by Ward Wagher
Churchill felt the color drain from his face, this in spite of his best efforts to remain impassive. Yet, he felt he must speak.
“Does this represent the consensus of your government, Mr. President?” he asked.
Wallace looked uncomfortable. “This represents our position, yes, Prime Minister.”
“Not to sound ungrateful, but that will leave us in a precarious position,” Eden said. “American is our only source for some of those weapons. To have the supply cut off would impose considerable hardship upon our armed forces.”
“Perhaps you misunderstand,” Hull said. “We are planning to end the Lend-Lease program, however there will be no embargo upon arms sales to Britain. You have complete freedom to procure from our manufacturers. With our own war, however, supplies may become constrained.”
Churchill was making a valiant effort to step on his temper. After all, he had not been sanguine about this meeting as he traveled to the dominion. One needed to maintain perspective when dealing with the American cousins. They tended to be impulsive and short-sighted, and to tell the truth, they were in a very bad position vis-à-vis the Japanese. What he had not counted on was Anthony Eden’s loss of temper.
“I suppose, as you Americans say, the fix is in?” he asked.
“Excuse me, Mr. Foreign Minister?” Hull replied.
“The Germans transfer a small fleet of U-Boats to the Americans and the quid pro quo is cutting off aid to the British Empire?” Eden spat.
Churchill put his hand on Eden’s arm. “Gently, Anthony, gently.”
“We simply find it difficult to support one empire over another,” Wallace said. “We plan to remain friendly, but we are adopting a more neutral stance.”
“I fail to see the apt comparison between civilization and the darkness the Nazis brought over Europe. They brought their jack-boots down upon the necks of millions of formerly free peoples,” Churchill said. “They are murdering barbarians.”
“Civilization?” Wallace asked. “Is that how you describe what you did to the Sepoys in India?”
“That was nearly one-hundred years ago,” Churchill sputtered. “And let the record show that we bent over backwards to accommodate the sensitivities of the religious minorities. They were determined to look for an issue.”
“You could have simply left,” Wallace said. “Because you bring so-called civilization, that makes you better than any other invader?”
“Now see here!” one of the British delegates shouted. “That is not really cricket.”
The attendees on both sides of the table began shouting at one another. Churchill leaned back in his chair and pulled a cigar out of his pocket. After carefully trimming the end, he struck a match and began puffing away. As he did so he stared across the table at the president of the United States. While he thought the American behavior was contemptible, he could not ignore the look of satisfaction on Wallace’s face. The results of the meeting were not accidental.
§ § §
March 10, 1942; 10AM
Reichschancellery
Berlin, Germany
Schloss looked around the council chamber. He was once again stuck by the size of the room. The table itself probably could seat fifty people, and it seemed lost in the cavernous chamber. The small group that comprised the government occupied one end of the long granite piece.
“Where is Goering?” he asked.
“His adjutant called to express the Reichsmarshall’s regrets,” Kirche said.
“Is he ill?” Rainer asked.
“I do not know.”
Schloss jotted a note to check on Goering. It was unlike him to miss meetings.
“Very well,” Schloss said. “There were several items Hermann needed to discuss with us in the meeting. I suppose we can postpone those. However, there is plenty of business for us to cover.” He looked over at Kirche.
“The foreign minister has the first item.”
Schloss looked over at Ribbentrop. “Joachim?”
“Some good news, Mein Herren,” he said. “The Czech government in exile has agreed to meet with us in Lisbon to discuss… normalizing our relationship with Bohemia.”
“That is good news,” Schloss said. “Who needs to go?”
“I suppose I should go,” Ribbentrop said. “We are not trying to hide anything at this time.”
He probably should, Schloss thought. I worry, though, that he will screw things up like he did when he was the ambassador to St. James’s Court.
Schloss's hesitation was apparent and Ribbentrop noticed it. “I really could use the assistance of one of you on this trip. I do recognize my limitations.”
Schloss looked at the others. “What do you think? Peter, can you go?”
“Of course,” Schreiber said. “I would be happy to accompany the foreign minister. When is the meeting scheduled?”
“We are looking at mid to late May. My office is checking on the availability of a Condor during one of those times.”
Schloss looked at Kirche. “Please see to it that an aircraft will be available, Willem.”
“Of course, Herr Reichschancellor.”
“And please not a Tante Ju,” Ribbentrop said. “It would take us a week to get there.”
Everyone around the table chuckled. One of Rainer’s initiatives was to move everyone’s private aircraft back into an executive pool. One Condor was permanently assigned to the Reichschancellor, but that was to be expected. Everyone took what was available from the pool on a first come first served basis. This greatly reduced the costs of maintaining an air fleet for executive transport, it also meant that one would frequently have to ride in the JU-52, otherwise known as the Tante Ju, rather than the faster, more comfortable and vastly more impressive Focke-Wulf Condor.
“For a trip to Portugal, I believe we can find something suitable,” Kirche said.
“And not a Storch, either.” Ribbentrop folded his hands together in a prayerful gesture.
The small fleet also included a Fiesseler Storch, which was a small two-seat aircraft that excelled in landing and taking off from small, tight airfields.
“You do not ask for much, Herr Foreign Minister,” Rainer said with a smile.
“And how much are we saving, Herr Reichsprotektor?” Ribbentrop asked with a small grin.
“About three-quarters of a million Reichmarks in capital,” Rainer said. “Operating costs are much lower as well.”
“And it is a good example to the rest of the government,” Schloss said. “From some things I have heard through the party grapevine, this did not go unnoticed.”
“Of course, it didn’t,” Schreiber said. “I made sure of that. Good news always requires a substantial push.”
He grinned at the general laughter that accompanied his remark. Schloss glanced around the table in satisfaction. He supposed that any government would have those who excelled and others who barely got by. But this group was functioning as a team, and that made it much easier to govern. Even Goering generally tried to play by the unwritten rules, although he could be prickly at times.
“Go ahead and make the arrangements, then, Joachim,” Schloss said. “I plan to schedule a specific meeting to discuss our goals concerning Bohemia and our approach to the negotiations. Unless they are completely unreasonable, I want to come away from those meetings with a solid plan to extricate ourselves from that land.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Schloss hoped the agreement to withdraw would help the Czechs to forget a lot of the unfortunate occurrences of the war. He planned to allow them to govern themselves, but would still keep a distant eye upon them. It wouldn’t do to have an English ally to their south. Their continued alignment with Germany was one of the non-negotiables.
“I had a couple of other items,” Ribbentrop said.
Schloss nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Churchill met with the American president in Canada over this past weekend, as we know. We expected major coverage in the English and American papers,
but that did not happen. The meetings were very quiet.”
“That is interesting,” Rainer said. “Normally the press gets all excited about things like that, and the governments in question like to promote their brotherly love.”
“True,” Ribbentrop said. “In this case we happened to have a source from the American Department of State sitting at the table.”
Canaris sat up straight. “Why was I not informed?”
“I only found out this morning, Herr Admiral.”
“Certainly, you knew before this morning that you had a source there.”
“Excuse me, Herr Admiral, but this information is kept very close.”
“I do not know how you can expect me to provide intelligence if I do not own the sources.”
“Enough,” Schloss said mildly. “If the foreign minister happened to develop a source in the Pentagon, I would have expected him to notify you. As it is, this source is within the diplomatic community, which is his bailiwick. I have no problem with compartmentalizing our intelligence sources. I think it helps to avoid compromising them. Surely you understand this, Admiral.”
And you really ought to know better, Schloss thought.
“Oh, very well,” Canaris said ungraciously. “What did you discover, Ribbentrop?”
“The Americans are cutting the English off from Lend-Lease in six months.”
Rainer whistled. “That has to hurt.”
“They will still allow the English to buy arms, but it is no longer gratis.”
“And the English treasury is not in great shape, either,” Rainer replied.
“I understand the meeting became lively,” Ribbentrop said. “Even Churchill lost his temper.”
“So President Wallace apparently does not like the English,” Schreiber said.
“Actually, he does not like colonialism and empires. Which means he does not care that much for us, either.”
“But he was desperate enough to buy those U-Boats from us,” Canaris said.
“True,” Schloss said. “But, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, we must consider how we can work this to our advantage.”
“If they go broke, maybe we can drive them to the table,” Ribbentrop said.
Schloss tapped his pencil on the table as the group debated. Finally, he spoke.
“I agree this presents an opportunity. Let’s be patient, here. Frankly, my goal is to continue to woo the Americans. As long as we behave ourselves in the Atlantic, I think they will ignore our activities in the Mediterranean. Besides, they are sympathetic to the Jews, which means they are supportive of our efforts in Palestine.”
He thought some more. “Very well, let us take no action on this as yet. I would like each of you to consider possible responses, including our doing nothing at all. At our next meeting, we can discuss this further. And you had one more item, Joachim?”
“I did. This is something we picked up out of Haifa. It appears that Begin has broken with Ben Gurion. I believe this will lead to some instability among the Jews.”
“Who do we have there?” Schloss asked.
Canaris shook his head. “This is Rainer’s area. My assets there are focused on the English.”
“Begin concerns us,” Rainer said. “Both he and Ben Gurion are strong nationalists. Their goal is to build a Jewish nation-state in the Middle East. But, Begin is almost rabidly so.”
“Do we need to remove him from the game?” Ribbentrop asked.
Schloss put down his pencil. “I do not think we need to kill more Jews. More particularly, the German government should not kill more Jews. We have a modicum of trust with the Jews in Palestine. They have provided us a bridgehead into the Middle East. I do not want to imperil our strategy.”
“If Begin starts killing large numbers of Moslems, will that not disturb our strategy?” Canaris asked.
Schloss picked up his pencil again, and begin tapping first one end and then the other. “We must be very careful here. The Jews are one of the keys to our getting access to more oil. I did not expect the Moslems to respond well to our repatriation of Jews to Palestine. So, there will be a certain amount of strife. What we cannot afford is a general war in the Middle East. We must work to discourage that. Once the English figure that out, we can expect them to do what they can to cause trouble. Canaris, you need to pay attention to that.”
“But what about Begin?” Ribbentrop asked.
Schloss rubbed his mouth and thought about that. “Gisela wants to honeymoon in the Alps. Suppose we arrange to travel on to Italy and greet Mussolini. Can we fly Ben Gurion to Italy so I can talk to him?”
“That might be an excellent idea,” Ribbentrop said. “A state visit to one of our first allies would pay dividends.”
“Willem,” Schloss said, “please begin working on this. Joachim can contact the Italians and solicit an invitation to visit. Rainer can make the arrangements with Ben Gurion.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
March 10, 1942; 12:30PM
Reichschancellor’s Private Dining Room
Reichschancellery
Berlin, Germany
“Darling, I spoke with Emmy this morning. She is very concerned about Hermann.”
Schloss looked up from his salad. “What is the problem?”
“She wouldn’t say, but I inferred his morphine problem is getting out of control.”
“Where is he staying at the moment?”
Gisela shook her head. “I did not think to ask. They have spent a lot of time in Carinhall recently.”
“I suppose I am going to have to go out there,” Schloss said. “This has been building up for a while. I think we are going to have to put him in the hospital.”
“And they are hosting the reception for our wedding,” she said.
“And the question is whether we can get him back on his feet by this Sunday.”
“He would be very disappointed to miss the wedding, Darling. You know how much he has been talking about it.”
“And his absence will complicate things.”
Whenever possible, Schloss took a private lunch with Gisela. With the wedding coming up on the fifteenth, she needed the time with him to review details of the ceremony and the reception. This was going to be a state wedding and therefore involved most of the branches of government. Schloss dreaded the level of pageantry this promised.
“Suppose we simply stop by the clerk’s office and swear the wedding license,” he said. “Then we can disappear somewhere.”
“You know why we have to do it this way,” she made the statement.
“Oh, yes. I just hate involving our relationship with the affairs of state. And this will be the event of the year for Berlin society.”
“And everyone will be asking about the Reichsmarshall.”
He leaned back in his chair so he could see the guard. “Alden, find out where the Reichsmarshall is at the moment and start putting together a team. I am going to have to go see him this afternoon. I would suggest a Luftwaffe flight surgeon and nursing team.”
“At once, Herr Reichschancellor.”
Schlempke stepped out of the room. Another guard quietly slipped into his place, and stood along the wall.
“What if he resists your suggestions?” Gisela asked.
“Well, Schatzi, I will have to be convincing. Failing that, I plan to have sufficient help on hand to accomplish what we need.”
“This is going to be messy, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I hope not. With Emmy there, and their daughter, I do not want to stir things up any more than absolutely necessary.”
“I feel so badly for Emmy. And Edda is getting old enough to realize something is wrong.”
“Yes, but we are going to have to catch this before the situation is irretrievable. We can issue a public statement that the Reichsmarshall is ill and not give details. People can think it is a bad cold or something.” He slid his salad plate away. “One thing we cannot allow is the p
erception that we have a senior member of the government who is a drug addict.”
She looked around and no one else was in the dining room at that moment, other than the guard. She leaned over to Schloss.
“Are you going to have to kill him?” she asked quietly.
“We are a long way from that, My Dear. He has been a little more erratic than usual, but he seems to have the sense to disappear when he starts losing control.”
“What will happen to him?”
“If we can get him into a hospital, then we have an opportunity to wean him off the drugs. It will be unpleasant, but controllable.”
“Do you believe you will be able to do that, Hennie?”
Schloss shook his head. He looked up as the steward slid the plate with prime rib in front of him. He murmured thanks to the steward.
“I do not think I would consider him a good man,” Gisela said. “He is weak.”
“That’s it exactly,” he replied. “But he is able to be led. Otherwise, he probably would not survive.”
“So, will we be successful in helping him?” she asked.
They both looked up when Schlempke stepped back into the dining room.
“I am not optimistic,” Schloss said.
“The Reichsmarshall is at Carinhall, Herr Reichschancellor. I have made arrangements for the trip.”
Schloss nodded. “Thank you, Alden. After lunch, you and I can get with Kirche and figure out the best time to go.”
The prime rib was magnificent, Schloss thought as looked down at his now empty plate. I am having to begin paying attention to my weight. I have never eaten this well in my life. I do not want to begin to resemble Hermann.
“This is very good today,” Gisela said. “Is Frau Marsden in the kitchen again?”
Schloss laughed. “You know, I think she probably is. The chef is too terrified of her to be properly resentful. Willem mentioned that he admitted learning a thing or two from her.”
“Her cooking is just magical. I do not know how she does it. I spent some time in the kitchen with her at the Charlottenburg house, and I honestly saw nothing that explains it.”