by Bodie Thoene
“God of Creation. God of Destruction. God of opposites.” Oster’s usual flippant tone faded off with a shudder.
“Proof! Hitler is our god, you see. Can’t you see? Von Stuck was given this vision! This prophecy! It is the Führer!” Göring’s voice was an awed whisper. He continued to gaze at the evil face that stared out from the center of the whirling mist. It was Hitler! There was no mistaking the features.
Thomas backed from the room. He felt suffocated beneath the weight of the earth and the dark force of the eyes that gleamed from the painting like those of a ravenous beast. It was this gleam the Führer desired in the eyes of his followers. Thomas heard his own heart drumming like the snare drums of the procession.
Nothing but a painting, the year of his birth!
Adolf Hitler! God of Destruction! How could a handful of mere men fight against—
Suddenly the eyes of the painting bored into Thomas’ soul, searching out his hidden plans and hopes. Some said Hitler could read minds. Everyone knew that he called upon mediums to read the future. Could he see them now, this evil god? Did he inwardly count the men who did not stand beside him on the balcony with outstretched arms? The thought made Thomas want to run. But where could he hide from such eyes?
5
The Face of Evil
Albert Sporer had been placed in solitary confinement, yet he shared his cell with many others. He sat on the straw pallet and drew his knees up to his chest as three large rats scurried to fight to the death for a small piece of eclair. These creatures were the true inheritors of Hradcany, he thought. They owned the foundations of Prague, as had their fathers and generations of vermin before them.
Tonight Sporer leaned against the damp wall of his tiny cubicle and watched as the rats attacked and bit and tumbled across the slimy stones in mortal combat. To die for an eclair! The miniature drama amused Sporer. He touched his tongue to the custard and then bit off another tiny fragment and spit it into the fight. Four more rats rushed from a crack between the stones and joined the battle. Another morsel. The rage was renewed. The vicious attacks became more violent.
There was much that man could learn from rats. Indeed, a morsel of promise, a half-truth tossed into the road, could cause men to kill one another. Was this not the plan the Führer had for the Czechs in the Sudetenland? Toss the German citizens some promise of supremacy over their Czech neighbors, and they would riot and kill in order to join the Reich. Such a plan would work—of that Sporer was certain. Unlike his furry cell mates, he would walk out of this place soon enough.
Sporer raised his eyes to the low stone roof of the cell. He took another bite of the eclair and smiled. They would not dare execute him. They did not have the courage for that. They would leave him here as a bargaining chip, to be tossed onto the table when the time came. And it would come. President Beneš would be forced to sit across from the German-Czechs like Henlein and Frank, and he would ask them what they wanted in exchange for peace within the borders of Czechoslovakia. Sporer would be one of the items they would request.
Sporer would be free, and he would then retrace the steps that had brought him here into the dark dungeon of Hradcany. Here in the midst of the stench that permeated these stone walls, Sporer could see everything quite clearly: the woman in Otto Wattenbarger’s office, the way Otto protected her. Had she not crossed the border from Austria to Czechoslovakia the first night of the Anschluss? Ah, yes. And that same woman had arrived at the National Theatre in time to stop the murder of Beneš. Elisa was her name. Otto’s woman. And now, at this moment, directly above his head, that woman was dancing. Is that not what the guard had said? The woman who had thwarted him was dancing with President Beneš!
The conclusions had come to Sporer the instant he had seen Elisa framed in the doorway of the presidential box. He had known then who had betrayed him, who even now was in Vienna betraying the cause of one Volk, one Reich, one Führer! Sporer would go free, and then he would settle with Otto. He would make the beautiful face of the woman look somewhat different in her mirror, and then he would display her for all to see. The penalty for traitors to the Reich is not merely a cell filled with rats or an eclair sent with a mocking message! Yes, when the Gestapo crossed the frontiers of Czechoslovakia, Albert Sporer would march with them. And on the points of two lances he would carry the heads of those who had mocked him and his Führer.
***
Thomas recognized the two leaders of the Czech-Nazi Party immediately from among the General Staff officers who crowded the room. Karl Hermann Frank and Konrad Henlein looked out of place in their ill-fitting brown uniforms. Whenever the Führer mentioned the problem of racial Germans living in Czech territories, they moved slightly in their chairs as though the very reason they had come to see Hitler had somehow been altered.
As Hitler paced across the front of the conference room and then back again, Thomas watched only the two Czech-Nazis. Hitler spoke of the need for the German Army to cross the border. The two men exchanged unhappy looks. Perhaps they had only wanted financial aid from their German counterparts. Was it possible they did not welcome the thought of a German invasion of the Sudetenland just as the now-bewildered Austrians regretted the German invasion of their homeland?
The face of the Führer reddened as his declarations escalated. “So, a man like Sporer means nothing to us!”
No one dared to interrupt.
“He has failed us. Beneš still stalks around the Prague castle making speeches about the Czech determination to fight.” Hitler raised his fist to the heavens and shook it. “Sporer failed in his effort and so has failed the German race. He has failed his Führer! And if they kill him? What difference will that make to us? You imbeciles fail to see that every political disadvantage can be turned for our benefit! They will try him. Ja! He will be found guilty and executed.”
Again Henlein frowned and glanced at Frank.
“And what can be done to stop it, mein Führer?” Henlein asked in a croaking voice.
“Stop it? We welcome it! Such an event is exactly what we need if you are doing your job with the people in the Sudetenland. Riots—that is what is called for. And with those riots will be inevitable clashes of the Czech military against the civilian population! People will die!” Hitler shrieked those words and slammed his fist on the table. “People must die! If they do not, then what reason have we to intervene? You and you—” he pointed first at Henlein and then at Frank— “you must make certain of this. And always you must demand more of that pitiful Czech president than he will give you.”
“But . . . we have a price on our heads! He will not negotiate with either of us!”
The Führer’s eyes blazed. “He will! He will beg you to come to the table! Beg you to stop the bloodshed! And when he asks what you want? You ask for more and more and more until he cannot give you what you want.” Hitler looked pleased. He swept a hand toward his military staff. “Then we will enter. It will come. October first.”
Hitler was finished. Exhaustion showed in his eyes. He turned to look at the door as though he were too weary to walk to it. Without so much as a good night, he left the room. Henlein and Frank looked pleased but confused.
General Franz Halder stood and nodded slightly. “So you have your assignments,” he addressed the two men. “And so now we continue our staff meeting. You will excuse us. Heil Hitler.” With that he dismissed the two, and they fumbled clumsily to gather up notes for questions they had not been allowed to ask.
The bile of disdain rose in Thomas’ throat as Henlein and Frank left the conference room and shut the door quietly behind them. These were the stuff great treasons were made of. Between the two of them all of Czechoslovakia had been condemned and would certainly fall, unless—
Canaris stood and addressed the group. “I propose we adjourn to a more comfortable place.” No man would dare speak openly in this room. No doubt it was filled with hidden listening devices.
“A brilliant plan,” said one for the sake o
f the microphones.
“He has never been wrong yet.”
“Such a Führer we have!”
“I only regret he does not allow a drop of schnapps in the entire Chancellery.”
“It would make our conversations much more civil.”
The lack of alcohol on the premises was, in fact, a positive aspect of Hitler’s personal preferences. It gave these men good reason to leave the grounds. No doubt the Führer would hear such words and would be pleased that he had made grown men scurry off like truant schoolboys for a little taste of schnapps. Such small displays of power over the personal lives of his officers gave him great enjoyment.
Thomas left the Chancellery with Canaris. He stared at the huge columns of stone and the carved eagles at the top of each floodlit pillar. The cobbles were littered with trash from the night’s orgy of power. The square was quiet. Empty. Thomas looked up toward the balcony where Hitler had stood for hours with his arm outstretched.
Thomas gasped as he saw the form of Hitler standing there again. Canaris followed the gaze of Thomas, and in a final gesture he raised his hand as if to salute. Hitler remained unmoving. Brooding. His face was illuminated from below by the lights. His face was the very image of the German god Wotan, who had stared out from the canvas of the painting tonight.
Was such a likeness cultivated by Hitler? Had he planned the makeup and the lighting and the setting? Had he made certain that Canaris and Oster and Thomas were taken to view the occult masterpiece? Or was Adolf Hitler truly this dark pagan god of German creation and German destruction? The thought made Thomas shudder. The skin on the back of his neck tightened as Hitler stepped back into the curtains. The shadow of evil moved across the square, touching each man who walked there.
***
There was a brooding silence among the General Staff after the meeting with the Führer. Thomas sat to the rear of the room, just behind Admiral Canaris, as the German staff officers and commanders paced and smoked and mentally plotted their course of action before they uttered a word.
For Thomas, the fear he had felt crossing the Chancellery Square had entirely vanished. He was exultant and hopeful as he inwardly recited the names of the great German patriots who were gathered here. Generals Franz Halder, Ludwig Beck, Georg Karl Heinrich von Stuelpnagel, and Erwin von Witzleben, commander of the Berlin garrison. General Georg Thomas, controller of armament. General Erich von Brockdorff-Ahlefeld, commander of the Potsdam garrison. General Count Wolf von Helldorf, in charge of the Berlin police.
General Halder stood facing the window that looked down on the dark, empty Berlin street. “General Walther von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the army, has been informed of our gathering and has given his approval,” Halder said quietly.
His words vanquished whatever doubts might have remained in the minds of the military leaders. Halder turned toward Canaris and, looking past him, focused his stern gaze on Thomas.
“You have spoken to the leaders of Britain.” He stepped nearer and his eyes seemed to bore through Thomas as if the general could search the intentions of those leaders through this junior officer of the Abwehr.
“I have met with Anthony Eden,” Thomas offered.
“Former Foreign Secretary to the Chamberlain administration.” Canaris tossed a file folder onto the table. “His opposition to Italy—indeed, his opposition to Chamberlain’s offered friendship with the Führer—led to his downfall.”
Halder frowned and flipped open the cover, revealing the handsome young British politician who had fallen victim to German pressure in his own country. “Yes. A pity. He would have been useful to us. Sympathetic, at least.” He glanced up sharply. “But you have also had discussions with Winston Churchill, is this correct?”
Thomas nodded. “He alone seems to see the situation clearly.”
“He is without any real power.” Canaris sighed, tossing yet another file full of clippings from British newspapers that criticized Churchill’s pessimism. “He is called by the London Times ‘The Jeremiah of our age.’”
“Is this supposed to be a criticism of Churchill?” General Beck seemed surprised. “Do they not know that the prophet Jeremiah was accurate in his cry of doom?”
“Read for yourself, General,” Canaris commented dryly. “They mean to offer no compliment to Churchill.”
Von Helldorf smiled cynically and snuffed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “Can it be that the English press is as taken by our dear Adolf as the German press seems to be?”
“What German press?” von Brockdorff growled. “We have no German press left. All journalists with any sense have fled or been beheaded. Like Walter Kronenberger.” Von Brockdorff was well known for his disapproval of forced sterilization and abortion. He had followed the Kronenberger case to its bloody end in Vienna. “All we have left to us is Dr. Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Propaganda. Have we forgotten? That club-footed little fiend! The question of the hour is why such a monster has not been pronounced racially unfit by the Reich and sterilized.”
“He must be among the first to fall into our net.” General von Stuelpnagel narrowed his eyes and shifted in his chair at the vision of Goebbels behind bars.
General Halder patted the dagger he wore on his belt. “And then perhaps we of the General Staff may demonstrate our opinion of who in Germany is worthy to be sterilized, eh?”
A low chuckle of angry agreement filled the room. “Our Führer must be included in that. And Hermann Göring, of course!” Canaris added to the amusement.
“Have we left out Himmler? Sadistic little schoolmaster of the SS?” Halder finished the roster of Nazi leaders.
General von Witzleben cleared his throat loudly and tapped his fingers impatiently on the table top. “Such conversation is amusing among angry schoolboys. But it will take much more than a small dagger to emasculate the most powerful and evil men in our nation. We must have a plan.”
“The Führer has marked October first as his date for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. That gives us time to make our plans and to carry them out,” Halder replied coolly.
The others leaned forward. It was time to get down to business. “We have the summer to plan the coup,” Beck added.
Halder’s gaze moved again to Thomas. “You must maintain contact with the British leaders.”
“Churchill is not a leader,” Canaris interrupted impatiently. “He is now without political power in England. Those men who hold the reins of government in England have been warned by the British ambassador here in Berlin to receive no unauthorized visits from anyone claiming to represent the German Reich.”
“Ah, yes. That little English pipsqueak Neville Henderson. Totally enraptured by Hermann Göring, I hear. Göring took him stag hunting at Karinhall and the two are fast friends. Even dear Adolf is on fine terms with Henderson.” Von Helldorf’s voice was filled with contempt for the British ambassador who seemed so vastly provincial and ignorant in affairs of state that everyone wondered how he had come to hold such a prominent position in the foreign service. Even Hermann Göring, who pretended friendship with the little man, snickered behind his back.
General von Witzleben grimaced distastefully at the thought of Henderson. “So he has given the advice of Göring and Hitler to the English leadership. They will not deal with anyone not sent as an official representative of the Führer.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “What are we to do then?”
Again the room was silent. Thomas furrowed his brow in thought. Perhaps there was more power in the voice of Winston Churchill than the generals thought. Perhaps . . .
Canaris spoke quietly, choosing his words with care. Already every man in this room was a target for execution if their plans were even suspected. “Perhaps it is just as well we cannot make contact with Chamberlain and his weak cabinet. Could we be safe if we took them into our confidence?”
“No,” responded a quiet chorus of voices.
“Well, then,” Canaris said, “we must simply mai
ntain contact with Churchill. Inform him of our hopes, even if we do not reveal all our plans. Thomas here has the man’s confidence. Perhaps we may gain some understanding of the mood in the British Parliament. And we may be able to present some facts to Churchill that will awaken the English to their own peril as well as the peril of Czechoslovakia.”
Canaris gazed around the room, meeting each man’s questions with his piercing gray eyes. “Churchill is a man of honor, as we in this room are men of honor. The British press may be rife with fools, but it is still a free press. The American press may also be crying for peace and the policy of appeasement, but there are some who are not afraid to speak openly.” He exhaled loudly and sat back. “Hitler believes himself to be the German god of Creation and of Destruction. As sane Christian officers, we have no duty but to stop this madness. It is indeed madness, gentlemen.”
***
President Beneš sat opposite Murphy in a large overstuffed chair that made the tiny man seem even smaller. He crossed his legs and leaned back as two brandy snifters were placed on the table between them.
Murphy was mentally filing away the details of the president’s office. Broad, burled walnut desk, so big it might easily serve as a bed. Dark oak-paneled walls that glowed with a reddish tint in the light of the chandelier. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books by Americans about American democracy. Next to the bookshelf, a montage of American presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. In the center of that, a black-and-white photograph taken at the construction site of the Lincoln Memorial, the young Beneš standing before the statue of Lincoln.
As if reading Murphy’s thoughts, Beneš sipped his brandy thoughtfully and then remarked, “President Lincoln. A hero of mine. I went to school in America, you see. Learned everything one might learn about the history of your people. Fascinating. Something a young democracy like ours hopes to emulate.” He raised his eyebrows and looked back at the photograph. “Your President Lincoln was a brave man. Civil war is a tragic thing. And yet he was able to save your country.”