Fatherland

papers and began to read.
    You need a little luck in this life.
    The first document was a letter dated January 2, from the under state secretary at the Air Ministry, regarding the distribution of gas masks to the Reichsluftschutzbund , the Air Raid Protection organization. The second, dated January 4, was from the Office of the Four-Year Plan and concerned the alleged unauthorized use of gasoline by senior government officials.
    The third was from Reinhard Heydrich. March saw the signature first—an angular, spidery scrawl. Then his eyes traveled to the letterhead—the Reich Main Security Office, Berlin SW 11, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8—then to the date: January 6, 1942. And only then to the text:
    This is to confirm that the interagency discussion followed by luncheon originally scheduled for December 9, 1941, has now been postponed to January 20, 1942, in the office of the International Criminal Police Commission, Berlin, Am grossen Wannsee, No. 56-58.

    March leafed through the other letters in the box: carbon flimsies and creamy originals; imposing letterheads— Reichschancellery, Economics Ministry, Organisation-Todt invitations to luncheons and meetings; pleas, demands, circulars. But there was nothing else from Heydrich.
    March passed the letter to Halder. "What do you make of this?"
    Halder frowned. "Unusual, I would say, for the Main Security Office to convene a meeting of government agencies."
    "Can we find out what they discussed?" "Should be able to. We can cross-reference it to the minutes and memoranda series. Let's see: January 20 . . ."
    Halder looked at his notes, pulled himself to his feet and walked along the stack. He dragged out another box, returned with it and sat, cross-legged. March watched him flick through the contents. Suddenly, he stopped. He said slowly, "Oh my God ..." "What is it?"
    Halder handed him a single sheet of paper on which was typed "In the interest of state security, the minutes of the interagency meeting of January 20, 1942, have been removed at the request of the Reichsführer-SS."
    Halder said, "Look at the date."
    March looked. It was April 6, 1964. The minutes had been extracted by Heydrich eleven days earlier.
    "Can he do that—legally, I mean?"
    "The Gestapo can weed out whatever it wants on the grounds of security. They usually transfer the papers to the vaults in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse."
    There was a noise in the hallway outside. Halder held up a warning finger. Both men were silent, motionless, as the guard clattered past, wheeling the empty cart back from the furnace room. They listened as the sounds faded toward the other end of the building.
    March whispered, "Now what do we do?"
    Halder scratched his head. "An interagency meeting at the level of state secretary . . ."
    March saw what he was thinking. "Buhler and Luther would have been invited, as well?"
    "It would seem logical. At that rank, they get fussy about protocol. You wouldn't have a state secretary from one ministry attending, and only a junior civil servant from another. What time is it?"
    "Eight o'clock."
    "They're an hour ahead in Krakau." Halder chewed his lip for a moment, then reached a decision. He stood up. "I'll telephone my friend who works at the archives in the General Government and ask if the SS has been sniffing around there in the past couple of weeks. If they haven't, maybe I can persuade him to go in tomorrow and see if the minutes are still in Buhler's papers."
    "Couldn't we just check here, in the Foreign Ministry archives? In Luther's papers?"
    "No. Too vast. It could take us weeks. This is the best way, believe me."
    "Be careful what you say to him, Rudi."
    "Don't worry. I'm aware of the dangers." Halder paused at the door. "And no smoking while I'm gone, for Christ's sake. This is the most inflammable building in the Reich."
    True enough , thought March. He waited until Halder had gone and then began walking up and down between the stacks of boxes. He wanted a cigarette badly. His hands were trembling. He thrust them into his pockets.
    What a monument to German bureaucracy this place was. Herr A, wishing to do something, asked permission of Doctor B. Doctor B. covered himself by referring it upward to Ministerialdirektor C. Then Ministerialdirektor C. shuffled it to Reichsminister D., who said he would leave it to the judgment of Herr A., who naturally went back to Doctor B... The alliances and rivalries, traps and intrigues of three decades of Party rule wove in and out of