Hoffman’s mind raced. What was Himmler’s game? The man was as mercurial as the many hats he wore. Head of the Ahnenerbe, the Department of Cultural Heritage. Head of the SS and the Gestapo. All the Nazi arteries of hate seemed to lead to him. Even the Ahnenerbe was malign, a racist front. Before the war, Hoffman had thrilled as much as any schoolboy to the newsreel footage showing heroic German expeditions to Tibet and Iceland and the Andes, searching for lost Aryan civilizations. He had even applied to be a pilot on one of those expeditions, far too young but overcome by his passion to fly. Himmler had made a public spectacle of him, had called him to Berlin and paraded him as the perfect Nazi youth, willing to volunteer to serve the Fatherland even before he was of age. But then Himmler’s scientists had shown him photographs and skull measurements of Tibetans and native Greenlanders. Hoffman had said nothing, but he had realized that the treasure they were seeking was not so alluring after all. It was only later that he understood that those measurements were another instrument of hate, part of the collection of data that supposedly gave proof of the physical superiority of the German people.
He had seen what Himmler’s other hats meant too. A few months ago he had been invited to a party at Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, where he had been shown the manacles for hanging prisoners and the guillotine room. The victims were so-called political prisoners, anyone who displeased Himmler. Berliners who heard the screams at night called it the House of Horrors. And there was worse. As a university student in 1938, Hoffman had witnessed Kristallnacht, the smashing and burning of Jewish shops across Germany. Later, on a tour of factories as a Luftwaffe hero, he had seen Jewish slave labour at the V-1 and V-2 rocket sites. Everyone knew how the Jews were treated; you could see them in work gangs around Berlin, with their Star of David armbands. Then one afternoon six months ago, on one of his last missions as a Stuka pilot over the Eastern Front, Hoffman’s aircraft had been leaking fuel and he had been forced to land in Poland near the town of O wie cim, where they had flown over a vast camp with barracks and a railhead. The aircraft engine had nearly choked on a thick cloud of smoke that smelled like roasted meat. His gunner in the rear seat had glimpsed the scene below: crowds of people disembarking from a train, men, women, children, a ragged line leading to an underground entrance next to the source of the smoke. He had seen the Star of David armbands, and guards kicking and beating people. The Polish labourers in the field where they had landed called it Todesmuhle, the death mill. When he came to Berlin for his new posting, Hoffman discovered that it was Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, the man in front of him now, who had been the architect of that horror, something he referred to with his humourless grin as die Endlosung, the Final Solution – in his mind a logistical challenge that continued to preoccupy him even after Hitler had got bored with the Jewish question and had shut out everything except his dream of an art museum at Linz.
The tremors stopped. The guns had ceased firing, as if a monster had expended itself in a final frenzy. Hoffman could smell the freshly pulverized paint from the walls, and the reek of vomit and shit seeping in through the door from the people crammed in the stairwell below. Himmler took his hands from his ears, dusted himself off and raised his feet back on to the planks of the desk. He reached over and picked up the bottle of schnapps, uncapped it and took a long swig. He exhaled hard, put the bottle down and looked at Hoffman. Then he smiled again, crookedly. ‘We are not a nation of partisans, are we, Herr SS-Brigadefuhrer?’
Hoffman did not know what to say. He clicked his heels. ‘ Mein Fuhrer.’
‘No, we are not.’ Himmler took another swig from the bottle, then slammed it down, smacking his lips. ‘This new partisan army that’s supposed to carry on the war in the forests. What did Adolf call it? Werewolf.’ He sniggered. ‘And this force you were posted here to command? The 9th Luftwaffe Parachute Division Lebelstar. A crack new division? The snotty little boys on the roof.’ He cocked an ear theatrically, then stared penetratingly at Hoffman. ‘And speaking of which, is that not the end of the shooting I hear? Was that not to be your cue, to remuster the crews from the flak guns and lead them into battle?’
Hoffman clicked his heels again. His heart was pounding. This might be his chance. ‘ Mein Fuhrer. I must go. My duty…’
‘Your duty, SS-Brigadefuhrer, is to me,’ Himmler snarled, slamming his hand on the plank. The bottle of schnapps tottered, then smashed on the floor.
Hoffman felt the blood drain from his face. ‘ Mein Fuhrer. Those were to be my words exactly. I have sworn the SS oath.’ He snapped his arm up in the Nazi salute. ‘ Sieg Heil! ’
Himmler suddenly relaxed, and waved again. ‘Take your arm down. We don’t need that nonsense in here, you and I.’ He looked wistfully at the broken glass, than back up at Hoffman, leaning forward. ‘Now, to business. What do you know about the Wunderwaffe?’
Hoffman stared past Himmler, unflinching. So that was it. Moments of apparent sense, moments when Himmler derided the last-ditch schemes of Hitler and his cronies, then back to the madness. The mythical Wunderwaffe was the biggest delusion of all, the wonder-weapon that was going to save the Reich. First, it was going to be unleashed on the day of President Roosevelt’s death, as some kind of a holy sign. Then on Hitler’s birthday, ten days ago. But of course nothing had happened. Hoffman cleared his throat. ‘Reichsleiter Goebbels promised it. A secret weapon to be used at the chosen moment.’
Himmler waved his hand again. ‘Goebbels. That little monster. I always loathed him.’ He gave his disarming grin. ‘His children are dead, you know, in the bunker. Goebbels’ fallen angels. An injection of morphine, then a cyanide tablet forced into their mouths while they were asleep. Only I’m told they weren’t all asleep. Not the oldest one, anyway.’ He pushed his spectacles up his nose, then peered inquisitively at Hoffman. ‘Well? What weapons?’
Hoffman remembered the older Goebbels girl. He swallowed hard. ‘In the Luftwaffe, we knew about the rocket programmes, the V-1 and the V-2. A few months ago I toured the test site at Peenemunde with Reichsmarschall Goring. There was talk of another rocket in secret production, a V-3.’
Himmler waved his hand and snorted contemptuously. ‘Goring. That fat pig. He stole art from this storeroom for his chateau, you know. And the rocket factory is history now, bombed to oblivion by the English. Anyway, rockets are just vehicles, not weapons.’
Hoffman carefully calculated what he thought Himmler would want to hear, something he had become skilled at judging over the past few months around the Nazi inner circle in Berlin. ‘The atomic programme. The research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics.’
Himmler’s eyes glinted. ‘Now that’s a weapon. But the programme was never close to actuality. Not enough uranium.’
Hoffman watched the little eyes dart around his face, then fix squarely on him. He was playing Himmler’s guessing game. ‘Poison gas?’
Himmler gave a high-pitched laugh, and slapped the table. ‘Good. The Spandau gas research facility. Sarin and Tabin nerve gas. But no. Those were Verzweiflungswaffen, weapons of despair. Lance Corporal Hitler had too many bad memories of the last war, when the gas our side released wafted back into our own trenches and blinded him. Anyway, gas is inefficient. You need lots of it, and lots of bombs and shells to disperse it.’
Hoffman stared at Himmler, his mind racing. He had heard other rumours. A few months ago, a former professor of his had invited him for dinner in Heidelberg. After too much schnapps, he had told Hoffman of his secret work for the Ahnenerbe, the Department of Cultural Heritage. He had said that the search for Aryan roots, for precursor civilizations – for Atlantis – was not all that it seemed. And it was not just the sordid business of collecting craniological measurements to support racist theory. There had been another purpose, equally sinister and top secret. They had scoured the world for ancient medicines, for ancient cures: among primitive peoples, in mummies, under polar ice, deep underwater. But, the man had drunkenly whispered, it was not the cure
they wanted. They wanted the disease. Hoffman had not been the only one the man had spoken to after too much drink, and the Gestapo had got wind of his indiscretions. He had disappeared soon after into Himmler’s House of Horrors. Hoffman pursed his lips and shook his head. It was time to allow Himmler his flourish. ‘Nothing, mein Fuhrer. I can’t think.’
Himmler slapped the table, then drew himself forward on his elbows, his face gleaming. ‘Well, I will let you in on a secret.’ He opened his arms expansively. ‘What went on in this room, here in the Zoo flak tower?’
Hoffman looked straight at him. ‘It was a storage vault for the treasures of the Berlin museums, placed here in 1942 when the English terror-bombing began.’ He glanced at the crate to Himmler’s left, then instantly regretted it. Himmler’s eye had followed his. The man saw everything. Himmler reached over and put his hand on the crate inches from the order book Hoffman had used as a diary. He rubbed a smear of dust, saw the dirt on his hand and then wiped his fingers on the cover of the order book. Hoffman could barely breathe. Himmler sat back, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his hand again, then inspected his fingernails. He gave Hoffman an amused look.
‘You think these crates contain some kind of Wunderwaffe? They are what they say they are. They contain Schliemann’s treasure from Troy. I blackmailed that cretin Bormann into leaving these three here, on pain of telling Hitler that Bormann was actually stealing the rest for himself. Adolf dreamed that all of these treasures were going to his fantasy Fuhrermuseum in Linz, that absurd architect’s model he kept poring over in the bunker. Well, these three crates I kept for myself. I believe you have met Dr Unversagt, who was watching over them when you arrived? I had hoped to return for them once the Americans had joined us, but now they will be taken by the Russians. It is of no moment. My best treasures await me elsewhere, in another secret bunker, all of my greatest artefacts from Wewelsburg as well as the best of those from Troy, the ones the public never saw. I even have a small art collection of my own, including my favourite Raphael. You see, I am a far more discerning collector than Goring or Bormann. These men were merely gangsters.’ He jerked his head at the broken bust of Bismarck on the floor behind. ‘The Iron Chancellor was a friend of Schliemann’s, you know. Perhaps they talked of taking the world by storm, with the broken pieces of myth in these crates from Troy. You approve, Herr SS-Brigadefuhrer, of this talk of world domination?’
‘ Mein Fuhrer.’
Himmler patted his pocket, took out a silver hip flask, shook it, and then grunted. One of the SS generals in the shadows behind Hoffman reached over with a flask of his own. Himmler unscrewed the lid, sniffed it, then offered it back to the man. ‘You first, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer.’ The man clicked his heels and took the flask, and Hoffman heard the sound of trickling and swallowing. The man whipped out a handkerchief, wiped the flask and handed it back to Himmler, then stepped back into the shadows. Himmler swilled the flask around, then put it on the desk. ‘Perhaps not,’ he muttered, looking at the general and then eyeing Hoffman. ‘And certainly not for you, Herr SS-Brigadefuhrer. For what is to come, you need a clear head.’
Himmler reached over for the swaddled package he had taken from his satchel. As he did so, Hoffman realized that something was different outside. The background vibration of exploding shells against the concrete of the gun platform had ceased. The Russian infantry must have taken the Zoo grounds, and would be too close for their heavy artillery to carry on targeting the bunker. Hoffman tensed. The flak tower was now in the eye of the storm; it could only be a matter of time before the Russian tanks began firing armour-piercing rounds point-blank at the steel window shutters, punching holes for the flame-throwers to shoot through. Hoffman saw that Himmler sensed the change too, that he knew their time was running out. He leaned forward, the crooked smile gone. ‘Listen to me, Hoffman, and listen well. You said you knew about the Spandau gas research laboratories. Well, the Zoo tower was not just for the storage of treasures. There is another chamber, deep below the water reservoir. The reservoir walls act as a barrier to prevent what is inside from escaping, from being released into the atmosphere. You understand me?’
‘ Mein Fuhrer.’
‘My Ahnenerbe men searched the world for ancient diseases, for ones long thought dormant, diseases against which people today would have little resistance. They scoured the ancient literature. A particularly fastidious young researcher in Heidelberg eventually found an account of what we wanted: an extraordinarily toxic waterborne bacterium that may have killed Alexander the Great. Under the pretence of searching for a lost civilization under the ice, my explorers and scientists went to the most extreme fresh-water environments in the world, to Iceland and Greenland, seeking the deadliest strain of the bacterium they could find. Eventually they discovered it, at a place that only the most courageous of my divers could reach. We had already embarked on another quest, for a particular virus. This time we did not need to look so far back in history. It was the Spanish influenza virus that killed twenty million people at the end of the First World War. A virus that Hitler saw as divine vengeance against the world for inflicting such humiliation on the German people. A virus that I saw as the tool of ultimate power. For years my scientists thought it could never be recovered. They exhumed body after body across Germany. But the Blitzkrieg and the conquest of Europe greatly expanded the search area. Eventually, in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, they found the well-preserved corpses of two influenza victims who had been buried in lead-lined coffins. They took them to a bunker laboratory deep in a forest in Upper Saxony, and they isolated the virus from the cadavers. I ordered a labour camp to be set up, disguised as a camp for forest workers. We brought in prisoners of all races, young men and women, strong, healthy, the backbone of any country. After many experiments with the virus, my scientists tested the most promising mutations on the prisoners. They added the bacterium to make it more potent. Gradually we improved it until all of the infected people died. Our work had produced a deadly weapon. A Wunderwaffe, yes?’
Hoffman felt physically sick. ‘A Wunderwaffe, mein Fuhrer.’
Himmler reached over and pulled the swaddled package on the table towards him, clunking it on the planks. It sounded heavy, metallic. He looked at Hoffman intently. ‘My detractors think I am obsessed with the occult, with mystical symbols and rituals. They think it clouds my reason, but that is what I wished them to think. In reality I use it to cloak my intentions. I needed an artifice to shroud my wonder-weapon in mystique, to convince those who would follow me that the plan to use the weapon was in the Nazi cause. What better than the ancient symbolism I myself had nurtured, and had placed at the heart of Nazi ideology?’ He waved his hand at the crates. ‘Schliemann’s greatest treasure was not found at Troy but at the Greek citadel of Mycenae, buried under the Mask of Agamemnon. It was a most astonishing discovery, and fell into my hands when we dug beneath Schliemann’s house in Athens after we had conquered Greece in 1941, to follow a rumour that he had concealed treasures there. We found it wrapped with a note by Schliemann’s wife Sophia about the discovery, placed there after his death. It was nothing less than the sacred palladion of the Trojans, brought back to Greece by the victorious Greek king Agamemnon. The Trojans thought the palladion had fallen from heaven, a divine gift to the founder of their city. In a sense they were right: it was a meteorite, probably brought to Troy millennia before from some distant place. Meteorites are found most easily on ice, and I convinced my followers that this was vindication of Welteislehre – the so-called world ice theory developed by my Ahnenerbe scholars, a mad fantasy – and that it was a sacred artefact from the supposed Ice Age precursor civilization that had led us to scour Iceland and Greenland for clues. At some time in prehistory the meteorite had been fashioned by human hands into the shape you will see, and then melded with gold: meteoritic iron on one side, gold on the other. I told my followers that it had been forged in Atlantis. It is the most ancient Aryan symbol, a swastika.’
H
offman stared in amazement at the shape within the package, about fifteen centimetres across. Himmler held him in his gaze. ‘With the iron surface facing down, it is a reverse swastika, a symbol of ancient Troy. You can see it decorating ancient potsherds from Troy illustrated in Schliemann’s book. But there’s more. When my scientists analysed the meteoritic iron, they found it had a unique magnetic signature. One of them came up with an ingenious idea. By holding the palladion with the iron facing down, it could be used as a key, one that could never be replicated. A magnetic mechanism aligned to the unique signature of the meteoritic iron could allow doors to be opened, doors to the secret vault that contained the Wunderwaffe.’
‘The chamber beneath this tower?’ Hoffman murmured.
‘I embedded the palladion in the most secret core of SS ideology. It was concealed below the floor of my SS headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle, like a sacred reliquary. Every new SS general had to swear an oath on that spot. You yourself have been there, when I showed you the cover to the reliquary with the reverse swastika on top, the arms of the cross bending to the left instead of the right. But only a select few knew the significance of what lay concealed beneath – the palladion – and its use as a key. For those, I devised an activation signal called the Agamemnon Code. A simple message, an image of the reverse swastika inside a red roundel, would be sent to a few chosen followers when the time was right. It would signal the start of my plan. Not Adolf ’s plan, but my plan. A plan for a new Reich and a new Fuhrer, but a Reich of global dimensions, one based far away from the squalor and mess of Nazi Germany.’
The Gods of Atlantis jh-6 Page 27