Allen Dulles rose from his padded chair and plunked himself on the edge of his desk to square away with Tom McCreedy and Wesley Hollinger.
“Gentlemen,” the OSS Director began. “I called you here to tell you that some news may break in the next couple days concerning separate peace negotiations between the Germans and General Eisenhower. Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler has been in touch with the Swedes, who are his intermediaries, claiming that he will, and I quote,” — Dulles eyed a sheet of paper in his hands — “in order to stop unnecessary further bloodshed I will surrender my entire military forces of northern Germany, Norway, Scandinavia, Holland, as well as Army Group Vistula to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Unquote. He has also consented to free all the Jews under SS control.”
McCreedy and Hollinger shot glances at each other.
“What you won’t hear in the news,” Dulles continued, “is that a unit of SS guards has Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists in custody at a German army camp not far from here in Bavaria, a place called Oberammergau. Whether they — the scientists, that is — have the blueprints for their weapons is not certain.”
“So the team is Himmler’s insurance, his ticket out?” Hollinger asked.
“You guessed it,” Dulles replied. “At least he thinks it’s his ticket out.”
“I see. So, when do we move in?”
“When Patton takes the area. It’s only a matter of time, Mr. Hollinger.”
Hollinger had heard plenty of that before. He was bored in Switzerland. He’d rather be back in England with his pregnant wife. Nothing was happening here. Only talk. “How much time?”
“Days. Berlin will fall shortly. The Russians are within artillery range of the Chancellery, where Hitler and some of his faithful are holding in their fortified bunker. When Berlin goes, so goes Germany. Germany capitulates, then you two, representing the OSS, are going to find the scientists.”
“Bormann — how goes it with him?” McCreedy wanted to know.
“No word. As far as we know, Bormann’s still alive, according to our OSS shortwave people in Germany. So’s Hitler. So’s Goebbels. So is Goering. Another thing about Bormann: Himmler claims that it was Bormann behind the Jewish concentration camp murders, and that he — Himmler — has the written proof, orders handed down from Hitler’s office, signed by none other than our pal, Martin Bormann.”
Hollinger grunted. “Does this mean we won’t be cutting a deal with Bormann?”
“Right again,” Dulles answered, without expression. “If this news gets out, it will change things dramatically. Hopefully, we can obtain the blueprints on our own, without Bormann, who our office now considers a war criminal, and who will be tried as such, providing we can get him before the Russians do.”
“You don’t suppose Bormann suspects Himmler’s motives do you?”
Dulles thought about that. “If he doesn’t at this time, he will when the news breaks of Himmler’s plans to free the Jews.”
“You seem certain that the news will break, sir,” Hollinger concluded.
Dulles nodded. “It’s a way of flushing Bormann out. Divide and conquer. Hitler’s been using it for years. This time it’s our turn.”
McCreedy pursed his lips. “Then, sir, I presume that you don’t expect Bormann to show up at our rendezvous point to take him to Switzerland?”
“No, I do not. I think he knows we’re after him. Otherwise, we would have gotten out of Berlin by now. Last I heard, the city’s surrounded.”
* * * *
Later, walking in the hall, McCreedy leaned into Hollinger. “We had Bormann pegged right, didn’t we. He was trying awfully hard to convince us that Himmler was responsible for the concentration camps. Do we know what’s going on, or not?”
They turned a corner and took a flight of stairs down. “Yeah,” Hollinger admitted. “We know what’s going on. Ah, hell, they’re probably both to blame, anyway.”
“I don’t doubt it. I’ll drink to that.”
“I bet you will. But these are working hours, Tom.” Hollinger felt for his wristwatch. “It’s not even ten o’clock. We just had breakfast.”
McCreedy smiled. “Well, buddy boy, I guess we’re on alert. So Dulles says.”
“Yeah, let’s get this thing over with. I can’t take any more sitting around.”
McCreedy stopped Hollinger at the bottom of the stairs. “And you, Wesley, were right about something.”
“And that was?”
“This is a messy business.”
Hollinger smirked. “Wrong. I said it was a damn messy business.”
“All right, I stand corrected.”
The once-majestic Reich Chancellery, above the Fuehrerbunker, was now being shelled at random. Bormann could hear the massive masonry walls crashing down in the garden, where he and Goering had held their many private and treasonous walks. Then, one shell landed directly above, and shook the walls of Bormann’s office. He looked up. All day long sulphur smoke and lime dust had been filling his nostrils as the bunker’s ventilators sucked the destruction inside. The warm air was fast becoming unbearable. People were perspiring. They were grouchy, and they were complaining of headaches and shortness of breath.
But nothing could be done, except to tell the Russians to stop the shelling... or the bunker could surrender. Neither seemed likely, at least not for a while.
In the evening Bormann heard footsteps in the hall. Bormann turned the corner outside his office to find the slight of frame crack woman pilot, Hanna Reitsch, in flight gear, her leather helmet in her hand, her hair a tangled mess. Reitsch was held in awe by those in the Luftwaffe. Fearless, she had been known to successfully test some of the fastest aircraft in the world, including the tricky and dangerous Me-163 rocket fighter. “Fraulein Reitsch! What are you doing here?”
“I must see the Fuehrer at once, Herr Reichsleiter.”
Bormann stood there a long time. He could see that she was determined about something. “Of course.” He turned away from her, then quickly turned back to ask, “How did you get through? The city is surrounded. The Russians are only blocks away, are they not?”
“I flew in, Herr Reichsleiter.” She smiled.
Bormann shook his head. What lunacy this was in this underground madhouse. Everybody else was deserting Berlin and she was flying in. “Very well, come with me.”
A minute later, Reitsch was pleading with Hitler face to face in his concrete study, while Eva Braun sat on a sofa across the room, sipping tea. “Mein Fuehrer, you must leave while there is still time. Why do you stay? Why do you deprive Germany of your life? You must live for your country that needs you. The people demand it. I, mein Fuehrer, can fly you out to safety.”
Hitler sighed. “I don’t doubt that you have the ability to do so. You are an outstanding pilot. But, no Hanna. If I die it is for the honour of our country. It is because as a soldier I must obey my own command that I would defend Berlin to the last. For you see, my dear girl, I believe that Berlin may be saved.”
“But how?” Reitsch asked, startled, glancing back at Bormann in the doorway.
“General Wenck is moving his troops from the south. He will drive the Russians out. You will see.” Just then, a shell burst above, shaking the bunker, causing ceiling dust to fall to the floor. Hitler handed the pilot a vial of poison from his baggy, dusty suit jacket. “Here, Hanna, take this, just in case you do not make it safely out of Berlin. We have reports of thousands of rapes in the streets.” Reitsch took the vial in her small hand and stared at it. “Mein Fuehrer—”
“No,” Hitler snapped, cutting her off before she could plead more. “My mind is made up.”
Bormann could not believe the news at first. But, then again, why should it have surprised him? He looked down at the dispatch that had been hurried over by a lowly courier from the Propaganda Ministry across the street from the Chancellery. It was just too incredible. The Ministry picked up a BBC broadcast stating that Heinrich Himmler had been cutting surrender plans with Eisenhower through secret negotiations with the Swedes and Count von Bernadotte. And, it seemed, the Americans weren’t considering any terms except for Unconditional Surrender.
“Thank you,” Bormann said.
The courier fled to the corridor and the dangers of the outside.
Bormann turned the communications centre shortwave to Radio Stockholm, stalling for time before he would tell the Fuehrer. He listened intently. In minutes, he got the story. So, it was true. Bormann had mixed emotions. Himmler would soon be out of the way. Another one to add to the list. Hess. Goering. Now Himmler. Bormann gritted his teeth. He still had to relay the news to his leader.
When Hitler was informed, he went into a rage that Bormann had never seen, and he thought he had seen the worst when Goering tried to seize power. It was a hard deathblow for Hitler. He screamed, stomped his feet, and turned so red in the face that Bormann thought Hitler would explode. Once he recovered, he shouted at the small crowd made up of Eva Braun, Josef Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. At least, Hitler raged, Goering had asked the Fuehrer to relinquish command. Himmler, Hitler’s most loyal of cohorts, had not even bothered to ask permission to act. He went and made plans on his own, the epitome of treachery for sure.
As he stood there in Hitler’s room, Bormann thought back. Suspicious of Himmler for the last couple of days, Bormann saw how it all made sense to him. Himmler’s liaison officer and SS representative at court, General Hermann Fegelein, brother-in-law to Eva Braun, had quietly deserted his post at the Fuehrerbunker on April 26. No one had noticed the disappearance until the next day, when a subordinate had gone looking for him. Hitler ordered an SS search party to find Fegelein, and find him they did, at home in civilian clothes in a district soon to be overrun by the Russians. Brought back to the bunker, Fegelein was stripped of his SS rank by Hitler and placed under heavy guard. In Bormann’s mind and now Hitler’s too, Fegelein had caught wind of the sinking SS ship.
Now Uncle Heiny’s motives were definite enough. He craved total power.
Then Bormann thought of something else. The incriminating Berlin orders. The extermination papers! Would Himmler have...? No... he wouldn’t. Wait... he... Bormann’s knees began to buckle. No, Himmler would, if it meant saving his own ass. Why hadn’t Bormann thought of it before? He knew his dealings with the OSS were in question once Zeller was shot. Bormann had the trumped-up paperwork, accusing Himmler, and only Himmler, of millions of deaths. But Himmler had the real thing. The Berlin orders. Bormann cursed. The deal for high tech blueprints — the Foo Fighter — for his safety was in jeopardy. What he had on Dulles and the American big businessmen would be nothing compared to what Uncle Heiny had on him, providing Himmler had filed the paperwork, which he probably had.
Himmler filed everything.
* * * *
From the steps of the Chancellery, Bormann watched Reitsch take off in her single-engine airplane. He winced when the undercarriage barely cleared the Brandenburg Gate. Several shots rang out, obviously from Russian snipers. The aircraft banked away, unscathed. He breathed a sigh. Bormann liked Reitsch, but what a blind fool she was to risk her life now. This was Bormann’s first time outside in days. From this vantage point he was shocked to see the city in ragged ruins. Although word had come through that Wenck had lost, for some strange reason the Russian shelling had ceased for the time being.
Reitsch’s new orders were clear. She was to fly Ritter von Greim — the new Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, appointed by Hitler over Goering — to Plon, where the two would confer with Admiral Doenitz, and inform him that he was to arrest Heinrich Himmler on sight. “A traitor must never succeed me as Fuehrer!” Hitler had told Reitsch, minutes before, Bormann standing off to the side. “You must get out to insure that he will not.”
Bormann quickly returned to the bunker below. He stopped at the guardhouse, and witnessed the next stage of Hitler’s revenge against Himmler, involving General Hermann Fegelein. Led out to the Chancellery garden, the general was accused of having been an accomplice with Himmler. Then Fegelein was shot. Being Eva’s brother-in-law had no bearing on whether he would live or die. Bormann turned away and descended again to the rancid Fuehrerbunker air.
She started to sign her name “Eva Braun.” Then she realized her mistake, giggled lightly, and stroked out the “B” and wrote “Eva Hitler, born Braun.” Bormann looked down at Hitler’s wedding document, declaring that Hitler and Eva were of pure Aryan descent and free from hereditary disease. Stone-faced, Bormann signed as a witness inside the small conference room. An hour after midnight, the Fuehrer and Eva were now officially married, the conclusion of a decade-long affair. Too bad they only had hours or days at most to spend together as a new couple, Bormann thought. And too bad they couldn’t go anywhere on their honeymoon.
Hitler thanked the man who married them, Walter Wagner, a municipal councillor who was fighting the Russians a few blocks away. Then the party began in Hitler’s private apartment, complete with champagne. Hitler even invited the cooks. Bormann sipped from his glass and watched the smiling Hitler tell the others of the better days with party comrades true to the cause. Everyone seemed in good spirits, until more than an hour into Hitler’s dialogue.
“Now it has ended,” the Fuehrer said, his lips frowning. “And so has National Socialism. It will be a release for me to die, since I have been betrayed by old friends and businessmen abroad who once supported me.”
Head down, Hitler walked away. This was Bormann’s signal to follow Hitler. Bormann glanced around the room before he left. Everyone was crying. Goebbels, the secretaries, the cooks. Everyone... except Bormann.
By 4am, Hitler had drafted his Last Will. Bormann made the changes, and read it back to his dreary, tired leader one last time. “As executor of this will, I appoint my most faithful Party comrade, Martin Bormann. He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out for my brothers and sisters whatever has any value as a personal memento or is necessary to maintain a modest standard of living.”
“Sign it, Bormann.”
“I will be honoured to, mein Fuehrer. Thank you for your faith in—”
“Yes, yes. Now, read me the Political Testament.”
“Certainly, mein Fuehrer.”
Bormann flipped a page in his file and began. “A number of men such as Martin Bormann, Dr. Goebbels, and others, including their wives, have voluntarily joined me. They do not wish to leave the capital of the Reich under any circumstances; they are willing to die with me. Nevertheless, I must ask them to obey my request, and in this case to put the interests of the nation above their own feelings. By their work and loyalty as associates they will be just as close to me as I hope my spirit will be to them; may it linger among them and accompany them always. Let them be hard but never unjust; above all let them never allow fear to influence their actions, and let them put the honour of the nation above all else on earth. Finally, let them be conscious of the fact that our task for the coming centuries is the continuing construction of the National Socialist state, and this places every single person under an obligation always to serve the common interest and to subordinate his own advantages to this end.”
Finished, Bormann glanced over the sheet. He snickered. Hitler had fallen asleep in his chair.