The Kindly Ones

After dinner I played chess with Hettlage, Speer’s associate. Heide came over and watched us play, in silence; Hettlage won easily. I had one last Cognac and chatted a little with Heide. The guests went up to bed. Finally she got up and, as directly as her colleagues, said: “I have to go help Dr. Mandelbrod now. If you don’t want to be alone, my room is two doors down from yours, on the left. You can come have a drink, a little later on.”—“Thank you,” I replied. “I’ll see.” I went up to my room, pensive, got undressed, and lay down. The remnants of the fire were glowing in the hearth. Lying there in the dark, I said to myself: After all, why not? She was a beautiful woman, she had a superb body, what was preventing me from taking advantage of it? There was no question of an ongoing relationship, it was a simple, clear-cut proposition. And even if my experience of them was limited, women’s bodies didn’t repel me, they must be pleasant too, soft and pliable, you must be able to forget yourself in them as in a pillow. But there was that promise, and if I was nothing else, I was a man who kept his promises. Things weren’t settled yet.

Sunday was a quiet day. I slept late, until about nine o’clock—usually I got up at 5:30—and went down to breakfast. I sat down in front of one of the big casement windows and leafed through an old edition of Pascal, in French, which I had found in the library. At the end of the morning, I accompanied Frau Speer and Frau von Wrede on a walk in the park; the latter’s husband was playing cards with an industrialist known for having built his empire through clever Aryanizations, the hunter general, and Hettlage. The grass, still wet, glistened, and puddles punctuated the gravel and dirt paths; the humid air was cool, invigorating, and our breaths formed little clouds in front of our faces. The sky remained uniformly gray. At noon I had coffee with Speer, who had just made his appearance. He spoke to me in detail about the question of foreign workers and his problems with Gauleiter Sauckel; then the conversation turned to the case of Ohlendorf, whom Speer seemed to regard as a romantic. My notions of economics were too rudimentary for me to be able to support Ohlendorf’s theories; Speer vigorously defended his principle of industrial self-responsibility. “In the end, there’s only one argument: it works. After the war, Dr. Ohlendorf can reform as he likes, if anyone wants to listen to him; but in the meantime, as I said to you yesterday, let’s win the war.”

Leland or Mandelbrod, whenever I found myself near them, chatted to me about various things, but neither one seemed to have anything special to say to me. I began to wonder why they had invited me: certainly not so I could enjoy Fräulein Heide’s charms. But when I thought about the question again, at the end of the afternoon, in the von Wredes’ car, which was taking me back to Berlin, the answer seemed obvious: it was to put me in contact with Speer, so I could get closer to him. And that seemed to have had its effect; when it was time to go, Speer had taken leave of me very cordially, and had promised me that we would see each other again. But one question troubled me: What was the point? In whose interest were Herr Leland and Dr. Mandelbrod bringing me up in this way? For there was no doubt it was a question of planned ascent: ministers, usually, don’t spend their time chatting thus with simple majors. That worried me, for I didn’t have the means to gauge the exact relations between Speer, the Reichsführer, and my two protectors; they were obviously maneuvering, but in what direction, and for whose benefit? I was willing to play the game, but which one? If it wasn’t that of the SS, it could be very dangerous. I had to remain discreet and be very careful; I was no doubt part of a plan; if it failed, there would have to be a scapegoat.

I knew Thomas well enough to know without asking him what he would have advised: cover yourself. On the Monday morning, I requested a meeting with Brandt, which he granted me that afternoon. I described to him my weekend and told him about my conversations with Speer, the main points of which I had already jotted down in an aide-mémoire that I gave him. Brandt didn’t seem to disapprove. “So he asked you to bring him to visit Dora?” That was the code name for the installation Speer had mentioned to me, officially called Mittelbau, “Central Construction.”—“His ministry has filed a request. We haven’t replied yet.”—“And what do you think of it, Standartenführer?”—“I don’t know. It’s up to the Reichsführer to decide. That said, you did well to report to me.” He briefly discussed my work too, and I told him about the initial impressions that emerged from the documents I had studied. When I got up to go, he said: “I think the Reichsführer is satisfied with the course things are taking. Continue on as you are.”