Hitler's peace

“France is hardly an occupied country,” said Hitler. “There are less than fifty thousand German soldiers in the whole country. That’s not an occupying army so much as an auxiliary police force helping to carry out the will of the Vichy French government. The thing that strikes me above all about the French is that because they have been so anxious to sit on every chair at the same time, they have not succeeded in sitting firmly on any one of them. They pretend to be your ally and yet they conspire with us. They fight for free speech and yet France is the most anti-Semitic country in Europe. She refuses to renounce her colonies and expects Russia and America, two countries that have thrown off the yoke of imperialism, to restore them to her. And in exchange for what? A few bottles of good wine, some cheese, and perhaps a smile from a pretty girl?”

Stalin grinned. “I tend to agree with Herr Hitler,” he said. “I can see no good reason why France should be allowed to play any role in formal peace negotiations with Germany. I was very much in agreement with what the Fuhrer said earlier. To my mind, there wouldn’t have been another war at all if France hadn’t insisted on trying to punish Germany for the last one. Besides, the entire French ruling class is rotten to the core.”

I wished that Stalin would say more, for it was my opportunity to rest for a moment. Roosevelt was easy to work for, breaking up his statements into short lengths, which demonstrated some concern for his two translators. But Hitler was always much too carried away by his own eloquence to pay much attention to von Ribbentrop, who had struggled to find the words to convey Hitler’s thoughts into English, so much so that I had felt obliged to step in and help; and, after a while, the exhausted-looking von Ribbentrop had given up altogether, leaving me to translate all of the conversation between Hitler and Roosevelt.

Roosevelt had smoked steadily throughout the negotiations and, suddenly afflicted with a fit of coughing, now reached for the carafe of water that stood on the table in front of him. But he succeeded only in knocking it over. Both Bohlen and I had now run out of water, and seeing the president’s predicament, Hitler poured a glass from his own untouched carafe. Standing up quickly, he brought it around the table to the still-coughing Roosevelt. Stalin, slower on his feet than Hitler, started to do the same.

The president took the glass of water from Hitler, but as he put it to his lips, Agent Pawlikowski sprang forward and knocked it from his hand. Some of the water spilled over me, but most ended up on the president’s shirtfront.

For a moment, everyone thought that the Secret Service agent had gone mad. Then von Ribbentrop expressed the thought that was now in the minds of every man in the room. Picking up Hitler’s water carafe, he sniffed it suspiciously and then said, in his Canadian-accented English, “Is there something wrong with this water?” He looked around the room, first at Stalin, then at Molotov, and then at Stalin’s two bodyguards, Vlasik and Poskrebyshev, who both grinned nervously. One of them said something in Russian that was immediately translated by Pavlov, the Soviet interpreter, and Bohlen.

“The water is good. It comes fresh from the British embassy. First thing this morning.”

Meanwhile Roosevelt had turned in his wheelchair and was regarding Pawlikowski with something like horror. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, John?”

“John,” Reilly said calmly. “I think you should leave the room immediately.”

Pawlikowski was trembling like a leaf, and, seated immediately in front of him, I could see that his shirt, soaked in sweat, was almost as wet as the president’s. The Secret Service man sighed and smiled almost apologetically at Roosevelt. The very next second he drew his weapon and aimed it at Hitler.

“No,” I yelled and, jumping to my feet, I forced Pawlikowski’s arm and gun up in the air so that the shot, when it came, hit only the ceiling.

Wrestling Pawlikowski onto the table, I caught sight of Stalin’s bodyguard pulling the Russian leader onto the floor, and then others diving for cover as Pawlikowski fired again. A third shot followed close on the second, and then Pawlikowski’s body went limp and slid onto the floor. I pushed myself up off the table and saw Mike Reilly standing over the agent’s body, a smoking revolver extended in front of him. And seeing that his colleague was not dead, Reilly kicked the automatic from the wounded agent’s hand.

“Get an ambulance, someone,” he yelled. The next second, seeing that both Hitler’s and Stalin’s bodyguards had their own weapons drawn and were now covering him in case he, too, felt impelled to take a shot at one of the two dictators, Reilly holstered his gun carefully. “Take it easy,” he told them. “It’s all over.” Coolly, Reilly picked up Pawlikowski’s automatic, made it safe, ejected the magazine, and then laid these items on the conference table.