Garden of Beasts

sipped his chocolate, set the cup and saucer on the desktop, and nodded gravely to someone sitting in a high-backed armchair. Then he looked up. “Ah, Mr. Air Minister, come in, come in.”
    Hitler held up the note Göring had penned earlier. “I must hear more about this. It’s interesting that you mention a conspiracy. . . . Our comrade here, it seems, has brought similar news of such a matter too.”
    Halfway through the large office, Göring blinked and stopped abruptly, seeing the other visitor to the Leader’s office rise from the armchair. It was Reinhard Ernst. He nodded and offered a smile. “Good morning, Mr. Minister.”
    Göring ignored him and asked Hitler, “A conspiracy?”
    “Indeed,” Hitler said. “We have been discussing the colonel’s project, the Waltham Study. It seems some enemies have falsified information about his associate, Doctor-professor Ludwig Keitel. Can you imagine? They’ve gone so far as to suggest that the professor has Jewish blood in him. Please, sit, Hermann, and tell me about this conspiracy you’ve uncovered.”
    •   •   •
    Reinhard Ernst believed that for as long as he lived he would never forget the look on Hermann Göring’s puffy face at that moment.
    In the ruddy, grinning moon of flesh, the eyes registered utter shock. A bully cut down.
    Ernst took no particular pleasure in the coup, however, because once the shock bled out, the visage turned to one of pure hatred.
    The Leader didn’t seem to notice the silent exchange between the men. He tapped several documents on the desk. “I asked Colonel Ernst for information about hisstudy on our military he is currently conducting, which he will deliver tomorrow. . . .” A sharp look at Ernst, who nodded and assured him, “Indeed, my Leader.”
    “And in preparing it he learned that someone has altered records of the relatives of Doctor-professor Keitel and others working with the government. Men at Krupp, Farben, Siemens.”
    “And,” Ernst muttered, “I was shocked to find that the matter goes beyond that. They have even altered records of the relatives and ancestors of many prominent officials in the Party itself. Planting information in and around Hamburg, mostly. I saw fit to destroy much of what I came across.” Ernst looked Göring up and down. “Some lies referred to people quite high up. Suggestions of liaisons with Jewish tinkers, bastard children and the like.”
    Göring frowned. “Terrible.” His teeth were close together—furious not only at the defeat but at Ernst’s hint that Jewish ancestry might have figured in the air minister’s past, as well. “Who would do such a thing?” He began fidgeting with the folder he held.
    “Who?” Hitler muttered. “Communists, Jews, Social Democrats. I myself have been troubled lately by the Catholics. We must never forget they oppose us. It’s easy to be lulled, considering our common hatred for the Jews. But who knows? We have many enemies.”
    “Indeed we do.” Göring again cast a look at Ernst, who asked if he could pour the minister some coffee or chocolate.
    “No, thank you, Reinhard,” was the chilly reply.
    As a soldier Ernst had learned early that of all the weapons in the arsenal of the military the single most effective was accurate intelligence. He insisted on knowing exactly what his enemy was up to. He’d made a mistakein thinking that the phone kiosk some blocks away from the Chancellory was not monitored by Göring’s spies. Through that carelessness, the air minister had learned the name of the coauthor of the Waltham Study. But fortunately Ernst—while appearing to be naive in the art of intrigue—nonetheless had good people placed where they were quite useful. The man who regularly provided information to Ernst about goings-on at the air ministry had last night reported, just after he’d cleaned up a broken spaghetti plate and fetched the minister a clean shirt, that Göring had unearthed information about Keitel’s grandmother.
    Disgusted to have to be playing such a game, yet aware of the deadly risk the situation posed, Ernst had immediately gone to see Keitel. The doctor-professor had supposed that the woman’s Jewish connection was true but he’d had nothing to do with that side of the family for years. Ernst and Keitel had themselves spent hours last night creating forgeries of documents suggesting that businessmen and government officials who were pure-blooded Aryan had Jewish roots.
    The