Hitler's Peace

by Philip Kerr

  He folded her in his arms.

  “I’ve been thinking of speaking to Himmler,” she said quietly. “Of asking his permission to get my boys out of the Hitler Youth. I’ve already given a husband to Germany. I wouldn’t want to lose a child as well.”

  “Would you like me to speak to him, Lina?”

  Lina smiled at him. “You’re so good to me, Walter. But, no, I’ll do it myself. Himmler always feels guilty when he talks to me. He’ll be more likely to give in to me than to you.” She kissed him, and this time she gave herself up to it and they were soon in bed, each striving to please the other and then themselves.

  In the early part of the afternoon, Schellenberg left Lina in the Adlon and walked to the Air Ministry. It was housed in a squared-off, functional-looking building, and to prevent it from becoming a target for enemy bombers it displayed no flags.

  Schellenberg was shown to a large conference room on the fourth floor, where he was quickly joined by a number of senior officers: General Schmid, General Korten, General Koller, General Student, General Galland, and a lieutenant named Welter who took notes. It was General Schmid, better known to the Luftwaffe as “Beppo,” who spoke first.

  “On the basis of what Milch told us, we’ve examined the feasibility of using a squadron of four Focke Wulf 200s. It is, as you have already worked out for yourself, the best aeroplane for the job. It has a service ceiling of almost six thousand meters and, carrying extra fuel, a range of forty-four hundred kilometers. However, to facilitate targeting, we would recommend not carrying a bomb load, but rather two Henschel HS293 radio-controlled missiles. The Henschel acts like a small aircraft, with a motor to boost it to its maximum-level speed, after which a radio controller on the plane guides it to its target.”

  “Radio-controlled?” Schellenberg was impressed. “How does that work?”

  “The weapon is top secret, so you’ll understand if we don’t say too much about it. But the operation of the missile is quite simple. However, the bombardier must keep the missile in sight, and environmental conditions such as cloud, haze, or smoke could interfere with the targeting. Tracers from light AA fire could also make it difficult to pick out the missile.” Schmid paused to light a cigarette. “Of course, all that is somewhat academic. Everything really depends on your ground team’s being able to knock out the enemy radar. If they manage to have fighters up in the air waiting for us, our Condors would be easy booty for them.”

  Schellenberg nodded. “I don’t think I can overstate the risks involved in this mission, gentlemen,” he said. “I believe as soon as we’ve knocked out their radar they’ll put fighters up anyway, just to be on the safe side. There’s a strong possibility that none of your air crews will get back to Germany in one piece. But I can improve their chances.”

  “Before you do,” General Student interrupted, “I should like to know what happened to the signals commando that was parachuted into Iran back in March. As the first stage of Operation Franz.”

  Six men, all of them veterans of Ukrainian murder squads from F Section, had been met on the ground in Iran by Frank Mayr, an SS man who had been living with Kashgai tribesmen since 1940. One of the six had died immediately from typhoid; but the others had been successful, at least insofar as establishing communications with the Havelinstitut—the SS radio center at Wannsee.

  “When Operation Franz was downgraded because of Skorzeny’s Mussolini rescue,” explained Schellenberg, “they encountered a number of difficulties. They entered Teheran and survived there for almost five months, living with a group of pistachio-nut farmers and Iranian wrestlers before they were picked up by the Americans. They’re currently being held in a POW camp near Sultanabad.”

  “I only asked about them,” said General Student, “because you seem very confident of knocking out the enemy radar in Teheran. Will your men be doing that by themselves, or will you have more wrestlers to help you?”

  Schellenberg saw the smiles on the faces of some of the other officers and shifted uncomfortably on his chair.

  “In Iran, wrestlers are regarded as men of high social status,” he said. “Rather like matadors in Spain. Being physically fit, they are frequently called upon to become policemen, bodyguards, sometimes even assassins.”

  “They sound like the SS,” observed Student.

  Schellenberg turned back to General Schmid and asked him if the Luftwaffe was willing to proceed with the plan to kill the Big Three, assuming Hitler himself approved it. Schmid glanced around the table and, finding no opposition to Operation Long Jump, nodded slowly.

  “The Führer knows that the Luftwaffe will do anything that helps to win the war,” he said.

  After the meeting, Schellenberg took a taxi back to Wittenberg Platz and returned to where he had left his car near the Ka-De-We. Before the war, the store had served forty different kinds of bread and 180 kinds of cheese and fish, but choice was rather more limited in the autumn of 1943. Approaching his car, he glanced around, hoping the black Opel had gone; but it was still there, which seemed to heighten the gravity of his situation. The Gestapo were not about to let the small matter of his having given them the slip for several hours deter them from whatever it was they wanted to find out. As soon as he drove off, the Opel came after him, and he resolved to find out before the afternoon was over exactly what it was they were investigating—his supposed Jewishness, his affair with Lina Heydrich, or something else.

  He drove quickly now, back the way he had come, until he reached the edge of the Grunewald Forest—the city’s green window—where, on an empty, wide, firebreak road that ran between two armies of facing trees, he pulled over. Leaving the car’s engine still running and the driver’s door open, he grabbed the Schmeisser MP40, hid it under his coat, and ran into the woods. He ran at a right angle to the road for almost thirty meters before turning and running parallel to the road for almost a hundred more in the direction from which he had just driven. Returning cautiously to the edge of the tree line near the road, he saw that he was no more than twenty meters behind the Opel, which had halted at what the driver must have considered to be a discreet distance. Crouching behind a large red oak, Schellenberg unfolded the MP40’s stock and worked the slide action slowly and quietly, to ready the weapon’s thirty-two-round magazine. Surely they wouldn’t want to lose him twice in one day. The driver’s door of his own car was wide open. At first the two Gestapo men inside the Opel would assume that he had gotten out to take a leak, but when he didn’t return, curiosity would surely overcome them. They would have to get out of the car.

  Ten minutes passed with no sign of movement in the Opel. And then the driver’s door opened and a man wearing a black leather coat and a dark-green Austrian-style hat got out and fetched a pair of binoculars from the trunk, which was Schellenberg’s cue to step out of the trees and walk quickly up to the Opel.

  “Tell your friend to get out of the car with his hands empty.”

  “Jürgen,” said the man with the binoculars. “Come here, please. He’s here and he has a machine pistol. So please be careful.”

  The second Gestapo man stepped slowly out of the car with his hands raised. Taller than his colleague, with a broken nose and a boxer’s ear, he was wearing a dark pinstripe suit and sensible Birkenstock shoes. Neither was more than thirty and both wore the cynical smiles of men who were used to being feared and who knew that nothing could ever happen to them. Schellenberg jerked the gun toward the trees.

  “Move,” he said.

  The two men walked through the line of trees with Schellenberg following at a distance of three or four meters until, at a small clearing about forty meters from the road, he ordered them to stop.

  “You’re making a serious mistake,” said the smaller one, who was still holding the binoculars. “We’re Gestapo.”

  “I know that,” said Schellenberg. “On your knees, gentlemen. With your hands on your heads, please.”

  When they were kneeling, he told them to throw their guns as far as
they could and then show him some kind of identification. Reluctantly the two men obeyed, each tossing away a Mauser automatic and showing him the small steel warrant disc that all Gestapo men were obliged to carry.

  “Why were you following me?”

  “We weren’t following you,” said the man with the boxer’s ear, still holding out the warrant disc in the palm of his hand like a beggar who had just received alms. “There’s been a mistake. We thought you were someone else, that’s all.”

  “You’ve been following me all day,” said Schellenberg. “You were outside my office on Berkaerstrasse this morning, and you were outside the Ka-De-We this afternoon.”

  Neither man replied.

  “Which section of the Gestapo are you in?”

  “Section A,” said the one with the binoculars, which were now lying on the ground in front of him.

  “Come on,” snapped Schellenberg. “Don’t waste my time. Section A what? ”

  “Section A3.”

  Schellenberg frowned. “But that’s the section that deals with matters of malicious opposition to the government. What on earth are you following me for?”

  “As I said, there must have been a mistake. We’ve been tailing the wrong man, that’s all. Happens sometimes.”

  “Don’t move until I tell you to move,” said Schellenberg. “So I’m not who you thought I was, eh?”

  “We were tailing a suspected saboteur.”

  “Does he have a name, this saboteur?”

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose that.”

  “How do you know that I’m not an associate of this saboteur of yours? If I was, I might shoot you. Perhaps I’ll shoot you anyway.”

  “You won’t shoot us.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I don’t like people following me.”

  “This is Germany. We’re at war. People get followed all the time. It’s normal.”

  “Then maybe I’ll shoot you both to get you off my ass.”

  “I don’t think so. You don’t look like the type.”

  “If I don’t look like the type, then why were you following me?”

  “We weren’t following you, we were following your car,” said the other man.

  “My car?” Schellenberg smiled. “Why, then you must know who I am. You’ve had plenty of time to get a Kfz-Schein on my car. That would easily have told you who and what I am.” He shook his head. “I think I’ll shoot you after all, just for being such bad liars.”

  “You won’t shoot us.”

  “Why not? Do you think anyone’s going to miss an ugly bastard like you?”

  “We’re on the same side, that’s why,” said the one with the binoculars.

  “But you still haven’t said how you know that. I’m not wearing a uniform, and I’m pointing a gun at you. I know you’re in the Gestapo. And the plain fact is that I’m a British spy.”

  “No, you’re not, you’re in the same line of work we are.”

  “Shut up, Karl,” said the man with the boxer’s ear.

  “And what line of work would that be?”

  “You know.”

  “Shut up, Karl. Don’t you see what he’s trying to do?”

  “I’m your enemy, Karl. And I’m going to kill you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You can’t, because you’re Reich Security Office, just like us, that’s why.”

  Schellenberg smiled. “There, now. That wasn’t so very difficult. Since you’ve admitted you know who I am, then you’ll understand why I’m anxious to find out why you should want to follow me, an SD general.”

  “Guilty conscience, is it?” said the man with the ear.

  “Tell you what, Karl. I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t tell me what this is all about, I’m going to execute you both. Right here. Right now. One.”

  “Tell him, Jürgen.”

  “He won’t shoot us, Karl.”

  “Two.”

  “Keep your mouth shut, Karl. He won’t do it. He’s just bluffing.”

  “Three.”

  Schellenberg squeezed the trigger, and a startling staccato burst of fire shattered the silence of the forest. The MP40 was considered an effective weapon at up to a hundred meters, but at less than ten meters it was positively deadly, and he could hardly have missed his primary target—the tougher-looking man with the boxer’s ear. With the impact of each 9mm Parabellum bullet that struck him in the face and torso his body jerked and a short, feral scream escaped his bloody mouth. Then he rolled over, writhing on the ground, and a second or two later, was still.

  Realizing that he was still alive, the other Gestapo man, the one called Karl, began to cross himself furiously, uttering a Hail Mary.

  “Better talk to me, Karl,” said Schellenberg, tightening his grip on the MP40’s plastic handle. “Or would you like me to count to three again?”

  “It was the chief’s direct order.”

  “Müller?”

  Karl nodded. “He’s trying to find out how far these peace negotiations of Himmler’s have gone. If it’s just Dr. Kersten, or if you’re involved, too.”

  “I see,” said Schellenberg.

  Things were a lot clearer to him now. In August of ’42, there had been a discussion involving himself, Himmler, and Himmler’s chiropractor, Dr. Felix Kersten, concerning how a peace with the Allies might be negotiated. The discussion had stalled pending the failed attempt to remove von Ribbentrop—who was perceived to be an obstacle to a diplomatic peace—from his post as Reich foreign minister. But Schellenberg was completely unaware of any current peace negotiations.

  “Do you mean to say that there are peace negotiations taking place right now?”

  “Yes. Dr. Kersten is in Stockholm, talking to the Americans.”

  “And is he under surveillance, too?”

  “Probably. I don’t know.”

  “What about Himmler?”

  “We were told to follow you. I’m afraid that’s all I know.”

  “From where does Müller get this information?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take a guess.”

  “All right. The splash around Prinz Albrechtstrasse is that there is someone in Himmler’s own office at the Ministry of the Interior who’s been throwing his voice in our direction. But I don’t know his name. Really I don’t.”

  Schellenberg nodded. “I believe you.”

  “Thank God.”

  His mind was racing. There would have to be an investigation into the murder of the Gestapo man, of course. Müller would welcome a chance to embarrass him, and more important, Himmler. Unless . . .

  “Have you got a radio in your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you radio your last position?”

  “We haven’t reported anything since we stopped outside the Ka-De-We.”

  There it was, then. He was in the clear. But only if he was prepared to act decisively, now and without hesitation.

  Even as the logic of it presented itself clearly to Schellenberg’s mind, he squeezed the trigger. And as he machine-gunned the second Gestapo man, in cold blood, Schellenberg felt that, finally, he had a kind of answer to the question that had often haunted him in the company of his more murderous colleagues. Two bodies now lay dead on the ground in front of him. Two murders hardly compared with Sandberger’s 65,000 or Janssen’s 33,000, but it could hardly be denied that the second murder had felt easier than the first.

  With shaking hands, Schellenberg lit a cigarette and smoked it greedily, giving himself up to the soothingly toxic, alkaloid effect of the nicotine in the tobacco. With nerves somewhat steadied, he walked back to his car and took a large mouthful of schnapps from a little Wilhelmine silver hip flask he kept in the glove box. Then he drove slowly back to the Berkaerstrasse.

  V

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1943,

  LONDON

  MY JOURNEY FROM NEW YORK to London would have left Ulysses looking for a couple of
aspirin. Eight hours after leaving LaGuardia Airport at 8:00 A.M. on Tuesday the fifth, I had only traveled as far as Botwood, Newfoundland, where the U.S. Navy Coronado flying boat stopped to refuel. At 5:30 P.M., the four-engine plane was back in the air and heading east across the Atlantic like an outsized goose flying the wrong way for winter.

  There were three other passengers: a British general named Turner; Joel Beinart, a USAAF colonel from Albuquerque; and John Wooldridge, a naval commander from Delaware, all three of them tight-lipped men whose demeanor seemed to indicate it wasn’t just walls that had ears but the fuselage of a transatlantic aircraft as well. Not that I was feeling very gabby myself. For much of the journey, I read the Katyn files given to me by the president, which put the kibosh on any conversation.

  The Wehrmacht file on Katyn had come via Allen Dulles from the OSS office in Berne. It was the most exhaustively detailed of the files, but I wondered how Dulles had come by it. In my mind’s eye I pictured some blond, blue-eyed Übermensch from the German embassy in Bern just turning up at the OSS office one day and handing over the file as if it were nothing more important than the Swiss daily newspapers. Or had Dulles met up with his opposite number in the Abwehr for a glass of hot wine in the bar of the Hotel Schweizerhof? If either of these two scenarios were true, then it seemed to imply a degree of cooperation between Dulles and German intelligence that I found intriguing.

  An astonishing number of photographs accompanied the findings of the so-called International Committee. Assembled by the Germans, it included the professor of pathology and anatomy at Zagreb University, Ljudevit Jurak, and several Allied officers who were German POWs. It was obvious that the Nazis hoped to exploit the massacre to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and its Western allies. And, whatever happened, it was impossible to see how, after the war, the British or the Americans could ask the people of Poland to live in peace with the Russians. That possibility seemed no more likely than the chief rabbi of Poland asking Hitler and Himmler to come over for a Passover drink and a couple of hands of whist.