Page 140

Kappler looked over at von Braun, who now stood by the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a bend of the meandering River Spree. He stood erect, hands on his hips, staring out at the gray and dreary day. Kappler, wearing one of his fine suits, could see von Braun’s reflection in the glass.

He looks ridiculous in that SS uniform.

But I suppose he had to wear it to please Hitler—anything not to give him the slightest excuse to anger him.

Then again maybe, like Schwartz, he likes wearing it.

“And how was your visit with Adolf?”

Wernher von Braun turned and walked to the desk and took a seat in one of the leather-upholstered gilded armchairs. Kappler gestured toward the silver tray with the silver coffee service and, after von Braun nodded, poured them both cups.

“Let me begin, Wolfgang, by asking you something. Have you ever had the pleasure of being at the receiving end of one of Hitler’s furious sessions? One in which Der Führer is so angry that his face glows red as a beet, his spittle pelts you in the face, and the climax of his screaming and yelling is when he rips the eyeglasses from his face and throws them across the room?”

Wolfgang Kappler took a sip of coffee as he thought, I’ve always thought it a serious sign of abhorrent behavior that Hitler would even keep a stockpile of extra eyeglasses just so he could throw and break them. That’s calculating. And sadly childlike, if not outright demented.

“No, Wernher, I have not had the pleasure of being in Adolf’s company in many years. And, even when I did—and I was around him quite a bit in those early days—he then was not prone to such dramatics.”

Von Braun raised an eyebrow.

“I would suggest, having just experienced such a session and the memory of it rather fresh, that these fits of temper are not simply drama.”

Kappler watched as von Braun pulled a white linen handkerchief from his tunic and delicately dabbed at his forehead.

Presumably at some of Adolf’s spittle . . .

Von Braun went on: “There is genuine conviction in his behavior because he has a genuine conviction that Germany will be victorious. And, I might add, such conviction is infectious.”

So you not only believe in that, you actively support it.

Kappler nodded, then said, “This I do not doubt. Even when younger, he showed that extraordinary conviction. I suppose that having such focus on one’s goals—and, conversely, a dogged blindness to anything not fitting one’s goals—is in large part how one rises to be in such a powerful position.”

Their eyes met, and Kappler thought he could see von Braun wondering if that was also meant to describe him.

Yes, it was, Wernher.

You may well be brilliant, but you are no better than all the others in Hitler’s circle. Clearly you are feverishly working to further a madman’s failed vision.

A Thousand-Year Reich? It won’t last another thousand days.

Yet you design more bombs—bigger and more deadly bombs—and use my labors, my companies, to ultimately further destroy our people and our country.

Just as has happened in the Ruhr Valley.

How very easy it would be for me right now to kill you.

But what good would that do? The programs would continue, more people would die—including me and, ultimately, my family.

Von Braun said: “After our meeting with Der Führer, Reich Minister Bormann suggested that I come see you. He said that you and he also go back a long time.”

“Yes. We all do, actually. It was Bormann who introduced Fritz Thyssen and me to Adolf. You’re aware, I’m sure, that Bormann named his sons after Adolf, Rudolf Hess, and Heinrich Himmler.”

“I wasn’t.”

“And so they’re all godfathers to their namesakes. And I was there when Adolf served as witness to Bormann’s wedding.”

“You do go back a long time.”

And yet I am the one who supported them only to see them use that power and steal from me.