Golden Boy. Paula Astridge

       OTHER BOOKS BY PAULA ASTRIDGE

      KILL THE FUHRER

       IN THE WAY OF THE REICH

      Woodslane Press Pty Ltd

       7/5 Vuko Place, Warriewood, NSW 2102

       Email: [email protected] Website: www.woodslane.com.au

      First published in Australia in 2011 by Woodslane Press © 2011 Woodslane Press, text © 2011 Paula Astridge

      This work is copyright. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of study, research or review, as permitted under Australian copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any other form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator”, at the address above.

      The information in this publication is based upon the current state of commercial and industry practice and the general circumstances as at the date of publication. Every effort has been made to obtain permissions relating to information reproduced in this publication. The publisher makes no representations as to the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information contained in this publication. To the extent permitted by law, the publisher excludes all conditions, warranties and other obligations in relation to the supply of this publication and otherwise limits its liability to the recommended retail price. In no circumstances will the publisher be liable to any third party for any consequential loss or damage suffered by any person resulting in any way from the use or reliance on this publication or any part of it. Any opinions and advice contained in the publication are offered solely in pursuance of the author’s and publisher’s intention to provide information, and have not been specifically sought.

      National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

      Design and layout by Robyn Latimer

       Cover design by Penelope Astridge

       Printed in China

       DEDICATED TO

       Esmond and Marguerite

       “Nothing is ever black and white; and the path he walked was very grey indeed.”

      —Dr. Karl Hettlage

       PROLOGUE

      When his sentence was handed down, Albert Speer was shocked. He had expected the death penalty.

      So had his Nuremberg Defence Counsel, Dr Hans Flachsner, who thought he had no hope of winning his case. But guilty as Speer was, it appeared that Flachsner had done just that and pulled off the coup of the century. For what else could it be, considering the enormity of Speer’s crimes? Flachsner would have congratulated himself had he not seen the odd look on his client’s face. That astutely intelligent face, whose ashen-white expression was not one of unmitigated relief, but of inexplicable confusion and disappointment. A look that said: ‘I’ve been underestimated!’

      Receiving a sentence of 20 years behind bars felt to Speer like he was being sold short. A sad second prize for him which killed his will to live through them; cruelly stripping him of martyrdom and shackling him to a horror far worse than death: a lifetime of earthbound tedium and obscurity. That was a hard pill to swallow. As a condemned war criminal, he had resigned himself to death by hanging. Having given up on life he wasn’t at all sure he wanted it back.

      Because how was such a man as he to survive in a state of mundane anonymity after having learnt to live only in and for the limelight? For the last fifteen power-packed years he’d had direct access to both unlimited power and fear. He’d even been privileged enough to share centre stage with the star of the show.

      But now that star, Adolf Hitler, was dead. Like a blinding surge of electricity, Hitler had burst onto the scene to show them the light. Then he had suddenly flicked the switch and turned himself off, condemning them all to the dark and leaving Speer — the closest to Hitler’s heart — to stand alone on an empty stage. Footlights dimmed, curtain down, with an audience that had stopped applauding. Their colossal production that once played to full houses and standing ovation had disintegrated into a pathetic piece of human tragedy.

      Exit the hero and they had all lost the plot. No one more so than Speer, who was now fit for nothing but to shrivel up and die; an end which would have suited everyone’s purpose. Especially the executioner’s, whose adept hands would tie noose knots for the other 10 men found guilty of war crimes; those of the Third Reich’s rat pack who were bad and powerful enough to have warranted the death sentence, but not as clever as Speer who had side-stepped it.

      Speer thought it was a pity that he hadn’t been quite as clever back in the beginning when that fatal thought had first crossed his mind to dabble in politics. What on earth had possessed him, an architect, to stumble onto such an unlikely career path? He had no excuse for the mistake he had made when that signpost at the fork in his road had clearly pointed the direction he should go. It’s faded inscription indicating the narrow one to the right and telling him to ‘walk this way’ and not look back.

      It had been entirely his own choice to veer to the left and follow the more twisted path with its glitzy Nazi sign, even though he knew that he was tempting fate and playing a dangerous game. A game that, at some point, he suspected he’d have to play hard and fast to save his life. It just never occurred to him that it might cost him his soul.

      In the heated present situation, however, with the Nuremberg courtroom pregnant with silence around him, it wasn’t his soul, but his integrity that was in question: ‘You sold us out, you bastard. You betrayed us!’

      The accusation was screamed out loud by one of those ten condemned men, who, threatening to back it up with a physical attack on Speer, had to be dragged forcibly from the courtroom by two heavily armed guards.

      ‘I didn’t, I promise you. I did not betray you.’

      From that point on, however, it was widely assumed not only by the unfortunate 10, but also by the world as a whole that Speer did betray them. The general consensus was that he swung a deal to save his own skin. But if they only knew, that what he had done, or more importantly, what he had deliberately failed to do, went further to save their skins than his.

      The truth was that in the latter half of the war he had put his life on the line time and time again to save the world from annihilation. At the risk of stirring Hitler’s fury and savage retribution, he had

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