As I left Himmler’s office, I have to confess, I felt as if I were floating in my boots. Finally I was being given a responsibility, an authentic responsibility! So they had recognized my true worth. And it was a positive job, a way to contribute to the war effort and to the victory of Germany by other means than murder and destruction. Even before talking with Rudolf Brandt, I gave in to glorious, ridiculous fantasies, like a teenager: convinced by my flawless argumentation, the departments fell in behind me; the inept and the criminal were overthrown, sent back to their lairs; in a few months, considerable progress had been made, inmates recovered their strength, their health; many of them, their hearts swept away by the force of unchained National Socialism, began working joyously to help Germany in its struggle; production soared from month to month; I got a more important position, real influence, allowing me to improve things in accord with the principles of the true Weltanschauung, and the Reichsführer himself listened to my advice, the advice of one of the best National Socialists there was. Ridiculous, puerile, I am well aware, but intoxicating. Of course, things wouldn’t turn out quite like that. But in the beginning I was truly bursting with enthusiasm. Even Thomas seemed impressed: “You see what happens, when you follow my advice instead of doing whatever you please,” he said to me with his sardonic smile. But when I thought about it, I hadn’t acted very differently than during our shared mission in 1939: once again, I had written the strict truth, without thinking too much about the consequences; but it just happened that I had more luck, and that the truth, this time, corresponded to what they wanted to hear.
I threw myself into the job with dedication. Since there wasn’t enough room in the SS-Haus, Brandt had a suite of offices assigned to me in the Minister of the Interior’s Zentralabteilung, on the Königsplatz in a bend of the Spree, on the top floor; from my windows, the Reichstag remained hidden, but I could see to one side, behind the Kroll Opera, the entire green, serene expanse of the Tiergarten, and to the other, beyond the river and the Moltke Bridge, the Lehrter customs rail station, with its vast network of sidings, constantly alive with a slow, juddering, soothing traffic, a perpetual childlike pleasure. Even better, the Reichsführer never came here: I could finally smoke in peace in my office. Fräulein Praxa, whom after all I didn’t really mind, and who knew at least how to answer the telephone and take messages, moved with me; I also managed to keep Piontek. Brandt also assigned me a Hauptscharführer, Walser, to take care of the filing, and two stenographers, and he authorized me to take on an administrative assistant with the rank of Untersturmführer; I had Thomas recommend one for me, a young man named Asbach, who had just entered the Staatspolizei after studying law and passing a training course at the Junkerschule in Bad Tölz.
