Von Helldorf frowned. “You puzzle me, Herr Gunther. Don’t you want your country to put on a good show in front of the rest of the world? Are you a patriotic German or not?”

“I like to think I’m as patriotic as the next man, sir. Only it strikes me that our policy with regard to the Jews is—inconsistent.”

“And you want this exposed with what aim? So that all those Jewish workers might lose their jobs? Because they will. If Mrs. Charalambides writes about this in her American newspaper, I can guarantee it.”

“No, sir, that’s not what I want. It’s just that I don’t agree with our Jewish policy in the first place.”

“That’s neither here nor there. Most people in Germany do agree with it. Even so, that policy has to be tempered with what is practical. And the fact remains that it simply isn’t feasible to get the project finished in time without employing a few Jewish workers.”

He put it so matter-of-factly, I could hardly disagree. I shrugged. “I suppose not, sir.”

“You suppose right,” he said. “You simply can’t go around making an issue about this. It’s not realistic, Herr Gunther. And I simply can’t allow it. Which is where the D-11 comes in, I’m afraid. As a guarantee that you will put an end to this habit you’ve developed of sticking your nose in where it isn’t wanted.”

It all sounded so reasonable I was actually tempted to sign his D-11, just in order to actually be able to return home and go to bed. I had to hand it to von Helldorf. He was a smooth operator. Quite possibly he had learned more from Erik Hanussen, the clairvoyant, than merely his own lucky number and color. Perhaps he had also learned how to persuade people to do something they didn’t want to do. Such as signing a document saying that you agreed to be sent to a concentration camp. Maybe that just made von Helldorf a typical Nazi. Quite a few of them—Goebbels, Goering, and Hitler, most of all—seemed to have a flair for persuading Germans to go against their own common sense.