“We must evaluate the likely consequences of such a meeting with geopolitical realism, before goading the Japanese into a precipitate reaction. When I met Tojo and Togo in Teheran to settle the question of our respective spheres of interest, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading them against adding the vast Indian subcontinent to their empire. I will not flatter myself that it was my forceful arguments alone that won the day. I must assume that Foreign Minister Shigenovi Togo’s better counsels prevailed over his Premier’s military ambitions and that he had no more appetite than I had for a common frontier between our two great empires. Nor must we forget that Russia’s Far Eastern armies were at that very time launching the first of their unexpected counterattacks west of Khabarovsk and threatening the Japanese supply line from Vladivostok.
“Now, as to this Kabul meeting between Molotov and Cripps, there can only have been two possible purposes behind it. One would be to trick King Zahir Shah into believing that the independence of his kingdom was threatened and to invite him to throw in his lot with Russia and Britain, thereby opening the possibility of a land link between the Russian armies east of the Caspian and the British-held warm-water ports of northwest India. The other possibility is that they have offered the landlocked monarch the whole of Baluchistan, with its seaboard, as the prize for turning his country into an Anglo-Soviet redoubt. Either way, I am not seriously concerned by such paltry intrigues and I have every hope that our Japanese ally will take a similarly detached view. Europe and the Middle East are now secure for all time against anything our enemies can throw at us. Every attempt by Stalin’s generals to retake Gorki or to breach the Volga south of Engels has failed. My one fear—that Japan might provide Roosevelt with the excuse he so desperately wants for entering the war—has been put to rest by the Teheran declaration that neither of its signatories has designs on American interests in any part of the globe. We are told that when Churchill read that passage he described it as a pledge by two jackals not to eat meat. To that I can only reply, ‘What jackal in its right mind would bother about poisoned meat, when it has a larder overstuffed with prime venison?’ ”
The long motorcade winding its way up the steep mountain road to Obersalzberg was led by the big Mercedes sedan with Kempka at the wheel, Adolf Hitler seated beside him, and the jump and rear seats occupied by Bormann, Keitel, Rattenhuber and Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. The road twisted through pine woods most of the way to the 2,000-foot-high mountain valley where the Berghof complex began, with occasional breaks in the trees affording ever-more-breathtaking views of the Bavarian Alps. All snow had been cleared from the road and from around the green-painted concrete guard-houses manned by SS troops at every vantage point on the way up. Away ahead of the motorcade, and bringing up its rear, rumbled the Leibstandarte troop-carriers and SS officers’ jeeps.
In the fourth automobile behind the Fuehrer’s, Kurt was wedged in the rear seat between Captain Rudolf Geissler and Captain Peter Waldheim, respectively Hitler’s Army and Luftwaffe junior adjutants, with the bulky bespectacled Doctor Theodor Morell up front beside the SS driver. “For this dispensation,” Waldheim had muttered to Kurt as they settled in the car, “we thank thee, O Lord!” And the young officer had pushed home the point by delicately pinching his nostrils between thumb and forefinger. Kurt breathed a pious “Amen!” He was grateful for the Chancellery protocol that gave him the companionship, at times like this, of the Fuehrer’s younger adjutants, with both of whom he now enjoyed that rare Chancellery phenomenon, an easy and friendly relationship. He had remarked, glancing back through the rear window at the line of Berghof-based limousines moving off from the railroad station forecourt, “It’s a bit like a funeral procession, after the corpse has been tucked safely away. Is this about average for a Berghof house party?” Rudolf Geissler had waggled his palm. “Give or take a dozen or so, yes. But we’re only the advance guard. Reichsmarschall Goering and his entourage are expected in a couple of days’ time, though the Goerings have their own place here, thank God. The Doctor’s bound to come down for a day or two, and there’ll be a stream of Gauleiters and Reichsleiters trotting in and out with their fat wives and presents over the next week or two.”
“What about Fräulein Braun? I didn’t see her getting on the train at Berlin.”
“She’ll be following with the Chief’s secretaries and probably will have to make herself scarce—poor bitch—whenever the bigwigs’ wives put in an appearance. Which reminds me, Peter—” Geissler leaned across Kurt to grin at his colleague— “did you manage to contact that redhead at the Berchtesgaden Hof?”
“I wrote to her,” Waldheim grunted. “Got a nice letter back, from one of the SS Lebensborn maternity homes. Seems there’s a future recruit for the Leibstandarte due any day now.”
“The bastards,” Geissler sighed. “I swear there’s not an unmarried wench over fourteen around these parts who hasn’t done her duty by at least half-a-dozen of the boys in black.”
The motorcade had now turned into the mountain valley that was the site of Hitler’s Bavarian retreat and had slowed down to allow the Fuehrer a few words with the Leibstandarte Sturmbannjuehrer greeting him at the opening in the two-mile wire fence enclosing the inner area. It was the second fence they had passed through. The first one, as Waldheim had explained, was nine miles in circumference and encircled the vast complex of guesthouses, office buildings, barracks and garages that had been added over the fifteen years since the then thirty-nine-year-old leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party first rented the modest Villa Wachenfeld, as the original chalet was called, for $25 a month. Captain Waldheim, clearly as much to irritate Doctor Morell as to brief Kurt on his surroundings, was describing the lay-out as they drove into the valley.
“If you look hard up there you might just make out the shape of an exceedingly well-camouflaged building housing the main secretariat. The pine trees almost screening it are, of course, completely artificial, but the snow is real. . . . Over there to the right, visible only to the tutored eye, is the main barracks of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, a hand-picked regiment of Germany’s finest soldiers. Ah yes, and now we come into sight of the magnificent Berghof itself. You can make out the guesthouse, over there on the right, built to accommodate distinguished foreign visitors but shortly to vibrate with the snores of our Feldmarschaelle and Reichsminister. Out of sight at the moment is the rather more unpretentious establishment in which lesser mortals such as you, Armbrecht, and myself are to be accommodated. . . . Please note the broad flight of stone steps leading up to the front porch of the Berghof. It was on the fifth step up, on a wet afternoon in September 1938, that the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, nearly slipped and broke his umbrella as he climbed up to meet our Fuehrer. There is no truth whatsoever in the story that the step had been greased five minutes earlier by Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler. . . .”
To Kurt, with one eye on Morell’s reddening neck, it came as a relief when the doors of the car were swung open by guards, and the motorcade’s passengers piled out onto the driveway to watch the Fuehrer’s slow ascent between the two closed ranks of SS honor guards lining the wide stairway. As if by prearrangement, a shaft of sunlight had broken through the clouds to sparkle the silver buckles and facings on the immaculate black uniforms of the bodyguard, with their uniform blue eyes and uniform frozen features. At the top of the steps, framed by the overhanging timbered eaves of the chalet rooftops, Hitler turned and, as his immediate entourage fanned out to either side of him, raised his arm in smiling salute to the company assembled below in the driveway. Kurt’s own arm shot up in “the German salute,” his voice drowned in the loud chorus of “Heil Hitler!” As the Fuehrer turned away he felt Waldheim’s hand on his arm. “This way, Armbrecht. There should be a bottle of Schnapps in my room—unless my orderly wants a posting to the eastern front.”
They had arrived at the Berghof on Friday, December 10, 1943, and over the foll
owing twelve days Kurt’s only contact with his family, less than a hundred miles away in Munich, was by letter and an occasional telephone call—a privilege grudgingly granted by the chief operator of the Berghof switchboard. Any hopes he had of getting away to spend Christmas—or rather “Yuletide,” as the feast was now officially renamed—with them were dashed on the Monday following his arrival, when Martin Bormann summoned him to his office in the secretariat wing of the great chalet. Hitler’s secretary seemed to be in a relaxed and amiable mood—lending credence, perhaps, to the Berghof gossip about his having recently acquired a young mistress, a film actress, with the enthusiastic approval of his wife, Gerda.
“Sit down, Armbrecht, sit down. . . . And how are you enjoying our fine mountain climate?”
“Very much, Herr Reichsleiter. Memories of one’s youth and all that.”
“That’s right,” Bormann nodded. “You were born in these parts, of course.” Exploiting the opening, Kurt put in quickly, “In Munich itself, Herr Reichsleiter. My family still lives there.”
“Of course.” But Kurt might have been saying they lived in Timbuctoo, for all the significance it had for the bull-necked Bormann, who had plucked a small note pad from his side pocket and was flipping lazily through the leaves.
“The Fuehrer is concerned about not having been able to spare you more time over the past few months, but I imagine you’ve found plenty to occupy yourself with?”
“Indeed I have, Herr Reichsleiter. In fact I’ve completed a first draft covering the period 1933 to the fall of Moscow. I have it with me here, if you or the Fuehrer would like to—”
Bormann’s vigorous headshake cut him short. “Don’t even mention it to the Fuehrer. That’s an order, Armbrecht!”
“I’m sorry. I was merely keeping you in—”
“I know. And I appreciate it. Perhaps I shall even find time to look through your draft while we’re on the mountain, but I can’t promise anything. I’d better explain why we mustn’t impose any literary labors on the Fuehrer at this time, apart from his routine discussions with you—one of which, incidentally, you will be summoned to before lunch tomorrow.” Bormann got up from his desk, gesturing to Kurt to stay seated, and began to pace up and down in a stiff-legged and totally unconvincing imitation of Hitler’s catlike tread.
“The fact of the matter, Armbrecht, is that the Fuehrer has lately begun to preoccupy himself with one of the most fundamental of the challenges still facing National Socialism. As you know, these past few months have been dedicated by the Fuehrer to laying the physical and economic foundations of the Greater German Reich and to attending to such unfinished business as the Jewish problem, the question of racial hygiene and the final subjugation of our enemy across the English Channel. Which reminds me—” He broke off to stride back to his desk, take a large photographic print out of one of the drawers and toss it, smiling broadly, to Kurt’s side of the desk.
“Our Yuletide present to Winston Churchill! And a box of cigars for you, Captain, if you can guess what it is.”
Kurt’s frown deepened as he studied the photograph. It had been taken from ground-level and showed what appeared by reference to the trees in the background to be a small rudimentary aircraft, more like a glider than a powered machine, with blunted wing tips and a slim windowless fuselage. The aircraft was poised halfway along an upward-sloping ramp, upon what looked like a narrow railroad track. He looked up at the grinning Deputy Fuehrer. “I can’t make it out. It looks like a large-scale working model of something, but—” He shook his head, helplessly.
“You are looking,” Bormann said, chuckling, “at one of the secret weapons that are going to bring Britain to its knees in 1944 without the loss of a single German soldier in combat. The first of our Vergeltungswaffen, Armbrecht. A pilotless plane, radio-controlled to fly to any preselected target in Britain and dive straight down on it, exploding its warhead on contact.”
Kurt pursed his lips in a slow curling whistle as he looked down again at the photograph. “Fantastic!” he breathed. “A suicide Stuka dive bomber, but without the suicide!”
“Precisely. And now that I’ve let you in on the secret, perhaps you will understand why you cannot leave the mountain until the Fuehrer gives the order for our little reindeer to unload their first gifts on London.”
He had as yet made no formal request for leave. But he had tentatively broached the possibility with Fräulein Eppler the previous day, and she had obviously reported the request to Bormann. He said, “Of course, I appreciate that, Herr Reichsleiter. May I ask if there is a date in mind?”
“You may not. But I can tell you this: We shall all have something to celebrate by Yuletide.” Bormann reached for the photograph and put it back in the drawer. “But this is not the reason I sent for you. I was telling you about the Fuehrer’s current preoccupations, because it is important you should prepare your mind for a new and vitally important development. In a word, Armbrecht, our Fuehrer has decided to apply himself to the solution of the religious problem.” Bormann paused, staring hard at Kurt, as if expecting an instant reaction, and the young Captain could only stare back at him, feeling inadequate. What was there to say? The Fuehrer was going to tackle the Church. But that was already written large on the wall of National Socialist philosophy. True, it had not yet figured high in the order of priorities ... He said, “This is tremendous news, Herr Reichsleiter. Not unexpected, of course, but—well—”
“Not quite at this stage, you were going to say? And yet, when you think about it, Armbrecht—” Bormann had resumed his ponderous pacing—“what better time than this Yuletide of 1943, when all the Fuehrer’s enemies have been crushed, or are about to be crushed, by our invincible Wehrmacht and the priests in their pulpits are preparing to spew out their nauseating drivel about ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’? I don’t mind telling you, Armbrecht, that I have worked day and night over these past months to reduce the mountain of executive decisions piling up from our secular achievements—” Bormann uttered a harsh little laugh as the phrase formed itself—“so as to free the Fuehrer to grapple with their spiritual implications.” The notebook was out again, for a swift entry across one of the pages, and Kurt seized the opportunity to blurt out the question now uppermost in his mind.
“About preparing myself for tomorrow, Herr Reichsleiter— had you any specific study in mind?”
“Brush up your facts. You’ll find most of the relevant data in the dossiers I myself have been keeping over the years. At your disposal is a complete copy of them in the secretariat reference library. Familiarize yourself as thoroughly as you can with the infrastructure of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Europe, so as not to hold up the Fuehrer’s discourse with unnecessary requests for clarification. Don’t worry about dogma. That’s not in your province.” He looked pointedly at his watch. “You worry about the facts,” he nodded as Kurt came smartly out of his chair. “The Fuehrer and I will take care of the theology.”
It turned out that Hitler had hardly progressed in his thinking about the religious “problem” beyond the sweeping generalities of Mein Kampf. But the change in his general bearing, which Kurt had first begun to notice after Hitler’s return from the Teheran meeting with General Tojo, had become even more marked.
He received Kurt in his spacious second-floor study with its two picture windows framing the distant Austrian Alps, and his first words were obviously prompted by Kurt’s look of surprise at finding him in the civilian clothes of a Bavarian country gentleman.
“To all intents and purposes, the war is over, Armbrecht. I made a vow to remain in uniform until our enemies were defeated in the field. I shall now wear it only for public appearances and to reassure visiting foreign dignitaries that it has not been put away in mothballs.”
Equally surprising was the complete absence of maps either on the Fuehrer’s desk or on the polished rectangular table parallel to the book-lined wall on the right as one entered the room. There were several thi
ck volumes stacked on the desk, with colored leather bookmarks in place, and a bowl of roses occupied one corner. The sanctum gave the appearance of belonging to a rather literary country squire, perhaps even a university professor with a private income. It was as congruous to a war lord as a friar’s tonsure would be to a Viking.
Less surprising, because of the subtle changes Kurt had already noticed in Hitler’s demeanor, was the impression he now had, as the Fuehrer motioned him to a stiff-backed armchair at the far end of the table, of being received in audience by a genial headmaster rather than the volatile human force whose very presence in the Berlin Chancellery had seemed to permeate every corridor and anteroom. Hitler looked well, and he lost no time in preening himself on the fact.
“I have a new doctor,” he declared in answer to Kurt’s respectful compliment. “Don’t let on to Morell, but he’s going to find himself out of a 60,000-marks-a-year job at the end of the year. All those drugs he’s been putting into me all these years— nothing but palliatives! My stomach cramps stopped within a week of giving up my vegetarian diet—just as my new physician said they would. As for Morell’s miracle pills, my valet Linge now has an extra duty—to flush them down the lavatory pan!”
But the change in Hitler was more than physical. His victories in the East, followed by the conquest of the Middle East and the Teheran Treaty with Japan, seemed to have had the effect of smoothing off the jagged edges of his personality. The mesmeric intentness of his stare, the harsh clamor of his voice—hitherto his unfailing weapons against doubt or dissent—were now replaced by an aura of serene self-assurance, suggesting an interior exaltation rooted in grace. Hitler embarked on his monologue.
Hitler Has Won Page 10