From both sources he received reassurances. Himmler had had a breakdown and was unlikely to leave the clinic at Hohenlychen for some time, while Grauber was remaining on the Russian front to keep an eye on General Heinrici, who had been appointed as Himmler’s successor in command of the Army Group.
Yet Hitler, with his now chronically illogical assessments, having decided on Guderian’s advice that Himmler must be replaced, suddenly made up his mind to get rid of the unpopular but extremely able Panzer expert too; so overnight Guderian was replaced as Chief of Staff by Colonel-General Krebs.
On the 24th General Montgomery launched his great offensive on the lower Rhine and the Luftwaffe’s attempts to prevent the crossing proved hopelessly ineffective. When the news came through Hitler sent for the unfortunate Koller, and so lashed him with his tongue for an hour without stopping that when the poor old man emerged from the Führer’s sanctum he was white, shaking and in tears.
By then the Remagen bridgehead was thirty miles deep, and further north the British and Americans were streaming over the new crossings in their tens of thousands. In a frantic effort to stave off complete defeat another spate of murderous decrees was rushed out. That issued by Keitel read:
In the name of the Führer.
Any officer who aids a subordinate to leave the combat zone unlawfully, by carelessly issuing him a pass or other leave papers citing a simulated reason, is to be considered a saboteur and will suffer death. Any subordinate who deceitfully obtains leave papers or who travels with false leave papers will, as a matter of principle, suffer death.
And General Blaskowitz, the Commander of Army Group H, in Holland, supplemented it by issuing a decree of his own, announcing that any soldier found away from his unit who declared himself to be a straggler looking for it should be summarily tried and shot.
The Replacement Army was scraped to the bottom of the barrel and new units of teenagers or sexagenarians, for whom it had not yet been possible even to find uniforms, were sent up to the front. Their pleas that if captured while still in civilian clothes they would shot as franc-tireurs were ignored, and they were being driven into battle by S.D. men threatening to mow them down with machine guns from behind.
From von Below Gregory learned that Hitler had sent for Speer and in a demonaic spate of words that had gone on for hours poured out his reaction to the Minister of Armament’s letter. The Führer had said, ‘If the war is to be lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no need to consider the basis of even the most primitive existence any longer. On the contrary, it is better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The nation has proved itself weak, and those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen.’ In vain Speer pleaded that, for humanity’s sake, those who survived should at least be left the material means by which they could sustain life. Hitler would not listen and ordered Speer to go away on permanent leave. Speer had refused, saying that it was his duty to remain at his post.
When he had gone Hitler, trembling and purple in the face, issued further orders through Bormann. As the Allies advanced, everything in their path was to be destroyed: factories, railway junctions, power stations, houses; everything was to be blown up or burnt down. Nothing was to be left. Since the German people had betrayed him they were not entitled even to the means to continue to exist after Germany’s defeat.
Next day, March 30th, as so often happened the storm was succeeded by calm. After the daily conference Hitler sent for Gregory and told him that he wished him to accompany him on his late afternoon walk round the Chancellery garden. Together they ascended the stairs at the far end of the bunker and emerged into the spring sunlight. Immediately they began their promenade Hitler said, ‘Tell me your reasons for believing in reincarnation.’
‘Mein Führer, they are quite simple,’ Gregory replied, and proceeded to produce the arguments he had thought out as most likely to appeal to his megalomaniac companion.
‘No sensible person can believe in the Christian God or, for that matter, any personal God. The very conception of a universal resurrection followed by a judgement, awarding all of us either perpetual bliss or consigning us to eternal torment, on our conduct during one short span of life, is absurd. One has only to think of those who are born half-witted or as the children of criminal parents. What chance in life have they? To condemn such unfortunates because they had led evil lives would be a travesty of justice. And what of young people who die when still in their teens? Are they to be held fully responsible for their actions? Were you or I brought before such a tribunal we should feel only contempt for a God who had given life to men on such arbitrary terms; so the teaching that He exists must be false.’
‘I agree. I agree,’ Hitler said huskily.
‘Yet,’ Gregory went on, ‘that the spirit which animates man continues to exist after death none of us who knows anything about the occult can doubt. If, therefore, there is no personal God to whom our spirits are accountable, it follows that we are our own masters and responsible only to ourselves for our acts down here. But nothing stands still. The declaration of Gautama Buddha, when he said that everything of which we are aware is in a state of either growth or decay, cannot be challenged. It applies not only to vegetable and animal life, but also to mountains, the earth itself and every heavenly body in the universe. Since it is a universal law our personalities must also be subject to it. This could not be more clearly demonstrated, mein Führer, than by giving only a moment’s consideration to your own personality. One thinks of your wisdom as a law giver, your great abilities as a strategist, your extraordinary flair for creating beautiful buildings, your immense knowledge of every aspect of life of the people over whom you rule. All these abilities could not conceivably have been accumulated in the short space of fifty-odd years.’
‘I see that. Yes, you are right.’
‘Between your mind and that of an Australian aborigine there lies an immense gulf; and the explanation of that is simple. Such a man can have lived only a few lives whereas, in different bodies, as men or women, rich or poor, healthy or crippled, you have had many hundreds; and in each you have progressed, learning some lesson which is stored up in your subconscious. It is rarely given to people to be able to recall their former lives, but the lessons they have learned remain. How can one doubt that it is owing to this vast experience that in your present incarnation you have emerged as the genius that everyone acknowledges you to be?’
At that moment Bormann came hurrying across the garden, a piece of paper in his hand. Having given his ‘Heil Hitler!’ he said, “Mein Führer, only my duty and my devotion to you give me the courage to make this report. But it would be wrong to conceal even the worst news from you. This signal has just come in from Field Marshal Model. His entire army has been cut off in the Ruhr, and he asks permission to fight his way out.’
The blotches on Hitler’s face stood out more clearly as it drained of blood. Suddenly he screamed, ‘Abandon the Ruhr! Never! Never! Dolts! Fools! Traitors! These Generals should be burnt over a slow fire for their cowardice and crimes. Model is to hold the Ruhr to the last man. If they are driven in, as the circle narrows they are to destroy everything. Everything. What good will Krupps be to us if we lose the war? The plants must be blown up—not one brick or girder left upon another.’
Ignoring Gregory, he trudged off with Bormann, still shouting at the top of his voice and wildly waving his good arm.
Speer was again summoned, but remained in the outer bunker for some time before Hitler would see him. He told the officers there that nothing would induce him to carry out the Führer’s orders for the destruction of everything in Germany which could help those of the German people who survived to carry on their lives somehow and, eventually, enjoy prosperity again. On the contrary, he was using his own immense powers as the Controller of German Industry and Labour to ensure that everything possible should be saved from the wreck. He had ordered that no more explosives we
re to be made and that as the Allies advanced every piece of undamaged plant was to be handed over to them intact. To check the fanatical S.S. in attempts to enforce the orgy of destruction the Führer had decreed, he was now issuing hand grenades and sub-machine guns to the staffs of all factories and installations, so that they could prevent the sabotaging of the plants on which their future would depend.
When Speer faced his master and disclosed what he was doing, yells and curses rang through the bunker; yet when Speer emerged from the ordeal, he left the bunker still a free man. Gregory felt that this miracle could be attributed only to divine intervention.
Of the satraps who visited the bunker in these days, the most frequent were Goebbels and Ribbentrop. The little doctor, with his twisted foot and twisted mind, although normally concerned only with inventing endless clever lies and distortions of fact to boost the morale of the German people, could at times show an unscrupulous brutality rivalling that of the worst of the other Nazis. On one occasion, infuriated by the mass air-raid on Dresden, he demanded that the Führer should repudiate the Geneva Convention, order the massacre of forty thousand Allied airmen prisoners as a reprisal, and bring into use two poison gases that had terrible effects on their victims.
Hitler, so his doctors said, was subject to a pathological blood lust. It is in any case certain that he always became happy and excited after ordering an execution; so the idea of this wholesale slaughter made a strong appeal to him. But Koller hastily sent for Goering who, with the aid of Doenitz and several Generals, all of whom feared mass reprisals on the prisoners of war in their own Services, succeeded in dissuading Hitler from carrying out this heinous crime.
Ribbentrop gave Gregory an extremely nasty moment; for one day they came face to face in the outer passage. It was two and a half years since Gregory had been a guest at a small supper party given for the Reichsaussenminister at a nightclub in Budapest, but from the stare he gave Gregory it was obvious that he was trying to remember where he had previously met him. Fortunately, Major Johannmeier, General Burgdorf’s assistant, distracted Ribbentrop’s attention by coming up just then and saying that his Chief would like a word with him while he was waiting to see the Führer. After that Gregory always kept a wary eye out for Sabine’s ex-lover and, whenever he came to the bunker, stayed well out of his way.
For some time past, Gregory had been very worried by the thought of Sabine; for, knowing her unhappy state, he had had every intention of keeping his promise to go out and spend a few hours with her at least once a week. But once he had succeeded in interesting Hitler in Malacou’s predictions and the subject of reincarnation he had felt that in no circumstances must he again leave his post for any length of time, in case he or both of them were sent for. Much as he owed Sabine, the war, and the millions involved in it, had to be put first.
To excuse his neglect of her he had several times tried to telephone, but the exchanges and lines in Berlin were constantly being destroyed by the nightly air-raids so he had failed to get through; and he felt it too risky to write, because a great part of the mail was being opened by Gestapo men at the post offices in a witch hunt for grumblers and pacifists, and he did not want it to be known that he was acquainted with her.
During the first days of April the Anglo-American advance continued unchecked, but the Russian front remained quiet and, although any piece of bad news never failed to bring on one of Hitler’s screaming fits, there were no special excitements in the bunker. Then, on the night of the 5th, he again sent for Gregory and Malacou.
The procedure was as before and the gist of Malacou’s ramblings as translated by Gregory were as follows. The Russians were building up for another major offensive which would be launched in the middle of the month. The Ruhr must be written off, because Field Marshal Model was surrounded by traitors and they would force him to surrender. There were traitors too among the senior members of the Government; at least two of them were secretly in touch with the enemy and endeavouring to bring about a peace; but they would not succeed. In spite of the present successes of the Anglo-American Armies they would never reach Berlin, and they were shortly to receive a blow of the greatest magnitude, which could alter the whole political outlook.
Hitler had been crouching over his desk, looking extremely ill. At this point his head suddenly fell forward and, although he made an effort, he was unable again to raise it.
Springing up from his chair, Bormann ran to him and shouted to Gregory to go and get Dr. Morell. Malacou, arousing from his state of semi-trance, opened his eyes and Bormann told him to ‘get out’.
Morell occupied two rooms in the further bunker and rarely left them, so Gregory had no difficulty in finding him and telling him what had happened; then they hurried back to Hitler’s study. There the slovenly, cringing old doctor gave his Führer a shot in an arm that was already black with the marks of injections. Within a few moments he recovered, fixed his dull eyes on Gregory and said:
‘Your Turk is a wonderful medium. I am psychic myself, you know; so I can readily recognise the true gift in others. In my case it takes the form of remarkable intuition, and his prediction that the Anglo-Americans will never reach Berlin accords with my own firm belief. I am tired now, so we’ll not call him back. But I’ll send for you both again soon … quite soon.’
Waiting for him upstairs in the vast Egyptian-style hall on the ground floor of the Chancellery, Gregory found Malacou. With his dark eyes gleaming the Jew asked in Turkish, ‘Is the swine dead?’
Gregory shook his head. ‘No. His resistance is extraordinary. That unsavoury old brute who looks after him is the worst kind of crook, but he gave him a shot that brought him round almost immediately.’
Malacou muttered a few Hebrew curses. Then, as they left the building, he took something from his pocket. An air-raid was in progress and at that moment a bunch of incendiary bombs exploded in the street some forty yards away. By their light Gregory saw that Malacou was holding in his hand a long piece of cord with a noose at one end. His curiosity aroused, he asked:
‘What is that?’
‘A garotte.’ Malacou smiled. ‘I carry it as a talisman for our protection, and a focus by which I can draw down power. If I did not take something of the kind with me to these séances, at a vital moment Hitler’s own evil radiations might destroy my contact with the Outer Circle.’
‘What is there so special about that piece of cord to give it such a potent occult significance?’ Gregory enquired.
Malacou gave a harsh laugh. ‘Astrology alone could not enable me to make such accurate predictions. Now and then I must make an offering to … well, the source of my power. In normal circumstances one would use a sacrificial knife and that would become the talisman. But as things are I would not be allowed to take a knife down into the bunker; so instead I carry the garotte. And it is highly charged, because I have recently used it several times to take life.’
Halting in his tracks Gregory grasped the Satanist by the arm, swung him round and exclaimed in horror, ‘D’you mean that when you sometimes go out on your own at night it is to murder people in the blackout?’
Shaking off his grasp, Malacou retorted, ‘If I had we would be far better protected. But, unfortunately, I have not the courage. For my victims I make do with animals.’
‘What! Cats and dogs?’
‘Yes. I lure them with a little food, throw my coat over them and carry them to the nearest bombed-out church, then offer them up by strangling them with the garotte.’
‘Good God, how revolting,’ Gregory exclaimed.
‘Your scruples are foolish,’ Malacou retorted sharply, ‘and this is no concern of yours. Be content to make use of my contacts with the Timeless Ones to bring to ruin our common enemy.’
By then they had reached the Air Ministry. As Gregory started to turn into it the Satanist wished him an abrupt good-night and walked on.
For a few moments Gregory remained there and was almost sick at the thought of the bestial act tha
t the colleague whom fate had forced upon him was about to commit. He was in half a mind to follow and stop Malacou; but the thing that mattered above all else was to put an end to Hitler and, if these ghoulish rites performed during the hours of darkness might contribute to that, he realised that his duty to humanity lay in ignoring them. Sick at heart, he went down to the basement of the Air Ministry.
Next day Hitler again sent for Gregory to walk with him in the Chancellery garden, and again questioned him about reincarnation.
Had Gregory been talking to anyone else, he would have said that with every life in which a person’s good deeds exceeded their bad ones they progressed; and, although at times they might be sent back to hardship and poverty in order to learn humility or some other special lesson, as a general principle they were born into a higher status where they would have greater responsibilities. And that, on the other hand, should they abuse their powers to inflict grief and suffering on others, in their next several incarnations they were sent back to face situations in which they would be the victims of similar tyrannies themselves.
But he was no unorthodox, though true, priest making a forlorn last-minute bid to save Hitler’s soul; so he couched his replies in accordance with his secret objective. Using unctuous flattery he told the megalomaniac who was limping along beside him that, with every life a personality lived, it acquired more knowledge and consequently power: that the Führer had been perhaps in ancient Egypt a minor official, in Rome a Centurion, in the Middle Ages the Abbot of a rich monastery, in Venice a wealthy Senator, in the eighteenth century the ruler of a small Principality, until by his accumulated abilities it had been decreed that he should become the Leader of one of the greatest nations in the world.
Seeing himself in all these roles Hitler readily agreed, then asked, ‘But what now? How, in my next incarnation, can I go yet higher? It seems to me that in this one I have already achieved the limit.’
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