Himmler leaned forward. "Replicate it? What are you..." And then S.S.
Reichsführer
Heinrich Himmler allowed himself
to smile, and there was a quality to that smile which caused
even Helmuth Schlacht to step back a pace. "Replicate it!
Induce it?"
"Yes!" Schlacht said. "Induce it, control it, seek to
learn to eliminate the attendant madness."
"And if the chemical process involved can be replicated
and induced," Himmler mused, "we could subject some of our
own men to the process."
"Yes, yes, precisely, precisely!" Schlacht nodded. "An
invulnerable army. Our enemies brought to their knees by
invulnerable German warriors."
Himmler began to laugh. "We would have to make certain,
of course, that we can make them invulnerable without turning them into werewolves!" Schlacht joined in his
laughter.
Festhaller coughed, a prelude to saying, "Herr
Reichsführer
, the research and experimentation as such a project would require...well, it will take years."
Himmler's laughter subsided and then he shook his head. "Do not misunderstand us, Herr Professor, and do not allow my humorous whimsy to mislead you. I no more believe in werewolves than I do in golems, vampires or poltergeists, and I am as likely to believe in true invulnerability as I am to believe the Brothers Grimm. But it is clear that there is some process at work here, some doubtless chemical process, which renders this Gypsy very difficult to injure, and which causes a rather drastic physical change. A basic principle of National Socialist science is that anything which can be observed can ultimately be understood. Was it
not just such reasoning which led the F
ü
hrer to uncover the conspiracy of the Jews?"
"Oh, yes, certainly," Festhaller agreed.
"So if we can discover the biology of this phenomenon,
it may enable us to alter the course of the war quite dramatically in a very short period of time. But," and he turned to Schlacht, "I am not willing to commit too much of our limited resources to a project which is so, shall we say, theoretical. The final solution to the Jewish problem is our number one priority, and the maintenance of internal
security in the conquered territories must come second, and, of course, the conquest of Russia has not been proceeding as
quickly as we had expected."
"I understand perfectly,
Reichsführer
," Schlacht said.
"I have a suggestion to make, if I might. My cousin, Louisa
von Weyrauch, is able to converse with Kaldy's companion in some barbaric Alpine tongue they both know. She can assist
me in interrogation. Her husband, Gottfried, is a trained
physician and has studied psychology. If there are psychological factors involved, he may be able to discover
them, and he can also see to the physical well-being of the prisoners for as long as we choose to keep them alive. If I can have the services of some research scientists, chemists and biologists, I think that I will have an adequate team for the basic research."
Himmler frowned. "That might be difficult. We have many projects underway at the moment, and there is, of course, a need for chemists in the munitions industries..." He thought for a moment. "But this discovery of yours interests me,
Schlacht. Perhaps Dr. Mengele can spare one of his chemists
for a short time."
"I would appreciate being allowed to participate in this project," Festhaller said quickly.
"Of course, Professor, of course," Schlacht responded.
"Your participation is assumed." Festhaller smiled contentedly as Schlacht turned back to Himmler. "It is difficult to say what we will learn or how quickly we can make progress, especially if we have only one research scientist working on the project, but the sooner we beginâ¦"
"Understood," Himmler nodded. "I shall instruct Mengele to send you one of his chemists, and you will continue to use the
Ragoczy
Palace
as operational headquarters. I shall
see to it that appropriate laboratory equipment is delivered
to you there."
"Herr
Reichsführer
," Festhaller said, "I am flying to
Auschwitz
this evening to confer with Dr. Mengele on his studies of the Lusatian Sorbs.
I would be more than happy to convey your instructions to him."
"Fine, Herr Professor. That will expedite matters." Himmler turned back to Schlacht. "When do you anticipate
recapturing the Gypsy?"
"On the first night of the next full moon, if all goes as planned,
Reichsführer
," Schlacht replied. "That will be about a week from today."
"Good," Himmler said, rising to his feet as an indication that the meeting was at an end. "Herr Professor,
I suggest that you accompany Colonel Schlacht when he returns to
Budapest
. And Schlacht, keep me very
closely posted." He snapped his arm up and said, "Heil
Hitler."
"Heil Hitler." Schlacht and Festhaller responded. Then t
hey left Himmler's office, Festhaller to see Dr. Mengele
and Schlacht to spend a few hours at the bar in the Hotel Kempinski. Between the nervousness of anticipation, the tension of the meeting and the elation resulting from his success, he needed a drink
very badly.
Besides, he thought as he strolled down the Kurfurstendamm toward the Kempinski, I have to take some
time to think. Now that I've committed myself to capturing Kaldy, I have to figure out a way to do it.
The Lusatian Sorbs were a singularly unfortunate people.
Of course, no people who came involuntarily under the rule of the Third Reich could be described as fortunate, and many suffered more greatly than the Sorbs, the Jews and the
Gypsies in particular; but in early 1944, the
Lusatian Sorbs had the misfortune to draw the special attention of Dr. Josef Mengele and Professor Joachim Rudolf Festhaller, and that was misfortune enough for anyone.
The Lusatian Sorbs, also known as the Wends, were an island of unassimilated
Slavic culture in the heart of the German state of
Prussia
, and they had maintained their ethnic identity through five hundred years of German rule. This had been an unimportant fact to the Christian princes of the medieval First Reich,
and the military aristocracy of Bismarck's Second Reich had given it no thought whatsoever; but to the pagan racists of
Hitler's Third Reich, the Sorbs were an internal parasite to be analyzed and studied, to be enslaved and exploited,
ultimately to be relocated and exterminated.
Dr. Josef Mengele was not thinking about history as he bent over the bound figure that lay upon the operating table in the hospital building at the concentration camp at
Auschwitz
. He was wondering why this particular Lusatian Sorb, one Wladjechslaw Plocharcyck, had blond hair and blue eyes.
"Spontaneous mutation?" he muttered pensively. "Or
possibly some small element of Aryan blood, brought to the
surface by chance."
"Pardon, Herr Doctor?" his assistant asked. She was a petite young woman, strikingly beautiful in more a
Mediterranean
than Nordic manner, with high cheek bones, aristocratic features and jet-black hair pulled tightly back
into a bun.
Mengele sighed. "Sometimes,
Petra
, I fear that all my research is futile. The
Untermenschen
have been absorbing Aryan blood and have been polluting the Aryan gene pool with their own genes for centuries in this part of Europe, in
Prussia
and
Poland
and the
Ukraine
." He shook his head.
"I sometimes doubt that we'll ever be able to straighten it
all out, filter out the lower elements, isolate and propagate the superior ones. The task seems impossible,"
"If that is so," Petra Loewenstein said with a smile,
"then we are all doubly blessed by having you researching
the problem."
He returned her smile with a perfunctory one of his own, accepting her compliment and then dismissing it, and
then frowned again. "I'm quite serious,
Petra
. We come across blond-haired, blue-eyed Slavs. Are they mutations,
are they true Aryans who have lost touch with their own
pasts, are they exhibiting recessive characteristics in their own genetic structures?" He sighed again and shook his head. "Ah, well. Only fools fret and whine while there is yet work to be done." He nodded to
Petra
and said, "Proceed."
The young chemist lifted the hypodermic needle up to the
light and flicked it with her finger to drive any air bubbles to the top, and then depressed the plunger slightly
to eliminate any air which had risen to the needle tip. Then
she thrust the needle into the arm of Wladjechslaw Plocharcyck and emptied its contents into his bloodstream. She glanced at her watch. "Time, 1432 precisely." She wrote
the time down in the open notebook which lay upon the nearby
desk.
The injection was given at thirty-two minutes after two.
At thirty-three minutes after two, Wladjechslaw Plocharcyck
began to writhe in pain, and at thirty-four minutes after
two he was dead.
Mengele nodded with satisfaction. "As I suspected. Professor Festhaller was incorrect. The Sorbs do
not
have a waste elimination system which differs from that of true humans. Injecting concentrated urea into their blood
does
cause death." He turned to his assistant. "Make careful note
of that,
Petra
."
Mengele and his assistants had been carefully recording the results of their experiments ever since they had begun their work at
Auschwitz
the previous year. Festhaller had been an early supporter of the idea of using the inmates of the death camps as experimental animals, and it was his
support that had brought Himmler around to seeing the value
of the research. A priceless opportunity, he had told the S.S.
Reichsführer,
to expand our scientific knowledge both of genetics and human biology, an opportunity which we may
never have again.
And so the boundaries of human knowledge had been steadily expanding under the careful scrutiny of Mengele and his fellow physicians and assistant chemists. They had posed and then answered many questions in their work at
Auschwitz
.
Precisely how long does it take a naked man to freeze to death unsheltered in the depths of winter? Which best counteracts hypothermia, human body heat, animal body heat, or artificial heat? What is the precise pressure required to crush a human skull? When equal force is exerted in pulling legs in opposite directions away from the body, how long
does it take for the limbs to separate from the pelvis, and
what level of force is required, and does the right or left leg separate first, and is this related to the right- or
left-handedness of the subject?
They had vivisected numerous pregnant women in various stages of pregnancy so as to study fetal development. They had injected blue dye into eyes to see if eye color was alterable. They had measured the effect of relative degrees of heat upon skin, noting the precise temperature and exposure length required before the epidermis began to
blister. They had experimented with sterilization processes,
noting the relative worth of methods ranging from simple castration and uterine removal to chemical injection. They had removed body parts to see if Jews and Gypsies and Slavs were similar to other lower life forms such as lizards in the ability to regenerate lost tissue such as tongues and
arms and ears and noses.
So much work left to be done
, Mengele often thought,
and so little time in which to do it
. But, ever loyal and dedicated to learning, he had steeled himself to his task
and had continued to press on.
The door of the operating room in the so-called hospital swung open and Professor Festhaller waddled in, smiling broadly and holding his hand out toward Mengele. "Herr Doctor!" Festhaller said cheerfully. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I had an unexpected meeting with
Reichsführer
Himmler this
morning."
"Perfectly all right, Herr Professor," Mengele said,
smiling and shaking the proffered hand. "I didn't know when you would be arriving, so I went ahead without you." He
nodded at the corpse on the operating table.
"I'm
afraid you
owe me that beer you wagered. Urea is toxic to the Sorbs."
Festhaller frowned. "Really?"
"I'm afraid so," Mengele nodded, still smiling, happy at
having won the friendly wager. "It look less than three
minutes."
The Professor shrugged. "Ah, well. It seemed like a good
possibility to me, but of course, I was just speculating. One
cannot ague with the results of experimentation."
"No, one cannot," Mengele agreed. He gestured at
Petra
and said, "Have you met Fräulein Loewenstein?"