by Jack Higgins
The first person to emerge was the man who at that time was acting-commandant of the island, Hans Neuhoff, a full colonel of artillery. Like Steiner, a Winter War veteran, wounded in the chest at Leningrad, he had never recovered his health, his lungs damaged beyond repair, and his face had the permanently resigned look of a man who is dying by inches and knows it. His wife got out of the car after him.
Ilse Neuhoff was at that time twenty-seven years of age, a slim, aristocratic-looking blonde with a wide, generous mouth and good cheekbones. Most people turned to look at her twice and not only because she was beautiful, but because she usually seemed familiar. She had enjoyed a successful career as a film starlet working for UFA in Berlin. She was one of those odd people that everyone likes and she had been much in demand in Berlin society. She was a friend of Goebbels. The Führer himself had admired her.
She had married Hans Neuhoff out of a genuine liking that went far beyond sexual love, something of which he was no longer capable anyway. She had nursed him back on his feet after Russia, supported him every step of the way, used all her influence to secure him his present post, had even obtained a pass to visit him by influence of Goebbels himself. They had an understanding—a warm and mutual understanding and it was because of this that she was able to go forward to Steiner and kiss him openly on the cheek.
‘You had us worried, Kurt.’
Neuhoff shook hands, genuinely delighted. ‘Wonderful work, Kurt. I’ll get a signal off to Berlin at once.’
‘Don’t do that for God’s sake,’ Steiner said in mock alarm. ‘They might decide to send me back to Russia.’
Ilse took his arm. ‘It wasn’t in the cards when I last read Tarot for you, but I’ll look again tonight if you like.’
There was a hail from the lower landing stage and they moved forward to the edge in time to see the second recovery boat coming in. There was a body on the stern deck covered with a blanket and Sergeant Altmann, another of Steiner’s men, came out of the wheel-house. ‘Herr Oberst?’ he called, awaiting orders.
Steiner nodded and Altmann raised the blanket briefly. Neumann had moved to join Steiner and now he said bitterly, ‘Lemke. Crete, Leningrad, Stalingrad—all those years and this is how it ends.’
‘When your name’s on the bullet, that’s it,’ Brandt said.
Steiner turned to look into Ilse Neuhoff’s troubled face. ‘My poor Ilse, better to leave those cards of yours in the box. A few more afternoons like this and it won’t be so much a question of will the worst come to pass as when.’
He took her arm, smiling cheerfully and led her towards the car.
Canaris had a meeting with Ribbentrop and Goebbels during the afternoon and it was six o’clock before he could see Radl. There was no sign of Steiner’s court martial papers.
At five minutes to six Hofer knocked on the door and entered Radl’s office. ‘Have they come?’ Radl demanded eagerly.
‘I’m afraid not, Herr Oberst.’
‘Why not, for God’s sake?’ Radl said angrily.
‘It seems that as the original incident was concerned with a complaint from the SS, the records are at Prinz Albrechtstrasse.’
‘Have you got the outline that I asked you for?’
‘Herr Oberst.’ Hofer handed him a neatly typed sheet of paper.
Radl examined it quickly. ‘Excellent, Karl. Really excellent.’ He smiled and straightened his already immaculate uniform. ‘You’re off duty now, aren’t you?’
‘I’d prefer to wait until the Herr Oberst returns,’ Hofer said.
Radl smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘All right, let’s get it over with.’
The Admiral was being served with coffee by an orderly when Radl went in. ‘Ah, there you are, Max,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Will you join me?’
‘Thank you, Herr Admiral.’
The orderly filled another cup, adjusted the blackout curtains and went out. Canaris sighed and eased himself back in the chair, reaching down to fondle the ears of one of his dachshunds. He seemed weary and there was evidence of strain in the eyes and around the mouth.
‘You look tired,’ Radl told him.
‘So would you if you’d been closeted with Ribbentrop and Goebbels all afternoon. Those two really get more impossible every time I see them. According to Goebbels we’re still winning the war, Max. Was there ever anything more absurd?’ Radl didn’t really know what to say but was saved by the Admiral carrying straight on. ‘Anyway, what did you want to see me about?’
Radl placed Hofer’s typed outline on the desk and Canaris started to read it. After a while he looked up in obvious bewilderment. ‘What is it, for God’s sake?’
‘The feasibility study you asked for, Herr Admiral. The Churchill business. You asked me to get something down on paper.’
‘Ah, yes.’ There was understanding on the Admiral’s face now and he looked again at the paper. After a while he smiled. ‘Yes, very good, Max. Quite absurd, of course, but on paper it does have a kind of mad logic to it. Keep it handy in case Himmler reminds the Führer to ask me if we’ve done anything about it.’
‘You mean that’s all, Herr Admiral?’ Radl said. ‘You don’t want me to take it any further?’
Canaris had opened a file and now he looked up in obvious surprise. ‘My dear Max, I don’t think you quite get the point. The more absurd the idea put forward by your superiors in this game, the more rapturously should you receive it, however crazy. Put all your enthusiasm—assumed, of course—into the project. Over a period of time allow the difficulties to show, so that very gradually your masters will make the discovery for themselves that it just isn’t on. As nobody likes to be involved in failure if he can avoid it, the whole project will be discreetly dropped.’ He laughed lightly and tapped the outline with one finger. ‘Mind you, even the Führer would need to be having a very off-day indeed to see any possibilities in such a mad escapade as this.’
Radl found himself saying, ‘It would work, Herr Admiral. I’ve even got the right man for the job.’
‘I’m sure you have, Max, if you’ve been anything like as thorough as you usually are.’ He smiled and pushed the outline across the desk. ‘I can see that you’ve taken the whole thing too seriously. Perhaps my remarks about Himmler worried you. But there’s no need, believe me. I can handle him. You’ve got enough on paper to satisfy them if the occasion arises. Plenty of other things you can get on with now—really important matters.’
He nodded in dismissal and picked up his pen. Radl said stubbornly, ‘But surely, Herr Admiral, if the Führer wishes it …’
Canaris exploded angrily, throwing down his pen. ‘God in heaven, man, kill Churchill when we have already lost the war? In what way is that supposed to help?’
He had jumped up and leaned across the desk, both hands braced. Radl stood rigidly to attention, staring woodenly into space a foot above the Admiral’s head. Canaris flushed, aware that he had gone too far, that there had been treason implicit in his angry words and too late to retract them.
‘At ease,’ he said.
Radl did as he was ordered. ‘Herr Admiral.’
‘We’ve known each other a long time, Max.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So trust me now. I know what I’m doing.’
‘Very well, Herr Admiral,’ Radl said crisply.
He stepped back, clicked his heels, turned and went out. Canaris stayed where he was, hands braced against the desk, suddenly looking haggard and old. ‘My God,’ he whispered. ‘How much longer?’
When he sat down and picked up his coffee, his hand was trembling so much that the cup rattled in the saucer.
When Radl went into the office, Hofer was straightening the papers on his desk. The sergeant turned eagerly and then saw the expression on Radl’s face.
‘The Admiral didn’t like it, Herr Oberst?’
‘He said it had a certain mad logic, Karl. Actually, he seemed to find it quite amusing.’
‘What happens now, Herr O
berst?’
‘Nothing, Karl,’ Radl said wearily and sat down behind his desk.
‘It’s on paper, the feasibility study they wanted and may never ask for again and that’s all we were required to do. We get on with something else.’
He reached for one of his Russian cigarettes and Hofer gave him a light. ‘Can I get you anything, Herr Oberst?’ he said, his voice sympathetic, but careful.
‘No, thank you, Karl. Go home now. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Herr Oberst.’ Hofer clicked his heels and hesitated.
Radl said, ‘Go on, Karl, there’s a good fellow and thank you.’
Hofer went out and Radl ran a hand over his face. His empty socket was burning, the invisible hand ached. Sometimes he felt as if they’d wired him up wrongly when they’d put him back together again. Amazing how disappointed he felt. A sense of real, personal loss.
‘Perhaps it’s as well,’ he said softly. ‘I was beginning to take the whole damn thing too seriously.’
He sat down, opened Joanna Grey’s file and started to read it. After a while he reached for the ordnance survey map and began to unfold it. He stopped suddenly. He’d had enough of this tiny office for one day, enough of the Abwehr. He pulled his briefcase from under the desk, stuffed the files and the map inside and took his leather greatcoat down from behind the door.
It was too early for the RAF and the city seemed unnaturally quiet when he went out of the front entrance. He decided to take advantage of the brief calm and walk home to his small apartment instead of calling for a staff car. In any case his head was splitting and the light rain which was falling was really quite refreshing. He went down the steps, acknowledging the sentry’s salute and passed under the shaded street light at the bottom. A car started up somewhere further along the Tirpitz Ufer and pulled in beside him.
It was a black Mercedes saloon, as black as the uniforms of the two Gestapo men who got out of the front seats and stood waiting. As Radl saw the cuff-title of the one nearest to him, his heart seemed to stop beating. RFSS. Reichsführer der SS. The cuff-title of Himmler’s personal staff.
The young man who got out of the rear seat wore a slouch hat and a black leather coat. His smile had the kind of ruthless charm that only the genuinely insincere possess. ‘Colonel Radl?’ he said. ‘So glad we were able to catch you before you left. The Reichsführer presents his compliments. If you could find it convenient to spare him a little time, he’d appreciate it.’ He deftly removed the briefcase from Radl’s hand. ‘Let me carry that for you.’
Radl moistened dry lips and managed a smile. ‘But of course,’ he said and got into the rear of the Mercedes.
The young man joined him, the other got into the front and they moved away. Radl noticed that the one who wasn’t driving had an Erma police sub-machine-gun across his knees. He breathed deeply in an effort to control the fear that rose inside him.
‘Cigarette, Herr Oberst?’
‘Thank you,’ Radl said. ‘Where are we going, by the way?’
‘Prinz Albrechtstrasse.’ The young man gave him a light and smiled. ‘Gestapo Headquarters.’
Four
WHEN RADL WAS USHERED into the office on the first floor at Prinz Albrechtstrasse, he found Himmler seated behind a large desk, a stack of files in front of him. He was wearing full uniform as Reichsführer SS, a devil in black in the shaded light, and when he looked up the face behind the silver pince-nez was cold and impersonal.
The young man in the black leather coat who had brought Radl in gave the Nazi salute and placed the briefcase on the table. ‘At your orders, Herr Reichsführer.’
‘Thank you, Rossman,’ Himmler replied. ‘Wait outside. I may need you later.’
Rossman went out and Radl waited as Himmler moved the files very precisely to one side of the desk, as if clearing the decks for action. He pulled the briefcase forward and looked at it thoughtfully. Strangely enough, Radl had got back some of his nerve, and a certain black humour that had been a saving grace to him on many occasions surfaced now.
‘Even the condemned man is entitled to a last cigarette, Herr Reichsführer.’
Himmler actually smiled, which was quite something considering that tobacco was one of his pet aversions. ‘Why not?’ He waved a hand. ‘They told me you were a brave man, Herr Oberst. You earned your Knight’s Cross during the Winter War?’
‘That’s right, Herr Reichsführer.’ Radl got his cigarette case out, one-handed, and opened it deftly.
‘And have worked for Admiral Canaris ever since?’
Radl waited, smoking his cigarette, trying to make it last while Himmler stared down at the briefcase again. The room was really quite pleasant in the shaded light. An open fire burned brightly and above it there was an autographed picture of the Führer in a gilt frame.
Himmler said, ‘There is not much that happens at the Tirpitz Ufer these days that I don’t know about. Does that surprise you? For example, I am aware that on the twenty-second of this month you were shown a routine report from an Abwehr agent in England, a Mrs Joanna Grey, in which the magic name of Winston Churchill figured.’
‘Herr Reichsführer, I don’t know what to say,’ Radl told him.
‘Even more fascinating, you had all her files transferred from Abwehr One into your custody, and relieved Captain Meyer, who had been this lady’s link man for many years, of duty. I understand he’s most upset.’ Himmler placed a hand on the briefcase. ‘Come, Herr Oberst, we’re too old to play games. You know what I’m talking about. Now, what have you got to tell me?’
Max Radl was a realist. He had no choice at all in the matter. He said, ‘In the briefcase, the Reichsführer will find all that there is to know except for one item.’
‘The court martial papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Steiner of the Parachute Regiment?’ Himmler picked up the top file from the pile at the side of his desk and handed it over. ‘A fair exchange. I suggest you read it outside.’ He opened the briefcase and started to extract the contents. ‘I’ll send for you when I need you.’
Radl almost raised his arm, but one last stubborn grain of self-respect turned it into a smart, if conventional salute. He turned on his heel, opened the door and went out into the ante-room.
Rossman sprawled in an easy chair reading a copy of Signal, the Wehrmacht magazine. He glanced up in surprise. ‘Leaving us already?’
‘No such luck,’ Radl dropped the file on to a low coffee table and started to unbuckle his belt. ‘It seems I’ve got some reading to do.’
Rossman smiled amiably. ‘I’ll see if I can find us some coffee. It looks to me as if you could be with us for quite some time.’
He went out and Radl lit another cigarette, sat down and opened the file.
The date chosen for the final erasing of the Warsaw Ghetto from the face of the earth was the 19th April. Hitler’s birthday was on the 20th and Himmler hoped to present him with the good news as a suitable present. Unfortunately when the commander of the operation, SS Oberführer von Sammern-Frankenegg and his men marched in, they were chased out again by the Jewish Combat Organization, under the command of Mordechai Anielewicz.
Himmler immediately replaced him with SS Brigadeführer and Major-General of Police, Jurgen Stroop, who, aided by a mixed force of SS and renegade Poles and Ukrainians, applied himself seriously to the task in hand: to leave not one brick standing, not one Jew alive. To be able to report to Himmler personally that The Warsaw Ghetto is no more. It took him twenty-eight days to accomplish.
Steiner and his men arrived in Warsaw on the morning of the Thirteenth Day on a hospital train from the Eastern Front bound for Berlin. There was a stopover time of between one to two hours, depending on how long it took to rectify a fault in the engine’s cooling system, and orders were broadcast over the loudspeaker that no one was to leave the station. There were military police on the entrances to see that the order was obeyed.
Most of his men stayed inside the coach, but Steiner got out to stretch
his legs and Ritter Neumann joined him. Steiner’s jump boots were worn through, his leather coat had definitely seen better days and he was wearing a soiled white scarf and sidecap of a type more common amongst NCO’s than officers.
The military policeman guarding the main entrance held his rifle across his chest in both hands and said roughly, ‘You heard the order, didn’t you? Get back in there!’
‘It would seem they want to keep us under wraps for some reason, Herr Oberst,’ Neumann said.
The military policeman’s jaw dropped and he came to attention hurriedly. ‘I ask the Herr Oberst’s pardon. I didn’t realize.’
There was a quick step behind them and a harsh voice demanded, ‘Schultz—what’s all this about?’
Steiner and Neumann ignored it and stepped outside. A pall of black smoke hung over the city, there was a crump of artillery in the distance, the rattle of small arms fire. A hand on Steiner’s shoulder spun him round and he found himself facing an immaculately uniformed major. Around his neck was suspended on a chain the gleaming brass gorget plate of the military police. Steiner sighed and pulled away the white scarf at his neck exposing not only the collar patches of his rank, but also the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves for a second award.
‘Steiner,’ he said. ‘Parachute Regiment.’
The major saluted politely, but only because he had to. ‘I’m sorry, Herr Oberst, but orders are orders.’
‘What’s your name?’ Steiner demanded.
There was an edge to the colonel’s voice now in spite of the lazy smile, that hinted at the possibility of a little unpleasantness. ‘Otto Frank, Herr Oberst.’
‘Good, now that we’ve established that, would you be kind enough to explain exactly what’s going on here? I thought the Polish Army surrendered in ’thirty-nine?’
‘They are razing the Warsaw Ghetto to the ground,’ Frank said.
‘Who is?’
‘A special task force. SS and various other groups commanded by Brigadeführer Jurgen Stroop. Jewish bandits, Herr Oberst. They’ve been fighting from house to house, in the cellars, in the sewers, for thirteen days now. So we’re burning them out. Best way to exterminate lice.’