Throughout the Reich, and notably in Bavaria and the Rhineland, the Catholic communities were packing the churches in response to a call from the priests for “continuous prayer for the safety of the Holy Father.” There were reports of troops quitting their barracks to join in the vigil and of individual commanders deliberately closing an eye to this insubordination. Millions of Catholic foreign workers in the war factories and on the farms were either downing tools or “going slow,” and the Gauleiter offices were being besieged by jittery employers and district Party leaders calling for urgent SS reinforcements. “If only half of these demands were to be met,” Obergruppenfuehrer Rudolf Brandt cabled his chief Himmler, “we should have to deprive the Eastern Command of ten Waffen SS divisions.” Himmler’s answer, “Do the best you can, pending an imminent decision by the Fuehrer,” was pure temporizing. Like Keitel, Bormann, Goering and Ribbentrop, he had been denied all contact with Hitler since the invasion of the Vatican Palace and the expulsion of Pius XII. The cardinals had now been “walled up” in the first-floor conclave area of the Sistine Chapel and the adjoining apartments. On the third floor, behind a Leibstandarte cordon under personal command of Oberfuehrer Rattenhuber, who had flown in to take over from the temporarily incapacitated Voegler, Hitler and Giovanni Donati were said to be fasting and praying. The rest of the vast Apostolic Palace and its adjoining museums had been cleared of all Vatican functionaries and sealed off. A Leibstandarte Guard had been put on the Palazzo Santa Martha, where the ambassadors from the free world were confined, and an SS cordon circled the “Casina” of Pius IV, where the Nazi chieftains could be seen slumped in chairs on the terrace or nervously pacing the surrounding lawns, their eyes constantly seeking the roof of the Sistine Chapel and the smoke signal that would release the Fuehrer from his crazy, self-imposed vigil.
Partly to kill time, but mostly for the sheer anticipatory thrill of it, Hermann Goering had sent for the official catalogues of the Picture Gallery and the Museum of Antique Sculpture and had drooled over them, inside the Piccolo Casino for a whole morning, ticking off for future reference a Raphael masterpiece here, a Praxiteles statue there. He was humming to himself as he pondered the relative values of a Titian and a Caravaggio when Heinrich Himmler stopped by the marble-topped table where the catalogues were spread out.
“Making out another shopping list for Karinhall?” the Reichsfuehrer SS asked, tartly.
Goering looked up at the round-shouldered little Bavarian who had taken over control of the Gestapo from him ten years ago; but if he was expecting a disarming smile, he was disappointed.
“I would counsel,” he growled, “a little more respect for the Deputy Fuehrer, my dear Heinrich.”
“Respect has to be earned,” Himmler snapped, as, with a last contemptuous glance at the catalogues, he marched on out of the room.
In the library of the Villa Torlonia, Mussolini was talking over the private telephone line to his mistress, Claretta Petacci, at her parents’ house overlooking Rome from the top of Monte Mario.
“Do you want me to come to you?”
“Not now, piccolo. I’ve got to work this out for myself. But what do I tell them?”
“Why not tell them the truth, that Hitler’s gone mad?”
“Do you want me shot, Clara?”
“He wouldn’t dare! You are the Duce!”
“And Pacelli was the Pope, remember? . . . I’m living a nightmare, piccolo! Everything I’ve fought for . . . everything I’ve achieved . . .”
“Fly to Cairo. Go to Badoglio!”
“You want me shot, Clara?”
The circumstances of Pope Pius’s expulsion from the Vatican were the subject of a special directive from the office of Reichsminister Goebbels to all German newspapers, news agencies and radio stations. Acting swiftly on his own initiative, the Doctor hammered out a text—“for inconspicuous presentation in all media”—attributing the Pope’s yielding up of the Holy Office to “a sudden and grave physical and mental incapacity.” Because of the importance placed by the Fuehrer on the question of a suitable successor, the Fuehrer would remain in Rome for discussions with whomever the Conclave elected. No mention was to be made of Pius XII’s present whereabouts.
The story appeared on the day Kurt Armbrecht returned to Berlin from his tour of the military command centers, which had ended, as Donati had directed, in the Paris headquarters of General von Stuelpnagel in the Majestic Hotel. He had spent an hour, making his report to the general. When he was finished, and Stuelpnagel had put away his notes, they talked for another half hour or so. From what Kurt had learned then, together with this news from Rome, the pattern of the plot to overthrow Hitler was now almost all of a piece.
He had telephoned Fräulein Eppler from the Europaeischer Hof to tell her that he was back and that he wanted to rest up in the hotel for at least a couple of days before resuming work in the Chancellery. He hadn’t spoken yet to Helga. When he did, it would be to tell her that the affair was over and that he was no longer in love with her—which, true as it was, now happened to be only one of his reasons for ending the involvement. In the meantime, he had to catch up with what had been happening inside the hierarchy during his month’s absence from Berlin.
Peter Waldheim, the young Luftwaffe officer, now a major, met him in the downstairs lobby and leaped at Kurt’s suggestion that they should dine at Zum Schwarzen Ferkel, a stone’s throw away on the Dorotheenstrasse.
“So you’ve noticed her, too—you randy bastard!”
“Noticed who, for God’s sake?”
“The redhead on the cashier’s desk. Who else?”
“Must be new. Last time I was there, there was only this old hag with a mustache.”
The redhead gave them a sexy smirk as the aged waiter led them to a deserted corner of the restaurant, and for the next five minutes Kurt had to compete with her for Waldheim’s attention.
“Look, she’s not going anywhere, Peter! Can I crave just a fraction of your time?”
“Sorry, Kurt. You were saying—?”
“I wasn’t saying, I was asking. How’s the general morale inside the Chancellery?”
“Awful, and getting worse by the hour. Our offensive in the east is practically back to where it started and no one can get to the Chief. The Yankee aircraft carriers are pounding the shit out of the Japs in the Philippines and practically the entire Italian fleet has gone over to Badoglio. Churchill’s in Washington, cooking up something nasty for us with Roosevelt. War production in the Reich has dropped to about half capacity, and Albert Speer’s threatening to resign if the Chief doesn’t put the Pope back where he belongs.”
“What are the odds against that happening?”
“If you mean against the Chief coming to his senses, I’d say a hundred to one. According to Julius Schaub, he’s now completely around the bend and is convinced he’s a second Jesus Christ!”
“Well, what’s the leadership doing about it—waiting for him to produce a miracle?”
Waldheim grimaced in disgust. “What do you expect from that bunch of lily-livered self-seeking yes-men. If anyone’s going to get us out of this mess it’ll have to be the generals.” He lowered his voice. “They’ve been in and out of Halder’s office in the War Ministry today like a bunch of traveling salesmen. Something’s cooking, all right.”
“Like what, do you suppose?”
“Like the Wehrmacht taking over from the Party, what else? Like setting up a Reich Defense Council and inviting the Fuehrer to take a long holiday at Obersalzberg.”
“The Party would never stand for it, Peter. Himmler would have the generals’ heads off in a flash.”
“Don’t make me laugh! We’re talking about the Wehrmacht High Command, not a bunch of SA perverts. Little Heinie would be bargaining for his own neck, the minute the Council took over. Come to that,” he added, grinning, “so might you and I, my lad!”
“Speak for yourself. I’ll be in Argentina, writing my memoirs for the highest bidder.”<
br />
“Best of luck to you. They just came into the war an hour ago—on the Allies’ side.”
Later that night, impelled by an urge to unburden himself, Kurt gave his friend the true account of the events leading to Walter Armbrecht’s arrest. By the time Kurt finished, Waldheim’s face was a mask of pent-up hatred.
“That swine!” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ll get him, Kurt, one of these dark nights on the mountain—I swear it!”
“It won’t help my father, Peter, or I’d have done it myself.” “Leave it to me. I’m posted back to the Berghof tomorrow. I’ll be there when the circus returns from Rome.”
President Roosevelt was resting after his second round of talks with Winston Churchill and their respective military staffs, when his valet came softly into the room.
“Mister Hull wishes to speak to you most urgently, Mister President. He has Mister Ernle Massingberd with him.”
“Massingberd?” The President grunted, heaving himself into a sitting position and reaching for his pince-nez spectacles. “What’s he doing here? He should be in Madrid.”
“Can I do anything for you, sir?”
“You can pass me my cigarettes, and that holder over there.” Roosevelt forked a hand through his rumpled thin gray hair and gave out a long sigh. “And you’d better show the gentlemen in.”
Cordell Hull came in first. He was shaking his head and muttering, “Incredible . . . quite incredible!” as though he had just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Behind him, solemn as a judge, came Ambassador Massingberd, the wealthy fifty-five-year-old Baltimore Catholic sent by Roosevelt to Madrid after the fall of Gibraltar. After advancing to the bedside to shake hands with the President, Massingberd lowered himself into a nearby chair, while Hull explained his presence in Washington.
“It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard, Mr. President! But it hangs together in a weird kind of way, and if it really is true, we’re going to have that bastard Hitler over a barrel.”
“It’s not my bedtime yet, Cordell, but I guess I was always a sucker for fairy tales. Let’s have it, gentlemen.”
“It all started with a telephone call to the Madrid Embassy three days ago from a Spanish-speaking woman who gave the name of—what was it, Ernle?”
“Graciella. Just that.”
“Right. She wanted to meet with the ambassador on a matter of vital interest to the United States government, but in view of the well-known fact that our embassy in Madrid had been under day-and-night surveillance by Nazi agents since Hitler declared war, the meeting would have to take place somewhere else and in complete secrecy. So Ernle talked it over with our security people, and they decided it was too risky for him to keep a rendezvous on his own—which this woman was insisting on—and that if she had anything to say she had better say it inside the Embassy. She was given this answer when she came on the line again, half an hour later. Shortly after that she presented herself at the Embassy. She wouldn’t have a secretary in Ernle’s office, but she finally agreed to his daughter, Margaret, taking notes for him. And she started off by stating that she was a German by the name of—of—”
“Sophie Armbrecht,” Massingberd supplied.
“—Sophie Armbrecht, and that she was acting on behalf of the special papal legate to Hitler’s headquarters, none other than Giovanni Donati!” Cordell Hull paused for effect. Satisfied by Roosevelt’s slow, smoke-laden whistle, he went on: “Then she told her story. It’s—” he broke off again, throwing up his hands —“well, all I can say, F.D., is, prepare yourself for one of the most fantastic tales you’ve ever heard. Over to you, Ernle.”
The ambassador was beginning to feel the effects of his long flight via Sweden, Iceland and Newfoundland. But he straightened up in his chair, cleared his throat, and then told the story more or less as he had heard it from the pale and beautiful girl who had walked into his office three days ago.
Monsignor Donati had been leading Hitler step by step to his doom since their first meeting in the Retiro Park on May 17 of that year. But the events that had started the Italian priest on his lonely and perilous path went back earlier, in particular to the imposition of the “Bormann Prayer” on the parish priests of Germany. This, more than any other single breach of the 1933 Concordat, had finally convinced Donati that the Nazi leadership was set on a collision course with the Roman Catholic Church, which would be reduced to a servile role in the abominable European New Order.
Any illusions that Donati might have indulged about the overthrow of Hitler by force, either from within or from outside of Fortress Europe, had been shattered by conversations he had had with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris during the Abwehr commander’s frequent visits to Madrid in 1943. He and the little, beetle-browed secret-service chief had established a rapport based at first on a common enthusiasm for Aranjuez asparagus—supplied daily, in season, to the nunciature—and later, as mutual trust developed, on a shared belief that Hitler’s power mania would one day lay Germany and most of Europe in ruins. Canaris was at pains to assure his Italian friend that he was a loyal patriot who believed in Germany’s right to be the dominant power in Europe and the colonizer of the eastern territories. Where he parted company with the Nazis was over their treatment of the defeated European democracies and their contemptuous underestimation of the United States. What was needed now was a policy of conciliation and consolidation, but there was no hope of this while Hitler held the reins of power and the German people were united behind him. Only in defeat, or as the result of some unforeseeable miracle, would the Wehrmacht generals summon up the courage to wrest power from Hitler and his gang. But defeat was unthinkable, and Canaris didn’t believe in miracles.
Donati did. Which is why, on the evening of May 17 that year, he knelt down to pray before setting off for the reception in the Retiro park.
“I don’t know whether he got this particular inspiration while he was praying,” Ernle Massingberd went on, “but it certainly did the trick. He met Hitler, went out of his way to show that he had no bad feelings toward him, and as he moved on he murmured, just for Hitler’s ears, ‘Your epitaph, my Fuehrer, is already written—the fourth sentence of The Magnificat.’ Well, Mister President, that’s a prayer I happen to know by heart, and I guess this Fräulein Armbrecht—who is a staunch Catholic, by the way —was quite impressed when I recited the fourth sentence.”
“You have the advantage of me,” Roosevelt murmured.
“Well, it goes: ‘He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.’ It seems that Donati kept an eye on Hitler from the distance and saw him send Bormann off on an errand and, five minutes later, saw Bormann hand Hitler a piece of paper. Next thing, Donati was being led to an open stretch of lawn, where Hitler joined him behind a barrier of bodyguards and the two of them walked up and down, talking for about a quarter of an hour. This was when Donati clinched his appointment as special papal legate to Hitler. He told him everything he wanted but never expected to hear from the lips of a dignitary of the Church. He not only was the savior of Europe but was clearly inspired by the Almighty in everything he did and would be preserved to fulfill his last great mission on earth, which was to reform and revitalize the Faith into which he was baptized and to create a European civilization based on a fusion between the doctrines of National Socialism and a new Roman Catholic theology.
“Well, Mister President, we don’t need Fräulein Armbrecht to tell us that Hitler gobbled down Donati’s bait—hook, line and sinker. What I wanted to know was, who else was in the plot? And, how could Donati, reputedly one of the most pious of priests, take the risk of unleashing such a madman upon the Vatican? This is what she told me. She said that Donati acted entirely on his own for the first couple of months, just feeding Hitler bigger and bigger doses of this monstrous heresy. At no time—right up to the present—has he confided his plan to anyone in th
e Vatican, for the very good reason that to do so could lead to his immediate recall to Rome. He was guiding Hitler, step by step, to the brink. He would push him over and there’d be an almighty crash in which a lot of people, not least of them Donati himself, would get badly hurt. But the Church itself would be saved, which is all that matters to this extraordinary man.
“However, it had become pretty obvious to Admiral Canaris that his friend was up to something, and when Donati returned to Berlin after his first abortive mission to the Vatican the two of them had a meeting. But Donati admitted nothing. Even when Canaris gave him the names of a dozen key generals, starting with Halder, who were now convinced that Hitler was off his rocker and were actively plotting his removal, Donati remained cagey. He told Canaris not to go off half-cocked, or words to that effect. The time was not yet ripe. The people were still behind their Fuehrer and the Party leadership was still firmly in the saddle. The signal for action, when it came, would come from Rome. It would be unmistakable, for it would take the form of blue-white smoke. Until then, and regardless of what happened in the meantime, the generals must hold their hand.
“It was shortly after this, and a few weeks before Hitler had his first audience with the Pope, that Sophie Armbrecht and her brother Kurt—Hitler’s so-called ‘literary assistant’—were taken into Donati’s confidence. I should explain here, Mister President, that these two young people, for reasons I shall go into later, are ready to go to any lengths to bring about an early collapse of the Nazi regime. Anyway, having apparently satisfied himself about this, Donati gave Fräulein Armbrecht a job to do for him in Madrid and asked her brother to contact certain Catholic commanders of the Wehrmacht and then make a confidential report to General von Stuelpnagel in Paris—one of the key people in the Canaris conspiracy.
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