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28 February 1945

Führerbunker

Berlin, Germany

“Destroy it ALL!” Hitler roared, his voice shaking the halls as readily as the bombs that now fell on Germany.

“Every single piece, Mein Führer?” Lieutenant Müller dared to ask.

“Every last one! Leave NO trace behind!”

“Understood, Mein Führer.” The lieutenant departed to carry out the command to annihilate all artwork seized from the Jews, leaving the leader of the Third Reich alone in the depths of the Führerbunker.

The mere thought of the pope betrayal ignited an uncontrollable fury within him. The realization that he had been manipulated all along, positioned as the ultimate fall guy, the sacrificial lamb for this global catastrophe, sent him spiraling. The world had banded together to paint him and his Nazis as tyrants. The grand promises of the Thousand-Year Reich were evaporating before his very eyes.

Where had he faltered? For so long, everything had unfolded just as the pope had foreseen. Hitler’s ascension through the ranks of the Nazi Party. His appointment as Chancellor by President von Hindenburg. His rise to the position of the Führer of Germany. The expansion of the Nazi empire. The conquest of all of Europe. He had been faithful in following every instruction from his mentor. He had dutifully shipped all the gold seized from the Jews to Rome as tribute. What had shifted? What had gone awry?

The horrifying truth was becoming glaringly evident: Hitler was saddled with irrefutable evidence that he and his monstrous regime had ruthlessly looted the Jews of their wealth, their priceless art, and had orchestrated the systematic genocide of an entire race. Unquestionable proof that his Nazis were nothing more than glorified thieves and savages, a far cry from the sophisticated Aryan nation of superior beings he had deluded himself into believing would reign supreme over the world for a millennium. These Nazis, these cold-hearted beings, were numb to the atrocities they committed, their humanity extinguished in the face of their heinous acts.

The Führermuseum, his Holy Grail, had been nothing but bait, the golden ticket the pope had used to lure Hitler into this irreversible endeavor. In the end, it was all a ruse. Hitler was merely a pawn, a marionette in the grand scheme of things. The ‘Thousand-Year Reich’ was just a grandiose tale designed to cloud Hitler’s judgment.

“Really? The pope did all this for gold?” Hitler seethed. The thought of the pope nestled safely behind his Vatican fortress, safe from ever having to answer for his role in masterminding this world war, was too much to handle. “I’ll kill him!”

Their agreement from the beginning had been for the Nazis to ship all the gold seized from the Jews to the Vatican, while Hitler got to keep all the valuable artwork so he could fill his Führermuseum with priceless artwork, statues, and tapestries after war’s end. Gold watches, rings, necklaces, even the fillings in the Jews’ teeth—all went as payment to the pope. What use did Hitler have for a bit of gold when he commanded the mightiest empire the world had ever seen? He’d considered the deal a bargain, almost too good to be true. Besides, the enormous amount of priceless artwork in Nazi possession far exceeded the value of the gold collected from the Jews. Hitler thought Pacelli a fool for granting such a great deal. What’s the catch? he’d wondered in the early days.

Slowly, over many years, he became aware that all the gold he shipped to the Vatican was being rendered untraceable. Melted down into gold bars, its origin wiped from history. On its own, gold left no provenance. The same could not be said of the artwork confiscated from the Jews.

Running out of options, Hitler finally gave in and executed a plan to rid all that evidence from his lands, creating an alibi that he’d never been involved in the strategic plundering of the Jews and their priceless treasures.

Burn it all. He’d learned this lesson in his early meetings with Pacelli. Burn all paper communications, leaving no evidence of our meetings. Hitler would apply the pope’s instruction to his current situation, burning every piece of artwork no matter how priceless it was. He might have been the pope’s puppet, but he refused to be his scapegoat.

Chapter 67

2 June 1945

Munich, Germany

In the shadowy aftermath of World War II, the Vatican ratlines emerged, clandestine escape routes for Nazi war criminals seeking refuge from the ruins of Europe. The process of conversion was a simple one—the Nazi war criminal would confess their heinous sins to a Catholic priest, who would then absolve them of their sins with a blessing. The priest would assign them a new Christian name, a fresh identity, and the newly reborn Christian would then embark on a dangerous journey to South America.

This clandestine operation, repeated in hushed whispers in Catholic churches across Europe was orchestrated by none other than Jesuit priest Robert Leiber.

***

“Ah, you must be the infamous Franz Stangl. We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival.” Leiber greeted the notorious Nazi commander with a chilling calmness, guiding him through the Vatican’s clandestine entrance. Stangl, once the commanding officer of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, was directly responsible for nearly a million Jewish lives extinguished in the gas chambers and furnaces. The Jesuit, with an air of solemnity, led Stangl down a dimly lit corridor to his private quarters where the process of absolution and assigning a new Christian identity would commence. Once the ritual was complete, Leiber orchestrated safe passage for this harbinger of death to the distant shores of Brazil.

“But what about my family?” Stangl’s voice wavered, his mind filled with images of his loved ones caught in the crosshairs of the Allies’ relentless hunt for Nazi collaborators across Europe.

“Rest assured, arrangements for their safe passage to Brazil have already been set in motion.”

“Thank you. I am eternally indebted to you, Father.”

Chapter 68

1 June 1945

The Art of War

Weaknesses and Strengths

#9 Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace;

divinely mysterious, he is inaudible.

Thus, he is master of his enemy’s fate.

Robert Leiber has been a phantom, expertly smuggling away the Nazi elite to a haven in Argentina. His mission to safeguard the architects of the Final Solution has been nothing short of extraordinary. I salute his audacity in seizing the reins of this operation.

Leiber is a faithful and reliable sentinel. His work guiding the Nazi hierarchy to sanctuary will in turn prevent the world from ever learning of the Vatican’s involvement.