The Seventh Secret (29 page)

"About Hitler's double," said Tovah with a catch in her voice. The simple confirmation of this possibility suddenly validated Emily Ashcroft's quest for the truth.

"Yes. Manfred Müller became Hitler's double because of me," Anneliese mused. "Because of what I related to Hitler at a large dinner party that the Führer gave for the American aviator and hero Charles A. Lindbergh. Before the dinner the guests were gathered in groups talking and gossiping. I had met Hitler before at another function through Leni Riefenstahl. Anyway, Goebbels saw me standing alone, drinking, and he drew me into Hitler's circle. I was very young at the time, and really quite pretty. Goebbels knew Hitler liked to be surrounded by pretty girls, so he brought me to join those women who were fawning over the Führer. I don't recall how it happened, but briefly I was standing beside Hitler feeling a little heady. I suppose I'd had too much wine. Anyway, I found myself telling Hitler about the wonderful look-alike, the wonderful mimic named Manfred Müller, who was performing nightly at the Lowendorff Club. Once the words were uttered, I was afraid that Hitler would be offended. Instead, he was fascinated. He put his hand under my elbow and moved me aside until we were almost alone. 'You mean,' said Hitler, 'this actor, Müller, resembles me?' I could see he was really interested, so I said, 'Not resembles you,
mein
Führer. He is you, an exact replica of you in height, features, movements. I don't think he even uses any artifices or makeup to look like you. It is one of those accidents of nature, quite incredible.' Then Hitler asked me to repeat where this Manfred Müller was appearing. I told him and knew he would not forget. After that, dinner was served and we all went to our respective places at the tables. The next time I went to the Lowendorff Club, I learned that Manfred Müller was no longer performing. I was told he had retired. Which made no sense, because he was too young to have retired."

"When did you learn Müller had been picked up by the Gestapo?"

"Shortly afterward," said Anneliese. "Months before the Olympic games in August 1936, L,eni Biefenstahl had been assigned to make the official film of the events,
Olympia
. To cover the sixteen days, Leni had assembled a crew of one hundred sixty specialists, half of them cameramen and assistant cameramen, and trained them in the Geyer Works. I was Leni's assistant producer. Before that all Olympics films had been dull, flat, one-dimensional reproductions of each competition. Leni was the first to make an Olympics film a work of art, introducing in 1936 the techniques that have be-come so commonplace today—trenches or pits to keep camera angles low, cameras moving on rails to follow runners, underwater shooting, shots of the activities on the ground from the Graf Zeppelin in the sky. A few days after our preparations had begun, Leni and I were having a snack in the Haus Ruhwals and chatting about the social activities in Berlin. In an offhand way, I told Leni that I had stopped going to the entertainment in the Lowendorff Club because the star attraction, Manfred Müller, was no longer there. Leni nodded. 'I know,' she said. 'Because Müller has gone to work for unser
Führer
.' I was astounded. 'Gone to work for Hitler?' Leni expanded on it. 'Hitler had Müller picked up and brought to his presence, to see if it was true. He saw that Müller was his doppelganger. So he took Manfred Müller away from Lowendorff. He hired Müller to become his double."

"You're sure of that?" Tovah said.

Anneliese pressed the buzzer on the control panel. "You shall see for yourself."

The projection room darkened. "The raw footage of our
Olympia
was one million three hundred thousand feet long. I will show you the first two reels only, from the opening ceremony. Ignore the opening day festivities, the one hundred ten thousand people cheering the ten thousand female performers in midfield, Richard Strauss conducting the orchestra playing
'Deutschland Über Alles
,' and keep your eye on Hitler himself on the official stand watching the entrance of competitors of various nationalities."

Tovah watched the screen mesmerized.

"There, there you see Hitler observing the entrance of the Austrian contingent who gave him the
'Sieg Heil'
Nazi salute. Then the French doing almost the same." Anneliese's commentary continued over the muted sound track. "Wait for the Americans, who are last. They will not give the Nazi salute nor dip the Stars and Stripes toward Hitler. You will see Hitler hiding his resentment, but also notice the displeasure in the stadium from spectators. There now, keep your eyes on Hitler. You wonder if it is Hitler or his double. I can tell you, it is Hitler that opening day. He appeared in person. Because he felt it could be a propaganda coup. It was the only time Hitler appeared at the Olympics. Yet, you will see him four more times."

As the film flickered on the screen, Tovah concentrated on what she saw.

Anneliese resumed her commentary. "This is the second day of the Berlin Olympics, but the first day of the actual competition. There you see Hitler again. He is congratulating Hans Wöllke, our German shotputter and our first gold medalist. There you see Hitler congratulating the three men from Finland who won all the medals in the ten-thousand-meter event. There you see him congratulating our gold- and silver-medal winners in the women's javelin contest. A most gracious Adolf Hitler." Anneliese paused dramatically and said with emphasis, "Only the Führer who was congratulating the winners on the second day was not Hitler. It was his double doing the job. It was Manfred Müller."

"How can you tell?" asked Tovah.

"I don't have to tell. I know. If I could mark any difference, it would be in studying the ears of the real Hitler and the fake Hitler. The configurations vary ever so slightly."

Later, when the film was done and the lights had gone on in the projection room, Anneliese resumed speaking to Tovah. "While Hitler was proud of the staging of the Olympics, he had no interest whatsoever in actual sports. He had too much else on his mind. He ordered Manfred Müller to appear in his stead. And so perfect was Müller 's performance, that not a soul in attendance ever knew the difference. But don't misunderstand me. When it came to an important political event, such as the mammoth Nuremberg Rally which we shot in 1934, and released as
Triumph des Willens
, and other political gatherings after Hitler hired Müller, Hitler always appeared in person. When he was asked to make a showing at some lesser nonpolitical event, he often sent Manfred Müller in his place."

"It's so hard to believe," said Tovah.

"It is true. I'll tell you something that is harder to believe. An American athlete named Carson Thompson wrote a memoir recently claiming that Eva Braun visited the Olympic Village in Berlin to meet the American baseball players."

"How could that have been? I thought Hitler kept Eva Braun in hiding."

"He did, most of the time. But Eva adored every-thing American. She must have seen Gone With the Wind a half dozen times. Also, she adored what she knew about American sports, especially baseball. She expected to do some of the commentary for Len! Riefenstahl's Olympics documentary, so she wanted to learn more details about baseball. She arranged to meet the American baseball Olympians who were in Berlin to put on an exhibition game. At the last minute, Hitler would not let her go in person. Since the arrangements had been made, Hitler sent Hannah Wald, another double, in her place to meet the Americans. Hannah was an attractive young minor actress who posed as Eva Braun."

"Whatever happened to Hannah Wald?"

"I wish I knew," said Anneliese, "but I never could trace her after the 1930s. She evaporated, just disappeared from sight."

"And what finally happened to Manfred Müller? Where did he wind up?"

Anneliese made a helpless gesture. "Here I confess we draw another blank. I know Hitler was using, him until 1942. After that, especially with the war going badly for him, Hitler was too beset and too occupied with his generals to bother seeing or talking to Leni or me."

"Could there be anyone around who would know if Manfred Müller is still alive?"

"Well, he had a family. . ." said Anneliese slowly, "at least I know he had a son. I remember what it was. A few years ago I read a feature story somewhere on the children of great German entertainers. There was, to my surprise, a brief mention of Manfred Müller. And there was also a quote from his son, Josef Müller, who worked as an air controller for Lufthansa. Josef said in his quote that he wished he could have seen his father in his heyday. So that gave me a cute sentimental idea. I took the footage you've just seen of Mutter playing Hitler in the
Olympia
film and copied it, and I sent the extra print to Josef Müller with a note saying, 'If you want to know what your father looked like in his heyday, here he actually is.' Josef was thrilled to receive the footage and wrote me a thank-you note on his personal stationery. I'd be delighted to find it, contact him, and ask him to call you at the Bristol Kempinski."

"You don't know how much I'd appreciate that," said Tovah.

Later, when they were about to part at the door to Anneliese Raab's penthouse, Tovah paused briefly to speak about something that was on her mind. It was daring, but she decided to do it.

"Fräulein
 
Raab, just one more thing," Tovah said, "something I've been wondering about while we were talking. "

"Yes, please?"

"If Hitler had a double, perhaps it was the double who died in the
Führerbunker
and was cremated—the double, and not Hitler himself."

Anneliese stood stock still. "What an astonishing idea."

"But possible."

"Unlikely," said Anneliese. Then with a shrug, "But, of course, anything is possible." She stared at Tovah. "Only one thing. If Hitler did not die in the bunker—what happened to him?"

C
hief of Police Wolfgang Schmidt sat across from Evelyn Hoffmann at their usual table Waiting until his sausage and beer and her tea had been served and the basket of rolls placed between them.

Gloomily, Schmidt withheld what he had to say until Evelyn had taken a roll, broken and buttered it, and begun to sip her tea.

Schmidt cleared his throat. "Effie, I have some news that is not particularly good, but not entirely bad."

She put down her cup. "Go ahead, Wolfgang."

"I promised you I would stop the British lady, Emily Ashcroft, from nosing around in the past. I'm afraid my initial effort to stop her failed."

"You tried to frighten her off?"

"No, Effie, I tried to terminate her. Somehow the job was interrupted, quite by accident. I'd assigned a good enough man, an experienced one. He penetrated her suite at the Kempinski. Then something unexpected happened. My agent was about to make contact with the Ashcroft woman, when a man, an American named Foster, walked in on them. Foster proved to be very quick and agile, and strong, too. I have since learned that he was trained in the American military for the Vietnam adventure, and has kept in good shape ever since. He interfered. I count it good luck that he didn't knock out my agent and capture him. My man got away."

"Thank the good Lord for that,"

"It makes our next move riskier. Because now the Ashcroft woman has been alerted, and is wary. She will not let herself be alone, not for a moment. She even had this Rex Foster give up his own room and settle into her suite."

"Really?"

Schmidt gave a ponderous snort of disapproval. "I gather they are sleeping together even though they are not married. But what else can one expect from English women other than loose morals?"

A crease of amusement touched Evelyn Hoffmann's face. "Wolfgang, not only English women," she said.

"What?" muttered Schmidt, not understanding.

"I was with the
Feldherr
for almost seventeen years before we were married. We were not married when we started sleeping together in Vienna."

Schmidt's cheeks had become red with embarrassment. With force, he tried to defend himself against her mild chastisement. "Effie, my God, how can a comparison be made? You and the
Feldherr
were a special couple. It was as if you were chosen by the Lord to give comfort and succor to a noble leader, the greatest in German history."

Evelyn responded with solemn assent. "That was always my view of it from the time I met him." She rarely spoke of the past in a public place, but now her mind had wandered backward. "How well I remember the first time I saw him. I had just started on the job for the fat one, Heinrich Hoffman, in his photography shop in Munich. Actually, it was in my fourth week on the job. I didn't know my boss was a member of the National Socialist party, and that many of the customers who visited him were his cronies in the party. I was standing on a ladder trying to get a file on a high-up shelf. This friend of Heinrich's came into the shop, a nondescript person, I thought, except for his eyes that glowed and his funny mustache. He was wearing a light trench coat and carrying an oversized felt hat. He sat down opposite the ladder, and I caught him staring up at my legs. I had just shortened my dress that morning. When I came down the ladder, Heinrich introduced us. 'Herr So-and-so,' he said, 'meet our good little Fräulein
 
Eva.' Of course, I learned Herr So-and-so's real name shortly after. Then we met many times. He was always so gentlemanly. He would bow in a courtly way, kiss my hand, and compliment me on my complexion." Evelyn gave a short sigh. "That is where it began, in the photography shop."