Hitler's peace

Another damned lawyer. Schellenberg’s nose wrinkled with distaste as he left the ministry. It was hard to believe that he himself had given up medicine to become a lawyer, of all things. He hated lawyers. It had been a mistake to try to kill all the Jews when there were still so many lawyers.

He drove back to his apartment and changed out of uniform. Then he threw some things into an overnight bag, collected his passport, and went outside. At Loesser and Wolff’s on the corner of Fasanenstrasse, he bought twenty Jasmatzis and some newspapers for the flight. Then he drove to Tempelhof, where Himmler’s plane was waiting. It was a Focke Wulf FW 200 Condor, the same kind of plane that Schellenberg had hoped to use in the plan to mount a bombing raid on Teheran.

Once on board he handed the crew their sealed orders and then took his seat, avoiding the Reichsfuhrer’s vast leather chair with its personal escape hatch-in the event of an emergency, the occupant had only to pull on a red lever and a door would be opened hydraulically beneath the seat, allowing him to slide out, still strapped into his seat, and then drop to the ground by parachute. But the very idea of sitting in a seat that might drop out of the plane was not, in Schellenberg’s opinion, conducive to a comfortable journey. So he sat in the smaller seat opposite, the one that was usually occupied by Himmler’s girlfriend, his adjutant, or his private secretary. He lit a Jasmatzi and tried to take his mind off the dangers of the flight ahead. The Reichsfuhrer’s personal Condor was probably the nearest thing Germany had to an American flying fortress, but by late 1943 the RAF was considered much too ubiquitous in German skies to risk frequent flights in it, and Himmler usually needed several cognacs to steady his nerves. Schellenberg followed suit.

Less than ten minutes later the Condor’s four BMW engines were driving the plane down the runway and then into the air, with Schellenberg staring through the fifty-millimeter-thick bulletproofglass window at the city below. From the air it was easier to see just how effective the RAF had become; there was hardly one neighborhood in the whole of Berlin that did not show some bomb damage. Another year of this, thought Schellenberg, and there wouldn’t be very much of a city left for the Russians to capture.

They flew south, toward the suburb of Mariendorf, before turning west toward Zehlendorf and the Grunewald, and then north over the Olympic Stadium and the Citadel at Spandau, where some of the Reich’s most important state prisoners were incarcerated. The plane climbed steadily, and when, after about thirty minutes, it had leveled out at just over 5,000 meters, one of the four-man crew came into the passenger area to bring Schellenberg some blankets.

“Tell me,” said Schellenberg, “what do you think of this plane?”

The man pointed at Himmler’s seat. “May I?”

“Be my guest,” said Schellenberg.

“Best long-range airliner in Europe,” said the man, whose name was Hoffmann. He sat down and made himself comfortable. “If not the world. I never understood why we didn’t make more of these. This plane will get you to New York, nonstop, in just under twenty hours. Mind you, it’s not particularly fast. Even a Short Sutherland will catch one of these and shoot it down. And God forbid a Mosquito should ever find us. But aerodynamically speaking, at least, the Condor is outstanding.”

“And as a long-range bomber?”

Hoffmann shrugged dismissively. “In the beginning it was quite an effective Atlantic bomber. I sank a few ships myself before transfering to the Government Group. But as I said, it’s an easy target for a fighter, even with all the armament we’re carrying. If you have the element of surprise, then it’s okay, I suppose. Some of the later models have search radar, which gives you a useful blind-bombing capability; or they’ll have a radio-guidance installation for missiles. The range is the thing. I mean, think about it, sir. New York. This plane could bomb New York. Chances are we’d catch them napping. After all, nobody expects a bomber to come all that way. Of course it would mean getting our feet wet, but I reckon it would be worth it, don’t you? I mean, just think how many we’d kill in a densely populated place like New York. Once you’ve got the element of surprise, you’re halfway there, aren’t you?”

The man reached inside his flying suit and took out a Walther PPK fitted with a noise eliminator on the barrel, which he pointed at Schellenberg. For half a moment Schellenberg thought Hoffmann was going to use the gun to make some sort of comparison, but instead the Walther stayed pointed at his chest.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for that briefcase, sir,” he said.