“What’s the source of your curiosity?”
“Well, I read somewhere that in 1939, Himmler forbade publishing anything about the castle . . .”
“He did.”
“And I wondered why, so I started looking into it.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t find much, except a few vague references to it being . . . I don’t know what. Somewhere the high SS brass used to go. I even heard they held marriages and christenings there, according to some Nazi ritual.”
“And?”
“I even drove down there. I couldn’t get in. There were some CIC people who said it was off-limits, even after I showed them my CIC credentials.”
“And what did you think about that?”
“Well, I decided that something was going on there that was highly classified. CIC credentials won’t get you into Kloster Grünau or the Compound, either. So I left. I kept looking, but the only thing I came up with is that Himmler ordered that Wewelsburg Castle should become the ‘Reichshaus der SS-Gruppenführer,’ and I don’t even know what that means.”
“Well, let me try to fill in s
ome of the blanks in your knowledge—”
“Pay attention, everybody, as one professor delivers a lecture to another,” Cronley’s automatic mouth said.
“You’re free not to listen, of course,” Cohen said.
“Sorry, Colonel, that was my automatic mouth.”
“The one that seems to get you so frequently in trouble? Perhaps you should consider putting a zipper—better still, a good padlock—on it.”
“Sir, I’m really sorry.”
Cohen snorted, and then went on: “Wewelsburg Castle is near Paderborn, Westphalia, a little over two hundred miles from here, along some really bad roads. I think, presuming when I finish the lecture and Super Spook wishes to have a look, we’ll go there in his illegal airplane.”
“Fine with me,” Cronley said.
“Much of what is the castle now,” Cohen went on, “was built near the site of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 1603 dash ’09 for the prince-bishop of Paderborn, Dietrich von Fürstenberg. That battle, in 9 B.C., saw a cluster of German tribes assembled under a man named Arminius annihilate three Roman legions. Most historians agree—”
“That the battle was the greatest defeat the Romans ever suffered and was one of the most decisive battles in history. After it, the Romans never tried to take territory east of the Rhine,” Hessinger furnished.
“Correct,” Cohen said. “And if you hadn’t interrupted me, Friedrich, you would have had a gold star to take home to Mommy.”
Cronley laughed aloud, earning himself a withering look from Hessinger.
“Two things are germane here,” Cohen went on. “The German victory near where the castle was built, and, two, that after being hailed as a hero for a while, Arminius was assassinated by jealous fellow tribesmen. Victory and death by assassination.
“During the Thirty Years’ War, in 1646, the castle was razed by the Swedes. Death, in other words. In 1650, the Swedes having been chased away, Prince-Bishop Ferdinand von Fürstenberg rebuilt it. Death followed by resurrection. Anyone see where I’m going with this?”
“The castle rose phoenixlike from the ashes?” Hessinger asked. “The first Operation Phoenix?”
“Something like that,” Cohen replied. “During the Seven Years’ War—1756 to 1763—the basement rooms were used as a military prison. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was rarely repaired and became nothing more than another ruin. Such ruins were—are—all over Germany.
“From what I have been able to learn, during Hitler’s election campaign in January 1933, Himmler came up with the idea to use a castle to serve as a place—a Reichsführerschule—to train senior SS officers.
“On his very first visit to Wewelsburg on November 3, 1933, Himmler decided to buy the castle. When the local government asked what Himmler thought was too much money, he leaned on them, which saw the SS signing a one-hundred-year lease, one reichsmark per annum, for the castle. The SS then moved in, so to speak, with an elaborate ceremony in September 1934.
“Himmler then dubbed the castle the ‘Reichshaus der SS-Gruppenführer,’ which means something like the national spiritual or symbolic home for SS lieutenant generals and up. Anyway, he began to hold conferences of senior SS brass at Wewelsburg.