Getting the officers out of the internment camp and back to Germany was of personal interest to Abwehr Chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who had himself escaped from Argentine internment during the First World War. Oberst Gr?ner was very sensitive to this; Canaris was not only his superior officer in the Abwehr, but an old friend as well.
He was sure that Canaris had been satisfied with his report on the sinking of the Reine de la Mer, and that Canaris would not hold him personally respon-sible for it, or for the failed elimination attempt on the OSS team chief. Things go wrong, honest mistakes are made; in his report to Canaris he had admitted his culpability.
He'd admitted further that he should not have presumed that Coronel Frade's son was the naive amateur he had believed him to be, and that he also should have presumed Frade would help his son, regardless of his sympathy for the German cause. Canaris would understand. But that did not mean that others high in the Intelligence and Espionage hierarchies of the Third Reich would be satisfied with his explanations, or with the time it took him to comply with or-ders to eliminate el Coronel Frade.
"Herr Oberst," G?nther Loche announced loudly as he pushed open the door to the suite Gr?ner had taken for the visiting liaison officer, "Standartenf?hrer Goltz!"
Gr?ner liked Loche, a civilian employee of the Embassy known as a "local hire," because he was just smart enough for his driving duties-in other words, not too smart to the point where he would take an interest in matters that were none of his business.
His parents had immigrated to Argentina after the First World War and went into the sausage business, where they mildly prospered. More important, they were as devoted supporters of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism as any-one Gr?ner had ever met. And there was something else: G?nther's father, who had served on the Western Front in the First World War and had few illusions about combat service, was delighted that Gr?ner had convinced G?nther that he could make a greater contribution to National Socialism by serving as his dri-ver than by "returning to the Fatherland" and volunteering for military service.
"Welcome to Argentina, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Gr?ner said, raising his arm in the approved Nazi salute. "Oberst Gr?ner at your service. I hope it was a pleasant flight?"
"A very long flight, Herr Oberst," Goltz said, returning the salute. The two men shook hands and unabashedly examined each other.
They were of equal rank. Tonight, of course, at dinner at the Ambassador's residence, Standartenf?hrer Goltz would have the place of honor, and be seated at the head table next to the Ambassador and across from the Ambassador's wife. Ordinarily, although he was senior in grade by almost two years to Gr?ner, he would be seated far below him at a formal dinner table. Protocol, which for some reason had always fascinated Gr?ner, held that branch of ser-vice was the first consideration, then the rank of the individual.
In terms of protocol, the Army was the senior service, followed by the Navy, the Air Force, and then the SS. This was a source of annoyance to many members of the SS. Since their mission was the protection of National Social-ism and the F?hrer himself, they felt that the SS should be the senior service, and that SS officers should not be relegated to a distant corner of an official table. None of the other services agreed, of course.
Gr?ner had come to understand and appreciate the necessity for protocol and to understand why it rankled the SS. Many senior SS officers had never worked their way up through the ranks, and that situation was getting worse. To curry favor with-or ensure the loyalty of-high-ranking bureaucrats and even prominent doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, these people were being given honorary officer's rank in the Allgemeine SS. This carried with it the privilege of wearing the black SS uniform and the cap adorned with death's-head.
At a formal dinner, s
erving SS officers had precedence over honorary offi-cers. So everyone at a dinner could look down the table and see who was a serv-ing SS officer, and who was a bureaucrat or businessman dressed up like one.
Gr?ner found a certain justice in the dictates of protocol, and had taken pleasure that every time the SS wanted the system changed, it had been frus-trated by those who wanted it left as it was.
Goltz had at least once been a serving officer. Although they had never seen each other before, Gr?ner knew a good deal about him. In the same out-of-normal-channels envelope in which he had notified him of the identity of the SS liaison officer who would visit Argentina, Admiral Canaris had included a copy of Goltz's Abwehr dossier.
Gr?ner had learned that Standartenf?hrer Josef Luther Goltz was a Hess-ian, born in 1897 in Giessen, forty miles north of Frankfurt an der Main. He was called up with his class of eighteen-year-olds in 1915, and served four months in the trenches on the Western Front with the 219th Infanterie Regiment. While recuperating in Weisbaden from wounds, he was awarded the Iron Cross Sec-ond Class, as well as selected for Officer Training School.
On graduation he was posted to the Sixteenth "List" Bavarian Infanterie Reserve Regiment-in which Corporal Adolf Hitler won the Iron Cross First Class-and served in it until the Armistice in November 1918. During that time he was wounded twice again, promoted Captain, and also awarded the Iron Cross First Class.
Obviously, Gr?ner thought as he read the dossier, if Lieutenant or Captain Goltz encountered Corporal Hitler in the trenches, he treated him well, or he would not be a Standartenf?hrer.
Immediately demobilized after the Armistice of 1918, Goltz returned briefly to school, but after less than a year at Munich University, he dropped out. He then found employment driving a streetcar for the City of Munich. And in 1921, he joined the Sturmabteilungen (the SA, the private army of the Nazi party, commonly called the "Brown Shirts," commanded by Ernst Rohm) of the just-renamed (from "German Workers' Party") Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party).
Gr?ner remembered this now, seeing the "Long Service" Nazi party pin in Goltz's lapel.
In 1924. Goltz left Civil Service to work full-time for the Nazi party. And in 1929, he left both the SA and the employ of the Nazi party to reenter gov-ernment service, this time as a policeman. In 1933, he was commissioned into the SS as a Hauptsturmf?hrer, the equivalent of a captain. His promotions there-after came rapidly.
After reading Goltz's dossier, Gr?ner decided that Goltz was an obviously bright, well-connected, and thus dangerous man. Looking at his face now, he saw nothing to change that opinion.
"I think you'll be comfortable here," Gr?ner said, gesturing around the suite.
"I'm sure I will be," Goltz said. "At what time, if you know, would it be convenient for me to present my respects to the Ambassador?"
"The Ambassador requests the pleasure of your company at dinner at the residence..."
"How kind of him."
"... at eight p.m. Following this, the Ambassador suggests that you join the official party which will go to the Edificio Libertador to pay our respects to the late Oberst Jorge Guillermo Frade."
Goltz's face now showed interest.
"Oh, really?"
"G?nther, would you wait in the corridor, please?" Gr?ner ordered.