Hitler's peace

“I think it’s safe to assume that everyone would,” said a short, stocky man with round shoulders and a bull neck, who had just arrived on the scene. It was Martin Bormann, which meant the Fuhrer could not be far away. Hearing heels clicking to attention, Schellenberg looked to the left and saw Hitler coming toward them through the trees. “Everyone would like a puppy from the most famous dog in the world.”

Schellenberg jumped to attention, extending his right arm straight in front of him as, with slow steps, Hitler approached, his own arm partially raised. The Fuhrer was wearing black trousers, a simple open-necked field-gray uniform jacket that revealed a white shirt and tie, and a soft, rather misshapen officer’s cap that had been chosen for comfort as opposed to style. On the left breast pocket of his tunic he wore an Iron Cross First Class, won during the Great War, together with the black ribbon denoting someone who had been wounded, and a gold party badge.

“Himmler. Schellenberg-good to see you again, Walter,” he said, speaking in the soft Austrian accent Schellenberg knew so well from the wireless.

“And you, my Fuhrer.”

“Himmler tells me that you have a plan that will win us the war.”

“Perhaps when you’ve had a chance to study my memorandum, you’ll agree with him, my Fuhrer.”

“Oh, I hate written reports. I can’t stand them. If it was up to these officers of mine, I’d never stop reading. Official papers on this, official papers on that. I tell you, Schellenberg, I’ve no time for paper. But let a man speak and I’ll soon let you know what’s what. Men are my books-eh, Himmler?”

“You can read us all quite fluently, my Fuhrer.”

“So we’ll go inside and you can tell me everything, and then I’ll tell you what I think.”

Hitler, gesturing toward the Fuhrer Bunker, placed another peppermint lozenge in his mouth and, walking beside Schellenberg, started to chat aimlessly.

“I walk a lot in these woods. It’s one of the few places I can walk freely. In my youth I used to dream of vast spaces like this, and I suppose life has enabled me to give the dream reality. I should prefer to walk in Berlin, of course. Around the Reichstag. I always liked that building. People said I was responsible for its being burned down, but that’s nonsense. No one who knows me could say I had anything to do with that. Paul Wallot wasn’t a bad architect at all. Speer doesn’t like him, but that’s no disqualification. Anyway, I walk here in these northern forests like that fellow in Nietzsche’s unreadable book- Zarathustra. I walk because I feel like a prisoner in these dugouts and my spirit needs space to roam around.”

Walking along, listening to the Fuhrer talk, Schellenberg smiled and nodded, thinking that any small talk he might offer could only injure his chances of selling Hitler on the idea of Operation Long Jump.

They entered the Fuhrer Bunker, and Schellenberg followed Hitler, Bormann, and Himmler to the left, into a large room dominated by a map table. The Fuhrer sat down on one of the half-dozen easy chairs by the empty fireplace and motioned Schellenberg to join him. Hitler disliked heat, and Schellenberg always came away from a meeting with the Fuhrer blue with cold. While he waited for Himmler, Schaub, and the two Bormanns to be seated, Schellenberg took a closer look at his Fuhrer, attempting to discern any sign of tabes dorsalis or tertiary syphilis. It was true, Hitler looked much older than a man of fifty-four years and seemed quite sparing in his gestures and the movement of his hands; there was, however, a compelling sense of physical force about the man, and Schellenberg did not feel Hitler was on the edge of physical collapse. Certainly he was under tremendous pressure, but the pale face, the globular eyes, and the faraway look of a sleepwalker-or a holy man-that Schellenberg had observed when he had last been to the Wolfschanze, seemed quite unchanged. It had never been possible to look at this morbid, quasi-mad Dostoyevskian figure and think of him as you would have of any ordinary man, but Schellenberg saw no real reason to suppose that Hitler was on the verge of total insanity.