Shadow Of Evil

by Peter Alderson Sharp

  Behind them walked a man in the uniform of an SS General, the Knights Cross of the War Merit Medal hanging around his neck and the Iron Cross hanging from his left breast pocket. Of medium height, he was fairly nondescript but for the piercing steel-grey eyes. With him was a woman of about forty. Like the first woman, she also wore a white shift, but one which was considerably less revealing. Blonde, with a fresh complexion and light blue eyes, she wore her hair braided and pinned up to form a crown on her head, German style.

  Between them was a child, completely swathed in a black habit, with the cowl raised.

  The soldiers halted at the large wooden door of a room at the end of the corridor, and broke ranks as they started to enter. The room was perfectly circular, and covering the long narrow windows were banners of scarlet and black bearing the swastika and the SS insignia. The only illumination was from candles in holders set in the wall, which caused shadows to dance whenever anyone moved.

  The focal point of the room was a mosaic pattern representing the black sun, waves of energy radiating from its centre. The soldiers arranged themselves in a semi-circle around the centrepiece facing the door and the only piece of furniture in the room—an oak table—which stood on the far edge of the mosaic, a few paces in from the door.

  The monk entered with the woman in white, and they took their places behind the oak table, on which rested a goblet of burnished gold set with glistening rubies. The couple with the child followed them in but continued on, stepping onto the mosaic and taking a position in the centre, so that the child stood at the very heart of the black sun facing the table.

  The old monk started proceedings by raising his right arm, palm downward, and proclaiming, “Heil Hitler!”

  There was an immediate response from all those assembled. “Heil Hitler!”

  His hands trembling slightly, the monk raised the goblet high and in German, invoked the blessing of the old gods of the Aryan people. Lowering the goblet to the table, he spread his arms wide and spoke in a long-dead tongue, known only to a privileged few.

  The woman in white took up the goblet and accompanied the monk onto the mosaic. With some difficulty the monk knelt in front of the child. Then, taking each hand in turn, he kissed them before rising again to his feet. Dipping his right index finger into the liquid contained in the goblet, the blood of a freshly sacrificed animal, he withdrew it and marked the child’s forehead with the sign of the swastika.

  Returning to the table, the monk said quietly, “You privileged few, today you have witnessed the anointment of the true leader of Germany, the new Führer. The time has arrived when you must swear your allegiance.”

  The soldiers, as one, removed their shining black, polished steel helmets and, tucking them under their left arm, placed their right hand, fist clenched, over their heart. The general did the same with his soft staff cap.

  “Begin,” said the monk when all movement had ceased.

  * * *

  “I swear by the Aryan Gods this holy oath: that I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, one day to be the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to give my life at any time for this oath.”

  * * *

  On completion, the soldiers replaced their head dress and stood to attention.

  The monk stretched out his arms to them as if he were embracing them all. “Brothers,” he said, “we are all one in this. It is now our sworn duty to protect the Führer, even at the cost of our own lives!”

  Lowering his arms, he was silent for a moment, then raising his right arm in the fascist salute roared, “SIEG!”

  “HEIL!” roared back the soldiers, raising their arms.

  “SIEG!”

  “HEIL!”

  “SIEG!

  “HEIL!”

  The monk closed the proceedings with a blessing to them all, bestowed upon them by the old gods.

  Helped by the woman in white, the old man then left the room, followed by the couple and the child. The soldiers tarried, giving the VIPs time to clear the corridor. Then they too left, the walls themselves seeming to shudder as the heavy wooden door was slammed shut.

  The circular room was now silent, devoid of all sound and all movement. Devoid of sound and movement, that is, except for the faint rustling of one of the long SS banners. From behind the banner emerged a figure, entirely clothed in black. Even his face and the backs of his hands had been covered with black camouflage paint. On his head he wore a black beret and round his neck hung not a golden swastika, but a simple wooden cross, supported on a leather thong. He moved silently and swiftly to the table and looked into the goblet, sniffing the contents. What he found caused his face to register the disgust he felt.

  Outside he could hear the shuffling of feet as the soldiers formed up, forcing him to slink back against the wall by the door and draw a pistol from the inside of his jacket. Listening intently, he heard orders barked, followed by the crash, crash of jackboots as the soldiers goose-stepped their way back down the corridor.

  As the sounds faded, the man relaxed and moved to the door, trying the handle. As anticipated, it was locked. Fishing in a satchel he wore at his side, he produced a shiny brass key and inserted it. The door swung open and the man exited cautiously into the dimly lit corridor. He walked only a few paces in the direction taken by the soldiers before disappearing down an offshoot from the main passage. The narrow corridor he had entered was completely unlit, and the man was forced to feel his way along until he came to a small, locked portal in the outer wall of the castle. Another key was produced from the satchel, and the man was outside and in the surrounding woods in a flash.

  He made his way stealthily through the trees to a clearing in which was parked a Citroën Avant. Moving to the car, he unlocked it but stood for a moment with his forearms resting on its roof, gazing up at the sky. Whipping off his beret, he revealed a shock of white hair, and, as the full moon crept out from behind a cloud, it shone momentarily on the upturned, blackened face of Wolfgang Rahn.

  A Visit to the Castle

  The group that sat around the table in a conference room in the HQ building of BAOR, in the small town of Oeynhausen, listened intently to the story told by Wolfgang Rahn. As he concluded, he looked around the group: Dan Kelly, Sybilla Thorstaadt and two that he had only just met, Brigadier Bob McFarlane and a tough-looking ex-paratrooper, Horst Manteufel. Rahn raised his eyebrows as an invitation for questions.

  “Wolf, how did you become entangled in this business?” asked Dan Kelly.

  “I have for some time been studying some of the esoteric cults that exist or have existed and perhaps have current day offshoots and adherents: Rosicrucians, Templers, Brotherhood of the Black Sun, Thule, Vril Society and so on. Consequently, when Billa and I uncovered the link between Thule and the ratlines and of course Müller, I became interested. My superiors, on the other hand, became extremely anxious at the prospect of a secret society operating in France and tasked me to investigate further. I knew Thule existed, and now I had evidence that there was a link between Thule and the remnants of the SS still at large through Müller. There had always been a strong link before and during the war through Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and a senior member of Thule. Hence, the obvious place to investigate was at Wewelsburg Castle.”

  “Why Wewelsburg?” asked Sybilla, intrigued.

  “Wewelsburg became the spiritual home of the SS before the war. Initially it was used as a training centre for SS officers, however it soon became their cult centre, their cathedral if you like. Himmler was thoroughly immersed in the occult and in ancient legends, particularly Arthurian. I believe he identified himself with Arthur and organised the SS into 12 divisions, each led by a general. These generals were his knights of the round table. The room I have described, where the ritual took place, is known as the Generals’ Hall. Encircling the mosaic in the floor are twelve pillars, each representing a general, or a knight if you prefer.
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  “Before, and during, the war various ceremonies took place in the Generals’ Hall: marriages, baptisms and allegiance swearing ceremonies. I have taken an apartment in Wewelsburg village and have made a friend of a local pastor, vehemently anti-Thule and anti-SS, who has been invaluable in gaining intelligence on my behalf. He frequently attends the castle as a pastoral guide for the regular school residential courses which are hosted there. Imagine my surprise and excitement when he informed me that a baptism was to take place at the castle, to be attended by a very senior ex-SS general. The only SS general I knew who was not either dead or in prison was Müller, the very man I had been looking for in France!

  “By dint of bribery and other forms of corruption, I was able to ascertain the date and also gain an impression, on plasticine, of the keys to the Generals’ Hall and the side portal. I hid behind one of the SS drapes, hung for the occasion. To say I was utterly shocked when I saw who was in the baptismal party would be something of an understatement.”

  “The general was definitely Müller?” asked McFarlane.

  “Absolutely no question about it. Billa and I studied his photos together until he was more familiar to us than our own families.”

  “And one of the women was Eva Braun?” prompted Manteufel.

  Rahn screwed his face up. “If it wasn’t her, it would have to be her sister Gretl. They are very alike, but I think it was Eva. It’s a pity you weren’t with me, Horst; you actually met them both.”

  “Did you recognise the other woman, Wolf?” asked Sybilla.

  “The other woman was without doubt Maria Orsic, the senior Vril Maiden. I have studied the Vril Society extensively and have seen many photographs of her—it was definitely Maria.”

  “The burning question,” said McFarlane, chewing his lip, “is where are they now?”

  “Bookings are taken by the custodian, whose office is actually in the castle. Can we persuade the local police to commandeer the book for a day so we can examine it? If we can find who made the booking, we may be able to trace them that way,” suggested Rahn.

  McFarlane nodded. “I think I can bring pressure to bear in that respect. We all need to take a look around the castle as well. It will provide us with good background information.”

  The interview with the local police superintendent was terse, not to say openly hostile. He was at first very reluctant to comply with McFarlane’s request, considering it an intrusion into German affairs. Throughout, Bob McFarlane remained cool and detached. He patiently pointed out that the ultimate authority on security matters in Germany, still being an occupied country, rested with the military commander.

  Reluctantly, and with ill grace, the chief conceded the point and nominated two uniformed police to accompany McFarlane. Bob wasn’t sure if it was a gesture of conciliation or, more likely, he was posting spies with them to report back on their activities. He suspected the latter.

  If that was the case, it didn’t show in the demeanour of the two policemen, who proved polite and outgoing and assimilated easily into the group. The senior man, Polizeihauptmeister Kranz, was in awe of Manteufel. Kranz had himself served the Reich as a soldier during the war and thought the heroics of the Fallschirmjäger legendary. The younger man, Polizeiobermeister Schmidt, a devout Catholic, was completely charmed by the easy-going friendliness and calmness of Wolfgang Rahn, a holy man who carried a gun and by all accounts wasn’t averse to using it. Both, of course, were captivated by Sybilla and always eager to engage her in conversation.

  As they stepped onto the bridge across the moat and approached the entrance, Kelly observed, “At least there won’t be a language problem. Everyone speaks German, with the exception of Horst, of course. Being a Berliner, he speaks a language indecipherable to any other living being.” Manteufel made a suggestion to Kelly which would have been physiologically impossible to achieve.

  The entrance consisted of two large, heavy wooden doors. Still visible on the door panels were the marks left by the metal swastikas and the twin Sowilo runes representing the SS insignia, the original metalwork having been removed by the Allies shortly after the capture of Paderborn. As they approached, one of the doors swung open to reveal the custodian, his keys dangling nervously in his hand.

  He was a short man of slight build, balding and wearing glasses. Put him in a black uniform and he would pass for Himmler, thought McFarlane and smiled to himself as he considered how appropriate that would be. This was, after all, Himmler’s castle!

  McFarlane extended his hand. “Herr …?”

  “Schneider,” replied the little man. “Und Sie, mein Herr?” He was obviously nervous and ill at ease.

  “Brigade Führer McFarlane,” answered McFarlane, using the German form and pronunciation. Bob McFarlane wasn’t one for pulling rank, but, on this occasion, he felt he needed to make a point.

  Schneider and indeed the two policemen seemed to stand a little straighter.

  McFarlane explained that they wished to see around the inside of the castle. The little man looked puzzled and shrugged his shoulders but led the party across the inner courtyard and through a small door. As he showed them around, he related facts and figures, which seemed remarkably lacking in detail about the SS occupation of the castle, although he did allude to it a few times without elaborating.

  “Appears almost derelict, Wolf,” remarked McFarlane.

  Rahn nodded. “The SS tried to burn it down before they fled but failed, although the North Tower did lose its roof. The authorities seem very reluctant to carry out restoration work.”

  The final stop on the tour was the North Tower. Kelly smiled at Rahn as the custodian struggled to turn the big key in the lock in the door of the Generals’ Hall. It was tempting to suggest that Wolf use his key, but probably better not to.

  The room was quite different from how Rahn remembered it. Gone was the table upon which had rested the golden goblet containing its obscene contents. Gone were the huge black and scarlet SS banners. As a consequence, light flooded in, shining on the mosaic of the black sun. McFarlane strode around the room, drinking in the atmosphere. How many oaths of allegiance had been sworn in here, many by SS men now long dead? How many marriages and baptisms? In this very room, Himmler and Heydrich had discussed the ‘Final Solution’ before revealing it to the other senior party members. The room was not just steeped in history, it was also drenched in blood!

  “Take us to the crypt,” suggested Rahn to the custodian.

  “Ah, excuse me, unfortunately we do not allow access to the crypt,” said the custodian, rubbing his hands together nervously.

  “We do now,” responded McFarlane, quietly but decisively.

  The little man’s face was a picture of anguish and dismay as he led the party to a narrow staircase. The crypt was directly below the Generals’ Hall, but by contrast was grimy, smelling of mould and decay. Small windows high on the wall allowed a small amount of light to filter in, but not enough to dispel the overwhelmingly gloomy appearance and feel of the room. In the centre was a depression, the floor of which had been either tiled or painted; in the gloom, it was not clear which. Whatever had been depicted had now been obscured, perhaps by age but more likely by the Allies when they captured the castle.

  Rahn tapped McFarlane on the shoulder and pointed upwards. Directly above the depression, beautifully carved into the domed ceiling, was an elaborate swastika. McFarlane grimaced but said nothing.

  Sybilla was busily investigating a number of old wooden chests which rested against the walls around the crypt. All were empty, with the exception of the last one she checked. In it, she found several rolls of fabric. Extracting one, she started to unfurl it. It was fashioned in the form of a long banner and coloured scarlet and black. As she unrolled it further, the SS runes came into view, and a little further up, the sign of the swastika. McFarlane turned to Schneider and raised his eyebrows.

  The little man spluttered and stuttered. “I have no knowledge of this, Herr General, I … I …
perhaps they have been here since the war, yes, that’s it! I … I expect that’s it.”

  “They look in remarkably good condition to be that old,” suggested Sybilla.

  McFarlane turned to Kranz. “I’ll leave this matter in your hands, Hauptmeister. We have more important matters to attend to.”

  Turning to Schneider he said, “We would now like to look at your booking ledger.”

  The little man looked frightened. “You cannot do that Herr General. That is confidential information.”

  Hauptmeister Kranz strode forward and stood defiantly in front of Schneider. Taking a document from his pocket, he unfolded it and held it directly in front of the custodian. “Do you understand?” he asked curtly.

  Schneider nodded glumly. “Yes, yes, it is in order.”

  He led them up the stairs and along the same corridor that only a few days previously had resounded to the crash of jackboots, and into his tiny office. Opening a locked drawer, he produced the ledger. McFarlane scanned through it. Effectively it was a page-to-a-day diary. Each entry listed the name of the organisation, the purpose of the visit, the number of attendees and the name and contact details of the person making the booking.

  He turned to 27 October, the date Rahn had witnessed the ritual. The page was missing!

  Examining the ledger carefully, McFarlane found that the page had been removed close to the spine, probably using a razor blade. Anyone not looking specifically for 27 October, or 28, the date on the back of the missing sheet, would never notice that the ledger was a page short.