Hitler's peace

Standing up, Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, came around his huge marble-topped desk and crossed the thickly carpeted room to face the two men seated on an ornate Biedermeier salon set upholstered in striped green-and-white silk. On the table in front of them lay a pile of curling photographs, each the size of a magazine, each the facsimile of a document that had been removed, covertly, from the safe of the British ambassador in Ankara, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen. Von Ribbentrop sat down, and, trying to ignore the stalactite of rainwater dripping off the Maria Theresa crystal chandelier and collecting, noisily, in a metal bucket, he studied each picture, and then the swarthy-looking thug who had brought them to Berlin, with a show of weary disdain.

“It all looks too good to be true,” he said.

“That is, of course, possible, Herr Reichsminister.”

“People don’t suddenly become spies, for no good reason, Herr Moyzisch,” said von Ribbentrop. “Especially the valets of English gentlemen.”

“Bazna wanted money.”

“And it sounds as if he has had it. How much did you say that Schellenberg has given him?”

“Twenty thousand pounds, so far.”

Von Ribbentrop tossed the photographs back onto the table and one of them slipped to the floor. It was retrieved by Rudolf Linkus, his closest associate in the Foreign Ministry.

“And who trained him to use a camera with such apparent expertise?” said von Ribbentrop. “The British? Has it occurred to you that this might be disinformation?”

Ludwig Moyzisch endured the Reichsminister’s cold stare, wishing he were back in Ankara, and wondering why, of all the people who had examined these documents provided by his agent Bazna (code-named Cicero), von Ribbentrop was the only one to doubt their authenticity. Even Kaltenbrunner, the chief of the Reich Security Service and Walter Schellenberg’s boss, had been convinced the information was accurate. Thinking to make the case for Cicero’s material, Moyzisch said that Kaltenbrunner himself now held the opinion that the documents were probably genuine.

“Kaltenbrunner is ill, is he not?” Von Ribbentrop’s contempt for the SD chief was well known inside the Foreign Ministry. “Phlebitis, I heard. Doubtless his mind, what there is of it, has been much affected by his condition. Besides, I yield to no man, least of all a drunken, sadistic moron, in my knowledge of the British. When I was German ambassador to the Court of St. James, I got to know some of them quite well, and I tell you that this is a trick dreamt up by the English spymasters. Disinformation calculated to divert our so-called intelligence service from their proper tasks.” With one of his watery blue eyes half-closed, he faced his subordinate.

Ludwig Moyzisch nodded with what he hoped looked like proper deference. As the SD’s man in Ankara, he reported to General Schellenberg; but his position was complicated by the fact that his cover as the German commercial attache to Turkey meant that he also answered to von Ribbentrop. Which was how he found himself justifying Cicero’s work to both the SD and the Reich Foreign Ministry. It was a situation that was enough to make any man nervous, since von Ribbentrop was no less vindictive than Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Von Ribbentrop may have looked weak and artificial, but Moyzisch knew it would be a mistake to underestimate him. The days of von Ribbentrop’s diplomatic triumphs might be behind him, but he was still a general in the SS and a friend of Himmler’s.

“Yes, sir,” said Moyzisch. “I am sure you’re right to question this, Herr Minister.”

“I think we are finished here.” Von Ribbentrop stood up abruptly.

Moyzisch rose quickly to his feet but, in his anxiety to be out of the Reichsminister’s presence, knocked over his chair. “I’m sorry, Herr Reichsminister,” he said, picking it up again.

“Don’t bother.” Von Ribbentrop waved his hand at the dripping ceiling. “As you can see, we are not yet recovered from the last visit of the RAF. The top floor of the ministry is gone, as are many of the windows on this floor. There is no heat, of course, but we prefer to stay on in Berlin rather than hide ourselves away at Rastenburg or the Berchtesgaden.”

Von Ribbentrop escorted Linkus and Moyzisch to the door of his office. To Moyzisch’s surprise, the Reichsminister seemed quite courteous now, almost as if there might be something he wanted from him. There was even the faintest hint of a smile playing on his face.

“Might I ask what you will be telling General Schellenberg about this meeting?” With one hand tucked into the pocket of his Savile Row suit, he was clinking a bunch of keys nervously.

“I will tell him what the Reichsminister himself has told me,” said Moyzisch. “That this is disinformation. A crude trick perpetrated by British intelligence.”

“Exactly,” von Ribbentrop said, as if agreeing with an opinion Moyzisch had first voiced himself. “Tell Schellenberg he’s wasting his money. To act on this information would be folly. Don’t you agree?”