Blood of the Reich

5

Wewelsburg Castle, Germany

March 30, 1938

T wo hundred miles west of Berlin, in the Westphalian countryside not far from where Arminius had destroyed Varus’s Roman legions in A.D. 9, a triangular sixteenth-century castle crowned a rocky outcrop above the village of Wewelsburg. The triangle’s apex pointed, with less deviation than a compass needle, to true north.

“The Reichsfuhrer ’s Camelot,” said the SS pilot who’d flown Raeder from Berlin. Bruno Halder banked the light civilian Messerschmitt and circled to give the zoologist a view. “Its reconstruction is far from complete, but there are plans the castle will be the tip of a spear-shaped complex of modern buildings. A ceremonial avenue will provide the lance’s shaft. The Spear of Destiny, inspired by the legendary lance that pierced Christ. The village will have to be relocated, of course.”

“I’d not heard of this.”

“The Reichsfuhrer is not a show-off like Goring.” Halder made the disparagement casually, secure in his own SS rank, and aimed for a nearby airfield as they dropped steeply. “Himmler’s mission is veiled. No air shows, no medals. But he’s far more visionary. A romantic, actually. Below you, Raeder, is the place that will someday be known as the birthplace of modern man.”

“What does that mean?”

“Its Aryan future. And a crypt for its leaders. Camelot, as I said.”

“Beautiful,” Raeder said politely, confused but still flattered to be flying-a first-and enjoying the vista over the greening countryside. “Almost too beautiful for the Schutzstaffel.”

“It has its own austerity, as you’ll see. The castle even has a Hexenkeller, a witches’ cellar. They burned more than fifty witches down there in the seventeenth century. Not so long ago, really.” He cut the power and the plane bounced as it landed.

It was dusk when a staff car delivered them to the castle gate. The village of Wewelsburg was subdued, its streets empty, house lights veiled behind lace curtains. Raeder sensed people peeking at them as they drove past. When they got out of the auto at the ramp across a dry moat, the only sound was of jackdaws crowing. Then German shepherd guard dogs on chains sent up cacophonous barking, their teeth phosphorescent in the gloom.

The gate wood was blond, varnished, and obviously new, carved with swastikas and the twin lightning-bolt runes of the SS. Sentries stood like statues and torches burned like a medieval dream. It was a Renaissance castle, meaning broad glass windows instead of narrow arrow slits, but most were dark. There were towers at the three corners, the southern ones domed with roofs like a homburg hat. After scrutiny by the guards, Raeder and Halder were ushered inside.

The courtyard was curiously claustrophobic, a narrow triangle with walls as sheer inside as out. At the northern apex, a fat round tower with flat roof was surrounded by scaffolding. There were lumber, planks, piles of stones, and bags of mortar.

“Modernized?” Raeder asked.

“Reimagined. The Reichsfuhrer has selected it as a spiritual home for our order. A labor camp is being constructed to implement his visionary plan. Slaves have been screened to find the best craftsmen. Wewelsburg will be a capital, a Vatican, for the SS. This will be a center of scholarship for inquiries into the origins of the Germanic people and the Aryan race. There will be a planetarium at the crown of the North Tower and a crypt for Reich leadership in its cellar. Reichsfuhrer Himmler sees across centuries, Raeder. He’s a prophet.”

“It is our Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, who is the prophet.”

The correction was mild, professorial, but spoken with authority. They snapped to attention and wheeled. There was Himmler studying his own creation, dressed in military greatcoat, jodhpurs, and boots. He stood very straight. Since the interview in Berlin, Raeder had read about his superior. At Hitler’s failed 1923 putsch, Himmler had carried the staff of the Imperial Eagle as proudly as a schoolboy.

“And I am the mystic scholar, the Merlin, of my brotherhood of knights,” Himmler went on. “Our Fuhrer does not share all my intellectual interests; he is a politician, a man who must wrestle with the practical and immediate. But he allows me the indulgence, the luxury, of exploring the distant past and possible future. I’m fortunate to have such a patron, am I not, Professor Raeder?”

“As are we all, Reichsfuhrer.”

Himmler nodded. “We live in the presence of a great man. A very great man.” The spectacles caught the dim light so that Raeder once again couldn’t see the Reichsfuhrer ’s eyes, but only hear his tone of worship. The fervor, of one powerful man for another, surprised him. He’d expect more jealousy, more doubt, but no. The zoologist was silent, not knowing what to say.

“Well,” Himmler finally went on. “Thank you for visiting me in my castle.”

“The honor is of course mine.”

“I do not invite everyone-this is a quiet place, a secret place, until I finish it-but I’m intrigued by Tibet, Untersturmfuhrer. Intrigued by what such a mysterious country might tell us. Will you join me in my study?”

“Reichsfuhrer, I am bewildered by your hospitality.”

Himmler smiled at the confession. “I look for men who can serve. Men who have a need to serve.” Once more his gaze was intense, and Raeder felt it probing the recesses of his soul. The zoologist hoped his life was about to be given meaning. And, with it, salvation.

“Halder, thank you for bringing my guest. They are expecting you in the dining room.” The dismissal of the pilot was plain. Halder betrayed a flicker of disappointment, clicked his heels, and left.

Then the Reichsfuhrer became a temporary tour guide as he led the way, explaining how a wreck of a castle was being transformed into a showcase of German craftsmanship. “There’s been a fort on this outcrop for eons, but the present castle was built between 1603 and 1609. It was bombarded in the Thirty Years War.”

“And witches in the cellar?”

“Ah, your pilot shared the folklore. Don’t worry, they don’t haunt the place. No more than any other vermin that is eradicated.”

There was an exquisite spiral staircase, a reference library, dining rooms and canteens, and carvings that included runes and swastika-centered sun wheels, all of it a display of Teutonic carpentry. “The North Tower will have a shamanic sun wheel inlaid into its floor, and a roundtable for the twelve primary leaders of our order,” the Reichsfuhrer said. “My architects joke with me about King Arthur, but I am not joking. I think the modern world would benefit from some of the ceremonies of the past. In the East they believe in reincarnation, do they not, Raeder?”

“Most certainly, Reichsfuhrer. Life in Tibet revolves around the next life.”

“I believe it, too. I believe I’m the reincarnation of King Henry the Fowler, who fought the invading Magyars from the East a thousand years ago. Does that strike you as odd?”

“It would not surprise a Buddhist.”

Himmler gave a glance to show he’d not missed that Raeder had swerved from the question. “But I believe in focusing on this life. We’re reincarnated to fulfill a purpose. Come to my study where we can speak alone.”

That room was in the West Tower and thus circular, and had a stone fireplace, bearskin rug, and wooden furniture. The walls were mostly bare, showing the same austerity that had been present in Himmler’s office in Berlin. Despite his rehearsed warmth and nostalgic architecture, there was a vacuum to the man’s surroundings. Lending the only color was a bowl of fruit.

The Reichsfuhrer invited his guest to sit and took a chair opposite. Both seats were high-backed, straight, and rather uncomfortable. SS lightning bolts had been stamped into the leather.

“Now, Raeder, you’re familiar with the Ahnenerbe?”

“The SS research division.”

“I’m sending missions all over the globe to investigate intriguing theories about the origins of our race. Iceland. Peru. National Socialism believes in drawing logical conclusions from modern science, as I told you-even if the conclusions are uncomfortable. We do not fear the truth. But we believe the German people are descended from a root, master race and that these Aryans-us, Raeder-represent the best hope of the future evolution of humankind. Do you agree?”

“So teaches the SS.”

“So teaches common sense. Do you know where mankind went wrong, Untersturmfuhrer?”

Raeder was laboring again not to say the wrong thing. “Well, the Bible suggests Eve’s apple.” He meant it as a joke.

But Himmler remained deadly serious. He took from his belt an SS dagger, gleaming in the candlelight. The edge was feathered from repeated sharpening, and it glinted in the light. The Reichsfuhrer took an apple from the bowl of fruit and sliced it neatly in two, but instead of cutting from top to bottom, he cut horizontally. When the apple was opened, each face had a pattern around the core that made a star. “Yes, the apple. Do you know what it represents?”

Raeder was silent, baffled by what he was supposed to see.

“It’s the five-pointed Aryan star, the pentagram, Lucifer’s star that traces the path of Venus. Not the six-pointed star of Jewish corruption. And so the apple represents knowledge. The secret powers that unify the universe. Here we see the celestial in lowly fruit. All is one.” His head bobbed to confirm his own statement. “The Jews don’t want us to know. That’s why they wrote that fairy story about Eden.”

“Know what?”

“It wasn’t Eve who led us astray, Raeder. It was, and is, the Jew. They invented a monstrous idea that goes against all natural law and reason. Do you know how they confused the world and distorted civilization?”

Raeder tried to remember if SS lectures had covered this. “By usury?”

“They invented meekness!” Himmler’s voice crackled with scorn. “Here is Moses coming down from the mountain, and what does he proclaim? Thou shalt not kill? Raeder, killing is the most fundamental truth of our planet! Everything kills everything, to survive, as the strong get stronger. Struggle, ceaseless struggle. Thou shalt not steal? Nonsense. So the weak can hold on to resources they make no use of? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife? Bah. So the strong are limited in how they breed? The Jew invented a coda to weaken our species. And then the worst Jew, Jesus, took it a step further and preached that the meek shall inherit the earth. What a perversion of everyday experience. Why is this, Raeder? Why would the Jew tell such lies?”

“To preserve order?”

“No!” Himmler’s palm slammed down on the fruit table, the apple halves jumping. “To weaken everyone who believed them. To weaken us, the Aryan, so that Jewry can control the world. Lies to blind and bind us, Raeder. Lies to make us forget the power that our Aryan ancestors once had. But now we are awakening from our long sleep. Now we are shaking off the Jewish hypnosis. We are remembering that strength by right should triumph, and that our ancestors had powers we can scarcely dream. What if such powers could be discovered? What if they have been buried in the most secret place in the world?”

“You mean Tibet.”

“When a race becomes diluted, when it becomes polluted with miscegenation with the Jew or the Negro or the Asiatic or the feebleminded or the crippled, it weakens and devolves. It begins to slip into primitivism. But when the Aryan becomes purified, when the very best of the best breed with each other… well. Evolution goes in the other direction, led by what Nietzsche called the Superman. That is what Nazism is all about, Raeder. This will be our gift to our descendants. It is this, not war and monuments, that will make us immortal to history.”

“But how, Reichsfuhrer?”

“By expelling the Jew, of course. By sterilizing the feeble. By annihilating the deviants. By segregating the races. By encouraging the best stock to bear children. By seizing what the strong deserve, be it land or women. It’s no different from weeding and breeding on the farm.”

“The work of centuries.”

“Perhaps the work can be accelerated.” Himmler’s expression was opaque.

Raeder decided not to know too much. “But what has this to do with Tibet?”

“Our ancient ancestors wandered widely. The high Tibetans have some of our noble bone structure, and there are theories that they are direct descendants-our natural cousins, if you will. Yet how to establish this? They forbid visits to their capital. The selfish British have a small mission, forced on Tibet by invasion in 1904, but otherwise that country is the most secret place in the world. It’s a theocracy, ruled by a god-king lama and his temporary regent, with authority more absolute than any pope. There men live for their next life, not this one. And yet not all men, perhaps. There are legends of earlier Aryans who discovered powers since entirely forgotten-powers that could decide the fate of the world in any coming war.”

“Powers in Tibet? Its wilderness seemed a backward place, Reichsfuhrer. They hardly use the wheel. Only the monks are literate.”

Himmler stood and restlessly moved to the fireplace. It was old, carved with Christian allegories, including one that looked like Cain smiting Abel.

“Powers that could make us gods in our own time. Herr Raeder, have you ever heard of Vril?”

“No, Reichsfuhrer.”

“I’m going to tell you a secret story. And then you’re going to tell your men.”

“My men?”

“I’m sending knights-errant with you.” He ran his hand over the carvings on the mantel. “You know of Frederick Barbarossa, unifier of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor, hero of the Crusades?”

“Every German schoolboy admires Barbarossa and his wife, Beatrix.”

“He was charismatic, brave, visionary, and scholarly. A tragedy that he drowned during the Third Crusade when he was at the height of his powers. His army crumbled at his death, in 1190.”

“He was buried in the Middle East, was he not?”

“Someone was buried there. Legends surround Barbarossa. That he sought the legendary kingdom of Prester John somewhere in the East. That he sleeps, undead, in a mountain in Germany and will emerge to restore the Fatherland to its former greatness. Some have even whispered our Fuhrer is his reincarnation. History records that the body of a man of Frederick’s age was found in his armor after being swept away in a river. But what if Barbarossa did not die, but escaped?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What if he set out alone to seek Prester John? And what if the legend of that mythical Christian kingdom was confused and combined with one about the ancient Tibetan kingdom of Shambhala? What if, Raeder, Barbarossa found Tibet?”

“Surely that’s impossible. Tibet is difficult enough to reach today. In the twelfth century, all of Islam barred the way. Deserts, mountains, wild animals, savage tribes…”

“Since our Fuhrer became chancellor of Germany, the Nazi Party has gained access to historical records and artifacts we’ve sought since our beginning. We’ve become students of legend. We’re privy to medieval secrets kept by the Catholic Church. I’ve become a scholar of possibility.”

“You really believe Frederick Barbarossa reached Tibet?”

“I do not believe anything, but one thing I know. In the cathedral of Aachen, ancient seat of German emperors, was stored a curious relic. Church records show it came into the cathedral’s possession some years after Frederick’s death.” Himmler reached inside his tunic and drew out a sealed silver tube about the size of a rifle shell. It hung from a silver chain. “This is reputed to be the blood of Barbarossa, one of the most priceless relics of German history. Hold it, Raeder.”

“I hardly dare, Reichsfuhrer,” he said, taking the vial gingerly. “This is a great honor.” Do religious relics have any foundation in fact? He looked at it. “Sealed since medieval times?”

Himmler was watching him gravely. “Yes.”

“I’d not heard of this blood vial.”

“No, it’s been a closely guarded secret.”

Raeder held it out. “Please take it back before I drop it.”

“On the contrary, Untersturmfuhrer, you’re about to wear it across the most difficult terrain on earth. It’s a very sturdy container, and you’ll wear it on that chain, next to your heart.”

Raeder stared at the vial. “Why?”

“Because the name of that artifact, for more than seven hundred years, has been ‘The Shambhala Key.’ By legend, it is the vital blood needed to open the gates of the secret city of Shambhala. It is the blood of the worthy, to inherit the terrible powers that lie within. And it is that power that would mark the real return of the spirit of Frederick Barbarossa.”