“But it’s just a matter of time until they do.
“Time has been working for our enemies.
“So now we make it work for us.
“How do we protect our rocket engineers from being killed by the Soviet Communists if they should temporarily overrun our
rocket facilities? More important, how do we prevent our rocket scientists from being forced to work for the Soviet Communists?
“The same thing for our aeronautical engineers.
“The same thing for our physicists, who are close to developing a bomb more powerful than the imagination can accept.
“If the Soviets came into possession of German technology, it would mean the end of the Christian world.
“I’m sure the answer has already occurred to many of you.
“We bring them to Argentina, secretly, by submarine. Germany has the largest fleet of submarines in the world.
“And we set them up, with new laboratories, perhaps even manufacturing facilities. If things go even worse for us, with time working against us, certainly with manufacturing facilities.
“Where?
“I’m sure that answer has already occurred to many of you, perhaps all of you. I know that it has occurred to el Coronel Schmidt.
“Right here, in this remote corner of Argentina.”
There was a burst of applause.
“As you can well understand, this has to be accomplished with the greatest secrecy. The Communists are everywhere. And the Jews. The Antichrist.
“El Coronel Schmidt and others have been working on establishing these refuges for German scientists—and their families—for some time, and will continue to do so.
“But there is another problem, the real reason I am here. This is always distasteful for professional officers, but again, we must deal with things as they are rather than with things as we may wish them to be.
“I am speaking of treason, which von Clausewitz described—I forget the exact quote . . .”
Probably because I just made this one up. But it does sound like something he would say.
“. . . but it was to the effect that treason is simply another way of showing cowardice in the face of the enemy. On the battlefield, there is a simple way of dealing with those who throw down their arms and refuse to fight. One conducts a summary court-martial to establish that those are the facts. And if they are, the traitors, the cowards—whatever they are called—are tied to a post, stripped of their military insignia, offered a blindfold, and shot, with as many of their former comrades in arms as can be gathered watching.
“In the First World War, when soldiers of regiments refused to fight, every tenth soldier in the regiment was shot. We Germans believe in honor and justice, and we don’t shoot people we don’t know for sure have run from the enemy. But we do execute those we know have shown their treason, their cowardice.
“I am ashamed to tell you that a trusted officer of the German Embassy in Buenos Aires, Wilhelm Frogger, and his wife—who, like my wife, was an agent of the Sicherheitsdienst, the secret police branch of the SS—have deserted their post and gone over to the enemy.
“They were assisted in running by an American, a slimy Jew by the name of Milton Leibermann, who works for the American FBI. Leibermann thought that—probably with the assistance of the head of the OSS in Argentina, a man named Frade—he could hide the Froggers from us, save them from the execution they so rightly deserve.
“He was wrong. I am almost positive that some excellent detective work on the part of the Sicherheitsdienst agents in the embassy has located them. In Mendoza. Once we are sure of this, SS-Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer and I will carry out the unpleasant duty of executing these swine.
“It gets worse. I have to tell you that an officer of the SS, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, has deserted his post in Montevideo, Uruguay. He went—initial investigation indicates this happened within the last week—to Paraguay, taking with him a substantial amount of money he stole from the embassy. There hasn’t been time for a summary court-martial, of course—it may have to take place in Germany, as he is entitled to be judged by officers of equal or superior rank and there are not three officers like that available here—but when it takes place, and if it finds this swine guilty, SS-Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer and I will run him down, recover what he stole, and carry out his execution.”
I don’t think, judging by the looks on the faces of these people, that I would have any trouble at all finding volunteers for a firing squad for either the Froggers or von Tresmarck, or both.
“There is only one thing worse than a traitor,” von Deitzberg said solemnly. “And that is someone who encourages—by argument, or by payment—another to betray the duties and obligations which he has sworn an oath to God Almighty to carry out.
“So the silver lining in this despicable black cloud for me will be the opportunity to kill Milton Leibermann of the FBI for doing this to the Froggers, and especially, especially, Don Cletus Frade of the OSS, who tried and failed to turn his father into a traitor, and when that distinguished officer refused, murdered his own father—or had him murdered, which is the same thing—so that he could place the Frade assets in the service of Roosevelt and international Jewry.”
Von Deitzberg saw the look on el Coronel Schmidt’s face.