Then von Ribbentrop and von Günther were approaching Fritz’s rail car, and Fritz heard the rustle of sentries saluting and the door opening. He heard von Ribbentrop and von Günther go into the car’s conference room, right next to his compartment. Von Ribbentrop was talking about Japanese Foreign Minister Oshima and the military setbacks in the Pacific. Military Intelligence was asking how the British suddenly knew about Japanese and German U-boats meeting off the coast of South Africa. In addition to that, von Ribbentrop said, the Jewish Department in the Foreign Office needed to become more effective, as the work of exterminating the Jews was not moving forward fast enough. Himmler had personally expressed his displeasure, and that meant the words were coming right from the Führer’s mouth. Fritz couldn’t believe how many times von Günther said, “Yes sir, Herr Foreign Minister” and “Agree completely, Herr Reich Foreign Minister” and “Very good”—it was too many to count. Next von Günther asked the orderly about Fritz and soon was pulling open the door to Fritz’s compartment.
“So you’re already here,” he whispered. “If you do not mind, Kolbe, yes? The Herr Minister does not like to be kept waiting.”
Fritz straightened out his uniform and von Günther grabbed him by the arm.
“Don’t ever forget the von, Kolbe. The man’s name is von Ribbentrop, yes? Understood?”
Fritz followed von Günther into the other compartment. Bottles lay dripping in a silver ice cooler. The place smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Fritz wondered whether he should click his heels together but didn’t know how. Von Ribbentrop watched him, his high forehead creasing, that face stern as always, his skin white like paper. Fritz had never seen any other expression on his face besides haughtiness. Even sitting, von Ribbentrop looked down from above.
“Hi Hitler,” Fritz said.
“You are?”
“Kolbe, Fritz. I’m the—”
“Yeah, yeah, right. You have the files?”
“As instructed, Herr Reich Foreign Minister.”
Fritz unbuckled his briefcase and pulled out the documents, feeling von Ribbentrop’s eyes on him the whole time, as if he were waiting for Fritz to make a mistake.
“I hope you’re aware of the privilege you have been given, Herr Kolben. The Foreign Office, gentlemen, is without a doubt the most important government office in the Reich. When Herr Himmler or Goebbels gives orders, we are the ones who act globally and, as such, are the ones who maintain an appropriate view of things. I am the one in charge. Our ministry is far greater than it has ever been, you understand?
“When the current crisis is overcome, we’ll be the first to make governing the new territories a reality. We are the ones; no one else. I was in America, England, and Russia—I know them all. It astounds me to this day that no one truly comprehended our nation’s will, nor did they anticipate it. The British think their Churchill is such a great man. Gentlemen, please. Churchill is a fat, cigar-sucking drunk, Roosevelt a puppet of International Jewry in America, Stalin a monster and a Bolshevik. Our enemies’ alliance will crumble just as the Führer predicts—thanks in no small part to me and my efforts. Now, you two are to understand the following . . .”
Fritz stood next to a motionless von Günther, who followed von Ribbentrop’s monologue as if mesmerized. Von Günther was sweating but apparently didn’t dare wipe the sweat from his face. Fritz pulled out a handkerchief and patted his own forehead. Whenever von Ribbentrop paused, von Günther said, “That’s right, sir.” When the Foreign Minister ordered that his car be called, von Günther left the room quickly and shouted for an orderly.
“I won’t be needing you anymore, Kolben.”
“Hi Hitler,” Fritz said. He was looking von Ribbentrop in the face. The man always had faint dark circles around his eyes.
“Something else?”
“No, Herr Reich Foreign Minister,” Fritz said. “It’s just that, well, I so seldom see the Herr Reich Foreign Minister in the Office. I want to say that I’m proud to be able to serve him.” He felt the sweat in his eyebrows. “I do my job well, Herr Reich Foreign Minister.”
“Of course you’re proud of it. Of course you do your job well—otherwise you would not be in my ministry. So get accustomed to conducting yourself more appropriately to your position, Kolben.”
“Certainly, Herr Reich Foreign Minister. Hi Hitler.”
Fritz found von Günther outside in the heat, standing near the rail car. He was smoking a cigarette, the cloud from his mouth leaving pale gray streaks in the sunshine.
“So pompous. The man’s just a door-to-door salesman. My name is von Günther, Kolbe—and it’s always been von. Unlike that ridiculous champagne merchant! Well, I can tell you one thing . . .”
Von Ribbentrop was stepping down from the rail car, adjusting his uniform collar. “Where’s my sedan, Günther?”
“Coming any moment, Herr von Ribbentrop. Such a shame our meeting has come to an end so soon.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m heading back to the mansion. You know what to do. Send Kolben here back to the Office with the files.”
“Yes sir, Herr Reich Foreign Minister.”
“And make sure that your subordinates conduct themselves more appropriately in the future.”
“Yes sir.” Von Günther turned to Fritz. “Again with this, Kolbe? Did you fail to show proper respect toward the Herr Reich Minister? I’m always having to hear this about you. No more of it—understood?”
A black and highly polished long sedan with swastika standards rolled up. The driver rushed out and opened the door. It was the same kid who’d previously driven Fritz. Von Ribbentrop tapped a fingernail on his watch.
“You do understand you can always be sent to the Eastern Front?”
“Yes sir.”
“Gentlemen . . .” Von Ribbentrop climbed in, thrusting out his chin like a dictator.
“Watch out for yourself,” Fritz said to the young driver as he rushed, cowering, back around the car. Fritz and von Günther watched the sedan drive off, turning left at the bombproof barracks and disappearing in the woods’ sunny haze.
“I’m not afraid of the boogeyman,” von Günther said. He placed a hand on Fritz’s shoulder. “I was only putting on an act, Kolbe. No offense?”
“I understand putting on an act,” Fritz said. “I understand it very well.”
“Listen up. The man gave me a lot of documents that need to go back to the Office. Your plane takes off at five p.m. Once you’re back in Berlin, here is what you must do . . .”
One part of Fritz was well aware of precisely what he had to make happen back at the Office; while another part of him felt strangely amused, was laughing even, because a certain Fritz Kolbe now had the upper hand and soon would be putting a detailed map of Hitler’s headquarters into the hands of the OSS.
Back when Sigmund Freud left Vienna, Fritz had read articles about the fellow in the international papers, and in the process he had stumbled on a story about mental disorders. He couldn’t remember what Freud called it, but there actually was such a thing as a split personality. Fritz Kolbe had been declared dead in that office in Bern, and he and George Wood could only become one again the moment that stooping, mustachioed Hitler was caught, dead or alive.
Fritz listened as von Günther talked but looked beyond him, toward the camouflaged main complex of the Wolf’s Lair. Between the barracks and bunkers a group of uniformed officials was walking down an asphalt path about a yard behind a dumpy-looking man in a brown uniform tunic. The man was wearing a military cap with a shiny visor and walked bent forward, one hand behind his back. Fritz stared at the figure, far off, partly in shadow, partly in sunlight. The man turned in Fritz’s direction, and that pale face seemed to grow larger, until for a moment it seemed to Fritz that he and Hitler were peering into each other’s eyes. Then Hitler pulled his gaze away and turned back. Fritz imagined himself drawing a pistol from a holster and running straight at the man, aiming his gun, and in his mind he kept on shooting, always at that fa
ce, kept shooting until it was no more, and still he ran onward, out into the country, aiming for the lakes and woods in the sun.
The man and his entourage vanished into the mottled shadows under a stand of trees.
“Kolbe, are you listening to me?”
“What?”
“Kolbe?”
“Apologies. The Führer was just back there.”
“Ah, right. I understand. It can render a person speechless to see the man personally—something quite different than the usual hustle and bustle. Well, pull yourself together, Kolbe. He’ll fix things soon enough.”
“As will we.”
“What’s that?”
“As will we, Herr Ambassador. We will too.”
Fritz sat at a window in the Junkers Ju 52 and looked out. The engine was droning loudly and everything was rattling and vibrating in the cabin. Below him lay forests and lakes that reflected the greenery and sunshine, and sometimes he saw the plane’s shadow sweeping the treetops, dropping into a yellow field, or crossing a river. It would be so nice to fly over South Africa in such an airplane, Katrin next to him, and with the Braunweins and Marlene Wiese too. Below, a road glimmered with the strange whiteness of tanks and trucks heading east—where only death and destruction awaited.
The closer Fritz got to Berlin, the grayer and more scarred the landscape became. Then he saw the city’s devastation from above for the first time. The apocalypse, he thought. He could detect nothing but ruins spiking upward like so many crooked fingers. Where there once had been housing developments and streets there was now nothing but barren deserts of rubble where tiny people scurried along, stooping in their efforts to find even one item left of what had once been theirs. They won’t find even a pot, Fritz thought. Family photos, books, an oven, clothes—all of it was gone, and wherever they searched lay only a steaming wasteland. This plane was plunging into a hell that no longer wanted any humans.
The Junkers bounded along the battered landing strip next to the buckling flight tower, where the only splotches of color to be seen were those red Nazi emblems with the swastika. Gray and red were now the colors of a Berlin that had once shined so brilliantly and been so full of life. This urban corpse, devoured down to the bone, was where he would again see Marlene.
The footsteps coming down the corridor sounded like drums beating, countless hard soles striking the Office’s polished floor in a steady rhythm. Fritz froze at his desk. Soldiers. Had he been found out? Had Weygand noticed something in Bern?
He watched the closed door to von Günther’s office. He heard no sound coming from inside. The footsteps grew closer. Fritz crept over to the window and looked out over the Wilhelmstrasse drenched in sunshine, a military truck out in front of the Office, the Propaganda Ministry on the opposite side of the street with its windows always dark. Over there in its basement, people were tortured. Where was he supposed to run? For God’s sake. Katrin. Marlene. Were they coming for him already?
He squeezed his hands into fists till they hurt, and listened. The beats became muffled, as if the drums had been covered with blankets. They had passed. Fritz opened the office door. At the end of the corridor, he saw a group of soldiers following an officer in lockstep, rifles on their shoulders. More and more doors opened to frightened looks and expressions of uneasy questioning.
Fritz followed the soldiers. The officer instructed two of them to open a door, then stormed into the office behind them. Fritz heard him screaming orders. Something clanked. Then calmness reigned, as if time suddenly stood still. Soldiers guarded the door, their rifles lowered in front of them. Müller stood out in the corridor with his arms crossed and grinned. Fritz heard that lockstep again, then the officer came out followed by two soldiers, then Franz Havermann, with more soldiers behind him. Havermann was white as a sheet. He tried making eye contact with those standing around, but everyone looked at the floor or turned away. As the column marched by, Fritz heard Havermann muttering and their eyes met. Havermann’s were wet. “I was only listening to music, Herr Kolbe. Music.” The officer barked at Havermann that he better shut his trap.
“Halt!” The order rang out down the corridor. The officer called his men to attention. Von Ribbentrop, presumably arriving from his office upstairs, came down the hallway with his personal secretary in tow and stopped before the man in custody. He stared at Havermann, while the officer said nothing. Havermann was trembling. The poor man, Fritz thought. Von Ribbentrop reached back and slapped Havermann across the cheek. Tears fell from Havermann’s eyes.
“Filth,” von Ribbentrop said. “Take him away, Lieutenant.”
The column marched on with Havermann in the middle, his hands clasped at his chest as if bound there. Better you than me, Havermann, Fritz thought. He was ashamed of the thought, but he meant it.
“He’ll be bawling soon,” Müller said. His thin arms were still crossed and he was looking over at Fritz. Fritz wondered again if this lost young man had been among those who had accosted him onboard the Louisiana. Was he there when they made him say Heil Hitler?
Von Ribbentrop pivoted on his heels, adding, “Don’t you all have anything to do?”
Everyone standing around vanished immediately and closed their doors behind them. Fritz silently went back into his office. Poor Havermann had probably been listening to an enemy broadcast. Music. It was only music.
Later that evening, Walter Braunwein entered Fritz’s office and uttered a gentle “Hey-ho.” He pointed at the door to von Günther’s office. Already left, Fritz told him.
“Shitty business about Havermann,” Walter said. He ran his fingers through his unruly hair. “Goddamn it,” he said. “Is there anything we can do for him, Fritz?”
“Not a chance.”
“None at all?”
“No, Walter. Not me. That’s not possible. I have to . . .”
Walter folded his arms and stared at Fritz, his eyes conveying skepticism and curiosity.
“You have to what? Something’s going on with you.”
“Hardly. There’s nothing going on with me at all.” There was the sound of arrogance in Fritz’s voice, that old protective wall used by the insecure and by those seeking something to hide behind. He didn’t want it, especially not with Walter. Fritz was guilty of having acted conceited before, but that was just a matter of him thinking they could all go kiss his ass, and so was something else entirely. But this—fending off his old friend this way because he didn’t know what else to do—genuinely pained him.
“How is Käthe?” he tried.
Walter didn’t respond.
The Americans had heavily bombed the Messerschmitt factory in Obertraubling. Fritz looked in the mirror above the sink in his office and squeezed his eyes shut. Back in Bern, he had given Allen Dulles the exact coordinates of the factory.
More Gestapo men started showing up in the Office, many in stiff leather overcoats. Every government office with information about Obertraubling was being examined. The factory had been considered top secret. Air raids had hit V2 facilities on the coast before, but the latest bombing seemed to have been more precise, von Günther told Fritz.
That was me, Fritz did not say.
“Maybe that was Havermann too,” von Günther said.
“But Herr Ambassador, how could someone get information like that from our offices and pass it to the enemy? It’s just not possible.”
“You’re quite right there, Kolbe. It could not have come from the Office. But you try telling these people that, yes? Sure, we need them—but between you and me, these fellows are suspicious to the point of being pathological. One must understand the Führer’s greatness, and in so doing accept certain conditions. The man puts a good deal of thinking into everything that he does. Yet, some people become like dogs in the way they follow him. Speaking of which . . .” Von Günther stood at his office window, one hand in his trouser pocket, one on the windowsill. He spoke as if to the glass, something he often did when he thought he had something important to say.
“There will be a few changes in the process for destroying files in our office. From now on you’ll have to countersign when you take documents down to the basement for incineration—you’ll sign a log down there, witnessed by the man in charge.”
“Yes sir, Herr Ambassador,” Fritz said.
He went back into his office, set the Allgäu landscape on the floor, and looked into the safe. All files for Dulles. He immediately knew what this news meant. He’d have to bring the documents home, transcribe them, and then take them down to the burn barrels to have all the files signed off. Everything would be recorded—hundreds of pages—which meant he’d have to act faster in the future. He’d have to pick and choose his intelligence now and summarize it. He couldn’t do it all alone.
The office door jolted open and Fritz started. A Gestapo man strode in. He was small and nondescript.
“Fritz Kolbe?”
“Yes?”
“You were in Switzerland recently.”
“At the diplomatic mission in Bern, yes. What can I do for you?”
“Your assignment was?”
“I supervised the transport of documents and delivered them to Herr von Lützow at the diplomatic mission.”
“Did you have contact with anyone apart from the staff at the diplomatic mission?”
Remain calm, somehow remain calm. He had no time to think.
“No, none.”
The Gestapo man stared at him, his left eyelid twitching. Without asking he sat down at the desk across from Fritz. A classified folder lay on Fritz’s desk. The Gestapo man turned the folder his way.
“This is top-secret material, Herr Kolbe.”
The words stay alert popped into Fritz’s head. He reached for the folder and turned it back so it was facing him. The little man placed one hand on top of the other.
The Honest Spy Page 14