XPD

11

On the Ventura side of the county line, tucked between the mountains and the freeway, Westlake is a ‘planned community’ landscaped tastefully round a man-made lake. It is replete with countless pools and Jacuzzis, tennis courts and stables, and there is a country club where, from the large picture windows of the restaurant, members fresh from the whirlpool baths can look across the tops of their cocktails and anticipate with satisfaction the completion of the second eighteen-hole golf course.

Max Breslow turned off the Ventura Freeway at the Westlake intersection. He turned into the shopping mall’s huge parking lot, passed the realtors, Swensen’s ice cream, Joe’s Photo and the hairdressers. He noted his wife’s yellow Chevette and the ‘Small is beautiful’ bumper sticker outside the supermarket and parked his Mercedes 450 SEL outside Wally’s Delicatessen.

‘Good evening, Mr Breslow,’ said the manager.

‘Good evening, Wally,’ he replied, accepting the common fiction that the manager was the proprietor.

‘Your order is just about ready to go. Can I fix you a drink while it’s packed?’

‘The usual, Wally.’

‘A bloody mary with all the fixings coming up, sir.’

Max Breslow noted with approval that the manager must have had a cold can of tomato juice ready and waiting for him, for the drink arrived almost as soon as he had ordered it. He sipped it while the manager waited for his reaction.

‘Excellent,’ said Breslow. The manager smiled and moved away to get the pickled herring and Westphalian ham which had been ordered on the phone, Breslow realized that he had been manipulated into having a drink. The food was probably not even prepared yet, but he didn’t mind that at all. He was always happy that men-and women too-should find him easy to manipulate, for in that way he was able to read their motives more easily and retain for himself the final control over any situation. That was the relationship he had contrived with Charles Stein. If that fat fellow thought that he was exploiting Max Breslow, well and good. Max would not wish to deprive Stein of that satisfaction. Even years later, long after this delicate business was settled, Max Breslow would allow Stein to brag and bluster about the Hitler Minutes, should he wish to do so. Max would be happy to go to his grave with his share of the secrets. But Kleiber was different. Breslow had the uncomfortable feeling that nowadays Kleiber had gained control.

‘Hello, darling.’

Max looked up and smiled. His wife had changed her hair style and he knew it was important that he comment upon it. ‘You look wonderful, my dear,’ he said. The Italian silk jacket and the matching skirt were cut in a design exported only to the USA. Her afternoon at the beauty salon, the faint tint in her hair, the professionally applied rouge and eye shadow, the bright scarf at her neck, all provided her with that healthy outdoor look which made Californian women so attractive to him, and made her look so much younger than her true age.

And Marie-Louise had adapted to this part of the world with a zeal that still surprised her husband; she went to classes in Japanese flower arrangement and low-calorie Mexican cooking, and even played sitar music on the quadrophonic hi-fi. And yet, despite all her time in America, Marie-Louise had not been able to eliminate from her speech the traces of her Berlin upbringing. Max Breslow dismissed it from his mind and gave his wife a decorous kiss that did not smudge her make-up. She would, he thought resignedly, say ‘darlink’ for the rest of his life, and for the rest of her own life too, probably.

‘You haven’t forgotten that we have visitors for dinner?’ she reminded him.

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he said. He had been thinking of this man Boyd Stuart while driving home through the canyon. Willi Kleiber, who knew much more about such things, guessed that Stuart must be an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service. It would be an interesting evening, thought Breslow. Stuart’s organization was one which Max Breslow held in high esteem.

Marie sat down beside her husband but would not have a drink. She was still trying to lose another five pounds. It was absurd that she should wait for him, since they would both have to go home in their separate cars, but she preferred to do so. The manager brought the ham and herring wrapped in heavy moistureproof paper bearing the name ‘Wally’s Deli’ and a card that said, ‘We are sorry you cannot join us but please call again soon-Wally.’

Max toyed with the parcels. He was pleased that his wife had asked him to get these items. He had worried lest once again the meal was going to be vichyssoise followed by quenelles, purged vegetables and a Bavarian cream. And his wife was not the only one obsessed with these new food-processing machines. Nearly every dinner party they went to nowadays served machine-mashed baby food. Max detested it.

‘Will you write the name cards, Max darling? I always get the spellings wrong.’

‘And what line of business are you in, Mr Stuart?’

Boyd Stuart was sitting next to his hostess but Max Breslow interrupted a conversation about the gasoline shortage to answer down the length of the table, ‘Mr Stuart is considering putting some of his company’s money into a film I’m making.’

There was a silence and then Marie Breslow offered second helpings of her lemon mousse round the table. Max Breslow’s response was a fixed smile of displeasure. Sometimes he wondered whether his wife enjoyed provoking him.

‘Mr Stein was actually there,’ announced Max Breslow suddenly in the silence. He nodded to where Charles Stein was upending a large cut-glass bowl of mousse and scraping the last of it on to his plate.

‘Actually where?’ said the bearded man sitting opposite Stuart. He was a psychiatrist who lived-together with his wife, who taught the art of relaxing to east Los Angeles delinquents-in a split-level town house almost next door to the Breslows.

‘Merkers, Thuringia… a place in Germany. I’m making a film about it.’

‘Oh, that place,’ said the bearded man. ‘Would you think me rude if I poured myself a little more of that German wine? You must be the last people in Westlake holding out against the Californian whites.’

Max Breslow smiled but made no comment.

Stuart said, ‘I’m interested to hear that you were at Merkers, Mr Stein. Did you go into the mine itself?’

‘The place where the treasure was found,’ explained Mrs Breslow to the psychiatrist’s wife.

‘Can’t say I did,’ said Stein. ‘More’s the pity. I would have liked to get my hands on some of that stuff they found in there.’

Charles Stein was too large for the delicate little dining chairs, too large in fact for the dining room with its frail antique dresser and tiny side tables. He sat with his belly resting against the table edge, having finished a large second portion of lemon mousse after emptying the final dregs of the cream jug on to it. Now he had turned his attention to the basket of dark bread and biscuits which accompanied the cheese platter. He selected a slice of pumpernickel and spread it with butter before biting a corner from it.

‘Mr Stein was a friend of the man who first wrote the story,’ explained Max Breslow. ‘He’s going to be a wonderful help to the scriptwriter.’

‘Chuck,’ said Stein. ‘Everyone calls me Chuck.’ He rocked back on the rear legs of the antique dining-room chair. Mrs Breslow watched in open-mouthed horror.

‘You were there?’ persisted Stuart.

‘I was with a quartermaster trucking battalion,’ said Stein. Leaning forward with his knife poised, he chopped a segment of Camembert cheese and popped it into his mouth. ‘Our people moved some of the stuff out of the mine.’ His words were distorted by the cheese in his mouth.

‘Have you been able to contact many people who were there?’ Stuart asked Max Breslow.

‘There are not so many of them left,’ said Breslow. ‘It’s a long time ago and men have died, are sick, have forgotten or wish to forget.’

‘Is it so long?’ said Stuart.

‘Most of the soldiers involved were rear-echelon personnel,’ said Stein, struggling to cut through the rind of the Stilton. ‘The fighting troops were youngsters and in peak physical condition, but the average age of the men in the support units was much higher, and we got the physical rejects too.’

‘From what I heard,’ said Stuart, ‘there was not only gold in the mine. There were paintings, rare books and secret documents too.’

Stein pushed the rest of the cheese and pumpernickel into his mouth so that he could reach forward with both hands to move the vase of carefully arranged flowers. Now Stuart had a clear view of the fat man. He had the sort of figure with which no tailor could cope. Already his white linen suit had become rumpled and creased, and there were gravy stains on his lapel.

‘Rare books,’ said Stein. He nodded. ‘Rare German army material, secret government archives… Nazi stuff and personal documents concerning Hitler himself.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I handled some of it and I saw the inventory sheets. I was an orderly room clerk, They used our mimeograph machine to duplicate the records. One of the sergeants-a man named Vanelli-made an extra copy and kept it as a souvenir.’

‘That sounds interesting,’ said Stuart. ‘Have you kept in touch with Vanelli?’

‘I know where he is,’ said Stein looking Stuart straight in the eyes.

‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Stuart.

‘I doubt that it could be arranged.’

‘Enough film talk,’ said Mrs Breslow, bringing in a large pot of coffee. ‘Let’s all sit on the soft seats, shall we?’ Again she watched Stein tilt back on one of her fragile dining chairs.

‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Stein, not taking his eyes off Stuart, ‘there was stuff in that mine that would destroy Winston Churchill’s reputation overnight.’ His voice was strident and seemed unnaturally loud in the small room.

The bearded psychiatrist turned so that his good ear, rather than his slightly deaf one, was towards Stein and cupped it so that he could hear better. ‘What was that about Winston Churchill?’ he said with mild interest.

‘Rumours, Charles. Rumours,’ Max Breslow told Stein with studied calm. He handed Stein a large glass and took the stopper from a brandy decanter. Stein watched while the brandy poured.

‘Rumours perhaps,’ agreed Stern, slowly and grudgingly like a peevish child.

‘Come and sit in the lounge,’ Max Breslow urged in a warm voice that expressed his pleasure at Stein’s reply.

Everyone at the table got to their feet. The psychiatrist’s wife was the first one into the large lounge that overlooked the man-made lake. At the dock of each house a small boat was tied, humming quietly as it recharged its batteries at the power line. No internal combustion engines were permitted to pollute the water. On the far side of the lake, the residents and guests of other houses gestured and reacted, inside the yellow-lit, plate-glass boxes, a dozen doll’s house dramas reflected in the dark water.

The psychiatrist’s wife spread her arms wide apart and whirled around fast enough to make her long Pucci silk dress float. “That was a divine meal, Marie-Louise.’ She was one of the very few people, apart from Max, who called her Marie-Louise. ‘Have you ever tasted such delicious poulet au champagne, Mr Stein?’

‘No,’ said Stein, ‘I never have.’

‘You are so kind,’ said Mrs Breslow. To what extent her neighbour was trying to demonstrate her psychological skills she could not tell, but she was grateful for her help in smoothing over what could have become an embarrassing scene between Mr Stein and the young Englishman. Mrs Breslow began pouring the coffee into tiny Limoges cups. ‘Try some of the chocolates too,’ she urged Stein with that tone in which diet breakers conspire. ‘Hand-coated brandy cherries from a tiny shop in Munich. Max used to buy them for me before we were married.’

Stein popped one into his mouth, crushed it between his teeth, tasted the sweet alcohol filling and reached for another before he swallowed.

‘Where do you buy them?’

‘Max has his business partner bring them over from Munich,’ said Mrs Breslow.

‘He didn’t tell me about his business partner in Munich,’ said Stein. He smiled at her. ‘But the chocolate-coated cherries are dandy, Mrs Breslow. Really dandy.’ He lifted the lid of the box high above his head so that he had to twist his neck to read the label. ‘Yes, sir.’ He helped himself to another as he replaced the box on the table.

‘You heard the story about them finding Hitler in São Paulo?’ said Stein suddenly, his mouth filled with chocolate and cherry. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘They ask him to come back and run Germany. No, he says, he won’t go. So they keep trying to persuade him. They bring in the public relations guys, and the ad agency men. They offer him money and anything he wants.’ Stein looked round to see if everyone was listening. They all were. ‘Hitler says he likes it in São Paulo. He’s got his mortgage almost paid, and a grown-up son and a married daughter by a second wife. He don’t want any part of going back to Germany, But finally he gives in. But before he goes back to be dictator of Germany again he insists on one thing… right!’ Stein waved a finger in the air in imitation of Hitler, and hoarsely yelled, ‘No more Mr Nice Guy!’ Stein laughed to show it was the punch line of the joke.

Stuart had heard the joke before but still he laughed. Somehow Stein had managed to imbue this thin story with all the pathos of his Jewish soul. When he told this joke it was outrageous and funny. He laughed loudly and Stuart joined in. But no one else laughed.

‘I got a million stories like that,’ said Stein.

The party broke up about eleven o’clock: the psychiatrist had an early patient and his wife had booked the tennis coach for 7.30 a.m. ‘Everybody wants him,’ she explained.

Boyd Stuart was getting up to go when he felt the heavy hand of Charles Stein on his shoulder. ‘Stay for another cup of coffee and a glass of something more,’ said Breslow, ‘We have some business to talk over, my dear,’ he explained to his wife.

‘I shall only yawn or say something silly,’ she told Stuart. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go right to bed.’

‘Of course, Mrs Breslow. Thank you for a wonderful meal, and a truly delightful evening.’

‘Switch the dishwasher on before you come to bed, darling,’ she told her husband.

Max Breslow gave his wife a perfunctory kiss before opening a door in the antique sideboard to get his best brandy. ‘Charles has something he wants to show us,’ he said over his shoulder. Stein went to the coat closet by the front door and came back straining under the weight of a rectangular carton. He undid the string with elaborate precision and drew out of the cardboard container a very old metal box. Such fire-resistant filing boxes had been used by the German army for documentation carried by regimental staffs or at battle-group level. This one was worn shiny at the corners but in the ancient green paintwork a six-figure letter-and-number combination and instructions about closing the fireproof lid could just be discerned. The traces of large letters which might have been BBO remained on the outside and there was a large shiny patch which looked as if something had been deliberately obliterated.

‘Can you read German, Mr Stuart?’

‘Well enough,’ said Stuart. Breslow nodded and exchanged a significant glance with Stein. The British would not be so foolish as to send a man who could not read German fluently.

‘Have you ever heard of Dr Morell?’ said Stein. ‘Dr Theodor Morell?’

‘Hitler’s personal physician?’

‘Good,’ said Stein, as a school teacher might approve the unusually bright answer of a backward pupil. He began removing from the metal box cardboard covers containing varying numbers of documents. ‘Not only Hitler’s personal physician but a man upon whom Hitler totally depended, who went everywhere with him and had even more influence on him than Martin Bormann. Hitler told everyone that Dr Morell had saved his life over and over again.’ Stein tapped the pile of papers. ‘These are Dr Morell’s medical files on his patient Adolf Hitler!’

Boyd Stuart picked up the top folder. The papers smelt musty and stale. They were not in chronological order. This file was dated January 1943. At the top corner someone, perhaps Morell himself, had scribbled in pencil, ‘The great disaster at Stalingrad ’. There was a log of medical prescriptions and injections, beginning with anti-depressants and sedatives. There was a note about the first use of prosta-crinum-manufactured from seminal vesicles and prostate glands-and an extra page, added at some later date, said that from this time onward the patient was given this drug every other day until the end of his life. There was a carbon copy of a long letter from Dr Morell to Hitler’s tailor, explaining that the Führer could not any longer endure bright light. Notes and a drawing, fixed to the page by means of a paperclip which had rusted and eaten deep into the paper, showed how the peaks of the Führer’s caps must henceforward be made larger.

Stein watched Boyd Stuart’s face as he flipped quickly through the medical file. ‘You find it interesting, eh?’ Nervously Stein reached for another of the chocolate-coated, brandied cherries and popped it into his mouth.

‘Where does it all start?’ said Stuart, turning the heavy dossiers over on the low coffee table at which the three men sat.

‘Here,’ said Max Breslow. He moved coffee cups and an ashtray to make more space. ‘But Hitler only comes in at the end of it.’

The file he had selected was a slimmer one, and quite different from the Chancellery file covers. Once red in colour, it was now faded to pink. It bore Dr Morell’s name and fashionable Berlin address on the cover in elegant script printing. The contents too were different: heavyweight stationery with engraved headings. Even the file cards were printed with Morell’s name and Kurfürstendamm address, although some of the patients were indicated only by initials. It was a precaution particularly important in a medical practice that specialized in treating venereal diseases and catered to some of Germany ’s most wealthy and famous personalities. Here were Berlin ’s nobility and industrialists and stars of the Berlin stage, film and theatre.

‘Hoffmann,’ said Stein pointing to a sheet. ‘Hitler’s personal photographer and a close friend.’ He picked up an ancient manilla envelope and took from it a desk diary. It had been used as a physician’s appointments book. It was dated 1936. ‘This is how Dr Morell first met Hitler,’ Stein said. ‘Hoffmann was sick-H.H. are Hoffmann’s initials, M.F. is Mein Führer-look at that!’

Morell had written, ‘Met M.F. at Hoffmann’s home, Munich.’ Then a page or so later, ‘M.F. provided his personal aircraft for professional visit to H.H. in his Munich home.’

Again Stein turned a page of the diary. ‘Now we come to Morell’s first professional opinion of Hitler,’ he said. He turned the diary so that Stuart could read it more easily. ‘Saw M.F. First impression of him shocking. Complains of headaches, stomach pains. Also ringing in the ears. Neurotic.’

Max Breslow went into the kitchen to make more coffee. Boyd Stuart turned the sheets to find Dr Morell’s first physical examination of Hitler. The report was dated January 3, 1937, and the medical took place at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden. The doctor noted that, according to the patient, he had not submitted himself to a physical examination since he left the army in 1918. The record showed that Hitler-now referred to as ‘patient A’-weighed 67.04 kilos and stood 175.26 cm tall. Blood group A. The examination showed no abnormalities: pupillary reflexes were normal, good coordination, normal sensitivity to heat and cold and to sharp and blunt touch. His hair was dark and thinning slightly, and his tonsils had been removed when he was a child. A scarred leg was the result of shrapnel during the First World War. A badly mended fracture of the left shoulder blade-resulting from a fall when the police fired upon the Nazis during the 1923 putsch-had left patient A with a stiff shoulder so that he could neither rotate nor abduct his upper arm.

Curious, thought Stuart, that, had his right shoulder been affected instead, there could have been no Nazi salute. He turned the page.

The patient complained of severe stomach cramps and Morell found a swelling at the place where the stomach joins the duodenum, as well as the left lobe of the liver. When he touched the region of the kidney, the patient complained of slight pain. Patient A was also suffering from severe eczema on the left leg and was having difficulty wearing high boots. ‘Necessary for parades and rallies,’ Morell had noted in fountain-pen ink which had faded to a very pale shade of blue.

Now the file was given over to letters concerning Hitler’s diet. His other physicians-Professor Bergmann of the Charité Hospital, Berlin, and Himmler’s SS medical officer in chief, Ernst Grawitz-had cut patient A’s eating down to dry wholemeal bread and herbal tea, while treating him with lotions and ointments. Morell changed this to a more varied vegetarian regime.

The next letter was on the headed notepaper of the Bacteriological Research Institute at Freiburg and was signed by Professor A. Nissle, its director. It reported dys-bacterial flora in the specimen of excreta sent there by Morell, who had not named the patient. Nissle advised that the patient should be given ‘Mutaflor’ to replace coli bacilli. Morell adds a note about a preparation of vitamins, heart and liver for the patient. To be put into unmarked containers. ‘Vegetarian patient,’ Morell wrote on his instructions to the pharmacist. ‘Make no mention of the animal origins of this prescription.’ All Morell’s notes at this time were on notepaper of the Berghof. Clearly Morell had taken up residence there.

‘Can’t tear you away from it, can we?’ said Stein. He chuckled with satisfaction.

‘I want to know the end of the story,’ said Stuart. ‘Did the handsome young doctor cure his famous patient? I’m a sucker for the nurse romance.’

‘Dr Morell was fat and ugly,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Hitler said that if Morell could cure his eczema and make him better within a year, he’d be given a fine house.’

‘What happened?’

Breslow said, ‘Morell pumped Hitler full of a medicine he’d invented himself. Vitamultin he called it: every kind of vitamin together with calcium, ascorbic acid and caffeine and so on… you’ll find the formula in his papers there. He marketed some of his compounds later, and made a fortune, they say.’

‘And Hitler got better?’

‘Dextrose and hormones and lots of sulphanamide drugs kept Hitler feeling very well. For years he didn’t even have a virus infection. Whenever he was going to make a speech, Morell gave him an extra dose of glucose and stuff to pep him up. Hitler was pleased. You’ll find the carbon of a letter that Morell sent to say thank you for the house on the island of Schwanenwerder. Hitler kept his promise.’

‘And this documentation continues right through the war?’ said Stuart. ‘It’s priceless stuff.’

‘Hitler seldom let Morell out of his sight. And Hitler confided in this man. From time to time the stomach cramps returned. Morell makes a note of the fact that Hitler dated his trouble from the summer of 1934. A cryptic pencil annotation, in Morell’s writing, records that this was the time when Hitler had his best friend Röhm executed. Morell gave Hitler more and more powerful medicaments, like intramuscular injections for the gastric wall, and combined these with medicine that would make some of the vegetarian stuff he ate easier to digest.’

‘But why is all this sort of material in the medical file?’ said Stuart. ‘Why keep a carbon of a letter about the house he got from Hitler?’

The coffee machine in the kitchen hissed steam and switched off. Breslow fetched the fresh jug of coffee before answering. ‘Perhaps Morell had literary ambitions.’

‘A biography of Hitler by his private physician?’ said Stuart.

‘Churchill’s physician published such a book,’ said Breslow. ‘It was a best seller, as I remember.’

‘And no historian has ever seen this material?’ said Stuart.

‘No one knows it exists,’ said Stein. [1]

‘It was taken to the Kaiseroda mine?’ said Stuart.

‘This is what makes it so interesting,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Our film, I mean,’ he added hurriedly.

‘Yes, of course, the film,’ said Stuart. ‘You mean you have access to other material like this?’

Stein nodded and rummaged around the wrappers in the almost empty box of chocolate-coated cherries until he found one. He chewed into it and smiled as he saw Boyd Stuart’s look of consternation.

‘I’m afraid he’s quite right, Mr Stuart,’ said Max Breslow. ‘For better or for worse, reputations are going to be turned upside down.’

‘Hitler and Churchill, you mean?’ Stuart asked.

‘Drink your coffee and have one of those delicious chocolates,’ Max Breslow told Stuart. ‘We have done enough for one night.’

Stuart had a feeling that there were no chocolates left, and that Max Breslow already knew that.