37
Berchtesgaden, the Berghof
Bavarian Alps
AMID A VIEW OF the Bavarian Alps through the picture window, Adolf Hitler set down his plate of fine china, which dated back to the reign of Mongolian Emperor Mongke Khan. “I must say, my dearest Helene, you spoil me to no end. If I keep this up with these cakes, I should inflate to the size of—”
“The size of Goring?” Helene Bechstein laughed, seated next to him on the couch of imported linen.
“Yes, our Hermann does have his appetites, doesn’t he? But he is a good man. He is a true man.”
“He is not disciplined like you, Wolfchen.” She tapped her little wolf’s nose lovingly. “No man is as disciplined or devoted as you.”
Helene Bechstein had married into the C.
Bechstein piano company and quickly became one of the leading socialites in Berlin.
Thirteen years Hitler’s senior and a rabid anti-Semite, she had first met him in 1921.
She taught him manners and social graces, bankrolled a proper wardrobe for him, and advised him on matters of politics and society.
She lavished almost motherly praise on him, filling the coffers of the Nazi Party and hosting soirees where Hitler mingled with the elite of Berlin high society.
Helene saw Hitler as representing the future of Germany, and hoped that one day he would marry her daughter, Lotte.
“Come.” Helene opened her arms to him. “Come, my Wolfchen.”
Hitler laid his head against her bosom and sighed. “You are too good to me.”
“You seem as if you are recovering from Geli’s death,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “But I still see darkness behind those eyes. Do find time, as you attempt to cure the ills of our country, to heal yourself as well.”
“You have my solemn vow. Now I must leave you, Helene. I have an early morning and a two-hour drive tonight.”
She showed him to the door, where Hitler kissed her hand. “Just as you have taught me,” he said. “You have my undying devotion.”
His driver and bodyguard, Julius Schreck, came to attention as he stood by the Mercedes, a gift from Helene. “Home, mein Führer?”
“Yes, Julius, home.” Hitler slid inside the rear compartment.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. But sleep would not come, no matter his exhaustion, not even a brief nap.
He reached into his pocket for his billfold and removed a photograph of Geli, one taken at his villa in Berchtesgaden not far from Helene, as the two of them lay on the grass, a cherubic Geli in the midst of laughing.
He stared at the photograph so long that his eyes and mind played tricks.
He could hear her laughter, that delicate tickle in her throat.
He could smell that grass, the perfume she favored from that small store in Vienna near the opera house.
He could see those wide, wondrous eyes fixing on him and only him as the side of her mouth curled upward.
He checked his pocket watch. They’d been driving for over an hour.
It would be only another forty minutes or so before he returned to Prinzregentenplatz, which now felt more like a funeral parlor than a home.
He unlocked the French doors to her bedroom every morning, to ensure that Anni had replaced yesterday’s flowers with fresh ones.
He swore that he could still catch the scent of her wafting from the room when those doors opened.
Geli’s death was the greatest loss of his life, next to the death of his mother. Two wonderful, magical women lost to him forever.
He almost couldn’t bear it.