The Windsor Protocol
Page 32
Hitler turned to the others.
“Gentlemen, you may withdraw. I will join you in the conference room shortly. Then you will have my decision as to the matter of Operation Seelöwe.”
They rose uncomfortably and edged towards the door. As if on a signal it swung open, held open by a fully armed guard of the Fuhrerbegleitkommando, Hitler’s special elite bodyguard who were never far away from the Fuhrer’s side.
“Not you, Ribbentrop,” called Hitler softly as the Foreign Minister went to join them.
Von Ribbentrop hesitated and turned back into the room with an unhappy expression. The SS guard closed the door firmly behind the others.
So far the Fuhrer had addressed no word to Von Ribbentrop and he had been silent. Now the Foreign Minister felt his body tingle as if in contact with ice. The fact that Hitler had used the form “Ribbentrop”, purposely dropping the “von”, was an intimation of his displeasure. Von Ribbentrop was a snob of the first water and, after working as a champagne salesman, had married into a wealthy champagne-making family, which was when he decided to insert the nobleman’s “von” into his name. He was highly sensitive when his fellow Nazis ignored the use of the “von”.
The Foreign Minister was alone with his Fuhrer.
“In a moment,” Hitler said slowly, “I shall go into the conference room and announce the indefinite postponement of the invasion of England.”
Von Ribbentrop stood silently with bowed head.
“You know why I must do this?”
“Because of the Luftwaffe’s failure, my Fuhrer?”
Hitler balled his fist and brought it down on the arm of his chair with a thump which caused his Alsatian to yelp nervously and look up in fear at her master.
“No! Because of your failure, Herr Foreign Minister! Because of the failure of Operation Kdnigtum. The Luftwaffe can still throw thousands of aircraft into battle to cover our troops as they cross and secure their beachheads. The English are down to less than a hundred fighter aircraft to defend their shores. The Luftwaffe has nearly four thousand aircraft…”
“But not all serviceable…” interrupted Von Ribbentrop, but Hitler turned angrily upon him.
“I will tell you, Herr Foreign Minister, the figures. We are still producing fifteen thousand trained pilots a year, in excess of our requirements. England has nowhere near that strength. At the moment, only two of our four Luftflotten are involved in attacks on Britain. General Felmy’s Luftflotte Two and Generalfeldmarshal Sperrle’s Luftflotte Three. What if we threw into the air battle Kesselring’s Luftflotte and Lohr’s Luftflottel We would simply swamp the English out of the sky. Even if we lost fifty aircraft a day, we could last nearly two months before we exhausted our current supplies. Yet if the RAF lost ten aircraft a day they would not last a week.
“Look at the figures for yourself. The Luftwaffe’s worst day was, as I have said, last Sunday. Fifty-five aircraft were totally destroyed compared to twenty-three RAF aircraft. Look at those figures most closely. If the RAF wish to have victory over us in the air then for every ten aircraft they lose they must bring down over three hundred of ours. Do you think I am worried about the Luftwaffe’s losses?”
His voice had gradually risen to its harsh, street orator’s shout.
Von Ribbentrop stood silently. There was an insane logic to what Hitler was saying.
“But we will not invade?” he asked hesitantly.
Hitler reached up a hand to brush back the lock of hair which had fallen across his forehead.
“No, we will not invade because we lack the essential ingredient for a swift and successful operation against the English. Windsor is not here in Berlin. Your plan has failed.”
Von Ribbentrop shuffled his feet.
“Not my plan, my Fuhrer. Brigadefuhrer Olbricht’s plan. But the Duke is still in the Bahamas. We can put together another operation team…make another attempt to bring him…”
“Attempt?” Hitler’s ice cold voice cut off his flow. “I do not deal in attempts — only successes. Do you think after this catastrophe that the English secret service would allow us to get close to the Duke again? He will now be guarded day and night. Everyone will be screened before they get near him.”
“We still have good contacts in the Bahamas who will be able to…” protested Von Ribbentrop.
“Good contacts? Wenner Gren? No. There is no use contemplating another mission to bring Windsor here in the foreseeable future. And without him to install as King, the English will merely flock around their King George and that cigar-guzzling prime minister of his. Without Windsor, the invasion has no chance at all of a successful conclusion. That is the only reason that I will not sanction the invasion. Without Windsor to divide the loyalties of the English and force them to a speedy agreement with us, we could have a hundred and fifty divisions, eighty per cent of our army, tied down in that island. How could we then control Europe?”
The Fuhrer paused as if expecting a reply, but Von Ribbentrop could not bring himself to speak.
“Windsor was the key element to all my planning,” Hitler went on, after a moment. “Windsor was to ensure the English agreed an armistice or, if not, then to set them into a civil conflict whereby we would gain mastery over their island.
“We cannot roll over the English like we did the Poles or the French or the other nations of Europe. Remember that they are part of the greater Germanic peoples. They are our kin and should be fighting with us not against us. They will tie up division after division in that accursed island of theirs and allow the real enemies of our race, the Bolsheviks, the chance they have been waiting for, to launch an attack at our backs.”
Hitler suddenly stood up. His Alsatian rose nervously to his feet, sniffed at them a moment and then padded softly to the door in anticipation. It swung open again as the wooden-faced SS guard stood ready. The dark fathomless eyes of the Fuhrer stared hard at the Foreign Minister of the Reich.
“You promised me Windsor. Where is he? He is not in Berlin. I want you to know, Herr Foreign Minister, that I consider you responsible for the failure of this operation. You may go.”
Von Ribbentrop blinked, his face whitening, the lips suddenly bloodless. He opened his mouth to say something, hesitated and then left the room without a word.
Hitler waited a few moments after the SS guard had closed the door behind Von Ribbentrop. Then he, too, left the study and entered the conference room where his planning staff were now gathered expectantly.
“Operation Seelöwe is postponed indefinitely,” he began without preamble. “Give the orders to start dispersing the barges by the end of the week. I want von Brautisch to move his headquarters to East Prussia. You Jodi, I want you to present me with a plan within the next few days for an invasion of the Soviet Union.”
Ignoring the gasps of total surprise, the Fuhrer went on complacently: “Now is the right time to obliterate the degenerate Slavs and their Jewish Bolshevism. We have only to kick in the front door of the USSR and the whole rotten edifice will come tumbling down.” He paused a moment, as if in thought and then his eyes sparkled. “We will call the operation after one of the greatest German emperors, Frederick Barbarossa. Operation Barbarossa-Germany’s conquest of Russia!”
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HISTORICAL NOTE
The Windsor Protocol is, of course, a work of fiction but its theme, many incidents and details, are a matter of history and public record. The political views of the historical characters are not invented but are also matters of record. The attitudes and words put into the mouth of the Duke of Windsor are not fictional but paraphrased from his correspondence and available historical documents.
It is also a fact that in 1945 George VI sent two emissaries to Germany with specific orders to recover all indiscreet
correspondence that members of the Windsor family had written to their German relatives and, more importantly, to the National Socialist Government. One of the two emissaries was an MI5 officer named Anthony Frederick Blunt who afterwards left the service and was appointed by a grateful monarch as Keeper of the King’s Paintings, an office he continued to occupy under Elizabeth II, until he eventually confessed in 1979 that he had been a double-agent, working for Soviet intelligence since the 1930s.
In researching for this novel, I would like to acknowledge my debt to the following works:
Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July, 1940, Michael Bloch, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1984; The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor, Michael Bloch, Bantam Press, London, 1988;
The Duke of Windsor’s War, Michael Bloch, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1982; The Schellenberg Memoirs, Walter Schellenberg, translated by Louis Hagen (introduction by Alan Bullock), Andre Deutsch, London, 1956; The Wilhelmstrasse: A Study of German Diplomacy Under the Nazi Regime, Paul Seabury, University of California Press, Berkley, 1954; King of Fools, John Parker, Macdonald and Co, London, 1988; Wallis: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor, Charles Higham, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1988; Sealion, edit. Richard Cox, Thornton Cox Ltd., London, 1974; England Under Hitler, Comer Clarke, Consul Books, London, 1963; The Nazi Movement in the USA, Sander A. Diamond, NYC, 1974; A Short History of the Bahamas, A. Deans Peggs, Nassau, 1955; Report of Customs for the Year 1940, Bahama Government, Nassau, 1952.
Special thanks is also due to Francis K. Mason, the aviation historian, for his friendly advice and references; to John Gammons and to Maurice McCann for their advice and encouragement and, as always, to Dorothea for her support.