Hitler's Peace

by Philip Kerr

  “From America, sir?” asked the driver. He was a blue-eyed, hatchet-faced man, as lean as a garden hose, and by the look of things, just as wet. Sweat rolled out of his wavy short black hair, down his thin white neck, and underneath his khaki shirt collar, to join a large damp patch between his shoulder blades.

  “Yes. And you?”

  “Manchester, England, sir. I used to dream of being somewhere hot, sir. And then I came here. Did you ever see such a bloody place, sir? Bloody chaos, that’s what it is.”

  “Seen much action?”

  “None since I’ve been here. At least not from the bloody Germans. You’ll see the antiaircraft searchlights at night, but there’s little chance of any bombers coming this far south. Not since the summer. By the way, sir, the name is Coogan, sir. Corporal Frank Coogan, and I’ll be your regular driver while you’re here in Cairo.”

  “Nice to meet you, Frank.”

  At last Coogan turned down a side street and I caught my first sight of the famous Shepheard’s Hotel, an ungainly building at whose large front terrace dozens of British and American officers were seated. Coogan pulled up, waved away an Arab guide wearing a bright red tarboosh, and, collecting my cases off the luggage rack, led the way inside.

  Battling my way through officers of all ranks and races, prosperous Levantine businessmen, and several dubious-looking women, I presented myself at the reception desk and glanced around at the Moorish-style hall with its vast pillars, thick and lotus-shaped, and the grand staircase that swept upward, flanked by two tall caryatids of ebony. It was like being on the set of a film by Cecil B. DeMille.

  There were three messages for me: one from Donovan, suggesting that we meet for a drink in the hotel’s long bar at three o’clock; an invitation for dinner the following evening from my old friend, the Princess Elena Pontiatowska, at her house in Garden City; and a letter from Diana.

  I dismissed Coogan, and, thinking I might try one last time to lose Donovan’s case, I let the hotel manager organize its delivery to my hotel room. But fifteen minutes later, I was safely ensconced in my suite with all my bags, including Donovan’s. Throwing open the shutters and the windows, I stepped onto the balcony and surveyed the rooftops and the street below. There was no doubt about it: Donovan had done me proud; I could not have chosen better myself.

  I put off reading Diana’s letter for as long as I could, the way you do when you’re afraid of finding out a truth. I even smoked a cigarette while I contemplated it from a safe distance. Then I read it. Several times. And there was one passage in her letter to which I paid particular attention.

  You mentioned the injustice of my walking out on you as I did and avoiding you these last few days. I’m afraid I was and still am very angry with you, Willard. The person with whom I had spent that evening, when I was supposed to be at the movies, was an old friend of mine, Barbara Charisse. I don’t think you’ve ever met her, but she has heard of you and, recently, she had been in London. She’s also an old friend of Lord Victor Rothschild, whom I believe you do know. It seemed she had been at a party you were also at, and had heard from some pansy that while you were in London you were sleeping with someone called Rosamond Lehmann. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it irritated me the way you quizzed me about whether I’d seen that film or not, and your unspoken assumption that you had occupied the moral high ground by not asking me about it further. And I thought to myself, Fuck you, mister. Fuck you, for making me feel like I was the betrayer. So, since you ask, I find that I haven’t really changed that opinion. I also find that I’m not likely to change it, either.

  Fuck you, Willard.

  I folded Diana’s letter up and put it in my breast pocket, right next to the aching hole where my heart had been. A few minutes before three o’clock, I went down to the lobby. Outside on the hotel terrace someone was playing a piano, badly, while the lobby was buzzing loudly with conversations, mostly in English. I went into the Long Bar, forbidden to ladies, and glanced around as a group of slightly drunk British officers clapped their hands loudly for service and shouted Arabic words they mistakenly believed would summon a waiter.

  Almost immediately I saw Donovan, seated with his back to a pillar and sweating profusely in a white tropical suit that was maybe a size too small for his retired football player’s physique.

  Approaching the silver-haired figure, I reviewed all of the prejudices I was likely to encounter with this sixty-year-old Hoover Republican, this millionaire lawyer, Irish Catholic decorated war hero. To my certain knowledge, the general had been away from Washington since July, first visiting his son—a lieutenant who was aide to Admiral Hall in Algiers—then in Sicily, then in Quebec, and, for the most part of October and November, in Cairo, trying to foment an anti-Nazi revolution in Hungary and the Balkans.

  “Good afternoon, General.” Even as I shook Donovan’s strong hand and sat down, he was catching the waiter’s eye, stubbing out his cigarette, and checking the time on the gold pocket watch he’d pulled from his vest.

  “I like a man who is punctual,” said Donovan. “God knows that isn’t easy in this country. How was the voyage? And how is the president?”

  I told him about the Willie D. incident and mentioned my suspicions regarding the disappearance of Ted Schmidt and the death of his wife back in Washington. “It’s my opinion that there was a German spy aboard the Iowa,” I said. “And that having killed Schmidt, he radioed someone in the States to do the same to Mrs. Schmidt. I think someone wanted to make sure that an investigation into Cole’s murder was closed down as quickly as possible, and the Welles scandal made this easy. But my guess is that Cole was on to a German spy. Possibly the same German spy who was aboard the Iowa.”

  “That makes some sense.”

  “I asked Ridgeway Poole if he could radio the Campus and find out some more about Mrs. Schmidt’s accident.”

  Donovan winced a little, and I remembered, too late, that he hated Washington’s nickname for the OSS HQ almost as much as he hated his own. The “Wild Bill” cognomen by which he was known referred to the Donovan who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1918. These days, the general preferred to project a more sober, responsible image than that of the dauntless battlefield hero. Personally, I didn’t like heroes very much. Especially when they were officers. And whenever I looked at Donovan I wondered how many men in his platoon his heroism had got killed.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about German spies if I were you,” Donovan said as the waiter came over at last. He ordered a lemonade.

  My jaw dropped. For a moment, I was too astonished at what the general had just said to order anything at all. I asked for a beer and, when the waiter had gone, an explanation.

  “We’re at war with the Germans,” I said. “German intelligence is my special field. I’m supposed to be a liaison officer between you and the president. Why would I not worry about German spies? Especially if one were so close to the president and might already have murdered someone.”

  “Because I happen to know that the last thing the Germans want right now is to kill President Roosevelt,” answered Donovan. “For the last few weeks, my man in Ankara has been conducting talks with Franz von Papen, the German ambassador. Von Papen is in touch with leading figures in the German government and army, with a view to negotiating a separate peace between the Germans and the Western allies.”

  “Does the president know about this?”

  “Of course he does. Goddamn it, do you think I’d do something like this on my own initiative? FDR has an election in 1944, and I’d say the last thing he wants is to send a million American boys into battle unless he absolutely has to.”

  “But what about ‘unconditional surrender’?”

  Donovan shrugged. “A bargaining ploy, designed to bring Hitler to his senses.”

  “And the Russians, what about them?”

  “Our intelligence indicates that they’ve been making their own peace feelers, in Stockholm.”

  I shook my head
in disbelief. “Then what’s the point of all this Big Three stuff ?”

  Donovan straightened his right leg, painfully. “Peace negotiations take time,” he said. “Especially when they’re being conducted in secret. Besides, they could easily fail. What’s more, we think Sextant One and Sextant Two will help to keep the Germans focused.”

  Sextant One was the official code name of the Cairo Conference, and I presumed Sextant Two referred to the Big Three Conference itself.

  “I guess that explains a lot,” I said, although, in truth, I wasn’t quite sure exactly what it did explain. It explained why the Joint Chiefs had not been more worried about coming to Cairo. But none of that explained why the Schmidts were dead. Unless, of course, Ted Schmidt really had thrown himself over the side of the boat, and Debbie Schmidt had met a genuine traffic accident.

  At the same time, I was aware that even if a separate peace negotiation was being pursued with one German faction, there were probably others, the fanatics, still intent on winning the war, whatever the cost.

  One thing was clear, at any rate. Kim Philby had been right to be concerned about American peace moves in Ankara. Donovan had just given me the high-level confirmation Philby had been looking for; that the Americans really were of a mind to sell out the Russians. But who could I tell? A Russian at Sextant Two, wherever that might be? That hardly seemed practical. And what of the Russians themselves? Was it really possible, as Donovan had said, that they, too, were trying to negotiate a separate peace, in Stockholm?

  Our drinks arrived. Caring nothing for Donovan’s opinion now, I wished I had asked for a double brandy. I lit a cigarette. I could taste the ash even as I smoked it. I felt certain that there was something important Donovan was not telling me. But what? Was it possible that the secret peace negotiations with the Germans were making better progress than Donovan had seemed to indicate?

  “So where is Sextant Two to be held?” Seeing Donovan hesitate, I added, “Or am I going to have to tune in to Radio Berlin to find out?”

  “I heard about what happened.” Donovan smiled. “One of those Secret Service idiots contacted me on the radio to check out your bona fides. A guy named Pawlikowski. As if one of my own people could be a spy.”

  I smiled politely and wondered what Donovan would say if he ever did find out that I had once spied for the NKVD.

  “In which case you won’t mind telling me where Sextant Two is going to take place.”

  “The Joint Chiefs are kind of itchy about the security situation here in Cairo,” said Donovan. “Everybody knows that the president and Churchill are here. But it wouldn’t do to let too many people in on the location for our next port of call.”

  “But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

  Donovan nodded. “It’s Teheran.”

  I pulled a face. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I am. Why? What do you mean?”

  “Whose brilliant idea was that? Iran is the most pro-German country in the Middle East, that’s why. The Joint Chiefs must be crazy.”

  “I had no idea that your knowledge of German affairs extended so far east,” observed Donovan.

  “Look, sir, the British invaded Iran, or Persia as it was then, to protect Russia’s back door. They deposed the last shah and put his son in his place. The Iranians hate the British and they hate the Russians. I don’t think there’s a worse place for a Big Three Conference.” I laughed with disbelief. “Teheran is full of Nazi agents.”

  Donovan shrugged. “I believe it was Stalin’s choice.”

  “There’s a Pan-Iranian neo-Nazi movement, and according to our sources, two of the ex-shah’s brothers were in Germany a while ago to enlist Hitler’s help in getting rid of the British.”

  Donovan continued to look unperturbed. “There are thirty thousand American troops in Iran and God knows how many British and Russians. I’d say that’s more than enough to ensure the security of the Big Three.”

  “And there are three-quarters of a million Iranians who live in Teheran. Very few of whom are on our side in this war. As for the tribesmen in the north of the country, they’re pro-Nazi to a man. If that’s Stalin’s idea of security, then he must have a screw loose.”

  “From what I’ve heard, he has. But don’t worry about it. All the leading pro-German leaders have been arrested.”

  “I hope you’re right, sir.”

  “Teheran’s as safe as we are here in Shepheard’s,” insisted Donovan.

  I glanced around the Long Bar. It was true, there were so many British and American uniforms I could easily have believed I was back in London.

  “So relax,” said Donovan. “See the sights. Enjoy yourself. They won’t need you very much at Mena House. Not unless you speak Chinese. Besides. I’ve got a job for you while you’re here. You brought that suitcase from General Strong?”

  My heart sank. “Yes, sir. It’s up in my room.”

  “Good. Tomorrow, we’ll take a ride over to Rustum Buildings. That’s where the Special Operations executive and British intelligence have their headquarters in Cairo. The sooner we get started on that Bride material, the better.”

  XVIII

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1943,

  VINNICA, UKRAINE

  THE GERMAN ARMY had hoped that withdrawing forces to the western bank of the Dnieper would provide them a respite from the Red Army, but Stalin had other ideas. Almost as soon as the withdrawal was completed, with enormous loss of life, he ordered his soldiers to attack. By November 6, Hoth’s Fourth Panzerarmee had been forced out of Kiev, and likewise the armor the Germans had concentrated on Zhitomir, a town eighty kilometers west of Kiev, with the aim of counterattacking the Russians. There was little appetite among German soldiers for a new offensive. The courage of the Wehrmacht was undiminished, but it was only those few reinforcements who had arrived from Germany and who lacked all experience of the Russian winter who were fanatical enough to believe that the war in Russia could still be won. Deeply demoralized, poorly equipped, and inadequately supplied, Germany’s soldiers—far from home in a vast and inhospitable country, and lacking any overall battle plan—faced an army that grew stronger every day, and for whom retreat now seemed impossible.

  Of all the problems that faced Manstein’s army, none was greater than Hitler’s vacillating leadership: just as the counterattack on Kiev seemed ready, Hitler ordered his armor south, to defend the Crimea, leaving Zhitomir to be captured by the Red Army. It was recaptured by the 58th Panzerkorps on November 17, but long before then the headquarters for Operation Long Jump had been shifted seventy-five kilometers south, to the village of Strizhavka.

  Strizhavka was the location of Hitler’s Wehrwolf Headquarters and close to Vinnica, a largish Ukrainian city with several cathedrals, a smaller, more parochial version of Kiev. The city was the center of a Jew Free Zone ruled by the Reichkommisariat of the Ukraine, the Vinnica Oblast. Some 200,000 Jews from Vinnica and the surrounding areas—some from as far afield as Bessarabia and northern Bukovina—had been murdered at the local brickworks and in the Pyatnychany Forest. Every one of Strizhavka’s 227 Jews had been “evacuated” before Hitler’s Ukrainian headquarters were built. Death, it was said by the local people, was a way of life in the Vinnica Oblast.

  Even as Schellenberg was driven from the airport to the country house on the edge of the Yuzhny Bug River, where the Special Section from Friedenthal was now stationed, an execution was taking place at a gibbet erected in the main square of Vinnica. Six terrorists from the Trostyarets partisans were seated on the edge of a truck with nooses around their necks—seated because they had been brutally tortured and none of them was able to stand.

  “Do you want to watch, Herr General?” asked the SS sergeant driving the surprisingly luxurious Horch that had fetched Schellenberg from the airport.

  “Good God, no.”

  “It’s just that these are the bastards who murdered and mutilated some friends of mine. All we found were their heads. Four of them
. They were in a box with the word ‘shit’ painted on it.”

  Schellenberg sighed. “Get out and watch, if you must,” he sighed impatiently.

  The sergeant left Schellenberg alone in the back of the car. He lit a cigarette and placed his pistol on the seat beside him, just in case the partisans had any friends ready to attempt a revenge attack or carry out a robbery—the trunk of the car contained a box of gold he had brought from Berlin to reward the Kashgai tribesmen of northern Iran. He even removed his cap to make his rank seem less obvious, and, turning up the collar of his leather coat, tried to stay warm. Outside the car it wasn’t much above freezing, and a layer of damp fog hung over the town, chilling his bones and penetrating the distributor on the execution truck, which appeared to be having some trouble starting. Schellenberg laughed scornfully and shook his head. Serves the army right for trying to make a show of it, he thought; better to shoot a man and have done with it instead of this performance. Himmler would not have agreed with him, of course. Himmler was all for making an example of the victims of Reich justice. Which probably explained why, after Hitler, he was the most hated man in Europe. Not that he seemed to be aware of the loathing with which he was held, even in Germany. And it seemed ludicrous to Schellenberg that the Reichsführer-SS should ever have believed that the Allies might choose to make a peace with him instead of Hitler. There was no doubt in Schellenberg’s mind; at some stage, Himmler would have to be removed.

  It wasn’t just the Reichsführer’s lack of realism, or his continuing, debilitating loyalty to the Führer that offended Schellenberg’s scheming mind. It was also his apparent prevarication. Even now, Himmler wanted Operation Long Jump to proceed only as far as parachuting the team into Iran; the final order—if it ever came—to assassinate the Big Three was to be withheld until the last possible minute, much to Schellenberg’s irritation. He and Himmler had argued about it the day before his departure.