Interpol agent Captain Steiner turns out to be one of the neo-Nazis he was supposed to be fighting. He explains (or tries to) what happened in the first part of the story:

“Bravo! If you had been that sharp back then, you would have noticed that my gun was firing harmless slugs.”

“You are... you are one of them! How many fanatics like you are there in the police force?”

“What an ugly word. You have to believe in something. And anyway, the right answer is 'never enough.' It is not easy to keep a group like ours clandestine within Interpol. And yet, as you can see, it is worth it. Something interesting always pops up. At first, we really just wanted to scare you. In fact, my men wanted it: I would have left you alone, but they insisted, and I must say they were right. This was the only way we came across this nice woman who started the adventure that brought us here. We have always followed you, planted some bugs in your apartment, Renate. It was very easy.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“We are in the presence of a discovery that changes history, you will agree with me. Your presence complicates things a bit, Mystère, but we will find a way to take care of you and your assistant. This news is what we were waiting for. Now it will finally be possible to reread history correctly and rewrite the figure of Adolf Hitler as he deserves.”

“Rewrite? What do you mean?”

“Don't you understand? In light of this discovery, the Führer is no longer a madman who came from nowhere, as your American propaganda has always tried to make the world believe, but rather the legitimate heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, who only wanted to claim that which was rightfully his. The crimes he has always been accused of are lies put together by those who did not want the truth to come out, and which an Interpol cell has fortunately discovered.”

If the neo-Nazis just wanted Mystère to do the legwork that led them to Prince Rudolf's diary in Siberia, then their attacks on Martin and Renate (three total, last issue) become progressively harder to justify in retrospect. Also problematic is the Nazi's attack on Steiner, which put him in the hospital instead of leaving him free to accompany Martin as an "inside man."

However, this revelation does make sense of Steiner's riot control bullets, which bounced off the attacking Nazis rather than wounding them. Then the question becomes "Why didn't Martin notice that none of the men who had been shot were bleeding?" It's an interesting plot development, but I need more dialogue defending how it all went down. I also have an idea for another plot element to better explain it, which I'll discuss next time.

Only four of the twelve panels have backgrounds, a departure from the norm in this series.

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