Chapter 10

San Antonio, Texas, 1950

 

 

We rented a room in one of the hotels mid-way down the walk. I was planning on staying for only a day or so, but ended up changing my mind. I told myself I needed to help her find an apartment. We never looked for an apartment. We toured around the countryside, even swimming with some kids in the river at San Marcus. We thought about going over to Seguine and visiting Eric’s mother, but gave it up. We were getting to know each other, something she said we had to do before we even thought of marriage.

We looked forward to nightfall on the river and a new restaurant every night. And then the after-dinner conversation. And sooner or later it came back to the same thing: who were those two back in San Angelo?

“Why do you think the one you buried was Kurt Steinmann?” I asked again. “You know, Lucy, I’ve told you Steinmann was SS, and that they were a special breed. Maybe the world will never see the likes of them again.

“In the early days of the New Reich, after Hitler came to power, there was a rush to enlist. They were Hitler’s special troops, and he had to keep their membership low, building up slowly and quietly to offset the regular army. The old guard in Germany, the industrialists, intellectuals, and the Prussian officer elite, who were worried about Hitler, supported the army. They figured he could not do much to change the old ways, as long as they controlled the armed forces of the country. That’s why Hitler made sure this new army of his was the best trained and best equipped in all of Europe. Sooner than later it became the equal of the regular army, and then it far surpassed them. At that point, he didn’t need the support of the feldmarshals. Then he began changing things on a large scale. And the people liked the changes; and they liked him even more. Then it went further, much further. They began to venerate, if not worship him.

“The point is he had his choice of the crème of Germany’s youth. They were going to be an elite army made up of a master race. In the beginning, when all they were supposed to be were ceremonial guards, they had to pass a rigorous mental and physical examination. There was also a height requirement. You had to be at least six feet two inches tall. You say the guy you buried was about five nine or ten.

“Steinmann was the equivalent of a colonel, and from what Françoise told me, he would have had to have been one of Hitler’s early members. Later in the War, when manpower was becoming scarcer, they had to settle for shorter volunteers–some as short as six feet. No, we can forget the guys back at your place; they were not tall enough. I don’t think we’ll ever find out who either one of them was. My thinking tells me they were professionals, hired to find me and torture me until I told them about Ravensbruck. That doesn’t mean they weren’t SS-sponsored; they well might have been. But you have to understand the SS didn’t enjoy freedom of movement around the world. They had been convicted as war criminals at Nuremberg, and several nations, including Israel, had their best operatives looking for them. When the SS wanted something, they hired it done–directing the operation from Brazil or Argentina.”

I never told her they were the two guys from Cameron bayou. But that doesn’t mean they’re not buddies of Kurt Steinmann’s. I thought if I told her that story it would upset her all the more. What I wanted was for her to settle down. Maybe she gets a job and stays put until I can get my business concluded.

The last night we were together, she asked me yet another question. Why this particular one, I don’t know. “Mike, why did Hitler invade Russia, and squander his armed forces. I thought he was allied with Stalin?”

“He was,” I said, “but he never trusted Stalin. His intelligence people convinced him Stalin was only being his friend in order to give the Soviets time to build up their army. Stalin had the largest and best-equipped army in Europe. It might not have been as up-to-date as some, but it was huge, and Hitler knew it. He invaded Russia then, because he was afraid the longer he waited the more powerful the Soviets would become. He was afraid England and Russia would attack him first. He figured if he did nothing, and Stalin had time to modernize his equipment, then Germany was doomed for sure. He couldn’t wait and gamble on a war on two fronts, but that’s exactly what happened. You see, he thought Churchill and Stalin were conspiring to destroy Germany.

“Hitler couldn’t understand why they were so jealous of him; after all, what he was doing to make Germany prosperous and the envy of all the world could easily be accomplished in the rest of Europe. In point of fact, he said he wanted to help them build a Utopia just like his. That is, he did until they ganged up on him, which they did, according to him.

“And that’s where the Waffen SS played a major role,” I said. “They were the most intelligent men in all of Europe. They were recruited from every nation, even from those nations that were occupied, including France. Their officers came from the ranks, in most instances, and they trained with their men. They fought at the front. Even their senior officers led from the front and not from the rear. This resulted in an esprit unsurpassed by any army before or since. This, plus their rigorous conditioning and indoctrination as to why they were fighting, made them the most feared adversaries on any battlefield. They were more feared than the Knights Templar of the Crusades.

“I don’t mean to bore you, Lucy, but this is the kind of people the two of us are up against. This is a capsulated view of our enemy, who was indirectly responsible for the lives of 26,000,000 Russians, and directly responsible for murdering 6,000,000 Jews and gypsies. Last of all: they are monsters, and we mustn’t forget it.”

“Yeah, but that’s my point,” she said. “Why a personal war with them? Why can’t you just give them back the diamonds? Why must we live like multimillionaires? Why can’t we just be plain everyday people?”

“Lucy, it’s not about diamonds. It has nothing to do with diamonds–nothing at all. It has everything to do with gold. Gold, Lucy! I have, or did have, 700 of their large gold bars. By my calculations that’s almost 14,000,000 dollars of 1945 Waffen SS money–not Reichsbank money–Waffen SS money. But due to circumstances I couldn’t control, I lost most of it. But I do have more than two and a half million in gold bullion left. But if the government ever removes the 35-dollar limit, as they’re expected to do, that could balloon to an astronomical sum–maybe even to hundreds of dollars an ounce. And don’t be confused; none of it came from the Merkers mine. It’s a separate hoard.

“You can see it has little to do with diamonds and everything to do with gold. And there’s something else we took, which is almost of equal value to them….”

“What in the world could that be? And even if it is, why not give it back along with the gold?”

“You don’t understand. It’s nothing tangible–nothing having any intrinsic value, nothing marketable that I know of….”

“Indeed. Something as valuable to them as that much gold….”

I interrupted again, getting myself in deeper and deeper, wishing I had never said anything, knowing I shouldn’t try to explain it.

Then I blurted out something. I was trying my best to get her to stop questioning me without scaring her to death, but I was not succeeding. I said: “Lucy, this thing I’m talking about is so sinister I don’t want to talk about it nowmaybe not ever.”