Strasser narrowed his eyes. Lockhart knew that Strasser was never a big drinker, but he also knew for a fact that the German kept some schnapps in his desk for medicinal purposes. Strasser opened his drawer and produced the bottle—it was “Woeltingerode,” from the Kornbrennerei monastery, the same monastery that had so kindly yielded its finest and strongest still to the polite young SS officer. Lockhart also noticed that the bottle was two-thirds empty—Strasser had obviously been taking a lot of medicine of late. He poured two glasses and passed one over to Lockhart.

“Here’s to you, Carl,” said Lockhart, raising his glass.

Strasser raised his own glass mirthlessly and drank with Lockhart.

“Thanks for that,” said Lockhart, putting his glass back down on Strasser’s desk.

“So?” said Strasser, obviously impatient.

“I’d like to begin by asking you why you’re a Nazi,” said Lockhart.

Strasser looked taken aback.

“I do not see why this is relevant.”

“It’s very relevant. Please answer the question.”

Strasser shrugged.

“It’s simple. The Nazis have given Germany back its pride, restored it to its rightful greatness. You have no idea what it was like before ’33, with the poverty and the strikes, the inflation and the hardships. People were eating rats! I’m not joking! We were on our knees, and the Nazis changed all that. It was hard not to become one.”

“So you’re saying that you weren’t one from the start?”

Strasser lit a cigarette, taking his time about it. Lockhart refused his offer of one.

“I wasn’t—no.”

Strasser looked almost ashamed.

“Carry on,” said Lockhart.

“But I became one when I saw how much good the Nazis had done, how they had turned the country the right way up. I joined the SS because I wanted to serve my country….”

“Why didn’t you just join the Wehrmacht?”

“Because the SS is the elite. And when you’re asked if you want to join the elite, it’s pretty hard to say no, especially as a young man. Of course I wanted to join the SS—no young German wouldn’t.”

“What about the Jews?”

“What about them?”

“Do you care what’s happening to them?”

Strasser took a long drag and poured himself and Lockhart another glass of schnapps.

“You have to understand that the Jews were holding us back throughout the twenties and the early thirties. They had a stranglehold on everything….”

Lockhart scoffed, and scoffed loudly.

“I know it’s hard for you to understand,” Strasser continued, “but it’s true. The Jews were standing in the way of Germany, infecting us—”

“All right, all right,” said Lockhart, holding out his hand. “Even if that were true, which it plainly isn’t, do you think that’s any reason to slaughter them?”

“We do not slaughter them!”

“Oh?”

“We put them to work, like the rest of our enemies.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”