I wished he said something to me, something reassuring, like he always did, because my husband always knew the right answer, always knew what to do, but this time he just sighed and kept looking at the road in front of him.
“Maybe it won’t be as bad you think,” Heinrich finally said.
That night we both couldn’t sleep, so we just lay next to each other thinking about the same thing, but not saying a word. We hated our government, but we were still Germans and we loved our country. And now we both felt that we had betrayed it in the worst possible way.
_______________
“Good morning, Herr Gruppenführer.” I smiled at my boss who just opened the door to the anteroom. “Would you like some coffee right away?”
“I would like some champagne, my dear, and from now on, please address me as Herr Obergruppenführer.”
Even though he tried to conceal a smile, he seemed to be very proud of his recent promotion.
“Really? Congratulations!”
Five minutes later, when we were toasting champagne in Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s office, he raised his glass to me.
“I wouldn’t have done it without you and your help, Frau Friedmann. The Führer is very happy about how we handled the situation with the uprising. I know it was a very stressful time for all of us, and I wanted to thank you personally for putting up with me this whole time. You have the patience of an angel, and I couldn’t wish for a better assistant. Even though sometimes your pro-Jewish propaganda and accusing looks can be very annoying.”
“I’m glad it gets to you though.” I touched his glass with mine and took a little sip.
“You’re an impossible woman, you know that? I would have fired any other a long time ago for such speeches.”
“Why aren’t you firing me then?”
“No one ever dared to speak to me like you do. Even men didn’t. Even Reichsführer himself. You aren’t afraid of anybody or anything. I admire that in you.”
Afraid? I was very much afraid of many things, and amongst the most recent ones was another anonymous letter, fourth already, with one short sentence on a white piece of paper: “You’re dead. R.” This one, however, was delivered to the RSHA office instead of my house. Dr. Kaltenbrunner was in Vienna for several days, so I immediately brought the letter right to Gruppenführer Müller. I knew that there wouldn’t be any fingerprints found on it, just like on the rest of them, neatly put together in the case file, but I still brought it anyway. Müller was only shaking his bald head.
“Resistance, I’m telling you. One thing I can’t get though, why do they want you so bad?”
He squinted his eyes at me.
“It’s definitely not because of your job. You’re just one of the secretaries. And this,” the chief of the Gestapo waved his hand with the note in it. “This is personal. It’s a vendetta. Only for what, that I can’t figure out without your help.”
“I wish I could help you, Herr Gruppenführer.” I shrugged. “But I really don’t know who and why someone would want to harm me.”
“The sooner you think of something, Frau Friedmann, the better. It’s in your own interests.”
_______________
“So here’s what the beautiful Annalise looks like.”
I turned around from Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s table on which I was arranging the paperwork, and saw a smiling officer standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He was very tall, probably as tall as Heinrich and well-built. A long horizontal scar was crossing the left side of his cheek, but apart from it he wasn’t that bad looking.
“Excuse me?” I frowned at the intruder.
“I finally saw you with my own eyes. You’re even prettier than I thought.” I noticed that he was speaking with that purring Austrian accent, just like Dr. Kaltenbrunner.
“You can’t be here. Please, wait for Herr Obergruppenführer in the anteroom.”
“And as feisty as he was saying.” The officer smiled even wider. “Don’t worry, he won’t be mad, we’re good friends.”
“I’ve never seen you here before.” I walked up to him until he was forced to back away from Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s office. Then I turned around and locked the door. “Please have a seat over there and wait till Herr Obergruppenführer comes back.”
I was ready to kill Georg for leaving the anteroom unattended like that even though I was inside the office. Because that’s what happens when you do – strange people wander in. The officer meanwhile obediently sat on a chair next to the wall and rested his head on his fist, still watching me closely and smiling. He remained in the same position till Georg came in and asked what time the visitor had his appointment with Herr Obergruppenführer.
“I don’t have an appointment. He told me to come see him right after I come back to Berlin. My name is Otto Skorzeny.”
I’d never heard Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner mention his name before, but I guess they knew each other from Austria: when my chief entered the anteroom, he welcomed his visitor with a warm hug and immediately invited him over to his office.
“Frau Friedmann, make us both coffee please, and cancel all further appointments,” Dr. Kaltenbrunner said before closing the office door behind himself.
When I came inside with a little silver tray, the two Austrians immediately stopped their conversation and remained quiet while I was pouring the freshly brewed coffee into their cups. The conspirators, I chuckled in my mind and asked them if they needed anything else. After my boss negatively shook his head and thanked me for the coffee, I went back to my desk, wondering what the two men were talking about that was so secretive.
Surprisingly, I got the answer to my question sooner than I expected. The next morning Dr. Kaltenbrunner came to work earlier than usual and immediately called me to his office.
“Please, have a seat.” He pointed to the chair across the table from his while organizing the papers he brought with him.
I was waiting patiently for instructions concerning those papers he was holding, but as it turned out he had a completely different thing in mind. Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner put the papers aside, put both hands on the table and looked me straight in the eye.
“Frau Friedmann, can I trust you with something very important?”
“Of course.” I nodded, not sure where he was going with that.
“You see, I’m trying to reorganize the intelligence service in the RSHA the best I can after all that bureaucratic mess Heydrich left after himself. But I don’t know people here in Berlin, I don’t trust them and they – let’s be honest – don’t trust me. So when it comes to very important operations, I don’t know who I can rely on. Otto, the man who was here yesterday, him I know very well. He’s daring, fearless, and would rather die than fail me. He’s currently working on something vital for the victory of the Reich. And I also know you, and trust you like I trust myself.”
I had to put all my strength together not to look away after he pronounced those last words. I was an American counterintelligence spy who swore to destroy the Reich he’d swore to protect. Of all the people working in SD-Ausland he chose the one who was the traitor.
“I appreciate you saying that, Herr Obergruppenführer.”
He nodded. “Will you help me?”
“What do I have to do?”
He smiled after I asked that.
“Otto is currently leading the operation, the main purpose of which is to bribe dissident Qashqai people in Iran to sabotage allied supplies for the Soviets. His SS battalion parachuted onto their land already and are working on bribing their leaders with gold. The problem is that… well, they’re running out of that gold.”
I smiled.
“Herr Obergruppenführer, what on Earth can I possibly do in this situation? Do you want me to get you gold from somewhere or do you want to send me to those rebel leaders instead of it?”
The Chief of the RSHA laughed.
“God forbid, Frau Friedmann! I would never do such thing even if the whole fate
of the Reich would be depending on that. No, my dear, all you have to do is to take two suitcases with British Pounds to Switzerland, go to the bank and legitimately buy me some gold.”
Now I was really confused.
“Excuse me, but… why do you want to buy gold abroad? And especially with British Pounds? And where did you get two suitcases of British Pounds?”
“Oh, Frau Friedmann, I have a whole depository full of stacks of British Pounds.” Dr. Kaltenbrunner interlaced his fingers under his chin and was resting his head on them, looking at me with an enigmatic smile.
“Where did you get them?”
“I didn’t get them. I made them.”
I finally understood everything.
“They’re counterfeit, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are! Reichsführer and Heydrich got the idea of sabotaging the economies of the allied countries right after the war started. And now I have the best specialists in their sphere working for my office who can make any bill or any document if we happen to need one that will look absolutely identical to the real one. We’ve already bought gold worth millions of Reichsmarks and paid worthless paper for it!” All of a sudden he got serious. “You understand that you can’t tell anyone about it, right? Not even your husband. This is a matter of utmost secrecy.”
“I understand, Herr Obergruppenführer.”
Dr. Kaltenbrunner smiled again.
“I knew I could rely on you. Tomorrow I’ll have a fake passport ready for you, and the money. I’ll give you the car with the driver, who’ll also be your bodyguard, just in case. After you get the gold, he’ll drive you to the hotel near the border where Otto will be waiting for you. You’ll hand him the gold, and go back home. Quick and simple. What do you say? Will you do it for me?”
He didn’t give me any time to think and therefore I couldn’t even talk to Heinrich and decide if it was a risky thing to do. After all, if the bankers would notice that the money was counterfeit, I would get arrested. On the other hand I had to agree to later report to our American superiors Rudolf and Ingrid about how the RSHA was funding its operations, basically making the Allies pay for it.
“I’ll do it.”
Dr. Kaltenbrunner shook my hand.
_______________
I was sitting across the table from the director of the Zurich bank my chief instructed me to go to. The director was all smiles and courtesy, while I kept playing the role of a wealthy Bavarian countess, just like my new passport stated. To better fit the part, I decided to wear almost all the diamonds I owned and the most expensive silk dress I brought from Paris. It was a nice change after the SS-Helferin uniform I had to wear every day to work.
Despite all my inner nervousness my money caused no suspicion whatsoever, and after all of it was counted by the staff I signed the receipt for a suitcase full of gold bars. My huge driver/bodyguard, in reality one of the SS diversion team members, lifted the heavy suitcase as if it didn’t weigh anything and carried it to the car.
Later that evening we were having dinner with Otto Skorzeny, after the gold was securely locked in his room upstairs. The Austrian couldn’t contain his excitement about the new funds he just received, and kept thanking me for aiding him. He asked if we were staying a night in Switzerland, but my driver answered that he had clear instructions ‘to deliver Frau Friedmann back to Germany the sooner the better.’ The lack of sleep seemed to be irrelevant to this half-man half-bear. I smirked to myself as soon as I saw him back in Berlin waiting for me by the car: with that monster around no one would mess neither with my gold, nor with me.
At the end of the week, during our regular after mass meetings with the American intelligence agents, both of them were glad and upset to receive my latest report. Glad because the long-time suspicions of the Allies about the Reich Main Security Office making counterfeit money had finally been proven, and upset after they learned how much of this fake money was already circulating in world banks, while the Reich was getting pure gold to support its sinister goals.
“And they look absolutely real?” Ingrid asked me again.
“The bankers couldn’t tell the difference even after a thorough inspection.”
Rudolf and Heinrich were going over some new reports in Rudolf’s office, so it was just me and her in the living room. I didn’t like Ingrid and I knew that she didn’t like me either, and I wished Heinrich would come back and stay with me while she was continuing her interrogation.
“Who makes them?”
“I don’t know. Specialists, as Dr. Kaltenbrunner said.”
“Is there any chance to find out their names or where they make the money?”
I almost laughed in response.
“I highly doubt that if I walk up to Herr Obergruppenführer and just ask him that he’ll give me an answer.”
“No, of course not, that’s not what I meant.”
Ingrid took a sip from her cup and looked at me hard.
“Annalise, you do realize that you could get any information out of him if you only wanted to, don’t you?”
“Where are you going with this?” I squinted my eyes at the American.
“Let’s not walk around the subject, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about.”
“You are openly suggesting that I become his mistress?”
“Yes,” she answered simply.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“My husband is in the next room, and you dare to suggest something like that?”
“It’s the war, Annalise. The end justifies the means.”
“No, it doesn’t! Maybe that’s how you do things at home, but this is a different country, and we have morals here.”
“Allow me to remind you that your beloved German people with ‘morals’ already exterminated more than two and a half million people out of the European Jewish population. And I’m not even mentioning the millions of soldiers they killed at war so far.”
“It’s not the German people who did it, it’s the Nazis. Two different things.”
“It was the German people who elected the Nazi government.”
“They were forced to! It was a different time, people had nothing to eat! You weren’t even here back then, you don’t understand what happened and why. My Jewish father had to become a member of the Party he hated! You’re not a German, Ingrid, you will never understand. You can only judge us, and believe me, we know that we made a mistake and now we have to pay for it. But how could we know that something like this would happen?”
“I feel bad for you and your people, Annalise, I do. And if you do too, you know how to help them end all this the sooner the better. Right now the Minister of Interior Frick is using all his powers to bring as much working force from the occupied territories because in Germany there are no workers left. Almost all of them have been drafted into the army already, the casualties of the Wehrmacht are getting greater and greater day by day. The Soviets are already taking their lands back. Very soon we’ll be able to open the second, Western front, and then the game will be over. The sooner we do it, the less people, your beloved German people, will die. We can have political and war polemics all we want, but it won’t get us anywhere. You know my position in this matter, and whatever you decide for yourself, you’ll have to live with.”
“Exactly, Ingrid. Exactly.”
I picked up my purse from the table and walked out of the room because I couldn’t listen to her anymore. She was a good spy, yes, and a great psychologist too. And an even better manipulator. She knew all the pressure points she could use to make others do what she wanted them to do. And now she was attempting to make me feel ashamed that I was refusing to gather the top secret intelligence she wanted access to, even if it meant betraying my husband. I did want to help my people and my country more than anything, but not like that.
Chapter 14
Berlin, July 1943
I had just came back from lunch, but froze in the doors of the anteroom stunned by a woman’s loud
voice coming from behind the closed doors of Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s office.
“What’s going on?” I whispered loudly to Georg who seemed to be very amused by it.
“Family drama,” he also whispered, hardly containing his laughter.
“What?”
“The Frau is here.”
“His wife?”
“Yes. With children. And she’s not happy.”
“I can hear that.”
Georg, silently giggling, pressed his finger to his mouth and then pointed to the office, inviting me to ‘enjoy the show’ with him. Saying that Frau Kaltenbrunner was not happy was an understatement. She sounded furious.
“Do you even remember what day is it today? It’s your daughter’s birthday. Do you remember that you have a daughter at all?! I think you might have forgotten about it, since you only stop by your house twice a year recently, and even then just to make a phone call to the office!”
“I’ve got work to do, Lisl!”
“Other people have work to do too, but nevertheless they come home after that work. And you moved away to Berlin and think that calling once a week to see if we’re all still alive is enough!”
“What the hell do you want from me?!”
“I want you to remember what your children look like! You don’t want to come home, I brought them to Berlin. Here, enjoy your time together, I’ll pick them up in the evening.”
“What do you think you’re doing?! You can’t leave them here! It’s the RSHA office for Christ’s sake! Take them with you, and I’ll take them out for ice cream after work.”
“I’m sorry but they need a little more than half an hour with their own father. Watch them at least till the evening. Goodbye!”
“Lisl! Come back here!”
The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress Page 21