Hitler's peace

“It’s a pretty tall order,” he had told Himmler. “To parachute those men into Iran and then risk not being able to communicate with them.”

“Nevertheless, those are my orders, Schellenberg. Unless they receive a clear order from me or the Fuhrer, the mission is not to proceed. Is that quite clear?”

“It’s a good plan,” insisted Schellenberg. “Perhaps the best plan we’ve got right now.”

“That is your opinion. The Fuhrer and I have agreed to your plan thus far only in order to keep our options open.”

“It’s asking a lot of men to risk their lives going all that way for an operation that might be scratched at the last moment.”

“They are SS. They have taken an oath of obedience to me and the Fuhrer. They’ll damn well do what they’re told, Schellenberg, and so will you.” Himmler’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I hope these are SS men, Schellenberg. Waffen-SS, Fourteenth Grenadiers, Galicia Division, I think you told me. I should take a very dim view of you and this whole operation if I ever found out that your team was composed largely of Zeppelin volunteers. Ukrainian nationalist cadres. I trust you haven’t forgotten my speech at Posen.”

“No, Herr Reichsfuhrer, I haven’t forgotten that.”

That was another reason Himmler had to be removed, thought Schellenberg. All those Ukrainian volunteers who, with the exception of a dozen German officers and NCOs, now made up the Special Section. If Operation Long Jump was a success, then no one would ever mention that the team had not actually been German-no one in Germany, at least. But if the operation failed and Himmler ever found out about their true origins, things might go quite badly for him.

Lina Heydrich had agreed. She hated Himmler even more than her late husband had, especially now that Schellenberg had told her how he suspected the Reichsfuhrer of having been complicit in her husband’s murder. Lina’s hatred had hardly been softened by the death of her ten-year-old son, Klaus, on October 24, in a traffic accident in Prague: the boy had been knocked down and killed by a truck in the gateway of the Jungfern-Breschau Castle in Prague.

“I wrote to Himmler asking that Klaus be excused from the Hitler Youth,” she had said. “Remember how I told you I would? But Himmler replied that Klaus’s father wouldn’t have wanted him to leave the youth movement and that the boy should remain. That’s why he was in Prague. He was there on an outing with the Hitler Youth. I never liked it there, when Reinhard was running the Bohemian Protectorate. And Klaus should never have gone back. Not after what happened to his father in Prague. And, by the way, I made some inquiries about Reinhard’s death. You were right, Walter. It was Himmler’s own doctor who treated Reinhard after the attack in Prague. The drugs he used were experimental and should not have been administered.”

Lina so hated Himmler, she even suggested how Schellenberg might bring about his downfall.

“You must go to Rastenburg and see Martin Bormann,” she said. “You must tell him all about Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Russians. Bormann will know how to bring the evidence before the Fuhrer.”

The comforts provided by Lina seemed a long way off now, waiting in the cold for an execution to proceed in the main square in Vinnica. At last the truck’s engine turned over, and as it moved slowly away, the six partisans were left dangling from their gibbet. Schellenberg looked away in disgust and turned his mind to Operation Long Jump. If it succeeded and the Big Three were killed, surely the Allies would make peace. But until then he would have to try to facilitate Himmler’s removal, as Lina had urged. From Vinnica, he planned to fly to Rastenburg and, on the pretext of informing Hitler that Long Jump was ready to go ahead, would talk to Bormann.

But Lina had offered yet more advice on how he might protect himself against Himmler. “Those Ukrainians in your Special Section,” she had said. “The Zeppelin volunteers. You’d better make sure that if any of them do make it back from Persia, they don’t ever talk.”

She was right, of course, and the more he thought about her advice, the more he realized that whatever the outcome in Teheran, all of the Ukrainians would have to disappear. It wasn’t just Himmler who might decide to make an issue out of Long Jump. It might also be the Allies. He now thought it best if there were as few witnesses as possible who could ever speak about what he had set into motion.

His driver finally returned to the car. “Thank you, sir,” he said, starting the engine. “That meant a lot, to see those Popovs get their just deserts. Those heads that were in the box, you see. My friends. The Popovs cut off their noses, ears, and lips before they beheaded them. Can you imagine it?”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind, Sergeant,” said Schellenberg. “Now get a fucking move on, I’m freezing.”