by gerald hall
Hitler’s eyes quickly searched around for any sign of a way out of his captivity. He was completely surrounded. The conspirators had ensured that no one else could really see what was happening. Unfortunately for Hitler, all of his loyal aides and bodyguards had already been either killed or had been captured and disarmed. The situation was clearly hopeless for the Nazi leader.
In desperation, Hitler pretended to cough violently so that he could reach his cyanide capsule in a secret pocket within of his tunic. Once he reached the capsule, Hitler quickly popped it into his mouth and crushed it with his teeth.
Within a few moments, Hitler collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth. Several German soldiers rushed to Hitler’s side, including several of the senior officers responsible for Hitler’s arrest. They arrived just in time to hear the Nazi leader say his final words.
“I live and die for the Aryan people.” Hitler gasped before one last final shudder. Then he was still.
A group of senior German officers quickly walked up to Hitler’s prone body and surrounded it, hiding it from the sight of the SS troops still at the other transports.
Major General Dr. Hans Speidel looked over the Führer’s dead body for a few moments before finally saying.
“We are finally rid of the Bohemian bastard. It is a damned shame that we could not have done it in time to save von Paulus and the thousands of brave German soldiers that died or were captured with him at Stalingrad. But for now, what will we do next?”
“We must purge the Fatherland of all of the National Socialist Party leaders if we are to find a way to preserve our nation from our enemies.”
“How will we do that without incurring the ire of all of Hitler’s supporters? We could spawn a civil war within the Fatherland that would allow our enemies to defeat us even more quickly.”
General Speidel pondered over the question for a couple of minutes before responding with a dour look on his face.
“As much as I hated Adolf Hitler, I am afraid that we must use him as a martyr and temporarily conceal his crimes from the German people. We can use his death as a means of purging the other high-ranking members of his inner circle and while uniting the people of the Fatherland to achieve our own political and military goals.”
“Do you have a plan to achieve this end, General?”
“Yes, I believe so. First, we must ensure that everyone here is either with us or is tied up and aboard the Führer’s Condor. That includes keeping everyone from the other two Condors away from here. Then we need to find a loyal pilot and someone else who can accurately forge Hitler’s signature.”
Two hours later at dusk, Hitler’s Condor took off from the airfield as though nothing suspicious had ever happened. The other two Condors quickly followed it, with the entire formation being surrounded by a protective sphere of Luftwaffe fighters. The formation had turned northwest in the darkness, but no one could see a single crewman bailing out of Hitler’s Condor shortly after it reached its cruising altitude and the autopilot had been set. The pilot did not open his parachute immediately. He wanted to ensure that no one from the other aircraft saw him.
The pilot waited until it was almost too late before opening his parachute. Ironically, he was the only person on the plane who was not either dead or securely bound. Just before his chute opened, the pilot saw the Führer’s Condor explode in a huge ball of fire.
“Now get me someone who can be trusted and who can forge the Fuhrer’s handwriting, now!” General Lanz ordered after receiving word of the Condor’s explosion and crash.
Within days, a series of private papers purported to have been written by Hitler himself was ‘found’ and quickly declared as authentic. These papers claimed that a group of high-ranking figures in the German government had been conspiring to overthrow the Nazi regime. It just happened that the ‘conspirators’ were all among Hitler’s closest allies and that the papers were completely fraudulent.
Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, Commander of Army Group Center quickly lent his support to General Lanz as did General Erwin Rommel upon learning the news of Hitler’s death. They had both received private messages via courier about the true circumstances of Hitler’s demise. Within a matter of a few days, the vast majority of the German High Command had expressed their support of General Lanz. A few commanders expressed their reservations, mostly among the Waffen SS, but the solidarity supporting General Lanz was quickly overwhelming.
The forged documents with Hitler’s signature claimed that high ranking members of the Nazi party were responsible for the explosion on Hitler’s aircraft and the Führer’s death. This led to the arrest of virtually all of Hitler’s confidants as well as the entire Nazi party leadership. The documents also claimed that these Nazi leaders were working in concert with Stalin to engineer the defeat of Germany and the establishment of a Bolshevik government in Berlin. The immediate response by the German people was a near-unanimous call for a redoubling of the war effort on the Eastern front. All SS units were placed on the leading edge of the front lines, especially those units most loyal to Hitler.
The forged letters would soon be joined by other forged documents purportedly signed by Hitler that called for the closure of the death camps and the relocation of all of Europe’s Jewish population to Palestine.
Needless to say, one of Hitler’s most strident allies, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was very upset when he heard of this.
“How in Allah’s name is this possible? Hitler told me that he not only wanted to get rid of all of the Jews in Europe, he was going to eliminate them in Palestine as well.” Mohammed Amin al-Husseini complained from his comfortable quarters in Berlin.
“Herr Fuhrer is not here any longer to explain his decisions, I’m afraid.” Martin Reichmann told al-Husseini.
“I need to leave to travel to Palestine as quickly as possible. I must organize resistance to this Zionist horde.” The Muslim cleric demanded.
“I am afraid that you must remain here, Herr al-Husseini. I have my orders restricting you to this compound.”
“Will I be allowed to communicate to my fellow Muslims elsewhere?”
“Nein. My orders are that you are to remain incommunicado until further notice. Otherwise, you are to be treated well here.” Martin curtly replied.
After a few moments of contemplation, al-Husseini turned away and looked out the window into the courtyard, seething with anger and helplessness. Silently, he promised himself that he would find a way to make a way to rid the world of all of the Jews. He would also find a way to make the Germans pay for all of the promises that they had broken to him.
German High Command Headquarters
Berlin, Germany
March 1, 1943
“Now that Hitler is dead and the rest of the Nazi party leaders are either dead or have been arrested, I say that we immediately sue for peace. We have lost enough good men for no good reason.” Colonel Ernst Strudel declared.
“No. We must not stop until the job is done. Otherwise, the Bolsheviks will return in a year or two in force to finish us instead. We must end this conflict from a position of strength if we are going to achieve true peace and security for the German people.” Field Marshall Erwin Rommel bluntly remarked as he walked into the room followed by Wehrmacht Field Marshalls, Gerd von Rundstedt, Erich von Manstein, Walter Model and Generals Heinz Guderian, Hubert Lanz, Hans Speidel as well as Luftwaffe Field Marshall Albert Kesselring and General Adolf Galland. Trailing behind the others was Admiral Karl Donitz and Wilhelm Canaris; the head of the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence service.
“What do you propose that we do then, Herr Field Marshall?”
“We finish the job of destroying the Bolshevik state and help set up friendly states to provide us with a defensive buffer to the East. Then we approach the Allies with an offer for peace with the condition that we return Germany back to her original borders. This must include all of the lands that were taken from us as a result of that damned Versailles treaty.”
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bsp; “They will never accept such an offer. There has been too much blood shed by our adversaries in the West.”
“You are right in one way. There has been too much blood shed already. But, this is exactly why the Englanders will eventually accept our offer. The American people are not very enthusiastic about sending hundreds of thousands of their young men to die in a European war. In fact, they are still attempting to deal with the war that they are being forced to fight thousands of miles from their Western coastline. Without heavy American support, even Prime Mister Churchill will have to consider a negotiated peace with us under terms that are much more acceptable to the German people.
Hitler and his Nazi party started this war. Fortunately, they are no longer in power here. So we can tell the world that we are working to eradicate the evil perpetrated by the Nazi’s. But at the same time, we are also working to help liberate millions of people who have been enslaved by the Bolsheviks. When Germany is no longer under threat by the Soviets, then we will seek a just peace for our people. At the same time, we can claim the moral high ground of liberating the people who had been by the Bolsheviks for the past two and half decades.”
“What about our other fronts, Herr Field Marshal?”
“We will consolidate our defensive lines while at the same time quietly informing certain of our adversaries of our intent. I think that the Englanders will be receptive to our overtures. They have managed to secure their supply lines from North America anyway. It was a very smart, if not cynical, move on the Englanders part to divert all of their escort resources to the mid-Atlantic rather than the Northern Atlantic routes to the Soviet ports. If we suspend offensive operations against the Englanders, we will be able to focus more of our resources towards the Bolsheviks as well.”
“We have suffered most of our U-Boat losses in the mid-Atlantic also. But our operations to stop shipping going to Murmansk have been very successful.” Admiral Donitz added.
“We will also need to do something about the Juden issue. The Nazi Party placed such a high priority upon the extermination camps that even supplies to our troops on the front lines were delayed as a result.” Field Marshall von Rundstedt noted.
“How the hell did those people in Berlin expect us to win a war with such foolishness?” General Guderian angrily asked.
“First, we are completely stopping the deportations to the concentration camps. The camps contribute nothing to our war effort and sap away thousands of troops that are badly needed on the front lines. Then we are going to finally focus our energies on what must be our primary objective, the destruction of the Bolshevik state. Admiral Donitz will continue to focus his energies on completely stopping any shipping from reaching Soviet ports.” Rommel said with Admiral Donitz and the other Field Marshals nodding their heads in agreement.
“We should resume transporting the Juden to Palestine through the expansion of the Haavara
Agreement. We have already sent about sixty-thousand of them to Palestine. We can easily send many tens of thousands more in the same manner if we commandeer all suitable shipping in Greece and load the former prisoners onboard them for the journey to Palestine. We will simply tell the world that we are sending the former residents of the detainment camps to a place of safety. The West will not be able to say anything without embarrassing themselves about how little they had done to help protect the Juden from the Nazis.” Von Rundstedt replied.
“We have already started moving the Juden south in preparation for this very thing.” General Lanz interjected.
“The British will not be happy about this. The Arabs living now in Palestine will rise up rather than allow more of the Juden to live there. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has long insisted that Hitler exterminate the Jews already in Palestine in addition to the ones in Europe.” Colonel Strudel warned.
“Let the Englanders worry about it then. It will tie up thousands of their troops in the south just to keep order in the Mandate. That will keep them from bothering us while we focus on destroying the Bolsheviks.” Field Marshal von Rundstedt said with a knowing smile.
“How will the movement of the Juden to Palestine affect our current situation with rail transport? We need to have more supplies moving east to support our troops fighting the Bolsheviks. We have already lost enough tonnage moving those people to the camps.”
“We should let the logisticians worry about that. They will probably load the empty rail cars coming back west through Poland and the Ukraine with the Juden. Then further transport will be arranged to move them to southern ports for the final leg of their journey to Palestine. Let us see if the Englanders try to stop those ships. The world outrage will be most embarrassing for them.” Rommel noted.
“Let’s get back to conducting the war itself. The Luftwaffe will be focusing its efforts on defending the Fatherland from aerial bombardment, providing close support to our troops and destroying the Bolshevik’s ability to produce weapons to fight us with. We are beginning to produce an increasing number of the new jet fighters and bombers in order to accomplish this task. However, we must have adequate fuel supplies to be able to sustain operations.” General Kesselring declared.
That will mean that we must not only defend our Rumanian allies’ oil fields, but that we must obtain other petroleum supplies as well, either from the Caucasus or from the Arab nations that produce it.” General Lanz noted.
“I have been assured by Minister of Production Speer that we will also have additional fuel production from our coal conversion plants as well to support our military needs. But they must be protected from American and British bombers.” Rommel replied.
“Allow us to have sufficient resources for our new jet fighters and we will keep the Allied bombers at bay.” General Galland responded with a smile, having already flown the prototype ME-262 jet fighter himself. He personally knew the potential of the new jets.
“I will talk to Minister Speer about this. The Fatherland must be protected from British and American bombers. But, we also need something else from the Luftwaffe as well. The Bolsheviks moved much of their military-related industry east of the Ural Mountains to avoid it being captured by our advancing troops. If your people can hit these newly relocated factories with your bombers, the enemy forces will not be able to resupply their troops with new weapons.”
“Our jet bombers do not yet have the range to reach beyond the Urals. That will require a more conventional piston engine design. Obviously, we cannot afford to field thousands of heavy four-engine bombers like the Americans and British. We also do not want to send hundreds of skilled German airmen to their graves each day, as the Americans and British have done with their bomber crews already.” Kesselring grimly smiled before continuing.
“However, we may be able to significantly reduce the number of bomber aircraft needed to effectively hit a given target using the new radio-controlled bombs that have been developed by our scientists. These advanced weapons will reduce the number of aircraft needed by a factor of at least ten or twenty. There are three or four new four-engine and six-engine designs from the Amerika Bomber program being tested currently. Each of them will be able to carry two to four of these guided bombs in a single sortie. Kurt Tank’s six-engine TA-400 and Ernst Heinkel’s four-engine He-277 are now the leading contenders for this mission at this point. The others have a variety of design issues that have yet to be dealt with. But both designs will be able to operate at altitudes that will make it very difficult for the Bolsheviks to intercept our bombers.”
“Will the Bolsheviks be able to develop counter-measures against the radio controls that you use for these guided bombs?”
“Perhaps they will eventually, but I am sure that we will develop the means to restore the weapons’ effectiveness as well in that event.”
“I understand that we are not the only ones using radio-guided bombs.” General Lanz commented.
“That is correct. Apparently, small numbers of these weapons are being used by the Western Allies, principa
lly in the Pacific theatre of operations. Our operatives indicate that the bombs were developed and produced by a factory in northwest Australia. The industrialist who owns this factory has produced remarkably advanced materiel for the Australian and British militaries, though in relatively small numbers in almost all cases.
We have been attempting to acquire and study examples of the equipment produced at this industrialist’s factories to see if we can take advantage of the technology. We have had little success so far. The industrialist himself is quite intriguing with very little available information on his origins other than he is from Australia. This man’s name is Harold Cavill. He is a mystery to many in spite of the fact that he had substantial contacts with German corporations prior to the war. Herr Cavill also appears to have very high level access to the British leadership including Churchill himself. We have received several reliable reports that he may have been behind the British decision to significantly reduce their support to the Bolsheviks. He may even have influenced decisions between the wars that have strengthened British and Australian military capabilities.
Herr Cavill certainly shares our hatred of the Bolsheviks based on other pieces of intelligence that we have been able to obtain about him.”
“Admiral Canaris, is there anything that you can do to perhaps enlist his aid in our objectives? Perhaps this man can be convinced to use his influence with Churchill.”
“I don’t know yet. I can try to send someone to make contact with this Harold Cavill and see if he might be open to assisting us in this matter. He has been involved in some business matters with the Lurssen shipyards in the past, I understand. Perhaps we can use that particular avenue to make our introduction.”
“I doubt that would work with our shipyards not having any current contacts with their counterparts in the Commonwealth. However, I understand that Herr Cavill has attempted to make contact in the past with one of Werner Von Braun’s brothers just prior to the beginning of the war.