Weapons of Peace

by Johnston, Peter D. ;

  She’d chosen to have only a few friends and neighbors over for the celebration, including Lady Baillie and Pauline, but Emma had quickly judged the event a success, since her boys hadn’t stopped smiling and playing the entire time.

  She turned her attention now to the field where they were throwing a new cricket ball back and forth between them, their high-pitched chatter filling the intoxicating country air. She still found it hard to believe how similar the pair looked and acted.

  Both nine-year-olds—the twins, as she referred to them—stood roughly the same height, had bright-blond hair, blue eyes, an insatiable desire to learn, enjoyed every sport imaginable, and were good-natured, though Richard was prone to brood if he didn’t get his way, and her Axel had a sharp temper. But Axel also had so much love to give her, starting from the very moment she’d first seen him in Hamburg, when he’d hugged her so hard, weeping—somehow knowing exactly who she was, and why she was there, without having to be told anything.

  In just three months, the two boys had picked up English and were well on their way to gaining fluency in simple conversations, each knowing not to speak German around others or talk about their different pasts.

  Axel was actually born in late June and Richard in early August, but she’d decided to merge their birthdays to make their story complete and avoid any questions. In the spirit of compromise, the twins would from now on celebrate their births on this day, the twenty-fifth of July—the same day Everett Nash was born, in 1891.

  According to Lady Baillie, who’d finalized Nash’s will with him during his last day of consciousness at the hospital in Oxford, Emma had been left all of his assets and belongings. Given the demands of looking for a new home, moving in, and furnishing it while getting the boys accustomed to life in England, she’d been too busy to read through the fine print of what Nash had so graciously bequeathed to her on both sides of the Atlantic. She hardly needed more money, though; her Swiss and English bank accounts already contained balances that would support her boys into adulthood.

  One day when they were older, Emma might revisit with them the details behind their harrowing trip through the Alps to safety after she’d collected Richard and promised his guardian, Ilse, to treat the boy as her own. The child had only been told that if he didn’t leave Germany immediately his life would be at risk.

  Indeed, Richard—named after Richard Wagner—had quickly become as much a son to Emma as Axel was. Because of the physical similarities between Emma and his mother, no one would doubt that he was Emma’s son any more than they would think that Axel belonged to someone else.

  Richard realized that his real mother had died. He’d adored her, even though she hadn’t been able to spend much time with him. He knew, through Emma, that his birth mother had adored him, too—from the moment she became pregnant a second time, having somehow lost her first child during pregnancy. At some point, he would inevitably ask who his father was, because he’d never been told. Emma knew that her initial instinct would be to lie, to say that he was a famous German scientist or composer or athlete—anything but the truth, because who could make sense of that truth, or live with it?

  Late at night, she sometimes worried that Richard might turn out like his father, but he’d shown no signs of it, apart, perhaps, from being an exceptional artist for someone of his age. But even if some undesirable traits did surface over time, it didn’t really matter, because a deal was a deal. She’d promised to do this in return for what his mother had done for her, and she’d sworn to protect Richard against anyone who might suspect his lineage and come looking for him. That’s why she’d been given the second coin.

  That morning, as a birthday present, Axel and Richard each received their gold coin when they came down for breakfast. They were in awe of their matching gifts, staring at the fine details and asking questions, many of which Emma dodged. As their mother, she prayed that these gifts would always remain a striking and curious memento of the past—and nothing more.

  Undoubtedly, though, she would teach them the coin game as soon as they were old enough to grasp its lessons and how those lessons could help them defend themselves and negotiate their lives—or change their lives forever.

  She hadn’t yet read through the notes, photos, and letters she’d received from Eva, whom she missed, but she would do that, too, whenever she had time. And there never was enough time. Not when she had young children, and a life to rebuild.

  For now, as she gazed out at her property’s emerald-green fields—light dancing around her laughing sons—her world truly seemed at peace.

  The People: Weapons of Peace

  Weapons of Peace is a work of fiction, but many aspects of its storyline reflect actual events and facts, as well as the lives of real people—even though all scenes involving these people have been created by the author. Below, listed alphabetically, are briefings on some of the real-life individuals who appear in the pages of this novel, or who, at a minimum, had a material influence on the realities reflected in these pages.

  Before reading the following profiles, please note that many of them contain information that pertains to the plot and ending of Weapons of Peace.

  Ambros, Otto: As one of Hitler’s leading chemists, Ambros oversaw the production of the deadly chemical Tabun. Professor Frank J. Dinan, of Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, maintains that Ambros may have purposely exaggerated the Allies’ ability to retaliate with chemical weapons, knowing that this would cause Hitler to rethink plans for using massive quantities on the Russians and other Allied forces. If true, Ambros, who was convicted of war crimes and sent to prison, is both a villain of the worst kind and, arguably, someone who put himself at risk to save millions of lives. He later worked with the United States under Operation Paperclip—the controversial secret program that recruited sixteen hundred German scientists, engineers, and technicians to switch their allegiance to America, often erasing any obvious connections to the Nazis and their heinous activities. Many of these Germans would go on to make critical contributions to the U.S. with respect to Cold War military efforts and the Space Race.

  Baillie, Lady Olive: Her bold character, her overhaul of Leeds Castle, her divorces, her love of cigarettes, and her inheritance (much of it through her great-uncle Oliver Hazard Payne) are all as described in Weapons of Peace. Her castle indeed hosted a hospital, zebras and lamas, the celebrities mentioned, and the secret development of weapons, including flamethrowers, and technologies related to aviation and cross-Channel fuel supplies—all of which had a positive impact on Allied fortunes. She and her family shuttled between Leeds Castle and a home in London. Lady Baillie died in 1974, leaving her castle to a trust to ensure that it would remain open to the public. She hoped it would host peace conferences, and it did, including talks about Northern Ireland’s future, as well as a mini Camp David in 1978 involving senior American, Israeli, and Egyptian officials. These officials were never at risk of becoming lost in the maze of yew trees because these trees were added in 1988, to the southeast of the new castle, not in front as depicted in Weapons of Peace. Likewise, the medieval décor in the Gloriette was only restored in the 1980s. The author made a limited number of changes to the layout of Leeds Castle, while also repurposing certain areas to further his storyline. Lady Baillie’s youngest daughter, Susan, lived at the castle until her death in 2001.

  Braun, Eva: Most Germans came to know of Braun and her relationship with Hitler only after the two died. Braun was a photographer who met Hitler through her work, as detailed in Weapons of Peace, and was paid for the many still and moving images of Hitler that she captured. Any assumptions about her being a pretty young woman without intellect who had no influence on Hitler have to be questioned. In truth, she was likely a significant influence on Hitler behind the scenes, and spent more time with him than any of his top-ranking Nazi officials after 1935, as revealed in Heike B. Görtemaker’s biography, Eva Braun: Life with Hitler. It is
not clear, however, whether she knew about the Holocaust. She was thirty-three when she took her life.

  Cairns, Dr. Hugh: Based at Oxford University, this Australian-born brain surgeon—who operated on Nash in Weapons of Peace—was a pioneer in neurological injuries and surgery. He became an early advocate for helmets after one of his patients, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), died of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Among Cairns’s initiatives, he did indeed use steel plates from a local car factory, as explained in Weapons of Peace, to replace portions of his patients’ skulls.

  Churchill, Winston: In 1940, he became prime minister for the first time at sixty-five, when Neville Chamberlain lost the confidence of the British Parliament. Churchill didn’t win re-election in 1945, because he didn’t transition quickly enough from war matters to domestic social needs. He served as the leader of the opposition until 1951, when he once again became prime minister. During the war, his personal assistant was young Elizabeth Layton, as described. She would later say of her boss that Churchill was most irritable when things were going smoothly—and most sweet when the situation was dark. The two cried together after his election loss in 1945.

  Clarke, Rosemary: This three-year-old girl died in her bedroom on September 8, 1944, becoming one of the first three victims of V-2 missile attacks on London. To avoid panic, the government didn’t publicly acknowledge that the explosions were caused by V-2 rockets until several months after Rosemary’s death. By the time these attacks stopped, in March 1945, some nine thousand lives across Europe had been claimed by the launch of the V-2—the world’s first man-made object to cross into space. Another twelve thousand victims—prisoners—reportedly died making the V-2.

  Dettmann, Ludwig: In Weapons of Peace, a painting of Germania is supposedly created by Dettmann but was actually painted by Peter, Emma’s fellow resister; it dominated the auction and attracted Hitler’s interest. Dettmann was one of the Nazis’ favorite painters of German landscapes, rural scenes, and military history. He died in November 1944, as described in Weapons of Peace—one month before the fictional auction occurred.

  Diebner, Kurt: This physicist was a key leader of Germany’s nuclear weapons project, known as Uranverein—the Uranium Club. Members included the Nobel Prize recipient Werner Heisenberg, Paul Hartek, Abraham Esau, Walther Gerlach, and Erich Schumann. The club began in 1939, after the discovery of nuclear fission, and soon included dozens of scientists working on all facets of an atom bomb; it existed in various forms until 1945. Weapons of Peace’s Erhard Wolf and Maximilian Sicke are fictitious, but many aspects of their undertakings and resources are not, including their potential to access refined uranium from the Belgian Congo. One apparent flaw in the club’s assumptions was the need for heavy water as a moderator. The Allies used graphite. Regular water—used by Wolf independently of the club—is employed by most modern power-generating reactors; though less efficient, it’s cheaper and readily available. Diebner and his club’s reliance on heavy water allowed the Allies to focus on attacking the Nazis’ heavy water facilities in Norway—heroic efforts described in The Winter Fortress, by Neal Bascomb. There is controversy about what Diebner and other individual club members knew and accomplished—and what competing non-club members achieved. Postwar, few scientists, if any, had a clear interest in detailing their progress or role in developing a nuclear weapon for the Nazis. The Russians snapped up Nazi nuclear expertise as part of the Cold War, as did the Americans, through Operation Paperclip, ensuring that many details of the Nazis’ nuclear efforts would remain secrets.

  Einstein, Albert: The Nobel Prize winner said that he regretted the August 2, 1939, letter (excerpts of which were presented at the beginning of Weapons of Peace) that he penned to President Roosevelt, warning that the Nazis were likely developing their own atomic bomb. Einstein lamented the fact that he helped spur the race for the bomb and, ultimately, its use in Japan. It’s conceivable, given his reputation, that if he hadn’t sent this letter the Manhattan Project—America’s nuclear-weapon venture—might never have been initiated, or, at least, might have been materially delayed. Einstein, a Jew, was visiting the U.S. in 1933, when Hitler rose to power. He decided not to return to Germany.

  Goebbels, Joseph: He was a frustrated author who couldn’t get his books published and once considered becoming a Catholic priest. After a failed stint in banking, isolated and lacking direction, he was drawn to Hitler and to anti-Semitism. He joined the Nazis in 1924, and his interest in the use of publicity grew along with his abilities. In 1933, he was appointed minister of propaganda, a position that allowed him to claim control of the media—using radio and film in new ways to build Hitler’s mythic profile, attack Jews, and promote the war effort. After Hitler’s death, Goebbels became chancellor, in keeping with the führer’s last will. The next day, he and his wife, Magda, killed their six children in Hitler’s bunker, then committed suicide.

  Hirchfeld, Dr. Magnus: The man responsible in Weapons of Peace for introducing Gunter and Gottfried, this gay Jewish physician and sexologist founded the world’s first known group to advocate for transgendered individuals as well as those in same-sex relationships. He also helped redefine how people thought about gender, saying that gender was best defined over a spectrum, not simply as the two polarities of male or female. Hirchfeld’s advocacy from his institute in Berlin set the tone for the capital’s being so open to homosexuals in the early 1900s—until Hitler took power. Hailed as “the Einstein of sex,” Hirchfeld was touring the globe when the Nazis attacked his institute in 1933, burning its books and its archives. Hirchfeld remained in exile, living in Nice, France, where he died of a heart attack two years later at the age of sixty-seven.

  Hitler, Adolf: Hitler’s childhood was as described in Weapons of Peace, including the conflict with his father and the series of tragedies that ripped him and his family apart. His name was destined to be Adolf Schicklgruber until his father decided, just years before his birth, to change his own last name to Hitler. In the 1920s, Hitler often maintained his anonymity by traveling under the name Adi Wolf. The racist mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, was indeed a significant negative influence on Hitler and his attitude toward Jews. An estimated fifty-five million people died as a result of Hitler’s decision to ignite World War II and the Holocaust, by far the largest loss of life in any war across history. With respect to why and how Hitler was able to do what he did, Emma’s analysis as presented during her final exam in Weapons of Peace is based on the facts of the situation and, tragically, on very real influence dynamics.

  James, William: This American psychologist, physician, and Harvard academic was among the first to conclude, in the late 1800s, that different eye movements could be correlated with different types of mental processing—for example, creative thinking versus memory tasks. A century later, other studies built on these findings, including work by Marcel Kinsbourne, Richard Bandler, John Grinder, and Robert Dilts. These findings, while still contested by many, suggest that right-handed people tend to shift their eyes to their right (your left) when thinking creatively or lying, while moving their eyes to their left (your right) when they are accessing memories and facts; left-handed people tend to do the exact opposite.

  Jung, Carl: This brilliant Swiss psychiatrist was a pioneer in determining that people are born with different personality tendencies, and that in fact all of us can be categorized by our core tendencies in a meaningful way. His early-twentieth-century work led to the formation of the mother and daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers, who developed tests to help people (initially, women entering the workforce in the 1940s) better understand themselves and others while finding jobs tailored to their distinct profiles. A number of Myers-Briggs organizations, as well as the researcher David Keirsey, among others, have since contributed further insights to these findings.

  Kammler, Hans: As a civil engineer and an SS commander, Kammler helped oversee the construction of Nazi death camps,
underground manufacturing facilities with forced labor, and the means for gassing prisoners. He was one of the Third Reich’s most heinous leaders, apparently without conscience and taking pleasure in the pain he inflicted. His responsibilities grew over the course of the war, and included advance weapons projects such as the building and launching of V-2 missiles. Kammler disappeared in May 1945. There are conflicting reports and rumors as to whether he fled to a safe haven in Europe or South America, came to America as part of Operation Paperclip, or never left Germany. There is no conclusive evidence about how, when, or where he actually died. His wife remained in Germany.

  Karlsch, Rainer: He is a German historian and the author of Hitlers Bombe (2005), a nonfiction book about the development and testing of a nuclear weapon by the Nazis. According to Karlsch’s controversial findings, the Nazis filed a preliminary patent for element 94 (plutonium) in 1941. Soil tests from Rügen Island subsequent to his book’s publication were at best inconclusive about whether atomic testing occurred there. Karlsch cites eyewitness accounts supporting three separate atomic tests, including statements from Heinz Wachsmut, who said that he helped cremate the horrifically burned bodies of hundreds of slave laborers exposed to one such test in March 1945. Wachsmut maintained that high-ranking SS officers told people that something new had just been tested that the world would soon be talking about. He reported that many local residents experienced headaches—even spitting up blood—after being exposed to the tests from a distance. Another eyewitness, Clare Werner, relayed similar information, adding, “It was about 9:30 p.m. when I suddenly saw something . . . it was as bright as hundreds of bolts of lightning, red on the inside and yellow on the outside, so bright you could’ve read the newspaper.” (Spiegel Online: The Third Reich: How Close Was Hitler to the A-Bomb? March 14, 2005). In the end, according to Karlsch, the bomb developed by the Nazis was well ahead of what has been officially recognized, and might best be described as a dirty bomb by today’s standards.