by Suninfo
‘Yes, that’s it precisely.’
Kaltenbrunner picked up a heavy steel ruler and slammed it against the desk. ‘Where is your proof?’ he shouted. ‘All I hear from you is conjecture, rumour and gossip. I tell you frankly, I’ve had enough of this damned nonsense.’ He turned his back on Kastner and faced the window. The rain tracing meandering streams on the panes of glass seemed to fascinate him. ‘It has to stop here and now,’ he said in a quieter tone of voice. ‘Is that understood?’
‘Perfectly. But there is just one thing—what if this “Rudi” is also the Soviet spy we’ve been looking for all these years?’
The suggestion was not lost on Kaltenbrunner and it left him shaken. Since 194a it had long been apparent that someone in the Führer Headquarters at Rastenburg was supplying the Soviet High Command with high-grade intelligence. This information, which was thought to be relayed to a communist cell in Basle by a high-speed transmitter operating somewhere in the Leipzig area, usually concerned changes made in the order of battle and chain of command on the Eastern Front. It thus enabled the Russians to predict the Wehrmacht’s operational plans with remarkable accuracy, so much so, that in July 1943 the great armoured battle at Kursk was lost before it had ever begun.
Kaltenbrunner said, ‘It’s an interesting theory but a dangerous one.’ He sounded worried and uneasy and his thoughts were far from being coherent. ‘There are occasions when it is unwise to disclose the true facts and then we have to look for an expedient solution to the problem.’
For a reason that completely eluded him, Kastner sensed that he was expected to agree. There were days when he was almost convinced that you had to be half crazy yourself to understand the way this man was thinking.
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‘I’ll give you an example of what I mean,’ Kaltenbrunner said dreamily. ‘Take the case of the late Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel.’
‘I didn’t know he was dead. I thought he was still on convalescent leave?’
‘He is at the moment, but I have it on good authority that he will suffer a fatal relapse one week from today. The state funeral is to be arranged for Wednesday the 18th of October in the Cathedral at Ulm. Field-Marshal Rundstedt will deliver the oration.’ He swung round to face Kastner again and his voice became harsh. ‘Of course we knew that Rommel was implicated in the July Bomb Plot but it was decided not to bring him to trial.
Bad for the army’s morale, you see. It would also look bad for the Führer—after all, he raised him from comparative obscurity and everyone knew that he was the Leader’s favourite General.’
‘I see.’
‘Good. In that case, you can give your attention to more important matters.’
‘Am I to abandon my investigation of the Gerhardt ring then?’
‘No, it is merely to be given a lower priority. You should arrange to transfer Frau Gerhardt to the Lehrterstrasse Prison here in Berlin. Similar action should be taken with regard to that suspect from the Technische-Nothilfe Battalion.’
‘Johannes Lehr?’
‘Yes, that’s the man.’ A chilly smile curled his top lip. ‘You see, Kastner, it will make it that much easier for you to question them when you’re not engaged on more pressing inquiries.’
‘And what about Osler?’
‘Oh, by all means have him arrested and brought to Berlin too if that pleases you.’
Kastner stood up. ‘Will that be all, Herr Obergruppenführer?’
he said.
‘No, it will not be all. I have a special assignment for you. Next Saturday, an important Party conference is to be held in Münster and you will be in charge of the security arrangements.’
‘Isn’t that a job for the local office?’
‘Perhaps you would like to take that up with Himmler?—after all, it was his idea that you should be in charge.’
Kastner swallowed nervously. ‘May I ask who will be attending this conference?’
‘A number of important Gauleiters.’ The facial muscles twitched and the scars on Kaltenbrunner’s left cheek were momentarly distorted and became more pronounced. He rearranged the blotter on his desk and then, almost as an afterthought, said, ‘The meeting will be addressed by Martin Bormann and his speech will be recorded and then dubbed with applause where appropriate 115
and later broadcast to the German people over Radio Deutchlandsender.’ Like a rabbit mesmerised by a snake, Kastner watched him open a drawer in the desk and take out a sheet of paper. ‘I believe you will find all the necessary details in this signal.’
The tone of voice was distant yet murderously hostile. A number of questions boiled in his mind, but in Kaltenbrunner’s present mood, he was afraid to ask. His hand trembled as he picked up the signal, for he sensed that, in some obscure way, it could well be his own death warrant. Pulling himself together, he clicked his heels, raised one arm and in a loud voice said, ‘Heil Hitler I’
He walked out of the room on legs which, like the aged and infirm, moved stiffly beneath him and only when he reached the safety of his own office did Kastner begin to unwind.
He poured himself a large brandy and then seated himself in a comfortable armchair to read through the signal, carefully making a note of the points which he thought might require special attention. He missed lunch and worked on until late in the afternoon completely engrossed in the task of identifying the security problems arising out of the projected conference because this, at least, was a situation which he fully understood and one that did not raise confusing doubts in his mind.
Possibly Kaltenbrunner was right, perhaps the Gerhardt ring did not exist except as a figment of his imagination and the General was just one more of those treacherous swine bent on saving his own skin after the débâcle of the July Bomb Plot. God knows there had been enough of them; what with Beck, Witzleben, Stieff, Kluge, Stuelpnagel and now Rommel, it seemed that half the army had forgotten their oath of loyalty. The Leader was absolutely right to be suspicious of the cabal who represented the so-called traditional officer class, for events had proved that only the Party would remain unswervingly loyal in these times of adversity.
If the circumstances had been different, he might have accepted and been comforted by this simple, blind declaration of faith, but inwardly he knew that it was stupid to ignore the facts entirely.
On the present evidence it would obviously be dangerous to take action against Bormann, but to sit back and do nothing about the situation was, in Kastner’s opinion, equally hazardous since it might later be inferred that he had tried to shield the Party Secretary. Still, he could shelter behind the report he’d already submitted, and then it would be up to Kaltenbrunner to explain why he had seen fit to shelve the investigation.
His work almost finished, Kastner pressed the bell on the desk to summon one of the secretaries from the typing pool. Frau 116
Bungert owed much of her popularity with the other secretaries to the fact that she could always be relied upon to volunteer to work late whenever the necessity arose. She did so, not because she was a devoted National Socialist who enjoyed her work in the Prinz Albrechtstrasse Headquarters, but rather because she was lonely and anything which helped to make the time pass quickly was to be welcomed. She was just twenty-four but, although quite attractive, had taken little pride in her appearance since her husband, an armament fitter in the Luftwaffe, had been reported missing following the encirclement of the 6th Army in Stalingrad. For twenty-one months she had nursed a faint hope that one day word would come through from the International Red Cross that he was a prisoner of the Russians.
Entering the office timidly, she said in a low voice, ‘You sent for me, Herr Kastner?’
It was one of her failings that she never remembered to address the Gestapo officers by their SS rank, and although this habitual oversight did not bother Kastner, it certainly irritated everyone else.
‘I rang for you, did I not?’ he said sharply.
She nodded dumbly, afraid to provoke any show of temper.
‘Ve
ry well then, I want you to check with Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s office to see if they have registered the Münster Case—Black file.’
‘I don’t remember sending it to them,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Naturally you wouldn’t since I delivered it personally. Just let me know if they have failed to book it in.’
She opened her pad, scribbled a note and then said, ‘Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Your wife called a few minutes ago and left a message.’
‘What about?’
‘She said that she had agreed to work a double shift at the hospital and was also going to attend a civil defence lecture.’
‘Did she say when she expected to be back?’
‘Well before midnight, unless there was an air raid, in which case she would stay on at the hospital.’
The message annoyed him and he was irritated with Gerda. As a senior government servant, it was naturally desirable that his wife should be seen to be playing her part in the war effort, but it was futile to pretend that her work as a nursing auxiliary made a positive and significant contribution. They saw little enough of each other as it was without Gerda taking on extra responsibilities.
Kastner sighed, ‘I missed lunch, Frau Bungert,’ he said plaintively, ‘and now it seems that I shall also forego dinner.
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Could you please therefore get me a bowl of soup from the canteen?’
The pilot was witty, good-looking and very personable. If you ignored the lines around his eyes, it was still possible to see that Lieutenant Manfred von Tresckow was only a young man of twenty-one who had had to grow up very fast in order to stay alive. In fifteen months of aerial combat on the Eastern Front he had shot down eighty-three Soviet planes, most of which were Stormavik Fighter Ground Attack aircraft. He was a long way from being a leading ace but his name was being mentioned with ever-increasing frequency in the Goebbels Press and Gerda Kastner had been flattered by his obvious interest in her.
Ostensibly, he had come to visit a friend who was slowly recovering from a nasty bout of jaundice, but as soon as he noticed Gerda, Tresckow’s motive had been transformed by a swift and somewhat crude reappraisal. In Gerda he saw a dark-haired woman of thirty whose pouting lips and full but not too over-ripe figure suggested interesting possibilities to a man who had a weekend pass in his pocket. He had monopolised her to the detriment of the patients and the displeasure of the ward sister, and to avoid a scene with matron, Gerda had agreed to meet him later when she came off duty.
She had thought to avoid him, but he was there waiting for her on the pavement outside the hospital, and as he’d said, what harm was there in having a drink with a lonely pilot, and he’d taken her to a bar on the Kurfurstendamm, but it hadn’t stopped at one drink, and when she was starting to get high on the cognac, Tresckow had suggested that perhaps Gerda and her husband would like to have dinner with him, but both of them had known all along that the invitation really only applied to her and that a restaurant was the last place he had in mind.
The flat in the Siemensstadt District belonged to a friend who, because he was unfit for military service, had been directed to work in a munitions factory in Spandau. It was no small coincidence that he was currently on the night shift. Compared with her own apartment, it was a poky little place but that hadn’t seemed to matter. Dinner had consisted of Leberwurst and black bread and that hadn’t mattered either because Manfred had bought a magnum of champagne on the black market and who wanted to eat when there was champagne to be drunk? And all along Gerda had known how it would end but that too hadn’t mattered a damn because she and Erich had slept together rarely of late and when they had, his increasingly bizarre tastes had upset and unnerved her.
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Making love with Manfred had seemed to be the most natural and pleasant experience, but now that the effect of the champagne had worn off, she felt ashamed and worried lest Erich had checked up on her. The light from a single table-lamp revealed an empty bottle and two glasses lying among a pile of discarded clothing on the floor, a lover in shirt-tails kneeling on the threadbare carpet, and a woman sprawled in an armchair naked from the waist up.
Gerda stirred and prodded Tresckow in the ribs with a stockinged foot. ‘Get up,’ she said thickly, ‘you look silly crouching there on all fours.’
Tresckow grinned up at her. ‘From where I am,’ he said, ‘you look positively marvellous.’
‘Do I? I don’t feel it, I feel more like a cheap prostitute.’
‘Now you’re reproaching yourself because you have a guilty conscience and really you have no cause.’
‘How would you know, Manfred? Are you a mind-reader?’
‘No, but I know the sort of man you’re married to.’
Gerda stooped down and picked up her things. ‘I must get dressed,’ she said.
‘What’s the hurry? Why can’t you stay longer?’
‘I can’t, you know I can’t; Erich will be getting worried.’
‘But he’s not expecting you home much before midnight.’ The thinness of the excuse she’d made for her absence suddenly became blindingly apparent and for the first time she saw clearly the risks involved. ‘I must have taken leave of my senses to give that message to Frau Bungert. He’s bound to phone the hospital and then he’ll know that I’ve lied to him.’ She began to dress hurriedly as if every minute lessened the risk of discovery, and every hook which failed to mate with its eye, every press stud which did not fasten at the first attempt, brought her closer to the edge of panic.
Tresckow said, ‘I’ve read about situations like this but this is the first time I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Manfred, just don’t sit there leering at me, do something useful.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like getting dressed,’ she snapped. ‘Is there a bathroom in this place?’
‘I thought you were in a hurry?’
‘Don’t be facetious, I want to brush my hair.’
A distant siren started to wail and was instantly taken up by others in the immediate area as the outer Berlin defences came into action.
Tresckow said, ‘I’m afraid that does it, you’re stuck with me 119
whether you like it or not. But don’t worry, there’s an adequate shelter in the basement.’
‘I’m going home.’
‘Don’t be stupid, you won’t be allowed to move on the street.’
Tresckow tucked the shirt into his trousers and shrugged on his jacket. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘don’t look so worried. The worst that can happen to you tonight is that a lot of people in the shelter are going to make nasty remarks about the Luftwaffe.’
The Mosquitoes of Pathfinder Force, preceding the main bomber stream, put down the marker flares over Spandau and then veered away from the target area. In the space of the next twenty-five minutes, six hundred and forty Lancasters and Halifaxes from Groups 4 and 6 unloaded a shade over three thousand tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs into the area defined by the clusters of green, white and red magnesium flares. Years of hard, bitter experience had gone into perfecting the technique of saturation bombing but, inevitably, a number of aircraft bombed short or overshot.
‘Golden Miller’ was already notorious for two reasons. Despite bearing the name of a famous Grand National winner, it enjoyed the reputation of being the slowest Halifax of any based on Riccall and it also carried the least experienced crew. On this night, as it pitched and yawed over Berlin, ‘Golden Miller’ maintained its reputation for being cussed by refusing to part company with its cargo despite the frantic efforts to the bomb-aimer until they were clear of the target and over the Siemensstadt District.
No one at the time, and certainly not the crew of ‘Golden Miller’
whose eight-thousand-pound blockbuster quite by chance levelled the apartment house in Gartenstrasse where Gerda Kastner was sheltering, could have foreseen the ripples which would spread outwards as a result of her death
.
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Monday, 9th October to
Saturday, 14th October, 1944
‘The chapter of accidents is the longest chapter in the book.’
ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN WILKES BY SOUTHEY IN THE DOCTOR, 1837
14
IN THE LONG hot summer of 1940, Northolt had been a fighter station but now that the war had moved on, it had become a quiet backwater on the outskirts of London and the bomb shelters around the dispersal aprons were empty. The time for heroics was past and the Spitfire had given way to the strictly functional Douglas C47 Dakota of Transport Command.
They arrived from Abercorn House in a fifteen-seater bus and no one came down from London to see them off. Ashby much preferred it that way; this was his moment of personal triumph and he was loath to share it with anyone. He had schemed, cajoled, lied and used every connection he had to force this project through.
Against all expectation, he had gathered a team from diverse and often hostile sources and welded them together, but watching them now as they filed into the waiting aircraft, even he was forced to admit that they weren’t impressive dressed in civilian clothes. He tagged on to the end of the crocodile and sat down in a canvas seat on the starboard side facing Ottaway.
A crew member closed and locked the door as each engine in turn whined and coughed into life. The Dakota rolled forward, taxied out on to the runway, turned and braked to a halt. The throttles were opened on the twelve-hundred-horsepower Pratt and Whitney radials until, like a dog straining to get off the leash, the plane vibrated from nose to tail. The revs fell away, rose, died and then built up once again, and suddenly they began to move, slowly at first until with increasing momentum they reached the point where the eye no longer saw the passing 121
landscape except as a totally blurred image. It was not a good day for flying and the Dakota seemed to stagger into the air as if reluctant to leave the safety of the ground behind. They climbed steadily through the overcast, reached the optimum ceiling, levelled out and then throttled back to a cruising speed of 164
mph. Allowing for head winds, Lyon was just over five hours flying time away.