by Sam Eastland
‘I will just . . .’ Hitler gestured at the headphones lying on the radio desk.
He did not need to say more. This eavesdropping on the outside world had become a regular occurrence.
Misch stepped aside, offering his seat.
‘Go up to the mess and have some coffee,’ said Hitler. His tone with Misch was gentle, as it often was with those of lower rank who shared this subterranean existence. ‘Come back in twenty minutes.’
There was no coffee. Not any more. At least not for men of Misch’s rank. There was only a substance made from ground chicory root that Misch could not stand. Instead, he used the time to return above ground and smoke a cigarette, since there was no smoking in the bunker.
Just before Misch turned the corner to climb the first flight of steps, he glanced back at the radio station, watching Hitler squint as he fiddled with the frequency dials. Misch had no idea what Hitler listened to while he was gone. Was it music? Was it some message meant for him alone, transmitted from some distant corner of the universe? Misch had resigned himself to never knowing the answer since by the time he returned from his break, the dials had all been returned to their original positions.
With Misch out of the way, Hitler turned the receiver dial until the familiar voice of Sender Station Elbe appeared through the rustle of static. Along with sender stations in Berlin and Belgrade, the Elbe network was the last functioning transmitter in the Reich. Designed to keep soldiers at the various fronts informed about the war, each sender station operated with some degree of autonomy. Of course, they were all controlled by the Ministry of Propaganda, which had instituted strict guidelines as to what music could be played, what news could be broadcast and what kinds of messages could be read out from loved ones at home. But those responsible for each sender station were allowed to choose the scheduling, and could even insert their own news stories, to add local flavour to the regional broadcasts. These included history lessons about famous landmarks, such as a very successful programme about the Acropolis broadcast by Sender Station Athens, shortly before it went off the air back in 1942. There was also a series of lectures on French wine broadcast by Sender Station Paris, although that station, too, had gone off the air months ago.
These stations had proved to be a great success, keeping soldiers in touch with events at home at the same time as the local broadcasts allowed them to glimpse their surroundings through lenses not clouded by war.
No station had proved to be more popular than the Elbe network. Their broadcasts were expertly produced, the signal always strong and easy to locate and, with its lighthearted irreverence, spoke most convincingly to soldiers grown weary of the kind of incessant, humourless and increasingly far-fetched pronouncements about miracle weapons which would alter the course of the conflict.
What only Hitler, and a few others in his administration, knew, however, was that Sender Station Elbe did not originate from the German Ministry of Propaganda.
It was actually run by the British.
This pirate radio station had first come to Hitler’s attention back in early 1944, when it came on the air as Sender Station Calais. As it was named after a town on the French coast, those who tuned into its signal could be led to believe that the broadcasts originated from there, when in fact the programmes were being transmitted from England, on the other side of the Channel.
The Calais station had been in operation for some time before anyone in Berlin realised that it even existed. The reason for this was that, at first, no one listening to the programmes thought any of their content worth reporting. It was just the usual array of songs – the ‘Erika Marsch’, ‘Lili Marlene’, ‘Volks ans Gewehr’ – and the predictable anti-American, anti-British, anti-Russian stories.
It was only when a special programme appeared, narrated by a jovial, but disgruntled SS officer known only as Der Chef, that Berlin began to take notice. Der Chef spoke in the blunt, abbreviated language of a front-line soldier. His informal chats, broadcast for five or ten minutes between long stretches of popular music, were filled with sneering remarks about the effete quality of British soldiers, the drunkenness of Russians and the overindulgence of Americans. But he also did not hesitate to share whatever gossip he had picked up about the leadership in Berlin. It was Der Chef who exposed the juicy goings-on between Gerda Daranovski, one of Hitler’s private clerks, and Hitler’s chauffeur, Erich Kempka. Having left the womanising Kempka, Gerda married Luftwaffe General Christian. Soon afterwards, the jilted Kempka married a known prostitute from Berchtesgaden. Gerda, meanwhile, had begun an affair with SS Lieutenant-Colonel Schulze-Kossens. In other news, Hitler’s chief architect, Albert Speer, was having a fling with film-maker Leni Riefenstahl. Three members of Hitler’s private staff had been sent to a special venereal disease clinic in Austria. Martin Bormann, chief of Hitler’s secretarial staff, kept a mistress at his ski chalet in Obersalzberg, with the complicity of his wife.
There was never anything critical about Hitler himself. That would have been going too far. But these lesser players in the Berlin entourage were fair game.
It was not Der Chef’s rambling gossip that troubled Hitler and his staff. What bothered them was that Der Chef was right. Whoever this man was, he obviously had a source very near to the nerve centre of the German war machine.
When the existence of the Calais network was first reported, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels immediately ordered the signal to be jammed. The signal was so powerful, however, that jamming it also disabled several legitimate sender stations, and Goebbels was forced to rescind the order.
The Ministry of Propaganda then considered broadcasting the truth about the Calais Sender on all the other sender stations, warning soldiers not to listen to Calais and threatening anyone who did with execution. But this idea was also abandoned. To acknowledge the existence of the Calais network would not only call into question the entire German propaganda apparatus, it would also require an explanation as to how the Allies were privy to such sensitive and personal information.
In the end, the Calais Sender was allowed to continue uninterrupted.
Soon after the Normandy invasion, in June of 1944, Sender Calais began rebroadcasting as Sender Caen, and after that as Sender Alsace. This gave the impression that the sender station was setting up shop in the line of the German retreat across Western Europe. In reality, the base of operations never changed and the pirate radio station continued to broadcast from England as it had always done.
Even if Der Chef was correct in his unearthing of such sordid details, the mere mention of them, embarrassing as they might be, had no serious effect upon the German war effort.
But it was not the gossip that caused such great anxiety among those few members of the German High Command who were aware of the station’s true source. If Der Chef knew about the sleazy parlour games of Hitler’s closest circle, then what else did he know?
This was the question which had been nagging Hitler ever since he first tuned in to Der Chef, whose seemingly inexhaustible supply of titbits echoed in Hitler’s brain like the relentless ticking of a metronome.
He had ordered his Chief of Security, General Rattenhuber, to conduct a full investigation. But Rattenhuber had found nothing. The best he could do was to tell Hitler that the informant probably worked somewhere in the Chancellery, was probably a low-level employee and had probably been there for a long time.
Probably.
In an attempt to play down Hitler’s concerns, as well as his own lack of results, Rattenhuber went on to assure the Führer that once the High Command had relocated down into the bunker complex, where security was considerably tighter than up among the ruins of the Chancellery building, Der Chef’s source of information would undoubtedly dry up.
Every day since, Hitler had listened to the radio station, putting Rattenhuber’s pronouncement to the test.
This morning, Der Chef, speaking in his unmistakable Berlin accent, went off on a tirade against the kind of clothing worn b
y American civilians. Hula shirts. Zoot suits. In spite of himself, Hitler snuffled out a laugh at the description of these preposterous outfits. Other than what he had read in the cowboy novels of Zane Grey, Hitler knew very little about American culture, and what he did know left him unimpressed. Then Der Chef went on to congratulate a number of SS officers who had recently been awarded the Knight’s Cross, Germany’s highest award for service in the field.
Hitler felt his jaw muscles clench. He had approved that list of Knight’s Cross candidates himself not five days before. The award ceremony wasn’t even due to take place until next week.
So much for Rattenhuber’s fortune-telling, he thought.
He was just about to remove the headphones, after which he would carefully reorient the signal dials to their original position, when suddenly he froze.
That list of officers.
There was something about it.
He struggled to recall. There had been so many lists drawn up recently, so many meetings. It was hard to remember them all.
The candidates had been put forward by his old comrade Sepp Dietrich, now in command of the 6th SS Panzer Army. Initially, Hitler had approved the list as a matter of course but following the failure of the 6th Army to hold back Red Army forces attacking the city of Budapest, Hitler had ordered his approval to be withheld. His secretary, Bormann, had dutifully filed it away among those documents consigned to limbo at the headquarters. Withholding the document was not an outright refusal to issue the medals, only a sign of his disapproval at the performance of Dietrich’s soldiers. In practical terms, all it meant was that Dietrich would have to resubmit his request, but Hitler’s gesture would not go unnoticed.
What mattered now was not the list itself, but the fact that it had never left the bunker. And yet, here was Der Chef, reading it off word for word.
‘The spy is here among us!’ Hitler muttered hoarsely.
Misch had, by now, returned from his cigarette break and was busy sucking on a mint in order to hide the odour of smoke on his breath. Hitler could not stand the smell of tobacco.
Hitler turned in his chair and eyed the man. ‘He’s here!’ he whispered.
Misch stared at him blankly. Is he talking about me, wondered the sergeant. Is he seeing ghosts? Has he finally gone out of his mind?
Hitler had hooked his left knee around the leg of the table in order to stop the incessant trembling of his calf muscle. Now he untangled himself from his chair and rose to his feet. Just as he was handing the headphones to Misch, he spotted the message form which Zeltner had filled out the night before. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘Something that came last night from a certain General Hagemann,’ Misch explained hastily. ‘I was going to give it to you.’
Hitler fished out a pair of reading glasses. Shakily, he perched them on his nose. Then he picked up the form. ‘Diamond Stream,’ he said. Then he glanced at Misch. ‘Are you sure this is correct?’
‘The message came through on Zeltner’s shift,’ Misch explained nervously. ‘I doubt there has been a mistake.’
Hitler folded up the message form and tucked it away in his pocket. ‘Bring me General Hagemann,’ he commanded softly.
10 April 1945
Message from Major Clarke, via SOE relay station 53a, Grenton Underwood, to ‘Christophe’:
Urgent. Supersedes all other work. Acquire plans for diamond stream device.
Message from ‘Christophe’ to Major Clarke:
What is diamond stream?
Major Clarke to ‘Christophe’:
Unknown as yet. Believed to be of extreme importance. Will need photographs. Can you deliver?
Message from ‘Christophe’ to Major Clarke:
Can attempt. Usual channels for developing and transport of film no longer function due to bombing raids. Will require extraction if successful.
Major Clarke to ‘Christophe’:
Arranging for extraction. Send word when you have results.
The sun had just risen above the onion-shaped domes of St Basil’s Cathedral when Major Kirov and Pekkala arrived at the Kremlin.
Escorting them to their destination was Stalin’s personal secretary, a short and irritable man named Poskrebychev. Although he held no rank or badge of office, Poskrebychev was nevertheless one of the most powerful men in the country. Anyone who desired an audience with the Boss had first to go through Stalin’s outer office, where Poskrebychev ruled over a dreary cubicle of filing cabinets, a chair, a telephone and an intercom which sat like a big black toad upon Poskrebychev’s desk.
After showing visitors into Stalin’s room, Poskrebychev always departed, closing the double doors behind him with a dance-like movement that resembled a courtier’s bow.
Poskrebychev never attended these meetings but, returning to his desk, he would invariably switch on the intercom and eavesdrop on the conversation. He was able to do this without arousing suspicion because, although a small red light switched to green whenever the intercom was in use, Poskrebychev, after hours of fiddling with the machine, had discovered that, if the intercom button was only half switched, the red light would stay on and he could still hear every word of what was said.
This malfunction of technology was the true source of Poskrebychev’s power, although it did not come without a price. Often, lying in bed at night in the flat he shared with his mother, Poskrebychev would twitch and shudder as the vastness of the treacheries and horrors which Stalin had conjured into being echoed from the rafters of his skull.
‘He has another visitor,’ Poskrebychev whispered to Pekkala as they reached the door to Stalin’s office. ‘Some teacher or other. A strange bird if ever I saw one!’
Pekkala nodded thanks.
The doors were opened.
The two men walked into the room and Poskrebychev, with his usual dramatic flourish, closed the door behind them.
Stalin sat behind his desk. As usual, the heavy curtains were drawn. The room smelled of beeswax polish and of the fifty cigarettes that Stalin smoked each day.
Standing at the far end of the room, where he had been admiring the portrait of Lenin on the wall, was a man in a tweed jacket and grey flannel trousers. He turned as Pekkala walked in and bowed his head sharply in greeting. The man had a thick crop of grey hair and a matching grey moustache. His eyes, a cold, cornflower blue, betrayed the falseness of his smile.
He is no Russian, thought Pekkala.
Confirming Pekkala’s suspicion, Stalin introduced him as Deacon Swift, a member of the British Trade Commission. ‘But of course,’ added Stalin, ‘we all know that is a lie.’
The smile on Swift’s face quickly faded. ‘I wouldn’t call it that, exactly,’ he said.
‘Whatever your role with the Trade Commission,’ continued Stalin, ‘you are also a member of British Intelligence, a post you have held for many years, in Egypt, in Rome and now here, in Moscow.’ Stalin glanced across at the Englishman. ‘Am I leaving anything out?’
‘No,’ admitted Swift, ‘except perhaps the reason for my visit.’
Stalin gestured towards Pekkala. ‘By all means attend to your business.’
Swift drew in a deep breath. ‘Inspector Pekkala,’ he began, ‘I have been sent here by His Majesty’s Government on a matter of great importance. You see, we might soon need your help in retrieving one of our agents from Berlin.’
‘I imagine you have several agents in Berlin,’ said Pekkala.
Swift nodded cautiously. ‘That is altogether likely, yes.’
‘Then what makes this one so special?’
‘This is someone we felt might be of particular significance to you,’ explained Swift.
‘And why is that?’
‘The agent, whose code name is Christophe, has been supplying us with snippets of propaganda.’
‘Snippets?’ asked Pekkala.
‘Oh,’ Swift let the word drag out, ‘nothing of great importance, really. Just the odd detail here and there about goings-on among
the German High Command, which we then cycle back into our radio broadcasts throughout the liberated territories. Of course, the Germans listen to these broadcasts, too. It lets them know we have our eye on them.’
‘So far,’ remarked Pekkala, ‘I have not heard anything that might be of significance to me.’
‘The thing is,’ explained Swift, ‘this person is known to you.’
Pekkala narrowed his eyes in confusion. ‘I don’t know any British agents, and no one at all named Christophe.’
‘Ah!’ Swift raised one finger in the air. ‘But you do, Inspector, whether you realise it or not. Christophe is the code name for a woman named Lilya Simonova.’
Pekkala’s heart stumbled in his chest. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket, rough fingertips brushing across the crackled surface of the only photo that had ever been taken of the two of them together.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ asked Swift.
It had been in Petrograd in the last week of February, 1917.
Entire army regiments – the Volhynian, the Semyonovsky, the Preobrazhensky – had mutinied. Many of the officers had already been shot. The clattering of machine-gun fire sounded from the Liteiny Prospekt. Along with the army, striking factory workers and sailors from the fortress island of Kronstadt began systematically looting the shops. They stormed the offices of the Petrograd Police and destroyed the Register of Criminals.
The Tsar had finally been persuaded to send in a troop of Cossacks to fight against the revolutionaries, but the decision came too late. Seeing that the Revolution was gaining momentum, the Cossacks themselves had rebelled against the government. Now they were roaming the streets of the city, beating or killing anyone who showed any signs of resistance.
It was after midnight when the Tsar called him in to his study at the Alexander Palace. He sat at his desk, his jacket draped over the back of his chair. Olive-coloured braces stretched over his shoulders and he had rolled up the sleeves of his rumpled white shirt.