Hitler's peace

Schellenberg nodded. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “But I did speak to our own former ambassador to Persia. At length. He tells me that Sir Hughe was British ambassador there from ’34 to ’36, and that Sir Hughe has never been particularly careful about security. Even then, he was, apparently, often in the habit of taking sensitive documents home with him. You see, the Abwehr tried to steal them as long ago as 1935. As a matter of fact, they have quite a large file on Sir Hughe relating to his time in Teheran. ‘Snatch,’ as he is better known to those who were at Balliol with Sir Hughe, is privately considered by no less a figure than your opposite number in England, Sir Anthony Eden, to be leakier than a sieve. And none too intelligent, either. The Ankara posting was seen as a means of keeping him safely out of harm’s way. At least, it was until the outbreak of war, when the small matter of Turkish neutrality came up. In short, everything I have learned in assessing the intelligence from Cicero has led me to suppose that Sir Hughe was too lazy and trusting to make thorough enquiries about Bazna. Indeed it seems that he was much more concerned with hiring a good servant than with vetting a potential security risk. And with all due respect, Herr Reichsminister, I think you are mistaken in judging him by your own highly efficient standards.”

“What an imagination you have, Schellenberg. But then I suppose that is your job. Well, good luck to you. Only don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With that von Ribbentrop turned on his heel and walked off in the opposite direction, finally coming to a halt next to Generals Frank, Lorner, and Kammler.

Schellenberg lit a cigarette and continued to watch von Ribbentrop. It was interesting, he thought, that the foreign minister should have been prepared to overcome his loathing of him long enough to try to discredit Bazna and suggest his material was of no value. Which seemed to indicate that von Ribbentrop held quite the opposite opinion and was trying to prevent Amt VI from acting on Cicero’s intelligence. Schellenberg had formed no particular plans in this matter, but given von Ribbentrop’s interest in the affair, he began to wonder if he should try to think of one, if only to irritate the most pompous minister in the Reich.

“Can’t you do without a cigarette in your mouth for just five minutes?”

It was Himmler, pointing at the Golden Hall’s magnificent Neo-Romanesque ceiling, where a thin cloud of smoke was already gathering above the heads of the SS troop leaders. “Look at the air in here,” he said irritably. “I don’t mind the odd cigar in the evening, but first thing in the morning?”

Schellenberg was relieved to see that Himmler’s antismoking remarks were addressed not just to him but also to several other officers who were smoking. He looked around for an ashtray.

“I don’t mind you killing yourself with nicotine, but I do object to your poisoning me with it. If my throat doesn’t hold up through the next three and a half hours, I shall hold all of you responsible.”

Himmler marched off to the podium, his boots knocking loudly on the polished wooden floor, leaving Schellenberg to finish his cigarette in peace and to reflect upon the imminent prospect of a three-and-a-half-hour speech from the Reichsfuhrer-SS. Three and a half hours was 210 minutes, and for that you needed something a lot stronger than a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

Schellenberg unbuttoned the breast pocket of his tunic and took out a pillbox from which he removed a Benzedrine tablet. In the beginning he had taken Benzedrine for his hay fever, but it wasn’t very long before the drug’s effect in the prevention of sleep made itself well known. Mostly, he preferred to take Benzedrine in situations involving pleasure rather than work. In Paris, he had used it liberally. But a 210-minute speech by Himmler was something of an emergency, and, swallowing the tablet quickly with the dregs of his coffee, he went to take his seat.

At midday, a strong smell of hot food came up the stairs from the castle’s basement kitchens, arriving in the Golden Hall to torture the nostrils and stomachs of ninety-two SS troop leaders waiting for Himmler to finish. Schellenberg glanced at his wristwatch. The Reichsfuhrer had been speaking for 150 minutes, which meant that there was still a whole hour to go. He was speaking about bravery as one of the virtues of the SS man.

“Part of bravery is composed of faith. And in this I don’t think we can be outdone by anyone in the world. It’s faith that wins battles, faith that achieves victories. We don’t want pessimists in our ranks, people who have lost their faith. It doesn’t make any difference what a man’s job is-a man who has lost the will to believe shall not live among us in our ranks…”