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Charity smiled at him. For him, that was a real apology.
IV
Chapter ONE
The Foreign Ministry
Berlin, Germany
20 December 1942
The return to Berlin of Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz, recent German representative to the Franco-German Armistice Commission for Morocco, posed a problem at the highest levels of the Foreign Ministry: No one knew what to do with him.
In some circles, von Heurten-Mitnitz arrived under something of a cloud. There was a suggestion—ever so tactfully phrased; they were, after all, diplomats—that perhaps he had been just a bit too willing to accept the loss of Morocco to the Americans. He might after all have considered making his way to Tunisia. From there, when the Führer decided the time was propitious, the Wehrmacht would launch its counterattack for the recapture of Morocco.
His defenders, who included his brother, the Graf von Heurten-Mitnitz, who was not only a Party luminary but reputed to be one of the few aristocrats with whom the Führer was personally comfortable, pointed out, on the one hand, that transportation between Morocco and Tunisia was currently rather hazardous, and on the other, that Helmut had been ordered onto the Junkers transport which flew him to Italy.
He was defended as well by most of his peers in the Foreign Ministry. He was a career diplomat, as indeed members of his family had been for centuries. He had done his duty as he saw it, and his duty was to make himself available for further service to Germany rather than to enter American captivity. He certainly could not be held responsible for the Americans blatantly violating French neutrality, or for the French, true to form, flying the white flag the moment they had come under fire.
Some of the less politically savvy of these Foreign Ministry friends proposed that he go to the Reichschancellery to personally brief the Führer about what had happened in Morocco. His brother had gotten him out of that. The Graf von Heurten-Mitnitz knew that Adolf Hitler sometimes blamed the messenger for the bad news.
In the politically ill-conceived idea, however, was the seed of a good one: Since the Führer blamed the successful invasion on high-level French perfidy, there was obviously no one better qualified than Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz to prepare for the Führer a detailed report. He would work closely, of course, with Obersturmbannführer Johann Müller, and between them they could come up with a detailed and balanced assessment that would lay the blame where it belonged. With Müller involved, the report could of course in no way be called a whitewash of Foreign Ministry failures or a condemnation of SS ineptitude.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz was provided with an office overlooking the interior garden of the Foreign Ministry, a small staff, authorization for a personal automobile, and other perquisites befitting his rank as Minister. Talk of his too hasty departure from Morocco quickly dissipated. He was, after all, a member of the club, and gentlemen do not speak ill of their peers.
That left but one problem still to be resolved: his military status.
After graduation from the Gymnasium in Königsberg in East Prussia, Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz served six months as an officer-cadet with the 127th Pomeranian Infantry Regiment. This was expected of him. The 127th Pomeranian Infantry traced its roots back to the Graf von Heurten’s Regiment of Foot (1582). After his six months of cadet service, Helmut received a reserve commission as a lieutenant.
Two months later, he matriculated at Harvard, from which he graduated in 1927. From 1931 until 1933, he was attached to the German Embassy in Washington, first as a cultural attaché and later as a consular officer. From 1936 until 1938, he was the consul in New Orleans.
On his return from New Orleans to Berlin, by then already a medium-level diplomatic official destined for greater responsibilities in the Foreign Ministry, von Heurten-Mitnitz was courted by both Military Intelligence and the Sicherheitsdienst of the SS, each of which were as much interested in the internal operations of the Foreign Ministry as they were in any external threats to Germany.
Military Intelligence offered him a reserve commission as a major, with the subtle understanding that since he would be of more value to the Army where he was, there was little chance he would ever be called up. He politely declined the honor.
And the SS offered him a commission as Sturmbannführer (Major) in the Honorary SS. He declined this honor, too, mainly because he was well aware that the Honorary SS consisted of nothing more than those who did favors for or made substantial financial contributions to the SS. While the holders of honorary SS rank were entitled to wear the black uniform with the lightning-bolt runes and the death’s-head, that really signified nothing.
His hope was to keep out of the military altogether and to continue serving his country in the diplomatic service. This required some fancy footwork, however, especially after his return from Morocco; for there were new regulations eliminating many military service exemptions, including those for members of the Foreign Service. It was finally resolved at the highest levels.
Still, it didn’t hurt to be a member of the club: He was offered and accepted a reserve commission in the SS—not the honorary SS—as a Brigadeführer -SD, the secret service of the SS, with the understanding that he would not be called to active service and would remain with the Foreign Ministry.
Attired in a quickly tailored black SS uniform, he took the oath of personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler in a ceremony presided over by Reichsführer -SS Heinrich Himmler himself. Afterward, his brother was kind enough to hold a small reception for the new Brigadeführer at a home maintained by the family at 44-46 Beerenstrasse in Zehlendorf. Reichsführer-SS and Frau Himmler put in a brief appearance en route to the symphony, which the Graf von Heurten-Mitnitz told Helmut was an unusual honor.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz considered asking Müller to be present at either the swearing in or the reception, but decided against it. If they appeared too chummy, that might provoke suspicion. After the reception, he took off the SS uniform and hoped that he would never have to wear it again.
After settling into his new work, he labored industriously on the report for the Führer without actually completing it. The point was to keep it on the burner until it was forgotten and they found something else for him to do.
His name almost immediately appeared on guest lists of allied and neutral embassies, and he dined out nearly every night. He was a bachelor and thereby in demand on that account: There were many widows in Germany. That satisfied what he thought of as bodily demands, but he took care not to form anything approaching an emotional relationship.
And then, on the nineteenth of December, the Americans sent him a message.
On the morning of the twentieth, when his secretary Fräulein Ingebord Schermann came into his office, his desk was piled high with dossiers “borrowed” from the French Deuxième Bureau (analogous to the FBI). These were to assist him in preparing his report to the Führer on French perfidy. What he was actually doing was reading a novel by the Viennese novelist Franz Schiller about a romance between an Austrian nobleman and a tubercular widow.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz’s secretary made him uncomfortable. She was intense. Worse, fanatical.
Ingebord Schermann’s blond hair was parted in the middle, brushed tight against her skull, and then brought together in a tight bun at the base of her neck. What few words she uttered were delivered like orders, in a Hessian dialect even harsher than Obersturmbannführer SS-SD Johann Müller’s.
Von Heurten-Mitnitz regarded Müller as the archetypal Hessian peasant: blunt, phlegmatic, practical, and dull. Like most Northern and Eastern Germans von Heurten-Mitnitz was convinced he spoke German, and that Middle—Hesse and the Ruhr—and Southern (Bavarian and Swabian) Germans spoke a vulgar patois only loosely based on that language.
