“He hands the photo to the one-star. It’s signed War is like a football game, whoever loses gives his opponent his hand, and everything is forgotten. Hermann Göring.”
“Unbelievable! What did the general do?”
“Took the baton away from him right there, and then had Hermann marched to his cell, where they took away his decorations. Hermann was displeased at the quality of his new accommodations—you ever been in the prison?”
Cronley shook his head.
“One-man cells, with a window through which a GI takes a look every couple of minutes. A GI bed, a wooden chair, a little wooden desk, like a table, a washbasin, and a crapper. You should have a look.”
“I will. You said Göring made a jackass of Jackson?”
“Yeah. I got the impression that whatever his legal talents are—and he was—is—one of the better Supreme Court justices—he’s not very good at being a trial lawyer. I was there, I saw this. Jackson, bubbling over with righteous indignation, asks, ‘Is it true, Witness, that together with Adolf Hitler, you were primarily responsible for preparing the plans for the war in total secrecy?’
“Göring, smiling, says, ‘I don’t seem to recall reading the American plans for the war in the New York Times.’
“Everybody in the courtroom, including me and all the bastards in the defendant’s dock, laughed out loud. Göring sat down and accepted the congratulations of his fellow prisoners. And Jackson said something like ‘No further questions at this time.’ And Biddle quickly adjourned the proceedings for the day.”
“I hate to say this, but that’s pretty classy behavior for a guy who has to know we’re going to hang him.” He paused for a moment, and then asked, “Or does he think he’s going to escape the noose?”
“No. He knows he’s going to be hanged. But he wants to be hung as a martyr to the noble cause of National Socialism, not as a murderer. And it looks as if he’s going to succeed. If that happens, we become, in the eyes of the German people, the vindictive victors. The only hope, as I see it, is for Jackson to get somebody to say, ‘I did it, and Göring told me to do it.’
“And that’s unlikely, as just about all the bastards still treat him as if he’s still sitting behind his desk in the Chancellery waving his Reichsmarschall’s baton around.”
“‘Just about all’?” Cronley parroted.
“You know who Rudolf Hess is?”
“The guy who stole an airplane and flew it to talk to Churchill?”
“Who immediately locked him up and kept him there until he sent him here. He’s playing nuts. Or he may really be bonkers. He flew to England in 1941, before all the mass murders began, so that may help him to escape the noose. If he tries something like ‘I flew to England to tell Churchill what these terrible Nazis were up to,’ that would help. But right now he’s playing his ‘I’m bonkers’ card.
“The other guy who might be useful to Jackson is Speer. You know who he is?”
Cronley shook his head and said, “No. Not really.”
“Albert Speer. Architect. If Hitler had any personal friends, Speer was in that select, tiny group. Hitler fancied himself to be an architect. Speer was a very good architect, so Hitler enlisted him to help with his plans to turn Berlin into the twentieth-century version of Athens or Rome. They became friends. Speer was a Nazi. He believed, at the beginning, that Hitler was the man God had sent to save the world from Communism and my coreligionists.
“Hitler fitted him out with a uniform and named him minister of armaments. Which included building the wall to keep the Allies off the continent. Speer was very good at what he did. Until just about the end, despite all the bombing, Speer kept the munitions and weapons factories running at full speed. To do this, he had to use slave labor, much of it imported from what the Krauts called ‘the occupied territories.’
“That’s what he’s being tried for by
the Tribunal.
“At the end, when Hitler knew the war was about to be lost, he ordered Speer to blow up everything, and I mean everything—factories, the railroads, the sewers, waterworks, universities, everything. At that point, Speer finally opened his eyes and saw that Der Führer was a dangerous maniac.
“So Speer decided it was his duty as a good German to disobey Der Führer. This took a lot of balls. And then he flew to Berlin and went to the Führerbunker and told Adolf that he had countermanded his orders. That took a huge set of balls.
“I have no idea how he escaped with his life, but I have personally checked out Speer’s story and I know it’s true. And so does Jackson. So Jackson—this is an opinion, Jackson doesn’t confide in me—is trying to get Speer to say, ‘I did it. I was involved, I knew all about the slave labor, the concentration camps, the extermination squads, and so did everybody sitting here with me in the prisoner’s dock.’ If he can get him to do that, the good guys win. Göring and company go to the gallows as people who really fucked Germany up, not as National Socialist martyrs.”
The coffee was finally served. Krantz ordered another Berliner Kindl.
“You think Jackson will succeed?” Cronley asked.
“Who knows?”
“Who do I have to see to get someplace for my guys to stay?”
“How many guys?”