Chapter 20
On Sunday mornings Heinrich permitted himself the luxury of working from his private wing of the mansion, but he was still dressed in uniform as he sat at the table on the large stone terrace that provided sweeping magnificent views of the choppy sea and the walled city.
He was pleased with his morning’s progress so far.
His father had schooled him in matters of discipline, and he still followed the same morning schedule he did as a youth, which was to rise at first light, feed the mind with thought-provoking literature, and then begin work without delay.
After that came breakfast, which was the point Heinrich was at now.
His French housekeeper was a timid little thing whom he had tried to put at her ease, but she seemed permanently predisposed to be terrified of him.
Why these locals didn’t grasp the good fortune that was bestowed upon them by Germany absorbing them into their new empire, he couldn’t understand.
You’d think they’d be grateful, after they surrendered so pitifully, but no, most of them refused to look their German rulers in the eye and worse still groups of what they called Resistance were popping up like underground rats all over Brittany.
He shrugged as if making his case and raised his fork to his lips.
The sausage and eggs were excellent, better than in Germany before the war, and the fluffy white dough of the baguette melted in his mouth.
The German war machine had fine-tuned its systems, and there was now a never-ending supply of the best quality foods requisitioned from French farms.
The rule was Germans ate first, and Heinrich ate better than most. There was a pecking order, and he was rightfully at the top. It was nothing new for him because he was born into privilege, and with his good looks and natural abilities, he always excelled.
He poured another splash of cream into his coffee, which was a taste he’d acquired since living in France.
The coffee cream might just be their most worthwhile contribution to society.
Now he selected several pieces from the abundant cheese selection laid before him on a large platter and ate another slice of buttered baguette.
As he worked his way through the enormous breakfast, which was lavish on a Sunday, he finished reading the latest report about local criminals and tried not to let the flare of resentment in his gut ruin his meal.
It really was preposterous how these peasants didn’t fall into line but insisted on sabotaging the Wehrmacht’s impeccable operations at every opportunity.
Heinrich smeared a big dollop of the finest honey on a fresh piece of baguette and turned another page.
The report listed daring underground activities that had occurred recently, mostly in remote countryside and small coastal towns.
Thank goodness St. Malo was too heavily fortified for these vermin to get through, and he wasn’t plagued with the menace of these acts of defiance under his nose.
Even so, he saw the attacks as a personal affront. They slashed telephone lines and damaged railway tracks. And obstacles on the rails disrupted trains transporting French goods to Germany.
Heinrich took great satisfaction in the smooth-running systems he had created in St. Malo and the surrounding areas, and these incidents felt like a black mark on his outstanding service.
He wasn’t sure yet what action he would take to clamp down on these insurgents, but he wouldn’t tolerate this utter show of contempt for Germany. Of that much, he was certain.
He pushed the many plates to the opposite side of the table and poured more coffee. Then he sat back in his chair and stretched his long legs as he gazed out to sea and lit his favourite brand of German cigarette.
Overall, life was good, and he mustn’t let the occasional setback get under his skin.
He imagined one day, perhaps when he was an old man, he would look back on the integral role he played in building the Third Reich, and he would appreciate his grand achievements.
In the meantime, he meant to do his best to enjoy his posting in France, despite the challenges.
A pile of newspapers awaited his attention, and now he moved into the next part of his rigid Sunday schedule.
He considered it his duty to monitor what was printed in the French papers, even though they were strictly censored.
Heinrich coordinated with the Propaganda Division officer and fed back any points he had each week of where the newspapers had fallen short.
Most of all, he enjoyed reading the German newspapers so he could see what was happening at home.
An article on industrial developments in Germany caught his eye in the Volkischer Beobachter, and he was thrilled to see Adler Industries listed as the top supplier to the military.
His father’s plans for industrial empire expansion alongside Nazi victory were bearing fruit.
He was a man of great vision, and Heinrich was pleased he had been wise enough to accept his father’s guidance, for he had steered him well.
After completing his law degree at the University of Munich, he had worked with his father in the family business, and then got a position in the Ministry of Economics.
It was there that he truly shone and had been recruited by the SS.
Whilst the Adlers kept enough wealth after the Great War to keep their grand Munich estate, the treacherous Treaty of Versailles dishonoured and impoverished many wealthy German families.
They had also taken a beating, but his father’s business acumen had saved the family from the worst, and his plan since the Führer’s rise to power was for Adler Industries to achieve loftier heights.
Pride swelled in Heinrich’s chest, and he blew smoke rings in the air and watched them drift away across the terrace with the gentle spring breeze and out to sea.
A blemished record was not an option for an Adler, especially not this Adler. He would see that the scourge of the Resistance was wiped out, just as he had systematically rid St. Malo of its odious Jew-trade. It was a thing of the past and had no place in the new Germany.
Thoughts of his Aryanisation project took his mind to the little bookshop he had visited that week.
The two pretty French girls in the shop had charmed him, and even the mother had a certain appeal if you liked an older woman.
The three of them were clearly of excellent breeding, despite being French, but the black-haired girl in the red coat had caught his eye, and he’d felt a surge of desire he hadn’t experienced in some time.
His sexual appetite wasn’t in question, but he had taken to pleasuring himself since catching an unfortunate disease at a local brothel.
It had been some time since he had enjoyed feminine delights, and as his thoughts turned to the girl—Rose—he wondered how he might see her again.
They said she was from Paris, and his only connection to her was the bookshop.
Before the others had entered the shop, he had spoken to the blonde woman, and she had assured him she was updating the stock on the shelves so that they satisfied German-approved lists.
Apparently, it was taking some time for them to recoup their outlay, and they didn’t have the funds to buy as many books as they would like.
Perhaps another visit was needed so he could tick the bookshop off as satisfying all Aryanisation requirements before filing his final report.
The obligatory Mein Kampf was displayed in the window, but some of the other critical literature didn’t appear to be available, and a few publications he was unsure about had jumped out at him.
He’d been distracted by the girl’s entrance and had been short on time, so hadn’t given it his dedicated attention.
Heinrich stubbed out his cigarette. Yes, he would visit the bookshop again as soon as he had a window in his busy schedule.
His loins flickered again at the memory of the alluring black-haired girl.
He wished his tastes were more in line with the ideal Aryan woman.
The bookshop manager would have been a better choice, but despite trying to refine his tastes, he found himself repeatedly drawn to darker colouring rather than to blue-eyed blondes.
His proclivities embarrassed him, and he kept them to himself.
His future wife and the mother of his children would be racially pure.
There was no doubt he would select a well-proportioned, blue-eyed blonde from a German aristocratic background, but until then he could indulge himself a little.
As long as he steered clear of the sultry-looking Jewesses, who he rather shamefully suffered a weakness for, and didn’t frequent the brothel whores so he wouldn’t contract another dreadful disease, he considered himself free to hunt his prey however he wished.
The black-haired French girl would do very well to ease his loneliness.
Heinrich continued scouring the newspapers.
There was an article about Germany’s success in its Nazi moral purity campaign, where they were eliminating homosexuals from all areas under their control, and they were also rounding up despicable Gypsies and other undesirables as part of their racial cleansing programme.
No one was safe if their ethnicity fell outside the strict parameters of who qualified as Aryan, and of course, there was no room for opposing political voices, no matter their race.
The owners of this very mansion, which fortunately had become available to Heinrich and the Civil Administration as a result, were known British sympathisers and had fled just before France surrendered.
The German newspaper had reprinted a speech from earlier in the year of the Führer himself, addressing the Reichstag about the Jewish-Bolshevik threat and the critical nature of the Eastern Front campaigns.
Heinrich was engrossed as he sipped his coffee, which had cooled in the breeze.
He was an intelligent man, and inconvenient questions arose intermittently in his mind concerning the much-lauded Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracies.
There was the indisputable fact that Stalin wasn’t Jewish.
Stalin was a known antisemite and in the 1930s he purged Jewish Bolsheviks from the Communist Party and government.
Heinrich knew from intelligence reports that Stalin had abandoned the original Bolshevik ideology for nationalist authoritarianism—“socialism in one country.” Earlier Jewish involvement was more to do with trying to escape persecution under Tsarist Russia, and many Jews opposed Bolshevism, but the truth didn’t suit Nazi ideology, so Heinrich brushed over these inconsistencies in the interests of the bigger picture.
He knew the importance of staying focused on his goals and not allowing dissenting voices to pollute his pure mind and sway him from his path.
The belief in the Jewish “world domination plot,” where Jews controlled both capitalism and communism, and all of Germany's problems could be blamed on this conspiracy, was far too seductive to dismiss.
Heinrich consumed the speech in its entirety, and Hitler’s decisive statement rang in his mind all day, making him feel righteous and called to do great things.
"The result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews ... the hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years."
Heinrich saw Hitler’s words as sacred, and each Sunday he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose to carry him through the new week.
As Catholics attended Mass that fine Sunday morning, Heinrich worshipped at the altar of Nazi ideology.