Jeffery Deaver: Garden Of Beasts

Despite being the supreme sycophant, Heinrich Himmler made independent peace overtures to the Allies (the head of the SS and architect of the Nazis’ mass-murder programs actually suggested that Jews and the Nazis should forget the past and “bury the hatchet”). Like Göring he was labeled a traitor by Hitler. As the country fell, he tried to escape justice by fleeing in disguise – but for some reason the persona he chose to assume was that of a Gestapo military policeman, which meant automatic arrest. His real identity was immediately discovered. He killed himself before he could stand trial at Nuremberg.

Toward the end of the war, Adolf Hitler grew increasingly unstable, physically debilitated (it is believed he had Parkinson’s disease) and despondent, planning military offensives with divisions that no longer existed, calling upon all citizens to fight to the death and ordering Albert Speer to institute a scorched-earth plan (which the architect refused to do). Hitler spent his last days in a bunker complex beneath the Chancellory garden. On April 29, 1945, he married his mistress, Eva Braun, and soon after they both committed suicide.

Paul Joseph Goebbels remained loyal to Hitler until the end and was appointed his successor. Following the Führer’s suicide, Goebbels attempted to negotiate peace with the Russians. The efforts were futile and the former propaganda minister and his wife, Magda, also took their own lives (after she had murdered their six children).

Earlier in his career Hitler said of his military expansion that led to the Second World War, “It will be my duty to carry on this war regardless of losses… We shall have to abandon much that is dear to us and today seems irreplaceable. Cities will become heaps of ruins; noble monuments of architecture will disappear forever. This time our sacred soil will not be spared. But I am not afraid of this.”

The empire that Hitler claimed would survive for a thousand years lasted for twelve.

With heartfelt thanks to the usual suspects, and a few new ones: Louise Burke, Britt Carlson, Jane Davis, Julie Deaver, Sue Fletcher, Cathy Gleason, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Emma Longhurst, Carolyn Mays, Diana Mackay, Mark Olshaker, Tara Parsons, Carolyn Reidy, David Rosenthal, Ornella Robiatti, Marysue Rucci, Deborah Schneider, Vivienne Schuster and Brigitte Smith.

Madelyn, too, of course.

For those interested in reading more about Nazi Germany, you’ll find the following sources as interesting as I found them invaluable in my research: Louis Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich; Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler; John Toland, Adolf Hitler; Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History; Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust; William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and 20th Century Journey, Volume II, The Nightmare Years; Giles Mac-Donogh, Berlin; Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories; Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider and My German Question; Frederick Lewis Allen, Since Yesterday; Edward Crankshaw, Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny; David Clay Large, Berlin; Richard Bessel, Life in the Third Reich; Nora Waln, The Approaching Storm; George C. Browder, Hitler’s Enforcers; Roger Manvell, Gestapo; Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich; Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Secret War; Adam LeBor and Roger Boyes, Seduced by Hitler; Mel Gordon, Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin; Richard Mandell, The Nazi Olympics; Susan D. Bachrach, The Nazi Olympics; Mark R. McGee, Berlin: A Visual and Historical Documentation from1925 to the Present; Richard Overy, Historical Atlas of the Third Reich; Neal Ascherson, Berlin: A Century of Change; Rupert Butler, An Illustrated History of the Gestapo; Alan Bullock, Hitler; A Study in Tyranny; Pierre Aycoberry, The Social History of the Third Reich, 1833-1945; Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge.

Former journalist, folksinger and attorney Jeffery Deaver’s novels have appeared on a number of best-seller lists around the world, including those of The New York Times, the Times of London and The Los Angeles Times. The author of nineteen novels, he’s been nominated for five Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award and a Gumshoe Award, is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and is a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie staring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. His most recent books are The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey and Twisted: Collected Stories. And, yes, the rumors are true, he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera, As the World Turns. Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.