by Sam Eastland
Meinhardt was a solidly built man with a wide forehead and hair parted severely down one side. His deep-set eyes and expressionless mouth gave little away of what was going on inside his head.
Some fifteen hours before, the professor had been abruptly summoned from the IG Farben research facility in Leverkeusen, south of Cologne, where he conducted research into the application of chemical compounds for military use. The men who came to fetch Meinhardt identified themselves as members of the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst; the Intelligence branch of the SS, headquartered in the Berlin suburb of Zossen. They gave no explanation as to why he had been summoned, by whom or where he was being taken. He was not allowed to pack a bag, or even to call his family to tell them he would be late for dinner. The SD men, who wore civilian clothes, bundled him into a car and drove him to an airstrip near the town of Bad Godesberg, where he was put aboard a Junkers Ju52 cargo plane and flown towards the east.
At Rastenburg airfield, the plane had not even finished taxiing before the black Mercedes pulled up beside it. It was only as Meinhardt descended from the Junkers and a man climbed out of the car, wearing a black-and-silver cuff title with the word Führerhauptquartier, indicating a member of Hitler’s private staff, that he finally understood where he was going.
Since then, Meinhardt had been struggling to comprehend the reason for this virtual kidnapping. Although he was able not to show it, he was a nervous wreck and worried that he might faint at any moment.
The Mercedes pulled up outside the largest of the wooden buildings.
The car door was opened by a guard carrying a sub-machine gun.
Meinhardt climbed out, hurriedly buttoning his coat. Directed by the guard, he walked through the open front door of the building, passing a radio room on the left, and made his way down a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor to a conference room at the end of the hall.
As he entered the room, he caught sight of three men, all of whom he recognised immediately from their pictures in the papers and the newsreels. One was Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and War Production. The second was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, and the third – the only one Meinhardt had actually met before, although only briefly – was General Walter Scheiber, Head of Chemical Industries for the Reich.
Scheiber sprang to his feet. Then, seeing it was Meinhardt, he settled back into his chair. ‘Oh, it’s only you,’ he sighed.
‘Hurry up and sit down,’ ordered Speer. ‘You are late and he will be here any minute.’
‘If I may ask, Herr Minister . . .’ began Meinhardt.
‘You may not!’ snapped Keitel. It was cool in the room and Keitel still wore his greatcoat, its lapels faced with the crimson cloth of a general.
Meinhardt felt his bowels clench. He had just reached his chair when there was the soft rustle of footsteps, a side door opened and Adolf Hitler walked into the room.
He wore black wool trousers, sharply creased, and a white shirt with black tie and a double-breasted jacket of caramel-coloured cloth. He looked pale, and stooped as he approached the table, carrying a large leather-bound folder tucked under his right arm.
By now, all the men had risen to their feet, filling the room with the scrape and creak of chair legs shunted back across the bare wood floor.
Hitler made no acknowledgement of anyone in the room. It almost seemed as if he thought he was alone. He stood at the head of the table, placed the folder down and opened it. For the next few minutes, he studied the documents inside, his fingertips balanced on the highly polished surface.
Without moving his head, Meinhardt rolled his eyes around and studied the men in the room. They all looked nervous, even Speer, and it occurred to Meinhardt that perhaps he wasn’t the only one in the room who had no idea what he was doing there.
Finally, Hitler spoke. ‘Sit,’ he told them in a voice barely above a whisper.
There was another shuffling of chairs as the men took their places at the table.
‘The purpose of this meeting,’ he began, ‘is to discuss Germany’s readiness to begin poison-gas attacks upon the enemy and whether such attacks should be instigated by the German military or used only as a retaliatory gesture should the Allies use poison gas first.’ Only then did he raise his head and look carefully at each man in turn until his gaze came to rest on Otto Meinhardt.
Meinhardt felt Hitler’s stare playing like a searchlight across his face.
‘You are the man from IG Farben,’ said Hitler.
‘Yes, mein Führer!’ spluttered Meinhardt. He felt as if he ought to leap to his feet again, but managed to restrain himself.
‘It is known to me that the Allies possess the agents phosgene, mustard and chlorine.’
‘That is correct,’ said Meinhardt.
‘What I do not know,’ continued Hitler, ‘is whether they also have in their arsenal any of the new compounds you have invented.’
Instinctively, Meinhardt glanced across at General Scheiber. He had been expressly forbidden from even mentioning the existence of these compounds.
Scheiber’s eyes grew round. His lips pressed together. He looked as if he might explode. ‘Tell him!’ he whispered urgently.
Meinhardt turned to face Hitler again. ‘You are referring to tabun and sarin?’
‘Yes,’ replied Hitler. ‘Tell me about these new weapons. What makes them different from the other gases that we currently have at our disposal?’
‘As you know,’ Meinhardt began, ‘the chlorine, phosgene and mustard gases which both we and the Allies possess in significant quantities were all used extensively in the last war. In order to be effective, they must be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. The effect . . .’
‘I know all about their effects!’ Hitler interrupted angrily, and a sudden silence descended upon the room.
*
It was on 13 October 1918, near Werwicq, south of Ypres, in Belgium, that Corporal Hitler of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment had been injured in a gas attack.
In a hastily dug foxhole, knees tucked up against his chin, he heard the gas shells falling. Unlike regular artillery shells, which exploded in geysers of black smoke, poppy-coloured fire, stone and mud, gas shells made a soft thump as they landed. He had pulled his gas mask from its fluted metal case and put it on, but the mask had been used many times before and he had neglected to replace the charcoal filter. The gas had seeped in and he felt it as a burning in his eyes. His lungs became outlined with pain and each breath felt as if he were swallowing embers. Through the foggy lenses of his gas mask, he watched the tombac silver disc in the centre of his belt buckle, emblazoned with a Bavarian crown and the words ‘In Treue Fest’, turning grey and then black as the metal reacted with the chlorine gas. In the distance, through the trees, he could just make out the white building known as the Domaine Dalle-Dumont, which had once served as the manor house on the estate where his regiment had dug in. All around him, men writhed coughing in their foxholes. One soldier ran past the corporal’s dugout, clutching his throat with one hand. In his other hand, he held his gas mask, its rubberised fabric torn in haste and clumsiness. The corporal recognised the man. His name was Eisen, and he had only recently been posted to the regiment. His heavy, knee-length boots swished through the fallen leaves. The corporal watched him run until he reached the nearby road, the Rue de Linzelles. There, the man stopped and appeared to be looking around.
The corporal wondered what on earth he could be doing there. Did he imagine that help would come so soon? Or at all, in the middle of a gas attack? Help would not come, and even if it did, there would be nothing they could do. Eisen was as good as dead, and he probably knew it.
After a few seconds, the man staggered and fell. His legs moved back and forth, churning the dirt. And then he lay still.
Some hours later, when the gas attack had ended, the corporal saw trucks moving past on the road and men marching without their gas masks. Knowing that gas sometimes collected in the hollows of the
ground, he tried to stand. Overcome with nauseating dizziness, he fell back over the edge of his foxhole. His eyes felt as if someone had rubbed salt into them.
Stretcher bearers were making their way through the woods. He could see the white arm bands with the red crosses. He tore off his mask and called out to them.
He was loaded on to a stretcher, then carried to the Rue de Linzelles, where an ambulance was waiting to take them. As the corporal was loaded on board, he glanced down at the road and saw the man who had collapsed during the gas attack. Eisen’s skin had turned a jaundiced yellow and his eyes, the whites filled with blood, were wide open. He had been run over several times by trucks coming up and down the road and his body was almost completely flattened.
The corporal did not know how badly he himself had been gassed, and whether he had long to live. As the truck pulled away, heading for the Field Hospital, he glanced back at the remains of the corpse on the road. He felt no pity for the man. Instead, he considered him lucky. He had seen soldiers die in gas attacks before. He knew how long it took, and how painfully their lives were choked out of them. Better to be run over like a dog, he thought, than to cough up your lungs while you’re strapped to a hospital bed, and he wondered if he would soon be filled with envy for his former comrade who’d been crushed on the Rue de Linzelles.
*
‘What I was trying to explain,’ Meinhardt said haltingly, ‘was that while chlorine, mustard and phosgene must be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and have a caustic effect upon the mucous membranes, tabun and sarin react directly with the body’s nervous system, inhibiting the function of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. This has the effect of preventing the function of muscles associated with breathing.’
‘So the victims are asphyxiated.’
‘Yes, and very quickly,’ replied Meinhardt, ‘sometimes in only a few minutes, depending on the level of exposure.’
‘Is there a difference between tabun and sarin?’ asked Hitler.
‘In their effectiveness, yes,’ answered Meinhardt. ‘Sarin is approximately six times more efficient than tabun. Tabun does not vaporise at low temperatures. It also decomposes rapidly, whereas sarin has neither of these drawbacks.’
‘And how were these nerve agents discovered?’
‘By accident,’ replied Meinhardt. ‘In 1936, a chemist employed at IG Farben’s research facility at Leverkeusen was attempting to produce a synthetic pesticide to destroy weevils in grain. In the course of his research, he discovered an organophosphate compound so toxic that even a tiny exposure left him so sick that he was unable to work for several weeks. The compound, which was initially designated Le-100, was far too poisonous to be marketed as an insecticide, but after the existence of Le-100 had been brought to the attention of the War Office, it was quickly determined that the substance had potential military applications.’
‘And does it?’ asked Hitler.
‘Oh, yes!’ replied Meinhardt. ‘Extensive tests have been conducted.’
‘What kind of tests?’
‘Initially on rabbits—’ began Meinhardt.
But Hitler cut him off. ‘I am not gambling the survival of this country on rabbits!’
‘Neither is IG Farben,’ Meinhardt tried to reassure him. ‘That is why volunteers from the Natzweiler Concentration Camp were exposed to the nerve agent.’
‘Volunteers?’ asked Hitler.
‘They were promised that if they survived the experiments, they would be allowed to go free.’
‘And were there any survivors?’
Meinhardt shook his head. ‘The results were quite conclusive.’
‘This project has a curious name,’ said Hitler. ‘Sartaman. What does it mean?’
‘It is an acronym,’ replied Meinhardt, ‘from the names of the three compounds we were researching at the time.’
‘Three?’ Hitler narrowed his eyes. ‘But you have only mentioned two.’
‘That is correct. Sarin and tabun became the focus of our study after the third compound, known as soman, proved to be unstable. It was most unfortunate, because we had also discovered that soman was many times more lethal than either of the first two compounds.’
‘Unstable.’ Hitler repeated the word. ‘How unstable?’
‘We were not able to contain it in the laboratory, resulting in the deaths of half a dozen very valuable technicians. After that, we turned our energies to developing the more reliable compounds.’
‘Are you are confident that the Allies have absolutely no idea of the existence of tabun or sarin?’
Once more, Meinhardt glanced across at General Scheiber.
‘He is not asking the questions!’ snapped Hitler. ‘Do you have an answer for me or not?’
Meinhardt cleared his throat. ‘Scientific papers were published in the 1930s concerning chemicals involved in nerve-agent production, but this was at a time when it was assumed that such compounds would only be used as insecticides.’
‘And who published these papers?’
‘We did,’ answered Meinhardt. ‘Most of them, anyway.’
‘And the others?’
‘A certain Professor Arbusov of the Soviet School of Organo-phosphorous Chemistry reported on his work in reactionary sequences which are part of the production of sarin. But that was years ago, and we have no evidence to suggest that the Soviets pursued any military applications of the compound.’
‘Neither do you have evidence to the contrary.’
Meinhardt paused. ‘That is correct.’
‘So what you are telling me, in essence, is that the Allies could have developed their own versions of tabun and sarin.’
Suddenly a new voice entered the conversation. It was Speer. For the past few minutes, he had been nervously tapping a pen upon a leather briefcase lying on the table in front of him. ‘It is irrelevant,’ he announced, ‘whether the Russians or the Americans or the British have this weapon.’
For several seconds, Hitler studied his Minister of Armaments, as if trying to decide whether to take offence at the abruptness of his remark. But he seemed to think better of it, and only asked, ‘How so?’
‘If we deploy one of these compounds against them,’ replied Speer, ‘no matter how devastating the result, it will only be a matter of time before their scientists have collected samples from the battlefield, brought them back to their chemical warfare facilities and replicated the synthesis.’
‘Time,’ said Hitler. ‘How much time?’ He looked across at General Scheiber. ‘What do you think? A year? Six months?’
Scheiber breathed out sharply through his nose. ‘Something like that.’
‘And what do you say to that, Speer?’ asked Hitler.
‘Two weeks,’ Speer replied flatly.
‘That is impossible!’ shouted General Scheiber, slapping his palm hard against the tabletop.
But Speer was in no mood to back down. ‘If I gave Professor Meinhardt a sample today, I am confident that he could have a chemical breakdown ready for me, as well as a synthesis chart, in ten days.’
General Scheiber glared at him.
‘Well, Scheiber?’ demanded Hitler. ‘Is my Minister of Armaments lying to me?’
Scheiber’s jaw muscles clenched. He looked as if he was tied to his chair. ‘Possibly not,’ he muttered.
‘With a fully operational facility,’ continued Speer, ‘the likes of which the Allies are known to possess, they could begin production in under two weeks. So you see, whatever damage we could do to our enemies with this new weapon, would be visited upon us tenfold, and any strategic advantage we had gained would quickly be reversed. So it is settled.’ Hitler closed the file laid out before him. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the room.
There was a moment of silence.
‘I don’t understand,’ Meinhardt said quietly. ‘What is settled? What will happen to the Sartaman Project?’
General Keitel, who had said almost nothing up to this point, breathed out sh
arply through his nose. ‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘Nothing will happen. Does he have to spell it out for you?’
One by one, the men rose to their feet.
Meinhardt wondered how he was ever going to get home again, or if he was going home at all.
As if in answer to the question, General Scheiber walked up to him. ‘You ride with me,’ he said. It did not sound like a request.
The two men left the building and climbed into a waiting Opel staff car. They sat side by side in the back seat. Neither man spoke as they progressed through the various checkpoints until at last they reached the open road again. It was only when they were several kilometres beyond the Rastenburg compound that Scheiber ordered his driver to pull over.
By now, they were on a long, straight, well-paved track, with thick pine forest growing on either side.
‘Out!’ Scheiber barked at the professor.
It occurred to Meinhardt that perhaps Scheiber intended for him to walk the rest of the way back to Leverkeusen.
But Scheiber climbed out with him.
‘With me!’ snapped Scheiber. Followed by Meinhardt, the general strode ahead of the car for a minute, so as to be out of the driver’s range of hearing. Then he stopped in the middle of the road.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind blowing through the tops of the pine trees.
Then General Scheiber spoke. ‘Do you realise, Professor, that you have just singlehandedly destroyed the entire chemical weapons programme? Do you have any idea how much money you have cost us? And why didn’t you explain to the Führer that we are still attempting to stabilise the soman compound? That might have bought us some time.’
‘I didn’t tell him that,’ said Meinhardt, ‘because I am not going to risk another catastrophe like the one that killed half a dozen of our research assistants!’
It seemed, for a moment, that Scheiber was ready to continue the argument indefinitely. But then the fight seemed to go out of him suddenly, and he let out a long, whistling sigh. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Get back to Leverkeusen. Transfer existing stocks of sarin and tabun to the Citadel Armoury at Spandau. Order all production and development to cease immediately. Cancel the Sartaman Project.’