At the midday briefing, in spite of the looming military disaster, to everyone’s astonishment he revealed a beaming face, and at the lunch that followed—semolina dumpling soup, mushrooms in a ring of rice, apfelstrudel—he fell into one of his endless, distracted monologues. This time it was about elephants, which were the strongest animals in existence, and which, like him, abhorred meat. Next Hitler described in detail the horrors of a slaughterhouse he had visited in occupied Poland. Girls in rubber boots had waded in blood up to their ankles. Meanwhile, Morell was preparing his next
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