“Marty Bormann . . .” Kappler began, then had to clear his throat.
Nazi Party Minister Martin Bormann was an average-looking Prussian of forty-three—pasty-faced, cold dark eyes, his thinning black-dyed hair slicked back against his skull. He came from an average background—the son of a postman—but had risen to a position that was anything but average. Having earned Adolf Hitler’s trust, beginning by managing with great success the party’s finances and then Hitler’s personal finances, the Nazi leader had appointed Bormann as his personal secretary. And thus Bormann, to the great displeasure of those in Hitler’s High Command, came to control who had access to the Nazi leader and to personally implement Hitler’s wishes.
Kappler drained his cognac snifter.
“What about Bormann?” Dulles pursued.
“At the direct order of Hitler, Bormann had Fritz Thyssen and his wife locked up in a Berlin asylum . . .”
What? They’re in a loony bin?
Last we heard Thyssen was living in Cannes, making plans to head for Buenos Aires.
“. . . and now Bormann has told me that Göring is planning on sending them to be interned in a konzentrationslager.” He crossed himself. “May God save them . . .”
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring—the close-to-obese, hot-tempered fifty-year-old head of the Luftwaffe and chief of all Wehrmacht commanders who Hitler had designated as his successor—also wielded an almost unquestioned authority in the German High Command. Which of course caused a constant friction between him and Bormann and all others therein.
“What do you think is the purpose of that?” Dulles said.
“I do not have to think what it is. Bormann told me.”
“And?”
“Money, gold, artwork. Anything and everything. Göring has been trying to get Thyssen to reveal where he hid assets that the Nazis haven’t gotten their hands on. Which is why, after the French turned over the Thyssens to the SS and Bormann locked them up, Göring made an effort to ensure that their accommodations were comfortable. But now Bormann says that Göring has lost patience and is turning the screws, pressuring Fritz to talk by sending them to the KL.”
Dulles studied Kappler as he poured him more cognac.
This was not the first time that he had shared stories of Hermann Göring using his position to build a personal fortune. That had happened as Dulles had been helping Kappler hide his own assets: “Bormann told me that when the Nazis first occupied Paris, Göring sent a message to Hitler in which he gloated: ‘My sweetest dream is of looting and looting comple
tely.’ And he did. When the Nazis took over Baron Rothschild’s palace, as an example, Göring swept the place clean. He then presented Hitler with a pair of paintings by Pablo Picasso—and kept for himself almost fifty works by Braque, Matisse, and Renoir to add to his looted collection at his country estate, Carinhall. Göring, whose appetite appears insatiable, gets what he wants.”
Dulles now put his pipe to his lips as he met Kappler’s eyes.
“And if they know about Thyssen,” Dulles said softly between puffs, “then they must suspect you have assets beyond Germany, too.”
Kappler, his face somber, nodded.
With his usually strong voice on the verge of breaking, he then finished: “It has already happened. They nationalized my Chemische Fabrik Frankfurt last week.”
“They seized Chemische Fabrik Frankfurt?”
Kappler nodded again.
“Last week,” he repeated, his voice almost a monotone, “while we were in Portugal. It’s as if they sent me there so I would be far away when it happened.”
“Only it,” Dulles said, “or other companies, too?”
“Only it. So far. But it is only a matter of time before they find an excuse—or create one—to do to all my companies what they have done to all of Fritz’s. Bormann even made it a point to inform me that after taking over Thyssen’s companies, they had had no trouble running them without him. . . .”
Dulles nodded. After a long moment, he suddenly said, “Could Klaus Schwartz run it?”
He saw Kappler stiffen at the mention of the name.
“Schwartz used to run your company, yes?” Dulles went on. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Herr Doktor Schwartz?” Kappler then said bitterly. “Or SS-Sturmbannführer Schwartz?”
“Are they not one and the same?” Dulles said, more or less rhetorically.