Irish Linen

by Andrew M. Greeley

  She leaned against me.

  “Please?”

  “No way.”

  22

  I woke up early in the morning of July 20 and turned on Radio Berlin and the BBC …

  The bomb exploded at 1242.

  The BBC had the story first, naturally at 1442.

  “We have just learned that there has been a tremendous explosion in the hut in Rastenberg in East Prussia which has served as a briefing room for Herr Hitler. Our sources tell us that the structure has been completely destroyed.”

  So the bomb had exploded. What next?

  I would later learn that Claus and his aide, Lt. Werner von Haeften, had arrived in midmorning at the Wolf’s Lair and, having passed all the checkpoints, attempted in a washroom to rig both bombs—artillery shells actually—in a satchel. The presence of a curious sergeant major permitted them to rig only one. Acid was supposed to eat away a wire and detonate the bomb in fifteen minutes. They had no time to rig the second. They walked into the briefing hut. Claus was introduced to Hitler. The Fuhrer nodded and suggested that in the next phase of the briefing, Colonel von Stauffenberg report on the condition of the Home Army. Claus sat about five chairs away from Hitler and slid the bomb under the table towards Hitler Von Haeften placed his bomb under the table, hoping that the live bomb would detonate the other.

  Claus whispered a request that he could sit closer to the Führer because his hearing was poor. He managed to inch up the table. Then, with only a few minutes remaining, he and von Haeften slipped away and began to run. They made it to a car which had been left for them and began to drive away. Then the bombs detonated in a thunderous explosion. A signal officer who was part of the conspiracy reported to the other conspirators at the time that the explosion had been successful. Then, when he had seen Hitler emerge from the wreckage, he suggested that all communication links be cut, so that Operation Valkyrie could continue.

  When Claus arrived back at the Bendlerstrasse (the location of the war office) he did his best to sustain the momentum of Operation Valkyrie. With cool and dignified wit, he continued to give orders that it should continue.

  But it was too late. General Fromm, the commanding officer of the Home Army, lost his nerve. The building was in chaos for several hours. At 6:45 Radio Berlin announced that Hitler was still alive and would speak to the nation shortly (only six hours later was the Führer able to speak). Fromm tried to retake control of his office. There was shooting in the building. Claus was hit in the arm and bled profusely. He prevented his men from killing Fromm. Desperate to save himself, Fromm convened a “people’s court,” which ordered the immediate execution of five conspirators, including Claus and General Beck. Fromm demanded that the two of them kill themselves and placed pistols in front of each. Beck went off to another room and shot himself twice, though a coup de grace was still necessary. A hapless sergeant was ordered to finish off the most popular commanding officer in the German army.

  Claus shoved the pistol away.

  “General Fromm,” he said calmly, “I have no intention of killing myself.”

  He and the only three others who had not tried to escape were dragged down to the courtyard and shot. Claus’s last words were, “Long live our Secret Germany!” About midnight their bodies were buried in the courtyard. Several days later they were removed from their graves and burned.

  The Antichrist had survived again and millions more would die—Germans, Russians, Jews, Americans and English.

  When the Nazis took control of the war office the next day, the first thing they did was shoot General Fromm.

  Fromm was a coward and a traitor. Yet once the world learned that Hitler was still alive, the struggle died, save for the torture and murders in the weeks and months ahead.

  The street and the building are now called the Stauffenbergstrasse. There is a memorial plaque in the courtyard where he died. The Russians and the East Germans, of all people, changed the name of the street and built the memorial.

  I knew by 1900 that Hitler was still alive, that the plot had failed, and that Operation Valkyrie was ended. I assumed that Claus was dead. I hoped he was dead.

  Where was Annalise? Would she call or would I have to search for her?

  “Claus,” I prayed, “make her call me.”

  Then the phone did ring—2100.

  “Ridgewood.”

  “Annalise, Herr Ridgewood. He is dead. He was already bleeding from a wound. They shot him in the courtyard of the Bendlerstrasse. Young Werner Haeftin threw himself in front of Claus. They reloaded and fired again. I was there. His last words were ‘Long live our Secret Germany.’”

  “I’m so sorry, Annalise.”

  “He and those who died with him were the only ones who didn’t run away. I want to die too.”

  “They were fortunate to die that way. The others will be tortured to death by the Gestapo.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Annalise, I have two letters for you from Claus. Please come over here and read them.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They are sealed. I did not read them.”

  “I want to die.”

  “I know you do. That means you will be raped at least a hundred times on the cement floor of the basement in the Albertstrasse and then hung on a meat hook to slowly strangle. Do you want that?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Before you do that will you come over to the embassy and read the letters so that I will have fulfilled my promises to Claus … Where are you now?”

  “In my apartment.”

  “Pack a bag with enough clothes for a week and ride over there in the U-Bahn. I will meet you at the Potsdamer Platz entrance. You have a sacred obligation to read Claus’s last letters to you.”

  “Very well, Herr Ridgewood. I have such an obligation.”

  That’s how you deal with Germans. You talk about sacred obligations.

  A half hour later, a full moon above us, she came up the stairs from the station. I would not have recognized her, if she had not said, “Good evening, Herr Ridgewood.”

  She was wearing a gray wig, a very effective wig as one would expect of Annalise, and a long, ugly gray dress under which there appeared no womanly form.

  “Very impressive disguise, Annalise.”

  “You did not recognize me, Herr Ridgewood?”

  “Not till you spoke.”

  “Claus ordered me to disguise myself. He also ordered me to escape and to call you.”

  I removed from her hand the small bag she was carrying.

  We walked silently down the street to the Irish embassy, both living with our own grief.

  We went up to my quarters and I turned on the light and opened the safe. I removed the letters and gave them to her.

  “You note that they are sealed.”

  “I trust you, Herr Ridgewood.”

  I gave her a letter opener She sat at my desk, opened both letters, and placed one on top of the other. Typical German love of order. Perhaps, please God, I would have to get used to it.

  She sighed, folded the letters, and put them in their respective envelopes, having made sure that she had everything in the right order.

  “Do you wish to read them, Herr Ridgewood?”

  “No,” I said, “they are private letters to you.”

  She sighed again.

  “Claus orders me, for the sake of the love he and I have for each other, to permit you to save me. Of course, he was never unfaithful. We never spoke of love … Yet we loved one another. Does that surprise you, Herr Ridgewood?”

  “No, it would be very hard not to love Claus.”

  “How would you save me?”

  “I have created a fiction. Before I describe it to you, let me insist that it is fiction and nothing more. When we reach Berne, the fiction will end.”

  “What is that fiction?”

  “The fiction believes I have a wife named Anne Elizabeth, for whom I have these passports and papers, which you wi
ll note have been stamped very recently by Reichsminister von Ribbentrop, who has furnished me with this very generous endorsement.”

  She studied the passports and the papers.

  “Does this mean I am now Irish?”

  “Hardly. It means only that you have proof that you are Irish.”

  “You are a very clever man, Herr Ridgewood. You have been planning this for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Claus made me promise to save you.”

  She nodded as she put the two letters in her purse.

  “I will now say, Herr Ridgewood, what needs to be said. I trust you.”

  “Thank you, Annalise. Now we have a room for you with a bath, should you want to bathe.”

  “And perhaps a glass of strong Irish whiskey, so I may sleep.”

  I provided a jar of the best.

  “The wig and the dress must be destroyed,” I warned her as she went into her room.

  “Ja, Ja, Herr Ridgewood.”

  As I tried to sleep that night, I ran over in my mind all the things that had to be done before we set out for Basle.

  When I woke in the morning, I remembered that I must send a minute to our embassy in Berne. I dressed in my morning suit because I figured that I should look like an ambassador if I was going to claim to be one. In my office on the ground floor, I sent the note to Berne telling them that my wife and I would arrive there in about five days. I also sent one to Dublin, briefly summarizing the story of the failure of the “Rising.”

  I glanced out the office window and saw a black limousine pull up. The flags on the hood of the car told me it was Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler himself coming for breakfast. I removed one of my .25s from my desk, slipped it into a pocket in my suit, and went to answer the bell.

  “Heil Hitler,” said the handsome young thug waiting at the door. He was wearing the black uniform of the SS. “The Reichsfuhrer-SS wishes to have a brief word with you, Herr Ambassador.”

  “Ja, ja,” I replied, nodding as I always did in return to the salute.

  The driver and another thug stood at attention next to the car. The SS was close to running the whole country now. I had better be careful with my words.

  Hell, I was Irish. I was always careful with my words—when I was sober, which was practically always after I left Cambridge.

  The first thug opened the door, and said, “Heil Hitler” again. I nodded once more.

  I sat down next to Himmler

  “Good morning, Herr Ambassador,” he said in the careful tone of a man who was carrying a terrible burden but was determined to be polite. Like his thugs, he was wearing the black uniform of the SS.

  “Good morning, Reichsführer,” I said pleasantly.

  I know what you want, I thought. I won’t have to kill you.

  “You have chosen a good day to leave Germany,” he said, shaking his head as if he were sad and troubled.

  He looked much like a ticket clerk at a rail station, wearing a funny uniform.

  “My instruction to return for consultation came last week,” I said. “So it is not related to the events of yesterday.”

  “I understand, I understand,” he said soothingly. “I came early because I expect a very busy day. Those foolish aristocrats have disturbed my most careful plans. We must first restore some sense of order before I can proceed with them. I hope that when you arrive in Berne you will speak with some of my contacts there.”

  “Naturally, I will relay any message you wish. I trust the Führer is recovering?”

  I had guessed right, no need to kill you now, Herr Reichsführer.

  “Yes, he is, though the pace of his recovery is slow. I must govern the country in his absence.”

  “A very difficult task, Herr Reichsführer.”

  “Indeed. However, the Führer has not been himself for some time, not since Stalingrad. The German people should permit him to rest and relax, one might even say retire.”

  “Ja,” I said approvingly.

  “I know that you are discreet, Herr Ambassador. You will understand the need for confidentiality in these matters?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Graf Stauffenberg’s goals were the same as mine. His tactics were absurdly naïve. This foolish war must end before the Red Army pollutes the sacred soil of the Fatherland. We must persuade the English and the Americans of our mutual interest in preventing this new Asiatic horde from sweeping all the way to the Atlantic … I personally have established certain contacts in Switzerland, ja, with the Americans. I am asking you—not ordering you naturally—if you would be able to renew those contacts. They will be in touch with you when you arrive there.”

  “I will be honoured to serve as an ambassador of peace. We Irish have a great respect for peacemakers.”

  Please don’t remind me that we kill the peacemakers like Michael Collins.

  We then went down the same catechism that I had recited for Ribbentrop. Did they both know that the other was playing the same game? I suspect that Himmler knew about Ribbentrop but the latter didn’t know about the former. What a terrible way to run a country!

  I loathed them both. But it wasn’t up to me to make decisions for the Allies, but only to report the messages for the Americans in Berne.

  Let the gobshites make their own decisions.

  “I believe,” Himmler continued, “that I am the only man in Germany who has sufficient power to hold the country together and guarantee a peace which may not be accepted universally in this country.”

  I added my warning about the families of the conspirators.

  “What I said yesterday was aimed mainly at the Führer,” he said. “I am not Stalin. However, your comment is sensible. No blood vengeance.”

  “Candidly, Herr Reichsführer, such vengeance might well destroy the confidence of the Americans in Berne.”

  “You may assure them that as of this morning, the blood vengeance plans will cease … and as a token of my gratitude, I have written this laissez-passer message for you and your wife. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of meeting her. Perhaps when you return, you will introduce her to me. Please God when you return we will have peace.”

  “I too hope for that, Herr Reichsführer.”

  “Please read the letter.”

  “Ja, ja!”

  It was even more exaggerated than the document the Reichsminister had given me. I was a distinguished and respected diplomat and I should be treated as if I had the future of Germany in my hands.

  “Was Himmler looking for me?” Annalise was sitting in the office, a mug of tea in her hand and two hard rolls for breakfast on a plate. She was wearing a long robe with the collar held together with one hand. She smelled of spring flowers.

  “No, he was allegedly looking for peace. He had a message for the Americans in Berne. I had the same conversation with Ribbentrop a couple of days ago. They are negotiating with Russians up above in Stockholm.”

  “Himmler would have a better chance than anyone else in Germany of imposing peace,” she said as she poured me a cup of tea. “But surely you will not tell the Americans they should negotiate with him?”

  “My job, Annalise, is to be a disinterested diplomat who relays the substance of the message he was given without intruding his personal opinions. Both Ribbentrop and Himmler accepted terms not unlike Claus’s. Peace now would save millions of lives. I persuaded Himmler to drop the blood vengeance promise as essential to peace.”

  “Nina and the children will be safe!”

  “Let’s hope so. Both these men are pathological liars and traitors to the Third Reich. The Americans will insist on knowing what I think.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I’ll say that if I were in their position, I would proceed with further negotiations only when and if Himmler’s thugs kill the Fuhrer, end the Endlösung, and release everyone in the concentration camps.”

  “Will he do that?” Herr Ridgewood.

  “I doubt that he could do it even i
f he wanted to. But he knows that will be the price of peace … Oh, he gave his own laissez-passer to us.”

  She read it carefully.

  “It is much better than the other one … When do we leave, Herr Ridgewood?”

  “Ten-thirty. We should try for an early start. Are you packed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Here is how we’ll do it. You collect the passports and the letter from Ribbentrop and put them in your purse. You have charge of them for the whole trip. I will take your bag down to the garage and put it in the car. Then I will drive by here. You’ll be standing inside the door with your purse and the key to the house. When the car pulls up, you come out of the door. And close the door, making sure the lock slips into place. Then you will walk down the stairs casually and get in the car. You open the purse and show it to me. Then we will leave for Berne. We’ll head right down the Autobahn towards Nuremberg. It will be the easiest drive of the trip … OK?”

  “Yes, Herr Ridgewood. You will forgive me if I cry a little today?”

  “I may weep too, Annalise. We are both leaving a lot behind.”

  She lifted a package she had tied with a piece of string.

  “My wig and dress. You will dispose of it?”

  I’d forgotten that.

  “Thank you for remembering.”

  I returned to my radio equipment and sent a final minute to Dublin.

  In the wake of the abortive attempt of the OKW to establish a new government that would seek peace with the Western allies, there are rumors here of other negotiation attempts to open channels of communication between the Reich and its enemies. Unofficial feelers have been extended both in Switzerland and Sweden. It is also understood that Russian officials are in contact with German emissaries in Stockholm. This sudden hum of peace activities will probably lead nowhere. In Germany the plotters will have to eliminate Hitler because he will never agree to peace nor step down voluntarily.

  A’chiara.

  I scrambled the decoder so that the Abwehr would not be able to decode my dispatches, if they had kept any of them around.

  Annalise brought her suitcase to the ground floor and placed it next to a bag which contained six bottles of springwater.