Like von Deitzburg, Heydrich had been a professional officer (in the Navy, in his case). But for Heydrich it wasn’t problems with making ends meet that sent him into the SS. Rather, he had been forced to resign his naval commission because of an unfortunate affair with a woman. His military experience still left him convinced—with von Deitzberg—that you can’t make good officers just by pinning rank insignia on them.
Heydrich had von Deitzberg assigned to his office in Berlin, and there they became friends.
This turned out to be a mixed blessing. Heydrich liked fast cars, fast women, and good food. The SS provided his Mercedes, and the fast women were free, but usually only after they’d been wined and dined at Berlin’s better restaurants, where Heydrich was seldom presented with a check. Since von Deitzberg did not enjoy Heydrich’s celebrity, waiters and bartenders were not at all reluctant to hand the checks to him.
In August 1941, in the Reichschancellery, Hitler had personally promoted Heydrich to Gruppenführer (Major General) and von Deitzberg—newly appointed as First Deputy Adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler—to Obersturmbannführer.
After a good deal of Champagne at the promotion party at the Hotel Adlon, von Deitzberg confided to Heydrich that, although the promotion was satisfying for a number of reasons, it was most satisfying because he needed the money.
Two days later, Heydrich handed him an envelope containing a great deal of cash.
“Consider this a confidential allowance,” Heydrich said. “Spend it as you need to. It doesn’t have to be accounted for. It comes from a confidential special fund.”
With his new position as First Deputy Adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler came other perquisites, including a deputy. Heydrich sent him—“for your approval; if you don’t get along, I’ll send you somebody else”—Obersturmführer Erich Raschner, whom Heydrich identified as intelligent and trustworthy. And, who “having never served in either the Waffen-SS,” he went on, “or the Wehrmacht, has been taught to respect those of his superiors who have.”
Raschner turned out to be a short, squat, phlegmatic Hessian, three years older than von Deitzberg. He had come into the SS as a policeman, but a policeman with an unusual background.
For one thing, he had originally been commissioned into the Allgemeine-SS, which dealt mainly with internal security and racial matters, rather than the Waffen-SS. Later, he had been transferred to the Sicherheitspolizei, the Security Police, called the Sipo, of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA (Reich Security Central Office).
Early on in his time with von Deitzberg, Raschner made it clear that as von Deitzberg was judging him for a long-term relationship, Raschner was doing the same thing. Von Deitzberg understood that to mean that it was important to Heydrich for them to get along.
Two weeks later, Heydrich asked von Deitzberg for an opinion of Raschner, and von Deitzberg gave him the answer he thought he wanted: They got along personally, and Raschner would bring to the job knowledge of police and internal security matters that von Deitzberg admitted he did not have.
“Good,” Heydrich said with a smile. “He likes you, too. We’ll make it permanent. And tonight we’ll celebrate. Come by the house at, say, half past seven.”
At half past seven, they opened a very nice bottle of Courvoisier cognac, toasted the new relationship, and then Heydrich matter-of-factly explained its nature.
“One of the things I admire in you, Manfred,” Heydrich said, “is that you can get things done administratively.”
“Thank you.”
“And Erich, on the other hand, can get done whatever needs to be done without any record being kept. Do you follow me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The confidential special fund is what I’m leading up to,” Heydrich said. “I’m sure that aroused your curiosity, Manfred?”
“Yes, it did.”
“What no longer appears on Erich’s service record is that he served with the Totenkopfverbände,” Heydrich said. The Death’s-Head—Skull—Battalions were charged with the administration of concentration camps.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You told me a while ago you were having a little trouble keeping your financial head above water. A lot of us have that problem. We work hard, right? We should play hard, right? And to do that, you need the wherewithal, right?”
“Yes, Sir,” von Deitzberg said, smiling.
“Has the real purpose of the concentration camps ever occurred to you, Manfred?”
“You’re talking about the Final Solution?”
“In a sense. The Führer correctly believes that the Jews are a cancer on Germany, and that we have to remove that cancer. You understand that, of course?”
“Of course.”
“The important thing is to take them out of the German society. In some instances, we can make them contribute to Germany with their labor. You remember what it says over the gate at Dachau?”
“‘Arbeit macht frei’?”