“You’re suggesting Perón might have been involved?”
“No. No. What I’m suggesting is that an officer like Perón would be capable of doing what von Lutzenberger suggests.”
“I understand.”
“Von Deitzberg also reports that Frau von Tresmarck doesn’t believe Goltz told von Wachtstein anything more than he absolutely had to know, and that she doesn’t think her husband would be involved, because he would be—as she is—afraid of the consequences.”
“We seem to getting back to Gradny-Sawz, would you agree?”
“I just don’t know,” Himmler said. “I have been thinking that if we do something about young von Wachtstein—without anything to go on—there is the problem of Generalleutnant von Wachtstein. He would demand a Court of Honor for his son, and I think Keitel and others would go along with him. And if we do something about von Tresmarck—without anything to go on—we will lose his valuable services in Montevideo. That makes it tempting to go after Gradny-Sawz, but without anything to go on…”
“I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
Himmler looked at his watch. “We have enough time, I think, to watch the film of the Warsaw ghetto,” he said thoughtfully, and then raised his voice: “Stabsscharführer! How long is the Warsaw film?”
“Twenty-three minutes, Herr Reichsprotektor,” the Stabsscharführer called from the projection room.”
“Would you show it, please?”
“Jawohl, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“I find the whole Warsaw ghetto business simply inexplicable,” Himmler said. “Inexplicable and inexcusable!”
A moment later, the lights dimmed and an image of a battery of field howitzers lined up on a Warsaw street came onto the screen. They were firing at a block of apartment buildings, most of which were in flames.
The film ended with a line of Jews, men, women, and children, their hands in the air, walking between rows of German soldiers toward a line of trucks.
[THREE]
The Private Projection Room
The Office of the Reichsführer-SS
Berlin
1605 22 May 1943
“What are we doing in here?” Admiral Wilhelm Canaris asked as he—the last man to arrive—walked into the small, well-furnished miniature theater, trailed by Fregattenkapitän Otto von und zu Waching and Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz.
Already present were the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler; Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop; Parteileiter Martin Bormann; Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel; and SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl Cranz.
“We are going to see a short film the Propaganda Minister intends to have in every theater in Germany by the end of the week,” Himmler said with a smile.
“Do we have time for this?” Canaris asked, not bothering to conceal the disgust in his voice. “What kind of a film?”
“It has a dual purpose,” Himmler said. “Goebbels is quite excited about it. He feels that those whose family members have made the supreme sacrifice for Germany can vicariously experience the honor they would have been paid had circumstances permitted.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m afraid,” Canaris said.
“Actually, this was Cranz’s idea,” Himmler said. “A picture is worth a thousand words, so to speak, right, Karl?”
“As I told you, Sir, inasmuch as some of the gentlemen have never seen the people we brought back from Buenos Aires, I thought seeing what they looked like—how they behaved in this particular circumstance—would have merit.”
“The film was shot by Propaganda Ministry cameramen,” Himmler went on, obviously pleased with himself, “after Cranz telephoned to Goebbels and suggested that the interment ceremonies of Standartenführer Goltz and Oberst Grüner might well have a certain propaganda value. Goebbels immediately saw the possibilities, and ordered the interment filmed.”
“I still don’t understand,” Canaris said. “But let’s get it over with.”
“Herr Admiral,” Cranz said, “the idea is that many German families who have lost people naturally wonder where they are buried and how. The unknown is often unpleasant. What I suggested to the Herr Propaganda Minister was that this film would leave in the minds of such people images of a dignified ceremony in which the deceased were honored by the Fatherland.”