The United States is the novel’s potential refuge for Martin Luther and for the documentary evidence of Nazi mass murder, but it is also a government weighing disclosure against diplomatic stability. Its position gives the evidence a possible route into public circulation while showing that even overwhelming facts must contend with political calculation.

Diplomatic Stakes

When Xavier March presents the papers he has found, he tells Henry Nightingale that Luther was one of fourteen men summoned by Reinhard Heydrich to a conference on January 20, 1942, and argues that Luther is offering documentary proof in exchange for a new life in America. March connects the conference to the fate of its participants: six have been murdered, four have committed suicide, one died accidentally, and two supposedly died of natural causes; Luther is the only one still alive. The figures make the evidence inseparable from the campaign to eliminate those who know what happened.

Nightingale does not treat the papers as sufficient grounds to open the embassy gates. He explains that President Kennedy’s announced visit has abruptly upended twenty years of American foreign policy, and that Luther’s disclosures might overturn the political situation again. Nightingale intends to consult Ambassador Lindbergh, who in turn must communicate with Washington; he expects both to demand more proof before accepting a man March describes as a probable murderer. The proposed rescue is therefore caught between the value of the evidence and the danger of disrupting détente.

The Evidence the United States Might Receive

The documents point back to the Wannsee conference, identified in the minutes as having taken place at Am grossen Wannsee 56-58. They describe a plan involving around eleven million Jews from across Europe and use administrative language about labor and “natural reduction.” March’s examination of the draft minutes reveals how that language obscures the policy’s practical machinery: descriptions of shootings, gas trucks, and experiments with Zyklon B were curtailed in the final record. An amendment in Heydrich’s hand—“No!”—marks the removal of explicit detail from the official account.

The evidence extends beyond conference paperwork. Luther’s inspection notes record the camp’s railway siding, the arrival of a transport of Jews from France, and the sorting of nearly two thousand people. They then document the gas chamber and the processing of victims’ possessions and bodies. A separate circular orders that prisoners’ hair be collected and reported monthly, with women’s hair to be made into thread and felt products. Read together, the records expose a chain of policy, transport, killing, and material exploitation that could challenge the regime’s denial if it reached readers outside Germany.

New York as a Route to Publication

Charlie imagines a route that does not depend entirely on official approval. She tells March that their flight will reach New York’s Idlewild Airport the following evening and proposes going directly to the New York Times building, where she knows an editor. Her plan is to make a dozen copies and get the material printed as quickly as possible. If the paper refuses, she says she will distribute copies herself on Fifth Avenue. Publication, rather than diplomatic permission, becomes her answer to the threat that the evidence may be contained or suppressed.

The contrast between Nightingale’s caution and Charlie’s plan defines the United States’ unresolved role. Washington may see disclosure as a threat to the week’s diplomatic progress; Charlie sees the same evidence as a chance to change history. The novel does not make American willingness automatic: refuge and publicity remain possibilities that depend on decisions, access, and the survival of the evidence.

Historical Truth and Its Reception

The urgency of reaching an audience is sharpened by an account of what the perpetrators expected: that witnesses would be destroyed, evidence erased, and survivors disbelieved as their former captors dictated the history of the camps. In that context, the United States matters not merely as a destination but as a potential site where testimony and documents might be reproduced beyond the reach of the German authorities. The risk is not only that the evidence will be lost; it is that it will survive and still fail to persuade.

The novel therefore treats American power as consequential but not uncomplicated. The government’s concern for détente can delay action, while a newspaper and the effort to multiply copies offer a less controlled path toward recognition. The United States stands at the point where private evidence could become public history, without any guarantee that political leaders or readers will accept what it proves.