All that was necessary for the continuance of his affair with her was that she kept her opinions to herself and abandoned her journalism. It was, under the circumstances—and considering the kind of issues at stake—very little to ask.

There was a knock at the dining-room door and his secretary entered. ‘These photographs arrived by special courier, Herr Direktor,’ she said deferentially. ‘I thought you would like to see them.’

He thanked her and took them, knowing very well what they were. On his last night in Berlin before leaving for the Ruhr he had been one of a highly select group of major industrialists invited to dinner at the Chancellery.

Against the background of a giant flag of the black swastika in its white circle, impossible to avoid, Göring had addressed them, urging the necessity of increased armament production in order that the Reich would not only reach parity with Britain in regard to warships and planes but would supersede her. Other members of the Nazi hierarchy had been present. Himmler, bespectacled and mild-mannered, looking more like a schoolmaster than one of the most powerful men in the country. Wilhelm Keppler, Hitler’s gimlet-eyed economic adviser. Dr Schacht, the corpulent and genial Reichsbank president. And then, as the evening drew to a close, Hitler had made an unscheduled appearance.

His doing so was, of course, a great honour, but Claus’s heart had sunk, for it meant an evening he’d already found over-long would simply become even longer. It hadn’t been quite as bad as he had feared. Instead of launching into one of his long, excitable diatribes, the Führer had simply mingled among them socially. Heinrich Hoffmann, his favoured photographer, had been called. Photographs taken.

Not for the first time, Claus had been struck by the Führer’s lack of inches. A commanding presence, whether standing on a speaker’s platform before thousands or in a small room nursing a glass of something non-alcoholic, but the power he exuded had nothing to do with physical stature. And it was a tangible thing. Even from several yards away, Claus had felt the forcefulness of Hitler’s personality snake across his nerve ends like a live thing.

He put the photographs to one side. Though one of them would no doubt find its way onto the wall of his office, where it would impress his visitors, they weren’t important. What was important was an impending visit by the Armaments Inspectorate.

‘Are we ready for the visit?’ he asked his mining and armaments director. ‘If there are problems, or potential problems, I want to know now.’

There were potential problems and he spent the rest of his day trying to iron them out.

By the time the siren went, signalling the end of the working day for House of Remer day-shift workers, Claus still had hours of paperwork ahead of him. As his night-shift workers streamed into the giant industrial complex, heading for foundries and factories, he packed files and folders into a bulging briefcase. It was work that could be continued in the comfort of his near by apartment.