Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  To minimise the risk to the Limmer parents, Kunde had arranged to stay away from their flat overnight. He spent the rest of the night, and the next day, hiding out under the trees in the Englischer Garten.

  At midnight on the following night, he set off – trudging towards the Austrian border. He reached it five nights later, and crossed into Austrian territory over a remote mountain path. Once there, he kept on walking, so miserable he could have howled, because he would never see Ello again.

  And all that time, the bomb in the granite block ticked quietly away toward its explosion date – fifteen days from the day he had set it, which was on October 1st.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The evening that, as Christa Forster put it, her husband abandoned the children at the cinema, the Forsters quarrelled. Christa accused Karl-Heinz of being obsessed with Glaser. Not only that, the obsession was changing his character. Once easy-going and smiling, he was increasingly morose and uncommunicative.

  Karl-Heinz Forster’s response was complex, far-reaching and permanent: he withdrew from Christa, and to an extent from the children. He clammed up about his work. And he became a fervent Nazi. So when he wangled himself a secondment to the SD, big news he would once have trumpeted with grins, hugs and celebrations, he did not tell Christa or the children about it at all.

  Forster had assumed that the Reich Security Service – SD – would take command of Hitler’s security for the Day of German Art, as the ceremony on October 15th was known. The day when Glaser and his gang would attempt to assassinate the Führer. Forster was consumed by the need to foil the plot and finally arrest Glaser.

  The Chief Inspector contemptuously dismissed the part of von Hessert’s statement, as reported by Elsperger, which attempted to exonerate Glaser. He referred to the plot at all times as the Glaser – Kunde plot. He had yet again requested Glaser’s arrest and interrogation under torture, but Heydrich had again overruled him. Glaser, Heydrich had instructed, could not be touched, as long as von Hessert said he was innocent.

  So Forster had to content himself with personally placing Glaser in the October 15th A-File – listing enemies of the Reich living in the vicinity of an event to be protected.

  The feebleness of this routine measure had left him fuming with rage. To make himself feel better, he had ordered another detailed search of Glaser’s flat, on the suspect’s return to Munich, and another search of the Bachhuber place.

  Forster had also checked the Pension Walther in Lucerne, the name Magda had given him. It did not exist. Glaser had not been in Lucerne, or anywhere else in Switzerland. He had been staying with his mother. This was confirmed by the Gestapo in Ludwigsburg, but unfortunately only after his return.

  Glaser had been spotted arriving back at Munich Hauptbahnhof, with no luggage. But as he had left with no luggage, all that signified was that he had clothing at the family home. There was no trace of Kunde, despite the massive effort put into the search for him, both in Munich and in the area around Poppenweiler.

  *

  Heydrich briefed Forster on security for the Day of German Art: Hess had issued a directive that there was to be co-operation between the various organisations involved: the SD, SS, SA, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LSAH), Reichsarbeitsdienst, Gestapo, Political Police and the Führer BegleitKommando.

  Preliminary security measures had reflected this co-operation: A-Files had been pooled. Security checks on the workmen building the site had been circulated. All organisations were issued with the same 1:25,000 map of the area around the site, with possible sniper vantage points marked in black or red. A second map, showing the sewerage system in the area, had also been issued to all organisations. The work of interviewing local explosives experts and watch and clockmakers had been shared.

  The security measures were started three weeks ahead of the event. Forster had wanted them started earlier, in view of the proven threat to the Führer. Heydrich had, for once, supported him on this, but they had both been overruled by Hess. The reason given was that boredom set in if security measures were started too early, and boredom and over-familiarity led to mistakes. Forster regarded that as pathetic.

  Then there had been an unexpected development, which had caused more delay: A conciliatory Heydrich told Forster about it, over coffee in his office. Out of the blue, Himmler had been told by Hess that the Old Fighters were to be put in overall charge of security for October 15th. This was a Führerbefehl – a personal command from Hitler.

  It was unusual, Heydrich told Forster, unparalleled even, for Hitler to intervene in such details, but Heydrich said he was not surprised. The laying of the First Stone of the New Reich, in the Führer’s beloved Munich, should surely be overseen by the men who had been with him longest – the Old Fighters. It was more surprising, to Heydrich at any rate, that of all the Old Fighters Hitler had chosen Julius Schreck for the honour of supervising security.

  Forster said nothing, but he made the connection: When Sauer had sold Hitler’s drawings of Geli to Ascher Weintraub, the Sauers’ maid had reported it to Forster, as she had been well paid to do.

  Forster, as Hess had instructed, had informed Georg Winter. The house servant had no doubt taken the tougher Julius Schreck with him to see Weintraub. They had recovered the drawings (murdering the Jew art dealer in the process). As a reward, no doubt, the chauffeur had asked to be put in charge of security for the Day of German Art. It would be a public sign of the Führer’s esteem, putting one over on the Party newcomers and Party Bonzen he so resented.

  Forster became even more sure of his supposition as the meeting to plan security for October 15th began, in Heydrich’s office. Although Heydrich was in the chair, Schreck was immediately on his right, dressed not as a chauffeur, but as an SS-brigade leader.

  Altogether, Forster noted with a touch of his old sardonic amusement, there were twelve men each side of the rectangular table stretching the length of Heydrich’s office. One of the few – along with Forster – in mufti was Ernst Buchner, Director of Bavarian Art Galleries. Heydrich had invited him as an afterthought, in his capacity of organiser of the pageant.

  When nominated by Heydrich, Buchner began describing the Objects of Homage, as they were known, sent by twenty-seven cities and eight provinces of the Reich, to mark their allegiance, on the significant coming day. Many were certificates, offering expressions of devotion to the Führer in beautiful calligraphy, usually combined with a hand-drawn rendering of the city’s coat of arms.

  There were also photographs and drawings of the various cities, or landscapes of the surrounding countryside. A woodcut portrait of Martin Luther, by Lucas Cranach the Younger, was among the works of art sent in homage, as were Adolph von Menzel lithographs, illustrating the History of Frederick the Great.

  This litany was received in heavy, bored silence by the uniformed soldiers and police along the table. Forster hadn’t grinned as widely for months. Buchner, mopping his brow with his red-spotted handkerchief, proceeded to details of the street decorations for the day, starting with those along the route of the Führer’s cavalcade.

  Speaking in a monotone, he told the meeting that Prinzregentenstrasse was to be lined with 160 pylons, each nearly forty feet high, crowned with the eagle and swastika. From the Hauptbahnhof to the city centre, there would be two hundred and thirty-four Blood Flags, at intervals of twenty-five feet, flying from flagpoles nearly thirty-five feet high.

  Buchner then launched into a description of the pageant, on the theme of the Glorious History of German Culture, that was to follow the Führer’s speech. He started to describe each float, in its order in the procession. This, however, was judged irrelevant to security. To the relief of the meeting, Heydrich held up a hand, commanding a halt to the droning monologue.

  They proceeded to draw up three zones of concentrically tightening security around the site. Arrangements were made for patrols and guards; directives were drafted for the cessation of all releases from prisons and concentration camps; passes and
codewords were agreed; the search both of sewers, and the flats of suspects was planned.

  They drew up the usual Special Regulations for specific events. Forster had a suggestion ready. He put it forward authoritatively. It should be forbidden to throw flowers at the Führer’s cavalcade, he said, in case a bunch of flowers concealed a bomb. This was well received.

  The personal security of the Führer was then discussed. Hitler had forbidden a Reichswehr guard of honour, Heydrich told the meeting. Nobody, naturally, commented on the reason for this, but they all knew what it was: the Führer still had to appear to defer to the ancient and crumbling President Hindenburg. He had declared army honour guards as reserved for him.

  Mindful of Hess’s directive about co-operation, Heydrich continued, Hitler’s security at the site would devolve on all the organisations represented in the room. As the Führer often declared that security should not come between him and his people, and should therefore be unobtrusive, security officers would be in plain clothes and would wear no insignia at all. Each man, therefore, would be trained to recognise the officer on his right and left by sight. Heydrich looked at all the representatives at the meeting in turn. Forster approved. He gave his chief a couple of crisp nods to signify as much.

  At the end of all this, Heydrich handed over to Schreck, who announced which duties would be undertaken by the Old Fighters – after the Führerbefehl, they naturally had first option.

  Schreck informed the meeting that the Old Fighters would mount a four-man honour guard, day and night, at the corners of the granite block, now always referred to as the First Stone of the New Reich. Every Munich Old Fighter would proudly serve his turn, Schreck said. He, Julius Schreck, as founder of the SS, proud bearer of the SS number one, would lead the first group of four.

  There was a swelling murmur of Richtig! Prima! and a thunderous banging of knuckles on the table, as representatives of all the other organisations fell over themselves to signal agreement at the justice and rectitude of this arrangement, commanded by the Führer. Schreck smiled.

  ‘The guard mounted by the Old Fighters will commence this evening,’ Heydrich said, nodding at the Official Minute Taker, signalling the closure of the meeting. ‘I give to the Minutes that the Honour Guard on the First Stone of the New Reich will commence at 6p.m., on October 2nd, 1933.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ello was back at the family villa, partly to get away from the block warden at the university, but also to take personal charge of the nursing arrangements made for Rudi. On the Day of German Art, she was woken by a dreadful noise of hammering and drilling from outside. She looked out of her bedroom window. Karolinenplatz was being decked out in black by a small army of workmen.

  Over a late breakfast, her father told her the reason: Nazi dead, fallen for the revolution, were not to be forgotten, even on a day of celebration – especially on a day of celebration: men like Leo Schlageter, and the martyrs killed at the Beer Hall Putsch. Cajetan von Hessert, sipping thin breakfast coffee, was all for the idea.

  A ring at the doorbell announced the chauffeur Schreck, come to drive her to the Prinzregentenplatz apartment. Ello was to travel in the Führer cavalcade, a signal honour which had been skilfully placed in Hitler’s mind by Anni Winter.

  She left Schreck waiting in the hallway while she changed and did her hair. Then she went back into the breakfast-room to say goodbye to her father. Cajetan was going directly to the ceremony. As there was plenty of time, he was reading the financial pages of the newspaper. Ello planted a pecking kiss on his forehead; the first time she had kissed him since she was seven.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he said. ‘Ello? Look at me. Have you been crying?’

  ‘No, I just slept badly. Rudi had a bad night.’

  ‘I have no sympathy, Ello. If Rüdiger keeps bad company, he must expect to be beaten up and robbed in some low dive.’

  ‘Quite. Goodbye, Papa.’

  ‘Goodbye. How many more times?’ Cajetan von Hessert disappeared back into the broadsheet folds of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten.

  *

  Outside it was chilly, with drizzle stopping and starting. Ello shivered in the back seat of the Mercedes, and not only because she was in the company of the creepy Schreck.

  The chauffeur had difficulty getting the Mercedes through the crush of workmen. Ello did not arrive at Hitler’s apartment until they had finished lunch.

  At a loose end until they left for the ceremony, she was passing Geli’s room when she heard yelling from inside. She listened at the closed door. Hitler was shouting at Schreck and Hess. She feared the worst and sent a maid to fetch Anni Winter. The housekeeper appeared quickly, in one of her inevitable floral dresses.

  ‘I heard the Führer shouting in Geli’s room,’ Ello said bluntly. ‘What’s going on?’

  Anni’s eyes shone. ‘Well, madam. I’m sure Herr Hitler will tell you himself in due course. But he has just decided that Fräulein Raubal’s earthly remains, together with his drawings of her, are to be placed in the foundation-stone.’

  Ello shut her eyes: the First Stone of the New Reich was to be Geli’s tomb. The entire Third Reich was to be Geli’s bedroom – a specially designed mausoleum. Ello was swamped with dread. ‘So, what will ...?’

  ‘I think there may be a short delay, madam,’ Anni said. ‘The stone will have to be hollowed out further to make room. I believe that is why Schreck is getting excited.’

  ‘Thank you, Anni.’

  The housekeeper gave a bobbing curtsey, a yellow-toothed smile, and was gone. Ello then made a snap decision – a decision which haunted her for the rest of her life. In fact, as she lay on her deathbed, at the age of eighty, in a handsome old brownstone in Brooklyn, with her loving children and grandchildren around her, calling that decision to mind was her last conscious act on earth.

  She decided to tell Gerhard Glaser the bomb had been discovered.

  *

  Schreck, in SS uniform, summoned an SD motorcycle escort, drove the Mercedes full-tilt out of the square, and hurled it along Prinzregentenstrasse. The wide boulevard was already lined with cheering crowds, six or seven deep, waving triangular swastika flags on sticks. Oblivious to them, Schreck raced the heavy car to the site of the ceremony, at the top of the street.

  Screens were hastily thrown up around the stone, while Schreck and two SD attacked the hollow with drills. In the noise, they did not hear the ticking of Kunde’s Westminster clock. They penetrated the plaster easily, then splintered the unexpected plywood underneath.

  In doing so, Schreck drilled through the insulated wires leading from the clock to the detonators. One wire was exposed to view. Oblivious of the danger, Schreck seized a rifle from one of the SD and furiously smashed away with the stock, destroying the clock. The bomb mechanism and the dynamite were uncovered and removed.

  Masons were already on hand, ready to cover the scroll with plaster, when it had been laid in the stone. They made good the damage, then deepened the hollow, as the Führer had commanded. The screens were removed round the block of granite.

  Schreck contacted Hess by radio. Hess decided to go ahead, as if nothing had happened. On his authority, the Führer was not to be told of the bomb plot until after the ceremony. The cavalcade was about to leave the apartment. The ceremony was running on time.

  *

  As the procession of three Mercedes cars arrived at the site, an orchestra in traditional Bavarian costume, under a black Baldachin, struck up the Prelude from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Ranks of SA, SS, Bavarian Police – all unarmed – and Hitler Youth stood at attention, as the dignitaries left their cars. Bunting covered bleachers surrounded the site. The area around the block of granite was planted with a thicket of Blood Flags, and strewn with carpets and streamers in red.

  Ello, in a Grecian-style white dress, left the third car, tripped across the carpet and took her seat next to the photographer Hoffmann in the front row of the grandstand. Hitler and Hess walked to the
stone platform, followed by an adjutant carrying a canvas workers’ bag, grabbed at the Prinzregentenplatz apartment at the last minute. It contained an urn, inside which were Geli’s ashes and Hitler’s drawings of her.

  At the stone platform, the Führer was greeted by a figure dressed as Hans Sachs, the sixteenth-century cobbler, who was also a Meistersinger and writer of plays to be performed during Carnival. Already lined up on the stone platform were Nazi luminaries, and other guests of honour; including the Papal Nuncio, Vasallo di Torregrossa, and the financiers Philipp Reemtsma, Friedrich Flick and Cajetan von Hessert.

  Heydrich, who had hosted a grand, musical opening ceremony at the Wittelsbach Palace the previous evening, was chattering away to the lanky, bespectacled mayor, Karl Fiehler, and the bullet-headed Gauleiter, Adolf Wagner, who was standing with his weight on his wooden right leg, hands on hips, roaring with laughter.

  Standing alone and aside from them, von Epp was staring blankly into the middle distance. One day before his sixty-fifth birthday, he had been sidelined politically – his newly invented tide of Reichstatthalter of Bavaria had turned out to be meaningless – and he was steadfastly refusing to contemplate the whirlwind he had helped whistle up.

  The Nuncio, however, met Hider’s gaze with a look of admiration. ‘For a long time I did not understand you,’ di Torregrossa said, ‘but now I do.’

  Hitler looked through him. He no longer required the Nuncio’s understanding, if he ever had. All that stood between him and total power was the fast-decaying body of President Hindenburg. He was looking beyond even power, to ultimate victory. And a longed-for death.

  *