by Philip Kerr
His eyes narrowing, Hitler gave Schellenberg a shrewd look. “You’re as clever as Heydrich,” he said. “I don’t know if you’re as ruthless, but you’re certainly as clever.” He smacked Schellenberg’s memo with the back of his hand. “And there is no doubt that this is a clever plan.”
Abruptly, Hitler stood up, prompting everyone else to do the same. “I’ll give you my decision after lunch.”
The meeting adjourned to the dining room, where several members of the General Staff joined them. Throughout the meal they were treated to more of Hitler’s monologues. Hitler ate quickly and with little finesse: a corn on the cob to start, over which he poured almost a cupful of melted butter, no main course, and then a huge plate of hot pancakes with raisins and sweet syrup. Schellenberg felt sick just looking at Hitler’s menu choices and struggled to finish the Wiener schnitzel that he himself had ordered.
After lunch Hitler invited Schellenberg to walk with him, and the two men made a circuit of Restricted 1, Hitler pointing out the swimming pool, the cinema, the barbershop—he was very proud that they had “enticed” Wollenhaupt, the barber from Berlin’s Hotel Kaiserhof, to cut the hair of the General Staff at the Wolfschanze—and the bunkers of Göring, Speer, and Martin Bormann. “There’s even a cemetery,” said Hitler. “Just to the south of here, across the main road. Yes, we’ve got pretty much everything we might need.”
Schellenberg didn’t ask who was buried in the cemetery. Even for an intelligence chief there were some things it was better not to know. Finally Hitler came to the point.
“I admire your plan. It’s like something from a book by Karl May. Have you ever read any books by Karl May?”
“Not since I was a boy.”
“Never be ashamed of that, Schellenberg. When I was a boy, Karl May’s books had a tremendous influence on me. Now, listen. I want you to go ahead with your plan, in the way that you suggested. Yes, send your team into Persia, but do nothing without authorization from me or Himmler. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, my Führer.”
“Good. They’re to do nothing unless I give you the go-ahead. Meanwhile, I will tell Himmler and Göring that Operation Long Jump gets top priority. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“One more thing, Schellenberg. Be careful of Himmler and Kaltenbrunner. Perhaps a man of your resources needn’t worry too much about Kaltenbrunner. But Himmler—you’ll have to watch out for him, that’s for sure. Watch out that he doesn’t get jealous of you in the same way he got jealous of Heydrich. And you remember what happened to him. It was too bad, really, what happened, but inevitable, I suppose, given all the circumstances. Heydrich was too ambitious, and I’m afraid he paid the price for that.”
Schellenberg listened, trying to contain his astonishment, for the Führer seemed to be suggesting that far from being murdered by Czech partisans, somehow Himmler had had a hand in Heydrich’s assassination.
“So be careful of Himmler, yes. But also be careful of Admiral Canaris. He’s not the old fool the Gestapo make him out to be. All of us can still learn a great deal from that old fox. You mark my words, the Abwehr still has the capacity to surprise us.”
IX
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1943,
ZOSSEN, GERMANY
ADMIRAL CANARIS was feeling the cold. It wasn’t that he had just returned from Madrid the previous day and found the Abwehr’s gas-proof gray-green bunker at Army Field Headquarters in Zossen, about thirty kilometers south of Berlin, to be damp and inadequately heated. No, it wasn’t that at all, for unlike most of the senior figures in the Nazi hierarchy, he was something of a Spartan and cared little for his own comfort. At the Abwehr’s offices on Tirpitz Ufer, an elegant four-story building near Berlin’s Landwehr Canal, he had often slept on a camp bed and still thought nothing of doing without a meal so that his two wirehaired dachshunds, Seppel and Kasper, might have fresh meat.
No, the cold Canaris was feeling had more to do with the intelligence failures of his own organization and, as a corollary, the knowledge that he seemed to have lost the ear of the Führer.
The Abwehr was Germany’s oldest secret service and had existed since the time of Frederick the Great. The word Abwehr translates as “defense” but was taken to apply to military intelligence in general, and the so-called Ausland Abwehr, or foreign intelligence department (the AA) in particular. Reporting directly to the High Command of the German army, the AA had, so far, resisted absorption by Kaltenbrunner’s Reich Security Office, the RSHA; but Canaris wondered for how much longer he could maintain that independence in the face of recent failures.
The first came in 1942. An operation, code-named Pastorius, had landed eight AA spies in the United States. Things went disastrously wrong when two members of the team betrayed the others to the FBI. Six good men went to the electric chair in August 1942, and Roosevelt had not only confirmed their death sentences but reportedly joked about it, expressing his regret that the District of Columbia did not hang its capital prisoners. That disaster had been followed quickly by the AA’s failure to detect the Red Army’s buildup of troops in the Stalingrad area, and a third gross failure came when it was taken unawares by the Anglo-American landings in North Africa, in November 1942. Meanwhile, elaborate and expensive undertakings aimed at fomenting anti-British uprisings in India, South Africa, and Afghanistan, as well as anti-Soviet revolts in the Caucasus, had all come to naught. The most recent disaster came in April 1943, when two senior members of the AA were arrested by the Gestapo for malfeasance, currency offenses, and undermining the war effort. It was only thanks to Himmler (and, it was strongly rumored, the Führer himself) that Admiral Canaris had managed to avoid a more serious charge and to retain control of his near discredited department.
Discredited perhaps, but the AA was not without an extensive network of spies, many of them working in the Reich’s diplomatic missions abroad as well as in von Ribbentrop’s Foreign Ministry on the Wilhelmstrasse. As a result, Canaris knew all about Agent Cicero and the forthcoming Big Three Conference in Teheran, although nothing at all of Schellenberg’s Operation Long Jump. He also knew the substantive part of a secret conversation that had taken place at the Wolfschanze more than a week before between Hitler and Himmler. This morning, he had summoned to the bunker he now treated as home only those officers from the AA and the Wehrmacht whom he regarded as above suspicion. The topic was assassination.
His office was furnished and decorated in much the same fashion as the office on Tirpitz Ufer had been: a small desk, a larger table, a few chairs, a clothes locker, and a safe; on his desk stood a model of the light cruiser Dresden, on which he had served during the Great War, and a bronze trio of three wise monkeys; on the walls were a Japanese painting of a grinning demon, Conrad Hommel’s full-length portrait of the Führer—the canine-minded Canaris always thought it made Hitler look like a little dog—and a picture of General Franco. Canaris was well aware that this was an odd juxtaposition of portraits: despite Franco’s fascism and Spain’s civil war debt to Germany, he and Hitler disliked each other intensely; Canaris, on the other hand, had nothing but the greatest warmth and admiration for the people of Spain and their leader, having spent a great deal of time in the country before the war.
The admiral stood holding one of the dachshunds as the meeting convened. He was a small man, just five foot three, with silver hair, and quite round shouldered, which lent him an unmilitary bearing. Wearing a naval uniform and surrounded by much younger, taller officers, Canaris looked more like a village schoolmaster waiting for his class to settle down behind their desks.
He put his dog on the floor, took a seat at the head of the table, and immediately lit a large Gildemann cigar. Last to enter the bunker with its steep A-shaped roof (so designed so that bombs would slide off) was “Benti” von Bentivegni, an equally diminutive officer who was of Italian descent, but whose monocle and stiff manner marked him out as an almost archetypal Prussian.
“
Close the door, Benti,” said Canaris, who disliked the way every time someone entered the bunker the wind blew a handful of leaves in through the steel door. Dead leaves were all over the carpet and were easily mistaken for dog turds, so that Canaris was constantly thinking that Seppel and Kasper had disgraced themselves. “And come sit down.”
Von Bentivegni sat and began fixing a cigarette into an amber holder. Canaris pressed a button underneath the table to summon the orderly. The next moment the internal door to one of the connecting tunnels opened and a corporal stepped into the room, carrying a tray bearing a coffeepot and several cups and saucers.
“I don’t believe it,” said Colonel Freytag von Loringhoven, his keen nostrils already sucking in the aroma. Food at the Zossen mess was poor, consisting almost exclusively of field rations and ersatz coffee; for most of the officers around the table, who were more used to dining at the Adlon or the Café Kranzler, it was just another reason to hate Zossen and the Army Field HQ, code-named Zeppelin. “Coffee. Real coffee.”
“I brought it back from Madrid,” said Canaris. “As well as some other provisions which I have given to the cook. I’ve asked him to prepare a special meal for us.” Canaris liked good food and was something of a cook himself. There had been a time, before the war, when the admiral had even cooked dinner for Heydrich and his wife at his house in Dolle-Strasse.
“No one could accuse you, Herr Admiral, of not looking after your men,” said Colonel Hansen, savoring the coffee in his cup.
“Don’t tell anyone,” said Canaris. “This really is top secret.”
“And how is Madrid?” asked von Bentivegni. As head of Section III he was especially concerned with the AA’s infiltration of the Spanish intelligence service.
“The Spanish government is under pressure from the Americans to stop their exports to us of wolfram and to expel all German agents.”
“And what does Franco say about that?”
“I didn’t actually get to see the general,” admitted Canaris. “But I saw Vigon.” General Juan Vigon was the chief of the Spanish general staff. “And I saw the new foreign minister, Count Jordana, too. I was obliged to point out the number of occasions on which the Abwehr and the Spanish police have acted in concert against Allied and anti-Franco resistance groups.”
Canaris continued describing the diplomatic aspects of his visit, even describing the strategic importance of wolfram as a material for manufacturing bomb electrodes, until the orderly had finished serving the coffee and left the room. As soon as the door was closed, Canaris came to the main point of the meeting.
“While I was in Spain I had a chance to speak to Diego. For the benefit of our colleagues in the Wehrmacht, Diego is the name of a successful Argentinian businessman who is also our top agent in South America.”
“Our top lady-killer, too,” observed Colonel Hansen, who, as head of Section I, was responsible for radio and courier links with all the Abwehr’s agents abroad. “I’ve never known a fellow quite so successful with the ladies.”
Canaris, who had little interest in ladies these days, did not mind Hansen’s interruption; he welcomed any opportunity for levity at Zossen, where the atmosphere was becoming increasingly desperate.
“Diego?” von Loringhoven said.
“Diego is his code name,” he explained. “Since the Pastorius experience we only use code names. None of us has forgotten the executions of six good men in June. We try not to mention names in the Abwehr. No, not even the name of the man we are planning to kill in Teheran. From here on I shall only refer to him by his operational code name, Wotan.”
Canaris paused for a moment, to relight his cigar, before continuing: “Now, then. Diego was in Washington only a few days ago, where he met Harvard. Harvard is the Abwehr’s last important spy in Washington and an agent we have been using since 1940, when he was a rich man in his own right, owning a decent-sized chemical company. When an investment went badly wrong for him, the Abwehr was able to pay off his debts, refinance the company, and buy lots of defense shares in his name. I tell you this so you will understand that his loyalty is to Germany and the Abwehr, rather than National Socialism.
“At the beginning of the war we encouraged Harvard to become a member of the American Ordnance Association, a pro-defense lobby with close ties to the War Department. As a result he receives a great many War Department press releases and is well-known around Washington, with lots of friends in the Senate and Roosevelt’s cabinet. Since 1942 he has, to all intents and purposes, been the owner of a house in Acapulco, where he has often entertained senators who have been totally unaware that the place is full of hidden microphones. Harvard’s main usefulness has been in reporting Washington gossip, but occasionally he has also been able, on an informal basis, to recruit people who are sympathetic to our cause.
“One such is a man, code-named Brutus, who will be accompanying President Roosevelt on his forthcoming visits to Cairo and Teheran for the Big Three Conference. I need not remind you that this is extremely timely. Fate has presented us with an opportunity that might otherwise have taken months, perhaps years to prepare. Think of it, gentlemen. Our own man, inside Stalin’s own conference room at the Russian embassy in Teheran, and armed quite legitimately. In my opinion, the very simplicity of such a plan is its best guarantee. As you all know, I have always taken the view that a lone assassin stands the best chance of success in the killing of any head of state. With all the NKVD security apparatus that Comrade Beria will undoubtedly deploy, it seems highly unlikely that Wotan will be suspecting an assassination to come from this particular quarter.”
“Is Wotan to be shot, then?” asked Hansen.
“No, he is to be poisoned,” said Canaris. “With strychnine.”
Von Loringhoven, a Balt who had grown up in Imperial Russia and trained with the Latvian army before transferring to the Wehrmacht, shook his head. As someone who had recently served as the intelligence officer with a unit of pro-German Cossacks on the eastern front, he was quite used to seeing men so consumed with hatred that they were prepared to betray their own country and to kill their own kind. But Brutus seemed harder to understand. “So what’s in it for him?” he asked bluntly. “How do we know he will do it?”
“He’s a patriot,” replied Canaris. “A German-American, born in Danzig, who would like to see a swift end to this war. With honor for Germany. If he fails to kill Wotan with poison, he will shoot him.”
“And he’s prepared to give his own life for this? The Russians will shoot him if he’s caught. Or worse.”
“I don’t see how else this undertaking is to be carried out, Baron,” said Canaris.
“Nor do I,” observed von Bentivegni.
“It’s one thing saying it,” said von Loringhoven. “But it’s something else to do it.”
“Successful assassinations have nearly always involved men acting on their own who were prepared to sacrifice their own lives for a cause they believed in. Gavrilo Princip when he killed the Archduke Ferdinand. John Wilkes Booth when he killed Lincoln. And the fellow who murdered President McKinley in 1901.” Canaris had made a close study of presidential assassinations. “Leon Czolgosz. One man with the will to act decisively, can change history. That much is certain.”
“Then I have another question,” said von Loringhoven. “For all of us. Are we all satisfied that in this murder there is honor for the Abwehr and for the Wehrmacht? I should like to know that, please. To me, poison is not the action of honorable men. What will history say of men who plotted to poison Wotan? That’s what I should like to know.”
“It’s a fair question,” said Canaris. “At the risk of sounding like the Führer, my own opinion is this. That we might never get a better chance than this one. Also, that if we are successful, then such an operation could only restore the reputation of the Abwehr in Germany. Just think of the look on all their faces when they learn what has happened. The people who wrote us off. Himmler and Müller. That bastard Kaltenbrunner. We’ll show th
em what the Abwehr is capable of. Not to mention the people of Germany. If this conference succeeds, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt will have succeeded in stripping this country of every shred of honor.”
Von Loringhoven still looked unconvinced. So Canaris spoke again.
“Do we need to remind ourselves why we have set this plan into motion? In January, at Casablanca, President Roosevelt made a speech demanding the unconditional surrender of Germany. A speech that our sources inside the British secret intelligence service have assured us even Sir Stewart Menzies, my opposite number, regarded as disastrous. Gentlemen, there is only one other example of unconditional surrender in recorded history: the ultimatum that the Romans gave the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians rejected it and the Romans felt this justified razing Carthage to the ground—something they had intended to do in the first place. Roosevelt has backed us into a corner with his demand for unconditional surrender. History will say that he gave us no choice in the matter but to act as we have done. Germany demands that we do this. And for me that is enough. That is always enough. If Brutus succeeds, then the Allies will undoubtedly negotiate.”
Von Loringhoven nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I am convinced.”
Everyone else at the table nodded firmly.
Canaris sipped his coffee and leaned back from the table. Staring at the ash on his cigar, he said, “I have thought long and hard about a code name for this operation. And you will not be surprised that I have chosen ‘Decisive Stroke.’ Because I think we can all agree that the assassination of Wotan is what this will be. Perhaps the most decisive stroke in the history of modern warfare.”