Gregory jerked back his head as though he had been hit between the eyes and held up a hand in protest. ‘God forbid! I’d rather you had me shot here and now than send me to the Führer’s headquarters.’
The Reichsmarschall’s eyebrows arched into his broad forehead. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say. As a secret agent you must be used to acting a part and I thought you to be a brave man. Why are you so terrified of coming face to face with the Führer?’
‘I’m not,’ Gregory replied sharply. ‘But, as his headquarters is now in Berlin, if I stay there for any length of time all the odds are that I’ll run into Gruppenführer Grauber. It was I who bashed out one of his eyes. With the other he would recognise me in a second. He has threatened that if ever he gets me he’ll keep me alive in agony for a month before what’s left of me gives up the ghost. That’s why I’d prefer a bullet now.’
‘One does not have to be a coward to dread such an end,’ Goering admitted. ‘And from what I’ve heard of Grauber he enjoys doing that sort of thing. But you needn’t worry. Grauber is now on the Russian front.’
‘What in the world is he doing there? Is he no longer the head of the Gestapo Foreign Department, UA-1?’
‘No. I assume he saw a good chance of getting a step up when his Chief became an Army Commander. He did, too. He got himself promoted to Obergruppenführer, and Himmler took him with him as his Chief of Staff when he moved to Russia.’
‘But he can’t know the first thing about running an Army Group.’
‘Of course not, but he is just the man to carry out Himmler’s ideas of fighting a war. He has decreed that the commanding officer in any town or village who fails to hold it is to be shot. And behind the lines he has mobile squads of S.D. troops whose job it is to shoot out of hand any officer or man they come upon who is walking away from the front.’
‘What an insane way to treat one’s troops. But I thought you said that Himmler’s Army Group was in the West.’
‘So it was until about a week ago. As you know, in the latter part of January the Americans launched their counter offensive in the Ardennes. To relieve the pressure on our troops, von Rundstedt proposed an attack against Strasbourg. The Americans were weak there and the city might quite well have been retaken, but Himmler made a hopeless mess of things; so the Führer kicked him upstairs and gave him command of a more vital sector, our front on the Vistula. General Hausser was ordered to take over in Alsace, but Himmler did not bother to wait for him and tell him what was going on. He cleared out bag and baggage with his staff, leaving only a dirty laundry basket full of unsorted reports for Hausser to make what he could of.’
‘This becomes more and more fantastic.’
‘Oh, it’s the truth all right. Can you wonder that I’ve long since washed my hands of the whole business? Anyhow, Himmler is now on the Russian front and Grauber with him. All through December the Russians had been quietly preparing one of their great offensives. They launched it on January 12th. Within ten days they reached the Baltic coast east of Danzig and cut off another twenty-five of our divisions that the Führer had forbidden to retreat. Guderian, the Panzer expert, who is now Chief of Staff, wanted General Weichs to command the last troops of the Replacement Army that were being sent to fill the gap that had been torn in our front; but in such a crisis the Führer decided that Himmler was the only man he could trust, so der treue Heinrich got the job.’
‘You feel confident then that I shan’t run into Grauber if, as you suggest, you send me to the Führer’s headquarters in Berlin?’
‘I’m sure you won’t. I have a highly competent Intelligence service of my own that keeps tabs on all my dear colleagues. If any fish as big as Grauber is moved to another job I am informed of it at once. I would warn you if you are likely to be in any danger and you could come back here.’
‘But do you really think there is the least chance of my being able to influence the Führer?’
Goering shrugged. ‘It is impossible to say. But it is an indisputable fact that the only things he takes any notice of these days are Bormann’s poisonous whispers and the predictions of his astrologers. I’ve no great hopes that you could persuade him to ask for an armistice; but you never know. Since the bomb plot his health has been steadily deteriorating. He still rules the roost because everybody is terrified of him. But mentally he’s gone to pieces. He eats practically nothing and is kept going only on drugs. He lives in constant fear of assassination and is harassed by the belief that everyone except a handful of his toadies is scheming to betray him. The strain upon his mind must be appalling and at times he must long to free himself from it. That’s why I feel there is just a chance that a determined man like yourself, who can make use of this occult hocus-pocus, might succeed in tipping him over the edge and getting him to put an end to it all.’
‘How about the astrologers?’ Gregory asked. ‘It’s certain they’ll do everything they can to prevent a newcomer breaking through their ring and getting at him.’
‘Yes. That is a problem. The jealousy and hate of the people who make up the Führer’s court have to be seen to be believed. And my stock with him is so low that he may not take my word for it that you are a wizard of the first order; so refuse to see you.’
‘Perhaps then it would be better if I were not presented as an occultist, but was sent to him in some other capacity; then, out of the blue as it were, make some startling prediction that comes off a few days later. That is, if Malacou can provide me with one.’
‘That is certainly an idea. You are a shrewd fellow, Sallust.’ Goering picked up the magnum, saw that it was empty, dropped it back into the ice-bucket and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll order another. We’ve talked enough for tonight, and to good purpose. The more I think about this plan the more I feel that there is a lot to it. We’ll go to bed now; but we must both put our wits to work on how to make you Adolf’s new blue-eyed boy. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’
When Gregory got to the room he shared with Malacou he found him asleep, so did not disturb him. Next morning he told him how Goering had, after all, recognised him but spared him, and of the Reichsmarschall’s idea of sending them to Hitler’s headquarters.
Malacou’s dark eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘I knew something of this kind would happen. The stars foretold it and the stars never lie.’
‘Aren’t you a little scared at the thought of having to face him and, perhaps, influencing him into committing some act that may come back on us like a boomerang?’ Gregory asked. ‘I don’t mind confessing that I am.’
‘Yes; I have not concealed from you that our lives will be in danger. Towards the end of April things look very black for both of us; but I have good hopes that we will survive. This present project causes me no special fears for myself, because I am convinced that I shall outlive Hitler. After that, my horoscope is obscure. To me there comes danger from an impulse of my own. There is a possibility that I may lose my life in an attempt to save someone else. As I am not of the stuff of which heroes are made, I cannot see myself making such an attempt; so perhaps my death may be the result of an accident. But sometimes one survives such periods of danger with only an injury; as was the case with you at Peenemünde.’
They spent most of the day discussing Goering’s idea and how best to prepare for it; then, shortly before midnight, Kaindl came to fetch Gregory. On their way the Colonel congratulated him on the excellent show he and Malacou had put up the previous evening and said he felt sure that they need not fear to be sent back to Sachsenhausen. At that, Gregory smiled to himself and again expressed his gratitude to Kaindl for having rescued them from their harsh captivity.
Two minutes later they entered the Reichsmarschall’s study at the top of the house. It was as large as a small church and at the far end Goering was sitting at a desk the like of which Gregory had never before seen. It was of mahogany, inlaid with bronze swastikas and twenty-five feet long. On it stood two great gold candelabra and a huge inkstand of solid onyx. Behind it sprawled the formidable figure, tonight dressed in the silks of a Doge of Venice and with the Phrygian cap crowning his broad forehead. With a smile at Gregory, he said:
‘Sit down, both of you; and you, Kaindl, listen carefully to what I have to say.’
When they were seated, he went on, ‘As one of my fellow pilots in our fighting days I know that I can trust you, and I am about to confide to you a secret that might land us both in a packet of trouble should it ever get out. We all know that the war is lost, although it is treason to say so. During the past six months scores of people in bars and tram cars have been picked up by the Gestapo and shot for saying no more than that. But we must face facts, and I’ve thought of a way by which there is just a chance that we may hasten the end of this senseless slaughter.
‘Herr Protze here, and his friend the Turk, claim to have occult powers; so I intend to send them to the Führer, as there is just a possibility that they may be able to influence him into asking for an armistice. But for two criminals on parole to gain the Führer’s confidence would be far from easy; so I mean to practise a deception upon him. Herr Protze will become a member of my personal staff with the rank of Major. The Turk will accompany him as his batman.
‘Now, the only danger to my plan is from people who saw the two of them perform for us last night. Have you any idea how many of them know that Herr Protze and the Turk are on parole from Sachsenhausen?’
Kaindl raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘None of them, Herr Reichsmarschall. I naturally supposed you would not wish it to be known that they were convicts; so I have told no-one from where they came.’
‘That is excellent. Then you have only to put it about among the household that Herr Protze is one of my staff officers who has been for a long time abroad. You can explain the fact that he was confined to his room with his man for the past week by saying that they had to be for many hours together to carry out their occult operations, and that they will continue to share a room while here for the same reason. Meanwhile, I’ll see that it gets to the ears of all who dined with us last night that Herr Protze is in fact a Major of the Luftwaffe. You, too, can help in that.’
‘Jawohl, Herr Reichsmarschall.’
‘The next thing is uniforms. Get a tailor out here from Berlin first thing tomorrow morning and tell him that he must supply everything necessary within forty-eight hours. Finally there is the matter of instruction. You have not been with me very long, but long enough to have met most of the people at the Führer’s H.Q. It is important that Herr Protze should be as fully informed about them as possible. He will be attached as an extra adjutant to General Koller. I will, of course, see Koller about that myself. But he will not be in our secret; and I shall not introduce his new adjutant to him until Major Protze has his uniform and you have given him some idea of the duties he will be expected to perform. Is that all clearly understood?’
‘Jawohl, Herr Reichsmarschall. You may rely on me to do my utmost to assist Major Protze in any way I can.’
Goering nodded. ‘Thank you, Kaindl. I felt sure I could. You may leave us now.’
The Colonel stood up, clicked his heels, bowed sharply from the waist and marched off down the long room.
When the door had closed behind him Gregory smiled and said, ‘My congratulations, Excellency, on the speed with which you have thought of a good way to put me in contact with the Führer in a respectable guise.’
After drawing heavily on a long cigar and exhaling the smoke, Goering replied, ‘It was the best plan I could think of, but I’m not altogether happy about it. We shall be gambling on your ability to act and talk like a staff officer.’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry about that,’ Gregory laughed. ‘But, unwittingly, you have demoted me. At home I have the rank of Wing Commander which, as you know, is the equivalent of Lieutenant-Colonel.’
‘Indeed!’ Goering gave him a sharp glance. ‘How does that come about?’
‘It was simply a matter of convenience; so that I could be usefully employed during the long spells I have spent in England between my missions.’
‘Where did you work?’
‘Air Ministry Intelligence,’ lied Gregory smoothly. ‘There were lots of other fellows in it who, like myself, had no flying experience: lawyers, schoolmasters, journalists and so on.’
‘I see. Yes, that’s the case with us, too; and why I can send you in without General Koller—who, by the by, is my Chief Liaison Officer at Führer H.Q.—or any of my other staff officers being surprised to learn that you have never seen active service with the Luftwaffe.’
‘I thought as much; but there remains one nasty snag. What am I supposed to have been doing all the five years the war has been on? It is going to be thought very strange that I won’t have a single acquaintance in common with any of your other people. And I dare not lie by stating that I was in this or that department as it might easily emerge that I was not.’
For a moment Goering remained deep in thought, then he asked, ‘Do you know anything about pictures or objets d’art?’
‘As much as the average educated man, but not enough to discuss such matters with an expert.’
‘But you have travelled, I take it, and at one time or another visited most of the famous galleries?’
‘Oh yes. Florence, Madrid, Vienna, Munich, Brussels and the rest. I’ve been to nearly all of them more than once.’
‘Good. That’s quite enough. Ever since 1940 I’ve had eight or ten men going round Europe for me, picking up these sort of things.’ The Reichsmarschall waved a hand vaguely round, indicating the Gobelin tapestries on the walls and the Buhl cabinets filled with priceless Meissen. ‘You can have been one of them and spent most of the time in some of the remoter places, say Bulgaria and the Crimea. I’ve a splendid collection of jewelled ikons. You could have found a lot of those for me. But don’t be too specific; give the idea that you were also on the lookout for Byzantine armour, silk Persian rugs and golden trinkets found in the tombs of ancient Greece. I’ve masses of all these things and you can spend a day or two examining and memorising some of them before you go to Berlin. If you had been one of my collectors and I’d a personal regard for you, now we’ve been pushed out of all those countries from which I used to extract these little presents there would be nothing at all unnatural about my taking you on as an extra adjutant.’
Gregory nodded. ‘That will provide an excellent cover, Herr Reichsmarschall. It’s quite certain that no-one at Führer H.Q. is going to ask me to give an expert’s opinion on such things at a time like this. But it is going to be more than a few days before Malacou and I will be ready to go into action.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, having Kaindl, and later General Koller, brief me on the men we’ll meet there is not enough. If we are to stand any chance at all of putting this over, we’ll need the birth dates of as many as possible of them and all the particulars that can be raked up about their pasts. Malacou will draw their horoscopes while I digest all the down-to-earth stuff; but that will take time.’
‘How long?’
‘A fortnight at least. Let’s say till the end of the month.’
‘Very well. My Intelligence Bureau has dossiers on all these people. I’ll have them sent to you. And from now on, of course, you are free of the house. The Turk had better continue to have his meals in your room; but as soon as you have your uniform you can have yours in the mess, then you’ll get to know my officers. When I’m dining at home I’ll ask you to my parties, as the greater number of important people you meet and talk with the better. Now; is there anything else?’
‘No, Excellency.’ Gregory stood up. ‘You seem to have thought of everything. First thing tomorrow, or today rather, I’ll get down to work.’
In the morning Kaindl produced a tailor, who measured Gregory for his uniforms; then he spent the best part of the rest of the day going round the house. By blackmail, bribery and outright theft Goering’s agents had filled it with treasures the value of which it was impossible to estimate, but they would certainly have fetched many millions of pounds. Museums and palaces all over Europe, and some even in Germany, had on one pretext or another been looted of old masters, statuary, gold altar pieces, gem-encrusted crucifixes, jade carvings, precious porcelain, jewelled snuff-boxes and thousands of rare books that were housed in a great, domed library, making it the most magnificent art collection in the world ever assembled by any private individual. In five or six hours Gregory had time to examine only a tithe of it, but he promised himself many more hours of similar enjoyment before leaving Karinhall to again risk his life.
That evening the dossiers arrived and the following morning, with Kaindl’s help, he started to study them, while Malacou took notes of birth days and important dates in the lives of those people who, since January 16th when Hitler had made his H.Q. in the bunkers under the Reich Chancellery, had been his most frequent companions.
Martin Bormann, it emerged, was now forty-five. He had been an assistant to Rudolf Hess and first came into prominence as the head of the Party Chancery; but he had won a high position in Hitler’s favour by becoming his successful financial adviser. Subservient, self-effacing, but extraordinarily watchful and competent, he had gradually made himself indispensable and assumed the role of confidential secretary. As Hitler took special pride in his abilities as an architect, Bormann had won further favour by supervising for him the building of his mountain palace, the Berghof, at Obersalzberg. Then, after Hess’s flight to Scotland, Bormann had succeeded in slipping into his old chief’s shoes as Controller of the Partei, a post which, while not making him as conspicuous as the other Nazi leaders, gave him immense hidden power. He was loathed by the others, who realised his insatiable ambition, but he had now achieved a position in which they could not harm him and had to discuss their business with him before he would even arrange for them an interview with his master.
Dr. Josef Goebbels was the only one of the Nazi satraps who had even a working agreement with Bormann, and that only because both were intelligent and respected one another’s capabilities to the extent of feeling it wiser not to quarrel openly. The little club-footed doctor was now forty-eight. He had been a star pupil at a Jesuit seminary, and had acquired an extraordinary ability to argue a case convincingly however dubious the facts on which it was based. Even after the tide of Germany’s defeat had clearly set in he had continued to persuade the greater part of the people that victory was still assured by the simple device of putting out in his broadcasts the same flagrant lies repeated again and again with conviction and vigour. Politically, he led the extreme Left of the Nazi Party. Privately, he led an unusual dual existence; for on the one hand he was a devoted family man with several children, while on the other it was well known that as Films came under his Ministry, no good-looking woman could get a leading part in a film unless she first agreed to sleep with him. He was unquestionably devoted to Hitler and was one of the few people still completely trusted by him.
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was another of those few and, now being close on seventy, was by some years the oldest of Hitler’s courtiers. He had reached the top of his Service through a combination of being both a highly competent officer and a convinced Nazi. Wisely, he had refrained from mixing himself up in the political intrigues of the others and, as a hard, cold man, he had carried out without argument Hitler’s wish that the war at sea should be waged with complete ruthlessness. The Army, Hitler had always distrusted and now hated; the Luftwaffe had failed so lamentably that he had come to despise its officers; the Navy alone, in his opinion, had never let him down; so Doenitz had become his favourite of all his Service Chiefs.
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, aged sixty-three, had, from 1938 when Hitler had taken over as War Minister, deputised for him as Chief of the Armed Forces and was still his principal military adviser. Tall, distinguished-looking, correct, he was the lick-spittle to outlick all lick-spittles, and lacked even the courage to say a word in defence of his brother Generals when their troops were forced to abandon their positions on being attacked by overwhelming odds. In his dossier Gregory was amused to read that when, at last, Montgomery had broken out from the Normandy beachhead and von Rundstedt had reported what had happened, Keitel had wailed over the telephone, ‘Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?’ to which von Rundstedt had replied tersely, ‘Sue for peace, you bloody fools. Sue for peace. It is the only thing you can do.’ And for that, within the hour, on Keitel’s reporting it to Hitler, Germany’s greatest General had been sacked as G.O.C. West; although Hitler had seen no alternative to asking him to come back a few months later to launch the Ardennes offensive.
Under Keitel, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, recovered from the wounds he had received when the bomb went off at Rastenburg, was again filling the role of expert on land strategy, and doubling up with him was the Panzer General, Guderian, whom Hitler had chosen as his latest Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht, not because of his undoubted ability but because he was hated and distrusted by all the other Generals.
On a lower strata, but wielding more influence because he was hand in glove with Bormann and Goebbels, was General Burgdorf—another toady. He was both Hitler’s personal Wehrmacht adjutant and Chief of its Personnel Bureau.
The principal representatives of the Luftwaffe were Generals Karl Koller and Eckard Christian; the former an elderly, much harassed, long-suffering man; the latter a youngish, ambitious Nazi who had married one of Hitler’s two women secretaries. But, as Hitler blamed the failure of the Luftwaffe on Goering, he regarded its officers with less rancour than those of the Army, and for his personal Luftwaffe adjutant, Colonel Nicolaus von Below, he had a high regard.
Heinrich Himmler, who was the same age as Bormann, forty-five, still held a very high place in the Nazi hierarchy and appeared to be the most likely bet as Hitler’s successor should he ever be persuaded to rescind his decree of 29th July, 1941, by which Goering had been appointed as Heir Apparent. Yet Himmler’s potentialities seemed more apparent than real; for he now rarely saw Hitler and there was good reason to believe that Bormann had deliberately flattered him into asking for the command of an Army Group in order to get him out of the way.
Why Himmler was allowed to continue as the Supreme Head of scores of divisions of fighting troops, large bodies of pro-Nazi partisans all over Europe and countless thousands of civil and secret police, Gregory could not imagine; for he was clearly as mad as his master, hopelessly incompetent and suffering from a series of nervous breakdowns to boot. Although theoretically commanding an Army Group against the Russians on the most vital sector, he was now spending most of his time in a clinic at Hohenlychen, where he was completely dominated by three people—his doctor, Karl Gebhardt, his masseur Kersten and his astrologer Wulf, whom, from time to time, he lent to Hitler. But he remained Reichsführer and Hitler still often referred to him affectionately as ‘Reichheine’.
It was evident that Himmler’s empire was being run for him by his principal lieutenants: Kaltenbrunner who, after the assassination of Heydrich, had become the head of the R.S.H.A.; Ohlendorf, the head of the S.D.; Grauber, Eichmann, Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Political Police; von dem Bach-Zelewski, the Partisan Warfare Chief, and others less senior of their kind; all depraved blood-lusting sadists who for years past had been torturing and murdering people by the tens of thousands and continued to do so as the only means of postponing defeat and being called to account for their appalling crimes.
Himmler’s liaison officer at Führer Headquarters was Obergruppenführer Hermann Fegelein. He was a detestable little man who had started life as a horse coper and jockey, then been an early member of the Waffen S.S. In spite of being almost illiterate he had risen to command an S.S. cavalry division. With it he had achieved a spectacular success on the Russian front and it was this, coupled with his abilities as an unscrupulous intriguer, that had led to his further promotion.
Joachim Ribbentrop, vain, pompous and self-opinionated, now aged fifty-two, was both hated and despised by the other members of Hitler’s court. They blamed him equally with Goering for the disasters that had befallen Germany, but with more justification. Goering’s aircraft replacement programme had, as Gregory knew, been hopelessly sabotaged during the past two years, whereas Ribbentrop had suffered no such handicap at the Foreign Office. From the beginning Hitler had given him a free hand, and by his puffed-up insolence he had made innumerable enemies for Germany among the statesmen of both her allies and the neutrals. Yet nothing could persuade Hitler to change his belief in Ribbentrop, who was a very frequent visitor at Führer H.Q. and was always warmly welcomed by him.
Albert Speer, aged forty, was a satrap of a very different kind. In his early thirties he had become Hitler’s favourite architect. With unlimited millions to spend and the backing of such an enthusiastic builder as his master a brilliant career had opened for him. His outstanding ability and genius for organisation had led, in 1942, to Hitler making him Minister of Armaments and War Production. Delighting in his work and totally immersed in it, he played no part in politics and was the one member of the court who, apparently, had no enemies.
After these Princes of the Nazi State there came the less prominent courtiers, although some of them were said to possess more influence over the Führer than his Ministers. For instance his physician, Professor Theodore Morell and his surgeon, Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.
Morell was probably the worst criminal ever to have held a medical degree. Having begun his career as a specialist in venereal disease among the demi-monde of Berlin, he was sent for to treat the court photographer, Hoffmann, but soon acquired Hitler as his patient and for the past nine years had been in constant attendance on him. He was a repulsive servile old man who knew little and cared less about the practice of medicine, but had sufficient brains to use it with complete unscrupulousness as a means of gratifying his insatiable avarice. Within a few years he had a number of big laboratories going in which were manufactured vast quantities of quack remedies, some of which were actually condemned as harmful by the medical profession. But that did not deter him, and Hitler, whose faith in him knew no bounds, both granted him monopolies for certain of his products and made the use of his ‘Russia’ lice-powder compulsory throughout the armed forces.
Stumpfegger was a more recent acquisition. He was a giant of a man with very little brain but an unlimited capacity for hero-worship, and Hitler was his idol. Always prone to adulation, the Führer had taken to him at once and now often chose him for his companion on the walks he took every afternoon round the Chancellery garden.
Others who had frequent access to Hitler were Heinz Lorenz, who brought the news bulletins from Goebbels’ Ministry, Artur Axmann the Nazi Youth Leader, the secretaries Frau Jung and Frau Christian and his vegetarian cook Fräulein Manzialy, with whom he often took his meals. In addition to these, there were a score or so of junior staff officers, guard commanders, detectives and servants, all with long service and of undoubted loyalty, who had their quarters in the basement of the Chancellery.
As well as files on all these people, the contents of which Gregory was striving to memorise, there was one that he studied with special interest. Hitler had always presented himself to the German people as so entirely devoted to their welfare that his every thought was given to it, to the exclusion of all private pleasures, including sex. That this was not the fact Gregory was aware, as he had seen British Foreign Office Intelligence reports recording occasions in pre-war days when Hitler had been known to retire from very private parties with young women—generally blonde acrobats, for whom he apparently had a particular penchant. There was also the unedifying case of Frau Goebbels whom, it was reported, he had forced to perform certain services for him that had so disgusted her that she had fled to Switzerland, and had been induced to return by Gestapo agents only when threatened with the death of her children.
But what Gregory had not known was that Hitler had had a regular mistress for twelve years. This woman had first come to his notice as the assistant of his photographer, Hoffmann. Her name was Eva Braun, but it was forbidden to refer to her except by her initials, and mentions of her as E.B. were made by members of Hitler’s entourage only in whispers. That the secret of their intimacy should have been kept for so long, Gregory decided, must have been mainly due to her personality and Hitler’s.
Other dictators, with such an inexhaustible choice of female companions to amuse them in their leisure hours and with whom to disport themselves in bed, had always taken for their mistresses women who were universally acclaimed either for their beauty, intelligence, wit, charm, breeding or chic; but Eva Braun did not possess a single one of these qualities. Had she done so she would, no doubt, like the great courtesans, have insisted on recognition and demanded houses, a retinue of servants, splendid jewels and to be the best-dressed woman in her country. As it was, she was no more than a moderately good-looking blonde with a passable figure, lacking both intelligence and wit, and completely unambitious. Hitler had made her independent by making over to her one half of the royalties on his photographs but, although she had been for many years, in all but name, the dictator’s wife, she still lived like an ordinary German Hausfrau, content to preside over the teacups, to make small talk with his men friends and to sleep with him when required. But that had suited Hitler, for he had never succeeded in sloughing off the mind and habits of a common man, and Eva was a common woman.
These, then, made up the devil-inspired maniac’s court of which Gregory was shortly to become a member. Apart from a harem and eunuchs it had, he realised, all the elements of that of an Eastern potentate of the eighteenth century: the unpredictable, tyrannical, sadistic Sultan who handed out rewards, or orders to have people executed, entirely according to his mood of the moment; the grovelling flatterers who throve upon his vanity; the high priests of the Nazi religion, ever urging him to greater blood sacrifices by the murder of countless Jews; boastful paladins who at heart were men of straw; petty thieves who had swollen in that hothouse of opportunity into crooks defrauding the Government of millions; medicinemen who kept their Lord alive on drugs only for their own profit, and even soothsayers by whom he allowed himself to be guided. The more Gregory read the more he marvelled that such a cesspool of hatred, intrigue and corruption could have continued for so long as the fountain-head of power in Germany.
During those February days, while Malacou worked tirelessly on horoscopes, Gregory got to know the members of Goering’s entourage. General Koller he found to be a pleasant, elderly man but one whose nerves had been frayed almost to breaking point since, as the Reichsmarschall’s chief liaison officer with Hitler, he had daily to listen to furious diatribes by the Führer about the failures of the Luftwaffe. Koller’s deputy, General Christian, Gregory liked less, and he seemed stupid enough to believe that in spite of everything Germany might yet emerge victorious. But with Nicolaus von Below Gregory got on extremely well, although he met the Colonel only twice at the dinner parties Goering continued to give, dressed in ever more fantastic costumes, as an Indian Rajah, Inca Emperor or in some other array of silks and satins that enabled him to display his fabulous jewels.
At length the period of preparation on which Gregory had insisted ended, and on the morning of Thursday, March 1st, General Koller took him and Malacou into Berlin. The Air Ministry had been partially wrecked but the damage from bombs had not harmed its basement and, down there, an Administration Officer showed them to cheerless quarters that had been prepared for them. Kaindl had seen to it that they were equipped with everything that an officer and his servant would normally require and, leaving Malacou to unpack their things, Gregory accompanied Koller up the Wilhelmstrasse to the Reich Chancellery.
The vast building was one of Speer’s major achievements and in former days its huge Egyptian-style hall, staircases and galleries must have been most impressive. But in the past year bombs had destroyed its upper storeys and brought masses of plaster down from the ceiling of the lofty hall. No serious attempt had been made to clear up the mess and, instead of the seething mass of busy people whose clamour used to fill it, it was now a mausoleum of shadows, the silence of which was broken only by the crunching of the rubble under the feet of a few men in uniform hurrying to and fro from the staircase that led to the several underground bunkers.
At the head of the stairs there was a cloakroom, not for garments but for weapons. Since the bomb plot positively no-one had been allowed to enter Führer H.Q. while armed. Even Goebbels and the other Ministers had to submit to being searched before they were allowed into the quarters of their master and, as Gregory found, the search was a really thorough one.
On going down into the depths he expected to find some similarity to the fortress basement In Whitehall, in which Churchill’s staff officers planned the High Direction of the war. But it was totally different. The underground accommodation of the British War Cabinet and Joint Planning Staff consisted of the best part of a hundred rooms with every facility which would have enabled its inmates to withstand in reasonable comfort a siege of several weeks; whereas the bunker from which Hitler now directed his war had fewer than thirty rooms, many of which were no more than cubby holes, and the only spaces large enough to hold conferences, or in which a number of people could feed, were the passages. There were other bunkers in which junior staff and servants had their quarters, but these were some way off, and the whole system presented a picture of muddle, acute discomfort and inefficiency.
The difference, as Gregory was quick to realise, lay in the fact that the British had foreseen that their war leaders would have to go to earth and had planned accordingly; whereas the German High Command had never visualised the possibility that the bombs of the Allies would force them to seek shelter underground.
Gregory was already fully informed about Hitler’s routine. The Führer rose at midday, held a conference with his principal executives, which sometimes lasted several hours, went up to walk for a while with one of his cronies round the Chancellery garden, returned to the bunker for a meal of vegetables or tea and cream buns over which he treated those present to endless monologues about the war situation, then he gave interviews to Generals from the front and others, ate again, and went back to bed at between four-thirty and five o’clock in the morning.
In order never to be absent when his master uttered, Bormann kept the same hours. Thus, by keeping himself informed of every last detail of what was going on, he was able either to prevent visitors from having access to Hitler, or criticise what they had said after they had gone; and he had become the channel through which the majority of Hitler’s orders were issued.
Having arrived down in the bunker shortly before noon, Koller was able almost at once to present Gregory to Bormann. Hitler’s ‘Grey Eminence’ regarded him with a cold, unsmiling stare then shot at him a few questions about himself. Gregory replied that until recently he had been employed by the Reichsmarschall in buying antiques in the Balkans. Bormann’s lips curled in a sneer and he muttered, ‘What a way to spend the war! Your fat slob of a master should be choked with the loot such people as you have stolen for him.’
For a moment, Gregory felt that he ought to show resentment at the insult to his Chief, but Koller gave him a quick nudge; so he remained silent. And he was soon to learn that in the bunker such abuse of Goering was quite usual.
With a wave of his hand Bormann dismissed him. Koller then went in to the midday conference while Gregory found von Below, who gave him a friendly welcome and showed him round the headquarters, although not, of course, the rooms occupied by the Führer.
For a time they discussed the war. In the bunker there was no spacious map room, such as that in the War Cabinet basement where Gregory had worked in comfort with half a dozen colleagues—only a small chamber adjacent to the Führer’s apartments, barely large enough for three people to move round in. But von Below produced a map of the Western Front on which were marked roughly the positions of the opposing Armies.
On February 8th General Eisenhower had launched his great spring offensive, its main weight being directed towards the lower Rhine. In the extreme north the British and Canadians had succeeded in clearing the Reichwald Forest, but further south the American thrust towards Düsseldorf had been checked by the fanatical bravery of General Schlemm’s First Parachute Army. Moreover conditions could not have been more unfavourable to the Allies, as it had rained incessantly; tanks and carriers had become hopelessly bogged down, slowing up the general advance along the whole front. But now the ground was drying out and, placing his finger on a spot west of the Rhine in the Wesel-Homburg sector, von Below said:
‘The enemy are massing here for another major assault. Air reconnaissance is almost entirely denied to us these days, but hundreds of officers and men who were overrun by the Allies’ advance, then succeeded in hiding and straggling back by night, all report enormous concentrations of guns and armour in that area. I fear there is little doubt that the British will be over the Rhine before the end of the month.’
‘They may,’ Gregory replied, ‘but the Americans will be across before the British. The first crossing won’t be made up there either, but further down, south of Cologne.’
That was the conclusion that Malacou had come to as the result of his astrological calculations and mystical communings with occult powers while at Karinhall. The opportunity to use it had arisen sooner than Gregory had expected, but he felt it too good to miss.
Von Below looked at him in astonishment. ‘But, my dear fellow, you are talking nonsense. Just look at the map. General Patton’s army, in the centre there, is still many miles from the Rhine, and unlike the Allied dispositions further north his troops are widely dispersed. What you suggest is wildly improbable.’
‘It is not,’ Gregory insisted. ‘The Americans will be over the Rhine south of Cologne within a week. If it were not unsporting to bet on certainties, I’d bet you a hundred marks that will be so.’
‘Gott im Himmel! To talk of it as a certainty you must be crazy. I’ll willingly take you for a thousand. On what do you base this extraordinary assertion?’
‘On the foreknowledge of my servant. He is a Turk, whom I acquired while travelling for the Reichsmarschall in the Balkans, and he is a genuine mystic. He predicted correctly the defeat of the British airborne landings at Arnhem, the Ardennes offensive and its failure, and many other things. So I have complete confidence in him.’
‘How very extraordinary. That is better than any of the Führer’s magicians can do. Sometimes they pull a rabbit out of the hat. When the Führer decided to rescue Mussolini our Intelligence people hadn’t an idea where he was imprisoned. But an occultist who calls himself the Master of the Sidereal Pendulum located him for us. On checking up we found that he was right, then Otto Skorzeny flew in and got the Duce out. Most of the time, though, I think they are just guessing, and only last week the Führer sent his two latest wizards packing because they had misled him with false predictions.’
Gregory smiled. ‘Most of these fellows are charlatans; but Malacou is not. Perhaps he is granted these powers because he refuses to make money out of them. Anyway, if you would like your fortune told you have only to let me know.’
At that moment von Below was called away; so Gregory continued to familiarise himself with his new surroundings, then returned to the Air Ministry for a late lunch.
During the next few days he made the acquaintance of all his new colleagues in the bunker and settled down to his duties there. They were by no means onerous and consisted mainly in making précis of staff papers for Generals Koller and Christian, relaying orders by telephone and, at times, going in a car to the Tempelhof or Gatow airports to meet senior officers who had been summoned to Berlin by the Führer.
On March 6th he met and brought to the bunker General Siegfried Westphal. This comparatively young and exceptionally brilliant officer had, in turn, been Chief of Staff to Rommel in North Africa and to Kesselring in Italy and was now Chief of Staff to von Rundstedt. He had been sent by his chief to endeavour to persuade Hitler to permit a withdrawal which would considerably shorten the front in the West and so enable it to be held more strongly. After his departure Gregory learned from Koller, von Below and others the course the interview had taken. With great courage Westphal had spoken his mind frankly to Hitler and for five hours stood up to endless tirades of abuse. When he at last emerged from the interview he was sweating profusely but he had managed to wring a partial agreement from Hitler.
He had asked that parts of the West Wall should be given up, on the grounds that it had been so shoddily built that many of the emplacements were death-traps rather than strong points, and that, fearing to be buried in them, the troops preferred to risk their lives in the open. As the West Wall was Hitler’s own creation this had sent him into a furious rage; but he had been forced to admit that his own estimate, that a division averaging five thousand men could hold a front of fifteen kilometres, was no longer practical in view of the Allies’ great numerical superiority; and had consented to withdrawals in certain places. But General Jodl expressed the opinion that Westphal’s success was only temporary, and that the Führer would soon revert to his demand that every foot of ground should be held.
The following afternoon Gregory was sent by Koller out to Karinhall with a confidential document for Goering, which gave him an opportunity to report that he had established himself satisfactorily at Führer H.Q. and had made his first move, although he was now far from happy about its probable outcome. But on his return, when he entered the outer bunker he noticed that its inmates were looking very glum. Suddenly, von Below caught sight of him and cried:
‘Teufel nochmal, Protze! You were right!’
To Gregory the exclamation could mean only one thing: the Americans were across the Rhine. For the past two days he had been becoming more and more anxious, as Malacou had been unable to give a more exact prediction than that the crossing would take place in the first week in March. Had he for once proved wrong, Gregory would not only have been made to look a credulous fool but also have lost the sort of brilliant opening to his campaign that might not again arise. But this was the 7th; so, much relieved, he was able to smile and ask:
‘When did it happen, and where?’
‘This afternoon,’ replied the Colonel. ‘One of General Patton’s flying columns reached the Rhine at Remagen. God alone knows why, but our Sappers there failed to blow the bridge in time. Still, the Americans can’t possibly have crossed in any strength. They couldn’t have had more than a reconnaissance force so far in advance of their main body; so all the odds are that the few who have got across will be driven back into the river.’
But hour after hour next day, as the reports came in, the atmosphere in the bunker grew more tense. ‘Two-gun’ Patton was proving himself another Murat by his dash and determination. Not only had the Germans failed to retake or destroy the bridge; the Americans were pouring across it and, supported by a thousand aircraft, establishing themselves on its far side.
On the 9th a German counter-attack in force was launched but by evening it was known that it had failed. At eleven o’clock that night Gregory was in his cubicle in the Air Ministry basement and just about to turn in. An orderly from the telephone exchange came to his room and told him that General Koller required his presence at once over in the Chancellery bunker. Hastily he put on his tunic again and hurried off up the street. He found Koller in the main passage that was used as a general sitting room. The General said only ‘Come with me,’ and led the way through the partition door into the end of the passage that was used for conferences.
There, alone at the long narrow table, Bormann was sitting. Fixing his cold steely eyes on Gregory, he asked, ‘Herr Major, is it true that you predicted the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen by the Americans a week before it occurred?’
‘Jawohl, Herr Parteiführer,’ Gregory replied promptly.
Bormann stood up and said, ‘The Führer requires an explanation of how you obtained this intelligence.’ As he spoke he pushed open a door on his right and signed to Gregory to go through it. A moment later Gregory found himself face to face with Adolf Hitler.