Through the Eye of Time Read online

  I grinned. ‘Eva will be able to answer that for you,’ and reached down into my bag. ‘It’s a tincture of strychnine, a mild variety, you understand. No harmful side-effects.’

  It was true about the Russian airmen: they were kept in tanks of freezing water for six hours and then put into bed with two Jewish whores. They had a problem similar to the Führer’s (though the cause was somewhat different) and were given strychnine to stimulate the respiratory and cardiovascular centres. It worked too – though in one or two cases the drug caused tremors and convulsions and eventually death from respiratory paralysis. I didn’t want to alarm him unnecessarily and I omitted to mention the tedious details.

  He took 8 mg. orally and we awaited results.

  Eva lay propped on one elbow, an expression of absolute deadening boredom on her face. She wrinkled her nose at me and crossed her eyes. I made a funny face back at her. With her eyes she signalled Will it send him to sleep? I raised my eyebrows to indicate that I hadn’t the faintest idea, whereupon she sighed and pulled down the corners of her mouth. I let my eyes drift from her face down to her nightgown: through the flimsy material I could see the vague dark ovals of her nipples. She noticed the direction of my gaze and lowered her eyes, glancing at me through her lashes and licking her bottom lip with a soft pink tongue.

  For some time now I hadn’t found her in the least desirable, but this simple stratagem rekindled my interest and I took it into my head to have a poke at it at the next opportunity.

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked the Führer. ‘Anything stirring?’

  His eyes were glazed and it occurred to me that perhaps the dose had been too strong. On reading the label carefully I found that it prescribed a gradual increase from 2 mg. to 8 mg. over a period of days. Well, it was too late now. No good crying over spilt strychnine.

  ‘I don’t feel to be here,’ he said, and indeed his voice did sound odd. ‘I feel to be …’

  ‘Anywhere in particular?’

  ‘I think I can see God.’

  ‘Oh mother,’ said Eva.

  ‘You can see God,’ I said. ‘That’s interesting.’

  Eva tapped her temple with her forefinger and pointed at Hitler. I nodded and murmured, ‘As a hatter.’

  ‘What?’ the Führer said, blinking rapidly and trying to sit up.

  ‘Take it easy now. No cause for alarm. Can you see anyone else besides God? Any angels? Visions?’

  He has often mentioned to me, in confidence, that he receives ‘visitations’. Sometimes there are ghosts present, and once he said that he could see right through me and tried to poke his finger into my chest until I insisted that I was perfectly real and solid and what’s more he was hurting me.

  I leaned closer and said in his ear, ‘Can you feel anything yet, Messiah of the Reich? Is anything twitching down below? Is the little worm coming out of its nest?’

  ‘Oh bollocks,’ Eva said impatiently, ‘let me have a feel.’ She rummaged under the bedclothes.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Not a sausage.’

  ‘I must have given him too much.’

  ‘You didn’t give him enough.’

  ‘It would have killed him.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The visions, the visions …’ mumbled the Führer.

  ‘Yes, the bleeding visions,’ I said.

  ‘They’re speaking to me, giving me instructions.’

  ‘Ask them if they can give you a hard on.’

  ‘I shall rule the world with my wonder weapon,’ he burbled.

  ‘And pigs might fly,’ Eva said.

  ‘Quiet,’ I said. ‘This could be interesting. Which wonder weapon are you referring to, mein Führer?’

  ‘The most powerful weapon on earth.’

  Eva had another feel. ‘He really is delirious.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘I have not come into the world to make men better but to make use of their weaknesses,’ he droned. ‘Now I have the means. Total annihilation. The skies will darken, the bombs will rain down on the cities, blood will flow in the gutters. Nature is cruel, therefore we too may be cruel. If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war, without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have a right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!’

  ‘How will this be achieved, mein Liebling?’ I asked softly.

  ‘The ultimate weapon,’ Hitler gloated, his blank eyes lost in visions. ‘The brilliance of German science and technology has given the Reich the miracle of U235. Now nothing on earth can stand in our way. We are truly invincible. The visions tell me of greater glories ahead. I see, I believe, I will act. God wills it.’

  ‘And we have it – the most powerful weapon on earth?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Hitler breathed, his eyes alight with phantoms. ‘We have it. The Atomic Bomb.’

  Obersalzberg, June 1943

  This must surely be the loveliest time of the year. Difficult to believe, here amidst this idyllic alpine landscape, that throughout Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, the Pacific, on every continent and ocean, bloody battles are being fought and men, women and children are dying in the most sordid inglorious circumstances. Life is funny that way, I suppose. Some must die so that others might live. So it goes.

  Goebbels paid a brief visit to the Berghof. He didn’t look at all well and wasn’t, I might add, in the best of moods. Indeed he took the Führer to task for not putting in an appearance in Berlin for over two months. The gist of his complaint was that the German people were having to suffer an increasing aerial bombardment by the Americans and the Russians, cities and towns were being knocked flat, and yet the Führer hadn’t once, visited the devastated areas to bring cheer and comfort to those living under daily threat to their lives. Goebbels himself, as is well known, is constantly touring the industrialized areas on morale-boosting missions; couldn’t the Führer, if only for propaganda purposes, leave Obsersalzberg and see at first-hand the destruction that was being inflicted? The German people would respond magnificently if they saw the Führer taking a close personal interest.

  Hitler was taking tea at the time of the interview. He had, as I recall, just eaten a cream bun and was licking the cream from his fingers. He looked at Goebbels with that fixed unwavering gaze of his, the blue-grey eyes staring and dead, lacking animation, like those of a somnambulist.

  ‘The bomb-terror,’ he declared, ‘spares the dwellings of neither the rich nor poor; before the offices of total war the last class barriers have had to go down. Under the debris of our shattered cities the last so-called achievements of the middleclass nineteenth century have been finally buried.’

  Goebbels started to interrupt but the Führer cried:

  ‘There is no end to the revolution! A revolution is only doomed to failure if those who make it cease to be revolutionaries. Together with the monuments of bourgeois culture there crumble also the last obstacles to the fulfilment of our revolutionary task. Now that everything is in ruins we are forced to rebuild Europe. In the past, private possessions imprisoned us in the class structure: now the bombs, instead of killing all Europeans, have only smashed the prison walls which held them captive. In trying to destroy Europe’s future the enemy has only succeeded in smashing its past; and with that, everything old and outworn has gone. Gone for evermore.’

  Several of us applauded this speech and the Führer looked up as if awakening from a trance, and Goebbels sat sullen and stiff, his hands sunk deeply in the pockets of his black leather greatcoat.

  ‘Is this the message I have to take back with me?’ he asked. I have never seen him so depressed and spiritless, bereft of all hope.

  ‘Tell them to trust in the Führer and in the stars. It is written in my horoscope that the second half of the year will be the turning-point for us. This is June the eleventh. It is the turning-point!’

  At this Goebbels stood up abruptly and begged to be excused. He
left immediately for Berlin accompanied by his adjutant SS Hauptsturmführer Guenther Schwaegermann and other personal aides.

  *

  At last I have found someone who talks sense about this mysterious substance U235, the vital constituent of the ‘Atomic Bomb’.

  An officer arrived at the Berghof bringing a confidential dispatch for the Führer, and after discharging his duty, spent an hour or so relaxing on the balcony in the hot sunshine: it was there we struck up a casual conversation. A young man, mid-twenties I should say, close-cropped sandy-coloured hair, an over-eagerness of speech which made him stutter.

  Nicolaus von Below, Wehrmachtattaché (Luftwaffe) to Goering, acting as liaison officer to the Führer’s headquarters. I had no idea what the dispatch contained but happened to remark that it must have been of vital importance if the authorities had to employ the services of an Oberst der Luftwaffe.

  ‘It concerns the B-B-Bomb,’ said von Below, rather rashly I thought, not knowing what my security clearance was. ‘Of course you are familiar with the project, being so c-c-close to the Führer.’

  ‘U235,’ I said knowledgeably.

  ‘It will win the war for us. Neither the Soviets, the Americans nor the Japanese have anything like it. In a year from n-n-now – all over.’

  ‘Why a year?’

  ‘The process is extremely complex,’ said von Below, and went on to explain that U23s is composed of the lighter atoms of natural uranium. A team of physicists, working under the direction of Professor Max Steenbeck, has developed a very high speed centrifuge which separates these lighter atoms from the rest, eventually producing what he termed ‘enriched uranium’. This 2-4 per cent concentration of active uranium is then incorporated in a device which, when triggered, has the explosive power of 100,000 tons of TNT.

  ‘They call it a chain-reaction. When the U235 has reached the right level of c-c-concentration something known as fission takes place – the atoms go out of control and the result is a m-m-massive explosion.’

  ‘Staggering,’ I said, shaking my head in wonderment and admiration. ‘This proves once and for all the invincible superiority of German technology.’

  ‘It is a new era,’ von Below confirmed with shining eyes. ‘The Atomic Age. Nothing known to m-m-man can stand in its way. There is no defence against it. The Reich will triumph. Historical N-N-Necessity and Justice will prevail in the end!’

  In answer to my questions he informed me that the device, though large, could be carried quite easily by heavy bomber and dropped from 25,000 metres on to the target. At approximately 1,000 metres the Bomb would be detonated by a built-in automatic altimeter system. I expressed surprise at this and von Below explained, ‘It is detonated in the air to achieve m-m-maximum effect. In addition to the heat-blast the Bomb spreads a form of radiation which will give the enemy population skin cancer. And this isn’t all—’ he was becoming more and more agitated ‘—the radiation sickness will last through m-m-many generations. Babies in the womb will be born deformed, with no arms and legs and with shrunken b-b-bodies. The sperm and egg-cells of those who survive will c-c-carry the sickness so that their offspring will be mutants too – laughable parodies of human beings.’

  I was very impressed with Nicolaus von Below: his boyish enthusiasm and unwavering loyalty to the Reich are qualities not in abundant supply at the present time and which many could do worse than emulate, especially those in positions of high command. My only criticism is that he might have been more circumspect in his handling of top secret information; not everyone is trustworthy, even amongst those (sad to say) who are privy to the Führer’s most intimate confidences.

  *

  If victory is sweet, revenge is sweeter.

  This observation is prompted by a feeling of secret bubbling exultation. This morning, shortly after eleven o’clock, a ‘deputation’ arrived without warning: Brandt, Giesing and von Hasselbach on a mission which had quite obviously been planned weeks ahead and down to the smallest detail.

  The appointment had been made, it transpired, through the administrative network of the security guard, Reichssicherheitsdienst Dienststelle I. The first I knew of it was when Heinz Linge called me in great alarm and said that Giesing had been poking around in the medicine cabinet and discovered several cartons of Dr Koester’s Antigas Pills and had demanded to know what in heaven’s name these were for. Heinz had said (he was flustered) that they were part of the Führer’s personal medication as prescribed by me, whereupon Giesing turned pale and rushed out of the room.

  I sensed immediately that something was afoot and went directly to the ante-room of Hitler’s private apartment. Julius informed me that the three doctors were in consultation with the Führer and that I would be well advised, under the circumstances, not to intervene unless summoned. I reminded him of his pledge to me, on behalf of the Führer and the Fatherland, he had given five years before at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. I went on:

  ‘You have seen for yourself the precarious hold he has on life; do you think those butchers have the faintest inkling of the delicate nature of his constitution? It is our right and our duty to protect him from the blundering interference of such meddlesome quacks.’

  Just then (destiny smiles on the audacious) the buzzer sounded, summoning Julius inside, and I unhesitatingly followed, to be greeted by thunderous scowls on the faces of the three doctors.

  The Führer was sitting at his desk, leaning slightly to one side, his chin resting in the palm of his hand, smoking a cigarette in a holder, a haze of blue smoke obscuring his head.

  There was a lengthy silence which no one seemed keen to interrupt; Julius stood attentively by, awaiting instructions. I surmised that someone had finished speaking the moment we entered – von Hasselbach I gathered, judging from his flushed appearance and fidgety manner.

  At last the Führer spoke, a voice issuing from the pall of blue smoke. ‘I was about to send for you, Theo. I have just this minute heard the most remarkable thing. Would you like to hear what it is?’

  ‘Certainly, mein Führer, if you think it concerns me.’

  ‘I think it does; wouldn’t you say so, Herr Doktor Brandt?’

  Brandt had been glaring at me but now he seemed taken aback. ‘Why, yes, of course – of course—’ He was plainly confused.

  ‘These three wise men,’ said the voice in the smoke, ‘these three learned physicians inform me that I am being slowly and systematically poisoned. What do you think of that?’

  I looked at them one by one. ‘Is that what they say?’

  ‘Not in that way precisely,’ said von Hasselbach. ‘What we were saying was that, in our opinion—’

  ‘Did I invite you to speak?’ the Führer said. A billow of blue smoke rolled ominously across the desk like a thundercloud.

  ‘Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking. My abject apologies.’

  More silence.

  ‘How long have you been attending me, Theo?’

  ‘Seven years, nearly eight, mein Führer.’

  ‘Have I suffered one head cold in all that time?’

  ‘No, mein Führer.’

  ‘Have I been admitted to hospital in all that time?’

  ‘No, mein Führer.’

  ‘Have you diagnosed any disease or infection during those seven years?’

  ‘Except for a mild complaint of the inner ear, no, mein Führer.’

  ‘If I may be allowed, sir, to interject at this point,’ Giesing spoke up. ‘We—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Hitler screamed. ‘Shut up! Shut up! You dolts! You cretins! You imbecilic swine! Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I’m not familiar with your charlatan’s tricks? You think I have a disease – don’t deny it – I can-see it in your faces. You believe, all three of you, that I’m suffering from some nervous disorder. Don’t deny it! Don’t deny it! For four years I have directed a war on a global scale. I am the greatest military strategist of all time, and yet you in your infinite quackery think my health is impaired. What
understanding do you have of political affairs? None! What do you know of military matters? Nothing! Yet you blunder in here and try to tell me – me! – that I am being poisoned, that my judgement is at fault, that I have lost all control.’

  Brandt stepped forward.

  ‘Mein Führer, forgive me, we have never for an instant doubted your political or military genius. It is purely on a medical basis that we are concerned for your—’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ He smashed the top of the desk with both fists. Ash cascaded over the lapels of his double-breasted light-grey jacket. He said to Julius, ‘Am I ill? You see me every day. Am I sickening for anything? Am I nervous? Tell them. Tell them!’

  ‘No, mein Führer.’ Julius caught my eye and swallowed. ‘You are not nervous. You are in perfect health.’

  ‘You see?’ Hitler yelled at the top of his voice. ‘He sees me every day, several times a day, and he says I am in perfect health. Per. Fect. Health!’

  Brandt, von Hasselbach and Giesing averted their eyes from him and each other. Silence came down like a shroud.

  ‘Give me a cigarette,’ the Führer said, and Julius hurried to comply. When it had been inserted in the holder and was going satisfactorily he said, ‘You are men of paper, you three. Academics. Intellectuals. Out of touch with reality. Morell here is a qualified doctor, just as you three are, but he understands that real medicine isn’t concerned simply with flesh and muscle and bone. There are spirits of the body that have to be tended, cared for, treated with respect, and occasionally appeased. What do you know of these spirits? You, Giesing, what do you know?’

  Giesing shuffled his feet and tried not to meet anyone’s eye. ‘I know very little about spirits,’ he admitted. ‘If you mean the psychological treatment of patients—’

  ‘Psychological!’ the Führer bellowed, his eyes protruding from his head. ‘You dare to mention in my presence the perverted theories of a Jew? You tell me to my face that you subscribe to Jewish methods of treatment? You believe – believe—’

  He was incoherent with rage. There was a glazed film over his eyes and his face had broken out in large grey blotches. I thought for a moment he was about to have a seizure.