Conspired

By Lyn J Pickering

Conspired is the incredible story of the calling up of the Beast of Revelation during the Second World War.
Who or what changed Heinrich Himmler, "Reichsheini", from the self-effacing nonentity of the early years of the Nazi Party to the ruthless leader of the SS? What turned the young moraliser, a practicing Catholic, into a soulless monster?
There was a legend attached to the Heilige Lance, the Spear of Longinus, a crude relic said to be that which pierced the side of Christ—all who claimed it and solved its secret would hold the destiny of the world in his hands for good or evil. Heinrich Himmler contrived a way of obtaining the spear for himself using war as a cover for a most nefarious plot, counter-plot, and ultimate check-mate.
Faced with mounting evidence of an emerging Fourth Reich, is there a Beast in Himmler's image, who is strengthening his grip on the globe? The end goal is identical to that of the SS but on a worldwide scale—total control, the elimination of millions, the seizure of property, and slavery for the remainder of humanity under a powerful elite.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forest of Lebanon Publications
• Release date: Mar 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9780639788586

Book preview

Prologue

1988

It was not the first time since Chaim Freiberg’s death some thirty years ago, that Michael Segal wished he were still around.  Except for a handful of souls who chose to use it as a reference in their study of the Turin shroud, his own book was long since published and forgotten but Michael had never lost his fascination for the subject.  Freiberg would have brought his level-headed approach to the present report and between them, they might have reached a conclusion.

The issues defied any logical answer.  Why had the Roman Catholic Church twice chosen to release findings pertinent to the Turin shroud on the anniversary of the suppression of the Order of the Templars?  First the STURP findings on 13th October 1978 and now, exactly ten years later, this present report on the carbon 14 dating.  Obviously, the Mother Church was speaking but exactly what was being said was more difficult to discern.

Segal’s book, written during the Second World War, had been one of the earliest investigations undertaken but since then, there had been significant advancements in the study of the shroud, not the least Dr. Max Frei’s report on the pollen samples.  Frei, a Swiss criminologist of international repute noted for his work on the analysis of microscopic substances, was granted permission in 1973 to collect dust samples from the linen cloth.  The result was an extensive list of pollens, among them plants typical to the area around the Dead Sea, specifically adapted to the high salt content of the soil, and species indigenous to the area around Edessa, modern-day Urfa, as well as to Constantinople, or Istanbul.  His results had gone a long way towards strengthening Michael’s theory that Edessa’s Mandylion concealed the full-length shroud under its tapestry backing.

Gabriele looked into the room.  I know you need time alone, she said, so I’ve arranged to meet the girls in town for lunch.  There’s a cold meal for you in the fridge.

Ever the diplomat, he laughed.  Come and give me a kiss before you go.

He put his arms around his wife and looked down at her with affection.  Her blonde hair was now grey but the curls were as irrepressible as ever and, to Michael, she was as lovely as when they first met.

Enjoy your day, and give our granddaughters my love.

I will.

He heard the door close behind her and settled back to his desk littered with dozens of clippings and copious notes.

The carbon dating report, which set the time of the cutting of the flax for the shroud between the years 1260 – 1390, made nonsense of Frei’s findings—and of his own less scientific study.  Interestingly, only three of the initial seven laboratories chosen to perform the tests were ultimately given the go-ahead; England’s Oxford University, a lab in Zurich, and one in the United States.  Typically, Michael thought, the Catholic hierarchy had proffered no reason for the exclusion of the others.  This report placed a firm lid on the subject.  The single conclusion that could be drawn from the carbon 14 dating was that the shroud was a clever fake. 

Michael Segal returned to his own body of more circumstantial evidence and to Max Frei’s data, which clearly, if not conclusively, demonstrated that the linen cloth had followed the route from Israel via Edessa and Constantinople to France and Italy.  What Renaissance forger could have foreseen the need to source fabric in Israel for the manufacture of his fake?  And what of the documented presence of the shroud in Constantinople in 1201, well before the cloth was said to have been made?  The keeper of the relic collection in the Pharos Chapel had declared its presence, claiming that it ‘wrapped the mysterious naked dead body after the Passion’.  Could he have stated that the body of Christ was naked except for the evidence of the image on the shroud?

Two years later, a Frenchman, Robert de Clari who, as part of the Fourth Crusade, had been brought to Constantinople on a Venetian ship before the attack on the city wrote:

"There was another of the churches which they called, My Lady St. Mary of Blachernae, where was kept the syndoine in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which stood up straight every Friday so that the figure of Our Lord could be plainly seen there..."

These and other testimonies suggested the existence of a shroud, which bore the image of Christ before the carbon 14 dating evidence said it could have existed.

Was it then possible that someone had tampered with the shroud samples or the dating results?

The Vatican’s go-ahead for the shroud’s testing had been given in October 1987 and specified that the tests were to be carried out by technicians who knew nothing about the identity of the cloth until after the experiment was complete.  A centimetre-wide strip, eight centimetres in length had been cut from the linen cloth and three strips of 1.3 centimetres were submitted for testing on April 21st, 1988.  But although the findings under the accelerator mass spectrometer would have been received almost immediately, they were withheld for several months.

There were two possible ways that any ‘fixing’ might have taken place, Michael surmised.  Either the samples were switched and replaced by a cloth known to be of a far later date, or the lab technicians were persuaded to provide a different date.  The former, presumably, would have been simpler to arrange than the latter.  The question remained, why?  What would the Roman Catholic Church possibly have to gain by deliberately manipulating the dates of arguably its most sacred relic?

And there, for a long time, Michael Segal was stuck.  He ambled into the kitchen made himself a cup of strong coffee, fetched his lunch from the refrigerator although it was still only 11.00 o‘clock, and ate the cold chicken and salad absentmindedly.

If the Catholic Church believed that the shroud of Turin was genuinely the burial cloth of Christ, it would surely not be in their interests to do anything to undermine that belief.  Yet the deliberate nature of the release of two sets of reports, ten years apart, on the date of the attack on the Templars, had the immediate effect of disassociating the shroud from the time of Christ, setting it in a different time frame.  The first even before the carbon 14 dating had taken place, as though, years before, they anticipated the test and its result.

Why, what was their game?  Was the research of those outside the Church moving too close to the truth of the real nature of the shroud?  Had they stumbled unwittingly to the edge of a new discovery?  Or was the intention of the Catholic hierarchy to draw adherents to a new faith, one no longer founded on the old tenets of belief in the death and resurrection of Christ but on the mysteries surrounding the Templars and the continuance of the Order beyond the time of their demise?  If relic worship had been designed to draw devotees of Catholicism into a belief in Christ, had the focus subtly shifted?

Perhaps, Michael Segal thought, as he drained the last of his coffee, the true face of Catholicism is about to be revealed.  The Catholic faith, like the shroud of Turin, rested upon an iconic reflection of Christ Jesus.  If the Turin shroud, the Catholic representation of his death and resurrection, was discovered to be based on a false premise, the emphasis could always be shifted to suit the new face.  Those faithful souls who had followed the teachings of Rome could find that their foundation, built on an indistinct image of Christ Jesus, had shifted like sand.  They would be worshipping the one Twice-Born.

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PART I

Chapter 1

Matthias

1918

Matthias von Ingolstadt was twenty-two years old when the Great War ended.  He crawled from his trench like a rat from its hole and attempted to see the devastation in terms of his new found liberation.  It would take nature a long time to heal the scars that their weapons had inflicted on the countryside.  It was divested of almost all colour or life.  Trees had been stripped to grey leafless stumps; the raw earth blemished and pitted.  Around him, the men were simply a reflection, he supposed, of the way he looked.  Their eyes, set into the muddied masks of their faces, were flat and lifeless.  Had there been a victory to celebrate, perhaps there would have been some jauntiness; some of those battered frames might have been able to hold themselves with pride.  As it was, nothing could be salvaged from those wasted years and wasted lives.

Von Ingolstadt was tall; half a head taller than most of his friends, and the muscle and sinew across his shoulders and upper arms granted a suggestion of power to a body that was too lean.  Blonde hair, closely cropped against lice, dusted his skull, emphasising the smudges of shadow hollowing his eyes and cheekbones.  His hands were of the sort never intended to handle a weapon.  They were gentle, with long fingers made to coax the best from a violin or create ecstasy in the face of a woman.  They were the hands of a poet and a dreamer, but now, mud-encrusted, they appeared little different from the gnarled and broken stumps of the trees.  The war had generated men who were machines of slaughter and trained them to kill.  Von Ingolstadt lifted his hands to his face for a moment, almost without recognition, only to drop them loosely to his sides.  Would they ever respond again in human terms without the touch of death overshadowing every action?

From the front, the men began to go back home to their families.  After a four-year trench war, their self-esteem was shattered, their spirit broken, and little remained of their national pride.  Demobilisation was sporadic and, when at last Matthias von Ingolstadt arrived in Berlin, it seemed that life had normalised for most people, rendering the remnant of the returning army an embarrassment.  Nobody needed to be reminded of what amounted to Germany’s defeat.

The butler met Matthias at the station and loaded his baggage into the waiting taxi.  Lack of income meant that most of the servants had been dismissed and home had become a shabby parody of its pre-war grandeur.  Even his parents unaccountably seemed like a familiar, faded image in an old photograph.  His mother dressed in brown silk and white lace, stood tall, slender, and brittle as always, beside her husband in the lobby.  His father’s moustaches were sharply waxed and his white collar freshly starched but his eyes had become weak and rheumy beneath grizzled eyebrows; his skin was pale as parchment and deeply furrowed.

The welcome lacked warmth; gestures of affection and genuine words of endearment had never come naturally to his parents and von Ingolstadt had not expected anything to have changed.  His mother returned to her weekly routine of tea parties with chosen friends over the silver tea service in the drawing room and Matthias made plans to leave.  Any sign of weakness was frowned upon and he was locked in on himself, seeking to cope with memories that exhausted and threatened to engulf him.  He wanted to sleep until the feelings were gone, yet sleep was no longer restorative but haunted by night visions, sometimes elusive, often vivid with horror.  That which affected him most was the one that should have left him untouched.  In a village on the Meuse, he had stumbled across a cat, probably used by the last troops for target practice.  It was wandering aimlessly through the street with its face half-blown away, its remaining eye pleading with him to end its misery.  He had killed it with a single shot to the heart but the cat lived on in his dreams.  All the terrors of war had become bound up in that one image, which would not be erased.

The German High Command had sought the Armistice, not because their armies were being overpowered, nor even because of the stalemate in the ongoing trench war, but because of an imminent Communist uprising in Germany.  Just one year after the Bolshevik Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg and her predominantly Jewish Spartacus Bund planned to repeat Lenin’s Russian success on German soil.  By 1918, Spartacus agents infiltrated the German fleet.  Rumours were spread of an impending battle against the full might of the Allied forces.  The purpose of the battle was to cripple the allied fleets so that they would no longer be able to defend Britain’s coastline against a German military invasion.

The British have developed a secret weapon, the crews were told.  They’ve got a chemical that can be fired from shore or dropped from a plane that will create a sea of flames.  If we don’t die from the flames and the heat, we’ll die from lack of oxygen.

The cells introduced their poisoning of the crews drop by drop until it became obvious to them that the only way to prevent certain death was revolution.  On 3rd November 1918, the German seamen mutinied, and a few days later, on their way to the Western Front, many more deserted ship believing they were to spearhead the final sea battle against Britain.

In Germany itself, uprisings had caused industrial shut-downs and in the ensuing conditions of defeatism, the Kaiser abdicated and the Social Democrats formed a Republican Government.  The Armistice signed on November 11th, 1918 was a prelude to a negotiated peace.  Germany never intended it to be an unconditional surrender.

Rosa Luxemburg’s agents created chaos throughout the armed forces.  Forcing the government to order immediate demobilisation was her trump card, which ensured that the revolution could take place without military intervention.  Everything was in place for the final assault planned for January 1919.  Luxemburg’s failure came as they prepared to launch their onslaught.  Only then did she realise that she had been double-crossed by those who had financed Lenin’s revolution in Russia.  Spartacus had been betrayed.  The failure of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and their Jewish-dominated revolution resulted in immediate reprisals against German Jews.  Thousands of men, women, and children were rounded up during the night and executed.  The attempted revolution was confirmation of a Jewish-led revolutionary movement and Hitler would use these events to consolidate German hatred for Jews and Communists in the years that lay ahead.

Exacerbating Germany’s sense of isolation and hatred were the demands from the Allies for restitution; Germany must be made to pay - to be squeezed dry for what she had done.  The armistice, which President Woodrow Wilson said should make the world safe for democracy was destined to create the discontent which would spawn Europe’s dictators, and pave the way for the more horrifying war to come.

Matthias von Ingolstadt joined the Freicorps within the first two months of his demobilisation.  There were few jobs to be had, and the ranks of the Freicorps swelled with such misplaced officers and soldiers.  For some men, the return to normal society after the war was plagued with difficulties; others never adjusted.  They missed the comradeship of the army that had become their home or, like Matthias von Ingolstadt, they needed the imposed discipline of the army as a bastion against an inner emptiness until they were able to move back into society on their own terms.

As a further backlash against the German defeat, the ranks of the Freicorps followed whatever flag happened to be flying, content to be soldiers of fortune, and their regiments obeyed or disobeyed government orders at will.

Von Ingolstadt had little desire to make the army his future.  The Freicorps however, welcomed him in and, on the strength of his past record, made him a senior officer.  Matthias von Ingolstadt had taken a step destined to be his first toward a long army career, which, ultimately, would result in a move into the German SS.

Berliners had chosen denial as a means of assuming change and a superficial, hedonistic society began to emerge from the confusion and pathos of the war.  A revival of the arts focussed on the flippant and the fantastic.  Billboards and posters depicted lean, sensual women and men who were suave and well-groomed.  Multitudes had perished; Germany had been humiliated in the sight of the world, but those who survived shook off the memories and rose up with a grim determination to wring everything from the present.

Chapter 2

Michael Segal

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Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Shalom, Chaim Freiberg’s voice echoed down the empty corridor of the Yeshiva.  Michael stood looking back into the classroom that had been his second home for the past three years.  The usual neat rows of desks and chairs had been left in disarray after the earlier celebration. It was over.  He cast his eyes over the dingy green walls and the scuffed brown linoleum; the overflowing ashtray on Rabbi Cohen’s desk with its familiar line of burn marks on the edge closest to his seat, before turning to leave.

Michael followed Chaim out into the sunlight and the doors swung shut behind him.

*  *  *

He stood overlooking the field where the practice game was drawing to a close.  The sun glinted through the leaves of the oak trees and cast long shadows across the grass.  Young men walked in small groups, a hand thrown companionably over another’s shoulder, laughing as they rehashed some salient point of the match.  One youth took leave of the others and ran up the bank, tugging his jersey over his head as he did so.  His torso, caught in the late afternoon light, glistened with sweat.  He was broad-shouldered, muscular, a perfect specimen of early manhood.  Michael noted all this in the instant before the footballer collided with him, almost knocking him off his feet.

Watch where you’re going, will you!

His assailant back-pedalled for a couple of steps, flashing an unabashed grin in Michael’s direction.

And you—watch where you’re standing! he countered, before disappearing in the direction of the change rooms.

After the cloistered atmosphere of the Yeshiva, Frankfurt University had proved to be exhilarating and overwhelming, thrusting Michael into a world of alien and often hostile attitudes.  Academics proved no problem.  Years of in-depth reading on the subjects of history and philosophy had prepared Michael well beyond the level of most of his peers, while his Talmudic studies had grounded him in critical analysis, and study of the Torah, a strong moral base.

His father had tried to warn him about the social and ethical issues that would inevitably arise from the unfamiliar environment.

Everything you have learned to hold dear will come under siege, Michael.  They will test every belief and attempt to undermine even the foundation that has been laid from your youth.  Ignorance leads men to destroy what they don’t understand.

It will be fine, papa.

It will be the test of your foundation, believe me!  Don’t imagine that you won’t be shaken.  You will be.  But you have made this choice, Michael, and I trust you will cope with it.

The choice had included shaving off his long side locks, and the conscious setting aside of his Judaic manner of dress.  Rabbi Cohen had not understood, but Michael Segal had his father’s support.  Yes, he would refrain from the drinking, womanising, and sports, inherent in university life.  He had only one pursuit in mind, a degree that would launch him into his chosen career.

So, the football player is also a philosopher?

The young man glanced at Michael and then his face broke into a grin of recognition.

Perhaps, but I may be better with the ball.  He stuck out a hand, Allow me to introduce myself, I am Walther Krauss.

Michael Segal.

And I gather, Michael Segal, that you do not play football.

I think I may be better at philosophy.

Then, possibly, a mutually beneficial friendship could develop, Krauss laughed.

Michael responded instantly to the keen humour conveyed in those hazel eyes.  Walther Krauss was more than a head taller than Michael, who had never considered himself short, and he had managed to tame the light brown hair, which was now slicked back from his broad forehead and temples.

How are you finding the course? Michael asked.

Somewhat challenging so far.  Look, I am going to get a cup of coffee.  Would you like to join me?

Sure.

It was the beginning of an unusual association for Michael.  Walther was the first German he had considered a friend since his pre-school days when race had still played no part in relationships.

Despite his protestations, Walther had a fine mind for philosophy, what he lacked was the desire to study, preferring to kick a ball around the football field.  He gave up trying to persuade Michael to join the team and swore it was their head-to-head discussions that got him through classes rather than anything else.  Michael enjoyed his company.  Krauss’ outgoing nature attracted people wherever he went and knowing him made Segal’s path easier through his first year.  It was not the basis of the friendship, but a valuable spin-off. 

Chaim Freiberg had also gone on to university but his courses differed from Michael’s and their paths crossed less frequently.  Chaim was intent on carving out a political career for himself, which, after the war to end all wars, was still a slim possibility for a Jew.

They saw one another during Saturday prayers and occasionally Michael invited him home for lunch after synagogue.  In the afternoon the two of them would gather with Michael’s father for a lively discussion over a passage from the Torah.

In 1922, there were few rumblings of what was to come.  The war was over, the economy was in tatters, and most Germans were attempting to put the pieces of their lives together once more.

Like most Germans, Michael knew the constraints and heartaches that war had imposed upon his family.  His father had fought until he was badly wounded at Cambrai in November 1917.  After his discharge, he was sent home to convalesce.  He was back at his accounting job but still limped heavily and Michael and his mother could see, written in his face, the pain he suffered both from the leg and the injury to his intestines.

Have you decided what you want to do when you leave university?

Yes sir, Chaim replied without hesitation.  I want to join the League.

The League of Nations? Herr Segal looked faintly amused.  Why?

Well, sir, I agree with all their principles.  It’s the sort of body needed to prevent another war.

Can war be prevented?

Yes sir.  President Wilson has captured the public imagination with this.  If we can indeed bring freedom to the seas, freedom of commerce, disarmament, an end to secret diplomacy, and so on, we will have a fair chance at a peaceful future.

Abraham Segal smiled and shook his head.  Idealism! he pronounced.  I don’t believe it can happen.  I’m not even sure that the men who are putting this forward want it to happen.

Chaim appeared offended.  I beg to differ, Herr Segal.  It was this agreement that brought Germany out of a war that benefited no one.

The Entente hasn’t benefited any of us either.

That’s because the Treaty of Versailles was imposed on us in the end, Michael cut in.  Germany was promised a negotiated peace based on Wilson’s fourteen points.  It never happened.

We were squarely beaten, Abe Segal said wearily.  Our High Command knew it and insisted on the negotiations for an armistice.  Ultimately, they accepted the settlement to avoid military occupation of Germany.

Treaty of Versailles aside, if all nations could accept the League’s ideologies, Chaim insisted, it would be a major step toward world peace.

And you see yourself as part of that?

Yes, sir.

Segal smiled and nodded.  Then I wish you luck.  I hope you make it.

Chapter 3

Heinrich

In August 1922, Heinrich Himmler passed his final examinations, qualifying as an agriculturalist at Munich University.  At twenty-two years of age, his ties with home had begun to weaken and life became a little more enjoyable.  He joined a fraternity during his first month at university and worked hard to be accepted by his fellow students, but the association dropped him from their membership at their next election.  They were not interested in socialising with a youth that would not drink with them and had ethical problems with duelling and womanising.

One Saturday evening at the Lowenbrau Keller, still in uniform and sweating after his drill, he was sitting with some of his young comrades when Captain Ernst Röhm came over and joined them.  Himmler stood quickly to his feet and clicked his heels.  Captain Röhm was all a man should be.  Outgoing, resourceful and above all, he exerted the sort of brute strength that earned him respect from his men.  Röhm was the first person in years who had taken Himmler seriously.  He listened to his conversation as though his opinion was of some importance, and Himmler idolised him.

Are you enjoying the Reichsflagge? Röhm asked him this evening, clapping a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

Very much, Herr Captain, Himmler assured him.

And you’re ready to face some action?

Himmler’s eyes brightened.  You’re anticipating action, Herr Captain?

Röhm shrugged.  There are things in the wind, he replied.  Hitler’s ready to move at any time and we must be prepared to back him.

Himmler’s shoulders straightened perceptibly.  I look forward to the opportunity, Herr Captain.

Röhm stretched out on the seat next to him and put his feet up on the table.  Taking a slim silver case from the top pocket of his uniform, he lit a cigarette.

So Himmler, he asked conversationally.  Are you going out with any young woman?

Himmler coloured slightly.  Not really, Herr Captain.  I had a girl, but it broke up a while ago.

Röhm laughed.  But a man must have a sex life, he said.  You must see someone!

Himmler attempted to meet the older man’s eyes, but in his discomfort, he was forced to look away.  He glanced around to see whether anyone was listening in to their conversation, but the others had withdrawn in a group to the bar, leaving them alone.

Of course, he said, attempting to convey the maturity that he felt was expected of him.  I do find it difficult being without a woman, but for the moment, I would rather wait.  It’s too early to settle down.

Röhm laughed again, loudly and heartily.  He took a swig of his beer and set the stein down on the table.

Who’s talking about settling down? he asked.  I’m talking sex!

Himmler placed his hands carefully on the table in front of him as he sought the right words.  It was important for him not to jeopardise his relationship with the captain, but he had no wish to compromise his own moral standpoint.

You don’t think that it’s better to keep sex for marriage? he asked, taking refuge in a question.

Röhm’s expression was incredulous.  You’re a damned virgin!

Himmler raised his chin defensively.  Well, Herr Captain, I have attempted to maintain certain standards.

Röhm snorted.  Standards! he said, Don’t you realise boy, that’s what is wrong with your life.  You have roped yourself in with your church beliefs and your phoney standards.  What you need is a bit of real living!  He regarded Himmler thoughtfully for a moment.  What is the one thing you want in your life, more than anything else?

Himmler answered without hesitation.  Power, Herr Captain.  The sort of power I see in your life, that makes men sit up and listen.

You don’t get power by sitting on your backside moralising, Röhm said.  But if you’re serious, I can give you what you want.

They were an oddly assorted couple, this intense young man and the battle-scarred war veteran.  Himmler looked up at him cautiously.

What do you mean, Herr Captain?

Ernst Röhm said nothing for a moment.  The cellar had begun to empty, the hour was late and soon it would be time to close.  He knew he could use this moment to his advantage.  When at last he looked at Himmler, there was something in his eyes that the younger man was at first unable to interpret, but he found himself strangely disturbed under the captain’s intense gaze.  Excitement coursed unexpectedly through his loins as Röhm began to speak.

I can show you how to get that power more quickly than you think, he said softly and he placed a hand on Himmler’s shoulder for a second time that evening.  Now, the gesture was intimate.

Heinrich Himmler understood for the first time, as he read the expression in Röhm’s pale eyes, on what the captain’s relationship with him was based, and he experienced a mixture of unexpected pleasure and unbelievable revulsion.

Chapter 4

Warsaw

In June 1919, Matthias von Ingolstadt took leave to stay with a friend in Poland.  The train that took him from Berlin to Warsaw wended its way ponderously from village to village, cutting a swathe through thick natural forests; then on into patchworked fields of potatoes, rye, and wheat. 

The city of Warsaw first appeared on the horizon like a mirage, fluid under the haze of steam from the engine.  Gradually the forms grew and solidified and then, abruptly, the view of the city was swallowed by the once pompous station buildings, blackened and besmirched by the smoke of many engines.  Warsaw had grown up around the banks of the Vistula River; a random agglomeration of buildings, many of them painted in ochres and pastels softening the more austere domes and spires of the inner city.

Herr von Lossow was a German banker who had established his interests in Warsaw before the war and, despite the Second Republic, seemed set to maintain and strengthen his position in the country’s capital.

Matthias’ friend, Dieter, had inherited his father’s looks and his mother’s light-hearted approach to life.  Both men were tall; their faces lean with a high forehead and well-defined nose.  Deep grooves extended from cheek to jaw that accentuated their smile.  Dieter’s eyes were an unremarkable shade of green and his hair, which was swept back off his face, a soft brown, while Herr von Lossow’s eyes receded behind steel-rimmed spectacles and his hair had turned a steely grey.  His expression as he examined his son over the rims of his glasses was resigned.

He tells me that your coming warrants a party, he observed dryly to Matthias von Ingolstadt.  And when I commented that according to my observations, you have never cared much for parties, he insisted that we should have one anyway.

How else can he get to meet everyone he should meet in such a short space of time? Dieter asked.

Matthias laughed.  You told me that I was to come to Warsaw for a rest, he said accusingly.

And so it will be a rest, Dieter parried lightly, afterwards!  But first, you need to play a little.

His father shook his head disapprovingly, set his newspaper down on the table, and stood to his feet.  If it was rest you wanted young man, Dieter is the wrong company for you.  I trust you will join me for a drink later?

Even in his immaculately cut dark suit and bow tie, Dieter’s insouciance, so much a part of his character, was infectious.  He took Matthias by the arm.

Come on, he urged.  I’ve invited all the best people and you’ve got to meet the lot!

Matthias smiled patiently and allowed himself to be propelled across the room.  The quartet Dieter had hired for the occasion was playing one of the new waltzes.

Dieter, won’t you dance with me?  The blonde was dressed in black, with a red rose pinned to one shoulder.  Dieter glanced apologetically at Matthias as he slipped an arm around her waist.

Get yourself a drink and introduce yourself! he ordered.  I’ll be back in a moment.

Matthias helped himself to a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray and perched on the back of a sofa to survey the company.

He singled her out of a group of willowy young women who were engaged in conversation in one corner of the room.  With Paris fashion making its influence felt on the rest of Europe’s major cities, many of them had already cut their hair short and wore it curled around their ears.  They were dressed in ankle-length silk sheaths that clung provocatively to their breasts and hips and they twittered and fluttered like a group of highly coloured birds.  Against them, she almost appeared plain.  Her thick, dark hair was caught up in a chignon, framing a small earnest face that lacked the sophistication of the women he had become accustomed to meeting at any of Dieter’s parties.  Even her dress was simple and thoughtful rather than flirtatious, as though the consideration of her sexuality was not of any great importance.  Matthias von