Hitler's peace

After Heydrich’s murder, Himmler had shown Schellenberg a file that proved Heydrich’s father, Bruno, a piano teacher from Halle, had been Jewish. (His nickname in Halle had been Isidor Suess.) Schellenberg had thought it was a strange thing for Himmler to have done so soon after Heydrich’s death until he realized that this was the Reichsfuhrer’s way of persuading Schellenberg that he should forget about his former boss, that his loyalty now lay with the Reichsfuhrer himself. But with Schellenberg’s own father, a piano maker, Schellenberg did not think it so very far-fetched that someone in the Gestapo, jealous of his precocious success-at thirty-three he was the youngest general in the SS-should have considered it worth the Gestapo’s time to investigate the possibility of his being Jewish, too.

He was about to ask Nebe a question, but the Berliner was already shaking his head and looking over Schellenberg’s shoulder. And as soon as Schellenberg turned, he saw a heavyset man with a bull neck and a shaven head who greeted him like an old friend.

“My dear friend,” he said. “How nice to see you. I wanted to ask if there was any news about Kaltenbrunner.”

“He’s ill,” said Schellenberg.

“Yes, yes, but what is it that ails him? What is this illness he has?”

“The doctors say it’s phlebitis.”

“Phlebitis? And what’s that when it’s not in a medical dictionary?”

“Inflammation of the veins,” said Schellenberg, who was anxious to get away from the man, hating the familiarity with which Richard Gluecks had spoken to him. Schellenberg had only ever met him once before, but it was not a day he was likely to forget.

Richard Gluecks was in charge of the concentration camps. Not long after his appointment as chief of the SD, Kaltenbrunner had insisted on taking Schellenberg to see a special camp. Schellenberg looked into Gluecks’s florid face as the man began to speculate on what might have caused Kaltenbrunner’s illness and remembered that dreadful day in Mauthausen in all too vivid detail: the ferocious dogs, the smell of burning corpses, the unhinged cruelty of the officers, the absolute freedom of the swaggering guards to maim or kill, the distant gunshots, and the stench of the prisoners’ barracks. The whole camp had been an insane laboratory of malice and violence. But the thing that Schellenberg remembered most vividly of all had been the drunkenness. Everyone on that tour of the special camp, himself included, had been drunk. Being drunk made things easier, of course. Easier not to care. Easier to torture someone or kill them. Easier to conduct hideous medical experiments on prisoners. Easier to force a thin smile onto your face and compliment your brother SS officers on a job well done. Small wonder that Kaltenbrunner was an alcoholic. Schellenberg told himself that if he had had to visit a special camp more than once, by now he would have killed himself with drink. The only wonder was that not every SS man serving in the special camps was addicted in the same way as Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

“I’m not in Berlin very much,” said Gluecks. “My work keeps me in the East, of course. So if you see him, please tell Ernst I was asking for him.”

“Yes, I will.” With relief Schellenberg turned away from Gluecks, only to find himself face-to-face with a man he regarded with no less loathing: Joachim von Ribbentrop. Since he knew that the foreign minister was well aware of Schellenberg’s pivotal role in the attempt of his former aide, Martin Luther, to discredit him with the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Schellenberg expected to be cold-shouldered. Instead, much to the intelligence chief’s surprise, the foreign minister actually spoke to him.

“Ah, yes, Schellenberg, there you are. I hoped to have a chance to talk to you.”

“Yes, Herr Reichsminister?”

“I’ve been speaking to that fellow of yours, Ludwig Moyzisch. About Agent Cicero and the supposed contents of the British ambassador’s safe in Ankara. I’m surprised to hear that you think Cicero’s material is genuine. You see, I know the British very well. Better than you, I think. I’ve even met their ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe, and I know the kind of man he is. Not a complete fool, you know. I mean he only had to run a background check on this fellow-Bazna, isn’t it? Cicero’s real name? All he had to do was ask one or two questions to have discovered that one of Bazna’s former employers in Ankara was my own brother-in-law, Alfred. Shall I tell you what I think, Schellenberg?”

“Please, Herr Reichsminister. I should be pleased to hear your opinion.”

“I think Sir Hughe did ask; and having discovered that he had been Alfred’s employee, they decided to put some information his way. False information. For our benefit. Take my word for it. This is the Big Three we’re talking about. You don’t just stumble across top-secret information about when and where they are meeting. If you ask me, this Cicero is a complete charlatan. But speak to my brother-in-law yourself, if you like. He’ll confirm what I say.”