But if von Tresmarck did something stupid—something that might call attention to anything, which included the fund—Cranz told Forster that he wanted to hear about it right away.
Von Tresmarck would also be told that he now was directly responsible to Cranz, and bluntly reminded that he had one foot on the slippery slope to a pink triangle on a gray Sachsenhausen inmate’s uniform.
Cranz saw no potential problems with any of this, and was delighted with what he saw as his future here in Buenos Aires. Neither was he worried that anything would happen in Germany to see him recalled. That couldn’t be done without the acquiescence of everyone involved with Operation Phoenix—and that group included Martin Bormann. Karl Cranz was much closer to Hitler’s right-hand man than anyone thought, and Bormann wanted Cranz in Buenos Aires. Bormann knew more about the confidential special fund than anyone thought, because Cranz had gone to him and told him.
Bormann’s reactions had not been what Cranz had expected. The Reichsleiter had not gone to Himmler with the information that von Deitzberg was conducting what Himmler probably would have considered a treasonous fraud against the Third Reich. Nor had he asked to be included in the distribution of the fund’s munificence.
“What I want you to do about that, Karl,” he’d said, using Cranz’s Christian name for the first time, “is play along with them. Sometimes, something sordid like that can be transformed into something useful. And don’t worry. If it comes out, I’ll tell the Führer you were acting on my orders.”
Cranz had asked Bormann what to do about taking money from the special confidential fund, saying that it would look suspicious if he didn’t. Bormann had said, somewhat cryptically, “Don’t do anything that would cause suspicion,” and Cranz had decided that that was permission to keep taking the money.
The money was one of the reasons Cranz also was pleased about what life in Buenos Aires promised to be, especially after Ilse and the children joined him. Frogger had told him that there was a generous Foreign Service allowance for renting an apartment, adding that he didn’t use all of his and pocketed the difference, which was permitted.
Cranz had immediately decided to do the opposite, to augment the rental allowance with money from the special confidential fund. When Ilse and the children joined him, they’d find a very nice apartment—perhaps even a chalet in one of the suburbs—waiting for them.
He’d also used some special confidential funds the night before. He’d sort of tricked Boltitz into taking him to his tailor by asking him what he planned to do about new uniforms to go with his new rank. When Boltitz had replied that he’d have to go—and soon—to von Wachtstein’s tailor to have the extra golden stripe added to the sleeve, Cranz had said, “I’ll go with you, Karl. I need some suits, and I might as well take advantage of not having to worry about a clothing ration.”
He’d ordered half a dozen suits, shirts, and neckties. Not that it mattered, but they were really inexpensive. And when they walked back onto the street, he’d seen a lingerie store with what looked like silk stockings in the window.
Silk stockings were hard to come by in Berlin, even in the special stores for senior officers. The opposite was apparently true in Buenos Aires. The store had shelf upon shelf of them, and at quite reasonable prices.
He bought a dozen pair of the best quality the store offered. He would get Captain von und zu Aschenburg, the Condor pilot, to take them to Ilse. He would put a note in the box, suggesting that Ilse give a pair or two of them to her friend Gerda. She would probably do so anyway, but it was best to make sure. Gerda, the daughter of Walter Buch, chairman of the party’s court for the determination of NSDAP legal matters and internal discipline, was married to Martin Bormann.
Von und zu Aschenburg, too, was going to be useful. Once he got in the habit of taking small packages from South America to Berlin, those packages in the future could contain Swiss francs, English pounds, and American dollars for von Deitzberg.
One of the problems with the special confidential fund was that the payments made to gain the freedom of the Jews in the concentration camps were transacted in Uruguay. That required converting the funds to currency usable in Germany. Reichsmarks were hard to come by in Argentina and Uruguay without going through either the Buenos Aires branches of the Deutsche Bank or the Dresdnerbank—which of course being German kept detailed records, which of course was not a good thing. Thus, von Tresmarck had to send the cash in the diplomatic pouch, and that raised the risk of Hauptsturmführer Forster—who was both zealous and until now under no one’s authority— finding out what von Tresmarck’s little packages contained.
