Collage

COLLAGE

ROMAN-FLEUVE

UNDOCUMENTED HISTORY

1600-2000

MARK ADAMS

Published by James Snow at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Mark Adams

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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MARK ADAMS

JOURNEY OF A STORY TELLER

Late at night on December 11, 1928, Ole Doc Pollock plowed through the driving snow storm in his brand new Model A Ford to the northern Ohio farmhouse of the immigrant Markowski family to deliver their fifth child. The scrawny boy was named Adam Frank after his dziadzius’ (Polish grandfather and pronounced jä deuce")

Adam’s first five years were spent in bed as the result of every known childhood disease and TB so his older sister read to him to help keep him entertained. His world was that of fantasy and telling Teddy, his appropriately named Teddy Bear, all about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. During the Great Depression and at the age of ten his dream was to be a storyteller like Mark Twain. Adam had learned he could help the family budget earning five cents a word by writing a short story for the Saturday Evening Post. A kindly editor took the time to write a very personal letter, none of the usual form letters, encouraging Mark to be a storyteller; but, to get more experience.

Fast forward: Adam and his high school sweetheart Phyllis were married. He legally changed his name to Mark Adams and earned a doctorate. After 26 years rearing five great kids and both having successful careers as Educators they went their separate ways. Mark set out to get more experience: traveling in more than fifty counties worldwide and working in Peru, Liberia and South Africa.

In 1983 Mark and Judy were married and they decided she would pursue her career in medicine so Mark could retire to follow his dream as a storyteller. In writing COLLAGE, an extensive historical fiction, the young German Protagonist Lisa fell in love with an American Doughboy in Paris during World War One. Lisa literally took over the story line! It was as if Mark became the scribe instead of the storyteller.

Since then all of Mark’s fiction, nonfiction, fables, poetry and illustrated cartoons seem to be collaborations with ghost writers --- more than likely Adam F. Markowski and dziadzius’.

PROLOUGE

In 1986 Dr. Dave Fain caused a furor on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables when the Jewish dominated Board of Trustees learned Dave had permitted a doctoral student to include Hitler and MEIN KAMPF in his research. To deal with the brouhaha and placate the Board, plus a few professors, the politically sensitive president, Dr. Louis King Lowe, gave Dave a year’s paid sabbatical leave, providing he give Lowe whatever material the student had and Dave’s promise not to publish any notion that Hitler may not have died in the Berlin Bunker.

Talking with friend and dean, Herb Simpson, Dave said he planned to use the year to travel and learn more about his very diverse family roots and in so doing became embroiled in the intrigue of the Cold War and dangerous machinations of the Middle East in 1986.

On June 7, 2005 after the memorial services for Herb his attorney revealed to Mark Adams that Herb also was a powerful CIA agent and secretly had documented Dave’s activities during the sabbatical leave. The attorney gave Mark a copy of Herb’s documentation that changed history. The letter ended with a cryptic note written by Dave, Herb, in case the plane goes down I’m sending you this copy of the report I typed for King Louie. Have a stiff drink before you read it. I’ll remember this trip as long as I live. As the saying goes, ‘if you’re alive your mission in life isn’t over.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To thank everybody for the undocumented history of COLLAGE would be impossible but I would be remiss not to mention two US Air Force Colonels; Auben Brunnemann for his military knowledge and sharing his copy of GERMANY AWAKE and NATO’s George Thompson by visiting the Waterloo battle site to explain how Napoleon’s tactical delay and topographical error caused his downfall.

Contributions of the medical staffs at the University of Colorado Medical School and Library, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital were indispensable. Also Dr. Kurt Krueger’s I WAS HITLER’S DOCTOR gave first hand insights of the Fuehrer.

THE PSYCHOPATHIC GOD by Robert G. L. Waite provided definitive research and reference material permeating COLLAGE. He brought history to life, most especially with Hitler as an actor, the Beer Hall Putsch, Landsberg am Lech, Blood Cement, Soneraaktion and Martin Luther’s edict of 1543. COLLAGE is fiction laced with history and facts from THE PSYCHOPATHIV GOD. COLLAGE became a reality because of four extraordinary women in my life: Jadwiga who bore and pampered me, Ursuline who read Huckleberry Finn to me while I was a bedridden child, Phyllis who cared and understood me and, most especially, Judy whose patience and belief provided the encouragement to be a storyteller. COLLAGE is dedicated to her and to the love all four gave so generously.

Mark Adams

C O N T E N T S

About the Author: Journey of a Story Teller

Prologue

Acknowledgements

Novelette One: MIAMI - Knowledge, Questions, Quest

Novelette Two: FRANCE - Wine, Women, War

Novelette Three: PRUSSIA - Honor, Fatherland, War

Novelette Four: WALES – Hope, Travel, Love

Novelette Five: POLAND - Struggle, Vision, War

Novelette Six: CROSSROADS

Novelette Seven: EXPOSE - Lisa’s Secret

Novelette Eight: BLITZKRIEG

Novelette Nine: METAMORPHOSIS

Novelette Ten: FUGITIVES

Novelette Eleven: REVELATION

Novelette Twelve: LIFE - After Tragedy

Novelette Thirteen: SLEEPER-Revealed

Novelette One

MIAMI – Knowledge, Questions, Quest

PREFACE

On June 7, 2005, following the memorial services for Herbert Simpson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami (Coral Gables), a man approached Mark Adams.

Excuse me, Dr. Adams. I’m Steve Ahern, Herb’s attorney. Sorry we had to meet under these circumstances but Herb asked me to give this package and envelope to you. He gave it to me a few months ago knowing he wasn’t going to make it and was most concerned you were the only person to see it.

Haven’t a clue what it could be, mused a perplexed Adams as he opened it.

Mark,

Since you also had been involved in covert activities I want you to have my records and Dave Fain’s 1986 diagram of his ancestral roots. The colonel didn’t want our dirty laundry aired given the sensitive political situation during the cold war. As you know the Brits nabbed Mengele following World War Two then he disappeared by making a deal with our Operation Paper Clip to get Werner von Braun for our space program. Times have changed and I think it’s time to go public, besides, the old bastard’s dead and I don’t l plan on his being where I’m going.

Herb

King Louie wants to see you!! kept ringing in Dave Fain’s head in 1986 as he scurried across the sunny Florida campus of the University of Miami to the Posner Building. The polished brass plate inside the administration building loomed bigger than usual, proclaiming, DR. LOUIS KING LOWE, President.

Barbara Williams cheery, Hi Doc, greeted the professor as he opened the door to the outer sanctum of the luxurious suite of the university president.

How’s my favorite grad student? Why does Dr. Lowe want to see me? Should-I-come-back-later? ventured Dave nervously.

Hey, slow down, Doc! I’ll check. Barbara depressed the switch on the walnut colored box sitting on her desk, Excuse me, Miss Braun. Dr. Fain’s here to see Dr. Lowe.

"Tell him to come in! Dr. Lowe is expecting him!" snapped Miss Braun’s brusque voice.

Oh, oh, you didn’t get the he will be with you in a minute routine. You didn’t bring another live tiger into psych 201, did you? queried Barbara, arching her eyebrows in mock shock.

Nope once was enough! Dave quipped as he headed toward the massive oak-paneled door; straightening the tie he hastily tied running across campus in answer to the big man’s summons.

Haughty Miss Braun was standing next to her desk, as if a Marine sentry in full dress uniform, waiting to usher Dave into the president’s cavernous inner office. In place of her usual frown was a sinister smirk at the corner of her mouth, making Dave even more apprehensive as to why he had been called before the throne of King Louie.

Come in, come in, Dr. Fain. Missed you at the alumni fund-raiser last week, admonished Dr. Lowe cheerfully as Dave slowly slumped into the leather chair in front of the president’s enormous desk. That’ll be all, Pearl, and hold my calls. Well, Fain-my-boy, you probably wonder why I wanted to see you.

That’s the mother of all understatements thought Dave as he forced a weak smile and nodded slightly.

The last time we talked was over your circus friend bringing a tiger to class to teach self-perception to those freshman kids, rattled on Lowe. "Old man Posner says his granddaughter is still having nightmares! Anyway, you know I’ve always defended your teaching. Remember how you kept upsetting Professor Ersoff by leaving student chairs in circles, or the fake shooting you staged in the criminology class. It seems every institution has its rebel teacher and you seem to be our maverick in residence. But this time a most serious situation has come up with the Board of Trustees and you know how important they are to fund raising and paying our salaries."

I have no idea how I could have upset the Board, puzzled Dave, although he feared it had to do with the Hitler project. He had tried to keep it as quiet as possible for the past year. Why now when things were falling into place?

Interrupting Dave’s thoughts the president leaned forward and threatened in a hushed confidential voice, "Fain, if it weren’t for tenure they’d have your hide. I can only do so much."

"But what have I done?"

They heard you think Hitler is still alive! Good lord, Fain! This is 1986!! What the hell’s going on? Tenure or no tenure the Board questions your mental stability, especially in the light of your past problems. They even think you might be anti-Semitic!

Well I haven’t been too regular at Temple but that’s hardly any…

Fain, this is no joking matter!! exploded Lowe. The Board feels you’re undermining students and may be hiding a neo-Nazi cell on campus. Rothstein heads the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and threatens to resign from our fund raiser this year!

Dr. Lowe, I assure you…

Look, Fain, I know you march to a different drummer. I don’t question your loyalty but you must drop this project! Especially with students! I may not be able to save your job, warned the president.

"Dr. Lowe, I know it sounds crazy, even to me, but Bookie Rodriguez and some other graduate students have come up with things that are incredible. Karl Mengele’s remains were found in Brazil were he had been in hiding for forty years and finding Hitler could be a wild goose chase, or be the biggest thing ever to happen at this or any other university. I’d rather lose my job than scrub the project! Are you asking for my resignation?" queried a confused Dave.

Becoming very fatherly a subdued Lowe lowered his tone, "David, my boy, I really like you. I wish others had some of your spirit but I’ve a university to run. No, I’m not asking for your resignation but I don’t want to wind up firing you! Let’s make a deal. Since I still have to name a faculty member for next year’s sabbatical leave, would you take a year off with pay?"

"You’re offering me the sabbatical?" exclaimed an amazed Dave.

"But with the stipulation you begin with the new term in September and don’t do anything more on Hitler until then! Secondly, I want to know everything you have so far and why you think Hitler could be alive. Thirdly, while on sabbatical leave don’t publish anything and keep a low profile. Send everything to me! It’ll be safe and it will keep me informed. Agreed?"

Well I…, I’m shocked! I never dreamed…, of course I agree! I really don’t know what to say!

Slowly coming around from his desk and putting a hand on Dave’s shoulder Lowe confided, David, you may be surprised to know a university president can be human. Fact is, I see a little of me in you. Did you know I dropped out of college for a while back in the thirties? Traveled through Europe and even saw Hitler. Back then my German wasn’t very good but Hitler certainly could stir up a crowd. Fascinating man! But that’s another story.

You actually saw and heard Hitler? asked Dave standing awkwardly.

Hard to think it’s been some fifty years! That was a long time ago, mused Lowe. It’s getting late and Pearl will be after me. Keep me informed on everything and send over everything you have so far.

Although elated and bewildered, Dave was unaware of the close scrutiny he received from the tight-lipped Pearl Braun as he walked past her desk. Outside the Florida sunshine seemed brighter and campus grass greener as Dave pulled off the hated tie and sauntered back to his office in the Carson Building. He was in a state of euphoria! The fifty-year old bachelor had devoted his life to psychology and teaching but had given up all hope of the university ever bequeathing the prestigious honor of an entire year on sabbatical leave and with pay!

Sitting at his cluttered desk of papers and books, Fain tore off several days’ accumulation of sheets from the desk calendar until he came to Friday, July 18, 1986. He ripped it off and thumb-tacked it on top of bulletins, pictures and notices scattered helter-skelter all over the corkboard next to his desk. The bright red printing blazoned July 18, 1986. Dave knew it was a day he’d remember forever, the day he received a sabbatical leave from King Louie.

Then his thoughts drifted back to the night when it all began a year ago. That evening in 1985 was typically hot and humid for mid-June when he left his office carrying a bundle of abstracts for doctoral dissertations. It seemed the air-conditioning always broke down on the muggiest nights! Dave decided it would be more comfortable to sit on the patio by the swimming pool and drink a beer before chairing the doctoral students’ monthly seminar. He didn’t realize the meeting would not be the usual boring chore that goes with a full professorship. It would be the night the Hitler project began and led to his receiving the sabbatical leave!

On that humid June evening in 1985 as Dave walked across campus to the Student Union Building he acknowledged the greetings of students, clustered in groups and sitting on the grass and benches. Nearing the SUB, he looked back to return a greeting from a passing student when a sudden flash appeared around the corner of the building, sending his papers flying.

Oh, I’m sorry! exclaimed an attractive coed as she started picking up his scattered papers. Seeing the title page of one of the papers she asked, "Are you the Dr. Fain?"

I’m the only one I know, he replied.

I’m Barbara Williams. I started a graduate program in psychology and enrolled in a summer course before the regular session starts in September. I graduated from South Florida in Tampa this spring, class of ’85. Bob Tedesky’s in my class and said there’s a seminar tonight so I was rushing to the Carson Building to check the bulletin board for the time and place, rattled Barbara.

Well I’m your walking, slightly bruised, bulletin board and the seminar is upstairs in one of the meeting rooms in about fifty minutes. Care to join me for a cold drink on the patio before going up?

"I’d love to! Please pardon the pun but I’m glad I ran into you," she quipped.

Later four doctoral students were seated around the conference table as Dave and Barbara walked into the meeting room. Bob Tedesky greeted Barbara, Hi Barb, see you found it. Called the dorm but they said you had already left.

Thanks, Bob, Hi everyone, she answered as Dave placed his papers on the table and greeted the students.

Let’s get started, said Dave. Why don’t we go round the table, give your name and tell us a little about yourself? No speeches, just a few words. Okay?

Well, I’m Armando Rodriguez but everybody calls me Bookie, said the first student. My major is English and my dissertation is a psychological analysis of different authors by using a computer program I’ve developed, By the way, Doc, I think I worked out the bugs.

Great, let’s have lunch tomorrow at the SUB say 11:30, replied Dave. Next.

I’m Bridge.

Like in Elbridge? interrupted Bookie.

That’s right! Elbridge Gerry, same as the signer of the Declaration of Independence. I’m from Bartow and came on a football scholarship then decided not to play and became a professional student. Just finished a Masters and starting my doctoral studies. That’s about it. Jiggs, you’re next.

As a kid buddies called me Jiggs but my name is Sylister, S-y-l-i-s-t-e-r, not Sylvester! Sylister Carroll and voted most apt to win a Sidney Pottier look-alike contest.

More like Mr.Bojangles! quipped Bridge good-naturedly.

You better be careful, home boy! As I was saying before that rude interruption, I’m Sylister the same as my father and grandfather but I don’t know how they came up with Sylister in the first place, but just call me Sy

Your great-grandmother couldn’t spell Sylvester! ribbed Bridge.

You’re probably right, laughed Sylister. Best be careful what you say about great-grandma, honky, or I may put out some bridge lights.

Next, said Dave then leaning toward Barbara whispering, Don’t mind them, they’re roommates and love to kid each other.

"I’m Bob Tedesky and don’t let the receding hairline fool you, it’s premature. My dissertation has to do with a psychological evaluation of Joseph Mengele, the notorious Angel of Death.

Did you see this week’s Time magazine, Bob? interrupted Sylister. I have a copy if you want to borrow it.

Yes I would. I’ve heard about the finding of Mengele’s body in Brazil but haven’t seen the article. That’s all I have to say, concluded Bob.

We have a new member and she certainly improves the looks of this motley crew, kidded Dave. Barbara.

Told you clowns that black is beautiful! exclaimed Sylister.

Thanks, Sylister. I’m Barbara Williams. I received a Masters in psychology from the University of South Florida in Tampa. My father insisted I come here. He was the first black to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Miami twenty years ago.

"Now that we all know each other, let’s get to work. As you old-timers know the purpose of the seminar is to help each other think through research ideas and problems. I’m a firm believer in synergy. That is, the total is greater than the sum of the parts. If we worked separately we would not come up with as great a product as if we had worked together. Our interaction builds on each other’s thoughts and solutions. End of tonight’s lecture! I looked over things you have submitted and written some reactions you may find helpful. A few pages may be shuffled due to a tornado I encountered on my way here tonight."

Good thing I’m black and you can’t see me blushing, injected Barbara.

Thought the University of Miami was called the Hurricanes, not the Tornadoes! added Sylister.

Touché, replied Dave. Handing some papers to Bookie, Dave continued, Explain your proposal, what you hope to accomplish and how you plan to go about doing it.

First of all I want to thank Bridge and Sy for their help in setting up the computer program. If you can put up with their chatter they really know programming, complimented Bookie.

Now I’m blushing! responded Sylister.

Bookie continued, I did my Masters in English lit and there’s a classic argument of whether Christopher Marlowe or William Shakespeare wrote all the so-called Shakespearean works. English lit students learn an author’s style, pet phrases, peculiarities, expression, movement as well as color, logic, dialect and sentence structure. We study various writers’ use of clichés, analogies and metaphors, mixed or otherwise. For example the Shakespearean sonnet was composed in three quatrains and a terminal couplet with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg.

Turning to Sylister Bridge inquired, Did he get it right, Sy?

If it retains the break or pause in theme that falls between the octave and sestet in earlier sonnet forms it’s an Elizabethan sonnet, answered Sylister turning to Bridge, but you football players wouldn’t know that.

"Right!’ marveled Bookie and Barbara.

My mamma didn’t raise any fools, beamed Sylister.

Just couldn’t spell Sylvester! added Bridge. Everyone laughed.

Bookie, doesn’t your study have to do with English literature rather than psych? asked Barbara.

No, and let me explain why it doesn’t, responded Bookie. "I plan to do a psychological evaluation of several different authors through in-depth analyses of their writings. For example, their work could reveal paranoia and highly personal view of the world, people, institutions or show disjointed thinking, lack of love, hate or values. Does the writer have a need to prove something, being cultured for example? Coupling these psychological factors to the usual things of writing style, pet phrases, expressions and so on should produce a psychological and writing profile. With the help of a computer to handle all the data I should be able to take an unknown work and determine if one of the authors in the study wrote it. I will include writers with very different personalities and philosophies, such as Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. as opposed to somebody quite different."

How about Mengele or Hitler? ventured Bob.

Hitler and Mein Kampf would be a good book to use, answered Bookie.

What about the difference in language? asked Dave.

Good point! I was thinking of the English translation. A profile could be done for Hitler but it could be used only for other writings of Hitler that have been translated into English, Bookie replied.

There are certain things in the German language that are quite different from English, such as long intricate sentences, German participles and substantives. Verbal nouns are incompatible with the English language but as long as you have an English translation you probably could develop a profile, suggested Dave.

"That makes it even more intriguing! I was thinking of English writings only," mulled Bookie.

This is a good example of synergy, injected Dave.

Turning to Bob, Barbara inquired, You said you were working on something to do with Josef Mengele. I’m curious how you became interested in him?

It’s a long story. If Bookie’s through I could talk about my project. Bookie? inquired Bob.

Are there any further comments or questions? asked Bookie.

Nobody spoke so Bob proceeded, "My father is in his sixties and supports the World Zionist Organization and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s efforts to find Nazis. At the beginning of World War II my father was just past twenty, married and living in Poland with his wife and young son.

When the Germans invaded Warsaw they came to arrest my father for his anti-German activities but he escaped to an underground resistance group. So the Gestapo held his wife and two-year-old son as hostages. The SS put them in Pawiak, Warsaw’s notorious prison. At the time my father’s wife was expecting another child but the Germans jailed her anyway! She gave birth to twin daughters in a Pawiak cell so small and crowded the prisoners had to take turns sleeping. My father’s entire young family died in that hellhole! He was one of the few people who escaped through the sewers when Germany destroyed, in fact, leveled the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. He found his way to England and fought the rest of the war as a British soldier before coming to New York where he met and married my mother.

My father remains a bitter man and full of vengeance, even today! My mother is quite the opposite, full of love and forgiveness. She was born in New York but lost grandparents and cousins during the Holocaust. My father says my mother has enough forgiveness in her for both of them and she says he has more than enough bitterness for twenty people.

I differ with his obsession of finding war criminals, especially Josef Mengele whom my father considers the arch villain after Hitler himself! My father practically disowned me when I suggested that Mengele may have been more of an unfeeling scientist than a fanatic Nazi. From what I’ve read, Mengele came from a very affluent family who controlled the main industry in a town called Gunzburg. They still do today! Mengele was highly intelligent, well educated and had degrees in philosophy and medicine by his mid-twenties.

Mengele is called the Angel of Death and the Butcher of Auschwitz, but sent a pregnant Jewish doctor to Krakow to do research for him then sent flowers when her son was born! On the other hand, Mengele used people as other scientists would have used white laboratory rats. He seemed to have an absolute disregard for what’s morally right or wrong.

It’s practically impossible for a normal world to understand such a person. I don’t know how a person could be that way but my intellect tells me it can happen. Emotionally, I just can’t fathom it. Mengele tried to change the color of children’s eyes by injecting dyes, exchanged blood between twins, exposed victims to severe radiation.

My father and I differ diametrically over what the world should do with scientific data and any medical findings Mengele uncovered. My father’s position is that it was gathered through atrocities against mankind and should be destroyed. My feelings are the atrocities are done, they can’t be undone. We should repudiate and condemn the method but use the knowledge. It could assure that those people, against whom the atrocities were committed, did not die in vain. A child born as the result of rape doesn’t mean you can’t love the child once it’s born. Condemn the deed not the child. Of course my father and I can’t even talk about it, especially Mengele’s interest and experiments involving twins. I love my father, I understand him, I just don’t agree with him. Sorry, I got carried away."

I think that background information was important to our understanding your interest in making Mengele the subject of your dissertation, volunteered Dave. When you mentioned exposing healthy patients to x-rays I couldn’t help but think of the radiation treatments my father received at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

I’m certainly not supporting what Mengele did but my brother is an oncologist and claims the first case of skin cancer was reported about 1900 on an x-ray technician’s hand, offered Barbara. The x-ray machine was crude and the technician placed his hand in the beam to check the efficiency, resulting in high exposure to the hand. Early uses of x-rays for the treatment of acne and ringworm resulted in skin cancer years later. The point I’m trying to make is the medical profession was experimenting and beginning to learn many things about x-rays, radiation and cancer between the two world wars. As a member of the medical profession at that time Mengele would be very interested and involved.

My brother tells a classic story during that period about watch dial painters getting bone cancer. They pointed their brushes with their lips while painting with radium. Being a bone-seeker, radium was ingested and accumulated in the skeleton where the build-up caused bone cancer. There were certain medical practices in the 1930’s that resulted in an increase in cancer of the thyroid. Again, I’m not excusing Mengele. What I’m trying to say is there was a great deal of interest and experimentation being done with radiation by the medical profession during Mengele’s time, concluded Barbara.

The methods being used at Auschwitz were quite different. objected Bridge.

That’s very true. Please don’t think I feel compelled to defend Mengele, explained an embarrassed Barbara.

Not at all, assured Dave. Openness and intellectual frankness should always be part of these seminars. The more we have, along with honest disagreements, the better it is if we hope to grow. I had heard of the workers painting watch faces with radium but what was the medical practice that led to thyroid cancer, Barbara?

I’m not very knowledgeable about the medical details but it had to do with a practice of exposing an infant’s thymus to radiation to reduce any enlargement, explained Barbara. Something else, pitchblende miners in Germany suffered for centuries from a fatal disease called mountain sickness. About the time Mengele was in medical school an investigation showed mountain sickness to be lung cancer caused by a colorless gas found in the mines, formed by disintegration of radium. It would have been very unusual if Mengele had not been intrigued by what was being discovered in the field of radiation during that time. Again, his methods may have been demonic, but as a scientist he would have been fascinated. I feel I’m talking too much.

You opened a whole new dimension about Mengele that fits into my study beautifully because I hope to psychoanalyze Mengele through the eyes and perceptions of people around him, growing up, in school and at Auschwitz! The procedure isn’t new. continued Bob.

The method was used during the Nuremberg trials when psychiatrists psychoanalyzed Hitler, added Dave. Their conclusion was Hitler had no special talent, intelligence or genius except an uncanny talent for selecting the right person for the right job. On the other hand, there have been later studies that refute the idea. In fact, over 50,000 serious works have been done on Hitler. The only other person with more written about him is Jesus.

I plan to investigate Mengele the way Hitler was, concluded Bob. If I learn what made Mengele tick I might find out where he would go into hiding. At last report the rewards for his capture totaled five million dollars, if he’s still alive!

You may be too late if the Time article is true, injected Sylister.

That’s what I’ve heard. I may not get the reward money but if they did find his body and where he’s been hiding it could help my study, answered Bob.

Bob, if 50,000 things have been written on Hitler, why haven’t we been able to tell whether he was mad, crazy, stupid, or a genius? inquired a quiet thoughtful Bridge.

I don’t know. Maybe too many so-called experts only interest was to prove their own theories, answered Bob.

Part of the answer may rest with Hitler himself, said Dave. His personality will be a challenge throughout history. Researchers into his boyhood ended up confessing that the more they looked into Hitler’s childhood, the harder it was to explain him. Hitler’s later memoirs and private letters seem written to hide who he was. He took pride in believing he was Europe’s best actor and enjoyed hiding behind masks. Hitler could be charming, considerate and even gentle. He also would be reasonable, fanatical, enlightened or vicious and vindictive. It was the same as when Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and banged it on the table. He wasn’t being emotional or even reacting emotionally. He was simply acting. In the same way, Hitler was probably a master at deception and when it was convenient to his purpose he could become the crazy madman. He knew most people don’t know how to deal with a madman, explained Dave.

Hitler’s life was full of such theatrics. continued Dave. A British historian named Taylor even said Hitler was not really an aggressive man. Taylor didn’t try to use abnormal psychology to understand Hitler and chose to consider him as being normal. He said Hitler’s orders to close your hearts to pity or act brutally shouldn’t be taken seriously and even claimed Hitler had no aggressive plans for world conquest. He also said the patriotic Hitler wanted to make his country strong the same as Churchill and Roosevelt did in their countries. Hitler’s Mein Kampf outlined in detail this very plan to make Germany strong. Taylor said if you understand this then all of Hitler’s actions were rational.

I have to include it in my study of authors. exclaimed Bookie.

Well if Hitler wasn’t insane or mad, how did he end up the way he did? asked Sylister. I always thought of him being a Charlie Chaplin type character.

Dr. Pardy from the University of Florida claims Hitler wasn’t mad, offered Dave. Pardy has made a career of doing psychological examinations of people accused of crimes whose lawyers want to plead insanity as a defense or heirs contesting a will because the person was senile or legally incompetent to make a will. Pardy said he examined records about Hitler and plans to write a book.

That makes fifty thousand one. chimed Bridge.

Dave continued, "Pardy imagined he was a court-appointed psychiatrist and listened to the evidence of witnesses such as Eva Braun, Hitler’s doctor and Hitler’s associates. He learned Hitler would go into a rage and nobody dared oppose him. Hitler had unusual moods but was never psychiatrically sick. He said Hitler was utterly criminal and probably the worst practitioner of State terror in history but he didn’t suffer from any pathological or psychological disorder, feeblemindedness or diminished capacity in the legal sense."

That’s hard to believe. interrupted Sylister. Reports at the end of the war seemed to paint Hitler as Looney Tunes, crazy as they come. I read some place his last doctor claimed Hitler took drugs constantly during his final days and was hunchbacked and broken. I remember the article said he was a shrunken form and lapsed into his shoulders like a turtle. Hitler’s doctor said he took drugs to sleep and refused to strip or to be x-rayed.

Interesting, we’re back to x-rays, mused Barbara.

Sylister observed, Even before those last days, why didn’t he know the end was coming if he wasn’t crazy? His own generals tried to blow him up. Aides may have feared giving him bad news but he must have known the tide of war had turned against Germany. What was it? Tunnel vision and seeing only what he wanted to see? You would think he’d have built in an escape plan.

Maybe he did. suggested Bridge.

Like what? Where on earth could Hitler hide in 1945? asked Sylister. Look what happened to a second-rater like Mussolini!

Appears Mengele survived forty years, returned Bridge.

Who probably had a very high IQ. said Bob.

Maybe Hitler was a genius. Who knows? shot back Bridge.

Mengele’s experiments were prominently presented to the military tribunal at Nuremberg but he personally was overlooked. Nobody would have overlooked Hitler, said Bob.

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Mengele captured by British Intelligence near some German town? asked Bridge.

Trier, answered Dave.

Right, Trier. agreed Bridge. A witness even claimed the soldiers were talking of hanging the Butcher of Auschwitz, but somehow he escaped. Recently a confidential U.S. Army report revealed Mengele had been in the hands of U.S. operatives in Vienna and grilled about abducting Jewish children for Auschwitz and again, with no explanation, he was released. I can’t believe he just talked his way out of those situations, concluded Bridge. He must have had money.

Or information about the whereabouts of Germany’s rocket scientists, injected Dave. A friend and an Air Force colonel, who may have been a CIA agent, told me an Operation Paper Clip, made a deal to release Mengele in exchange for information in getting Werner von Braun before the Russian did.

But where would Hitler go? The first place anybody would look for him would be South America, probably Argentina, argued Bob. "Last month a member of a panel, looking into Argentina’s dirty war, claimed today’s young officers in Argentina are ultra rightists, even keeping a picture of Hitler in their barracks, now in 1985!"

That’s the last place Hitler would go because it’s the first place everyone would look, summarized Bridge. Besides, if Hitler enjoyed being an actor, wearing masks and deceiving people he would do something completely unexpected. He didn’t think like most people, it’s obvious. Hitler didn’t trust anybody and that’s another reason he wouldn’t go to Argentina. He’d be running the risk of being recognized by someone else hiding out. If Judas Iscariot sold out for thirty pieces of silver then I’d bet there’d be somebody in Hitler’s crowd who’d turn him in for money.

You bring up some interesting ideas, Bridge said Dave tugging at his beard with his left hand as he usually did when something aroused him intellectually. As you said Hitler didn’t think like other people. There’s also been a great deal written about Hitler as a young man when he thought of himself as an artist, a painter.

Yea, house painter! wisecracked Sylister. Sorry, Doc couldn’t resist.

Dave smiled and continued, Hitler wanted to enter an art school but the director tried to get him interested in architecture where he thought Hitler had talent. It may sound as though I’m getting off the topic at hand but bear with me, it’s germane. Years ago when the U.S. space program was gearing up, a professor I had at Stanford was involved with a team of psychologists to develop a profile for the type of person needed to be the first to go into space. They came up with a profile of things such as intelligence, thinking under stress, being self assured, problem solver, able to handle emergencies and so on along with knowledge of math, engineering and flying experience. Then the profile was used as the criteria for selecting the first astronauts.

"After the astronauts were selected I worked with other graduate students to analyze the individual schooling, training and background of all the people selected using the ideal criteria. We wanted to see if there was any factor or commonality in the background and training of those selected. If so, it might give us a lead on how to train future