The Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and Their Crimes Against Humanity, by Paul Roland.

The photograph on the covering page fits every description of the person that Göring was, as portrayed amply by Upton Sinclair in the World's End series, in most of the eleven volumes thereof.
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"Why another book about the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials? It is true that the story has been re-told many times, but it bears repetition because with the passing of time the Nazis have assumed an almost mythic status in the minds of those who did not experience the war, or the horrors of the concentration camps.

"There is a very real danger that for subsequent generations they will be reduced to two-dimensional villains – no more real than the sinister SS caricatures in the Indiana Jones films. Of more importance, though, is the fact that the lessons of Nuremberg do not appear to have been learned. There are still those who deny the Holocaust – despite the fact that Holocaust denial is now a crime in many European countries including Germany – but they do so in the face of the facts that are presented in this book, where the personal testimonies of eyewitnesses are verified by the words of the accused themselves.

"Another reason why I felt compelled to write this account was that I have managed to unearth several personal recollections that to the best of my knowledge have never been published in book form. They are not of great length, nor even of great significance from a historical point of view, but they reveal certain aspects of the trials, and the personalities involved, that are not generally known. But of more importance, they underline the impression that all of the characters in this human catastrophe were quite ordinary people, who were living through extraordinary times. And that includes the defendants. The Nazis continue to hold a morbid fascination for many people. However, when they were stripped of their Satanic symbolism, and dispossessed of the power over life and death that fed their fanatical arrogance, Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop and the rest of the Hitler gang were reduced to their essence – which in many cases was as pitiable as it was disturbing. Here was the ‘banality of evil’ laid bare. Hitler’s followers were the very embodiment of Untermenschen (the subhumans of Aryan master race mythology), who blindly obeyed immoral orders without recourse to their own conscience. They were men of diverse backgrounds – able military leaders, petty bureaucrats and mechanical functionaries. Some of them should have known better but they all willingly sold their souls to bring a madman’s nightmares to reality, feeding his neuroses and propagating his paranoid racist propaganda without considering the inevitable consequences of their actions. Deprived of the pretence of Teutonic heroism, and denied the ritual staging of their Wagnerian party rallies, the Nuremberg defendants were finally forced to face the sordid reality of the damage that their racist ideology and extreme nationalism had wrought upon the world.

"It is a disquieting fact that we tend to find villains more interesting than their victims – in fiction and in reality – but the Nuremberg Trials revealed that in real life criminals and murderers are invariably colourless individuals, who lack personality as well as compassion and conscience. It is their victims who frequently display courage and endurance beyond normal human experience."
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"On the morning of 15 April 1945, Clara Greenbaum woke from an uneasy sleep to the realization that her recurring nightmare had no end. She was still incarcerated in the notorious Nazi slave labour camp at Belsen in northwestern Germany, where an estimated 100,000 prisoners, half of them Russian prisoners of war, had died since its inception in 1943. Clara and her two children – Hannah aged seven and Adam, who was not yet four – were just three of some 60,000 inmates who had miraculously survived starvation, summary execution and the typhus epidemic. Typhus alone had claimed the lives of up to 35,000 prisoners in the first few months of 1945. But no less of a hazard was the daily brutality meted out by the sadistic SS guards, who beat the prisoners unmercifully and frequently shot them at random for ‘target practice’."

"Large numbers of prisoners lay dying or dead where only yesterday they had been forced to stand to attention. The contrast was too surreal for Clara to take in at first. She almost wished for order to return, because she was so conditioned by those who held the power of life and death in this accursed place. Looking up she noticed that the guard towers were empty. In fact, there were no guards to be seen anywhere. But if this was the day of liberation, it did not feel like it. There was no elation, only a crippling anxiety. For four hours the mass of prisoners remained on the Appellplatz, not daring to approach the unguarded gates. Many of them must have realized that they were only a few hundred metres from freedom, but they were unable to move. It was not that they were afraid that the guards would return but, as Clara later remembered, the guards were still inside them and they would remain there to the end of their lives. They were so indoctrinated that the very thought of freedom filled them with fear. It was not only their bodies that had been imprisoned and tortured beyond endurance, but their minds.

"Hours passed and then the mass of people stirred. They could hear the unmistakable sound of heavy vehicles approaching from behind the low hills to the north. A moment later a column of tanks and trucks appeared. The vehicles were rumbling across the ploughed fields towards the barbed wire. Panic went through the crowd like a bolt of electricity. This was it. The Germans were going to machine-gun them and then roll over their bodies to eradicate the evidence of their crimes. Then someone saw the Union Jack flying from the turret of one of the tanks. They were British! To the prisoners’ amazement the column circled the camp twice before drawing up in formation at the front gates, where the vehicles’ engines were turned off. Presumably they had been checking to see if any SS troops were prepared to make a final stand. And there they waited. Not a word was spoken. No orders were given. Clara estimated that as many as 500 troops were standing in complete silence, staring through the barbed wire."

"Then some of the soldiers began throwing food over the fence and the prisoners scrambled to claim what they could. A moment later the leading tank roared into life and smashed through the gates, followed by orderly ranks of soldiers under the command of an officer. The inmates had been liberated, but Clara felt no joy. She only wanted to turn and hide. But after a few steps she was arrested by a terrible sound. It was the mourning wail of an old woman. Only it was not an old woman. It was Hannah. For the first time in three years she was crying – her convulsions were so violent that her mother feared that her small body would collapse. For three years she had kept her emotions in check, but now they had all risen to the surface and consumed her. Adam was also weeping, but in the way that a small child cries. That was the moment at which Clara’s stony resolve cracked. She too fell to the ground, screaming and pounding the dirt with her fists. Everything they had seen and suffered had to be exorcized.

"The survivors needed to be questioned before having their details taken for a Red Cross list, but first of all they were given soup. Clara asked for water to dilute it with because she knew that she and her children were too malnourished to drink it as it was. Even so they felt sick afterwards. Others were not so lucky. The soup was too much for their ravaged bodies and they died.

"‘In the concentration camp you cannot have hope. Only determination.’

"Clara Greenbaum"
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"In other camps Allied officers found it difficult to maintain discipline among their men – in some cases captured SS guards were summarily executed. This was soldiers’ justice, meted out by men who had seen their share of death, but who could no longer restrain themselves when confronted with the cold-blooded slaughter, or brutalization, of innocent civilians.

"At Dachau, near Munich, the liberators were checking the railway sidings when 2,310 corpses spilled out of a single train. It had been bringing in prisoners from other camps for execution. Most of the dead, including 83 women and 21 children, had expired from malnutrition, dehydration and suffocation – the Germans had crammed them in several hundred to a wagon. Those who had survived the journey were dragged out before being shot, beaten to death with rifle butts or torn to pieces by the guard dogs.

"The corpses were so emaciated that the first American officer on the scene thought he was looking at mounds of rags. Then he realized that the pathetic bundles were human beings. He estimated that the heaviest of them could not have weighed more than sixty or seventy pounds. With considerable effort he managed to keep his composure and then he attempted to maintain discipline by ordering his men – many of whom were sobbing uncontrollably – to count the corpses. But he was too late to prevent a GI from machine-gunning a number of captured SS personnel (as many as 122 Germans died, according to some accounts) while his squad urged him on, aided by the inhuman cries of the prisoners behind the wire.

"But the SS were anonymous servants of the Nazi regime. Their names and their fate would be lost among the appalling statistics of a war that had claimed some 64 million victims in 27 countries, 40 million of them non-combatants. Besides, the survivors did not want revenge, they wanted justice. Someone would have to pay, and be seen to pay, for what the Nazi regime had done to Clara and millions like her, many of whom had simply vanished from the earth, cremated in the ovens of Auschwitz and more than a thousand other camps throughout Germany and the occupied countries. The architects of the Final Solution would have to be brought to account and the German nation must be forced to face up to its collective responsibility for giving Hitler the mandate to wage his war. There would have to be a trial.

"‘I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world... I made the visit (to Buchenwald) deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda”.’

"General Eisenhower"

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"Nuremberg was, in retrospect, the obvious venue for a public trial of the Nazi war criminals. It had been the site of the massed annual party rallies and it could be seen as the crucible of fascism. What more appropriate place to bring its demigods into the full glare of the public spotlight and reveal them for the ‘grotesque and preposterous... clowns and crooks’ (according to an Allied report) that they were?"

"Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Principal Points)

"Article 6

"The Tribunal... shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.

"(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

"(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

"(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

"Article 7

"The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment."

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"The Allied powers had convened a War Crimes Commission as early as September 1943. One of its tasks was to draw up a list of suspected war criminals. Winston Churchill expected the list to include up to one hundred names, some of which would be those of Japanese or Italian participants. However, by the time the date and the venue for the International Tribunal at Nuremberg had been agreed upon the list had been whittled down to those who had served the German state.

"The Pacific War was not yet over, so it was agreed that if and when Japan finally surrendered there would be a separate trial to bring those accused of atrocities in the Far East to justice. As for the Italians, their allegiance had shifted with their surrender in 1943, so it was felt that it would not be politically expedient to accuse allies (no matter how recent) of war crimes, particularly in view of the fact that the Italians in the north of the country had been under German occupation since their capitulation.

"Despite Clement Attlee’s assertion that German officers who had behaved like gangsters should be shot and that German industrialists and financiers who had supported the regime should forfeit their assets, no members of these groups were arraigned when the time came for the final list to be approved. It was felt that it would be impossible to know where to draw the line. Instead one representative from each branch of the regime would stand trial and the prosecution would be charged with revealing their part in a criminal conspiracy to subjugate and enslave the peoples of Europe. It would not be necessary to prove individual acts of barbarity if the defendant was a member of one of the named criminal organizations. The seven named organizations were as follows: the Reich Cabinet; the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; the SS; the SA; the Gestapo; the SD; and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.

"This approach also invalidated the cowardly defence that captured Nazis had offered in mitigation of their crimes – that they had been obeying superior orders.

"The prisoners were now being tried as participants in a common plan or conspiracy.

"If convictions were secured against the captured Nazis under these criteria it would make it easier to prosecute their associates and subordinates in future actions, on the grounds that they had shared a collective responsibility."

"The problem with this strategy was that it would be extremely difficult to prove that the Nazi leadership had planned to dominate Europe from the outset. Hitler had expounded his racist doctrine and his desire for conquest in Mein Kampf, but it was implied rather than explicit. The consensus among historians, some of whom acted as advisers to the American prosecution team in 1945, was that Hitler was an opportunist whose aggressive designs took shape as a reaction to events rather than according to a schedule. The Allies were also open to the accusation that they were writing ex post facto laws. That is, retroactive laws that make acts criminal that were not criminal when they were committed. In the past, crimes committed in wartime were not considered to be crimes at all."

"But the enormity of these offences was undeniable and it was generally accepted that those who endorsed the policy of genocide should answer for the crimes committed in their name, or with their tacit approval. If necessary, new laws would have to be drafted to define these crimes. The traditional legal categories that divided conflicts into either just or unjust wars were grossly inadequate when they were applied to German aggression in the occupied territories. A new law of ‘Waging Aggressive War’ would have to be drafted, followed by a further law that covered the Nazis’ murderous racist policies and the routine terrorization of civilians under occupation. These would be drafted under the heading ‘Crimes Against Humanity’. It was a far from ideal situation, but the existing laws governing the breaking of treaties and the flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention were woefully inadequate in the face of the Nazis’ abominable acts."

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"The picturesque medieval city where once the Meistersingers had celebrated German culture, and where the artist Dürer had been born, had been all but obliterated by no fewer than 11 major bombing raids. A quarter of a million of Nuremberg’s inhabitants had been left homeless and 6,000 bodies were said to lie unburied under mounds of rubble. The stench of decomposition was partially masked by the equally pungent fumes of gallons and gallons of disinfectant, the water supply was contaminated, there was no electricity or gas and the sewage system was not functioning.

"In the summer of 1945 the only building with electric light and hot running water was the Grand Hotel, which American engineers had renovated to provide 270 rooms, a night club and a gymnasium for the Allied prosecution teams. In the evenings cheap music would drift across the wasteland of the shattered city from the dance floor. It was the only sign of life in the ruins.

"But the survivors did not feel that they were at all to blame for what had taken place in the war years. When Jackson went to check on how the renovation of the Palace of Justice was coming along, in preparation for the trial, he was confronted by groups of shabbily dressed women. They were on their way to scavenge what they could from the few shops that were still standing. Their clothes were as colourless as their gaunt, sour faces and their only expression was one of hatred for the soldiers, who stared back as if they were looking at a lost tribe. The troops were no doubt mindful of the army information films, which reminded them that these same civilians were the ones who had cheered Hitler through the streets only a few years earlier, their arms raised in the Führer salute, their eyes glazed as they looked on their Messiah and their throats hoarse from crying, ‘Sieg Heil’. They were not sorry for supporting the war, only for having lost it. The trial would force them to listen to those who had suffered far worse than the loss of their homes."
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"The shell-scarred Palace of Justice resembled a besieged fortress in bandit country. It had been the site of the final battle for the city. The courtyard was still strewn with pieces of shrapnel and spent cartridges where the remnants of two SS divisions had held out until they had been shelled into submission. Now five Sherman tanks squatted at key points around the main building, their gun barrels loaded with 76 mm shells, while GIs crouched behind sandbags at the entrance to the court.

"More troops were on guard on the ground floor. They stood stiffly to attention, looking as rigid as the marble pillars, while other GIs stood outside the administration offices on the floor above. In the cell block to the rear of the courthouse the sentries were armed with automatic weapons. No one was taking any chances. There were rumours that fanatical bands of SS ‘Werewolves’ – led by the elusive Martin Bormann, Hitler’s sycophantic secretary – might stage a suicide raid to free the prisoners. Ludicrous though it might sound in retrospect, the prospect of a final blood sacrifice in the city that had been a bastion of National Socialism was very real in the minds of those charged with guarding the last of the Hitler gang. Even in the shattered city, a few fanatics were still fighting a lost war by stringing steel wire across the streets to decapitate the drivers of American jeeps, which had been fitted with vertical steel bars to cut through any such obstructions."

"An initial inspection had revealed that the principal court room was far too small for such a momentous trial, so it would have to be enlarged. This would mean demolishing a wall to accommodate the larger than usual dock, while a raised dais would have to be built for the eight judges. In addition, dozens of legal representatives would need to be housed and there would have to be a glass booth for the interpreters, a press gallery and seating for up to 500 spectators. The only original features to be retained were the chandeliers, three bronze plaques that were affixed to marble pillars in the entrance hall and the coat of arms behind the judge’s bench."

"In the final phase of reconstruction the courtroom was fitted with a sound system that promised simultaneously translated testimony in three languages."

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"‘I would like to sit down and write one final blast about the whole damn Nazi mess and mention names and details and let the German people see once and for all what rotten corruption, hypocrisy, and madness the whole system was based on. I would spare no one, including myself.’

"Albert Speer, February 1946

"Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, knew the full extent of the Nazi slave labour programme, although he denied doing so under cross-examination. His overly sincere protestations of guilt struck many who attended the trial as merely expedient, as did his subsequent claim to have planned an attempt (conveniently impractical) on Hitler’s life. It was all seen as a cynical ploy to portray himself as the ‘good German’, the repentant Nazi. He claimed to have woken from the nightmare just in time to prevent Hitler from instigating his scorched earth policy, which would have robbed Germany of any chance of regeneration."

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"Fortunately for the prosecution the German reputation for thoroughness and order was taken to an extreme by the Nazi administration. Detailed records of every order, and memos of every meeting, had been kept and dutifully filed. Requisitions for everything from stationery supplies to canisters of Zyklon B gas (used to murder the inmates of the death camps) had been countersigned by those responsible for the implementation of Nazi policy. Many of these documents had been burned in haste as the Allies closed in, but mountains of paperwork survived to be presented in evidence at the tribunal and at subsequent trials. All of this was augmented by excerpts from official decrees, the transcripts of key speeches and correspondence between departmental heads."

"There was no shortage of eyewitnesses. Former Nazi officials and concentration camp guards were among those who provided evidence in the hope of receiving a more lenient sentence, but the most damning evidence of all was extracted from the mouths of the accused themselves. Freed from the tyranny of Hitler’s personality, and no longer fearful of being denounced as traitors by their enemies within the Nazi regime, several of the defendants opened up to the prison psychiatrists during lengthy interrogations in their cells."

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"He wondered if Hitler had known of the atrocities. Ribbentrop still regarded the dictator as a ‘good man’, a vegetarian who was kind to animals and children. He was convinced that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was rooted in his belief that the Jews were behind an international conspiracy to bring about war between America and Germany.

"‘The American Jews and others obviously hated the Nazi regime. They refused to co-operate in preventing President Roosevelt and his brain trust from lending assistance to England. Lend-lease continued and the whole American atmosphere toward Germany was hostile. If only these American bankers had intervened and threatened England, forced her to accept Hitler’s peace offer – and we were prepared to make a peace with England in 1940 – all these terrible exterminations of the Jews could have been prevented… I was truly under Hitler’s spell, that cannot be denied... He had terrific power, especially in his eyes... Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me.’"

"He sincerely believed that the German people would always regard the Nuremberg defendants as their leaders and that the trial would later be seen to have been a ‘mistake’. If only the Allies would admit that there had been such ‘mistakes’ on both sides there might be some form of reconciliation. Otherwise the German nation would consider any sentences passed on the Nazi leaders as harsh and they would view their leaders as martyrs."
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"Goldensohn’s interpreter during these informal exchanges was 21-year-old Howard (Hans) Triest. Born in Munich, he left Germany for a new life when Hitler came to power. As Private Triest he landed on Omaha beach with the United States Infantry Division, two days after D-Day, and by May 1945 he was looking forward to going home. But then he was reassigned to Nuremberg to work as a translator. For seven months he accompanied Major Goldensohn on his daily visits to the cells.

"‘Leon was a really nice, compassionate man,’ Triest remembered. ‘He had an air around him that made people feel comfortable about confiding in him.’

"But his most memorable encounter was when he stood face to face with Jew-baiter Julius Streicher, who took him aside on one of his visits and asked him if he would look after his personal papers. He feared they might fall into the hands of Jews.

"‘I can smell a Jew from a mile away,’ he boasted. ‘I can see it in their face, their eyes, from the way they walk, even the way they sit!’

"He told Triest that he could tell he came from a very fine Nordic family, which allowed the GI to enjoy a rare moment of macabre humour.

"‘He went to the gallows not knowing I was Jewish,’ said Triest later.

"The young German-American experienced very different emotions when he found himself accompanying Dr Goldensohn to the cell where Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, was being held temporarily while he testified at Nuremberg. Triest’s parents had perished at Auschwitz and here was the man who had ordered their deaths, sitting an arm’s length away.

"‘What should I have done, knifed him?’ says Triest, when he was asked how he could have suppressed his instinct for revenge. ‘No, it was a tremendous satisfaction to know we had captured him and that he was going to hang. That was a comfort.’"

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"Lawrence was a paragon of patience. Having served as a gunnery officer in the First World War, he understood that the law governing the conduct of war cannot always be applied rigidly and to the letter when men are under fire. He would be scrupulously fair to all parties, for he knew that the victors were not without blame and that it was all too easy to demonize the defendants. Most importantly, he never lost sight of the fact that the accused were on trial for their lives and in the full glare of the world’s press. Any lawyer who attempted to use the stage to his personal advantage, or sought to delay the proceedings, was brought sharply back to reality. In his black frock coat, pinstriped trousers, wing collar and bowler hat, the balding judge embodied the qualities of the English gentleman and the principle of ‘fair play’.

"By the end of the trial even the German lawyers had come to respect him. In the often impromptu and chaotic atmosphere of the trial, where new rules of international law were being defined from day to day, he brought stability, authority and the quiet certainty that what was being done was right."

"The terms of the charter were clear – the prisoners had a right to be defended by counsel of their choice. This did not preclude former Nazi lawyers. The Russians were outraged but they were eventually overruled. Biddle argued convincingly that if former Nazis were prohibited from defending the accused, there might not be enough lawyers left in Germany to speak on their behalf. Very few suitably qualified German lawyers were at first willing to defend representatives of the Gestapo and the SS, but Major Neave appealed to their sense of duty. No doubt they were also tempted by the offer of more comfortable accommodation than they had at present, plus the promise of three square meals a day."

"The two French judges were reticent and unassuming. They spoke rarely and were seemingly content to observe and report back to Paris. However, when they did interject it was to ask highly pertinent questions, or untangle a convoluted point of law, and this they did with skill and erudition. Donnedieu de Vabres held the post of law professor in Montpelier and had been drafted in for his knowledge of international law, whereas Falco was an appeal court counsel.

"Their Russian counterparts could not have been more different. Nikitchenko and Volchkov sat scowling throughout the entire proceedings. They seemed eager to sink their talons into ‘the fascist hyenas’ who had ravaged their country. Vice-president of the Soviet Supreme Court, Nikitchenko was a hard drinker, who was allegedly frequently seen drunk in public during the course of the trial. But most of the Russians were heavy drinkers and no one begrudged them the right to try to forget what they had been through. Nikitchenko could be good company, however, when Volchkov was not within earshot. It seemed that Volchkov was not so much his partner as his keeper. It was suspected that he was in the employ of the secret police, because he was the only judge to refuse to chair a preliminary meeting when it was his turn. He excused himself by admitting that he was ‘unqualified’ to do so."

"There were 20 men in the dock on the first day. Fritzsche and Raeder had been duly delivered from the Russian zone but Kaltenbrunner had been taken to hospital with a suspected subarachnoid haemorrhage. The former Gestapo thug was suffering from acute anxiety – clinically speaking, he was almost frightened to death."

"It was something of an anticlimax after months of anticipation, but much of the trial would be taken up with monotonous routine, points of procedure and the dictating of reams of documents on which subsequent questions would be based. That said, for anyone who listened carefully there was drama in the indictment, because the full range of Nazi iniquities was detailed in public for the first time. After the main charges of conspiracy were laid out there came references to specific atrocities: the Führer’s order for the total destruction of Leningrad, in which one million of its citizens perished; the deportation of civilians; the ‘mute evidence of anonymous massacres’; the death of 780 Christian priests at Mauthausen from exhaustion; the execution of civilian hostages in reprisal for acts of sabotage; the destruction of entire communities by the Einsatzgruppen in the East; the 400-mile forced march endured by British prisoners of war, who went for 40 hours without food after the fall of Dunkirk; and the murder of 50 RAF officers, who had been recaptured after the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III in 1944.

"The only people to be unimpressed by the catalogue of crimes were the perpetrators themselves. Having presumably familiarized themselves with the charges during the long hours of boredom in their cells, they stared blankly ahead as the indictments were read aloud. Hess read a novel or slept and Goering allowed himself the odd chuckle as an inventory of his loot was detailed, but otherwise the men in the dock sat restless and impatient as if they were being forced to listen to a particularly tedious sermon."

"Goering, far less gross than in the old days, and looking remarkably fit except for the heavy sadness of his eyes, permitted himself a discreet smile at the mention of the million bottles of champagne looted from France, and it was Hess at his side who for the general tenseness of his bearing was constantly to be remarked among the defendants – Hess and the insolent laugh of Hans Frank seated in the middle of the front row.’"

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"The crimes which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated."

"‘We have no purpose here to incriminate the whole German people. Hitler did not achieve power by a majority vote but seized it by an evil alliance of revolutionaries, reactionaries and militarists."

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The book forbids any more copying, and one would have to do a painstaking exercise to continue quoting, however worth - so one reads on, faster. One grips one's heart and numbs mind to go through various parts such as when they mention children thrown alive in fire by Nazi guards of the concentration camps, because gas chambers weren't working due to supply of gas having run out.

Then one watches television and hears about poor children in a poor country being treated properly for cancer, and the care and concern involved. One is breaking down within, thinking of those children over eight decades ago.
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The Spy in Hitler's Inner Circle: Hans-Thilo Schmidt and the Allied Intelligence Network that Decoded Germany's Enigma; by Paul Paillole, Curtis Key.

The Spy in Hitler's Inner Circle: Hans-Thilo Schmidt and
the Allied Intelligence Network that Decoded Germany's Enigma,
by Paul Paillole,  Curtis Key
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"Paul Paillole had a central role in the secret war between France and Germany, before and for the duration of World War II. Louis Rivet wrote about his war service in 1945: “The counterespionage service, which he autonomously directed from the beginning of 1942, was able to engage the Gestapo in a thankless struggle and confront the wrath of those French members partnered with it; this unexpected result was obtained by the clear intelligence, the steel-like energy, and the incomparable and uncompromising patriotism of Commander Paillole…”; ... After publishing Services Spéciaux (1935–1945),1 Paul Paillole invited us to discover the crucial moments that mark the most, shall we say enigmatic, aspects of the war—those of the “code war.”"

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"Particular credit must go to the Polish intelligence services for attempting the impossible in 1926, when the first mechanically encrypted messages by the German army started to appear. And recognition goes to the French Intelligence Bureau, which, from 1931, provided the Polish with the data—available thanks to H.E.—essential to the solution of the major issue at hand, constructing a replica Enigma machine. With the continued support of the French Intelligence Bureau and at the cost of long mathematical analyses, done quietly in isolation, the Polish managed to develop scientific methods that could rapidly penetrate the secrets that spilled from the Enigma machines, their transformations, their settings, and their ciphers.

"Yet Germany, confident in the reliability of its encrypting devices, multiplied the number of messages they sent by the thousands.33 With a wide variety of settings and diverse characteristics, the Enigma machine endowed the Reichswehr and the O.K.W., the Wehrmacht, the Abwehr, the police, the S.S., and the large administrations with the ability to convey encrypted communications. In 1939, crushed by the ever-increasing difficulties involved in breaking the code-generating machine, the Poles offered their work over the French and British, who had both been until that point strangely remote from the research of their Polish allies.

"An incomprehensible aberration of our intelligence offices once again left it to others to continue the work. From 1940 it was British cryptologists and scientists, with abilities on a scale commensurate with their exceptional interest in the penetration of the most secret transmissions of the Third Reich, who completed and masterfully developed the work of the Polish pioneers. It was thus at Bletchley Park, some seventy kilometers from London, that the revolutionary era of calculators and computers began."

" .... the history of the secret code war, obscure, perplexing and with staggering consequences, brings to light Enigma’s contribution during the decisive phases of World War II:

"•   The Battle of France, whereupon the successful replication of the Enigma machine revealed its possibilities as well as its limitations.

"•   The Battle of Britain, 1940–41, about which we will most likely never know the exact role of the machine albeit that it was a considerable one, later resulting in victory over the Luftwaffe.

"•   The Battle of the Atlantic that the British Admiralty successfully defended from 1941 to 1945, especially in May 1943 when, among the thousands of messages captured and decoded, the secrets of Admiral Doenitz’s submarine projects were found.

"•   The Battle of Libya in March 1943, where three of Rommel’s panzer divisions, tracked every day by Enigma, were destroyed by Montgomery, ultimately resulting in the definitive defeat of the Wehrmacht in North Africa.

"•   The Battle of Normandy where, in August 1944, secret enemy radio messages were breached, permitting the Americans to successfully resist Hitler’s powerful armored counteroffensive in the region of Mortain, and to pave the way for the Liberation.

"•   The Battle of Alsace, where the Allied replica of the Enigma, previously unable to reveal the preparations of the German Ardennes offensive in December 1944, successfully captured communications and warned US Command on January 1, 1945 of the impending Wehrmacht attacks in the northern Vosges and on recently liberated Strasbourg."

"Paradoxically, the intelligence was met with poor a response in France.

"The same could be said for the stunningly precise and varied intelligence gathered by H.E. between 1932 and 1940 on the Nazi party, the rearmament of Germany, the organization of its military, administration and police, on the activities of the Wehrmacht High Command and the Abwehr, the mysterious work being done by the Research Office of the Reich Ministry of Aviation (Forschungsamt),35 on Hitler’s intentions captured from the very source of the Reich Chancellery… It was our agent alone who combed through the bulk of our intelligence requirements on Germany."

................................................................................................


"“Our informant is sure,” the head of the research section affirmed very clearly. “A military operation on the left bank of the Rhine is being studied in the greatest secrecy. His brother, Colonel of the General Staff of the Army High Command, is taking part in its preparation, which must be completed by the end of February. Approximately forty battalions will be allocated. The entire forty will only be called upon if the launching of the operation does not create too many waves. H.E. will provide further details in invisible ink.”

"On February 18, 1936, H.E. confirmed in writing that the operation was imminent and specified the nature of the units that were to be involved. After having captured the bridgeheads of Cologne, Koblenz, and Mainz, they would push a few symbolic detachments all the way to Saarbrücken, Trier and Aix-la-Chapelle."

"Six weeks later, on March 7, 1936 at 5.00 a.m., detachments of the Reichswehr would penetrate the Rhineland demilitarized zone. Shock and disbelief reverberated throughout Paris and London.

"“We will not allow Strasbourg to remain under the threat of German guns,” stated Albert Sarraut, President of the Council of Ministers.

"Well, we all know what happened… the incredulous and careless France was inexorably on its way to defeat."

"Late 1940: Hitler loses the Battle of Britain, defeated by the RAF, whose efforts were deftly guided and oriented by “Ultra-Enigma.” Late 1941: Hitler loses the Battle of Moscow, defeated by the Soviet reinforcements brought in from Siberia. On October 15, 1941, Sorge made it clear to Stalin about Japan’s conduct, thus relieving the troops stationed in the Far East of their duties.

"On October 18, 1941 he was arrested by the Japanese Kempetai39 and on October 7, 1944, at the conclusion of a momentous trial in Tokyo, Sorge was hanged. Twenty years later, he was awarded the supreme honor of being made a Hero of the Soviet Union.

"On March 23, 1943 Hans-Thilo Schmidt was arrested by the Abwehr. He disappeared from the world of the living. Unknown and ignored by the general public, he is hardly mentioned by those who have examined the crucial role that codebreaking played in the war and the military and scientific consequences that resulted from it."

................................................................................................

In the process of reading, went to look up about Enigma, recalling there were two very separate films seen recently on television in last decade or two, and found mention of Katyn massacre in description of one. Had heard about it from European colleagues in eighties, who attributed it correctly despite the propaganda to the contrary and the silence of those who knew.

 Came accidentally across

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre

While looking at the more known

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

And read about them.

The latter is horrible enough, but the firmer is much less talked about, and far more horrible, something that can only be described in short as comparable to Mongol invasions.

Again and again, mind comes to this comparison, when falling short of any other words. 

................................................................................................


At the beginning, perhaps it's the personal style of a writer not professional, or it's a usual French style, it's so convoluted it takes time to go over things several times before one understands. One hopes one would do better in time. But the story is quite gripping, and has surprises galore, often contradicticting stereotypes one is given in literature, films, and even as one has encountered people.

Very, very interesting reading Paillole's account about Hans-Thilo Schmidt, through various narration to him, from Lemoine and others.

"“We used to decipher codes every day, often in record time,” Rejewski would write, “without the French ever being informed and without the Germans ever suspecting such a feat.”"

................................................................................................

There are errors no editor spotted, such as when the author mentions "Dachau Oranienburg concentration camps near Berlin" which is factually half correct - Dachau is near Munich, while Oranienburg is near Berlin, so perhaps it should read "Dachau, and Oranienburg (near Berlin), concentration camps".

................................................................................................


"For nearly three hours on the afternoon of November 5, 1937, a secret conference gathered around the Führer at the Reich Chancellery, including Minister of War von Blomberg, the commanders of the Army,109 Navy,110 and Air Force,111 and the foreign Minister, von Neurath.

"Hitler presented an expansion program for Germany that would be phased in over ten years, from 1938 to 1948. Austria and Czechoslovakia were the first targets for absorption. To Blomberg and Fritsch, who expressed reservations and objections about the plan, the Führer curtly replied that the vital necessity of land for the German people justified his decisions. He considered them as final and binding whatever the consequences, including war. It was his will if he should disappear. Hitler provided extensive analysis of those countries concerned about its expansion policy, in particular Britain and France, whom he characterized as hateful enemies. As part of his bellicose stance, and having taken into account the rearmament plan and the resources of Germany, the distribution of steel production among the three branches came to a halt. Ignoring the urgent needs expressed by Goering on the part of the Luftwaffe and von Fritsch for the Army, the Führer gave priority to the Navy, allocating it 20,000 tons of steel. He justified his decision by pointing out the weakness of the German Navy in comparison to the British fleet and highlighting the need to build as many submarines as possible in the shortest time.

"At the end of his typewritten report, Schmidt set a meeting in Basel for November 15, 1937. The pretext he would use to justify his trip to Switzerland would be a matter concerning the Forschungsstelle post in Basel. He would go on to provide further details."

"In the past year alone, Rex, during his “business” travels to Berlin, had had direct contact with Schmidt and collected intelligence from him, particularly the Enigma codes. Several times a month, the informant conveyed his intelligence to us in invisible ink. He was keeping us abreast of developments about the Reich’s military policy. On a number of occasions, he had warned us against our coding methods.112 This time, his revelations carried such importance and magnitude that the exceptional method of transmission appeared justified. A heavy silence followed the communication of the message.

"“For H.E. to once again take the risk to leave Germany with such documents, the matter must be much more serious than we thought,” observed Perruche, breaking the silence after what felt like hours. “I will personally go to Basel.”

"“From where could he have learned such intelligence?” wondered a concerned Rivet.

"“His brother is now in Weimar!” The boss was right. Since October 1, 1937, General Rudolf Schmidt had taken command of the 1st Armored Division and had left Berlin. Whatever its source, the warning was clear and carried serious implications. This had to be brought immediately to the attention of the Army General Staff and the government.

"“In short, it’s the Anschluss,” continued Rivet who had reported on the growing unrest brought about by the Nazis following the politician Seyss-Inquart in Austria."

"For Perruche, though, the threat to Czechoslovakia seemed even more worrying.

"“The Czechs will fight,” he affirmed. “They have reinforced their border with Germany and have built powerful barricades based on models of the Maginot Line. If Hitler attempts to show his strength, as Schmidt claims he’s going to do, it will be war! We must understand this from the outset and be prepared to confront him!”"

................................................................................................

"Schmidt pulled from the inner pocket of his jacket a piece of paper on which a rough map of Europe had been sketched out. The different countries were designated by specific different colors. A line crossed through France, appearing to cut it in half and marking the spheres of influence."

"“The map, devoid of any text, drawing its modest elegance from simple boundary lines between two spheres of influence and a series of dates written in a bold and threatening style, caused an uproar […]”

"Later, examination of the armistice clauses would allow one to make an interesting parallel […] The boundaries of the ‘free zone’ established by the 1940 armistice correspond to those of the French Mediterranean area reserved for Italy as seen in this document. A disturbing coincidence that leads one to think that if the Germans did not occupy the whole of France in 1940, it was out of respect for their previous commitments with Italy.”"

"Representing one of the main charges against the major German war criminals, this secret conference would be one of the key elements identified in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg:

"“Colonel Hossbach’s minutes of the November 5, 1937 meeting118 represent a critically important document […] Hitler understood that his statements would be considered, if he died, as his last will and testament.

"“The motivating theme was the conquest of ‘vital living space’—Lebensraum.

"“The German problem can only be solved by force […] Everyone present knew perfectly well that Austria and Czechoslovakia would be annexed at the first opportunity.” (Translation of an excerpt from the official minutes of the hearing on October 1, 1945.)

"On November 26, 1945, U.S. Attorney Aldeman, in his terrible indictment against Goering and the other defendants stated his belief that the meeting of November 5, 1937 “left no doubt about the intent of Nazi crimes against peace.”"

................................................................................................


"At the end of a month of disappointing work, Goering authorized the admiral to expand his investigative resources, all while maintaining the management and responsibility of the inquiry.

"After reviewing the investigation with Bamler, the head of the Abwehr summarized what he intended to propose to the Gestapo and Forschungsamt:

"•   Increased monitoring of the French Embassy, its personnel and any foreigners in contact with them;

"•   Systematic investigation of all Germans in connection with any officials from the French Embassy. Monitoring of their meetings, and their phones;

"•   Introduction of an informant in the bar-restaurant “La Taverne,” a popular meeting place for journalists and French personalities; •   Centralization of intelligence by the Abwehr collected by the Gestapo and Forschungsamt.

"And so it was decided during the meeting that representatives from the three organizations would collaborate together on the origins of the leak."

"An order was given to Doctor Kurzbach, the Forschungsamt representative, to compile the minutes of the secret tripartite meeting and to provide Goering a copy of them as soon as possible. It was appropriate that the Minister-President knew about the provisions and commented on the possibility of listening to the conversations of the Reich Chancellery, if the findings of the investigation deemed it necessary.

"H.E., triumphant and beaming, delivered photographs of Kurzbach’s minutes to Schlesser in Bern on the evening of January 26, 1938. They were dated December 10, 1937.

"Seven pages of state secrets!

"Schmidt had reason to be jubilant. To intercept such intelligence represented quite a coup, but what satisfied him even more was the Abwehr’s inability to discover the origin of the leak.

"The situation was hilarious, because he could see the investigation descending into a quagmire where it would flounder about without coming away with any clues that could place him in jeopardy. Even more comical was the fact that the investigators were focusing their suspicions on an outspoken character, known as I.S. The joke didn’t stop there either, as Hossbach wasn’t allowing anyone to focus their suspicions on any of the personnel surrounding Hitler."

"We all agreed to a certain number of provisions. The two mail boxes in Paris reserved for Schmidt would be replaced by two new addresses, never before used. A correspondence relay would be based in Geneva through the kindness of a Swiss lawyer who was a personal friend of Schlesser.124 This relay would be used in the case of rising tensions between France and Germany. A new invisible ink formula would be also proposed to Schmidt.

"Any direct or indirect contact with the French Embassy in Berlin was banned. Funds paid to Schmidt would be transmitted exclusively through the commercial channels of his soap business or registered in his name in a Swiss bank in Basel. Neither Rex nor any other intelligence officers would be permitted to meet H.E. in Germany. Finally, during our next meeting, Schlesser would explore with him the opportunity of changing his assignment and limiting his functions. Absolute priority must be given to gathering intelligence of military and diplomatic nature.

"“Which means,” grumbled Bertrand, “you are going to encourage him to leave the Chiffrierstelle.”

"“Which means,” replied Rivet, “that we have entered into a very acute phase of Hitler’s expansion program.”

"“Exactly,” confirmed Schlesser. “Schmidt gave me a copy of a telegram on January 26, 1938 which had been intercepted on November 23, 1937 and decoded in late December by the Forschungsamt. It was William Bullitt, the American ambassador in Paris who had sent a telegraph to Washington. During his meeting with Goering, on November 20, the latter confirmed to him that the annexation of Austria by Germany was inevitable and would be achieved in the coming months. And thus it would be happening soon. This is General Rudolf Schmidt’s opinion as well. It’s also what our informants embedded with the Abwehr are communicating to us.”

"The actual events—and H.E.—would confirm our fears."

................................................................................................

"On April 8, 1938, a letter from Schmidt arrived (via Switzerland—the relay was excellent) at the Bureau, confirming the operational plan for Czechoslovakia. The action was due to unfold in September."

"New letters from H.E. informed us about interceptions and codes deciphered by the Forschungsamt for diplomatic communications between Prague, London and Paris. Most of them reflected Britain’s commitment to refrain from any intervention in the case of conflict regarding the Sudeten. France had also agreed to abstain."

"In a message intercepted and decrypted on April 18, 1938, our minister in Prague reported to the Quay d’Orsay a conversation from April 17, 1938 with Benès. In the conversation, the President of the Czechoslovakian Republic informed Monsieur de Lacroix that he feared France would not react if Germany attacked the Sudetenland.

"Meanwhile, Goering had prepared for Hitler an analysis of all such interceptions—we were given the essential points of this analysis by H.E. on April 20. The evidence supplied confirmed France’s passive attitude with certainty."

................................................................................................


"On May 23, 1938, Perruche and Bertrand met H.E. in Basel. The harvest was rich: Enigma keys for May and June 1938, radio service codes with an accompanying chart of secret codes, and various obsolete codes given to the Abwehr and intended for the pleasure of foreign intelligence services."

"Schmidt shared with Perruche the organization of the German army: it had fifty-six active divisions, including five armored, and about thirty more reserve divisions. Rudolf Schmidt had revealed to his brother an important initiative on the part of the Führer and Keitel. On April 21, 1938, they wrote a memorandum to the attention of the Army High Command, outlining the preparations for the Fall Grün (Green Plan), a surprise attack against the Sudetenland. The provocation could, apparently, be caused by a serious incident such as the assassination of a German diplomat. This was the second time that such a possibility had been mentioned by Hitler, and H.E. made it clear that he believed that it had been left to Heydrich’s S.S. to organize the assassination of Eisenlohr, Reich Minister in Prague."

" .... Forschungsamt’s relentless work and the amazing results it had been able to achieve. Since 13 May, priority had been given to monitoring the telephone and telegraph interceptions coming out of the embassies and capitals primarily concerned with the Sudetenland: Berlin, London, Paris, Prague. The wiretapping was constant: twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Every encrypted message that was intercepted (an average of 100 per day) was usually decoded in under a day, sometimes even in an hour. Only a rare few took longer to decode.

"H.E.’s revelations, which would later be confirmed by material in archives discovered after the war, were again brought to Daladier’s attention by our boss. No reaction. On May 23, 1938 he informed Colonel Moravec, who had come to Paris to plead the case of his country, of the situation. The poor soul was desperate. The hypocritical and complicit maneuvers of the French and British governments to force Czechoslovakia to allow itself to be mutilated would continue, without anyone showing the least amount of concern about the distressing spectacle that the Forschungsamt was presenting to Hitler."

"September 20–21, 1938:

"At 10 p.m., in a burst of legitimate pride, Benès informs France and England that he is refusing their suggestions, he intends to put into play the clauses of the Czech-German Treaty of 1925 and seek the arbitration of the International Court at The Hague.

"There is complete panic in Paris and London—Hitler will not fail to take notice of this and act by force. He had said as much to Chamberlain, who had traveled to Berchtesgaden on September 15 to beg for peace.

"Not wanting war, the French and English make one approach after another, threats followed by pleas, telegram after telegram. Benès’ willpower is weakening. His strength is exhausted. The Forschungsamt is just lying in wait for him.

"At 10.45 p.m. he yields, and asks Paris and London to take responsibility before the people and before history. He calls on both governments to confirm by telegram their wish to see Czechoslovakia submit to German demands and their decision not to intervene in an armed conflict in case of refusal.

"Agitation in Paris."

................................................................................................

"“This Schmidt,” Navarre confessed to us, “is a really great guy. He knows everything. His memory is so accurate. After a first meeting where he was quite reserved (as he did not know me), he opened up and was completely frank with me when he realized that with Bertrand we were a team, and especially when he came to understand that I knew the situation and its possibilities.”

"“His Forschungsstelle has at its disposal a number of foreign diplomatic codes, including French, English and American. Something like 15,000 pages had been photographed and delivered to him by the Austrians142 and the Italians. His decoding task is simple.”

"“This is incredible,” said Schlesser. “Despite the fact that we have recommended the Foreign Affairs Ministry to monitor their codes and to change them periodically, they remain the same…”

"“Templin is not just decoding diplomatic messages,” noted Navarre. “Our Navy is not much more advanced. The Germans are in possession of their codes too!”

"Both Schlesser and I were stunned. Since July 1938 we had been convinced that the Abwehr’s intelligence sources from our Navy had dried up. The arrest of Midshipman Aubert in Toulon had brought to an end his criminal trafficking of secret codes with the German Naval Intelligence Service in Hamburg. There must be another source!

"“I will be seeing Sanson soon,” said Schlesser. “I would not be surprised if the leaks are coming from Italy this time, as H.E. seems to believe. Almost the entire staff is of Italian origin and in contact with the Italian S.R.”

"The very latest significant intelligence had been reported by Navarre: the preparation of the total invasion of Czechoslovakia. General Rudolf Schmidt had been to Berlin on multiple occasions to discuss the logistics of the operation."

"“March 18, 1939: France and Great Britain submit a formal protest in Berlin.”

"Hitler shrugged his shoulders and annexed Memel. Case closed."

................................................................................................


"The day after the seizure of Czechoslovakia, his boss, Prince Christoph von Hesse, came to visit him at his post to clarify his mission and to determine with him staffing and additional resources.

"Thus we learned in early April 1939 that priority had been given to the interception of diplomatic telephone calls and radio messages from Poland, France, and England. H.E. also pointed out to us at the same time the unusual absence of the U.S.S.R. from this list.

"As a result of von Hesse’s visit, in May Templin was provided with new wiretapping equipment for both listening and recording, as well as decoding machines. The machines, produced by the Siemens company, had been tested and developed at the Forschungsamt testing facility in Glienicke near Berlin. The commissioning of such sophisticated equipment delighted Schmidt. Since late April his post had been afflicted by the worst of difficulties while attempting to capture messages broadcast by the British via a multichannel system (Mehrkanalsystem: in other words, issuing multiple messages at the same frequency). He noted at the same time that the recent use of new diplomatic codes by the British and French had seriously complicated the task of his decoders."

"With his usual mastery and determination, Schlesser had managed to demonstrate how the Italians were able to enter our embassy at night. Since 1928, the doorman Boccabella had managed access for the S.I.M. agents (the Italian S.R.). He provided them with the means to reproduce the keys to the safes by skillfully taking imprints of the locks. The British and American embassies were in the same boat. Neglecting the most elementary prudence, Americans, British and French continued to hire staff, the majority of whom were foreign. The Italians were good allies, and provided the Forschungsamt with the stolen codes."
................................................................................................


"On April 3 and 11, Hitler’s General Staff (the O.K.W.) had broadcast to the various commands of the Army, Air Force, and Navy secret guidelines directing them to examine the conditions for military action against Poland.149 Responses were due back by May 1, 1939. On May 3 the Führer summoned several trusted generals, including our General Rudolf Schmidt, in order to specify his intentions based on the General Staff studies submitted on May 1. On May 12, the O.K.W. shared Hitler’s observations with the army commanders and set forth the anticipated areas of operation.

"“This is the plan from November 5, 1937—it is underway,” concluded Perruche."

"On May 27, 1939, another letter from H.E. arrived. Rivet summarized the essential points at the weekly meeting of department heads: on May 23, Hitler met Goering, Raeder, Keitel, Brauchitsch, and Milch. Schmidt’s brother heard echoes of the conference: Poland was to be attacked as soon as the opportunity arose, and sooner if necessity so dictated. Danzig would serve as a pretext. We had to isolate Poland. If Britain decided to intervene, it would mean war. It would be necessary to occupy the Netherlands… We all listened attentively, gravely. We knew the pledges granted to Poland by Britain after Munich. This despite its lack of preparation for an immediate conflict."

"“This time it will definitely be war,” whispered the boss.

"“Yes, but when?”

"It would, of course, be H.E. who gave us the answer. Rivet’s logbook drew the following conclusion; brutal in its conciseness.

"“June 9, 1939: Letter from H.E. ‘Pay attention to the end of August.’”"

................................................................................................

"As a precaution, we shipped to Bern by diplomatic valise a radio transceiver unit and instructions. It was the first portable set of its type; we had just captured it from an Abwehr agent. Restored and adapted for our use by the technicians of the establishment known as “Carrier Pigeon” we hoped—without much enthusiasm—that it could be loaned to H.E. and returned for our benefit. Its size was important, its reliability uncertain, but H.E.’s resourcefulness was such that perhaps it could be useful to him one day.

"This was not Schmidt’s opinion.

"“You have no idea of the effectiveness of the Forschungsamt’s radio surveillance,” he retorted to Schlesser, refusing outright the device being offered. To illustrate his claim, he listed the many international diplomatic and military interceptions made just by the Templin post.

"He explained that the surveillance was mainly concentrated on telephone conversations and radio messages between British, American, French, and Polish diplomats stationed in Berlin by their countries."

"“Do you consider it completely impossible that peace might be maintained? Why are you so sure that the conflict will erupt near the end of August?”

"H.E. provided pertinent answers to all these questions. “Everything I hear and read in the Forschungsamt proves that the Poles will yield nothing except by force. The British will respect their commitment, the French will follow their allies and the Russians will not move. Hitler will thus trigger a war. He is ready: the operation on Poland should start no later than the first day of September. All armored divisions have been alerted, including that of my brother. Movements to concentrate troops along the Polish border are underway and will be completed on August 20.”

"On August 24, we knew that Hitler had met with his top generals and had explained to them that the offensive would be launched between August 26 and 28 […] The main source of this intelligence was from our great agent H.E. who during the month of August sent to us a very large number of letters in invisible ink, providing us all the deployment details of the German army. He stated that Hitler’s intention was to reach, in a single movement, the old German-Russian border […] On the day the war will commence, we will be perfectly aware of the German stance facing both east and west."

"At dawn on September 1, 1939 the Wehrmacht invaded Poland under false pretenses: the corridor, Danzig. I was unable to stop myself that day from going back to the intelligence H.E. provided in 1932 regarding the Reichswehr’s studies on the Polish military situation and the “threats” it posed to Germany.160 Poland’s fate had already been set back then."

................................................................................................


"The discretion of the Polish, like that of the British, both of whom were nevertheless always informed of our intelligence, prevented historians from identifying the exact role the French S.R. played in the fundamental discoveries that followed in 1933 regarding the reconstitution of the machine itself."

"One month before the outbreak of World War II, the Poles thus handed over to the French and English the fruits of their remarkable efforts, achieved over seven years with the continual support of our Intelligence Bureau.

"Such an invaluable acquisition would allow British scientists to participate in the Battle of France and, moreover, to be ready in time to confront the terrible shock of the Battle of Britain, where the fate of the war would play out."

"From initial contact in 1936 with my British correspondents in Paris and London, I had taken notice of the priority they were giving to their Empire and the relative weakness of their knowledge of European affairs, particularly that of the Germans. They seemed to rely on us in a good number of circumstances. Everything changed after the Anschluss on March 13, 1938. Their contact with us became much more frequent and detailed in nature. From my missions in England, I took away with me the impression of a service that was transforming and expanding in Europe. It was Bertrand’s opinion that British researchers were eagerly soliciting his assistance and collaboration.

"At Bletchley Park, an old impenetrable mansion situated some seventy kilometers northwest of London, the British cryptologists had vigorously resumed their secret research on the German military machine whose use during the Spanish war had served as a clear warning to them. Unaware, as we were, of the results of the research underway in Warsaw, and reluctant to strengthen their relations with the Polish S.R. for reasons that escaped me, I noted their satisfaction when in April 1938 Bertrand offered, through the intermediary of Bill Dunderdale, to compare their cryptographic knowledge with ours and that of the Poles."

"December 15, 1938—a dramatic turn of events! The Germans put two additional drums into service on the Enigma machine without Schmidt being able to alert us.169 Already faced with multiple problems posed by the increasing number of machines in operation (over 70,000) and the diversification of control systems employed by the different users (O.K.W., Navy, Army, Air Force, Abwehr, Gestapo, S.S., Administrations, Foreign Affairs, etc.) the Polish researchers found themselves, despite their “Bomba,” incapable of reconstructing the settings and keys within a reasonable amount of time. This new situation would force them to hasten their decision to share their knowledge of the Enigma. At Christmas, they agreed to participate at a tripartite conference of experts in Paris."

"Despite its heroic resistance, Poland was crushed within a matter of days. Between September 17 and 20, 1939, the Biuro Szyfrow with Rejewski, Zygalski, and Rozicki managed to seek refuge in Romania. They were able to save two Enigma machines; the others were destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Wehrmacht."

................................................................................................

"On January 10, 1940 a Luftwaffe aircraft with a Wehrmacht liaison officer on board got lost over Belgian territory. Out of gas, he had to make an emergency landing at Mechelen-sur-Meuse, not far from the German border. The officer attempted to burn, unsuccessfully, the confidential files he was carrying. Partially burnt pieces were recovered by the Belgian Deuxième Bureau and reported to the king. What they revealed concerned the next German offensive across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and the French Ardennes."

................................................................................................


"On April 21, Rivet and I rushed over to see Gamelin. An Enigma message from April 20, decoded that very night and delivered to our counterespionage services, revealed that the Germans were reading the instructions that the commander-in-chief had transmitted by radio. Our traditional ciphers were truly outdated. I have come to lament the fact that the French army had never had at its disposal an encryption machine nearly as good as the German machine."

"On May 1, 1940 the Wehrmacht, having become suspicious, secretly modified the procedures of creating the keys specific to each message. The decryption methods developed through so much hard work suddenly became useless.

"On May 22, 1940, Bletchley regained control by deciphering the new codes. From this point until the end of the war, they remained the masters of the codes. A tireless researcher, Alan Turing had successfully developed his Bombe and adapted it to the new encryption procedures. In 1943, British scientists would put into operation what would be considered the first computer in the world: the “Colossus.” It was an impressive apparatus due to its complexity and its size, but also because of its ability to solve in record time any combination of ciphers, including encrypted messages transmitted by teletype."

................................................................................................

"“The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.”

"“… we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone…”"

"Miraculously, just when Hitler was planning the invasion of Britain and about to launch the Luftwaffe to attack the defenses and vital centers of Britain—starting with the destruction of the R.A.F.,202 it was precisely the Enigma messages intended for the German Air Force, or from its large units, which were captured in greater numbers and deciphered with the greatest ease. The prodigious effort that Bletchley sustained during these one hundred days, for the sake of Britain, deserves that one stops here for a moment to remember that this would all probably have been in vain had the French S.R. not revealed the mysteries of the enemy’s mechanical encryption in time.

"I have stated that the German Enigma network in 1940 included tens of thousands of machines. Under the control and principal coordination of the Chiffrierstelle, each user (armed forces,203 administrations, R.S.H.A., etc.) had its own cipher department. Each one created and broadcast its unique keys. Within large field units, there sometimes existed multiple different keys. It’s clear to see from this the complexity of the cryptographers’ task."

"On August 1 and 8, 1940, two Enigma messages from Goering ordered the Luftwaffe to prepare to crush the R.A.F. This was the indispensable prelude necessary to the success of Operation “Sea Lion” (the landing in England).

"On 12 August, a message declared August 13 as the day the attack would commence. Every day, every night, powerful bomber formations and Luftwaffe fighters would try to render routes impassable and to destroy as many British aircraft as possible.

"Assisted and occasionally guided by Ultra,205 the R.A.F. Command succeeded—though at the cost of heavy losses—in overcoming the attacks, in which enemy losses reached upwards of 15–20 percent of its aircraft. Intercepted messages indicated that in late August the difficulties encountered by the Luftwaffe required it to stop and lick its wounds, and repair the lost or damaged equipment. It was a critical phase in this gigantic battle, when each party painfully regained its breath.

"On September 5, an Enigma message deciphered in just thirty minutes informed the British of Goering’s decision to launch a raid of 300 bombers on the London docks. It was terrible, despite the extensive defensive measures taken by the British Command.

"On September 15, the heart of the capital came under attack. R.A.F. fighters launched their elite forces to oppose the most powerful waves of the raid. Thanks to Enigma, they intercepted the German fighters as soon as they crossed the English coastline. The British inflicted such heavy losses on their opponents that the Germans were forced to withdraw.

"Two days later, on September 17, an Enigma message from Hitler ordered the dismantling of bases that had been equipped for the invasion of the British Isles.

"The Battle of Britain was won.

"The war, however, was certainly not over. Victory remained uncertain. At least now there existed a chance, safeguarded by the coolness and courage of a nation. In this great and decisive battle, the role of Enigma was real if not decisive. It would remaine just as important during the course of fighting on land, at sea and in the air, until the Third Reich was crushed.

"Bletchley, under the leadership of its scientists and in the wake of its successes, continued to strengthen its abilities and improve its performance.

"Its work, buried deep in secrets which time has not completely brought to light, will go down in history if not as the decisive factor in the victory, then at least as a factor reducing the length of the conflict206 and leading to scientific advances.

"Bletchley’s Bombe and the Colossus were descendants of the mathematical principles and Bomba developed by Polish scientists based on documents delivered by H.E.

"“Colossus” would supply the Allied Enigma machines with essential data for their instantaneous settings in alignment with those being transmitted from the German machines.

"Day after day, Ultra broadcast intelligence seized right from the very heart of the enemy. The origin would remain secret; the enemy never imagined the existence of the scientific resources of Bletchley, nor did it doubt the reliability of its own mechanical encryption."

................................................................................................


"“… I had hoped to be able to pay a visit to Bletchley Park in order to thank you and the members of the staff personally for the magnificent service which has been rendered to the Allied cause,” wrote General Dwight Eisenhower to General Menzies, chief of the S.I.S. in July 1945.

"“The intelligence which has emanated from you before and during this campaign has been of priceless value to me. It has simplified my task as a commander enormously. It has saved thousands of British and American lives and, in no small way, contributed to the speed with which the enemy was routed and eventually forced to surrender.”"

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"Lemoine demonstrated a real and sincere love of Germany and truly wished for her victory238 […] He told me verbatim: “I hate and despise the English as much as it is impossible to imagine, and if the marshal gave me orders to fight against the English and to rally on the side of the Germans, I would do so with all my heart and with great pleasure. The Germans have a courage that commands admiration and it is lamentable that the pernicious Anglo-Saxon propaganda blinds the world about the terrible danger which makes it run from the horrifying threat of communism that Germany alone is currently fighting. It is necessary that Germany wins the war, for if not, it is the end for all of Europe and its civilization. Under no circumstances will I accept to live in a communist country…”"

"Rex’s U-turn, which we should have foreseen and avoided by evacuating him from France, was explained as much by his circumstantial political beliefs as by his family situation, age and the skillful maneuvers of the Abwehr. It would lead to terrible consequences."

"Sometimes hesitant to continue his odious work as an informant, Lemoine hid behind the responsibilities of his former assistant Drach. He spoke about Drach initially and at length: “Believe me, Monsieur Wiegand, if I talk about him right now it’s because he’s working for our English enemies. This German Jew is a communist. He has a hatred of his homeland. Since 1933, he has denounced the work of the Third Reich. His book Deutschland in Waffen (Germany under Arms) is an accusation against the Reichswehr, whose secret weapons were in direct contradiction to the provisions laid out by the Treaty of Versailles.”"

"“You will find Drach at the home of his mistress Nelly Goujat, on the first floor of 43, boulevard d’Arras in Marseilles. But be careful, he is concealing his identity under the name of Denis. It was Osvald, the director of police, who issued his false identity papers.”

"On March 5, 1943, before returning to the Hotel Continental, Wiegand summoned Henri Marette, a.k.a. Hubertus, to the Hotel Lutetia. He complimented him, gave him 10,000 francs as a thank you for his excellent work in Saillagouse, and assigned him to the Drach case."

"With a new bonus of 10,000 francs, Hubertus would fulfill his mission within four months. On July 14, he discovered Drach hiding out in Nîmes.

"With the help of the Avignon S.D., he had Drach arrested by the Feldgendarmerie on the afternoon of July 15, 1943. It was an eventful arrest. Drach decided to fight tooth and nail and opposed the Germans with fierce resistance. Taken initially to Nîmes prison, his body was found there the next day, July 16.

"That day at 2:10 p.m., a telegram from the Marseilles Abwehr post informed Wiegand that Drach had committed suicide by hanging in his cell on July 16, 1943 at 4 a.m.

"It was a strange end to a man of character who knew too much. His death would be concealed from Rex. Drach was quite knowledgeable about H.E.’s unique intelligence resources, their exceptional origin, and the quality and extent of the information provided. I am inclined to believe that he was driven to suicide or even murdered."

"It took Wiegand, Protze, and occasionally Rudolph, fifteen days of interrogation, each one employing either a persuasive or threatening approach to force Rex to reveal the unimaginable. Between March 17 and 20, 1943, Rex would finally discard the last remnant of his scruples and reveal his ultimate and darkest secret."

"Everything was then exposed in an abundance of detail, from the meeting in Verviers when a needy Schmidt had been eager to monetize the secrets of the Chiffrierstelle, to the extraordinary delivery of intelligence and documents on the Enigma machine, the O.K.W., the Abwehr, and the Forschungsamt.

"He told everything he knew of H.E.’s personal life, his relationship with his brother, his ability to evade the authorities, surveillance, his membership of the N.S.D.A.P., and his skill at concealing the origin of the considerable resources generated from his espionage activities."

"All the revelations previously made by Lemoine seemed unimportant. Yet one was nonetheless able to find among the jumbled dozens of agents or upstanding correspondents whom he had recruited and contracted such famous names as the former Ambassador von Hoesch, the former Reich Chancellor Wirth, the brother of aviation General Milch, Otto Hartmann, Friedrich Wegener, the Count Strachwitz, the nephew of Weltchek, the German ambassador in Paris…"

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"For many months, Hans-Thilo Schmidt had been aware of the threats that were piling up against him. With complete lucidity he recorded each of them: the discovery in Warsaw of the work being conducted on the reproduction of the Enigma machine, the capture in La Charité-sur-Loire of the archives from the French General Headquarters and its Deuxième Bureau, which everyone in the Berlin military and police circles had taken pleasure in mocking, the abandoned French archives which the Abwehr, the S.D. and the Gestapo were all exploring… and above all the uncertain fate of Lemoine and the French S.R. officers he had met with on so many occasions. Finally, there was the formal system-wide survey on the staff of the Forschungsamt coming out of the Chiffrierstelle that had occurred in 1941. His phone was being tapped. His correspondence was being monitored. In the street he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder. He believed he was being watched. The constant uncertainty about his future had within two years destroyed all of his joie de vivre. H.E. was filled with anxiety.

"His brother, overwhelmed with responsibilities and honors, didn’t have much faith either; his letters from the Eastern Front were depressing, devastating for the Führer and the regime. He was overwhelmed with doubts. What was the point of taking so much? What was the point of having given to the French so many arguments and ways to bring a halt to Hitler’s criminal madness? What was the point of all this tainted luxury, to end up miserable and unhappy? During the pre-war years he had been the rogue, the bon vivant, the jolly fellow, but now he had lost his insatiable thirst for money and adventure.

"One day, consumed with worry, harassed by somber thoughts, he slipped into the fold of his truss, which he never took off, a few cyanide pills.

"At 6 a.m. on March 1943, the fatal climax arrived. The henchmen of the Abwehr finally cornered him. His house, the annexes, his office—everything was turned upside down and searched thoroughly. Everything was seized. Tightly handcuffed and surrounded, he was dragged to the fate he had long feared but never attempted to escape."

Paillole concludes that Hans-Thilo Schmidt committed suicide, rather than the presumed ending that he was executed; he found no record, other than a cancellation of his party membership, despite his searching exhaustively to find what happened to the man who'd helped them so much.
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"On April 11, 1943, on Hitler’s personal orders, General Oberst Rudolf Schmidt, commander of the 2nd Panzer Army on the Eastern Front, was relieved of his command."

"Goebbels made no mistake about it. He noted in his journal on May 12, 1943:

"“The Führer has gone over the heads of the generals. His main wish is to have nothing more to do with them. He carries over all of them a judgment that is overwhelming in its rigor, which is at times subjective and unfair. All told, he is relatively accurate. He explained why he no longer comes to lunch at the large table at the O.K.W. He is no longer able to see the generals! And it is not because he has become a misanthrope. Quite to the contrary. His old friends are welcome more than ever. But his colleagues as of recent times have simply not been able to win his heart and trust.”

"“‘All of the generals are lying,’ he said. ‘All of the generals are infidels, all of the generals are against National Socialism, all of the generals are reactionaries.’ This is obviously not absolutely true, but to a certain extent, our Führer is right.

"“They are too often bitterly disappointed. On a certain level they are devoid of any spiritual and cultural sense and are thus incapable of finding anything in common with the Führer. They are infidels, they have no allegiance to him and a large part of them don’t understand him.

"“Thus, for example, an entire series of letters between General Oberst Rudolf Schmidt and his brother have just been found for which one had to arrest him for high treason.

"“Very harsh judgments against the Führer appear in these letters. And moreover from a general of the highest rank in whom the Führer had placed all his trust. He has thus once again suffered a new and grave disappointment. He has suggested that no general could now ever offend him. This class of man has become totally foreign to him. Henceforth he will maintain a distance from them more than he ever has before…”"

"In the evidence presented during the trial that brought about his disgrace, no allusion to his brother’s betrayal was presented. Rudolf Schmidt was only blamed for his severe and open criticism of the Führer’s war policy."

................................................................................................

"On April 9, 1943 Keitel received the head of the 2nd Panzer Army at his command post at Hitler’s headquarters in the Rastenburg Forest, in East Prussia. Very pale, deeply moved, the head of O.K.W. revealed to his distraught subordinate his brother’s betrayal.

"“The day after tomorrow you will send your necessary orders to Cloesner. You will then retire to your home in Weimar. There you will wait quietly for the Führer’s final decision."

"It took the Nuremberg trials for his character to be publicly questioned for a completely different set of motives that were infinitely painful and disturbing. ... On September 30, 1941, after the Wehrmacht’s lightning breach into the Ukraine, the Führer had decided to achieve a prestigious success by capturing Moscow. In late October, the German army arrived at the gates of the city, whose evacuation was underway.

"Suddenly, the torrential rains of November transformed the ground into swamps, roads into quagmires. The offensive was brought to a halt. On the other side Zhukov finally received the reinforcements he had requested. Intelligence from Sorge, the Soviet agent in Tokyo, reassured Stalin about the Japanese threat and released Soviet troops being held in Siberia.

"The cold weather set in, brutal, harsh: -20°C, -30°C… The Wehrmacht, paralyzed, stamped about on the icy fringes of the capital. The petrol was frozen, the engines wouldn’t run, 100,000 people were evacuated in a matter of a few weeks for dysentery, frostbite, pulmonary disorders and so on. It was a complete disaster.

"On December 5, 1941, along the thousand-kilometer front, Zhukov’s counteroffensive transformed the retreat into a mad panic. Von Bock’s army was dismantled, shaken up, and reduced to fleeing in complete disorder toward the Polish border."

"Hitler suddenly appeared, shook up command, and replaced Bock with von Kluge, and Guderian with Rudolf Schmidt. There was an orderly and restrained retreat, followed by a stampede. The Führer’s orders were terrible:

"“… There, where the Russians have succeeded in breaching the front with the intent to reoccupy the surrounding villages, they find there nothing but ruins…”

"A sinister order for which Rudolf Schmidt would pay the consequences, having done everything he could to combat it."

"On February 22, 1946 General Raginsky, Soviet deputy chief prosecutor in Nuremberg, took the bench and made the following accusation:

"In their insane hatred born out of defeat, the Nazis and the commander of the 2nd Panzer Army, General Oberst Rudolf Schmidt, created task forces to destroy cities, towns, and collective farms of the Orel region. Bands of looters destroyed monuments, burned towns and razed villages. Women, children and the elderly were murdered."

"“In the Orel prison, it was the mass murder of prisoners of war: over 3,000 dead from lack of food. All in all, 200 grams of bread made with a mixture of sawdust, a liter of soup made from beans and moldy flour a day […] The survivors, gnawed on by vermin, living in groups of eighty in spaces no bigger than 20 sq m without heating, devastated by famine and exhausted by hard labor…”"

Rudolf Schmidt was not called to testify at Nuremberg, but later found by Soviets in Weimar and transferred to Russia, imprisoned. He was released due to ill health in 1955 and died in 1957. 

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Paillole was surprised that after having captured several French and Polish spies, Germans had not learned about the allies work on Enigma. He goes through the possible reasons for this, and mentions their absolute certainty about German mechanical superiority.

"German, British, American and Polish experts and historians all admitted to this fundamental flaw in the Reich’s understanding of the scientific achievements made by the Polish and Bletchley."

Reality is a bit more profound. German certainty of their superiority is not limited to mechanical matters, and if they are of nazi mindset, it gets worse; when they begin to suspect that their certainty is actually based on false assumptions and somewhere there is something far superior in any sphere, even now, they begin to hurl abusive accusations or epithets. This behaviour is not that far from the jihadist mindset, at that.

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Heads You Win, by Jeffrey Archer.

Archer brings humour right at the beginning:-

"As Alexander opened the door to his family’s tiny flat on the fifth floor, he recalled an article he’d recently read in a state magazine reporting that America was so overrun with criminals that everyone had at least two locks on their front door. Perhaps the only reason they didn’t in the Soviet Union, he thought, was because no one had anything worth stealing."

One has to wonder if he really thought this, being a high school boy born and brought up in Russia and with no familiarity with life in West, with no possibility of making comparisons, or even of idea of possessions not entirely essential to existence?

Or again, when Archer writes:-

"Alexander was very aware, but always happy to be reminded how Papa had been stationed on the eastern front as a young corporal during the Siege of Leningrad, ..."

Did or do Russians call it eastern front? It certainly wasn't from Russian point of view, and why would they use terminology applicable from strictly German point of view? British, and U.S. allies, presumably used it because the war and the world wasn't then U.S. centric, so for U.S. it was Pacific and Europe rather than East and West, even though the war in Atlantic did make it East and West.

Again,

"‘Because if Alexander is to win that scholarship and go to Moscow, he will have to be fluent in the language of our enemies.’

"‘But the British and Americans fought on the same side as us during the war, Papa.’

"‘On the same side, yes,’ said his father, ‘but only because they considered us the lesser of two evils.’"

Would, do, Russians think of it from outsiders' point of view, that U.S. and U.K. "thought they were lesser of the two evils"? Wouldn't Russian, especially USSR, position be quite different, and use very different terminology?

Alexander compares his family dinner table to the Rostov family from War and Peace, but decides his mother must be better than their cooks - and Konstantin tells his wife he was going for a church meeting, having refused to join communist party (rather than just say The Party) yet again as the couple talked over dinner. It all smacks of being written from a Western point of view! Did Russians have the possibility of going to church, much less a church meeting, before perestroika?

................................................................................................

Konstantin's murder is a shock, and the mother and son leaving so conveniently seems far too easy, leaving one wondering if they'd be betrayed further, but then suddenly Alexander is Sasha, one has no clue why, until the next chapter where he's Alex  - only, the two chapters are completely different scenarios being worked out, along the two possibilities of their destinations. Sasha goes to Southampton while Alex is bound for U.S..

Archer does have a fascination with this twin scenario where two boys of similar or identical backgrounds are brought up diversely and come face to face after parallel lives that keep drawing closer asymptotically. He's done it with fraternal twins and with other pairs, and now he's doing two possible futures of a mother and son, one for each result of a flip of a coin. But after the first shock, one soon forgets it's the same pair even though one knows it all the while, and begins to process the two separate stories. Here they can't come face to face, of course.

Archer fixes dates for events with assassination of Bobby Kennedy the day after Alex and his mother arrive in Brooklyn with Dimitri, having escaped the ship's cook from his having locked them up. Those are some of the ways he paints the differences between U.S. and U.K., the former so far being free but abounding with goons, latter a queer combination of courtesy and standoffish behaviour that includes value for intelligence. Sasha has impressed the head and mathematics teacher at an upscale school.

Archer's usual shock tactics continue - here another shock is, Alex suspects that Dimitri might be KGB, not CIA as the reader has been led to suspect. 

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Sasha is attending an academic session, where his (tutor?) greets him by telling him he's missed crumpets but can have tea. Cambridge?

"Streator poured a fourth cup before he began. ‘Today, I want to consider the relationship between Lenin and Stalin. Lenin not only didn’t have any respect for Stalin, he actively despised the man. However, he recognized that if the revolution was to be a success, he needed money to make sure that his political opponents were removed one way or another. Enter a young thug from Georgia who was only too happy to carry out both tasks. He raided banks, and didn’t give a second thought about murdering anyone who got in his way, including innocent bystanders.’"

Is this usually officially taught, or is Archer having fun?

"Sasha took notes while Dr Streator continued his discourse. It hadn’t taken him long to realize how little Russian history he actually knew, and that his teachers in Leningrad had parroted words from a book that had been vetted by the KGB in a blatant attempt to rewrite history."

Reminds one of a housemate saying how news across Europe was all politically biased unlike U.S. where it was objective and fair! Obviously opinions of Europeans and others international visitors were diametrically opposite to that. Is Archer, one wonders, aware that U.S. and U.K. versions aren't free of bias?

Yet another typical Archer shock - Alex is arrested I'm midst of a legitimate business as a tender running three stalls in the market while being a student at NYU.

And he follows it up by sasha being picked up at Trinity immediately after his mother's employment is terminated, she is asked to leave her home and her phone is cut off, because Moretti died and Tremlett, presumably the father of the boy (and not the boy himself) whom Sasha stopped from raping a girl, bought the restaurant.

It resolves well for Sasha, except for the usual cliffhangar about whether our good guy won or the evil forces against him, this time a beautiful daughter of a politician; Alex on the other side of the pond is contacted by CIA, under a pretense of arrest, and is informed by them that his chess racket is managed by a KGB guy, and the cliffhangar is, he wonders if Dimitri too is KGB - while the reader knows the opposite.

................................................................................................

Other Archer favourites are brought in, one here, one there. Valuable paintings and art auctions, battles and loyalties, society women who cheat, and young men with acumen rising despite a stumble once or more.

Cambridge rivalry graduates to rivalry in parliamentary elections as Sasha manages restaurants in London with his mother the chef reason why they succeed, with a Russian Countess grateful to him for help. Alex across the pond is close to Boston Society due to being with a Lowell in Vietnam, and has met Ted Kennedy. 

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Archer keeps on using inappropriate terminology.

" ... Had he lived, I’ve no doubt he would have been the first president of an independent Russia.’"

But Russia has always been the dominant component of USSR, and Russia's independence has been unquestionable except for the brief periods of Mongolian invasions, not exactly recent!

A totalitarian regime nevertheless, the opposite isn't independence of nation, but freedom and rights of citizens; is the author confused, or catering to those extremely prejudiced and ignoramus of right? Nations can be independent whik e their citizens are not free.

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Archer, like most citizens of U.K. and U.S., continues to be Grassley insensitive to facts, truth, and effects of their racism on other people.

" ... hand-delivered by a smartly dressed woman with a clipped Brahmin accent,’ said his campaign manager."

Needless to say he does not mean Brahmin, just as when they speak of Indians they need not mean anyone connected in any way whatsoever with India. Various words and nomenclature related to India has been borrowed by West only to be hideously distorted out of all possibility of recognition, including Hitler using Swastik (which literally means "symbol of Wellbeing") in every way opposite to the very meaning of the word and the symbol.

But then what can one expect from those still dominated by their history of subjugation to Roman empire with its fraud of worship of someone murdered by the Roman empire, while castigating everyone who might be connected by DNA with that object of worship, and not punishing attempts to annihilate the whole race!
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Another thrill when Sasha, as an English MP, visits Moscow at beginning of Gorbachev era as part of a delegation, is contacted by his boyhood friend Vladimir who had caused Konstantin's murder by KGB, and is subsequently contacted by someone else who knows about Sasha and about Vladimir - Nemtsov.

On the other side of the pond, Archer mentions Alex being told by his secretary that his wife, Anna, has picked out an anniversary gift for herself, a Chloe bag from Bonwit Teller's. On a nostalgia trip, one looks for the store on Google map, and discovers it's gone, just like the maples one walked or sat under for years!

Archer has two motifs duplicated here in Misha Pushkin meeting Alex - one about sasha meeting Nemtsov and another about Sasha recognising a chess team member he played at Cambridge.

Archer's usual denigration occurs again -

"The Soviet Union may have some of the finest universities in the world if you want to study philosophy, even Sanskrit, but very few offer a serious business course.’"

Notice the despising tone about philosophy, Sanskrit and Russian academic institutions. And yet, Russia has had fine traditions of scientific research and academic institutions, but perhaps archer wouldn't know that. Despite the recent Field's medal, too!

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Archer begins with Alexander talking of being elected President of a democratic Russia in a free election, although there are a dozen glitches right there - this was supposed to be 1968, and he should have said USSR or Soviet Union, since it wasn't yet broken, and the breakup wouldn't occur to a young boy. But after he's left, Sasha now being an MP in U.K. and Alex a banker and entrepreneur in U.S., Archer still talking of Alexander becoming President of Russia is much too farfetched. Sasha must now be a U.K. citizen, and Alex would not be comfortable not being a U.S. citizen in his position with his history of how he migrated. How's it even possible Alexander has his dream, far receded, come true?

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"Robin Cook, the shadow Foreign Secretary, was calling for an ethical foreign policy, and told Sasha that he expected him to keep reminding his Russian counterparts that their country’s new-found wealth should be distributed among the people, and not handed out to a group of undeserving oligarchs, many of whom had not only taken up residence in Mayfair, but weren’t paying any tax."

Really?

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Archer is stretching it when he has Sasha mistaken for Alex in N.Y. on holiday with his wife, at the art gallery where Anna, wife of Alex, worked before marriage. It can't even be about identical twins, since each has his mother Elena, making her name as a chef, and the son managing Elena's until he has another career. 

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"‘Our ambassador in Moscow tells me that if you were to return to Russia and stand against Yeltsin, you’d end up with an even bigger majority than I have. In which case it will be me trying to get an appointment with you.’"

Hmmmm?????!!!!!

................................................................................................

Archer is troubling on one being mistaken for the other, this time it's Sasha's wife mistaking Alex for her own husband, and only realising her mistake when Anna comes up, at the Turner collection in Tate gallery. 

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One does figure out what Archer reserves for his punchline, which is, identity of Vladimir the school friend of Alexander.

But just as one is getting thrills with the criss connections between Alex and Sasha, and it seems like they might come face to face in St. Petersburg if not in Amsterdam at the airport, and one might get to just how two identical boys with two very similar mothers and an uncle in common apart from the same history before leaving Leningrad, were unaware of one another - were they born to identical twins who married the same man without ever meeting one another? - frankly, Archer cheats, and has one Alexander (Sasha, one suspects) killed off with his family by the KGB taking care of crashing the plane; the other arrives, surprised at his reception by huge crowd, gives a speech, and has Ivan Donokov call Vladimir to let him know he'd gave to wait a little more to announce Alexander's death.

Did Archer just write two scenarios, couldn't pick one, and was too lazy to find a solution to bring them together? Most unsatisfactory.
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ISBN 978-1-5098-5127-0

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Prince Hagen, by Upton Sinclair.

The author has written about his own early years of youth and struggle as a writer, and here he merges his camping in the forest with meeting Wagner's characters from Niebelungslied. He has, however, made Gerald, his protagonist here, not himself, a poor writer fiercely protective of his art, talent and time, but a young scion of a railroad king John Isman, who one might have come across in The Metropolis or The Moneychangers.
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Gerald meets the Niebelungs because he plays that music, and Mimi comes to talk to him. Mimi gives him a magic ring, enabling him to see the Niebelungs who carry him off to their cavernous world. King Alberich wants Gerald to tutor Prince Hagen, his grandson, whose father Hagen had killed Siegfried. Gerald instead takes Prince Hagen, whose mother was not Niebelung but from Earth, up with him to be taught at a boarding school. Hagen is no innocent fool though, and tires of the school:-

"I hadn't been twenty-four hours in that good Christian home before I found out what a kettleful of jealousies and hatreds it was. The head master was an old sap-head; and the boys!... I was strange and ugly, and they thought they could torment and bully me; but I fought 'em... by the Lord, I fought 'em day and night, I fought 'em all around the place! And when I'd mastered 'em, you should have seen how they cringed and toadied! They hated the slavery they lived under, but not one of them dared raise his hand against it."

 Hagen had run away to N.Y. and become known as a political speaker. He returns to Gerald to take his place in society, having fallen in love with Estelle, unaware that she's Gerald's sister.

"I've looked this Christian civilization of yours over... and I'm prepared to play the game. You can take me up and put me into Society... as you offered to do before. You'll find that I'll do you credit."

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Prince Hagen meets Plimpton and Rutherford, the steel and coal barons, who are discussing how to keep people from rising in discontent.

"My point is, it's as Lord Alderdyce says... we have no hereditary aristocracy in this country, no traditions of authority.. . nothingto hold the mob in check."

Plimpton suggests religion. Hagen interrupts, startling them.

"HAGEN. You've said it! Set the parsons after them! Teach them heaven! Set them to singing about harps and golden crowns, and milk and honey flowing! Then you can shut them up in slums and starve them, and they won't know the difference. Teach them non-resistance and self-renunciation! You've got the phrases all pat... handed out from heaven direct! Take no thought saying what ye shall eat! Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth! Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's!"

They are horrified, calling it blasphemy.

"HAGEN. You're Plimpton... Plimpton, the coal baron, I take it. I knowyou by your pictures. You shut up little children by tens of thousands to toil for you in the bowels of the earth. You crush your rivals, and form a trust, and screw up prices to freeze the poor in winter! And you... [to RUTHERFORD] you're Rutherford, thesteel king, I take it. You have slaves working twelve hours a day and seven days a week in your mills. And you mangle them in hideous accidents, and then cheat their widows of their rights... and then you build churches, and set your parsons to preach to them about love and self-sacrifice! To teach them charity, while you crucify justice! To trick them with visions of an imaginary paradise, while you pick their pockets upon earth! To put arms in their hands, and send them to shoot their brothers, in the name of the Prince of Peace!"

Mimi has come to take Hagen back to Niebelung, because Alberich is dead and he must be king. Hagen is happy because hes now master of all the gold. One expects he'll be cheated by the society crowd and lose the gold too, learning the value of Niebelung too late.
................................................................................................


On the contrary, he brings the steel, coal and other wall street kings to their knees, literally, and they discuss having him murdered! Is man is willing to let him marry Estelle if she wishes, and she's brought to accept him more from a fascination and terror she is unable to understand, than the duty her mother imposes.

Eventually, at the point where she begins to comprehend he did it all for her, she refuses to be forced, and informs him he must change. But events take over, he's told Washington is taking over all wealth, and he asks Gerald to play the Niebelungs theme, which brings Mimi and the Niebelungs, to take him back. Estelle recognises him just as he leaves.

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Pleasure and humour, unexpectedly.
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