An Infinity of Mirrors (20 page)

Aside from the SD, SS and the Gestapo, there were six other rival German intelligence organizations operating in France. The Bureau Ribbentrop was unofficial, but it commanded extensive facilities. Ernest Bohle's Auslandorganisation was the official overseas secret service apparatus. Dr. Rosenberg's Aussenpolitischesamt tried desperately to keep up with the others. The Reichsmarschall's Air Force Research Office conducted extensive and mindless wire tapping which, bureaucratically burgeoning, ultimately impelled its zealous technicians to tap the lines of the Reichsmarschall, as well as those of the Fuehrer himself. (All of the tens of millions of telephone conversations held during the twelve years of the Thousand Year Reich were transcribed in duplicate and filed by a corps of librarians for easy reference if blackmail or betrayal were needed.) Military intelligence was under the direction of Admiral Canaris, and lastly, in addition to his unofficial bureau, Foreign Secretary von Ribbentrop, who was capable of being confused even by a picture book, maintained an official intelligence service so that he might receive contrasting assortments of intricate information daily.

Behind all of these, moving like a black cat in the night and striking to maim and to kill, was Colonel Drayst's SD, which eventually would consume all of its competitors. The chain of command flowed out of Berlin from the Reichsfuehrer SS to General Heydrich to General Mueller, Gestapo chief, to Colonel Drayst or, if Jews were involved, from Mueller to Eichmann to Strasse.

Late in 1941, Strasse had a scene with the Jewish Affairs Agency of Vichy, which had been fighting stubbornly against giving up French Jews for extermination, insisting that Strasse take foreign-born or stateless Jews of which, they maintained, there were plenty available in France. Strasse finally agreed, but when he set out to round up a trainload of Jews for extermination at Auschwitz, he discovered that he had only one hundred and fifty prisoners to ship, and he was sick over the trouble this was going to make for him in Berlin. As usual when he was in trouble, he went to Drayst with the problem and sat in the Colonel's office while a call was put through to Eichmann. Normally Captain Strasse was chalk-pale with a face like a cartoon rodent, but when Drayst picked up the receiver Strasse seemed green, and under his arms large, dark wet circles of perspiration had soaked through his tunic.

“Hello?” Drayst said. “Is that Eichmann?”

“This is Eichmann. Is that Strasse?”

“No. This is Drayst.”

“Is that Paris? They told me I was talking to Paris.”

“This is Paris. This is the BdS in Paris.”

“Ah … Drayst! Hello. How are you, Drayst?”

“The same to you, Eichmann.”

“Where is Strasse?”

“Strasse has urgent business with the French. We have bad news here.”

“Bad news?”

“The train which was due to leave on the second had to be canceled.”

“Canceled? Strasse canceled a train? Why?”

“He had no choice. I can bear him out on this.” Drayst looked across the desk at Strasse, who nodded with sick gratitude. The Colonel knew about the problems of coordinating departures and arrivals, the difficulties of wangling rolling stock from the Ministry of Transport at a time when the Wehrmacht was constantly demanding priority, and above all, the necessity of having the trains filled to capacity with Jews so that no train would be wasted.

“Why? I don't follow this, Drayst. He knows the problems. I don't follow it and I don't like it at all. How could Strasse cancel a train?”

“They could only get one hundred and fifty Jews in Bordeaux and there was no time to find others to fill the train.”

“Then Strasse has let us down—again. This is a disgrace. There is also a question of prestige here, Drayst, you know. The French go too far with us.”

“But Eichmann, only one hundred and fifty Jews—”

“Does Strasse realize even dimly the length of time we had to negotiate here with the Minister of Transport in order to get this train for him? We do our job here one hundred percent, and then Strasse claims he can't get Jews. Is this a comedy? I don't know what to say, Drayst.”

“It is better, believe me, Eichmann, to store the one hundred and fifty Jews here at Drancy than to waste a train.”

“It's a disgrace. I must speak with Strasse.”

“He is with the French. He is so angry that he has told them he may take the matter to Ambassador Abetz.”

“I certainly don't want to have to report this matter to General Mueller, but the blame for Strasse's failure must fall directly on his own shoulders. He forces me to consider whether it would not be better to do without France altogether as an evacuation center.”

When Eichmann had hung up Drayst put the telephone down and said, “Listen, why not put them on the train and fake the bill of lading a little?”

“I would do that in a minute,” Strasse said. “But then they wouldn't get the same count at Auschwitz. This morning I was going to put them on the train and burn it to the ground, but then I'd get in even more trouble for losing a few rotten railroad cars.”

“Well, be sure to call Eichmann before Monday. Heil Hitler!”

Strasse got up. His face was bitter, partly because of fatigue. Captain Strasse had one very peculiar obsession: a compulsion to own and operate night clubs. During the day he worked on the final solution to the Jewish problem, but at night he supervised eleven night clubs which he had commandeered from Jews. Most of the time he was wandering around in a daze of fatigue; the night before, for instance, the barman in his rue Lapin club had not shown up for duty and he had been obliged to work the shift himself until closing time. “Heil Hitler,” he said, and shuffled wearily out of the room, as Fräulein Nortnung, the Colonel's secretary, called, “I have Charles Grimaux on the line, Colonel Drayst.”

“Put him on.” Drayst waited and stared out the window at the Musée d'Ennery. “Hello, Grimaux? How are you? Fine. Fine … Sunday evening?” He pulled an engagement book toward him. “Hm. I think so … The astrologer? Marvelous. Yes, I am free, Grimaux. Excellent. My very best to Mme. Grimaux. How nice … Ah, yes—there is one little thing, yes. Might you invite another guest?… Ah, how very kind of you. It is Frau General Paule von Rhode, the wife of—ach, you know her differently here. Here she is Paule Bernheim, the daughter of your great actor. Please don't mention my name … Yes, yes, that is the one. The mistress of the Duke of Miral.”

Two

José Zorra, Duke of Miral, had great length, elbows like
puyas
, stylish thinness, and a close-cropped gray moustache. At fifty-one, his voice contained the quality of intent consideration, that element of self-sacrifice which is the essence of good manners. Gentleness came naturally to him. He smelled of lemons because of Hanford's Vitalizing Lotion which was shipped to him from a gentlemen's hairdresser in Jermyn Street, London; this was one result of a British education. He spoke German with a true Hanoverian accent—the result of still more education, in Germany. He preferred France to both countries, the English to the people of the three countries, and German music, German tenacity, and
Trockenbeeren Auslese
to anything similar in England or France. He pitied all countries because they could not be Spain, but he concealed this deepest love of his beneath a patient deference and consideration for others. He had studied women and art until, as the years had moved imperceptibly and now seemed as thin as shadows, he had become an addict of grace and a world authority on painting in general and on Spanish and Flemish masters in particular.

The Duke of Miral found himself once again in Paris in the winter of 1941 as the single member of an extraordinary delegation from the Spanish government, after he had completed successful, if delayed, exchanges of art between France and Spain. The Spanish had taken the initiative in arranging for the first exchange. The talks had started, most informally, when Murillo's Immaculate Conception was exhibited in the Louvre at the end of 1940. It was tentatively suggested that perhaps this was the most famous painting to cross the Pyrenees following the looting of Spanish art treasures by the French forces in 1808—it had been liberated by Maréchal Soult in Seville—and that its return could effect the greatest good will between the two countries. Unofficially, and because the French evidently had listened attentively to the first suggestion, the Spaniards next suggested that the pre-Iberic bust called Woman of Eliche might also be included, and that it certainly would be worthwhile to think about returning the crowns of the Visigoth kings which were then on exhibition at the Musée de Cluny.

The discussions rose to higher levels. The French cabinet at Vichy agreed to these proposals—providing there was an exchange. The Department of Ancient Oriental Art at the Louvre began to collect the art claimed by Spain. A plenipotentiary was named and an agreement was reached: France would return the Murillo, the bust, and the six gold crowns from the Quarrazar treasure; Spain would give to France the Velázquez portrait of Marie Anne of Austria, El Greco's Adoration of the Shepherds and his St. Benoist (or two other Grecos of equal importance and quality), and a lengthwise section of the actual tent of François I, used at
Camp du drap d'or
, which was in the Royal Armory of the Royal Palace of Madrid. This tent, a gift of the Sultan Suleiman to François I, had been taken from him by the Spanish on the battlefield at Pavia, in 1525, and had followed François into captivity.

The agreement was signed on December 27, 1940 and the French were so pleased with the bargain that they acted somewhat incautiously. Two weeks before the signing, the Murillo was sent to Madrid, and the other objects arrived in Spain only six weeks after the signing. The fact was that the French wanted Generalissimo Franco to visit Marshal Pétain as he crossed France on his way to meet Mussolini. Marshal Pétain had not made a really strong impression upon the Generalissimo when he had been the French Ambassador to Spain, so it was especially important that there be no outstanding sources of friction—such as slowness in returning the art objects—between the two governments.

Unfortunately, the agreement on the exchange had never been ratified by the respective governments of the two men who had signed it, and with the desired art now in hand, the Spanish government took the position that the signing of the agreement had only expressed the most unofficial wishes of two individuals. This created a crisis in the French government at Vichy which caused the resignation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Clearly it was necessary that negotiations begin all over again lest honor be smirched or even lost. New representatives from France and Spain renewed the talks, the Duke of Miral leading the Spanish delegation, and by April, 1941, it seemed that a solution was in sight. France needed only to agree to a compromise over two points on which the Spaniards would not yield. Before Miral would recommend ratification he insisted that Spain must have the forty missing documents of the Siramancas Archives which had been stolen by Napoleon's generals in 1809; further, he flatly refused to surrender the piece of tent of François I, even though it had been part of the original agreement which those “two individuals” had seen fit to reach.

The French agreed to give up their claim to the entrance section of the lengthwise piece of tent of François I, and some other areas of it near the entrance, for the excellent reason that this tent was the last trace of one of France's worst military defeats and, all things considered, it would be illogical to display it in a gallery of a French museum.

The bargaining continued until the middle of June. Instead of the piece of tent, the Duke of Miral proposed to give a tapes-try called The Brawl at the Inn, whose cartoon had been drawn by Goya, but France could not accept this because it simply was not comparable, either in age or in historical importance. Countering, the French raised the question that if by any chance they were to waive their rights and interest in the piece of tent, would the Spanish give them one Greco of major importance—such as the portrait of the humanist Covarrubias, for example? At last, the Spanish team accepted the French proposals and counterproposals; when they received the forty missing documents from the Siramancas Archives, they even gave France nineteen sketches from the story of Artenice, for good measure. The signing of the agreement took place in Madrid, on June 27, 1941, and was immediately ratified by both countries.

Miral's government was pleased once more with his accomplishments. In November, 1941, because in the past Miral had enjoyed a close association with the Reichsmarschall in the First World War, when Miral had covered the conflict for his family's newspapers and the Reichsmarschall had been thinner and a hero, and because the Spanish Ambassador to Berlin had confirmed the Reichsmarschall's fond recollection of Miral as a willing sharer of women and wine, and because the Reichsmarschall had a connoisseur's regard for Miral's authority on painting, the Spanish government dispatched Miral on an extraordinary mission-of-one. He was to return to his sometime residence in Paris to open delicate discussions which might lead to the return of two exemplar paintings by Velázquez and Goya which had been hanging in the Louvre since they had been taken from Spain by the French in 1810. These items were of far too much value to be discussed successfully with the French government directly, but they might possibly be regained from the French by the Germans, who in turn would hand them over to the Spanish.

This was possible because Rosenberg's unit, whose objective was nothing more or less than to loot France of as much of its fine art as it could lay its hands on, was engaged day and night in filling and refilling the Musée de Jeu de Paume with great, privately owned art collections which were the property of French Jews and which had been seized by special arrangement with the Vichy authorities. All of these acquisitions were entirely legal, because the Fuehrer was a stickler for legality; payments for all works of art were deposited with the Vichy Commission for Jewish Affairs—though it is true that the payments were at grievously lowered evaluations. Art is beauty and beauty is truth; by the war's end twenty-six thousand railroad cars, according to efficient German statistics, had left France, Italy, Belgium, and Holland for Germany, all filled with truth and beauty.