At first, he attributed the more recent atmosphere to the constant flow of bad news about the course of the war. It had become unrelenting, not least how the Red Army was pushing in from the east, but this tension had a different feel: it was something closer to home. Maybe it was politics – there was always plenty of that at the embassy – between the Nazi Party fanatics, the army, and the professional diplomats like himself. He had become aware of more frequent meetings behind closed doors, urgent conversations in corridors and the rumour mill starting to work overtime.
King Christian is going to be arrested… The Danish police are going to be disbanded… They want us to send twenty thousand Danes to the Reich as forced labour… make that fifty thousand… They’re going to deal with the Jews, at last… Half of us are going to be sent to the Eastern Front…
Ferdinand Rudolf von Buhler was careful not to contribute to the rumours himself, though he did his best to make sure he heard them all. As crazy as they sounded, they were also perfectly feasible.
He knew that when the rumours firmed up, he’d have to tell the British. He’d avoided contact with them since helping that agent escape to Sweden in April. He’d not slept properly for weeks after that, and indeed had been so unnerved by the experience he’d even told his driver to change his route into work so as to avoid passing the pharmacy in Nørrebro where the appearance of a red medicine bottle would be a signal to make contact.
What you don’t see you don’t know.
But the heightened trepidation he felt that particular Tuesday morning was a result of an order issued to all the diplomatic staff the previous afternoon. They were to ensure they were at the embassy in good time for a meeting at nine o’clock the next morning. Any other engagements had to be cancelled. The meeting was to be addressed by none other than Werner Best.
Best was a fearsome character: a career Nazi who’d been a stalwart of the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin before being sent to Paris to run the occupation. The previous November he’d arrived in Copenhagen with the title of Plenipotentiary, which was as good as saying he was the ruler of Denmark.
The meeting took place in the ballroom of the embassy, its rococo architecture and enormous chandeliers lending an incongruously grand air to the occasion. The room was full, with everyone standing: not just the diplomats from the embassy and senior military figures, but also, as far as von Buhler could tell, all the important Germans involved in the occupation.
Best marched into the room, mounted a rostrum at the front and began speaking immediately. His Hessian accent and quiet voice meant people shuffled forward to catch what he was saying.
‘Heil Hitler!’
The response was less clamorous than von Buhler expected it to be. People were nervous with anticipation.
‘Last year – on the twentieth of January, to be precise – a conference was held in Berlin on the specific instructions of the Führer to discuss the Jewish question, which still plagues us. At the outset of the war, there were eleven million of them in Europe. Some of them are in territories we now control, others in countries we will soon conquer. Eleven million…’
Best paused to allow everyone in the room to absorb that shocking statistic: so many of them.
‘I am pleased to say that a detailed and effective solution was agreed upon. It was decided that the Jewish populations in every country we control will be deported to the east, where six camps have been established to dispose of them. This map here – turn to the next sheet, please – shows the camps: they’re all in the General Government zone in what was Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Bełżec, Chełmno, Sobibor and Majdanek. The transportation and extermination programme has been proceeding with great efficiency. Last year alone we dealt with two million seven hundred thousand Jews. Taking into account those we have also dealt with…’ he smiled appreciatively as laughter filled the room, ‘since the start of the war, we have managed to reduce the Jewish population by some four million.’
A loud murmur of approval.
‘So far this year we have already dealt with a further three hundred thousand Jews. But the Führer is unhappy that the progress is not quick enough. And specifically, he wants to know why the Jews here in Denmark are still at liberty. I have been in Berlin on a number of occasions recently. I have endeavoured to explain that the particular situation pertaining in this country means we need to be careful about upsetting the delicate nature of the occupation. I have pointed out that the last thing we want is trouble here in Denmark, and I fear if we dealt with the Jews here in the same way as in France or Poland, for example, we could have a serious problem that would mean a distraction for our armed forces.
‘Notwithstanding this, the patience of Eichmann and others in Berlin has worn thin. On my last visit to Berlin I was instructed to deal with the Jewish question in Denmark once and for all. In recent weeks, some of you will have been aware of the work we have been doing to identify the Jews here and discover where they live. This work is now complete: we have identified somewhere in the region of eight and a half thousand. The arrests and deportations will start next week. I expect that by the middle of October, Denmark will be free of Jews.
‘For this to happen, I require the cooperation of everyone here. From now on, this is the priority of each and every one of you. All your normal duties should be postponed until the Jews have been dealt with. All leave is cancelled and you should expect to work over the weekend. Heil Hitler!’
* * *
Ferdinand Rudolf von Buhler waited until the following day before making his move. The simplest course of action would be to do nothing, avoid making contact with the British and keep his involvement with the arrest and deportation of the Jews to a minimum.
But he knew he couldn’t possibly do that: his conscience would not allow him to be a bystander.
That morning he managed to slip out of the embassy and hurry to Jensen’s bicycle shop in the narrow alley off Pilestræde. In his haste he forgot to check whether there were any other customers there, but fortunately Jensen was on his own.
‘Hadn’t you better come into the workshop?’
‘Not now, I need to be quick. Dr Oppenheim, the man I met in April…’
‘What about him?’
‘I must speak to him urgently, later today if possible. Get a message to him and say you have a strained knee and need to see him as soon as possible. He’ll know what you mean.’
Jensen clearly sensed from von Buhler’s manner quite how urgent this was. ‘I’ll call him now. Go over there and pretend to be looking at bikes: the one with the tan saddle is just in.’
Von Buhler heard him make a brief call.
‘He can be here at five o’clock. Take this key and let yourself in at the back.’
* * *
It was an effort to get away from the embassy at that time. Von Buhler had been given the task of working on the transport of the arrested Jews to Poland: there seemed to be some problem he couldn’t quite understand about trains.
But such was the chaos at the embassy that he’d managed to photograph a number of documents, including one with the names and addresses of all the Jews in Copenhagen. He’d slipped the film into his pocket and made his way back to Pilestræde. He understood full well that if he was caught, he’d signed his own death warrant.
Dr Julius Oppenheim appeared to have aged considerably in the few months since they last met. He, von Buhler and Jensen huddled around a cluttered table in the middle of the workshop. The German diplomat carefully explained everything; by the time he had finished, Oppenheim was shaking. He took the film and put it in his inside jacket pocket. Was Herr von Buhler absolutely certain about all of this?
Yes.
Jensen placed an arm round the German’s shoulders, his voice quiet and determined. ‘I’ll make sure the resistance also knows right away.’
* * *
Copenhagen at the end of September 1943, where the lives of thousands and the fate of millions hung by a thread
becoming more frayed by the day.
Ravensbrück concentration camp at the end of September 1943, where Hanne Jakobsen was about to enter her ninth month in captivity, her existence now even more perilous.
And a thousand miles to the south at the end of September 1943, where Richard Prince was a few weeks into his new mission and in another world, one quite unlike anything he’d experienced before, though no less menacing.
But his heart was elsewhere, torn between his son and the woman he loved.
Author’s Note
Prince of Spies is a work of fiction, so any similarities between characters and circumstances in the book and real people should be regarded as purely coincidental.
That said, it is based on actual events and places in Europe during the Second World War. Some characters featured or referred to in the book did exist, Winston Churchill being an obvious example. Likewise, Air Marshal Harris was the actual head of RAF Bomber Command during the war.
Other less well-known examples include SS Obersturmbannführer Max Pauly (Chapter 20), who was the commandant of Neuengamme concentration camp and was executed as a war criminal in 1946. Just over 40,000 people were murdered at Neuengamme during the war.
Gruppenführer von Helldorf (Chapter 17) was the head of the police in Berlin during the relevant part of the story. He was executed by the Nazis in 1944 for his part in the bomb plot against Hitler.
Colonel General Friedrich Paulus (Chapter 19) was the commander of the German 6th Army, which suffered such a devastating defeat at Stalingrad. Hitler did indeed promote him to field marshal in a bid to prevent him surrendering, but Paulus did surrender and lived in East Germany until his death in 1957. The victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad in February 1943 was a key turning point of the Second World War.
Werner Best (Chapter 26) was the German Plenipotentiary (effectively the ruler) in Denmark from November 1942 until the country was liberated in May 1945. He was convicted as a war criminal but spared the death penalty. Best claimed he’d been involved in informing the Danish resistance about the planned deportation of the country’s Jewish population.
This deportation is referred to in the last chapter and is based very closely on real events. The Danish Jewish community and the resistance were tipped off about the planned deportations, and as a result, more than eight thousand Danish Jews and non-Jewish relations were smuggled across the Øresund to neutral Sweden. This was one of the very few examples of an occupied country resisting the maltreatment of its Jewish population.
Readers may possibly consider Agent Browning to be an unlikely figure working against his own government. In fact, there was a diplomat at the German Embassy in Copenhagen – Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz – who tipped off the Danish resistance about the planned deportations. There is no doubt that by 1943, Duckwitz was anti-Nazi, and he became a leading West German diplomat after the war.
The conference regarding the fate of Europe’s Jews (Chapter 26) is the Wannsee conference, which set in motion the Final Solution. The figures used in this context are accurate: some 2,700,000 Jews were murdered in 1942, mostly at the six Nazi death camps in Poland.
Like Agent Horatio (Otto Knudsen), there was a Danish businessman, Aage Carl Holger Andreasen, who picked up information about the V-1s and V-2s while travelling in Germany. He contacted the British, and after some doubt about his motives, he became a British agent.
Ravensbrück (Chapter 23) was a concentration camp almost exclusively for female prisoners, approximately 40,000 of whom were murdered there.
The murder of the Jewish children described in Chapter 19 is fictional, though it is based on thousands of war crimes of a similar nature. In July 1946, forty-two Jews who’d returned to Kielce from Nazi camps were murdered by local Poles in a now notorious pogrom.
Lord Swalcliffe (Chapter 9 onwards) is loosely based on Frederick Lindemann, Viscount Cherwell. He was Churchill’s scientific adviser and a vocal opponent of the view that the V-1 and V-2 rockets presented a real threat.
The V-1 and V-2 were of course two of the secret weapons the Nazis hoped would win the war for them. Some nine thousand V-1s and a thousand V-2s were used against the British mainland, with around 10,000 people believed killed as a result.
There was a major RAF raid not dissimilar to the one described in Chapter 18 on Peenemünde. The actual raid took place in August 1943.
The towns and cities referred to in the book are all actual places, with the exception of Peascombe St Mary (and Peascombe St Thomas) near Mablethorpe. Where named, places such as hotels, railway stations and airports are real. St Christopher’s hospital is an exception to this.
Deutsche Lufthansa did continue to fly passenger aircraft between Copenhagen and Berlin (and via Oslo) during the war. The hotel that Horatio and Prince stayed at in Berlin, the Excelsior on Askanischer Platz, was one of the largest in Berlin before it was destroyed in an Allied air raid in April 1945.
The engineering company Feuchtwanger and Wolff is fictional, but many similar Jewish-owned businesses were stolen from their owners.
The Grimsby trawler fleet made an enormous contribution to the war effort, including as minesweepers, serving on the convoys and on clandestine missions as described in Chapter 4. Nearly 300 trawler men and 30 trawlers from the port were lost in the war.
Adoptions in the UK were less well regulated before the 1960s, so the informal nature of Henry’s rushed adoption (Chapter 25) would have been feasible in 1943.
I’d like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the many people who’ve helped bring about the publication of this book. As ever, to my agent Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown and his colleague Niall Harman. I’m delighted to now be published by Canelo and my thanks there go to Michael Bhaskar, Kit Nevile, Sophie Eminson and all the team. To Jane Selley for her very skilful copyedit and to the many people who helped me with aspects of the book and answered seemingly odd questions as I was writing it. And finally to my family – and especially my wife Sonia – for their encouragement, understanding and love.
Alex Gerlis
London
December 2019
About the Author
Alex Gerlis was a BBC journalist for nearly 30 years. His first novel, The Best of Our Spies (2012) has been an Amazon best-seller, as have the other books in the Spies series of Second World War espionage novels: The Swiss Spy (2015); Vienna Spies (2017) and The Berlin Spies (2018). The television/film rights for The Best of Our Spies have recently been bought by a major production company. Born in Lincolnshire, Alex Gerlis lives in London, is married with two daughters and is represented by Gordon Wise at the Curtis Brown literary agency.
Facebook.com/alexgerlisauthor
Twitter: @alex_gerlis
www.alexgerlis.com
Next in The Richard Prince Thrillers:
Sea of Spies
A nest of espionage. A break for the border. A race to survive.
Find out more
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
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Copyright © Alex Gerlis, 2020
The moral right of Alex Gerlis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788638722
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidenta
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