A Chilling Historical Novel About the Murder of Hitler’s Lover: The Munich Affair by James Patterson and David Ellis
Prologue
September 18, 1931
The Franz Kabarett Munich
THE FRANZ KABARETT NEAR the city center was a vision in gold, from its wallpaper to the lanterns that hung from the ceiling to the gilded bar in the corner serving every possible liqueur. Seats rose on platforms two stories high, with gold chairs arched around each table, while high-tops with white linen tablecloths dotted the main floor around the stage. Onstage, a small jazz band belted out “Ich bine die fesche Lola” as tobacco smoke rose to the ceiling painted in hues of gold and green, a glittering mural of dragons and other creatures. It was a place to escape reality, at a time when people were looking to do so.
Humiliated in defeat just over a decade earlier, the German peo-ple as a whole feltsaddled by the reparations demands made by the victorious Allies in the Treaty of Versailles, humbled by the crushing worldwide economic depression, and altogether skeptical of the fledgling post–Great War democracy that had thrust austerityprograms upon its citizens. The people wanted new. They wanted better. They wanted something — anything — different.
No political party understood the nation’s mood better than the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP. Known in English as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or — by the critics who derided them and the intellectuals who dismissed them as unserious, opportunistic, bigoted hacks — as the Nazis.
The Nazis had stunned all political observers and captured the second-highest number of seats in last year’s national legislative elections. Their leader was a man who knew how to appeal to their particularized interests. He seemed able to quench the thirst of whatever group he addressed, to touch the masses with speeches so electrifying and intimate as toborder on the erotic. A man who was addressed not by name but only by title: the Führer.
“He’s here. That’s his car!”
Over the clamor of chatty merriment and jazz music inside the club, Rudolf Hess, a square-jawed and handsome man in a gray double-breasted horsehair suit, clutched thearm of the club’s owner as they looked through the window onto the street, the black Mer-cedes limousine pulling up to the curb. “I must confirm once more the details of the show tonight. There will be no political humor?”
“None,” said the owner, Walter Kubizek. “I screened the content of every performer, asyou asked.”
“Will there be nudity of any kind or sexually suggestive dance?” “No—”
“And nothing . . .” The man lowered his head and his voice. “Noth-ing portraying homosexuality, I trust.”
“No, Herr Hess,” Kubizek sighed. The cabaret, known for its hedonistic nightly revue of burlesque dancers, sexually liberated performances, and political humor aimed in all directions — includ-ing at the Führer — had drasticallytoned down its show that night in anticipation of its guest of honor, Adolf Hitler.
Joining Rudolf Hess, the Führer’s personal secretary and adjutant, were the rest of the inner circle of NSDAP. Hermann Göring, the portly war hero, stood alongside his sickly wife, Carin, the Swedish baroness. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, NSDAP’s security unit, stood next to Bunny, his mistress and personal assistant. Then there was Joseph Goebbels, the only one nearly the Führer’s equal in understand-ing the power of propaganda— a good man, the Führer believed, so much so that he was willing to overlook Goebbels’s deformed foot and unsightly limp. With him was his fiancée, Magda Quandt.
Goebbels crushed his cigarette in an ashtray and handed it to a waiter. Der Führer was vehemently opposed to tobacco, having dropped the habit years earlier.
“Oh, one moment, my dear,” Hess said to his wife, Ilse. He rushed back to the clubowner and whispered in his ear. “There are no Jews in attendance, I hope?”
“This I could not say, Herr Hess.” Kubizek’s eyebrows rose. “I can think of no reason why I would bother to ask such a thing.”
Hess, displeased, straightened his tie and patted down his suit coat. “I assured him this cabaret would be tasteful.”
“I’m surprised he’d want to come at all, Herr Hess.”
“He didn’t.” The hint of a frown appeared on Hess’s lips. “She did.”
The chauffeur opened the rear door of the limousine. Out stepped the Führer, wearing ablack trench coat, his hair slicked and sharply parted as always.
Hitler stood at attention a moment, looking over the Franz Kaba-rett before he put out his hand for the woman accompanying him. She took it with her delicate, manicured fingers and emerged from the Mercedes.
As the couple entered the cabaret, the bustle and gaiety inside ceased with the suddenness of a gramophone needle screeching off a record.
“Heil, mein Führer!” Hitler’s trusted lieutenants and their women extended their rightarms at forty-five-degree angles in the familiar (and among party members, mandatory) salute. Other patrons quickly followed suit, heels clacked together and arms thrust out-ward. The room was split in that way, roughly two-thirds of the peo-ple on their feet in salute, the others looking at the man with the truncated mustache whom they’d heard so much about during the last elections. Some were energized by the charisma of the move-ment, others suspicious and wary, but all agreed that this man was a force.
While the jazz band played onstage before the festivities were to begin, the Führer worked the room. He wore a black tailcoat and waistcoat, cut in Bavarian provincial fashion, with the Iron Cross First Class on his lapel and his ever-present riding whip onhis side. He shook hands and waved, spoke briefly to patrons congregating around him,smiled and even laughed. He was, in this way, a politi-cian like none Germany had ever known. No politician had ever tried to charm them before.
Upon his release from prison six years ago after the unsuccessful coup attempt, Adolf Hitler had started building a coalition of follow-ers — town by town, beer hall by beer hall,speech by speech— claiming to feel their pain and share their outrage, and pinning all the blame for the loss of the war and the decrepit state of the democracy at the feet of two groups: the Communists and the Jews.
But if the Führer held the room’s respect and curiosity, nearly all the attention wasdevoted to the young lady who had entered on his arm, with her expressive eyes and widesmile. She wore a sleeveless blue silk dress with a low-cut tight bodice, and a form-fitting skirt that complemented her curves.
Twenty-three-year-old Angela Raubal, called Geli, was the Führer’s niece — more accurately his half niece, daughter of his half sister.
They were the perfect pair: the authoritative, severe-looking poli-tician and the sweet, demure lady at his side, lighting up the room with their charm and chemistry. Geli complemented her uncle — whom she called Uncle Wolf — in every way, attentive to his com-ments, smiling broadly, laughing easily, playfully grabbing his arm, deflecting praise onto the Führer. “Uncle Wolf is being modest,” she would say, or “I owe it all to Uncle Wolf.”
It was, said many patrons that night, as if they were man and wife, not uncle and niece.
“Pardon the interruption, Herr Hitler.” The tuxedoed owner, stooped at the waist, hands together, nodded to the Führer. “We’re aware that among her many talents,Fräulein Raubal is quite the vocalist. Would she honor us with a song?”
“You’re kind to ask, Herr Kubizek.” He turned to Geli, her face colored in a blush.
“Oh, I am certain nobody wants to hear me sing,” she said. She had taken years of lessons but had never performed before an audience.
“But you have a lovely voice, my dear.”
“Thank you, Uncle Wolf.” She looked at the owner. “You’re very gracious, Herr Kubizek, but I don’t know . . .”
The Führer surveyed the table where he stood, then raised a hand. “I think it would be an excellent idea! It’s decided. One song, Geli.”
The others at the table, and the crowd surrounding them, joined in until Geli broke outinto a nervous smile. “Well, maybe just one short song,” she said.
Discover the Book
“The Munich Affair is a master class in tension and a perfect historical thriller.” —Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls
“This World War II-era thriller feels startlingly modern and essential. As you watch a detective, a journalist, a resistance leader, and a professor race to solve past crimes, the boundaries of time quickly give way to pure suspense.” —Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The Nazi Conspiracy
A suspenseful thriller from the world’s #1 bestselling author, James Patterson, that spans a century—set in motion by the murder of Adolf Hitler’s young lover by his own hand.
A determined detective, Thomas Bauer, obsessively pursues Hitler—putting Bauer’s Jewish wife and children in grave danger.
A courageous journalist, Fritz Gerlich, writes story after story detailing the murder—making Gerlich a target for Hitler’s Gestapo.
An American professor, Eleanor Robbins, picks up the trail of evidence from present-day Neo-Nazis guarding the Führer’s long-held secrets to the death.
“Much more than a historical murder mystery, this lively and engaging story—from two masters at the top of their game—reminds us that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ You need to read this one and never forget.” —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author
