear officer just below his eye.

The two front officers, closer to the fallen tree and thus to Bauer, did not seem to hear either rifle shot, but they quickly noticed their fallen comrades. Still, with the officers already lying dead, the front officers could not tell from which direction Bauer’s shots had come. So they sprayed more machine-gun fire wildly into the woods while Bauer dropped another officer—a third consecutive head shot.

Bauer cycled the bolt, chambered another round, and trained his weapon on the fourth and final officer. His index finger had begun to depress the trigger when he saw the officer drop his automatic weapon and pop his hands in the air.

Bauer breathed out and moved his finger from the trigger. “Go,” he told von der Haas.

Erich von der Haas, a pistol in his hand that both he and Bauer hoped he would not have to use, went down the hill and approached the surrendering officer. He tied his hands behind his back with rope and ordered him to his knees.

Only then did Bauer climb down the hill and reach the ambush site. The officer, fresh-faced and trembling, looked hardly old enough to enlist. “Relax, kid. Nobody’s gonna kill you.” Bauer patted him on the shoulder. “What’s in the truck? Plastics? Grenades? Launchers? Eight-millimeter Mausers?”

The officer drew a long breath, trying to calm himself. “All of that.” He shook his head and blinked away tears. “Just shoot me. I can’t go back. Not like this.”

Bauer understood. The other three were dead, and this kid didn’t have a scratch on him. It would be hard to tell a story that didn’t end with this officer looking like a coward. The Nazis had executed soldiers for less.

“You should run,” said Bauer. “You’re on the wrong side of this war, kid.”

The kid looked up at Bauer. “Did you serve? In the Imperial Army?”

“I did, yeah.”

“Did you think you were on the right side?”

Bauer chuckled. It was a nice comeback. The truth was, when Bauer fought in the first world war, he’d never felt qualified to decide which side was right and which was wrong. He was a patriot, so he fought for his country. It was as simple as that.

This war was different. The Nazis were different. But this kid had been indoctrinated with so much Nazi propaganda growing up, it wasn’t worth a debate.

“Last chance,” said Bauer.

“I can’t desert. You know what they do to deserters.”

“Okay, kid. Then close your eyes.”

The soldier whispered something, a prayer probably, and closed his eyes.

Bauer reared back, flipped around his sniper rifle, and cracked the kid across the face with the butt. The young officer fell sideways to the ground, unconscious. It would leave a nasty scar and ample swelling.

“What are you doing?” asked von der Haas, hustling toward Bauer.

“Giving him a story,” said Bauer. “Let’s unload this stuff and get out of here.”

109

Safe house

Potsdam, Germany

BAUER AND VON DER Haas loaded the stolen weapons and armaments into their truck, which had been repainted as a vegetable delivery vehicle, and drove through the darkness to a safe house in the city of Potsdam outside Berlin. The building’s owner, a Dutchman and longtime friend of Erich’s family, had a vacant garden flat that they were allowed to use.

It was also the address that they both used for mail, and Bauer gathered three letters that his wife had written him since he’d last been here. Von der Haas had one.

Bauer sat in the quaint bedroom and eagerly devoured the correspondence, hanging on every word of Amalie’s beautiful penmanship, and staring with love and sheer wonder at the black-and-white photos she’d enclosed. His beautiful daughter Maxine, the little girl he’d called Mouse, was eighteen—eighteen!—and in her last year of high school in Downers Grove.

There was one photo of his wife and children together, showing Amalie, Maxine, and Ridley (seventeen, and towering over both of the others!) standing outside a movie theater called the Tivoli. Bauer chose that photo to tuck inside the pocket of his shirt, as near as possible to his heart.

He heard a noise in the kitchen, a violent banging sound. When he walked in, Erich had his head in his hands, leaning against a wall.

“What?” Bauer asked. He looked at the letter on the kitchen counter, which was written in Dutch.

Von der Haas sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “The Nazis emptied out the Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam this summer,” he said.

“Have you heard from your brother or your parents?”

Von der Haas shook his head no. Ever since Lars and the rest of the family had been detained in the ghetto, their only means of communication had been via a non-Jewish friend in Amsterdam who passed correspondence back and forth on the rare occasions he was allowed in the Jewish Quarter on business. It was clunky and unreliable but the best they could do.

“Every Jew was sent to a transit camp in Westerbork,” said von der Haas. “From there, nobody knows. You know what the Nazis told them.”

Bauer nodded. “Right. ‘Resettlement in the east.’ Forced labor. We don’t know for certain that it’s false, Erich. The death-camp chatter might just be rumors.”

The intelligence among the Nazi resistance was spotty. Attempts to set up reliable communication between countries was difficult, understandably, given the need of most resistance groups to remain underground and often nomadic. Von der Haas had received intelligence that the “resettlement” of the Jews was a ruse for a systematic program of extermination. He’d even written a letter to his brother warning him of that possibility. But who knew if that rumor was true? And who knew if Lars ever received that letter?

“My mother and her asthma?” von der Haas said. “They wouldn’t send her to a labor camp. My father’s not in the greatest shape, either.”

“But your brother is healthy,” said Bauer. “And his wife. And their daughter.”

Von der Haas blew out a sigh. “God, Dahlia is only, what, eleven years old?”

“Hey, listen, partner.” Bauer put his hand on von der Haas’s shoulder. “Let’s hope for the best and focus on what we can control. We just got a nice haul of weapons and explosives. Let’s hit ’em where it hurts. Get some sleep tonight, and tomorrow—”

“Forget sleep,” said von der Haas. “Let’s start right now.”

110

February 1944

Kassel, Germany

BAUER AND VON DER Haas sat inside a truck by farmland near a railway bridge over the Fulda River. They kept the engine running to provide at least a little heat. They were early for their mission. While they waited, they shared their only meal of the day, a large chunk of Ziegenkäse cheese they cut with Swiss Army knives and popped in their mouths.

While he was never overweight, Bauer estimated that he’d lost at least thirty pounds over the years fighting for the resistance. Von der Haas, a half foot shorter than Bauer and skinnier to begin with, was scrawny enough now that a strong wind would threaten to blow him off his feet.

“A double shipment?” asked Bauer, handing the block of cheese to von der Haas.

“That’s what I’m hearing. Tiger tanks are at a premium right now on the Russian front. And they need them in France, too. They think the Americans might land there when they put boots on the ground.”

“Which is when?” Bauer asked. “When the hell are the Americans coming? Their air support helps, but the Allies won’t end this war until American boots are in Europe.”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask your wife? She lives in America.”

“Sure, I’ll have her call President Roosevelt. I’m sure he’ll tell her. Hey, listen.”

They could hear in the distance, getting closer, the rumble of a locomotive approaching the railway bridge that spanned the Fulda River. Before they knew it, the train was passing over the bridge, not twenty yards away from them.

“That’s it, right?” asked Bauer. “The last train before the shipment tonight?”

“That’s what I’m told. No trains for the next hour.”

“Then let’s go.”

Bauer and von der Haas grabbed their bags, hustling out of the truck and onto the train tracks of the railway bridge. Bauer picked out two shaped charges of plastic explosives, set them on one of the train tracks eight inches apart, and lit them. They jogged away and waited for the explosion.

It worked. The detonation popped eight inches of rail off the track. “We need sixty inches off one side of the rail, at least thirty off the other side,” said von der Haas. “And they can’t be lined up. They have to be off-center by thirty inches.”

“And we have one hour to do this,” said Bauer. “So let’s hurry.”

They worked on opposite ends, using plastic explosives and blowing off eight-inch pieces of track at a time—eight inches being the maximum amount of track, von der Haas was told, that would separate from the railway ties in an explosion.

“And we’re sure this will work,” said Bauer.

“No, I’m not sure. I was told a train can’t float over a sixty-inch gap. But I’m not sure. Just like I’m not sure that no train will come for the next hour and flatten us like pancakes. Just like I’m not sure it’s a smart idea setting off a series of explosions on a bridge that’s keeping us from plunging fifty feet into an icy river.”

Bauer lit an explosive and jumped away, blowing off another piece of track. “I’m not listening, Erich.”

They used nearly all their sixty minutes. As they completed their work, they heard the thundering approach of the locomotive. They ran off the bridge and jumped back into the truck. Bauer put the vehicle in reverse and backed along the shoreline of the Fulda River. Then they watched and waited. They didn’t even need binoculars. They had front row seats.

The locomotive barreled onto the sixty-meter-long bridge. The front car, followed by fifty flat cars, each holding a massive armored Tiger I tank, sped along the tracks.

The front car bounced on the gaps created by Bauer and von der Haas but didn’t disengage from the track. The first flat car, however, wobbled and bounced to the side, orange sparks spraying everywhere as it detached and tipped over to the right, banging against the bridge railing, which succumbed to the weight of the massive tank sliding into it.

And that was it. The flat car split off entirely from the tracks, plunging through the bridge’s side railing and into the river fifty feet below. What followed was simple physics. Like a beautiful, dysfunctional caterpillar, one flat car after another followed its successor off the tracks and into the Fulda River.

Fifty Tiger I tanks wiped out before reaching the front lines.

Three weeks later, Bauer and von der Haas stood in an elevated clearing in Leipzig, Germany, a hundred yards outside a large factory. In an open-air storage yard, fenced in on all sides to the south of the factory, were forty-seven Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter jets, recently built and ready for transport. The factory operated around the clock in two twelve-hour shifts, in Germany’s rush to replenish its struggling Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force, led by Hermann Göring.

Von der Haas nudged Bauer. “See those large red drums between the planes? Those are full of B4 aviation fuel.”

“Got it.”

“Can you see them okay over the fence?”

“Yeah, I have an angle. I wish I could lie flat, but you can’t have everything.” Bauer looked through the sight of his Kar 98K sniper rifle. “No civilians out there?”

“No,” said von der Haas. “Nobody’s dumb enough to be standing outside in this cold in the middle of the night. Besides us, that is.”

It was, indeed, cold, well below freezing in the dead of night. Bauer aimed his rifle and fired. He hit the first fuel drum near its base, a few inches from the bottom. The barrel didn’t explode as he’d expected. “Those are some seriously reinforced drums,” he said. The good news, however, was the drum started gushing fuel out of the bullet hole.

“Keep doing that,” said von der Haas. “I’ll get the Schiessbecher.”

Bauer shot holes near the bottom of six different fuel drums in different parts of the storage yard. Before long, a pool of aviation fuel covered the pavement.

“Okay, give me Betsy,” said Bauer.

“Betsy? You’ve named your grenade launcher?”

“I’ve grown fond of her.” Bauer clamped the short barrel to the muzzle of the Kar 98K rifle, mounted to the left of the rear sights, and loaded the grenade.

He aimed for the center of the yard, now soaked in spilled aviation fuel. When the grenade landed, the entire field went up in a fiery flash.

“Sorry, General Göring,” said Bauer. “No fighter jets for you tomorrow.”

111

December 1944

Safe house

Potsdam, Germany

BAUER AND VON DER Haas stopped once again at the safe house in Potsdam, where each of them gathered more letters. For Bauer, it was more correspondence from his wife and kids, more updates, more photos. For von der Haas, it was more news from Amsterdam, from their intermediary friend who updated him as best he could about the status of von der Haas’s family.

Three pieces of information were confirmed. First, that in June 1943, Lars von der Haas, his wife and daughter, and his parents had all been moved from the transit camp in Westerbork to the Nazi extermination camp in Sobibór, Poland.

Second, that among the Jews who remained in that camp for labor purposes—the few who were not exterminated immediately after getting off the trains—there had been an uprising in October 1943, during which the detainees killed a number of SS guards and tried to escape. Many were killed in the attempted escape, either by gunshots fired by SS officers or by the thousands of land mines buried in the ground outside the camp. But somewhere between fifty and one hundred Jews had managed to escape with their lives.

And third, after the inmate uprising at Sobibór, Heinrich Himmler had ordered the immediate closure of the camp and the slaughter of any remaining Jewish detainees. The camp was leveled, and trees planted to hide the atrocities.

Now, Von der Haas sat inside a barn on a barley farm outside Cottbus owned by a sympathetic resistance fighter. “Quite a ride we’ve had,” he told Bauer. “I don’t think we’re needed anymore. The Allies can reach everything by air now. The ground invasion is inevitable.”

Over the past ten months, the two of them had moved throughout Germany, committing acts of sabotage and guerrilla warfare, focusing on targets that were strategically significant to the Nazis but difficult for the Allies to reach in their bombing campaigns—particularly the more distant targets in central and eastern Germany.

Their two-man team was small but nimble, able to move quickly and without detection. They’d blown up supply depots in Frankfurt and Saarbrücken, destroyed a bridge in Göttingen, bombed supply factories in Ingolstadt and Augsburg, ambushed Nazi convoys in Würzburg and Nuremberg, and caused derailments of armament trains in Gera and Magdeburg and Dresden and Rottendorf.

They were running out of armaments, down to the end of their plastic explosives and grenades and bullets, but by now, there was no denying that Germany would lose the war. The Americans had landed on Normandy Beach in June. By August, Paris was liberated, followed soon after by the Allied liberations of Brussels, Belgrade, and all of Estonia. Italy was fully in Allied hands. Russia’s Red Army had pushed the Nazis all the way back to Warsaw, Poland. And though the Allies had not yet crossed the Rhine—the long and expansive river that served as a natural wall against invasion from the west—the Americans had already captured the German city of Aachen, on its western border, in October 1944.

Bauer drank from a bottle of beer, courtesy of their farmer host. “You have somewhere else you want to be.”

He handed the bottle to von der Haas, who took a swig. “I need to,” he said. “We’re only thirty kilometers from the Polish border. I need to know.”

Bauer sat down next to him on the floor of the barn. “You know where the AK is located?”

The Armia Krajowa, he meant—the organized Polish resistance.

“Yeah,” said von der Haas. “And I know one of their leaders. We served together in the Abwehr in the first war.”

“A fellow spy.”

“If he’s still alive.” Von der Haas handed the bottle back to Bauer.

“And being the planner you are,” said Bauer, “I assume you’ve already figured out how to smuggle yourself over the border into Poland.”

“I have.”

Bauer took another drink. “It’s too dangerous.”

Von der Haas laughed. “I think we passed ‘too dangerous’ about ten years ago, Bauer.”

“But we were fighting. This isn’t fighting. This is getting information. It can wait.”

“I can’t wait.” Von der Haas pushed himself off the floor. “I’ve waited long enough. You miss your family like crazy, I know—but you know they’re alive and safe. I need to know, Tom. I need to know if any of my family survived Sobibór.”

It took them a week. Bauer and von der Haas smuggled themselves over the Polish border by jumping onto a freight train hauling food to the Nazi soldiers in Warsaw. They jumped off south of Warsaw’s city center in the Wilanów district. They had to evade Nazi troops and gain the trust of enough local Poles to get where they wanted. It led to some difficult moments, the occasional gun pointed in their faces, but after several days, von der Haas met with an old comrade in Abwehr, Germany’s spy agency.

Stanislaw was a dark-eyed, broad-shouldered man with a thick mustache. He gave von der Haas a hearty greeting when he walked in. “This man,” he said to Bauer, “could decode a message like no man I’ve met. You two need something to drink!” He barked in Polish at one of the armed guards standing sentry at the door, clearly an underling.

Von der Haas waved him off. “How are you doing, Stan?”

“They have destroyed Warsaw. On Himmler’s orders.” Stanislaw leaned back in his chair. “The Russians will have taken Warsaw from the Nazis within the month. But the city is in tatters. And the Russians? They are now remembering how much they hate us, and we them. The future does not look bright for Poland. Will the Allies protect us when this is over? Or will they hand us over to Stalin?”

The guard put down three tin cups filled with vodka.

“Na zdrowie.” Stan raised his cup. They clinked their cups and downed the liquor.

“Now.” Stan wiped his mouth. “Your note. We have a Polish man in our ranks who escaped the pit of hell, Sobibór. I brought him with me. You want to meet him?”

The man’s name was Marek Jaruszek. He was hunched in posture and thin to the point of emaciation, with clear blue eyes and flyaway blond hair. He held his flat cap in his hands and only reluctantly took von der Haas’s hand when it was offered.

“I must translate,” said Stanislaw. “He does not speak German.”

“I’ll leave you,” said Bauer, getting up from his seat.

“No.” Von der Haas grabbed Bauer’s arm and looked at him. “Please stay.”

Trembling, Erich von der Haas reached inside his coat and removed a photograph of his brother, sliding it across the table to the man. “His name is Lars,” he said.

The man took the photograph in his hands. “Ah, Lars,” he said, then closed his eyes.

“You knew him?” Von der Haas burst into tears, an outburst of emotion Bauer had never seen from him. “Is he… alive?”

The man spoke in Polish as Stanislaw translated. “I remember this man… he was… put in the carpentry workshop… he built shelving units for the administration office…”

“Is he alive?” von der Haas pleaded again.

Marek spoke without looking in von der Haas’s direction, with Stan translating: “He arrived… with his family… his family… was sent immediately to the showers…”

Von der Haas shook his head furiously, tears falling down his face.

Marek continued to speak in a flat, monotone voice. “Every day he asked, where was his family, where was his family,” Stan translated. “When he learned what we all eventually learned… we were not supposed to discuss it… when he realized what had happened to them… he attacked one of the SS guards.”

“No. God, no.” Von der Haas clutched his hair, eyes squeezed shut.

“They beat him with their whips… and their rifles… and hanged him in front of us… to make an example… I am sorry. He was a brave man. I am very sorry.”

Bauer put his arm around von der Haas, who could not contain his emotions. The man, Marek, left quietly. Stanislaw left, as well, out of respect. Bauer wrapped both arms around his friend and held him while von der Haas wailed and sobbed and pounded the table.

It felt like forever, but was probably no more than twenty minutes, before Erich von der Haas finally exhausted himself and collapsed, his head on the table, eyes shut, his body spasming.

“Hey,” Bauer said quietly. “You want some water? Vodka? You want to be alone for a while?”

He didn’t respond. After a while, Bauer moved himself out of the seat, prepared to give his friend some time alone to grieve, when von der Haas finally spoke.

“I only want one thing.” Von der Haas sat upright, his face red and puffy from tears, but his eyes cold as ice.

“Anything,” said Bauer. “Name it.”

“I don’t care if the war’s almost over,” he said. “I don’t care if it makes no difference. I don’t care if it’s too late.”

“What is it, Erich?” asked Bauer. “What do you want?”

Von der Haas swallowed hard and drew a deep breath.

“I want to kill him,” he said. “I want to kill Adolf Hitler.”

112

Present Day

Munich Airport

AS I SIT DEFLATED, exhausted, and defeated at the departures gate in the Munich Airport, the flight attendant lifts her receiver and speaks into it, giving boarding instructions. “Guten Tag, Passagiere. Dies ist die Pre-Boarding-Ankündigung für den Flug 1502 nach Chicago O’Hare. Good afternoon, passengers. This is the preboarding announcement for flight 1502 to Chicago O’Hare.”

“We’re boarding soon,” I say to Ty on my phone. I’d paid an outrageously expensive fee to change my ticket to this flight. “I’ll be back in Chicago in eight hours.”

“It will be good to have you back home,” he says.

“Home with my tail between my legs. No proof. Mission not accomplished.”

“Home safe, Eleanor. Safe. That’s the most important thing.”

“Which is more than Franklin Linderman can say.” The image of poor Franklin lurching forward in the rear of that SUV, blood dripping from his face, will stay with me forever.

“He understood the risks.”

I sigh. It doesn’t make what happened any less tragic or shocking.

“And it wasn’t a total loss,” Ty adds. “He confirmed that there was a sixth item in Hitler’s safe, that his father took it, and that it was a film reel.”

“Yes, but he didn’t give it to me. Or tell me where it was. Or what was on it.”

“Well, what did he say?”

I think back. “I asked him if the sixth item taken from Hitler’s safe was a reel of film. He said—he said, ‘it was,’ like it was obvious. As in, why would I ask him that?”

“What’s to understand?”

“Then…” I breathe out. “He asked Jenny something. And then the bullet came through the back window, and he was dead.”

“Wow. And you have no idea what he said to Jenny?”

“No. I don’t even know what language they were speaking. It wasn’t German, but sounded a little like German.”

“I’m sorry, El. I mean, jeez, if ever there were a time for a translator—”

“Hang on!” I pop out of my chair. “I have to go, Ty.”

I hang up the phone. I’d forgotten that I’d recorded my conversation with Franklin Linderman. With everything that happened, I’d forgotten it had been left recording.

I pull up the file. After skipping ahead a bit, I land on the spot and listen to my conversation with Franklin:

Me:

“Franklin, may I get to business? There was a sixth envelope in Hitler’s safe the night that Thomas Bauer stole it, correct? Your father took it, yes?”

Franklin:

“He did, of course. And kept it.”

Me:

“Was it a reel of film?”

Franklin:

“It was.” [Pause.]

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

At this point, Franklin speaks to Jenny:

Franklin:

“Heb je de professor het filmrolletje gegeven?”

Jenny:

“Ja natuurlijk. Ik gaf het haar in de kerk.”

I replay those words over and over again.

“Ah, een landgenote!”

I look up to see a woman in a puffy blue jacket and white ski cap. She smiles and says, “Kom je uit Nederland? Spreek je Nederlands.”

She gestures to my phone when she sees the confusion on my face. “I’m sorry, I thought you were Dutch, like me,” she says.

“Could you—please.” I put my hand on my heart. “If I replay the recording, could you translate?”

“Uh, sure?” She seems amused, but listens carefully, leaning in. “The man is saying—he is asking, did you give the teacher—or professor?”

“Yes, professor.”

“He is asking, ‘Did you give the professor the film?’”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. And what does the woman say?”

I play Jenny’s response again. The woman listens, eyes closed, and nods. “She says, ‘Yes, of course, I gave it to her… at the church.’”

My mouth drops open. Jenny gave me the film at the church?

I thank the young woman and start pacing, remembering. The only church she could mean is St. Stephen’s Cathedral, that huge Gothic church in Vienna where I went to meet Franklin. He didn’t show, and Stranger Danger gave me a dire warning instead.

That was when I saw the young Asian woman with the face piercings and the lime-green hair. When Jenny bumped into me, I thought she might be an assassin, might stab me or inject me with—

She bumped into me.

Could that be it? Did she hand off something?

I remember what I was wearing, because my clothing instructions were specific: brown jacket, orange hat, so I would stand out. And I was wearing jeans, the same ones I’m wearing right now.

I pat my pockets, but there’s no way she could’ve slipped it in them without me knowing it.

My heart racing, I open my carry-on roller bag. There it is, folded—more like crammed—inside. The beige corduroy jacket, the one my darling daughter Annabelle gave me as a present a year before she died.

I pull it out and examine the pockets. There, in an interior pocket I have never used, I feel a bulge. There’s something in there.

She slipped it into my pocket days ago in the church, and all this time, I had no idea.

“Eleanor,” I whisper, “you are the worst spy in the history of spies.”

I carefully reach in and pull it out. Light as a feather, which is why I didn’t feel it. A flat metal canister, not much bigger than a stack of coasters.

A reel of film.

113

March 19, 1945

Reich chancellery, Führerbunker

Berlin

A SMALL PLANE LANDED on an airstrip in the Tiergarten, a five-hundred-acre park roughly two hundred yards northwest of the chancellery grounds.

Adolf Hitler had once planned for the park to be a centerpiece in recasting Berlin as Germania, the world capital. As the Soviet army closed in on Berlin, however, the Nazis converted it into a landing strip for small planes. On this day, the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch plane carried one passenger—Albert Speer, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production.

The war was lost, a fact that was undeniable to everyone, except the man now hunkered underground in a bunker beneath the Reich chancellery in Berlin known as the Führerbunker. Adolf Hitler refused to admit defeat or even discuss surrender.

Once Speer arrived, Hitler—who alternated between brooding mumblings and fiery, temperamental rants—summoned his two most trusted aides, Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels, to join them in his private office, where he paced back and forth, beneath the portrait of Frederick the Great. “We must inflict lasting damage,” he said. “Lasting and complete destruction.”

“Damage, mein Führer?” asked Speer, a longtime loyalist who’d overseen the rapid build-up of Germany’s armament production, largely by using Jews in concentration camps or slave labor from defeated countries. But back in January, Speer had informed Hitler via memorandum that Germany had neither the resources—planes, tanks, subs, bombs, weaponry—nor the manpower to continue fighting. At most, he estimated, Germany could hold out for another eight weeks. Immediate surrender, he urged, was the only course of action to ensure the survival of the German people.

Hitler’s response then was that the German people had failed him in both courage and ruthlessness, and it was “not necessary to worry about their needs for elemental survival.”

He continued in that vein now.

“To these victors will belong no spoils,” said Hitler. “Railroads, bridges, water and electrical supplies, telephone and communication lines. All armament production facilities, too, naturally.”

Bormann and Goebbels looked at each other. They didn’t understand, either.

“Our factories,” Hitler continued. “Our mines. All our means of production.”

“Our factories?” asked Goebbels. “Our railroads? Our public utilities? You want to destroy Germany’s… infrastructure?”

“Why, yes, of course.” Hitler continued to pace. “Nothing will be spared. Our enemies may take our country, but it will be a country stripped of any usable resources.”

“But mein Führer.” Speer stood from his chair. “We should destroy our country? How will our citizens survive—”

“The Führer has spoken,” said Bormann, cutting off further conversation.

Speer quickly sat down. The room went silent, as Hitler continued to pace.

“This is what I want,” Hitler finally said.

“In that event, mein Führer,” said Speer, “I would request permission to oversee your edict, to be responsible for its execution.”

The decree was issued that day, Destructive Measures on Reich Territory. The Führer ordered the destruction of all means of production, all military, transportation, and communication facilities, all public utilities within Germany.

It was not the first time he’d had this impulse. He’d done the same in France before the Nazis were driven out by the Allies, ordering the destruction of France’s most sacred monuments such as the Eiffel Tower. And the same in the Netherlands before its liberation from Nazi rule. In each of those cases, the commanding governors had ignored the directive and surrendered to the Allies without laying waste to the land. The one exception was Warsaw, Poland, which the Nazis razed before withdrawing, demolishing or burning ninety percent of its buildings, including palaces and castles, museums and theaters, hospitals and churches.

As Albert Speer squeezed back into the tiny Fieseler and it sped down the runway in Tiergarten Park to fly him away, he knew he would never allow the implementation of Hitler’s “Nero Decree.” The onetime architect’s only contribution to the other side of the moral ledger would be his refusal to have Germany suffer any further destruction than the war had already inflicted.

114

April 1945

Reich chancellery

Vorbunker

Berlin

EVERYONE IN THE BUNKERS beneath the chancellery knew their days were numbered.

The Führerbunker had been built in 1944 below the original bunker, now known as the upper bunker or Vorbunker, which was built in 1936 as a temporary air shelter beneath the Reich chancellery.

The self-sufficient Vorbunker contained bedrooms and dormitories, a dining room and kitchen, bathrooms and storage areas. Joseph Goebbels and his family stayed there often. Martin Bormann had a bedroom, as well. Nearly twenty others, support staff for the Führer, lived in the upper level, too. The Führerbunker beneath it was smaller, designed just for Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun.

The general mood of the bunker’s inhabitants was mixed. On the one hand, there was obvious apprehension. But interwoven with the fear, particularly among the staff and low-level soldiers, was a decided air of resignation. There was almost no hope of escape, they reasoned, and hopefully as staff or soldiers and not policymakers, they would be treated more humanely when captured.

Many drowned their sorrows with liquor, drunken soldiers and staffers choosing to ignore the looming approach of the Russians. There was nothing else to do—no war they were capable of winning, no means of escape—so let us drink! But now liquor, like food, was at a premium. Shopkeepers could not keep food on their shelves; either by purchase or pillage, people were desperately stocking up.

These shortages were not limited to civilians. Those in the bunkers beneath the chancellery grounds had difficulty receiving food, as well. The staff in the Vorbunker began a system of rationing food, just as was done for the infantry.

Which was why Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto, two corporals from the Administration Office of the Army High Command, or OKH, were so popular when they arrived at the bunker one evening in early April with supplies of meat, vegetables, milk, and liquor.

They were greeted by armed SS guards who celebrated when they saw the wagon of food and produce the corporals pulled behind them. “Go in, you may pass,” they said eagerly. “There is refrigeration.”

Once inside the bunker, another set of guards greeted them, but they were far more interested in the booze the corporals brought than in their credentials. Besides, the credentials were real—Thomas Bauer and Erich von der Haas had easily assumed the identities of Corporals Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto, who’d both recently deserted OKH headquarters in Berlin.

In the kitchen, complete with a massive wine storage area and large refrigerators, a pleasant, dark-haired young cook named Constanze was busy at the stove. Bauer and von der Haas started unloading the supplies, but she objected. “I will decide what is refrigerated and what is not,” she told them.

Just then, a man in a soiled white shirt and dark pants entered the kitchen. Bauer did a double take and instinctively swept his hand against the Walther pistol in his holster. The height, the build, the facial shape, the coloring, the mustache, even the part of his hair—for the blink of an eye, Bauer was sure that he was looking into the eyes of the Führer. But no. Just a man who bore a striking resemblance to him.

“Rolf,” said the cook, “I need three large carrots chopped.”

“Right away,” said the man. Rolf, apparently.

After Bauer and von der Haas finished unloading the food and drinks, Bauer snuck a bottle of brandy, and von der Haas a bottle of champagne, on their way out.

“For a minute there,” Bauer whispered, “when that guy walked in—”

“I know. Me, too,” said von der Haas, keeping a straight face. “Poor Rolf almost got a bullet between the eyes.”

Technically, now that their business was completed, Bauer and von der Haas would be expected to be on their way. But it was clear to them that the Vorbunker was not the tightest-run ship these days. The staff was despondent, worried, distracted. Nobody was paying them any attention.

And nobody was more popular than the guys with the booze.

So instead of turning right toward the exit, they turned left, moving into a room that had become the site of an impromptu cocktail hour. Uniformed men and a number of female staffers were sharing beers and smoking cigarettes.

They had no trouble blending in. They kept their cover stories straight. Henrik Becker (Bauer) had been shot twice in the back in Stalingrad while serving in the Panzergruppe 4—the 4th Panzer Group—earning him the Knight’s Cross for valor and a transfer to administrative duties back in Berlin. Alfred Otto (von der Haas) claimed he’d worked for Nazi intelligence, first in the Sicherheitsdienst and then in its successor, the Reich Security Main Office, or RSHA. The nature of the work was such that he couldn’t discuss it in public.

One hour turned into two turned into three, the party spilling over into the dining room as well, smoky rooms filled with music, boozy laughter, even dancing. Nobody talked about the war. Nobody mentioned victory or defeat. This was their escape, the alcohol numbing their fear. They wanted to forget their lives for a few hours.

Bauer and von der Haas were in the dining room, chatting with an SS guard and a typist for Joseph Goebbels, when they heard a roar go up in the conference room. They leaned in to have a look at the commotion, the source of the cheering.

They weren’t surprised at whom they saw. She was, after all, the reason they were here.

With a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other, her eyes lively and her smile wide, Eva Braun had just entered the room.

115

IT BECAME A ROUTINE. Every evening for the next ten days, Corporals Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto returned to the Vorbunker with liquor. It quickly reached the point where the only question the guards asked was what kind of booze they had brought that night. Vodka, beer, and champagne were mainstays, sometimes schnapps and, if they were lucky, a bottle of Jägermeister.

Their supply came from a resistance sympathizer and liquor wholesaler named Newberry, who’d fled Berlin for Switzerland ten days ago. He’d gladly offered them his flat, preferring to leave it inhabited so Russian soldiers wouldn’t plunder it. And he couldn’t possibly take the stacks of alcohol sitting in his pantry with him on his getaway to Switzerland.

While Adolf Hitler never showed his face in the upper bunker—besides his strolls through the chancellery garden with his dog, Blondi, he remained behind steel-reinforced doors, twenty-eight feet belowground—Eva Braun would often make an appearance at the Vorbunker parties.

She’d been a party girl her entire life, relegated to the role of hostess at dinners. She’d always been a heavy drinker, champagne her favorite, and had become a heavier smoker as she grew older, though she aimed to cover up the smell by chewing mints in Hitler’s presence.

Bauer had trusted she wouldn’t recognize him from fifteen years ago. He’d introduced himself to her as Henrik Becker. He didn’t want to seem too obvious, didn’t want to force the matter. But time was short. He needed to get some meaningful time alone with her, and he had to figure out something soon.

The Battle of Berlin began on April 16. The Soviet Army began a full-on assault of the city. It was not a matter of if but when the Russians would overcome the beleaguered and disorganized German troops and seize control of the city.

Bauer and von der Haas sat in the kitchen of the liquor wholesaler’s flat, which was in the western district of Charlottenburg, only blocks from the Tiergarten and the chancellery and, thus, the Führerbunker beneath. But they were under no illusions of safety. Nobody could predict how swiftly Russia’s ground troops would overtake the city. And the Allied aerial bombing spared no part of Berlin. Any moment of any day, an Allied bomb could flatten the building.

They ate slices of bread while they reviewed a map that von der Haas had drawn. The room vibrated from a bomb dropped nearby. The sound of artillery fire was as common as birds chirping in the spring.

“This is my best understanding of the Führerbunker.” Von der Haas spread it out. “Just from conversations. I can’t be sure of this.”

“Better than nothing,” said Bauer.

“You have to get past an armed guard to take the stairs down from the upper bunker,” von der Haas said. “Once you’re down there, you get another set of armed guards. Get past them, you walk into a hallway, a lounge area, something like that. Past that lounge is a steel-reinforced door at least two meters thick, also—”

“Also guarded by soldiers with guns,” said Bauer. “Three sets of armed guards.”

“But that, hopefully, is how Eva helps us. If she’s drunk enough and feels like showing off the mysterious Führerbunker—”

“Assuming the guards will heed her direction, Erich. Can she issue commands to the guards? What if they say they need the Führer’s permission to allow unauthorized visitors inside?”

Von der Haas sat back in his chair. “I don’t have a better idea.”

Bauer got out of his chair and walked to the window, looking out over a battered city. “I’m going to ask you again.”

“And I’ll give you the same answer,” said von der Haas. “I’m doing this.”

“The war’s lost. The man’s been humiliated on the world stage. He’s the most hated man on the planet. The Russians almost certainly will kill him, if he doesn’t kill himself first. And if he survives, he’ll endure a public trial and be executed.”

“He didn’t kill your family.”

Bauer sighed. “I know that. I get it. I can imagine how I’d feel if my family—”

“Imagining it and experiencing it aren’t the same thing.” Von der Haas stood up and threw his chair across the room. “I want to watch him die. At the hand of a Jew.”

This debate was going nowhere. “Fine,” said Bauer.

“How many times have I told you to leave, Bauer? It’s not too late to leave Berlin. Go to your family—”

“Goddamnit, Erich, how long have we worked together? How many times have I put my life in your hands? Haven’t you figured out by now that you’re my family, too?”

That stopped von der Haas cold. These men did not typically share their feelings. They’d spent over a decade together plotting and executing acts of assassination or sabotage in a vain attempt to stop the Nazi war machine. They’d faced death together on countless occasions. Von der Haas had stayed by Bauer’s side for nearly six months while he recovered—barely—from being shot twice in Berchtesgaden. They’d had more disappointments than victories, yes, but they’d remained true to their cause. There was only one person in all of Germany whom they could trust, and that was each other.

Von der Haas exhaled and put his hands on his knees. “Bauer, I’ll never forgive myself if you die. If my need for vengeance prevents you from a reunion with your wife and—”

“Then let’s not die.” Bauer picked up the chair von der Haas had thrown. “If you’re doing it, I’m doing it. That’s it.” He cleaned off the kitchen table, putting the dishes in the sink. “Didn’t you ever learn to clean up after yourself?”

Von der Haas managed a chuckle, a release of the tension. “Don’t forget our bet.”

“I won’t,” said Bauer, wiping off the plates. “I remember it.”

116

April 22, 1945

THE RUSSIAN ARMY HAD now encircled Berlin. Allied bombings and artillery shelling intensified, causing not only thundering quakes within the Führerbunker but the intermittent loss of electricity, as well. The Russians had cut the telephone lines to the Führerbunker, leaving the inhabitants of the claustrophobic concrete prison without contact with the outside world.

Adolf Hitler’s suite in the southwest corner included a bedroom, sitting room, and private office, and shared a bathroom and dressing room with Eva Braun’s bedroom. Though it was lacking natural light and built of concrete walls two meters thick, he’d had the floors lined with expensive Persian carpets and the walls and tables decorated with valuable works of art. He’d even hung his beloved portrait of Frederick the Great over the desk in his office.

But now the bunkers stank of body odor. The air was dusty, thanks to bits of concrete crumbling from the ceiling every time the walls shook from a bomb. Overhanging lights flickered and swung side to side.

“Everything is lost.” These words came from Hitler, exhausted after a raging tantrum, leaning over the map table.

“Whoever wishes to leave the bunker may do so,” he said to the room of generals and field marshals. “I release each and every one of you from your oaths.”

Just past midnight, Hitler was alone in the map room, imagining nonexistent scenarios, the movement of nonexistent battalions to save Berlin and turn around the war, his eyes half closing from sleep deprivation, when Martin Bormann knocked and entered the room. He held a piece of paper.

“A radiogram,” said Bormann. “From Göring. From the Obersalzburg.”

“Hermann? What does he want? To tell me how much he’s enjoying his time at the mountainside retreat that I built? While those of us who are loyal to the cause are staying here until the bitter end?”

“I’m afraid this will be unpleasant, mein Führer.” Bormann handed Hitler the document. “It looks like a coup to me.”

Hitler read it. Göring was referencing a decree Hitler issued in June 1941, providing that, if the Führer ever lost his freedom of action, by incapacity or otherwise, Göring would be appointed to assume all his powers. In the radiogram, Göring wrote that he “felt obligated to assume, in case by 2200 o’clock no answer is forthcoming, that you have lost your freedom of action. I shall then view the conditions of your decree as fulfilled and take action for the well-being of Nation and Fatherland.”

“That—that traitorous bastard!” Hitler cast aside the document, which dithered lifelessly to the floor. “He dares to assume my powers? He dares to give me a deadline to assure him I remain capable?”

“Treason, as you say, mein Führer,” said Bormann, who considered Göring—and any other close aide—a rival for Hitler’s affections.

“He wants an answer?” Hitler broke into his familiar nervous, halting pace back and forth across the war room. “Here is my answer, Martin. I want that man stripped of all powers! I want that man arrested!”

“It will be ordered at once, mein Führer,” said Bormann. “I shall arrange for a communication—”

“No. No.” Hitler shook his head. “I want to issue the directive face-to-face. Bring me von Greim. Bring him to me. I am appointing him the new chief of the Luftwaffe. And I will directly order him to arrest that fat traitorous drug-addicted guttersnipe.”

“A brilliant decision in every way, mein Führer.” Bormann cleared his throat. “May I make one observation?”

Hitler, now spent, out of breath, dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, collapsed into a chair. “What is it, Martin?”

“The airstrip on the Tiergarten is no longer secure to land those little Storch planes, mein Führer. The Red Army is within blocks. Their artillery shelling is nearly constant. Do we want to risk General von Greim’s safety at such a precarious—”

“I don’t care, Martin. Bring him to me. Your Führer has spoken.”

Hitler met with Bormann and Goebbels in his private office on April 24. They had both professed their plan to stay in the Führerbunker until the bitter end.

“Many of our people have fled the bunkers, as you permitted them to do, mein Führer,” Bormann reported. “But a number of officers have stayed, as have your personal secretaries. And of course we asked… certain staff to remain.”

Hitler nodded with appreciation. “How are people leaving from the bunker, Martin? It can’t be easy. Tell me.”

“Ideally to the west,” said Bormann. “If one is caught, one would deal with the Americans and British, not the Soviets. A much preferable outcome, if one is caught.”

“Much preferable.”

“But the only credible means of escape is to the north,” said Bormann. “Through the U-Bahn tunnels. The Kaiserhof U-Bahn station is near the chancellery. It winds northbound toward another station, on Friedrich Straße, just short of the River Spree. One could walk underground along the subway tracks to Friedrich Straße, come up to the surface at that station, and attempt to cross the Weidendammer Bridge over the River Spree.”

“But aren’t the bridges over the Spree under Soviet control?”

“The Weidendammer remains a contested bridge, mein Führer. My understanding is that one of our last remaining Panzer tanks is there, continuing to do battle. It’s only a matter of time, of course, but they are fighting valiantly.”

“At least some people still have courage,” said Hitler. “Would that they were among my generals.” He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes, remaining in that position for so long that Bormann and Goebbels wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

Finally, he spoke. “All right, Martin. All right. Bring in Heinz. I am ready.”

Heinz Linge was an SS major who had served as the Führer’s personal valet for the last decade. He was as loyal as any to the Führer though he was not involved in policymaking and was reluctant to even voice his opinion.

“Come in, Heinz.” Hitler opened his hand. “Sit.”

“Yes, mein Führer.” Ever disciplined and formal, Linge sat ramrod straight in the chair. “How can I be of service?”

“I wanted the three of you to know,” he said. “I’ve made a decision. It’s critical that Germany knows that her Führer fought until the end. That is why I intend to stay in the bunker. But it is also important, Heinz, that our pride remain preserved, even in defeat.”

“Quite so, mein Führer.”

“Why, just imagine,” said Hitler, “how the Russians would love to parade me before the international Jewry. Or my corpse. My corpse! They would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body and put it in waxworks.”

His valet cast his eyes downward.

“It is for this reason, Heinz, that I have decided to announce that, before the Russians enter the bunker, I will take my life. As will Eva.”

“No, mein Führer—”

Hitler raised his hand. “It is best, Heinz. It is best for Germany. And I need your help.”

His valet took a moment to compose himself, wiping away a tear with embarrassment. “How,” he began in a shaky voice. “How… may I be of—”

“After my death, I want my body to be burned in the chancellery garden. Mine and Fräulein Braun’s. I want our bodies to be wrapped in wool blankets, doused with petrol, and burned. I want nothing to remain when the Russian swine reach me. Nothing but dust and rubble and bone. Nothing for them to parade around.”

“Yes, mein Führer,” Linge whispered.

“Heinz,” Hitler said. “You’re much closer to the staff than any of us here. So tell me, how do you think they will react to my plan as I’ve laid it out?”

Linge thought about it for a moment. “Mein Führer, I can only imagine there would be initial shock and great disappointment. But upon careful consideration, I believe they would come to see that your decision is best for Germany.”

“Thank you, Heinz. I was hoping that was the case.”

The valet got to his feet. “Will there be anything else, mein Führer?”

“Oh, yes. Sit down, Heinz,” said Hitler. “We have much more to discuss.”

117

April 27, 1945

Berlin

ERICH VON DER HAAS stood looking out over the battered city of Berlin. The street in front of their building had burst open overnight, the target of an aerial bomb that had spared their building by only meters.

“We can’t stay here anymore,” said Thomas Bauer. “It’s not safe.”

Von der Haas ignored him, continuing to scribble notes on a pad of paper.

“Erich?” Bauer said again.

His friend turned. “The shelling and bombing increase over seventy percent once night falls. During the day, it’s only scattered pockets. The moment it gets dark, they turn up the attacks significantly.”

“They probably figure they’ll be more effective when people are sleeping. Even soldiers have to sleep.”

“I guess.”

“You have a different theory?”

“No. I don’t really care why. I just care about that fact. It’s counterintuitive. Berlin is actually safer during the day.”

“Are you kidding? It’s not safe at all out there. There’s Red Army everywhere—”

“I didn’t say ‘safe,’ Bauer. I said ‘safer.’ It’s safer during the day. It’s all relative.”

“Okay, well, it’s not safe in this flat at all anymore. We have to leave.”

Von der Haas nodded. “I know. And you know what that means. We have to move into the Vorbunker.”

“I assume nobody will object. The place has lost more than half its staff. Anyone dumb enough to want to stay in the bunker is probably welcome.”

“Yeah, and it also means we’ll probably never get out.” Von der Haas put down his notepad and walked over to Bauer. “You’ve done your best to help get me close to him. You don’t have to—”

“I’m going with you.” Bauer loaded bottles of liquor into his rucksack. “Pack up.”

They ran through the streets of Berlin as the city grew dark. There was only one guard outside the bunker. He nodded to them as if they were old friends. “You have any vodka in there?”

“How much time do we have left?” Bauer asked him.

“A day or two at most,” said the guard.

Nobody noticed the oversized bags they carried. Everyone was on edge. The end was near. The dreaded moment was coming soon. The alcohol helped but could not altogether blunt the rising sense of panic. The shelling began to intensify, reverberations felt every ten minutes or so. Erich is right, Bauer realized. The Allies step up the attacks from dusk to dawn.

One of the staff, Ingrid, pulled a bottle of champagne from an SS guard and poured herself a glass. “What are you going to do when the Russians breach the bunker?” she asked the guard. “Are you going to lay down your weapon or fight?”

The SS guard, his feet up on the table, grunted. “You mean am I going to choose to live or choose to die? That’s what you’re asking me. There’s nothing left to fight for.”

“They won’t kill us,” said another soldier. “Not if we lay down our arms. They’ll take us into custody. They’ll probably interrogate us about the Führer. They may get rough with us. But in the end, we were merely soldiers following orders.”

“No,” said a third soldier, who looked a bit older and much stockier. “They’ll take no prisoners. They’ll kill us all.” He slammed back a shot of vodka. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

“Hey, what’s for dinner?” one of the soldiers asked the assistant chef, Rolf, the man Bauer once mistook for the Führer.

“I’m sure it will be soup,” said Rolf. “Whatever I can find in the pantry and refrigerator and stretch out into a meal. If I haven’t passed out by then.” He drank from his glass of wine.

“Are you the only cook left?” someone asked.

Rolf raised his glass. “Just me.”

A man in uniform walked into the room. “General!” said one of the soldiers, starting to his feet.

“At ease, for God’s sake, at ease.” The tall and graying officer took a seat. “Just wanted to join you for one drink.”

“That’s Hans Baur,” von der Haas murmured to Bauer. “Brigadier general with the police. He was Hitler’s pilot when he was running for president in 1932. Been with Hitler ever since. Kept moving up the ranks.”

“General,” one of the soldiers said to Baur. “Is it true that the Führer plans to take his life?”

“It’s true.” The general poured himself a vodka from one of the many bottles in the center of the dining table. “He’s doing it for Germany. A leader can’t be seen paraded around, either dead or alive.”

Bauer noticed von der Haas steel himself. The suicide speculation was rampant throughout the Vorbunker. There was open talk of cyanide pellets, which the bunker would offer to anyone who wished, and how quickly one would die, how much pain they would suffer.

The question was not if but when. How much time did they have?

The party, such as it was, never really stopped. Some people never left the dining room. Others came and went for a quick drink. As always, Bauer and von der Haas were careful to monitor their drinking, to participate without overdoing it. They both wandered toward the entrance to the lower bunker from time to time, tried to strike up conversations with the stairwell guards, offer them liquor of any kind, but to no avail. These guards were hard-core loyalists. There was no way to penetrate them or their MP machine guns. They also kept an eye out for Eva Braun, whom they considered their best chance.

There were no hallways per se in the Vorbunker, just a series of interconnected rooms. The closest thing to a corridor or hallway were the middle rooms, of which the dining room was one and the large conference room the other. Past the conference room was a stairwell up to the chancellery garden or down to the Führerbunker.

“Remember the bet,” von der Haas said as he passed Bauer.

Around one in the morning, to much fanfare, Braun appeared in the Vorbunker, curtsying and bowing like a celebrity, dressed in a tight frilly pink dress with several necklaces, beaming as always.

Erich von der Haas grabbed Bauer’s arm. “This is it,” he whispered. “This could be our last chance. So be charming, Bauer, for once in your life.”

118

THOMAS BAUER MOVED TOWARD the crowd gathering around Eva Braun. “Fräulein Braun, hello again,” he said, forcing his hand to her.

“Ah, Henrik!” she said, taking his hand. “It is Henrik, yes?”

“It is, yes,” said Bauer. “Henrik Becker.”

“I never forget a handsome face.” She winked at him.

Apparently you do, he thought, considering you met me back in 1933, albeit in disguise as a Photoplay reporter.

“You’re from OKH, yes?” she asked. “The supply office? Yet every time I come up, you’re here.”

“We are, yes.” Bauer put a hand on his heart. “And fervent loyalists of the Führer. We wish to be here until the end.”

“We?”

“Me and my friend Alfred, Alfred Otto,” said Bauer, as von der Haas walked up. “I was just telling Fräulein Braun, Alfred, how much you and I admire the Führer.”

“First of all,” she said, playfully backhanding his arm, “could we dispense with the ‘Fräulein Braun’? It’s Eva. It’s Eva to everyone.”

“Well, Eva,” said von der Haas, “we consider it an honor of a lifetime to be even this close to his greatness.”

“I’m certain he would appreciate that.”

Positioned as he was, Bauer could see past Braun to the farther end of the conference room. He saw a man pass, wearing a hat and trench coat. Then another. Officers attempting to flee, he realized. No doubt trying the U-Bahn subway tunnels, a perilous journey but just about the only option left.

“Is it true, Eva,” said von der Haas, “that the Führer has brought his portrait of Frederick the Great down to his private office here?”

“Yes, it’s true!”

“I am such a fan!” said von der Haas. “My two personal heroes, the Führer and Frederick the Great!”

“Really? Would you like to see the portrait?”

A third man, likewise dressed in civilian clothes, followed the other two men. Bauer looked into the dark eyes and steel jaw of the man’s face and dropped his glass of brandy.

No.

But yes. It was the head of the Gestapo.

“Oh, look what you did, Henrik!” said Eva. “My dress!”

“My apologies. Excuse me a minute.” Bauer brushed past Eva and started after the men. They were moving quickly and had a head start, but once Bauer got clear of the crowd, he raced toward the stairwell and pushed open the heavy door into the frigid air.

The men had already turned and were headed, he assumed, toward the Kaiserhof subway station. Bauer needed a bit of distance from the chancellery grounds. But he didn’t have much time.

Finally, he called out, “Müller!”

The man looked back, without stopping. “What is it?” he hissed, trying to stay incognito.

Bauer improvised. “The… the Führer has a message!”

“What?” That made him stop. “What is it? Quickly.”

Bauer, in his brown OKH uniform, caught up to the man he once called his boss. “Chief Müller,” he said. “The Führer asked me to extend a personal message of thanks to you for covering his murder of his niece Geli in Munich back in 1931. He realizes that none of his later achievements would have been possible if he’d been arrested for murder, as he should have been.”

Müller’s eyes narrowed.

“Think of all the millions of innocent people who would still be alive today if it weren’t for you. Think of the millions murdered because of their religion, all the civilians and soldiers killed throughout Europe, all the widows and orphans and mass destruction—all because you decided not to uphold the oath you swore as chief of the police. He’s really grateful!”

Bauer removed the sidearm from his holster as he locked eyes with Müller.

“Bauer?” Müller spit out, his eyes widening. “Is that—”

The chief reached into the pocket of his trench coat, but Bauer seized his arm. “If anything besides your hand comes out of that pocket, Chief, I put a bullet in your stomach.” He shoved his sidearm into Müller’s gut. “And you bleed out in front of the Soviet Army.”

Müller removed his hand and held it up. With his free hand, Bauer reached into the chief’s pocket and took his firearm.

“You did pretty well for yourself, didn’t you, Chief? Promoted all the way to the head of the Gestapo? Craven loyalty pays off.”

“So… what now, Bauer?” said Müller.

“I’m not going to kill you. That’s the difference between me and people like you and your despicable fascist friends. I don’t kill defenseless people.”

He removed his gun from Müller’s gut. Then he fired a single round, popping a smoking hole in Müller’s leather boot.

Müller shrieked in pain and fell to the pavement, clutching his foot.

“Sometimes I maim them, though,” said Bauer. “Best of luck with your escape.”

119

THE DRINKING FINALLY ENDED in the wee hours of the morning. Erich sat on the floor against the wall nursing a bottle of beer.

“I said I was sorry,” Thomas said.

“We had her,” von der Haas said. “We had her right there. She was about to take me down to see the portrait in Hitler’s private office. I was in. And then you had to spill a drink all over her dress and bolt out of the room.”

“I had no choice. I didn’t even know Müller was in the bunker until I saw him.” Bauer sighed. “Sorry, pal. Sorry I screwed things up.”

“If I were you, I’d have done the same thing. Except I probably would’ve killed Müller, not shot him in the foot.” Von der Haas waved him off. “But we’re screwed now. You’re lucky she didn’t have us thrown out of here.”

“I’ll make it up to her,” said Bauer. “I’ll apologize.”

“If we even see her again.” Von der Haas threw the bottle down on the ground, smashing it into pieces. “It’s over. I’m going to sleep.”

He pushed himself up and past Bauer toward the dormitory where they’d thrown their bags.

“What about our bet?” Bauer asked.

120

April 29, 1945

Führerbunker

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, REGISTRAR Walter Wagner sat in the war room of the Führerbunker in his gray uniform with black collar and black Volkssturm armband, across from Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, with Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels on either side of the couple.

“I come now to the solemn act of the marriage,” said Wagner, his voice trembling from nerves. “In the presence of the witnesses, I ask you, mein Führer Adolf Hitler, if you are so willed as to enter wedlock with Fräulein Eva Braun. In this case, I request that you answer with Yes.”

“Yes,” said Hitler, who had just turned fifty-six and was dressed in full uniform.

“Now I ask you, Fräulein Eva Braun, if you are so willed as to enter wedlock with our Führer Adolf Hitler. In this case, I request that you answer with Yes.”

“Yes,” said Eva, age thirty-three, wearing a white satin dress.

After the brief civil ceremony was concluded, the newlyweds celebrated with their guests, essentially the highest-ranking members of the government still present in the Führerbunker. They had tea and cake and sandwiches, and sipped champagne. Even the Führer had a few sips.

“It’s the least I can do for her,” Hitler told Goebbels privately before the couple retired for the night.

A few hours later, at breakfast in the Vorbunker, which consisted of nothing more than stale bread and small packets of butter and weak coffee, the news of the marriage spread quickly. But it was no more than ten minutes before the topic returned to: When would Hitler kill himself, and should they kill themselves, too?

“I hear he’ll do it tomorrow, April 30, at 1500 hours,” said a woman named Doris, who was a secretary for Bormann. “Unless the Russians breach the bunker before then. But they don’t expect that to happen.”

Von der Haas and Bauer looked at each other. That gave them just over thirty hours.

“I’m going to keep the cyanide capsule in my mouth, in my cheek,” said one soldier. “If I think I’m okay, I won’t use it. But the moment I need to, I can bite down on it and…” He gestured to his throat in a choking motion.

“But could it dissolve?” asked another soldier. “Could the capsule start leaking the cyanide?”

“Um, I don’t think so, no. I think you have to bite it.”

“You think?” The second soldier laughed. “Frider, you better be more certain before you execute this brilliant plan.”

“I heard they check,” said one of the women. “The Russians check to see if you have cyanide on you. They sweep your mouth.”

“Did you guys hear about Mussolini?” said a third soldier. “He tried to escape Italy, but they caught him. They executed him and his mistress and hung their corpses upside down from meat hooks in the Milan town square so people could desecrate their bodies.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“A cable came in. A report from Reuters. I saw it.”

“You know,” said Bauer, “we’re showing the Führer the ultimate loyalty by staying here until the end. The least they could do is let us see the Führerbunker just once. A quick tour. Just once?”

Everyone else at the table looked at each other, then broke into laughter.

“Did I say something funny?” Bauer looked at Doris. “Couldn’t you ask Bormann if we could have a quick tour? Meet the man himself?”

Doris patted Bauer’s hand. “I’ll ask,” she said. “We’ve asked before. But the answer will be no.”

Von der Haas and Bauer stood at the edge of the conference room, looking toward the stairwell that led up to the chancellery garden and down to Hitler’s bunker.

“He’s right there,” von der Haas whispered. “He’s right down there, probably no more than twenty meters away, and he might as well be on another continent.” He dropped his head and sighed. “This isn’t going to happen, is it? We’ll never get to him.”

“Looks that way,” Bauer agreed.

“Well, then.” Von der Haas looked at Bauer. “I guess we probably shouldn’t be here when the Red Army comes through the bunker doors.”

“Probably not. It would be tough to convince them we aren’t Nazis if we’re found living in the Vorbunker.”

“And wearing OKH uniforms.”

“Got any brilliant ideas about how we can get the hell out of Berlin?” asked Bauer.

Von der Haas looked at him and smiled. “One idea,” he said.

121

April 30, 1945

THE FÜHRER’S VALET, HEINZ Linge, came to Adolf Hitler’s bedroom door late in the morning. Hitler was awake. He had not, in fact, slept a wink the night before. He was still fully dressed in his charcoal suit.

“Heinz, have you secured the petrol?” he asked.

“I have, mein Führer. We have two hundred liters. They are in the chancellery garden.”

“Excellent, Heinz.”

Hitler and his bride had a midday meal, spaghetti with red sauce, with Hitler’s personal secretaries, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge. He thanked them for their unwavering commitment. “I wish I’d had generals as loyal as you,” he said.

Then he addressed a group of roughly twenty of his most intimate advisers outside his personal suite. His new wife stood next to him, quiet and composed, dressed in a blue silk summer dress.

“The immediate postwar world will not treat me kindly,” Hitler told the group. “The enemy will savor its triumph. The German people will face difficult times. You, my friends, my loyal servants, will experience things you cannot now imagine. But later histories will realize that I only wanted the best for the Fatherland.”

Magda Goebbels, who might possibly have been even more devoted to the Führer than was her husband, burst into tears. “Please do not do this, mein Führer,” she wailed. “Joseph—tell him.”

Goebbels cleared his throat. “Mein Führer, as I told you earlier this morning, there is still possibly a way out for you. There is a Panzer tank available and up to two hundred members of the Hitler Youth. They can press westward—”

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Hitler, the way he addressed Goebbels in public. “But my decision is made. It is time. I would like Martin and Dr. Goebbels and, of course, Heinz to stay a moment. To the rest of you, I bid a heartfelt and grateful farewell.”

The group broke into an impromptu salute. “Heil Hitler!” they shouted.

A junior valet asked everyone to retire to the upper bunker, the Vorbunker, to give respectful space. They all walked silently the length of the Führerbunker, taking the staircase up, leaving Hitler in the Führerbunker with only his wife and the three men.

“Heinz, Frau Hitler and I will now retire to my sitting room to take this final step. You recall my instructions. We must be wrapped in wool blankets and burned in the chancellery garden until there is nothing left of us.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“I am forever grateful for your service, my lad.”

Heinz bowed his head. “The honor was mine, mein Führer.”

“Joseph, Martin—we’ve already spoken. I am eminently grateful for your service.”

“As we are grateful to have had the opportunity to serve you, mein Führer,” said Goebbels.

“Come, Eva,” said Hitler. “It is time.”

Hitler held his wife’s hand as she lay on the floral sofa in the sitting room. “Do not be afraid, my darling,” he whispered.

Though she had remained unusually composed over the last twenty-four hours, she now began to tremble. “It will be painless, you said?”

“Of course. Painless and nearly instantaneous. I will be sure of this, Eva. In the highly unlikely event that you should suffer, I will use the pistol, as I plan to do on myself.”

“No, Wolf, I told you—I don’t want to be shot. Not in the face.”

“Only as a last resort, Frau Hitler.”

She brightened at the sound of those words, a smile creeping onto her face. “How I’ve longed to be called that. You will hold my hand until it’s over, Wolf?”

“Of course, Frau Hitler.”

She slipped the cyanide pill into her mouth and bit down on it. She closed her eyes and leaned back against a cushion. “Frau Hitler,” she whispered.

Soon she was gagging, coughing, wheezing, struggling for air as her internal systems shut down. Hitler turned his head away, hardly able to bear the sounds of death. But he never let go of her hand, no matter how much she bucked and squirmed. The sounds grew more violent, choking and gasping, before she heaved one final, raspy exhale and went silent.

He held her hand for one more moment. Then he placed both her hands together on her chest. He looked at her face, contorted from the poison’s effects, one last time.

Then he gathered his cyanide pill and Walther pistol.

He put the cyanide pill in the pocket of his suit coat. He stuffed the pistol in his pants pocket.

“Heinz!” he called out.

A moment later, the door cracked open. “Are we ready, mein Führer?” Heinz asked from behind the door.

“Yes, we must move with haste.”

A moment later, the door thudded open. Heinz dragged in the dead body of the cook, Rolf, wrapped in a wool blanket.

“Joseph, Martin—you can be trusted to wrap Frau Hitler in the wool blanket?”

“Of course, mein Führer,” they said, nearly in unison.

“I am sorry to leave you this task, gentlemen, but you understand the need to keep the circle small. Heinz and I must now take leave. Nobody is to come to my quarters until Heinz has returned. Come, Heinz, it will be dark soon.”

Hitler and his valet walked up the stairs to the emergency exit into the chancellery garden. The garden had been cleared of people, again, out of respect, until the two bodies could be brought up for the ceremonial burning.

Hitler pulled his homburg hat low as they walked through the empty garden. When they’d left the chancellery grounds, they walked north on Cora-Berliner-Straße, then Ebertstraße, hearing artillery fire in the distance and some not far away at all.

The city was in tatters. The streets were pockmarked from bombs, in some spots blown completely open, leaving giant craters. Lampposts had fallen onto sidewalks or into the streets. The buildings looked withered and unstable, their roofs caved in, the sidewalks covered in their glass. An abandoned Panzer tank was positioned sideways on Ebertstraße.

They soon reached the Brandenburg Gate, the magnificent eighteenth-century monument supported by two rows of Doric columns that towered over Pariser Platz, which thus far had survived the Allied bombing.

“I see it,” said Heinz. “I see the plane!”

They turned west down the Ost-West-Achse, the East–West Axis that had been converted into a runway through the Tiergarten, toward the plane—the tiny, light gray Fieseler Fi 156 Storch plane, holding no more than three passengers, traditionally used for reconnaissance but repurposed during the war to transport officials to meet the Führer in his bunker.

“It’s running!” Heinz shouted. “Hans has it ready!”

Hitler reached the passenger side of the plane piloted by General Hans Baur, whose devout loyalty to the Führer had helped his rapid advancement from Hitler’s personal pilot to brigadier general.

“You’ve served with honor, Major,” Hitler told Heinz. “You have your Führer’s undying gratitude.”

Heinz clicked his heels together and saluted. “Heil Hitler!”

With that, Hitler pulled open the passenger door and climbed in.

“Hans,” he sighed. “At last.”

“Sorry, Hans couldn’t make it. My name’s Erich.” Von der Haas pointed his pistol at Hitler’s head. “You and I have a quick matter to discuss.”

122

Reich chancellery, Tiergarten runway

Berlin

HEINZ LINGE BREATHED A sigh of relief as he stood at attention, awaiting the departure of the tiny plane. The din of the raucous engine and the propellers gave him comfort—comfort that he’d successfully carried out his final mission.

Then he felt the gun against his neck.

He closed his eyes as terror filled his chest. This was it. The Soviets would show him no mercy.

Thomas Bauer, his gun on Heinz’s neck, spoke close to his ear. “Don’t make a move!” he shouted. “I’m going to disarm you! If you resist, you won’t have a throat anymore!”

He pulled Heinz’s sidearm from the holster and added it to his collection.

“Hands on your head, drop to your knees, and lie face down on the ground! When you’re on the ground, put your hands behind your back. Understand?”

“What are your intentions?” Heinz shouted.

“My intentions? My intentions are to blow your goddamn head off if you don’t follow my orders!”

“Let the plane go!” Heinz shouted. “You can kill me or do whatever you want, but let the plane go!”

“Why?” Bauer shouted. “Who’s on it?”

Heinz went quiet. And then, as if on cue, so did the plane. The engine cut, dribbling to silence. The propellers slowed to a halt. Heinz deflated.

Other than the occasional rat-a-tat-tat of Russian artillery fire, the road was quiet now.

“Listen, Heinz,” Bauer said, “you do what I say right now or I kill both you and your asshole boss.”

Heinz complied, dropping to his knees, lying face down, tucking his hands behind his back. Bauer bound his hands with rope and pulled the knot taut.

“Where’s Hans?” Heinz called out.

“The pilot? He’s taking a nap right now.”

Bauer walked over to the passenger side of the airplane and opened the cabin door. “Out,” he called to Adolf Hitler, wiggling his fingers forward while training a gun on him.

The Führer stepped down off the plane with some difficulty. He didn’t look well—pale with sickly eyes, stooped over, a tremor in his left hand that looked like palsy. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

Von der Haas came around from the other side of the plane, his gun out, aiming it at Hitler.

“You win the bet, Erich,” said Bauer.

Hitler looked at Bauer, then at von der Haas.

“I bet with my friend here that you love yourself too much to commit suicide,” said von der Haas. “That you’d try to fake it and escape. The plane made the most sense. Either you get away or you die in a fiery crash under heavy artillery fire. Your only real choices.”

“It helped that the only person in the kitchen you didn’t release happened to look just like you,” said Bauer. “And that you kept your personal pilot in the bunker with you. Besides, who announces a date and time for their suicide?”

For whatever reason, Hitler chose not to speak.

“Lars von der Haas,” Erich said, his voice shaking. “Annika von der Haas. Dahlia von der Haas. Verena von der Haas. Diederik von der Haas.”

Bauer kept his gun out, positioned himself closer to Heinz on the ground.

“My family!” von der Haas shouted. “My Jewish family! My beautiful family that you murdered!”

“I killed nobody,” said Hitler, remaining remarkably calm. “I cannot be responsible for the actions of rogue underlings purporting to act on my—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Von der Haas, trembling, moved closer to Hitler. “It was you. You set all this in motion. You called for the genocide of millions of innocent people. Say it. Say it, goddamnit!”

Tears streamed down his face.

“I did no such thing,” said Hitler, “but I am deeply sorry—”

“No! No! Okay, you won’t say it? You won’t say it? Fine.” Von der Haas shook his head furiously. “Fine. I just want you to know, it was a Jew who killed you.”

He aimed his gun at Hitler’s face.

“Please,” said Hitler.

The gun shook as von der Haas continued to sob, but he couldn’t kill a defenseless person in cold blood.

A loud boom shook the ground, a bomb dropping somewhere close in the Tiergarten. Von der Haas’s head whipped around at the sound of the explosion.

Adolf Hitler reached into his right pocket, removed a Walther pistol, and aimed it—

—and Bauer dropped him with a gunshot to the right temple.

The Führer crumpled to the ground.

“No!” shouted Heinz. “No!”

Von der Haas walked over to Hitler, crouched down, felt for a pulse. The Führer was dead. Emotionally spent, he stood over the lifeless body, mumbling to himself, before he slowly shook his head and reholstered his weapon.

Bauer breathed out a sigh. “You didn’t disarm him, Erich?”

“Guess I forgot.” He shrugged. “I’m not a very good killer.”

Bauer squatted down by Heinz Linge, who was still upset. “Heinz, I’d like to untie you and let you be on your way, but something tells me you’d give me a fair amount of trouble. But it shouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes for you to get free. And then I’d suggest you get the hell out of Berlin. I wouldn’t waste one more second on that lowlife you called a boss.”

“You’re going to carry him back, aren’t you?” von der Haas said. “You’re going to carry him back to the bunker and put him next to Eva and say he killed himself just like he promised.”

Heinz didn’t answer. He was still sobbing quietly.

“Well, whatever you do, Heinz, leave Berlin,” said Bauer. “Good luck. And wish us luck, too. I’m just hoping my friend hasn’t forgotten everything he learned in aviation training twenty years ago.”

They jumped into the tiny plane, von der Haas the pilot, Bauer the passenger. The engine coughed to a start. The propellers wound into a frenzy. The plane taxied down the airstrip and lifted into the air.

Epilogue

Present Day

Washington, DC

Undisclosed location, FBI protective custody

I SEE HER. FOR the first time, in this dark room, a beam of light projecting onto a screen, the flickering of the projector behind me, I see Geli Raubal in motion, not in a still photo. However grainy and choppy the black-and-white footage may be, she is real to me now in a way she was not before.

She looks younger than her age. I would swear she was a teenager. But even a historian can do simple math. Geli Raubal was born in June 1908, and her uncle did not move into his flat in Prinzregentenplatz until 1929.

So by the time this reel of film was shot, from a camera perched in the corner of her bedroom in Prinzregentenplatz 16, Geli was at least twenty. Technically an adult, though still so young. Almost the same age as my daughter Annabelle.

On the screen, Geli’s moves are tentative, though it’s clear she has done this before. She is naked, her hands cupped over her breasts, as she enters her bedroom. Does she know there’s a camera recording her? She must. Cameras were not easily hidden at the time.

Her Uncle Wolf, the fortysomething future despot, is seen wearing only his underwear, lying on some kind of tarp spread neatly over the bedroom floor near the bed.

Something inside me snaps. I instinctually avert my eye—my one good eye—though I know that I must watch this at least once. The historian in me must see this in full, at least a single time, to verify that it is what I think it is.

So I force myself to watch as Geli moves reluctantly toward her uncle, stepping onto the mat, straddling him. I watch her uncle speak to her, direct her movements. Complete control, utter domination, is part of the fantasy, I guess.

I watch her slowly squat down over him.

I watch it all. I watch his reaction, too, the reaction of this predator twice her age and just years away from becoming Germany’s dictator.

Even in the grainy black-and-white footage, it’s clear that only one of these two people experiences any pleasure whatsoever.

The angles, the positioning of the camera, clearly capture the faces of both uncle and niece throughout this depraved act. From a director’s perspective, the choreography is perfect. From a historian’s perspective, one could not ask for clearer proof of identity. But to the predator, of course, his only intent was capturing the best view possible for when he replayed it over and over again for his sick pleasure.

When Geli has completed her act, and her uncle has completed his, she stands and walks lifelessly toward the camera. As she approaches, coming more into focus than ever, the expression on her cherubic face says it all, the downward cast of her eyes, the snarl of her mouth, trying to suppress her emotions. She is disgusted, yes, but more than that. She is defeated. She is lost. She is a prisoner.

The screen goes black. Geli has turned off the camera.

“You poor, poor girl.” I release a long-held breath, feel the adrenaline drain from me, wipe a tear from my eye. The entire episode of sexual depravity—undinism, the technical term—spanned mere minutes.

But then, to my surprise, the screen comes alive again. The same scene: Geli’s bedroom once more, the same tarp beneath Adolf Hitler, the identical choreography. But minor differences. The pillows on Geli’s bed displayed differently. The chair pushed into her vanity is slightly askew. The makeup arranged differently on the vanity.

Why not, from the predator’s perspective? Why not film multiple episodes for variety’s sake?

Three consecutive episodes, as it happens, each roughly the same four-minute duration. Uncle Wolf kept a tight schedule and tight control of the stage movements. Geli did precisely as she was told.

I pray there won’t be a fourth episode. The historian always wants more, more, more. More evidence. More data. More proof. But I don’t think I can bear to watch.

Be done, I silently beseech the reel of film. No more.

But there is more. The screen flickers alive once again. But this time, it is different. Uncle and niece, alone in Geli’s bedroom, yes, but otherwise different.

This time, they’re fully dressed. Hitler in a formal tailcoat. Geli in a sleeveless silk evening dress.

I pop out of my chair, my heart racing.

That’s the dress, according to both Thomas Bauer’s and Peter Helldorff’s journals, that Geli was wearing when she was found dead.

What I am watching is the night she died.

Hitler, not Geli, is standing close to the camera, meaning he, not Geli, must have turned it on. There’s only one reason, apparently, that he ever turned it on; he is demanding the same sexual act. But this time, Geli is defying him.

She is, in fact, packing, removing clothes from her dresser and throwing them in a suitcase lying on her bed. Hitler’s back is largely to the camera, Geli generally faces it. What I wouldn’t give to have audio, but the body language and facial expressions leave no doubt they’re arguing, most likely about Geli leaving. And based on the amount of clothes she stuffs into the suitcase, probably leaving for good.

I watch it unfold, hands on my face, heartbeat banging against my chest.

She buckles the suitcase and faces her uncle, faces the camera, standing tall, chin high, as if summoning the courage to stand up for herself. Whatever words she’s using, she is clearly telling her uncle in one way or the other that it’s over, that she’s leaving, that she will no longer be captive to his obsessive and predatory behavior.

I groan as Hitler removes his tailcoat, as if bracing for action. I jump as his fist flies forward, striking Geli, knocking her against the vanity, spilling bottles, causing the mirror to crash onto the dressing table. I brace myself as she defiantly rises to confront her captor, and Hitler rushes her once more, grabbing her shoulders.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper, when he steps slightly back, allowing the camera to capture the fact that Geli managed to slyly disarm her uncle and is now pointing his gun at him.

Shoot him, my dear, shoot him, I think. Which of course is foolish, as I already know how this scene will end. For just as Thomas Bauer could not shoot Hitler in cold blood in the Brown House, long before he became chancellor, just as Erich von der Haas, aiming a firearm at the man responsible for his family’s death, could not pull the trigger on April 30, 1945—Geli cannot bring herself to discharge the weapon.

I drop back into my chair in resignation as Hitler quickly and decisively grabs the gun back, they argue more, Geli appears to plead with him—and then he shoots her, just above the line of her low-cut dress.

Hitler remains frozen as he watches Geli collapse, struggling for her last breaths, and ultimately go still. Only then does he lower the gun.

“You were right, Thomas,” I whisper in a shaky voice. “Everything you thought was right.” Adolf Hitler killed his half niece, and the Nazi sympathizers in law enforcement covered it up.

Detective Inspector Thomas Bauer was right. He never doubted it, not during his investigation, not while he spent all those years fighting the Nazi war machine, and not during the forty-five years he later spent in the United States, living outside Chicago with his wife, Amalie, after he and Erich von der Haas escaped Berlin in that tiny Storch plane.

Soon, the world will know. Tomorrow I will meet with a team of experts from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Film Preservation Board, and the FBI. They will authenticate the film reel, no doubt.

With that official confirmation, then, finally, the whole world will know what Hitler did to his half niece, and how everything that happened thereafter could have been prevented, if honest people had been allowed to simply do their jobs.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time. An Edgar, ten-time Emmy, and Literarian Award–winning creator of countless beloved series—including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, and Maximum Ride—Patterson has coauthored #1 bestselling novels with Bill Clinton, Dolly Parton, Michael Crichton, and Viola Davis, as well as #1 bestselling nonfiction, including The Idaho Four, Walk in My Combat Boots, and Filthy Rich.

David Ellis is a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court and the author of nine novels, including Line of Vision, for which he won an Edgar Award, and The Hidden Man, which earned him a 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize nomination.