‘They are defendants in a criminal trial and will be treated as such. They may have lost the war but most of them are still arrogant sons of bitches and I won’t tolerate that. I want them to have a little taste of what they did to their own prisoners. Now, Professor, I know you have left your pistol in my office, but I am afraid you will have to be searched again. We have the strictest security here.’

Wilde allowed himself to be intimately searched by a GI and then Andrus looked through the ten-inch peephole. At last he nodded to the guard to open the heavy oak door. Von Schirach’s cell was tiny, exactly the same as everyone else’s. Rank in the Nazi hierarchy brought no privileges here.

Inside, the prisoner was sitting on the edge of his bed. It had a straw mattress, a plain pillow and two tattered blankets folded at the end. There were no books or papers to read, but there was a small wooden table with a single chair. The prisoner immediately stood up and pulled back his shoulders.

Wilde nodded to him to sit down. Baldur von Schirach’s mother was American and his first language was English, so that was the way Wilde addressed him.

‘Have you been told who I am?’

‘You are a professor of history, that’s all I know. I presume you intend to write a book about us.’

Wilde noted the curious clipped accent. He was weighing up how to deal with this man. He had the arrogance of his upper-class heritage, but he was clearly knocked back by his reduced circumstances. He probably didn’t fear the firing squad, but he would certainly fear dishonour. That was the way to play it.

‘No, I am not writing a book, not about you and the Nazis anyway. I am here because I am presently working with American intelligence. I’ll get straight to the point Mr von Schirach. I am looking for a friend of yours named Julius Boden.’

‘Is he alive then?’

‘That’s what I’m hoping you’ll help me with.’

‘What do you want with Julius?’

‘That is my business, Mr von Schirach. The question is, are you willing to help me find him?’

‘How can I help you find him if I do not even know if he is alive? I have been imprisoned both here and in Luxembourg since my arrest in Austria at the end of the war – I have no contact with the outside world.’