Chapter Two
Nazi Germany, 1942
What did I know of war? I suppose Basil of Baker Street and I had always had our own personal war with our never-ending game of cat-and-mouse. Little did we know that a global war could end all that.
I neither supported nor opposed the Third Reich. In fact, I had never believed that it would get so much backing nationally. But as popularity for the Fuhrer grew, so did my conviction that it would be best to join forces with the Nazi Party.
Don't get me wrong; they never wanted me in their ranks to begin with. I was an internationally known criminal. Great Britain would want my head, and they knew that they might have to give it to them to prevent a war before they were ready for one. There was also the concern that I might to sabotage the system in such a way as to benefit myself and foil their plans.
Top officials, however, reasoned that my mathematician brain would be most essential for their political aims. They pardoned me for my crimes as I worked with the best scientists Germany had to offer, creating new weapons and methods for their war machine. While working for the Nazi regime I managed to pull off a few major crimes; the SS chose to look the other way.
In late August of 1939 I kidnapped a wealthy baroness's daughter. Basil of Baker Street, with Dr. Dawson in tow, made the journey into a country running under a totalitarian system that had only an ideological idea of right and wrong, not a rational one. I knew what was coming. I believe that Basil suspected it himself.
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Soon after, Great Britain and France declared war.
The timing was perfect. Basil, with his usual disregard for authority, immediately attracted the attention of the Gestapo. His failure to comply with the secret police got him and Dawson arrested. He was sent to a work camp on charges of being a Marxist and a spy.
With the start of the war, I was regarded as an unmistakably loyal Nazi.
I had power and prestige. I was also one of the richest men in Germany, if not in all of Europe. No longer the fugitive hiding from the law, I faced the citizens of Germany and other countries as a free man, my actions opposed by no one. True, I had my own private agenda in the criminal world, but as long as it did not interfere with the government's own goals the SS did not care.
I was comfortable with this new lifestyle. The war machine constantly called to challenge my mind. Basil was stuck in a concentration camp where he would probably spend a good many years, or even die. Nothing tainted my future.
Until she came back into the picture.
I knew that Basil had left Meg Sarentis in London when he had come to Germany. I reasoned that I could easily lay my hands on her when the Germans marched into London.
But then what would be known as the Battle of Britain began. The British fought against the Germans to determine the fate of their island. The Luftwaffe cost London and England more casualties each day. It was impossible to know who lived and who died.
Then the Fuhrer gave up on Britain, and instead opened up a front in the East against Russia. One of my contacts in London went to Baker Street, only to discover that Meg had not been there at all during those several months in 1940. It was not until a few months later that she was discovered outside of Oschwiecim, Poland.
Many of my own henchmen had been promoted to high positions in the SS. Fidget was an Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant), a position that brought him into contact with many prisoners in the concentration camps. It was he who found her.
Fidget had been inspecting Auschwitz, a new work camp, with some other SS officials when they observed a young girl being beaten by one of the guards for trying to run away. Just as the group was passing, a young woman ran to the girl and tried to shield her from the blows.
The guard grabbed the woman by the hair and threw her fiercely to the ground. He then proceeded to club her.
All this time Commandant Hoess, the head of the camp, paid no attention to the scene before his eyes. One of the SS officers commented to him, "That girl is not wearing the Star of David."
Hoess studied the girl for a moment before replying, "She's Aryan."
Fidget regarded her more closely; her features seemed familiar to him.
"Communist?" the SS officer asked.
"Think she's a Jew-lover. Girl!" Hoess barked sharply.
The guard stopped beating her. She got up and brushed herself off, wiping some blood off of her nose.
"What are you here for?" the Commandant asked.
"Breaking the Nuremburg Laws," she answered.
Another SS officer shook his head. "And why would you be so disloyal to our Fuhrer, Fraulein?"
Fidget's eyes grew wide. He knew who she was when she said, "Why does the Fuhrer accept criminals, like James Ratigan, with open arms?"
"You would dare speak out against one of Germany's finest men, Fraulein?" the SS officer continued, his voice low and threatening.
She said nothing, staring straight ahead.
"Answer me!"
She made a small grimace, and forced herself to say, "No, sir."
"Good," the officer patted her on the head, much like he would to a naughty child who had just been reprimanded.
After the inspection, Fidget arranged to stay in the camp for a few more days to keep an eye on her until I could get over to Oschwiecim.
I will try my best to eliminate confusion. The Nuremberg Laws took away many of the rights of Jews. Auschwitz was made into a labor camp in 1940. It was not, at that time, a death camp. In 1942 or 1943 Auschwitz was made into a death camp, where they killed as many as 10,000 Jews a day. Rudolph Hoess was the commandant of Auschwitz, until 1945, when he fled before the Red Army's approach.
An Aryan is a person of the blonde haired, blue-eyed race; the race that Hitler felt was superior to everyone else. But Aryan people also had specific features, more Germanic or Nordic, I think.
Meg is not Aryan. Hoess only called her that to call attention to the fact that she was not an "undesirable." I think most Germans were called Aryans anyway, just to be able to distinguish themselves from the Jews, Gypsies, and other peoples.
Fidget would not have had that high of a rank. He was handicapped. The Third Reich, besides murdering 6 million Jews, also killed 4 million Gypsies, Communists, blacks, homosexuals, and handicapped people (both physically and mentally handicapped.) There is no way they would have allowed him to even join the SS.
