Macrae was handed a cup of coffee by a secretary. He placed his briefcase on the table, sending a small cloud of dust into the air. His suit was smeared with mud and his face caked in dirt. His eyes looked out from the circular imprints of the goggles, giving him an unworldly appearance. He looked round the table. All the usual faces were there except Halliday. Macrae sat down, drew out a notebook from his briefcase and began his report.
In the early hours of the day before, 12 March, columns of German infantry and armour crossed the Austrian border on the Munich – Salzburg road, while at daybreak paratroops landed at Vienna airport. There was no opposition. The troops were garlanded with flowers by cheering crowds. Tank crews were given free fuel at roadside garages. Church bells rang in every village and town across Austria.
Hitler flew to Munich that morning, then drove in a motorcade across the frontier at his birthplace, Braunau, and spent the day in Linz, the town where he had grown up. As he walked through a throng of admirers in the main square that afternoon, hands reached out to touch him, grasping and pulling at his long grey overcoat. Small boys thrust autograph books at him, while schoolgirls curtsied and bobbed. Suddenly he began to cry, tears streaming down his face. The crowd drew back, surprised at such a display of emotion.
Later that day, Hitler had driven to a neighbouring village to lay flowers on his parents’ grave. In a speech that evening from the balcony of the Linz town hall, he declared that he had decided to return his beloved native country to the German Reich. Austria was to become part of Germany. The declaration was met with thunderous cheers.
Macrae paused and looked up from his notes.
“That all took place yesterday,” he said. “Having received the ambassador’s permission, I followed the invasion force by car. There were broken-down tanks and military vehicles all along the road. Once in Austria, the main problem was the crowds along the route. They would not let one pass. They thought I was German and kept giving me flowers and fruit.”
“No sign of any opposition?”
It was Halliday, who had slipped into the meeting late.
“Not where I got to,” said Macrae, “quite the opposite. But I hear it’s very different in Vienna.”
“That’s pretty clear, then,” said the ambassador. “A country that emerged from the wreckage of the war has thrown itself into the arms of its larger and more powerful neighbour. There was nothing we could have done about it and nothing we should do now but accept the situation. And may I say, this might make Hitler much easier to deal with. He’s got what he wanted, and if it’s the wish of the Austrian people, then who are we to argue?”
“A point of information,” said Halliday. “I hear the railway and bus stations in Vienna are jammed with people desperate to leave. Cars are pouring out of the city towards the Czech border. Worse still, there are mobs of Nazi thugs hunting down anyone deemed to be an enemy: Jews, Gypsies, the usual suspects. You’re not safe on the streets of Vienna unless you’re wearing a swastika armband.”
There was a silence. David Buckland raised his hand, looking enquiringly at the ambassador, who nodded.
“Can I ask whether HMG received any communication from the Austrian government during these events?”
Sir Nevile Henderson closed his eyes, rested his elbows on the table and placed his hands together as if in prayer.
“The Foreign Office received a cable from President Schuschnigg asking for assistance the night before the Germans moved. Lord Halifax replied that there was nothing we could do to guarantee Austria’s security.”
“Do we know what’s happened to the president?”
The ambassador was about to reply when Halliday cut in.
“He and his entire government are under house arrest. I hear they are all going to be sent to the Sachsenhausen camp.”
The ambassador looked around the room, the pallor of his face betraying irritation. Only Halliday and Macrae of those present had fought in the last war. And Halliday had paid the price. The man was an alcoholic wreck. The rest of them had no idea of the horror that had consumed the lives of so many hundreds and thousands of young men from every corner of the United Kingdom – English, Scots, Irish and Welsh.
And here were his staff, sitting around the table, doubt about HMG’s proclaimed and popular policy of appeasement written on their faces. They hadn’t talked to the widows and orphans left adrift by the slaughter, had they? Had they any idea of the numbers of maimed still hobbling around the streets holding out tin cans for charity? Had they ever visited the mentally scarred still lingering in squalid institutions far from the public gaze? No, of course not. Well, he, Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson, had visited such institutions and seen the madness inflicted by war. And he would do everything in his power to prevent it happening again. He stood up and closed the meeting.
Macrae went home to change his clothes, have a quick bath and eat some breakfast. Anger trumped his exhaustion. He had not slept for the best part of twenty-four hours, but he knew that if he put his head down for even a few minutes he would be asleep all day. Primrose told her circle of friends among the diplomatic wives that she had never seen him so angry. He had come into the house looking like a ghost, drunk the best part of a jug of coffee, gulped his way through a bowl of cornflakes, gnawed at an apple and departed, giving her a brief peck on the cheek.
“He said it was the saddest day of his professional life,” she told her friends. “He can’t stand Henderson, and the feeling is mutual. I fear for his job – just as I was getting to know you all too.”
Back in the embassy, Macrae told his startled secretary to take a long walk in the Tiergarten for at least an hour, then locked his office door, took the phone off the hook and sat at her desk in front of an Olivetti typewriter. He fed a sheet of paper into the machine and began pounding the keys like an enraged pianist.
Memorandum to the Secretary of State for War, The Hon. Leslie Hore-Belisha.
Copy: The Right Honourable Sir Nevile Henderson.
Macrae paused, lit a cigarette and rolled the paper out of the typewriter. He searched the side drawers of the desk until he found one containing carbon paper, then started again. He was going to need a copy.
Following the German takeover of Austria, I have drawn up first thoughts on the military consequences for HMG. The facts speak for themselves. I place them before you without comment.
The incorporation of Austria has given Germany an extra seven million people. Thus their population now totals 75 million versus 50 million in Great Britain.
The Austrian Army has sworn personal allegiance to Hitler, giving him an extra twelve infantry divisions.
Germany now has free access to large quantities of iron, steel and magnesite, all key raw materials for its rearmament programme.
That programme is proceeding at a rapid rate. The German Wehrmacht currently comprises 40 divisions at full strength, four of which are armoured. This does not include the recent addition of the Austrian divisions. By the autumn, at current rate of production, that will increase to 60 divisions, 72 including the Austrian army.
This compares to United Kingdom’s five front-line divisions. In case you doubt that fact, it comes from the Ministry of War in London. Our disarmament programme has also reduced our territorial reserves to eight divisions.
The Luftwaffe has 1,500 warplanes, ranging from fighters to heavy bombers.
The UK has 960 combat aircraft, none of which are a match for the Messerschmitt, Heinkel, Junkers and Focke-Wulf aircraft in the Luftwaffe.
The main German manufacturer of German weaponry, Alfred Krupp, has developed a new long-barrelled 88 mm anti-aircraft gun which has a wheeled undercarriage, giving the weapon great mobility. Six batteries have been sent to Spain for testing during the civil war there. The guns have proved surprisingly effective when used against tanks or infantry. Hitler has ordered their mass production and Krupp is already working on more advanced designs. The British army does not possess any comparable weapon.
Our only anti-tank gun, the Vickers QF 2-pounder, cannot penetrate the front armour of the latest German tanks. Our anti-aircraft guns have been criticised as hopelessly inadequate by a parliamentary subcommittee on defence affairs.
German U-boat production has tripled …
He stopped. There was a loud knocking at the door. Macrae heard Halliday’s voice. He let him in.
“I hear the furious sound of a typewriter,” said Halliday, setting a cup of coffee on the desk. “I thought you might need this.”
“Thanks,” said Macrae.
Halliday looked over Macrae’s shoulder.
“Interesting,” he said.
“It’s a military force comparison – now that they’ve got their hands on Austria.”
“I am sure they will be most interested in London,” said Halliday. “But there may well be an Anschluss closer to home. The ambassador, I hear, is making a formal complaint about you to the Foreign Office. He says the German authorities believe you are an obstacle to our policy of appeasement, and the ambassador agrees. He wants you withdrawn.”
Macrae picked up the coffee, drank it in one gulp and put the cup down.
“You know this for sure?”
“The Germans monitor our cable traffic to London, but they don’t have the codebook used for the ambassador’s communications.”
“And you do?”
“Let’s just say my own masters are very interested in the private views of the ambassador,” he said, smiling.
“I see. What do you suggest I do?”
“Nothing. Keep on doing exactly what you’re doing. And I wouldn’t mind a copy of that memo when you’ve finished.”
He closed the door quietly. A second later the door opened again and his head reappeared.
“When you’ve finished trying to change British foreign policy, may I suggest a prelunch drink at the Adlon?”
Macrae looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty.
“Give me an hour,” he said.
The Adlon bar was busy when Macrae arrived. He perched on a stool and placed his coat on the one next to him to reserve it. At the far end of the bar a middle-aged man was deep in conversation with a dark-haired woman whose face was obscured. The journalists were in their usual place. Businessmen were scanning menus over glasses of what looked to Macrae like gin and tonic.
He could do with one of those. He ordered a large measure for himself and asked the barman to pour the tonic to the brim of a long glass. He began to relax for the first time in almost two days. He had completed the memorandum, noting disparities of equipment right down to the marked difference between British and German shortwave radio sets and the quantity of ammunition held in reserves.
It probably wouldn’t do any good, because he was only telling his own government what they secretly knew but refused to admit publicly. The one encouraging thought was that he had sent the memo directly to the secretary of state for war. Leslie Hore-Belisha was an unusual choice for the post. He was Jewish and as such subject to the anti-Semitism so prevalent among the English upper classes – or so Macrae had heard. Hore-Belisha was a believer in rearmament, but the prime minister had already rebuffed his plans for the introduction of conscription and turned down a proposal to increase weapons manufacture.
The cable had been sent in code to the secretary of state, copied to Sir Nevile. There had been a little difficulty with the cable clerk, because all such communications to London were supposed to be signed off by the ambassador. Luckily, Sir Nevile was out of town and Macrae was able to plead the urgency of the information.
There would be a hell of a row. Macrae realised he might well prove to be the most short-lived military attaché in the history of the diplomatic service. He didn’t care. He turned as Halliday slipped onto the stool beside him, pointed to his glass and said to the barman, “Same again for him and likewise for me.”
The barman placed the drinks in front of them and began polishing the counter. Halliday barked something at him in German that Macrae didn’t understand. To make the point, he banged his fist on the bar. The barman sulkily moved away.
“That was a bit rough,” said Macrae.
“He’s Gestapo. They all are here. So, have you calmed down yet?”
At the far end of the bar, the man and woman had left their seats and seemed to be about to leave.
Macrae nodded. “I’m going to sit here all afternoon and quietly get very drunk.”
“You’re right about what’s going on in Vienna. Worse than anything here. Nazis have been going to the railway stations and pushing those trying to leave onto the tracks. Especially the women. It drives the men mad, and then there’s a fight and out come the truncheons. Up on the Czech border they’re abandoning cars and trying to cross through the woods at night. It’s freezing up there and they’re dying, whole families together.”
“We won’t give them visas, I suppose?”
“Nope. Our embassy has closed all its consular offices there. Orders from London. They’re like rats in a trap.”
“I see you’ve come here to cheer me up.”
Macrae noticed that the man had persuaded the woman to have another drink. They had moved up the bar, closer to where he was sitting. The man was smartly dressed in an expensive striped suit with a white handkerchief peeping from the breast pocket and a golden clasp across a purple tie. A businessman maybe, thought Macrae. The woman was dressed in a fashionable red-and-white-striped skirt that broke into pleats and dropped to her ankles. Around her neck she wore a thin silk scarf that matched her skirt and spilled over a flowing white blouse. She might have been a minor member of the aristocracy, except that her dark sultry looks and the clothes suggested a fashion model.
“I have come to congratulate you on a good job,” said Halliday. “Don’t so anything silly like resigning. No one is going to fire you. There are people in London – especially my people – who know we need someone like you here right now.”
“Trouble is, I don’t want to be here. I can’t stand the place. It’s evil.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Halliday. “You have to hand it to the Nazis. The quality of evil here is exceptional. It’s pure, unadulterated, and clear and cold as a mountain stream. You won’t find evil like this anywhere else in the world. Genghis Khan, Nero, Caligula, they’ve got nothing on these fellows. They specialise in evil in this town and they’re very creative, they turn it into theatre, so count yourself lucky – you’re getting a front-row seat.”
He finished his gin and tonic and slid from the stool.
“I wouldn’t go back to the office today if I were you,” he said. He gave Macrae a pat on the back and walked off. The barman moved in the moment Halliday left.
“Another one?” he said.
“Please, and a glass of water on the side.”
Macrae lit a cigarette and turned to look at the room. The corner where the journalists camped out was empty. He looked at his watch. It was lunchtime. He didn’t feel like eating. He felt like getting drunk, and that was exactly what he was going to do.
“Has your friend left?” said a voice.
He looked at the woman in the red-and-white-striped skirt, who was now two bar stools away.
“Yes,” he said. “He’s gone back to the office. Which is where I should be.”
“My friend too,” she said.
He tried to place the accent. It sounded north German. It would be good to talk to someone normal for a change.
“What does he do, your friend?” he asked.
“He runs a restaurant here in Berlin. The food is French. He hires his chefs in Paris. And you – what do you do?” She asked the question with a smile and moved a seat closer. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Please do. Would you like a drink?”
“I would love another of these.” She held up a wineglass. “Dry white from the Tyrol. You should try it.”
“I think I’ll stick to gin.”
He ordered drinks. The barman pl
aced them on the bar and began polishing the counter. Macrae tried to remember what it was that Halliday had said to him. He was feeling hazy and waved the man away, before turning back to the woman.
“Cheers,” he said.
“Bottoms up,” she said, speaking this time in accented English.
“Ah! You speak English?”
“I try.”
“So what do you do?” he asked.
“I asked first,” she said.
Macrae drank his gin, enjoying the intoxicating taste of juniper and cane spirit mingled with the knowledge that a strange and very attractive woman had suddenly started talking to him. Was she a prostitute? Unlikely, dressed like that, and in the Adlon, where the Gestapo had eyes everywhere. A businesswoman? Possibly, but more likely a journalist. The German press had been neutered by the Nazis, but the reporters were still on the prowl for stories that might suit the regime.
“Import and export,” he said. He had no wish to reveal his business in Berlin to a stranger.
“How interesting. What line?”
“‘Line’?”
“Yes – what do you import and export?”
“You haven’t answered my question yet.”
She laughed, sipped her drink, looking at him over the rim of the glass, and said, “I manage a restaurant and bar here. That man is the owner. He takes me out for a special lunch every so often, then makes the usual suggestion. I say no and he goes off in a temper. He’ll probably fire me tomorrow.”
He laughed. “I think I’m going to be fired tomorrow as well.”
“What? Your company is going to fire you?”
Macrae realised his mistake.
“No, my wife is going to fire me. Let’s have another drink.”
Midnight in Berlin Page 8