Hitler's peace

There seemed nothing particularly heroic about what I was doing. I was tired and, in a way, I almost looked forward to the end of it all. So, pushing the water cart with its lethal payload, I went to find a kind of peace. The kind of peace that passeth all understanding. Final peace. Hitler’s peace.

XXVII

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1943,

BERLIN

With none of the surviving members of the Operation Long Jump team-supposing that there were any-having yet made it as far as the German embassy in Ankara, there was much that Walter Schellenberg still didn’t know about what had happened in Teheran. But from sources at the Soviet embassy in Iran, and inside the British SIS in London, he had been able to put together a rough picture of the events that followed the hurried departure of the Fuhrer from the Iranian capital. Alone in his office on Berkaerstrasse, Schellenberg reread the top-secret account he had typed himself for Himmler, and then drove to the Ministry of the Interior.

It was a meeting he was hardly looking forward to since it was now well known to the Reichsfuhrer-SS that the young SD chief had disobeyed a direct order regarding the use of Zeppelin volunteers. Himmler would have been well within his rights to have ordered Schellenberg’s immediate execution. At the same time, however, Schellenberg had already concluded that if Himmler intended to have him arrested he would probably have done it by now. The worst Schellenberg thought he could probably expect was a severe dressing down, and perhaps some sort of demotion.

Despite the recent bombing, the Ku-damm still managed to look comparatively normal, with people getting ready for Christmas as if they hadn’t a care in the world. To look at them, carrying Christmas trees and gazing in shop windows, a war might be happening somewhere other than in Berlin on a Thursday morning in mid-December. Schellenberg parked his car on Unter den Linden, where a cold wind was worrying the Nazi flag on the facade of the Ministry of the Interior, saluted to the two guards on duty outside the front door, and went inside.

He found Himmler in a businesslike mood and, to his surprise, the Reichsfuhrer showed no immediate inclination to issue his subordinate with any kind of reprimand. Instead he eyed the report on Schellenberg’s lap and with an uncharacteristic casualness invited the SD general to summarize what it contained.

“Most of the Friedenthal Section were killed or captured, of course,” said Schellenberg. “Very likely they were betrayed to the Soviets by one of the Kashgai tribesmen, for money.”

“Very likely,” agreed Himmler, who saw no reason to tell Schellenberg that it was he himself who had betrayed the Operation Long Jump team to the NKVD.

“It was always the main risk in Operation Long Jump-the reliability of those tribesmen,” Schellenberg continued. “But we think that those who did evade capture, at least in the short term, were probably responsible for some sort of bomb that was placed on the grounds of the British embassy in Teheran. Our sources indicate that there was a large explosion about a hundred yards away from the embassy at just after twenty-one hundred hours on Tuesday, November thirtieth. Churchill was hosting his birthday party at the time, and it seems that earlier that same day, the bomb, of considerable size, had been concealed in a water cart and positioned close to the banqueting room. But the bomb was discovered, very likely by the same man who was killed moving it to a place of safety. An American, named Willard Mayer.”

“You don’t say,” said Himmler, who sounded genuinely surprised to hear this.

“Willard Mayer was a member of the American OSS, and was Roosevelt’s German translator during the conference. He was also a philosopher of some note and before the war had studied in Vienna. And in Berlin, I believe. I looked at one of his books. It’s really quite profound.”

“Willard Mayer was also the Jew who saved the Fuhrer’s life,” said Himmler.

“Then he seems to have been quite a hero, doesn’t he?” Schellenberg observed. “Saving the Fuhrer and then the Big Three. A little more than one expects from your average philosopher.”

“Do you really think that bomb would have killed them?”

“By all accounts, the explosion was immense. The American’s body was never found.”

“Of course, with him gone there’s one less witness to what really happened,” said Himmler. “In that respect at least, they’re fortunate. Almost as fortunate as you, Schellenberg.”

Schellenberg acknowledged the rebuke with a curt nod of the head. He waited a moment.

“Well, go on,” urged Himmler. “Go on.”

“Yes, Herr Reichsfuhrer. I was merely going to add that as far as the Americans are concerned, the process of rewriting the record has already begun. To read the British and American newspapers after the conference was over, it’s hard to believe the Fuhrer could ever have been there. Remarkable, really. It’s as if none of this ever happened.”

“Not quite,” said Himmler.