Free The Empire of Time by David Wingrove Page B

Reichsbank and Minister of Economics. The SS officer looked at him, noting that he spoke perfect German and that his name was Seydlitz. An honourable
Prussian
name. Hostility was replaced by respect, even by a degree of obedience. A telephone was brought and he made the call.
    Funk’s secretary hesitated, then put him through. In a minute or two it was achieved. Funk had received his letter and remembered him. Funk was busy, yes, but he would see him.
    Seydlitz smiled and handed the phone across to the officer, letting him confirm the details. There was no real secret to this business. No doubt Funk did remember him. It had been at Cologne in ’35. Funk had been running the
Wirtschaftspolitischer Pressedienst
and acting as contact man between the Nazis and big business. Seydlitz had gone out of his way to impress him with talk of his company’s vast wealth and his admiration of the Reich. But this was not why Funk had agreed to meet him. Germany needed foreign currency badly, and he had promised much in his letter.
    Funk, he knew, was unimportant in himself. He had replaced the capable Schact – Hitler had appointed him in the interval at the Opera House – and had taken on a subordinate role in the Nazi machine. But Funk was his entry. Funk would introduce him to others who, in their turn, would bring him to Hitler.
    He spent the winter in Berlin, the real Berlin, not the claustrophobic
Nichtraum
– the ‘no-place’ – he remembered from his own, personal past. This was a very different city. The spirit of the New Order hung over the place, transforming its massive boulevards as well as its old world streets. He walked down the Unter Den Linden with its imposing buildings and its massive sculptures. Standing beneath Rauch’s magnificent equestrian statue of Frederick, he felt a thrill pass through him. Here was the Dream. Here, in the purity of this vast and magnificent architecture, was the very seed of the Reich.
    That winter was a busy one for Seydlitz. He met Julius Streicher, the whip-bearing Gauleiter of Nuremberg. Streicher and Funk introduced him to the Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop. By December, his name had been mentioned to Hitler. In the first week of January, Goebbels came to see him. By then more than five million dollars had entered the Nazi coffers – all of it perfectly forged, none of it distinguishable in any way from the real thing – such was proof of his friendship to the Party and to the Führer. Goebbels sounded him out. Unlike Streicher or Funk he was a clever, perceptive man. Goebbels came meaning to see through Seydlitz, but went away strangely pleased with him, wondering how he might fit him into his propagandist schemes.
    He first met Hitler in the February of 1941, in Berlin, at the Opera. It was Wagner, naturally.
Das Rheingold
. Afterwards there was a small reception. Seydlitz entered late, accompanying Ribbentrop. There the introduction was made.
    ‘You enjoyed the opera?’ Hitler asked, extending his hand and smiling.
    Seydlitz smiled and bowed his head in salute. ‘I was moved, Führer.’
    He released Hitler’s hand and met his eyes. Hitler was watching him, smiling, nodding. Then he gestured towards the nearby table. ‘Will you have a drink, Herr Seydlitz?’
    Seydlitz shook his head. ‘Thank you, but no, Führer. I do not drink alcohol. Nor do I eat meat.’
    He saw how Hitler’s eyes lit at that. It pleased him greatly. ‘Then we have much in common, Herr Seydlitz.’
    ‘I hope so, for I would dearly like to serve you.’
    There was no weakness in the words, as if to serve Hitler were the natural channel for the strong. This too pleased Hitler inordinately, flattered his ego beyond the superficial phrases of such as Ley and Ribbentrop. He glanced at Goebbels and gave the slightest nod, as if to confirm something they had discussed earlier, then he looked back at Seydlitz, his intensely blue eyes filled with a sudden, almost passionate warmth.
    ‘We must meet again,