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agreed.’
    At this I perked up somewhat.
    Seedig said, ‘You, my Kommandant, are asked only to provide inmates and guards. And overall security will of course remain in your hands. Farben will defray construction and running costs.’
    ‘Well now,’ I said. ‘A world-renowned concern with its own Konzentrationslager. Unerhort!’
    Burckl said, ‘We’ll also provide the food – independently. There’ll be no back-and-forth with KL1. And therefore no typhus. So we hope.’
    ‘Ah. Typhus. That’s the crux, nicht? Though the situation was eased, I rather fancy, by the substantial selection of August 29th.’
    ‘They’re still dying’, said Seedig, ‘at a rate of 1,000 a week.’
    ‘Mm. Look here. Are you planning to increase the rations?’
    Seedig and Burckl glanced sharply at one another. It was clear to me that they were in disagreement on this question. Burckl twisted in his chair and said,
    ‘Yes I would argue for a modest increase. Of, say, 20 per cent.’
    ‘20 per cent!’
    ‘Yes, sir, 20 per cent. They’ll have that much more strength and they’ll last a bit longer. Obviously.’
    Now Thomsen spoke. ‘With respect, Mr Burckl – your sphere is that of commerce, and Dr Seedig is an industrial chemist. The Kommandant and I can’t afford to be so purely practical. We dare not lose sight of our complementary objective. Our political objective.’
    ‘My thought exactly,’ I said. ‘And by the way. On this matter the Reichsfuhrer-SS and myself are of 1 accord.’ I smacked my palm down on the desktop. ‘We’ll not stand for any pampering!’
    ‘Amen, my Kommandant,’ said Thomsen. ‘This is not a sanatorium.’
    ‘No mollycoddling! What do they think this is? Some sort of rest home?’
     
    In the washroom of the Officers’ Club what do I find but a copy of Der Sturmer . Now this publication has for some time been banned in the KL, and on my orders. With its disgusting and hysterical emphasis on the carnal predations of the Jewish male, Der Sturmer , I believe, has done serious anti-Semitism a great deal of harm. The people need to see charts, diagrams, statistics, the scientific evidence – and not a full-page cartoon of Shylock (as it might be) slavering over Rapunzel. I am far from alone in this view. It is the policy championed by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt itself.
    In Dachau, where I launched my meteoric rise through the custodial hierarchy, a display case of Der Sturmer s was erected in the prisoners’ canteen. It had a galvanising effect on the criminal element, and violence frequently ensued. Our Jewish brethren wormed their way out of it in typical fashion, with bribes – as they all had plenty of money. Besides, they were mainly persecuted by their co-religionists, notably Eschen, their Block Senior.
    The Jews were of course aware that over the long term this foul rag actually helped their cause rather than hindered it. I offer the following as a footnote: it is well known that the editor of Der Sturmer is himself a Jew; and he also writes the worst of the incendiary articles it features. I rest my case.
     
    Hannah smokes, you know. Oh, ja. Ah, yech. I found an empty packet of Davidoffs in the drawer where she keeps her underwear. If the servants talk it will soon get about that I can’t discipline my wife. Angelus Thomsen is an odd bird. He’s sound enough, I dare say, but there’s something impudent and embarrassing about his manner. I wonder if he is perhaps a homosexualist (albeit deeply repressed). Does he have even an honorary rank, or is everything reliant on his ‘connection’? Curious, because no one is more widely and thoroughly loathed than the Brown Eminence. (Reminder: the lorry, from now on, to follow the more roundabout route north of the Summer Huts.) It calms you down and it numbs the gums, but brandy also boasts a third property: that of an aphrodisiac.
    Ach, there’s nothing wrong with Hannah that the good old 15 centimetres won’t cure. When, after a