The Seventh Secret

by Irving Wallace

  "Yet you have no evidence of actual instances when he might have appeared as Hitler's double?"

  "No, I don't," Josef Midler said a little unhappily. "I will say this. As the tempo of the war increased, my father was more frequently away and for longer and longer periods of time. In 1944, he was home only a few times, and then he was very close-mouthed. The last time I saw my father—I was just about eight years old—was in the final few months of the war. He came home to arrange for my mother, sisters, and myself to be taken to safety. He decided to move us to the Obersalzberg for the year after the war. I have some recollection that he was to go with us to the Obersalzberg when one afternoon four Gestapo agents arrived to take my father away once more. This was on orders from Hitler. I never saw my father again. He never caught up with us in the Obersalzberg. I have no idea what happened to him."

  Controlling her excitement, Tovah asked, "Do you remember the date when your father was taken away the last time?"

  "Not the exact date, but I believe it was in the final days of April 1945. The war ended a week or so after that. But my father had vanished and we never heard from him again."

  Tovah inclined her head understandingly. The timing was perfect. Everything seemed to fit in sequence.

  She studied the troubled Josef Müller. Then she blurted out her next question. "Could your father have been taken to Hitler in the Führerbunker and been with him to the end?"

  Josef Mailer looked surprised. "My father and Adolf in the bunker? Oh, I don't think so. There would have been no explanation for two Hitlers. Someone would have seen and known. What are you trying to say?"

  Tovah drew herself upright. "I think I'm trying to say that maybe your father was made to pose as Hitler and forced to kill himself to allow the real Hitler to live and get away."

  The possibility froze the younger Müller's features. "I—I don't think that would have been possible. I can't imagine it."

  "There are some people who do imagine it."

  Josef Müller tried to recover his composure. "You're saying that my father, made to play Hitler, killed himself—or was killed—and then cremated to deceive the victors? That this was a ruse thought up by Hitler so that he could survive? You think that is a possibility?"

  Tovah shrugged. "I don't know. I think that conceivably it could have happened. I haven't been able to prove it yet."

  Josef Müller rose to his feet, agitated.

  "I doubt if you'll ever prove it," he said. "I've read of Hitler's last period in the bunker. He was there, underground for weeks, never emerging. If Manfred Müller went down and entered the bunker as Hitler, it would have been assumed that Hitler had previously emerged and was now returning. I don't believe that ever happened.

  "Are you certain that Hitler did not leave the bunker in that last week of his life? Or was not seen by someone returning to the bunker?"

  Josef MüIler's agitation grew. "I'm not certain, of course. The only one who could be certain would be One of the SS or police guards outside the bunker in those last days who could swear that he had seen Hitler—or someone who looked like Hitler—enter the bunker near the very end. If you could find such a person, you might prove what you have imagined—that Manfred Müller went into the bunker while Hitler was still there, and that Manfred Müller died in Hitler's place. If you can find such a person . . ."

  "Maybe I can."

  "Then you may find out, once and for all, what happened to Adolf Hider—and—and, yes, what happened to my father. I wish you luck."

  An hour later, returning to the Kempinski hotel, Tovah Levine went directly to the second floor and pushed the buzzer outside Emily's suite. Seconds later, Tovah was admitted.

  "I was afraid you'd already be at the dig," said Tovah, catching her breath.

  "I was just leaving," said Emily, buttoning her raincoat. Restlessly, she went to the window and gloomily studied the wet street below. "My crew is out there digging away. I think the drizzle is subsiding. Maybe it'll stop altogether." She turned to face Tovah, who was standing in the middle of the sitting room. "You look like you have something on your mind, Tovah. Why are you here?"

  "I need your help. I think we can help each other. Can we talk a minute?"

  "Of course. Please sit down."

  Tovah plopped down on the sofa, waited for Emily to be seated. Hardly able to contain herself, Tovah said, "I just came from seeing Josef Müller."

  Emily was completely puzzled. "Who?"

  "The son of Hitler's double, Manfred Müller. The one who posed as Hitler during the Olympics."

  "Of course! My mind's been in ten different places. So you saw Müller's son? Did it get you any place? What happened to his father?"

  Breathlessly, Tovah recited details of her conversation with Josef Müller.

  Emily had been listening intently. Suddenly she said, "But the son doesn't know what actually happened to his father?"

  "Only that the Gestapo picked him up sometime during what history tells us was the last week of Hitler's life."

  "When Hitler was already in the bunker."

  "That's the point, Emily. If the real Hitler was down there all the time, without leaving and coming back—and yet Hitler was seen entering the bunker, it would mean another Hitler went down to join the real Hitler. If true, it would make all your conjecturing possible." She paused dramatically. "What we need is someone who saw Hitler enter the bunker—when Hitler was already in the bunker. An SS guard at the bunker entrance might know. You once mentioned meeting such a guard."

  "Yes, Ernst Vogel was there on guard duty."

  "Can I see him?" Tovah demanded. "Can you call Vogel for me?"

  Emily was already moving toward the telephone. "Let me call him right now and find out. Then we'll know. "

  Emily flipped to the back of her small address book, and immediately she dialed Ernst Vogel.

  She had him on the line, and Tovah came off the sofa to edge closer.

  After identifying herself, Emily proceeded to the main question. "Herr Vogel, a minor problem has come up for me about how long Hitler was down in the Führerbunker before he killed himself. I thought you might straighten me out."

  "I hope I can," said Vogel. "Please speak louder."

  Emily raised her voice. "According to the information we have gathered from at least twenty witnesses, Hitler moved from the Old Chancellery into the safer Führerbunker on January 16, 1945."

  "Approximately that time," agreed Vogel.

  "Now, we know that the last day Hitler was seen in the bunker alive," continued Emily, "was April 30, 1945."

  "Correct."

  "Very well. The question is—when was the last time Hitler was seen leaving the bunker for—for any reason, a walk, whatever—and seen returning to the bunker for good?"

  "Ah, that question. Not difficult to answer. Eva Braun went for her final walk outside the bunker into the Tiergarten on April 19. But it was too dangerous outside, and she quickly returned, never to leave again."

  "It is Adolf Hitler I'm asking about, Herr Vogel," said Emily impatiently. "When was the last time he went outside and then came back inside the bunker? According to our best informants, Hitler went outside the bunker at night to give his dog Blondi a stroll, or to watch Eva and two of his secretaries at target practice with their pistols on April 10. Then, on April 20, Hitler went through the tunnel to the Court of Honor of the New Chancellery to show himself at a reception for his fifty-sixth birthday, and newsreel cameras covered his appearance. Following that, he appeared outdoors in the garden beside the Führer bunker to pin decorations for heroism on twenty orphans who were members of the Hitler Youth. After that, he went down into the bunker to stay. That means he remained in the bunker from April 20 on, without ever going out again, for ten days, until his death. Or so say all our informants. Is that correct?"

  Emily waited tensely for agreement or contradiction.

  She heard Vogel say crankily, "They are all wrong, all of your informants are wrong. You say the la
st time Hitler went out and returned was April 20? No, that is absolutely wrong. I, myself, saw the Führer return from a walk outside the bunker with a young woman, probably one of his secretaries—I could not see her face—and go inside the bunker very late at night on April 28."

  Emily exchanged a flushed glance with Tovah, whose ear was near the receiver. "Wait a minute, Herr Vogel," Emily said. "Although all my other sources say that Hitler was never seen leaving the Führerbunker in the last ten days of his life there, you are saying he left and returned to the bunker just two days before his death."

  "Exactly what I am saying. I was standing on guard outside. Hitler himself was returning from somewhere, maybe a short walk, and was going down into the bunker. It was very late, and almost everyone below was asleep. I snapped to attention and gave the Führer a salute. He waved a hand absently at me and went on inside. It was the last time."

  "Two days before his death. Did you see him leave to take that walk?"

  "No, I wasn't on duty until just before he returned and went inside."

  "You did not see him leave, but you saw him return and go inside. Herr Vogel, you are positive it was Adolf Hitler?"

  "As positive as I am that I am me when I look into the mirror. It was Adolf Hitler, believe me, Fräulein Ashcroft. I can prove every word I say is true. I kept a duty log of all important arrivals and departures at the Führerbunker, with the exact time of comings and goings. If you have any doubts, I can show you the log. It is in storage with my extra books in the basement. If you will give me—say two hours—I can show it to you.

  Emily no longer had any doubts, but she said, "Thank you, Herr Vogel. I'll drop by in two hours."

  Emily hung up, a broad smile on her face as she met Tovah's gaze. "You know, Tovah, the person that Vogel saw enter the bunker two days before Hitler's end, don't you?"

  "Manfred Müller, no other," said Tovah happily.

  Rex Foster had telephoned Spandau Prison and asked to speak to the American director of the month, and his call had been transferred to Major George Elford, who spoke with a flat Midwestern accent.

  After identifying himself, Foster had explained his business. "Albert Speer may have left one of his architectural plans behind, one he had borrowed and probably showed to Rudolf Hess before he was released from prison in 1966. I was hoping to find it. I need it for a book."

  "Well, we have a lot of the prisoner's leftovers in storage, all right."

  "I was authorized to look into this by its rightful owner, the man who loaned the blueprint to Speer," Foster had said. "I'm speaking of Rudi Zeidler, who used to be one of Speer's ten assistants. I can have him call you—"

  "He already has," Major Elford had interrupted. "He left a message for me to admit you."

  "Also, I'd like to meet you," Foster had added. "Anything special in mind?"

  "Yes. I can tell you better in person."

  "Well, okay. How's eleven-thirty today?"

  "Fine. I'll be there."

  Coming away from the telephone in their bedroom, Foster had mused aloud to Emily, who had been dressing.

  "I wish I knew more about Spandau Prison. I know nothing about it except that the seven leading Nazis who escaped the death penalty at the Nuremberg Trials were sentenced to Spandau in West Berlin and checked in to serve their sentences in July of 1947. I hate to go anywhere so uninformed."

  "You don't have to be uninformed," Emily had said. "If you want to read up on Spandau, go and see my friend Peter Nitz at the Morgenpost."

  And that Foster had done. Nitz had received him at his editorial desk in the Axel Springer Verlag building, had scurried off to the newspaper's archive room be-hind the main lobby, and had returned with a bulging folder of clippings for Foster.

  Foster had read steadily until the time had come for him to set out for his appointment with Major George Elford in Spandau.

  Now, reclining in the back of a taxi, Foster was being driven into the British sector at the outskirts of West Berlin where that strangest of all prisons, Spandau, was located.

  As they rode along, Foster reviewed what he had absorbed from the clippings he had scanned in the newspaper's Spandau file.

  By now, Foster had a slight fix on it and felt more comfortable. Spandau was an old prison, built in 1881. When the Nazis claimed it, after coming to power in 1933, they nicknamed it The Red Castle. Shortly, it became the place where they detained the Reich's political prisoners before sending them off to concentration camps. It had been a prison with 132 cells for 132 prisoners, but at the time the four Allies took it over in 1947 to incarcerate the seven Nazi war criminals, Spandau was jammed with 600 prisoners. The Allies moved them all out, remodeled the dank site to assure supersecurity, and then moved in their seven war criminals.

  The control of Spandau had been a four-power operation from the start. A board of four directors—one each from the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union—ran the prison and met weekly. There were permanent prison guards representing all four powers inside the prison. The outside guards, thirty soldiers from each of the powers, rotated turns in protecting it on a monthly basis.

  On July 18, 1947, the seven condemned Nazis entered Spandau. Foster tried to remember their names: Rudolf Hess, Hitler's second deputy; Albert Speer, Hitler's principal architect and also minister of armaments; Erich Raeder, the Nazi admiral; Karl Döinitz, head of the Nazi navy and ruler of fallen Germany in the week following Hitler's death; Walther Funk, who ran the Reichsbank; Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth; Constantin von Neurath, onetime Nazi foreign minister.

  Raeder, Funk, and von Neurath had been paroled early because of their advanced years and growing infirmities, Foster recalled. Dönitz had served out his ten-year sentence and been released. Then, Speer and von Schirach, completing their twenty-year sentences, had been freed.

  That left one prisoner, Rudolf Hess, serving a life-time sentence. The entire four-power apparatus was kept up to look after one unrepentant ninety-one-year-old Nazi.

  Foster's taxi was rattling over a narrow street, and in moments it had drawn up before Wilhelmstrasse 23, which was Spandau Prison.

  Leaving the taxi, paying the driver, Foster turned around slowly to survey the scene of his appointment. The drizzle had ceased, but the red brick prison still glistened from the rain.

  The square compound was surrounded by both a wire fence and a high red brick wall. The solid double entrance gate and the brick facade had a medieval look to them. Inside the brick wall were concrete watchtowers manned by armed soldiers equipped with giant spotlights. The wire fence bore a sign in German and English: WARNING—DANGER—DO NOT APPROACH. GUARDS HAVE ORDERS TO SHOOT.

  Foster could make out the upper portion of what appeared to be a three-story prison beyond the one-story sentry house.

  Mildly intimidated, Foster crossed the sidewalk to the main gate and pressed a buzzer. A grilled wicket opened. Foster gave his name and stated his business. After a few seconds, the gate came slowly open and Foster entered. A warden and two American soldiers, blue-uniformed, machine guns slung over their shoulders, were waiting for him. He was asked to show some identification. He showed his passport. He was quickly searched. He was told to sign in. Finally he was turned over to a soldier who would take him to Major George Elford.

  Following the soldier, Foster passed through an enclosed courtyard and entered the administration building of the prison. The soldier spun to the left and pointed. "The prison director's office, sir." Foster rapped, a muffled voice answered, and Foster was shown into the room.

  The director's office was plain, undecorated, and Major George Elford was standing beside a golf bag that was propped against the wall. A wiry, leathery-faced man in his forties, Elford dropped his putter into the bag, came forward, pumped Foster's hand and indicated a wooden chair. He pulled another wooden chair opposite Foster and sat down.

  Foster pointed toward the window. "I'm astonished by the amount of security you've got out there."<
br />
  Elford gave an embarrassed shrug. "I'm not sure it's justified anymore. Maybe it was in 1947 when they locked up those seven Nazis. The four powers stuck them in this old prison facility to keep them out of sight of the German population who might have viewed them as martyrs. There were threats at that time that some of the fanatical Nazis still around might try to rescue them, and that went on through the years."

  "Actual threats?"

  "You bet. Our Allied intelligence uncovered a plot—I think it was back in 1955—that the Nazi Colonel Otto Skorzeny hoped to rescue several of the war criminals. He was good at that sort of thing. He's the one who rescued Mussolini from our troops in Italy. Skorzeny wanted to drop two helicopters into this prison's exercise yard when the inmates were out there. One planeful of Nazi fanatics was to try to fend off the Spandau guards, while the other plane was picking up the inmates and whisking them off. Fortunately, this plot was uncovered and our security was increased. The rescue attempt never came off. But this goes on all the time. As recently as 1981, five incurable Nazis in Karlsruhe were caught building up a cache of explosives to break into Spandau and pull out Hess. All five were arrested."

  "It must be easier, in 1985, with only Hess to guard in this huge place."

  "Yup, the deputy Führer, a ninety-one-year-old Hess. He's useless now. Except that he might make a good living symbol for neo-Nazi gangs. Anyway, I gather your main interest in Spandau Prison is Rudolf Hess."

  "Not Hess himself, as you know," said Foster. "Rather it's the missing bunker plan he may have in his possession that I'm after. I promised to explain the whole thing to you. Now I will, as briefly as possible. And then I hope that you can help me."

  Major Elford was biting off the tip of a cigar and lighting it. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

  Quickly, Foster told the American officer about himself, his book project, and the one missing plan. "Then," Foster went on, "Zeidler recalled that he had once loaned the entire batch of seven plans to Speer, while Speer was still here in Spandau serving out his sentence. Apparently, Speer maintained his interest in architecture and hoped to write something about his work."