Hitler's peace

His thoughts were interrupted as Hitler turned to him and asked him to begin. Schellenberg described the plan he had already sold to Himmler as a backup plan in case the peace negotiations, initiated by the delivery of the Fuhrer’s letters to the Big Three, did not bear fruit. By now, any kinks in Operation Long Jump had been ironed out, and it was eminently practicable. Though Schellenberg did not say as much to Hitler, von Holten-Pflug had returned from Vinnica to report that a team of one hundred Ukrainians were now, with the agreement of General Schimana, a unit within the Galicia Division of the Waffen-SS. All of them had parachute experience and were highly aggressive, fired up by the prospect of assassinating Marshal Stalin. Keeping Hitler in the dark about their true ethnic origin did not worry Schellenberg. He assumed that if the mission failed, the Russians would want to keep it quiet that fellow countrymen had been involved; and if it succeeded, then their origins would hardly matter. So Schellenberg left it that they were all SS volunteers from the Galicia Division.

Hitler listened, interrupting the briefing only rarely. But when Schellenberg mentioned Roosevelt’s name, he leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands together in one fist, as if throttling the president’s invisible figure.

“Roosevelt is nothing more than a repulsive Freemason,” he said. “For that reason alone all the churches in America should rise up against him, for he is moved by principles that are quite at odds with those of the religion he professes to believe in. Actually, the noise he made at his last press conference-that nasal way he has of speaking-was typically Hebraic. Did you hear him boast that he has noble Jewish blood in his veins? Noble Jewish blood! Ha! He certainly behaves like some pettifogging Jew. In my opinion his brain is every bit as sick as his body.”

Martin Bormann and Himmler laughed and nodded their assent, and, warming to his theme, Hitler carried on:

“Roosevelt is the living proof that there is no race in the world that is stupider than the Americans. And, as for his wife, well, it’s quite clear from her Negroid appearance that the woman is a half-caste. If anyone ever needed a warning of the menace half-castes pose to civilized society, Eleanor Roosevelt is it.”

Hitler sank back in his armchair, wrapping his arms about him like a shawl. Then he nodded to Schellenberg to continue. But a minute or two later he was delivering his own idiosyncratic opinions of Stalin and Churchill:

“Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures in world history. Quite extraordinary. Have you ever heard him give a speech?” Hitler shook his head. “Terrible. The man owes nothing to rhetoric, that much is certain. And if von Ribbentrop is to be believed, he has no social graces whatsoever. He is half-man, half-beast. He is never able to leave the Kremlin, but governs thanks to a bureaucracy that acts on his every nod and gesture. He cares nothing for his people. Not a thing. Indeed, I quite believe he hates the Russian people as much as I do. How else could he be so profligate with their lives? That makes Stalin a man who demands our unconditional respect as a war leader.” Hitler smiled. “In a way I should be almost sorry to see him dead, because, I must admit, he’s a hell of a fellow. Schellenberg’s quite right, though. If anything were to happen to him, the whole of Asia would collapse. As it was formed, so it will disintegrate.

“Now, Churchill-he’s quite a different story. I never yet met an Englishman who didn’t speak of Churchill with disapproval. The Duke of Windsor, Lord Halifax, Sir Neville Henderson, even that idiot with the umbrella, Neville Chamberlain-all of them were of the opinion that Churchill was not only off his head but a complete bounder, to boot. Absolutely amoral. It’s all you would expect of a journalist, I suppose. Say anything, do anything just to keep in the fight when any fool could have seen-can still see-that England should make peace. Not just to save England, but to save the whole of Europe from Bolshevism. It did Churchill a huge amount of harm in his own party when he went to Moscow. The Tories were furious about it and treated him like a pariah when he came back. And who can blame them? It will be the same story in Teheran. Shaking hands with Stalin? They’ll love that back in England. He’d better wear gloves, that’s all I can say.”

By now Schellenberg was dying for a smoke and impatient to carry on outlining his plan, but Hitler wasn’t yet finished with Churchill.