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“Aye, aye, sir,” Admiral Hawley said.

“Take a couple of days at home, Commander,” the DCNO said. “And then get yourself to England. You know what’s expected of you.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Bitter said.

Chapter TWO

Marburg an der Lahn, Germany

31 December 1942

Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Peis had had to consider the possibility that once he actually met Fräulein Gisella Dyer, Standartenführer Johann Müller might not like her. Or that he would be put off by her negative attitude: More than once Fräulein Dyer had forgotten her situation. She did not in these moments become openly defiant. But with some alcohol in her she tended to lose her sweetness and innocence and turn into a flippant and sarcastic bitch.

Obviously, Standartenführer Müller had to be entirely pleased with the evening: Peis hoped there would be an opportunity afterward to discuss his future with the Standartenführer. Peis had nothing specific that he wanted from the Standartenführer; he simply wanted the Standartenführer to look upon him favorably. There was no overestimating the influence of a Standartenführer SS-SD on the staff of the Reichsführer-SS in Berlin. A favorable—or unfavorable—word from a man like that in the right ears would have a pronounced influence on his career. A few little words could mean the difference between staying here with maybe a nice promotion or being assigned to the Eastern Front.

Peis had to keep reminding himself that underneath, Müller was probably a man much like himself, that Müller had in fact once been a lowly Wachtmann on the Kreis Marburg police. A man didn’t change his spots, even if he came to wear the corded silver epaulets of a Standartenführer.

Since he was a man, he wanted to spend a couple of pleasant hours on New Year’s Eve over drinks and dinner with an attractive young woman. And afterward he wanted to snuggle up with her in bed. It was little enough for him to expect of Peis, and he would likely be annoyed if things didn’t go well.

Because of the very real possibility that Fräulein Dyer might show up in one of her difficult moods, Peis considered that it might be best for her not to show up at all and to solicit the help of Frau Gumbach.

Frau Gumbach operated a whorehouse near the Bahnhof, a regular whorehouse with resident whores. She also had available a dozen women who operated outside the law—that is, who didn’t have the prostitute’s yellow identity card. These girls were available by appointment to men who could not afford being seen in the whorehouse, or picking up whores in bars or along the street.

The problem was that Standartenführer Müller had expressed a specific interest in Fräulein Dyer. If Fräulein Dyer did not appear at supper at the Kurhotel, Standartenführer Müller might conclude that Peis was saving her for himself. It would not be desirable for Müller to harbor any such suspicions.

When he telephoned Frau Gumbach, she assured him that she understood his dilemma perfectly and that it would be her pleasure to help. She knew just the girl: She had been bombed out of her home and employment in Kassel and the Hessian Labor Officer had sent her to work in the aircraft engine plant in Marburg. Not only would she be pleased to make a little extra money, but she would like the opportunity to associate with important people.

“You’re not suggesting that I pay her?” Peis asked incredulously.

“Of course not, Herr Hauptsturmführer,” Frau Gumbach said. She was fully aware that Peis’s friendship kept her house open and her girls free not to “volunteer” to become manual laborers for the Todt Organization. “I will, of course, give her a little something, but you should consider this to be a simple gesture between friends.”

“I’ll be in the parking lot behind the Café Weitz at quarter to seven,” Peis said.

Frau Gumbach was usually reliable, but he wanted to see the girl from Kassel before he took her to the Kurhotel to meet Standartenführer Müller.

He then called Fräulein Dyer and invited her to spend New Year’s Eve with himself and Standartenführer Müller. Müller, he pointedly told her, was a very important officer from Berlin. He asked her to

be at the Kurhotel at seven. If he was not yet there, she was to wait for him at the bar.

He did not offer to pick her up. Riding the streetcar and then walking almost a kilometer up the hill to the Kurhotel through the snow would give her time to reflect on her situation.

Chapter THREE

Gisella Dyer was twenty-nine years old. She was tall and rather large-boned, the kind of woman described as “statuesque” by those whose perceptions of statues are based on the baroque school. That is to say, she had broad shoulders and sturdy thighs, large, firm breasts and buttocks, but little fat.

Gisella Dyer and her widowed father lived in a large and comfortable house close to the ancient fortress and later abbey that had been seized from the Papists and turned into Philips University by Philip, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, after his conversion to Protestantism by Martin Luther.

The house had been her grandfather’s, and he had left it to Gisella’s father and mother; but it was no longer entirely theirs. She and her father (her mother had died when she was fourteen) lived in four large rooms, with private bath, on the second floor, twenty-five percent of the house. The rest of the space had been requisitioned (temporarily, until victory) by the Housing Office and was now occupied by three families and a bachelor, an engineer at the Fulmar Werke.

Her grandfather had been Professor of Mathematics at Marburg. Her father was an instructor in metallurgy in the College of Physics. If it had not been for the War/National Socialism (which were in Gisella’s mind interchangeable) , her father would have been Professor of Metallurgy. And three years ago, Gisella would have become Gisella Dyer, D.Med.

But with National Socialism, there had come “Party considerations.” In addition to one’s academic credentials, one needed the blessing of the Party in order to be promoted to a distinguished position. Prof. Dr. Friedrich Dyer’s academic credentials were impeccable, but he was not in good standing with the National Socialists of Stadt und Kreis Marburg. Quite the reverse.

Professor Dyer had been opposed to the Nazi Party from the days when it had been just one more lunatic, amusing fringe party. He had thought then—and worse, said—that it was more dangerous than other batty groups primarily because of its intellectual dishonesty. The National Socialist belief in “Aryanism” and “Aryan Purity” especially aroused his contempt.

In the fall of 1938, he had made unflattering remarks about Professor Julius Streicher, the Party’s virulent anti-Semite intellectual, in the presence of some people he innocently thought of as friends. They had promptly reported him to the Sicherheitsdienst. In the course of the investigation that followed, it was discovered that he had illegally transferred funds to Switzerland and was planning not to return to Germany after a seminar to be held in Budapest.

The Sicherheitsdienst officer who conducted the investigation was SS-OBERSTURMFÜHRER Wilhelm Peis, a former Kreis Marburg policeman whose Party affiliations had led to his duties as deputy commander of the SS-SD office for Stadt und Kreis Marburg.