His application for an SS commission was quickly approved, and within a year he had been promoted to Hauptsturmführer (captain). He was promoted to Sturmbannführer (major) two years after that—much sooner than he would have received the equivalent promotion in the Wehrmacht.
At the time of his promotion, von Deitzberg had been stationed in Munich, which exercised administrative authority over, among other things, the concentration camp at Dachau. His superior staff work in this position brought him to the attention of Brigadeführer Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s adjutant.
Like von Deitzburg, Heydrich had been a professional officer (in the Navy, in his case). But for Heydrich it wasn’t problems with making ends meet that sent him into the SS. Rather, he had been forced to resign his naval commission because of an unfortunate affair with a woman. His military experience still left him convinced—with von Deitzberg—that you can’t make good officers just by pinning rank insignia on them.
Heydrich had von Deitzberg assigned to his office in Berlin, and there they became friends.
This turned out to be a mixed blessing. Heydrich liked fast cars, fast women, and good food. The SS provided his Mercedes, and the fast women were free, but usually only after they’d been wined and dined at Berlin’s better restaurants, where Heydrich was seldom presented with a check. Since von Deitzberg did not enjoy Heydrich’s celebrity, waiters and bartenders were not at all reluctant to hand the checks to him.
In August 1941, in the Reichschancellery, Hitler had personally promoted Heydrich to Gruppenführer (Major General) and von Deitzberg—newly appointed as First Deputy Adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler—to Obersturmbannführer.
After a good deal of Champagne at the promotion party at the Hotel Adlon, von Deitzberg confided to Heydrich that, although the promotion was satisfying for a number of reasons, it was most satisfying because he needed the money.
Two days later, Heydrich handed him an envelope containing a great deal of cash.
“Consider this a confidential allowance,” Heydrich said. “Spend it as you need to. It doesn’t have to be accounted for. It comes from a confidential special fund.”
With his new position as First Deputy Adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler came other perquisites, including a deputy. Heydrich sent him—“for your approval; if you don’t get along, I’ll send you somebody else”—Obersturmführer Erich Raschner, whom Heydrich identified as intelligent and trustworthy. And, who “having never served in either the Waffen-SS,” he went on, “or the Wehrmacht, has been taught to respect those of his superiors who have.”
Raschner turned out to be a short, squat, phlegmatic Hessian, three years older than von Deitzberg. He had come into the SS as a policeman, but a policeman with an unusual background.
For one thing, he had originally been commissioned into the Allgemeine-SS, which dealt mainly with internal security and racial matters, rather than the Waffen-SS. Later, he had been transferred to the Sicherheitspolizei, the Security Police, called the Sipo, of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA (Reich Security Central Office).
Early on in his time with von Deitzberg, Raschner made it clear that as von Deitzberg was judging him for a long-term relationship, Raschner was doing the same thing. Von Deitzberg understood that to mean that it was important to Heydrich for them to get along.
Two weeks later, Heydrich asked von Deitzberg for an opinion of Raschner, and von Deitzberg gave him the answer he thought he wanted: They got along personally, and Raschner would bring to the job knowledge of police and internal security matters that von Deitzberg admitted he did not have.
“Good,” Heydrich said with a smile. “He likes you, too. We’ll make it permanent. And tonight we’ll celebrate. Come by the house at, say, half past seven.”
At half past seven, they opened a very nice bottle of Courvoisier cognac, toasted the new relationship, and then Heydrich matter-of-factly explained its nature.
“One of the things I admire in you, Manfred,” Heydrich said, “is that you can get things done administratively.”
“Thank you.”
“And Erich, on the other hand, can get done whatever needs to be done without any record being kept. Do you follow me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The confidential special fund is what I’m leading up to,” Heydrich said. “I’m sure that aroused your curiosity, Manfred?”
“Yes, it did.”
“What no longer appears on Erich’s service record is that he served with the Totenkopfverbände,” Heydrich said. The Death’s-Head—Skull—Battalions were charged with the administration of concentration camps.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You told me a while ago you were having a little trouble keeping your financial head above water. A lot of us have that problem. We work hard, right? We should play hard, right? And to do that, you need the wherewithal, right?”
“Yes, Sir,” von Deitzberg said, smiling.
“Has the real purpose of the concentration camps ever occurred to you, Manfred?”
“You’re talking about the Final Solution?”
“In a sense. The Führer correctly believes that the Jews are a cancer on Germany, and that we have to remove that cancer. You understand that, of course?”
“Of course.”
“The important thing is to take them out of the German society. In some instances, we can make them contribute to Germany with their labor. You remember what it says over the gate at Dachau?”
“‘Arbeit macht frei’?”
“Yes. But if the parasites can’t work, can’t be forced to make some repayment for all they have stolen from Germany over the years, then something else has to be done with them. Right?”
“I understand.”
“Elimination is one option,” Heydrich said. “But if you think about it, realize that the basic objective is to get these parasites out of Germany, elimination is not the only option.”
“I don’t think I quite understand,” von Deitzberg confessed.
“Put very simply, there are Jews outside of Germany who are willing to pay generously to have their relatives and friends removed from the concentration camps,” Heydrich said.
“Really?”
“When it first came to my attention, I was tempted to dismiss this possibility out of hand,” Heydrich said. “But then I gave it some thought. For one thing, it accomplishes the Führer’s primary purpose—removing these parasitic vermin from the Fatherland. It does National Socialism no harm if vermin that cost us good money to feed and house leave Germany and never return.”
“I can see your point.”
“And at the same time, it takes money from Jews outside Germany and transfers it to Germany. So there is also an element of justice. They are not getting away free after sucking our blood all these years.”
“I understand.”
“In other words, if we can further the Führer’s intention to get Jews out of Germany, and at the same time bring Jewish money into Germany, and at the same time make a little money for ourselves, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing that I can see.”
“This has to be done in absolute secrecy, of course. A number of people would not understand, and an even larger number would feel they have a right to share in the confidential special fund. You can understand that.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Raschner will get into the details with you,” Heydrich went on. “But essentially, you will do what I’ve been doing myself. Inmates are routinely transferred from one concentration camp to another. And, routinely, while the inmates are en route, members of the Totenkopfverbände remove two, three, or four of them from the transport. For purposes of further interrogation and the like. Having been told the inmates have been removed by the Totenkopfverbände, the receiving cam
p has no further interest in them. The inmates who have been removed from the transport are then provided with Spanish passports, and taken by Gestapo escorts to the Spanish border. Once in Spain, they make their way to Cadiz or some other port and board neutral ships. A month later, they’re in Uruguay.”
“Uruguay?” von Deitzberg blurted in surprise. It had taken him a moment to place Uruguay, and even then, all he could come up with was that it was close to Argentina, somewhere in the south of the South American continent.
“Some stay there,” Heydrich said matter-of-factly, “but many go on to Argentina.”
“I see,” von Deitzberg said.
“Documents issued by my office are of course never questioned,” Heydrich went on, “and Raschner will tell you what documents are necessary. You will also administer dispersals from the confidential special fund. Raschner will tell you how much, to whom, and when.”
“I understand.”
“We have one immediate problem,” Heydrich said. “And then we’ll have another little sip of this splendid brandy and go see what we can find for dinner.”
“An immediate problem?”
“We need one more man here in Berlin,” Heydrich said. “Someone who will understand the situation, and who can be trusted. I want you to recruit him yourself. Can you think of anyone?”
That had posed no problem for von Deitzberg.
“Josef Goltz,” he said immediately. “Obersturmbannführer Goltz.”
Heydrich made a “give me more” sign with his hands.
“He’s the SS-SD liaison officer to the Office of the Party Chancellery.”
Heydrich laughed. “Great minds run in similar channels,” he said. “That’s the answer I got when I asked Raschner for ideas. Why don’t the two of you talk to him together?”
In addition to his other duties, Heydrich had been named “Protector of Czechoslovakia.” On May 31, 1942, he was fatally wounded when Czech agents of the British threw a bomb into his car in Prague.
Before leaving Berlin to personally supervise the retribution to be visited upon the Czechs for Heydrich’s murder, Himmler called von Deitzberg into his office to tell him how much he would have to rely on him until a suitable replacement for the martyred Heydrich could be found.
Meanwhile, von Deitzberg was faced with a serious problem. With Heydrich’s death, he had become the senior officer involved with the confidential fund and the source of its money, and he had never learned from Heydrich how much Himmler knew about it.
He quickly and carefully checked the records of dispersal of money, but found no record that Himmler had ever received money from it.
It was, of course, possible that the enormous disbursements to Heydrich had included money that Heydrich had quietly slipped to Himmler; that way there would be no record of Himmler’s involvement.
Three months later, however, after Himmler had asked neither for money nor information about the status of the confidential fund, von Deitzberg was forced to conclude not only that Himmler knew nothing about it but that Heydrich had gone to great lengths to conceal it from the Reichsprotektor.
It was entirely possible, therefore, that Himmler would be furious if he learned now about the confidential fund. The Reichsprotektor had a puritanical streak, and he might consider that Heydrich had actually been stealing from the Reich, and that von Deitzberg had been involved in the theft up to his neck.
When von Deitzberg brought the subject up to Raschner, Raschner advised that as far as he himself knew, Himmler either didn’t know about the fund—or didn’t want to know about it. Thus, an approach to him now might see everyone connected with it stood before a wall and shot.
They had no choice, Raschner concluded, but to go on as they had…but taking even greater care to make sure the ransoming operation remained secret.
No one was ever found to replace Heydrich as Himmler’s adjutant.
In von Deitzberg’s view, Himmler was unwilling to bring a stranger, so to speak, into the office of the Reichsführer-SS. And besides, he didn’t have to, since von Deitzberg was obviously capable of taking over for Heydrich. It would have been additionally very difficult to keep Heydrich’s replacement from learning about the confidential fund.
The thing to do now was make sure that no one was brought in. In what he thought was a fine example of thinking under pressure, von Deitzberg had never mentioned that he, a relatively lowly Obersturmbannführer, had been placed in the shoes of a Gruppenführer, which was of course a fitting rank for the Adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS.
Von Deitzberg recognized that when Himmler considered this disparity, he would conclude that anyone privileged to be of such high-level service to himself should be at least a Standartenführer (colonel)—a promotion for which von Deitzberg was eligible—and that he would in fact be promoted long before he would otherwise have a chance to be.
A week later, Himmler took him to the Reichschancellery, where a beaming, cordial Adolf Hitler personally promoted him not to Gruppenführer but to Oberführer, one grade higher, and warmly thanked him for his services to the SS and himself personally.
The risk of someone new coming into the Office of the Reichsprotektor and learning about the confidential fund seemed to be over.
Von Deitzberg immediately arranged for Goltz to be promoted to Sturmbannführer, Raschner to Hauptsturmführer and, six months after that, to Sturmbannführer. During that period, Goltz recruited a man—Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck—to be sent to Montevideo, Uruguay, ostensibly as the Embassy security officer, but actually to handle the affairs of the ransoming operation.
Later, when Operation Phoenix was put in motion, von Deitzberg had recommended Standartenführer Goltz as the man to set up and run the project in Argentina. This would also put him in a position to handle the South American end of the confidential fund. For several reasons, he was more capable, and more reliable, than von Tresmarck.
If Goltz did as well as von Deitzberg expected, his promotion to Oberführer could be arranged; and if that happened, he could subtly remind Himmler that his own promotion to Brigadeführer would be appropriate.
In that event, the risk of Himmler finding out about the confidential fund would have been even further reduced.
But that hadn’t happened. Goltz was now dead, and there was a real possibility that when von Tresmarck was questioned, he would blurt out everything he knew about the confidential fund to save his own skin.
And who, von Deitzberg wondered, is going to fill in for him while he is gone? One of his men? Or someone who will eagerly try to fill the vacuum? And might that man come across a clue that would lead him to the confidential fund?
“I’m going to miss you in the office, Manfred,” Himmler said as the Mercedes rolled down the Kurfürstendamm.
“I will do my best to see that you are properly served in my absence, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“But I think you and Raschner are the right team to send over to get to the bottom of this.”
“I will do my best, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“My feeling, Manfred, is that there are three possibilities.”
“Which are, Herr Reichsprotektor?”
“One, someone has betrayed us. Two, Canaris is right, and the Argentine army is responsible for the murders of Goltz and Grüner. And three, that the American OSS is involved.”
“I agree, Sir.”
“But the most important thing for you to find out is how much the Argentines and the Americans know about Operation Phoenix—and I hope they know nothing. Operation Phoenix is the priority, Manfred. That must go forward!”
“I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“To that end—if I have to say this—you have my authority to do whatever you think is necessary.”
“I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor. I am honore
d by your trust.”
“Whatever is necessary, Manfred.”
“Jawohl, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
III
[ONE]
Office of the Director, Abwehr Intelligence
Berlin
0930 28 April 1943
“Korvettenkapitän Boltitz, Herr Admiral,” Admiral Wilhelm Canaris’s aide announced.
Canaris looked up from the work on his desk and saw the two young naval officers standing in his open door. He didn’t reply, but made three gestures. First, with his index finger he beckoned Boltitz into the office; then he signaled him to close the door; and lastly he pointed to a chair placed squarely in front of his desk.
After that, he returned his attention to the report on his desk; he didn’t look up again for five minutes.
When he had finished reading, he raised his eyes toward the ceiling. After a moment he nodded his head, as if in agreement with something, exhaled audibly, lowered his eyes to the desk, reached out for a pen, and wrote something quickly on the report before him.
A moment later, his aide-de-camp opened the door to his office.
There’s probably a button on the floor, Boltitz thought.
Canaris again signaled three times with his hand without speaking. He motioned the aide into the office, pointed to the report, which the aide came and took, and gestured a final time for the aide to close the door.
Then he looked at Boltitz, who started to raise himself from the chair.
Canaris held out his hand to signal him to remain seated. Boltitz sat back down.
Canaris almost visibly gathered his thoughts.
“There is always difficulty, Boltitz, when gathering intelligence that interests more than one agency; it becomes a question of priorities. Agency A, for its own reasons, is very interested to learn facts that are of little—sometimes no—interest whatever to Agency B, which, for its own reasons, is interested to learn a set of entirely different facts. I’m sure you’re aware of this.”
Secret Honor Page 7