Berlin
A car drew up to the curb in front of Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. Two Gestapo agents stepped out and hustled SD Ausland Chief Walter Schellenberg through the front door. He was taken to an empty interrogation room in the basement and left there.
Schellenberg was furious and paced the room in his black SS uniform for several minutes before he finally sat down. He was exhausted and had been working non-stop for months on end as the war started to wind down. This was the final outrage, being arrested by the Gestapo, a sister organization to his own foreign intelligence service.
The Gestapo was a state-run police department and not a Nazi organization. Its members came from the Sicherheitsdienst (SiPo) or the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) who were responsible for investigating serious crimes. Very few were Nazi Party members. The rank-and-file officers came from working class or lower middle-class backgrounds.
As Schellenberg napped quietly in a straight-backed chair several hours later, the door to the interrogation room sprang open and two men entered.
“Hello, ‘Schelli’. We don’t get you in here very often.”
This was Schellenberg’s second unpleasant surprise of the night. The man standing in front of him was none other than Heinrich Müller, the second in command of the Gestapo. Müller’s rise through SS ranks was amazing for a man who seemed to have had no interest in politics. He only became a member of the Nazi party in 1939 after Himmler insisted that he do so. He was the protégé of Reinhard Heydrich, and after Heydrich’s death in 1942, Müller became second-in-command to Ernst Kaltenbrunner. It was reported that he once said that all ’intellectuals should be sent down a coal mine and blown up.’
Schellenberg had envisioned himself berating some terrified, nameless functionary, someone who would apologize profusely and then allow him to leave. Müller was something else entirely — the man had rounded up five thousand people suspected of involvement in the attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life and had ordered the execution of two hundred of them. Schellenberg reminded himself to be very careful with Müller since guilt or innocence was often whatever the Gestapo decided it was.
An assistant followed Müller into the room. Schellenberg watched incredulously as the man unpacked a wire-recording machine, a German Reichhalter reporter and a microphone.
“What is this?” Schellenberg said.
Müller ignored him as he opened his briefcase and took out a file. His files were legendary at the Gestapo and had helped him hunt down Reinhard Heydrich’s killers in Prague using bribes and torture. He was a dogged interrogator with his piercing grey-blue eyes, yet he looked for all the world like a punctilious little bank clerk.
“Müller, you are going to be in serious trouble if you keep up this charade,” Schellenberg said angrily.
Müller glanced at his assistant, and the man flipped the switch to turn on the recording machine.
“Let’s begin. Brigadeführer Schellenberg, you have been arrested on two very serious charges.”
“Really, what did I do?” Schellenberg asked.
“Take that smug look off your face, ‘Schelli’. You are accused of being a British agent. You can be hanged for treason on a charge like that.”
Schellenberg laughed at this comment.
“I have some advice for you, Müller,” Schellenberg said. “Talk to Himmler before you go any further. He will set you straight.”
The veiled threat was unmistakable but Müller forged ahead.
“Secondly, you have been arrested for giving the British copies of SD documents. Several Egmont reports have gone missing.”
Schellenberg sighed.
“This is a joke, no?”
“We have also arrested your co-conspirator, Dr Karl-Heinz Kramer, in Stockholm on charges of treason.”
“He’s a spy, Müller. He works for our side,” Schellenberg said in a tone one would use to explain something to a small child. “His job is to provide us with intelligence from British and Allied sources.”
“We have had you followed for several months now, Brigadeführer Schellenberg. We have read your defeatist Egmont reports and your ‘Reports from the Reich’. These reports undermine the confidence of our troops.”
Schellenberg shrugged his shoulders.
“They are not my reports, Müller. We only collate what we receive from Wehrmacht and SS officers at the front. These are their assessments, not mine, and you know it.”
“You are responsible for their publication and distribution and therefore you are committing a crime.”
“I’m proud to do this work!” Schellenberg exploded. “These officers command men who are dying at the front. This is a war we’re waging, and we owe it to them to get their reports out.”
“The reports are defeatist.”
“They are not released to the public, only to our colleagues in the RSHA. Look, we are colleagues, Müller, and you know that any intelligence organization like ours must work with the truth. We don’t try to rewrite history like Stalin and the Soviets. To be effective, we need to know what the situation really is, not to cover up military setbacks and put it all in a favourable light.”
“Why don’t you simply admit that you are a British spy?”
Schellenberg laughed, exasperated.
“We’re losing the war and we all know it. Even the Führer knows it. We cannot hide behind a lie — our soldiers cannot hide behind lies when they are under attack.”
Müller looked in his file as Schellenberg continued.
“You know as well as I do that we cannot compete with Allied tank production. It’s a fact. Our soldiers need tanks to defend them at the front. The Americans are building more than two thousand Sherman tanks a month and the Russians three thousand T-34s. Our production figures for the Tiger and Panzer tanks are pathetic. This is not defeatist talk, Müller. This is the reality our men face on the battlefield.”
“You talk the worst kind of defeatist language,” Müller snapped. “Our Tiger tanks are a spectacular achievement and vastly superior to any Sherman or T-34 tank.”
“Perhaps,” Schellenberg conceded, “but there are not enough of them to win on the battlefield and there never will be.”
“These are lies, Brigadeführer Schellenberg. Our soldiers know that the Tiger is a far superior tank and because of it, they know we will win the war.”
“Talk to Himmler. He’ll put you straight,” Schellenberg sighed.