by Guy Saville
Burton was no longer interested; let them slaughter each other if that’s what they wanted. Africa had always had an insatiable thirst for blood. He didn’t care whether they tore up the Casablanca Treaty. Whether Hochburg triumphed or failed. Lived or died. As for his parting words, Burton refused to consider them: they were nothing but lies.
Lies!
All he cared about now was getting home. Home and Cranley.
He felt the engines begin to pound below deck, the vibrations running up his body to the tip of his wrist bone. Pain seeped through him. He swallowed some tea, gagged. It was so sweet even Maddie would have poured it away. He put down the mug, leaned his head back and gazed at Loanda.
The horizon was streaked pink and pearl-grey with the dawn, the city itself still hidden in darkness. Bombers continued to rumble overhead, the light of the new day burnishing their wings. Explosions flared among the buildings. Palls of smoke. A screen to hide the vivisectionist’s work. The bay was mostly empty; only a few remaining boats hurried across it. Seagulls darted and wheeled over the water. There was no sign of the tug or Hochburg. Burton tried to pinpoint where it had sunk, the Chef’s final resting place. If he ever met Hannah he’d describe the spot. He wanted it to be peaceful, but all he saw were the reflections of Nazi conquest.
Burton searched inside himself for an emotion. Found nothing. He was too exhausted, too emptied out. He would mourn Patrick later. When Africa was a distant smudge on the horizon.
For the moment his thoughts were back in Ackerman’s office, that look of bewilderment on the Rhodesian’s face.
‘He sent me to your farm. Was rabid. I’ve never seen him like that. Normally he’s self-control itself.’
‘Who?’ Burton had demanded.
‘Insisted we change from Dolan to you. No explanation given.’
‘Who?’
‘My superior. Cranley.’
Ackerman had been the bearer of Hiobsbotschaft all along. Hiobsbotschaft: from the Old Testament, Job’s news. The type of news you didn’t want to hear.
The tremor of the engines grew more insistent. There was a waft of salty air … and the frigate began to head into the Atlantic.
Burton snatched at the legs of a passing sailor. ‘How long?’ he demanded. ‘How long back to Britain?’
The sailor recoiled, aghast at the bloody handprint on his trousers.
‘How long?’
‘Seventeen days.’
Burton urged the ship on faster.
The whole time he had been in Africa, chasing ghosts, the real danger was at home. Cranley had set his trap: sent Burton to Kongo and an inevitable death. What revenge had he reaped back in England?
Jared Cranley: Madeleine’s husband.
Burton pictured Maddie on the farm. Wrapped up in bed, hugging her pregnant belly, every lock, door and window bolted. He’d get back to her, squeeze her hand again just as he had done on their last night together. Trembling with tenderness. Her soft, delicate fingers entwined with his.
He held the image for as long as he could – but waves of blackness were rolling over him. He struggled to keep his eyes open. The pain in his arm was spreading now, pooling in his chest. There was a sulphurous taste at the back of his mouth.
Burton buried his wounded wrist beneath his armpit. Clutched his empty Browning.
The frigate sailed away from Loanda, away from the rising sun, and turned west. Back towards the darkness and the long journey home.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although The Afrika Reich is based on documented plans the Nazis had for the continent, it is foremost a work of fiction. To that end I have simplified certain aspects of the history (alternative and otherwise) for the sake of the narrative.
The Nazis’ first significant overture towards Africa was in May 1934, barely a year after seizing power, when they established the Colonial Policy Office – Kolonialpolitisches Amt (KPA). Its objective was to agitate for the territories Germany had lost after the Versailles Treaty and, in Hitler’s words, ‘to press energetically the preparatory work for a future colonial administration’. Systematic planning began in the spring of 1939.
Despite this Hitler didn’t see himself turning to Africa till 1944 at the earliest – after the Soviet Union had been defeated and a large surface navy built. It was the fall of France in June 1940, when the Reich seemed invincible, which accelerated events. That summer colonial fever gripped the Nazis. The Wehrmacht selected ten battalions for the conquest ahead (a forerunner of the Afrika Korps), designed tropical uniforms and weapons. Training courses for the Colonial Service began at Hamburg University. Elsewhere plans were afoot for pre-fabricated garrison towns; a ‘multi-terrain automobile’ was developed that could be used anywhere in Africa.
The KPA, along with the Foreign Ministry and Kriegsmarine (Navy) began to circulate secret memoranda detailing Nazi ambitions for the continent. Common to all of them was the reacquisition of Germany’s former colonies and creation of ‘Mittelafrika’ – a solid bloc of territory stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. It was hoped that this land could be obtained through negotiation, if not force would be necessary. As early as 1937 there was discussion of Angola being ‘appropriated’.*
The most comprehensive of these secret documents is the Bielfeld Memorandum of 6 November 1940. This proposed the seizure of Belgian and French Congo, Equatorial French Africa and a large portion of French West Africa; there was also some suggestion of incorporating Nigeria, Kenya and Northern Rhodesia. Naval bases were earmarked for Dakar, Conakry and the Canary Islands, while Madagaskar was reserved as a future ‘dumping-ground’ for the Jews. This vast area was to be exploited for its natural resources, upon which Germany’s European empire would be built.
Of course none of this would be possible if there was conflict with Great Britain. From the pages of Mein Kampf onwards Hitler hoped for an understanding with the British and made repeated overtures to that effect. He was genuinely surprised and disappointed when Britain declared war in 1939.
Could there have been a different outcome? In the seventy years since the outbreak of the Second World War the ‘finest hour’ myth has taken such a hold on the British imagination that it’s difficult to conceive of an alternative. Events at the time were far less certain. In November 1939 the (opposition) Labour Party advocated negotiations with Hitler to guarantee the British Empire; Prime Minister Chamberlain’s postbag ran three to one in favour of peace. Of the five members of the War Cabinet, two were in favour of peace settlement with Germany. Most prominent was the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, who only narrowly missed becoming Prime Minister after Chamberlain resigned. Given a different set of circumstances it is possible to imagine Halifax and Hitler meeting to agree ‘a division of the world’, as the Führer hoped.
Hitler’s attitude towards Africa was characteristically schizophrenic. Sometimes he made grandiose declarations (such as the epigraph to this book). On other occasions he was dismissive: ‘the only colony I’d like to have back would be our Cameroons – nothing else’.
More ominously, in January 1941 he permitted Himmler to establish a training centre for the colonies in Berlin, with a second set up in Vienna the following year. At this point the Reichsführer made it clear that the SS would be responsible for policing Africa with the KPA sidelined. It is impossible to know the full progression of events but if we take occupied Europe as a model it seems inevitable that Himmler’s blackshirts would come to dominate at the expense of the civilian administration and military. The governors general would possess almost unlimited power. In such an environment someone like Walter Hochburg would have thrived.
The new masters of Africa planned cities that adhered to Himmler’s ‘string of pearls’ theory: kernels of civilisation amidst the wilderness, linked by autobahn. The SS Economic Department would control labour, industry, agriculture, forestry and mining. Finding enough Germans to settle the land was an acute problem – but by 1940 SS racial experts were scouring the glob
e for ‘ethnics’ (5.5 million descendents were identified in the US and South America alone). As for the native populations of Africa, their fate remains ambiguous. The KPA planned a relatively benign system of mandatory labour. The SS wanted an end to ‘soft negrophilism’; promoted ‘ethnic reallocation and consolidation’ with those ‘unsuitable for hard labour to be completely eliminated.’ I will return to this subject in subsequent books.
Those looking for a more detailed account of a possible Nazi Africa should read Wolfe Schmokel’s Dream of Empire: German Colonialism, 1919-45 (Yale, 1964). I would also recommend Hitler’s War Aims, Vol II by Norman Rich (Andre Deutsch, 1974) and Gerhard Weinberg’s World in Balance (University Press of New England, 1981). Mark Mazower’s Hitler’s Empire (Allen Lane, 2008) is a vivid depiction of Nazi Europe and offers a glimpse of the bureaucracy, chaos and horror that might have been elsewhere.
* See Hossbach Memorandum
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing is a solitary profession so I am lucky to have had the encouragement of many people during the years spent on this book.
For their support, advice and inspiration at key stages in my writing career I’d like to express my gratitude to: William Boyd, Linda Christmas & John Higgins, Julie Gray, Nigel de la Poer, Joanne Saville, Mike Shaw, Sol Stein and John Whitcombe. Sadly, some on this list are no longer with us – I like to think, however, that their influence lives on.
For their technical help, I thank: Colne Valley Railway, Susan Curtis, Elizabeth Ferretti for double checking my translations, Harry Hine, Pedro Jacinto, Peter Rosenfeld of St Mary’s Hospital, London for answering my questions on amputation, John Smith of the French Foreign Legion, and SOAS Library. For all things American: Norm Benson, Dick Custin, CL Frontera and Alan Hutcheson. I am especially indebted to Jennifer Domingo, librarian extraordinaire who helped me track down various obscure texts; Dominique Hardy for all her work in Luanda (present day Loanda); and Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Mason for his exhaustive study of Congo in the 1940s. As is de rigueur on such occasions, any errors in the text are mine.
Thanks also to: Tom ‘Peanuts’ Bolon, Bob Burke, Andreas Campomar, Robin Carter, Sheila Dalton, Andrew Dance, Katharine D’Souza, Samar Hammam, Douglas Jackson, Peter Jones, Laura Macdougall, Lorraine Mace, Sara O’Keeffe, Sarah-Jane Page, Edward Parnell, Robin Porter, Lexi Revellian, Gemma Rougier, Susan Sellers, Edward Smith at youwriteon.com, Justine Windsor and everyone at Writers’ Centre Norwich / Escalator Literature 2007, in particular Katy Carr, Chris Gribble and Leila Telford. Special mention for Sarah Bower and Alex Scarrow.
This book was written with the assistance of an Arts Council England grant.
Finally, a big and heartfelt thank you to: Katharine McMahon for her insight and guidance; Jonathan Pegg, my agent, for his unflagging commitment to this project; Lorrie Porter for always finding time to read the manuscript when there was no time for anything else; Nick Sayers for championing the book at Hodder; and last but not least, Alice Louise Tilton without whom I would never have gone back to Africa.
GS
Throughout the book Berlin is referred to as ‘Germania’. If Hitler had won the war this is what he planned to call the capital of his new empire, as he stated in 1942: ‘The name “Germania” will give every member of the community, however far from the centre, a feeling of unity and close membership with the Fatherland.’
On the day when we’ve solidly organised Europe,
we shall look towards Africa
ADOLF HITLER
Speech to the SS, 22 February 1942
There will be no great conflagration with the blacks.
The true battle for Africa will be White against White
WALTER HOCHBURG
Memorandum to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler,
15 October 1944