After Spellman had left, the President wheeled his chair to the window and stared over the White House lawns. A long silent minute later he wheeled around again to face Hull. “You know something, Cordell?” he said. “This thing could turn out to be a helluva lot more earthshaking than that Manhattan District Project of ours—assuming we ever get it off the ground.”
“You mean a kind of spiritual atom bomb . . .” The Secretary of State pursed his lips. “I wish I could be sure Pacelli won’t make some kind of a deal.”
“There’s one way to keep him dug in there, you know. The Vatican’s an independent and sovereign state. How about a mutual defense pact? Anyone invades the Vatican, the United States declares war on them. In turn, anyone who attacks the U.S.A. has to reckon with the Pope’s Swiss Guard.”
“Maybe I have what you want right here, Mister President.” Hull took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and opened it out. “It’s from our Berlin decoding people and it reached me just as I was leaving my office. From Yosuki Matsuoka to his ambassador in Berlin, General Hiroshi Oshima. Boiled right down, it instructs Oshima to secure from Ribbentrop a firm commitment that in the event of Japan’s entering into war with the United States a full-scale Wehrmacht offensive will be launched across the Soviet Union’s western frontiers.”
The President said, quietly, “Let me have a look at that.” And when he had finished reading the full decoded text of the message, he laid it on his desk and settled back in the wheelchair, his patrician features a shade paler but serenely composed.
“Looks like the long wait is over, Cordell. You know the first thing I’m going to do, before calling in the Chiefs of Staff? I’m going to get off a private message to Winston. Something loaded with meaning for us both. Maybe some appropriate lines from Whitman’s ‘Long, Too Long America’?”
In his private apartment at the Berlin Chancellery, Adolf Hitler listened in silence to Giovanni Donati’s careful report of his discussions with Maglione and his audience with Pope Pius the Twelfth, interrupting only at the beginning to ask, “Who else was present?”
“Only his secretary, Monsignor Avanzo,” Donati replied. “Our first meeting was brief, seven minutes precisely, and left me with the impression that the good Cardinal is not much longer for this temporal world.” Observing the tightening of Hitler’s lips, and correctly ascribing this to impatience rather than sympathy, Donati went on with his report. “After conveying your respectful greetings to His Holiness and taking the liberty of expressing your concern for the Cardinal’s health, I told him how discontented you were with the worsening relationship between the Vatican and the Third Reich and of your concern that the stabilizing influence of the Church should not be further eroded by unrealistic doctrinal conflicts between Roman Catholicism and National Socialism. I expressed your opinion that these conflicts could be reconciled, given a sufficient degree of good will and flexibility on the part of Rome and that, as a first step toward this end, His Holiness might consider breaking tradition by accepting an invitation to the capital of the Reich, thereby showing the world at large that he accepts the accomplished and irreversible fact that the German Fuehrer is now the sole political director of Europe’s destiny. It was your earnest hope, I said, that in the course of such a visit the foundations could be laid for a fusion of interests between the Holy See and the Reich. At this point, Cardinal Maglione asked me to give instances of the doctrinal reforms you had in mind, and I did so. He listened without interrupting. When I had finished, he ended the meeting by telling me that he would be taking instructions from the Holy Father before framing a formal reply to your overture.
“As you know, I was kept waiting for eight days before Cardinal Maglione sent for me. Our second meeting was a good deal shorter. I was to continue, the Cardinal told me, to serve as special papal legate to the Fuehrer’s headquarters. His Holiness was aware of the delicacy and gravity of my mission and trusted me to uphold in all things the authority and spiritual independence of the Church. I was to thank the Fuehrer for the invitation he had extended to the Holy Father and to convey His Holiness’s regrets that as spiritual leader of the Church it would be out of the question for him to accept the hospitality of either side in a war that had so bitterly divided his universal flock. As for the doctrinal conflicts instanced by the Fuehrer, His Holiness could only pray that the Almighty would reopen the Fuehrer’s heart and mind to the eternal truth of the Gospel and the infallibility of the Church in matters of faith and morals.”
It was the end of Donati’s report, but Hitler couldn’t believe it.
“Is that all?” he asked sharply. “A pat on the back for you and a prayer for me?”
“I report only the Cardinal’s words, which were much as I expected them to be. His manner was not that of a man closing a door.”
“You mean—?”
“A dialogue has begun. If its object had been totally unacceptable to the Pope, I believe I should have been told to come back here and ask for my credentials—”
“—which I should not have returned to you, my dear Monsignor,” Hitler cut in tartly. “But enough of these diplomatic niceties! The Pope refuses to meet me—”
“That is not so. He refuses to leave Rome.”
“It amounts to the same—” Hitler broke off and sprang from his desk. From his comfortable high-back chair, Giovanni Donati watched him with a gentle smile as he started to pace the room.
“It could be arranged, of course,” Hitler was muttering, almost to himself. “He wouldn’t dare refuse me! We would be meeting on neutral ground—the Vatican City. The spiritual and the temporal leaders of Europe, face to face, while the whole world held its breath! I tell you, Father—” he rounded on the archbishop, his eyes ablaze—“this is the explanation of a dream I had two nights ago, which I now see to have been divinely contrived. In this dream, I found myself standing on the bank of a river, and on the opposite bank a vast multitude was gathered in utter silence, all eyes focused on me. I started to speak to them, Father, and it was like no other speech I have ever delivered. It sang and swelled and reverberated like a Wagnerian opus, and as it reached its crescendo a man dressed in flowing white robes stepped out of the multitude and started to walk across the surface of the river, his arms open to embrace me. Can there be any doubt that the river was the Tiber and the white-robed figure a personification of the new theology of which you and I, my dear Donati, have been appointed architects?”
Donati spread his hands in a gesture of humility. “I am not fit,” he murmured, “to judge the Fuehrer’s inspirations, only to accept them as revelations of the Divine will.”
“We must lose no time,” Hitler went on, clasping his hands tightly against his chest. “There is every possibility that our Japanese ally will strike at America soon, in which case the war will become global and new demands will be made upon my military genius. The Pope and I must close ranks before the Jews and Freemasons of America make an unholy alliance with Stalin’s godless rabble. We must immediately prepare the text, Father, of a letter from myself to the Pope proposing a meeting in the Vatican as soon as it can be arranged. In the meantime, I must advise my dear friend Mussolini of my intentions so that arrangements can be made on the secular front for the accommodation of myself and my entourage in Rome.” He paused, struck by an incidental thought. “Your own accommodation here in my quarters—do you find it suitable?”
“Sumptuous would be a better description.” There was a twinkle in the priest’s eye. “I must admit, however, to being somewhat embarrassed when my valet comes across a lady’s hairpin in one of the dressing-table drawers.”
“Fräulein Braun,” Hitler frowned. “I told you about her, in my confession.”
“So you did . . . so you did.”
Kurt was in his office at the Chancellery, sampling the new “soft” editorial line on the Vatican in the German press, when the door opened and Monsignor Donati ambled in.
“Don’t get up, my son.” The priest�
��s eyes took in the room, the empty chair at Helga Gruyten’s desk. “Is this a good time for you and me to have a little chat?”
“My secretary’s away, sick, Father. I’m not expecting any visitors.” His tone was deliberately cool. More than a week had passed since Donati’s arrival in Berlin, without a word from the priest or anyone else about Walter Armbrecht. In the meantime, the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, had come and gone, all his misgivings put to rest by the Fuehrer’s promise to add Monaco and Nice to an Italian empire that now incorporated Corsica, Malta and Tunisia plus protectorate status over Egypt, the Sudan and the Somalilands. The Italian papal legate obviously had taken part in the Hitler-Mussolini discussions, but they had been concluded three days ago, since when Donati had been enjoying virtually exclusive and continuous contact with the Fuehrer—time enough, surely, to have put in a word about Kurt’s father.
“So this is where Mein Sieg has been put together, these past two years.” Donati gathered up the skirts of his soutane and wedged his broad rump into Helga’s swivel chair. “Here, and of course at the Berghof.”
“Not completely, Monsignor. I was out for quite a while, doing field studies. Poland, the Ukraine, the Crimea. You should arrange a tour for yourself, sometime. Most instructive, believe me.”
“I have not forgotten your father, Armbrecht. The opportune moment will arrive.”
“His health can be shattered in the meantime, Monsignor. Maybe it already is. He’s allowed no visitors, no food parcels.”
“Your bitterness is understandable. Now, about your sister—Is she grieving as much as you are for your father?”
“More so. She was always much closer to him than I was.”
“And I think you told me her Spanish is perfect?”
Kurt could only gape. It was a statement of fact, but not one that he could recall ever making to Donati.
“I was mentioning to the Fuehrer this morning,” the priest went on, “how I had to leave so many loose ends dangling in Madrid because of his impatience to have me join him at Obersalzberg. I said I should like to brief someone here in Berlin— someone with fluent Spanish and a good Catholic of course—to go to Madrid to tidy up some of my private affairs. He was good enough to say I could choose whomsoever I liked, and when I mentioned your sister he said he had met her and thought she would be an excellent choice.”
“But this is crazy! She’s not a party member. She’s under a cloud, so far as the SD are concerned. My father—”
“I have made my choice, Captain, and the Fuehrer has endorsed it. There will be no interference by the SD. Can you think of a better way to take your sister’s mind off the plight of your father?”
“Frankly, yes. You could ask the Fuehrer to have him released.”
Donati’s gentle smile at once accepted and deflected the rebuke. “All in God’s time, my son. Let me commend you to an inscription, said to be the words of Saint Bernard, which I first read as a boy on the wall of the presbytery in my parish church. I have tried to live by those words ever since.” He recited them slowly and with grave emphasis.
Do not believe everything you hear;
Do not judge everything you see;
Do not do everything you can;
Do not give everything you have;
Do not say everything you know.
“Speak to your sister on the telephone. Tell her she need not commit herself until she has spoken with me here in Berlin. Urge her to come at once.” His eyes were locked unwaveringly with Kurt’s as he spoke, and it was absurd but, at this moment, from that almost grotesque face lumped upon the Humpty Dumpty body, there radiated a quiet force, a resolution, as great—it seemed to the younger man—as Adolf Hitler’s. Kurt heard himself saying, “I’ll speak to her at once.” And then, as Donati rose to his feet, “You surely realize the Fuehrer has taken leave of his senses. Why are you encouraging him?”
It seemed the Italian was going to leave the question unanswered. But halfway toward the door he paused and, without turning, quietly murmured, “The second line of that inscription, my son. ‘Do not judge everything you see.’ ”
And then he was gone.
Sophie was waiting for him, as arranged, by the Brandenburg Gate. They crossed the road in silence and entered the Tiergarten. Kurt, who had told Sophie all he knew about Donati on the way from the airport, was the first to speak.
“Well, how did your second meeting go?”
“Fine. Papers are being prepared for me tomorrow and I’m off to Madrid the next day.” She looked even more strained now than on her arrival at the Tempelhof airfield. What little color there had been then on her drawn face was gone, the shadows under her wide green eyes seemed deeper, and there was more nervousness now in her voice, in the restless movement of her hands.
He said, “And what do you make of our renegade papal legate?”
“Judgment reserved.” There was a new tone to her voice, hard, clipped, and totally uncharacteristic. “And that ought to go for both of us.”
“If you know something I don’t know, I think you’d better tell me.”
They walked on in silence for a while. Suddenly, his sister let out a flat laugh. “ ‘All in God’s good time’—hasn’t the Monsignor ever told you that?”
“Don’t be cryptic, Sophie. What’s going on?”
Another silence. Then, “You’ve been to Dachau, Kurt. How long do you think Father can hold out, I mean without cracking up in mind or body?”
“Hard to say. Some of the poor bastards have been there for eight years and still aren’t broken. One thing’s certain—they’ll keep him alive so long as I’m in the Fuehrer’s good books.”
Sophie nodded her head slowly. “That’s how we—well, I mean I see it.” She slipped her arm through his, and her voice softened. “You mustn’t ask me why or how, but I believe Monsignor Donati is our best hope now—-that and the fact that the Fuehrer obviously still trusts you. It’s important you don’t do anything to upset Bormann or any other of those swine at the Fuehrer’s headquarters. Now, how well do you get on with the chief military adjutant?”
“Colonel Schmund? Pretty well, I suppose. He’s even told me he’s going to drop a hint to the Fuehrer it was time I got a promotion.”
“Good! Now, no questions, brother dear, but there’s something we want you to do.”
“We?”
“No questions!” she repeated firmly. “Next time you’re having a friendly chat with the colonel, just mention casually that you think you ought to make another tour of the Reich and the occupied countries. Maybe this time you should talk to some of the military commanders, about recruitment, the men’s morale, that sort of thing. No hurry. Just something to do next time the Fuehrer leaves you cooling your heels. But plant the idea, and see how Schmund reacts.”
“For God’s sake, Sophie, what is this?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a return to her hard little voice. “I’m passing on a message. You must do what you think best about it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I
ADOLF HITLER’S arrival in Rome, first set for August 7, was postponed at the Vatican’s request until August 16, because of the death of Luigi Cardinal Maglione. It was simultaneously announced in the Osservatore Romano that Pope Pius XII would from now on be acting as his own Secretary of State.
The Italian monarch, King Victor Emmanuel III, had offered to put his Quirinale Palace at Hitler’s disposal—as he had during the German dictator’s state visit in 1938—but Hitler had turned down the offer. “First, this is not a state visit,” he curtly reminded Ribbentrop. “Secondly, I’m doing nothing to honor that absurd little popinjay, who would have been packed off the throne years ago if I’d been in the Duce’s shoes.” He elected, instead, to stay in the Palazzo Venezia, with Bormann and Goering, while Ribbentrop was foisted onto the German ambassador to the Holy See. Archbishop Giovanni Donati, at the express wish of the Holy Father, was accommodated within the Pope’s Apostolic Pa
lace.
The first discordant note was struck with the report, brought by Donati, that the Pope was not agreeable to a private dialogue with the German Fuehrer, but would receive him only in the presence of six of the senior Cardinals in the Curia. Nor would Donati himself be permitted to attend this meeting. As the legate spread his hands in resignation, Hitler broke a glowering silence.
“What’s all this nonsense? Pacelli speaks perfect German!”
“It’s not a question of that, but of—”
“Well I didn’t journey here to put on a one-man performance for a bunch of decrepit Italian clerics—with the greatest personal respect, my dear friend!”
“I made the same point,” Donati sighed, “though not quite in those terms. There is no objection to your being accompanied by six senior members of your entourage.”
Donati’s second piece of news brought another explosion from Hitler. It seemed that Myron C. Taylor, President Roosevelt’s personal representative in the Vatican, had been received in private papal audience that very morning and would be having a further audience of the Pope “in the near future.”
“This is a gratuitous insult and quite intolerable!” the Fuehrer shouted, pounding the desk in Mussolini’s Salone. “I shall cancel the whole thing and fly back at once to Berlin! From there I shall issue an ultimatum that will shake the Vatican to its foundations!”
“Calm yourself, Fuehrer! Heed the advice of Saint Francis de Sales—‘Do not get anxious when the waves batter against your boat; have no fear while God is with you.’ We have a great mission to accomplish here. We mustn’t let pride divert us from our purpose.”
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