Traitor's Gate

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘I want to see this through. Did Oster say whether he would let me join the raiding party?’

  ‘He will. I’ll get you a uniform and some papers and introduce you to Heinz.’

  Conrad smiled. Finally he was to be allowed the chance to do something real to right the wrongs of the Third Reich. He appreciated the enormity of what he had volunteered to do: it would change the course of history, he hoped and prayed, for the better.

  Because Conrad’s intention wasn’t just to help Theo and his compatriots storm the Chancellery. Oster’s plan was that in the confusion of the arrest, someone would shoot Hitler. Conrad was determined that he would be that someone, even if he lost his life in the process.

  34

  Theo’s alarm went off at six o’clock. As he rolled over to turn it off, his nostrils caught a trace of Sophie’s perfume on his pillow. She had come around unexpectedly the night before and had stayed a few hours. There had been something unusually passionate, almost desperate, about their lovemaking. Theo smiled at the memory of it. Sophie really was a sexy little thing. Pity she was so dumb.

  He hauled himself out of bed. He had a busy day ahead of him. General Beck’s nocturnal discussion with Lord Halifax seemed to have done the trick. In the two days since the general’s visit, British resolve had hardened, making it almost certain that Hitler would order Case Green for the invasion of Czechoslovakia the following day, the 28th. And when he did, the conspirators would be ready.

  Theo washed, pulled on his uniform and, just before leaving his apartment, dug out his briefcase from the bottom drawer of the sideboard, where it nestled underneath a folded tablecloth. He pulled out a small key from his trouser pocket and unlocked it. The notebook was still there, where he had put it the previous night when he had finished working on it. Comforted, he snapped the case shut and left for Abwehr HQ.

  While the rest of the world prepared for war, Conrad had spent the two days cooped up in Captain von Both’s apartment. When the superintendent of the building asked the captain about his visitor, von Both used the story about Conrad being a friend on leave. He embellished it by saying that Conrad was recovering from an illness, which was why he spent so much time indoors instead of enjoying the sights of Berlin, or indeed returning to his regiment, when every other soldier in Germany was on the move.

  The enforced solitude gave Conrad time to think. He thought of Anneliese, but also how, with a lot of luck, he might soon be able to avenge her and the thousands like her who had been destroyed by Hitler. He found it hard to control his impatience, to just sit and wait.

  But there was another thought that troubled him, something harking back to his first days in Berlin.

  Theo came to see him at about eleven in the morning with a uniform and some papers.

  ‘Here you are. Lieutenant Eiche, 14th Artillery Regiment. Born in Hamburg, 1911.’

  ‘A gunner? I know nothing about artillery.’

  ‘You know nothing about anything military. If you are going to be a German soldier you will have to walk around as if you have a ruler crammed up your arse. Seriously, for the next couple of days you had better concentrate on standing up straight.’

  ‘When do I join the raiding party?’

  ‘This afternoon. I’ll take you there; Captain Heinz is expecting you. It looks like we move tomorrow.’

  Conrad smiled. ‘Excellent.’

  ‘I’ll see you about two o’clock, then,’ said Theo.

  ‘Theo, before you go. I’ve been thinking about something these last few days, something that bothers me.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Joachim. We never really satisfied ourselves about who spoke to Schalke about him. I thought it was you; then I suspected Anneliese. Both of those suspicions were wrong.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Theo thoughtfully. ‘So who else can it have been?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I have been thinking. What about Sophie?’

  ‘No,’ said Theo firmly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Two reasons. Firstly, she definitely doesn’t speak English. And secondly, she was in the Ladies when Joachim was talking about the plot.’

  ‘Are her family Nazis?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Theo. ‘I have scarcely ever met them. But yes, I suspect that her father is. But then so are many millions of people in Germany. And believe me, Sophie has no interest in politics.’

  ‘Does she know that you are involved in the plot?’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Theo indignantly. ‘She knows I’m doing something secret, but I’ve told her that I’m working on war plans. She’s happy with that. Look here, Conrad, this is absurd. She wasn’t there, so how could she possibly know what Joachim said?’

  ‘Perhaps Anneliese told her afterwards.’

  ‘Anneliese? Why should she do that?’

  ‘They were friends. At that stage Anneliese had no idea that you were really involved in anything. It was interesting gossip. Why shouldn’t she tell Sophie all about it?’ Conrad sighed. ‘I just wish it was still possible to ask her.’

  Theo shook his head, his lips pursed in anger.

  ‘I remember thinking it was a coincidence that it was Klaus Schalke who arrested Joachim and me,’ Conrad went on. ‘At the time I was suspicious of Anneliese, because of course she knew Schalke. Anneliese told me that the two people who stood by her after her boyfriend was killed in the concentration camp were Sophie and Schalke.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Which means that they almost certainly know each other. Which means that when Sophie heard about Joachim’s rumour she turned to the one Gestapo officer she already knew and trusted: Klaus Schalke.’

  ‘Now you really are stretching your imagination.’

  ‘And which also means that if Sophie discovers there really is a plot, she might go and talk to Schalke about it again.’

  ‘Totally ridiculous!’ Theo said, raising his voice. ‘I know Sophie. If she did overhear something I was doing, she wouldn’t trouble herself to worry about what it was. She has no interest in what I do. And she wouldn’t betray me.’

  ‘Are you sure, Theo?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Theo. He turned to leave, and then hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Theo?’

  ‘Well... I have a notebook. It contains all our plans. There’s too much to memorize; I have to write the details down somewhere. I’m very careful with it: I keep it in a filing cabinet in the Abwehr HQ, and when I take it home I keep it locked in my briefcase.’

  ‘Have you lost it?’

  ‘No. But I took it home last night, and this morning when I got to the office and opened it, I found a hair stuck in one of the pages. A blonde hair.’

  ‘Sophie’s?’

  Theo shrugged.

  ‘Was Sophie with you last night?’

  Theo glanced at Conrad, his brow furrowed in concern. ‘Yes. Yes, she was.’

  Warren turned the corner from Unter den Linden on to Wilhelmstrasse, and hurried to secure himself a good vantage point in the Wilhelmplatz from which he could see the balcony of the Chancellery. It was a starkly modern building, less than ten years old, but already the present Chancellor had outgrown it. For nine months workmen had been building a newer, grander Chancellery next door, and it was nearly finished. The cost was rumoured to be three hundred million marks.

  Poor Vernon Sherritt’s father had clung on to life longer than expected, and so Vernon had been delayed. He wasn’t sailing from New York until the following day. This meant that when war was declared, Warren would be his newspaper’s correspondent in Berlin rather than back in Prague. Although sorry for his boss, Warren was happy with this turn of events. Unlike Hitler, he thought it would take months, not days, before the Germans marched into Prague.

  War looked to be a certainty. In the last few days, following Hitler’s unreasonable demands at Bad Godesberg, the British government had foun
d its backbone at last. The journalist rumour mill was working at maximum speed as newspapermen in London and Berlin pieced together what was happening. The day before, Lord Halifax had issued a press release, apparently with the assistance of Churchill, in which he stated baldly that if the Germans attacked Czechoslovakia the immediate result would be that France would come to her assistance, and Britain would stand by France. Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain’s shadowy adviser, had travelled to Berlin to bring Hitler the news that the Czechs had rejected his demands. Hitler had tried to storm out of his own office in fury, but realizing this was pretty silly, threw Wilson out instead. The previous evening Warren had seen the Führer give a speech at the Sportpalast, where he had worked himself up into the worst paroxysm of fury that Warren had ever witnessed. He had promised that if the Czechs didn’t hand over the Sudetenland by 1 October, Germany would take it by force. The French had mobilized fourteen divisions, and the first rumours were just coming through from London that the Royal Navy had been mobilized too.

  It was war.

  But for some reason, overnight, the German people seemed to have lost all their belligerence. The jaunty air of anticipation had left the streets, to be replaced with sullen caution. People walked differently. Faces that had been purposeful the day before were now anxious.

  The Wehrmacht’s divisions were on the move, and Warren knew that one of them had been ordered to march through the city at five o’clock, the time when the streets were thronged with Berliners going home from work. Ordinarily large crowds would have gathered to watch, but this time there were only a couple of hundred people standing outside the Chancellery. Warren was in a good spot to view the balcony, just outside the Kaiserhof Hotel. He spotted Bill Shirer, the CBS correspondent, and one or two other foreign journalists, but for once they seemed more excited than the natives.

  The troops arrived, on foot, on horseback, in trucks, an endless stream of young men staring straight ahead towards war. The crowd, such as it was, remained absolutely silent. The tramp of feet, the clopping of hooves, the grinding of engines seemed unnaturally loud without its usual accompaniment of cheering. Warren saw the doors up on the balcony of the Chancellery open, and Hitler appeared, bare-headed. He gazed at the troops marching along on the street below, and at the small gathering of people opposite. Not an arm was raised in salute. There was not a Sieg Heil to be heard. The crowd looked away, as if embarrassed. Hitler turned sharply on his heel and withdrew.

  It was one of the most extraordinary sights Warren had seen since he had been in Berlin. Perhaps the most bellicose people in Europe didn’t want war after all.

  As Warren made his way back to his apartment, he became aware of an envelope sticking out of his jacket pocket, bearing his name in familiar handwriting. He opened it. Inside was a note and another, smaller envelope, addressed to Lord Oakford in Kensington Square in London.

  He scanned the note. It was from Conrad asking him to ensure that the envelope was delivered to his father without the German censors seeing it.

  Conrad! How the hell had the envelope got into his jacket pocket? Warren glanced rapidly around him, but all he saw was a mass of Berliners hurrying home, their faces pinched with worry.

  For a moment the journalist in him was tempted to steam open the envelope: he had no idea what the contents were, but he knew they would be interesting. But he resisted the temptation. He was probably the only person in Berlin Conrad could trust, and he wasn’t going to let him down.

  35

  The Kakadu was nearly empty; Berlin wasn’t in the mood to go out and dance that night. Conrad hadn’t been there since that fateful evening in June. The blonde and brunette barmaids chatted idly to each other. The band played listlessly, and only two couples occupied the dance floor, by the look of them Eintänzer, employees who were paid to dance with customers. There were some drinkers dotted around the tables, and one of them was Theo.

  Conrad threaded his way through the tables towards his friend, feeling conspicuous in the uniform he had been wearing for the last five hours.

  ‘Ah, Lieutenant Eiche, good evening. Have some champagne.’ Theo, too, was wearing uniform. He poured Conrad a glass of ‘champagne’, the mildly alcoholic sparkling apple juice that the Kakadu had resorted to in those times of shortage. ‘How was Captain Heinz?’

  ‘He seems very capable,’ Conrad said. ‘And very tough.’ He had spent the evening with Heinz and about forty young German officers, going through the plans for the following day. ‘The others are all staying in various flats around Wilhelmstrasse tonight. I’m going back there after this. Are you joining us tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Theo. ‘I’ll meet you at army headquarters at six a.m.’

  ‘Are you certain it’s going ahead?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Theo. ‘Hitler has publicly committed himself to invading before 1 October. Case Green calls for two days’ preparation before the invasion. If he intends to invade on the thirtieth, that means he must issue the orders tomorrow, the twenty-eighth. And he told the British that he expects to hear back from the Czechs by two p.m. on the twenty-eighth.’

  ‘What if the British give in? Or the Czechs?’

  ‘They won’t. The British have just given the order to mobilize their fleet. Your father was right: Halifax was the man to persuade. And the Czechs are brave. As for Hitler, he’s equally determined.’ Theo smiled. ‘No, tomorrow is the day.’

  Conrad sipped his champagne. He didn’t want to drink too much: he hadn’t had much sleep over the last couple of days, and it was unlikely he would get much that night. ‘Are you sure you want me here when you talk to her?’

  ‘Yes. And I think this is the right place. I know Sophie. This will bring back Joachim. By the way, she told me she wouldn’t be able to meet me until eleven because her shift at the hospital finished at ten. I checked. She was off at four.’

  ‘So where has she been?’

  ‘That’s something else I will ask her. Look out, here she comes.’

  Conrad’s back was towards the entrance of the bar, and he didn’t turn around. He heard Sophie’s light step draw near behind them. ‘Hello, darling,’ she said, and kissed Theo on the cheek. She turned to greet the stranger, and then stopped when she saw Conrad.

  ‘Hello, Sophie,’ he said.

  ‘Conrad! I thought the Gestapo were after you?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘And what are you doing in that uniform?’

  ‘Conrad is doing me a favour, darling,’ Theo said.

  Sophie reddened and sat down. ‘Pour me some champagne, please, Theo.’

  Theo obliged and she took a large gulp.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Theo asked mildly.

  ‘At the hospital, I told you.’

  ‘That’s funny, they said you finished at four when I went round there today.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sophie, blushing again. ‘Um... I had to cover for Susanne. Her mother is ill.’

  ‘I see.’ Theo’s voice was still reasonable, almost kind. ‘And did you read anything interesting in my notebook?’

  ‘What notebook?’

  ‘The one I write my plans in.’

  ‘Your war plans?’

  ‘No, my coup plans.’

  Sophie looked at Theo and Conrad in panic. ‘I have to go,’ she said and scrambled to her feet.

  ‘Sit, Sophie,’ said Theo, his voice firm, but still not threatening. ‘Sit and tell me all about it.’

  A tear rolled down Sophie’s cheek. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Theo. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why did you do it, Sophie?’

  ‘I did it for the Führer. I had to do it. I couldn’t allow him to be kidnapped or killed. You must understand that.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared a fig about him,’ Theo said.

  ‘I always have,’ said Sophie. ‘Ever since I first saw him with my father in 1931. He’s an amazing man, Theo, a wonderful man. Just to hear him speak is incredible. He understands us, all of us. I don’t kn
ow how you could never see that.’

  Now it was Theo’s turn to look shocked. ‘You never told me you felt this way.’

  ‘Of course not. You wouldn’t have understood. Neither would Anneliese. Sometimes you intellectuals are just too clever for your own good; you can’t see the obvious.’

  ‘The obvious?’

  ‘That the Führer has saved Germany. That he will lead us to a glorious future if only we follow him.’

  ‘Did you talk to Klaus Schalke about Joachim and his idiotic rumour?’

  Sophie nodded. ‘Anneliese told me what she had overheard. She said he was planning to assassinate the Führer.’

  ‘And so Klaus killed him.’

  ‘Klaus said it was an accident. He said Joachim had a heart attack.’

  ‘While he was being drowned by Gestapo gorillas.’

  Sophie put her head in her hands. ‘I know. I feel very bad about that.’

  ‘And yet you spoke to Klaus again, didn’t you? Recently. About me.’

  Sophie looked directly at Theo. ‘I had to, don’t you see? I read your notebook. I knew what you were planning. And Klaus promised that you would be kept out of trouble. He also said he would get Anneliese out of the concentration camp.’

  ‘He was the one who put her in there,’ muttered Conrad.

  ‘But how could you do that to me?’ Theo said, his voice an angry growl. ‘I thought you loved me?’

  ‘Oh, I do, Theo, I do. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. For days I did nothing. But I couldn’t let you destroy the Führer. Then I thought: What would you do? I mean, if you had to choose between me and what you thought was your duty. I knew the answer and I made my decision.’

  Conrad could see that Theo was fighting to maintain his self-control. ‘So where have you just been, Sophie?’ he asked quietly.

  Sophie looked down. ‘With Klaus. Last night I took your keys and got out your briefcase. I copied out your notes, or some of them anyway, and then put everything back as I had found it. I gave my copy to him.’