Sentries from the Grossdeutschland division in ceremonial uniform goose-stepped outside their barracks. Tourists on the sidewalk, many of them Japanese, photographed the Fuhrer 's guards. Inside the barracks hall, where tourists wouldn't see them, were other troops in businesslike camouflage smocks. They had assault rifles, not the ceremonial force's old-fashioned Gewehr 98s, and enough armored fighting vehicles to blast Berlin to rubble. Visitors from afar were not encouraged to think about them. Neither were most Berliners. But Heinrich reckoned up Grossdeutschland 's budget every spring. He knew exactly what the barracks held.

Neon lights came on in front of theaters and restaurants as darkness deepened. Dark or light, people swarmed in and out of the huge Roman-style building that held a heated swimming pool the size of a young lake. It was open twenty-four hours a day for those who wanted to exercise, to relax, or just to ogle attractive members of the opposite sex. Its Berlin nickname was the Heiratbad, the marriage bath, sometimes amended by the cynical to the Heiratbett, the marriage bed.

Past the pool, the Soldiers' Hall and the Air and Space Ministry faced each other across the street. The Soldiers' Hall was a monument to the triumph of German arms. Among the exhibits it lovingly preserved were the railroad car in which Germany had yielded to France in 1918 and France to Germany in 1940; the first Panzer IV to enter the Kremlin compound; one of the gliders that had landed troops in southern England; and, behind thick leaded glass, the twisted, radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia.