Chapter 4

Buchenwald concentration camp lay a few miles north of the town of Weimar, laid out in uneven clearings spread across the desolate wooded slopes of the Ettersberg. The neat officers’ homes with their gardens were built along Eicke Street on the more protected southern flank of the mountain, while the prisoners’ barracks were in a wire-enclosed area on the more open upper slope. Beyond the narrow two-story gatehouse with its motto “Right or Wrong—My Country” lay the roll-call area, a barren yard that was a dust bowl in the dry days and a sea of mud in the rain. Then came the barracks, row upon row, fanning out from the roll-call yard, wooden buildings without windows, stretching up the slope almost to the summit. Unlike Maidanek or Auschwitz or the majority of the German concentration camps in Poland, Buchenwald was not an extermination camp but had been built in the early days of the Nazi regime as a detention camp for dissenters, and had later been expanded to furnish labor to the Gustloff Armament Works and the German Armament Works, both built on the outskirts of the camp. In addition, the camp furnished labor for any other endeavor in the area that was recommended to the SS, from the railroad to Weimar that was never used because of its poor construction to the huge riding hall that had been constructed to satisfy the whim of the wife of the ex-commandant, Frau Iisa Koch, and which had been used only half an hour a day for her horseback exercises.

To Colonel Helmut von Schraeder, the camp was a disgrace. For one thing, for a camp dedicated to furnishing labor and not to extermination, the pair of ovens in the crematory behind the high wall in the southeast corner of the prisoners’ area seldom lacked customers—while at the same time half the machines at the Gustloff and German Works were idle for lack of proper personnel. Still, he could hardly be surprised; an organization run by a bureaucracy that would criminally misuse boxcars would certainly not be intelligent enough to properly use labor.

The camp also lacked order, lacked that discipline the colonel’s engineering soul demanded. Prisoners would rip out electric wires when the night food containers arrived, and in the darkness fight savagely and even kill to get an extra ration of food, while the Kapos and barracks orderlies would mill about helplessly, unable to control their charges. And inmates too weak or too crowded in their tiered bunks to climb down and make their way to the latrines would relieve themselves into their mess gear instead, or climb to the barrack roof, removing planks and tar paper, and then defecate onto the roof itself, or foul the beams and often the prisoners below.

But it was not the fighting for a scrap of food, or the filth in which the men lived, or the pile of corpses that were deposited daily outside the barracks and had to be removed that bothered the colonel. These were, after all, animals, and nothing more could be expected of them. What bothered von Schraeder was the waste. Even the small amount of food the inmates received, even the small amount of space they occupied, should have been repaid by having some useful labor extracted from them. If Colonel von Schraeder had been running the camp, the prisoners would have been separated into two groups: those able to work and those unable to work. The first group would have been given sufficient rations to sustain them, enough room on the tiers to get proper rest, and they would have the duty to keep the Gustloff and the German Armament Works functioning. If they did not, they would instantly join the second group and go to the gas chambers, which would have been the first thing constructed.

He would sit in his office in the command barrack with little to do, leaning back and consuming cigarette after cigarette, constantly analyzing his alternate plan, should Valkyrie fail. It was at these moments that the barren camp, its stench and drabness, its filthy prisoners, and its constant outpouring of skeletal bodies for the furnaces would disappear, and in its place would come a vision of his plan. And with it would come a gentle chiding of himself for worrying about the operation of the camp. What importance could one give, at this moment in time, to the armaments Gustloff produced or did not produce, or the food the prisoners ate or killed to eat or did not eat at all, or where they chose to shit or upon whom? All this minutiae were of no concern to him; his concern was the survival of Helmut von Schraeder and nothing else.

At such moments he was thankful that his mother was dead and there was nobody alive to concern him. The aunt who had raised him in Hamburg after his mother’s death had gone up in the fire storm that swept the city after the Allied bombings; he had been fortunate in never having any woman make a claim on him for anything beyond the moment’s pleasure. As for his father—he had never been sure about his feelings toward his father. As a child he had wept uncontrollably when he learned of his father’s death; the heavy man with the rough tweed clothing who smelled of tobacco and brandy and shaving lotion who would toss him in the air and catch him, and kiss him, nuzzling his thick beard against his face. And when he was older, old enough to understand, and had learned that his father’s death was a suicide, he could not recall his first reaction. He knew he felt it wrong for a general in the Kaiser’s army to commit suicide, regardless of the reason. There had been the loss of the estates; he remembered vaguely driving away from them, his aunt holding his hand tightly, leaning back to watch them disappear, the stable the last thing he had seen before the trees and a curve in the road blocked them from view. But he had heard that there were debts, run up and owed to Jews; and there had been the persecution, he had also heard, by the Communists who ran the Weimar Government in the twenties, before Hitler. But still, should a general have succumbed to any amount of pressure, to the extent of surrendering to death before death had won with its own weapons? No!

Von Schraeder would feel a rare and unwanted prickling behind his eyes when these thoughts came; he would crush out his cigarette and wave a hand to dissipate the smoke, blinking rapidly. How did he really feel about his father? He told himself repeatedly he really didn’t know. When the general had been found with a gun in his hand, a bullet in his brain, and an apology to his family on his desk, Helmut had been too young. But he remembered many things. He remembered the mustiness of the study, always a forbidden place to play, with the ancestral pictures on the wall and the huge fireplace lit only on important occasions, the patterned carpets, the furniture upholstered in thick velvet, shiny with age, the heavy drapes, his father’s massive desk, the endless bookshelves, and the all-pervading odor of pipe tobacco. Why? Why? A general should be stronger. A von Schraeder should be stronger! The general should have been a survivor, as his son was determined to be!

And how could a father have deserted a small boy, a small helpless imaginative son, who needed him …?

Von Schraeder shook his head, clearing it of the unpleasant recollections, and glanced at his desk calender. July 16, four days until the Valkyrie plan was to go into effect. And after that, one way or the other, all this would soon be memories: the camps, the war, the barracks, the entire business. A trip to Switzerland to collect from his numbered account, held in a name no one knew but him, and then—where? He suddenly realized he hadn’t considered that phase at all as yet; it had always seemed too far in the future. But the decision would have to be made; the planning would have to be gone into. Assuming that Valkyrie were to be successful and a general amnesty granted—in itself a doubtful assumption—would he care to remain in Germany? No. Even with amnesty Germany was not the place he wanted to be. The country would take years to recover and rebuild, and would demand sacrifices during that period. Sacrifices were for people without money; he would not fall into that category. The United States? Probably not. Admittedly the life was easy in America, but the Jews, even though a tiny minority, seemed to run the place. South America? Again a possibility, but the weather, he had heard, was a bit unpleasant. Remain in Switzerland once he was there? Another possibility. He leaned back in his chair, fingering his cigarette holder, feeling expansive. With money, the possibilities were endless.

He smiled as he thought back on his conversation with Franz Schlossberg in the car that day, driving from Lublin to Weimar. Undoubtedly the good doctor had managed to convince himself by now that the conversation had never taken place at all, or if it had, that he must have completely misunderstood the colonel. It would be so like Schlossberg. They saw each other occasionally in the mess hall or in the canteen in the evenings, but on those occasions the doctor would turn his head resolutely, as if fearing he might be drawn into conversation. An idiot, von Schraeder would think indulgently, a man with a God-given talent in his fingers and cotton in his head. Ah, well—very shortly he might have to remind the good doctor of their conversation, although in all honesty, he hoped not.

Four more days to Valkyrie.

Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia, the famed Wolfschantze, or Wolf’s Lair, was set in a thickly forested area within three concentric protected rings, each thoroughly defended by pillboxes, mine fields, electrified barbed-wire fences, and heavily armed and dedicated SS troops. To enter, a special pass was required, good for just one visit, and the visitor also had to pass the personal inspection of SS Oberfuehrer Rattenhuber, Himmler’s chief of security for the area.

On the morning of July 20, Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, accompanied by his adjutant, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, easily passed the three checkpoints and entered the main area, their papers quite in order. In addition to their passes, Field Marshal Keitel had informed the gates of the coming presence of the colonel, so no trouble had been expected, nor was any forthcoming.

In von Stauffenberg’s briefcase, in addition to the report on the new Volkgrenadier divisions on which he was to speak to the conference in the early afternoon, there was a time bomb, carefully wrapped in a shirt. The mechanism of the bomb was simple; it was set off by breaking a small glass vial which would release acid to eat through a thin wire, releasing the firing pin against the percussion cap. The time required to complete this cycle was determined by the thickness of the wire. Today the wire was as thin as the makers of the bomb considered safe for the deliverer of the weapon. It was estimated it would take no more than ten minutes for the wire to eat through and the bomb explode.

As the colonel and Field Marshal Keitel left the field marshal’s quarters to walk to the conference, Stauffenberg suddenly paused.

“Sir—”

“Well, what?” It was Keitel’s usual bark.

“My belt—my cap—” Without another word Stauffenberg turned and hurried back to the anteroom of the field marshal’s quarters. There he quickly opened his briefcase and activated the bomb by breaking the glass capsule. He was in the process of closing the briefcase when Keitel’s angry bullying voice could be heard.

“Stauffenberg!”

“Coming, sir!”

He seized his cap and belt and hurried outside. Keitel, never known for his patience with subordinates at any time, was glaring at him.

“What have you been doing in there? We’re going to be late! Idiot!”

“Yes, sir.”

He caught up with the field marshal and marched with him across the area to the conference room. As they entered, he looked around and then took his seat, leaning down to place the briefcase on the floor between General Korten, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Colonel Brandt, Chief of Staff to the Chief of Operations, General Heusinger. Heusinger was speaking in a droning voice. Stauffenberg looked around. He had hoped the conference would take place in the underground rooms, where the effect of his intended explosion in the confined space would be greater; this room had ten windows and they were all open to catch a bit of air. Still, it was his hope that the conspirators had constructed a bomb with sufficient potency to overcome the lack of confinement.

He glanced surreptitiously at his wristwatch. Four minutes had elapsed since he had broken the glass vial. There were six minutes remaining. He wet his lips and wondered what would happen if for some reason he were stopped from leaving the room before the bomb went off, for there was no preventing its exploding now. And then he consoled himself with the thought that if he went up with the bomb, at least others would go with him, which would be worth it. Others including Keitel, the loud-mouth, as well as the target, the Fuehrer, sitting two seats down.

He listened a moment longer, and then while General Heusinger was in the midst of a long report on the breakthrough on the Russian front, Stauffenberg murmured something unintelligible in the form of an excuse to his unlistening neighbor, and came to his feet. Everyone was paying attention to Heusinger. Stauffenberg was out of the room in seconds.

Keitel, frowning blackly, looked around for the colonel; after all, Stauffenberg’s report, sponsored by Keitel, was next on the agenda, and while Heusinger was long-winded, he wouldn’t talk forever. Wondering where the colonel could have gotten to, Keitel slipped from the room and looked around. Stauffenberg was nowhere to be seen. The sergeant at the telephone switchboard said the colonel had just hurried from the building. Keitel fumed. He swore to himself he would have the colonel’s shoulder patches for this bit of work! What was it now, for God’s sake? If it was a matter of weak kidneys, there was a toilet in the conference-room area! He turned back to the conference room as Heusinger continued his report.

“The Russian is driving with strong forces west of the Duna toward the north. His spearheads are already southwest of Dunaburg. If our army group around Lake Peipus is not immediately withdrawn, a catastrophe—”

And the bomb went off.

July 20 passed as every other day had passed since von Schraeder’s arrival at Buchenwald; the radio in the command barrack was tuned, as always, to the Berlin station that furnished classical music. Von Schraeder found himself staring at the speaker of the radio, willing it to interrupt the Brahms they were playing, and get on with the dire announcement. But the radio remained true to its classical commitments. At five-thirty in the afternoon, the last to leave, he turned the set off and walked down to his car, frowning. Valkyrie had been postponed, that much was evident. Or, very possibly, it had come off and the authorities were keeping it quiet until they could figure out what to do. That, of course, was a distinct possibility, and one that made him feel better. On the other hand, Gehrmann could have gotten the date wrong, which would not be surprising. He would call Gehrmann at the War Ministry in the morning and see what information he could obtain. It would have to be done with a certain amount of circumspection, and Gehrmann would be nervous as the devil, but this did not bother von Schraeder. He had to know, one way or the other.

He dined alone, read for a brief period, and then went up to bed. But sleep would not come; it was too close to the time he had to make his decision. At last he sat up, took out a book, and put the radio on, tuning it to some martial music being played, and prepared to read himself into sleepiness. And then, suddenly, he sat up, every nerve tingling. The music had been abruptly cut off, in mid-note it seemed, and in the silence that fell a hysterical voice suddenly broke.

Von Schraeder permitted himself a broad smile. They had done it. They had actually done it. It didn’t automatically mean amnesty, or that he would not need his own plan, but at least now there was a chancel He bent closer to the radio, not wishing to raise the volume, and listened for the first time to the actual words. And then he felt the blood drain from his face. The voice was too, too familiar.

“… if I speak to you today it is in order that you should hear my voice and should know that I am unhurt and well, and secondly you should know of a crime unparalleled in German history.

“A very small clique of ambitious, irresponsible, and, at the same time, senseless and stupid officers have concocted a plot to eliminate me, and with me, the staff of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.

“The bomb planted by Colonel Count Stauffenberg exploded two meters to the right of me. It seriously wounded a number of my true and loyal collaborators, one of whom has died. I, myself, am entirely unhurt, aside from some very minor scratches, bruises, and burns. I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence …”

Von Schraeder stared at the floor, barely hearing the strident voice. So the plot to assassinate Hitler had failed, but then he had never had any great hopes for its success. Besides, even had the plan been successful, he doubted the Allies would have agreed to amnesty. It was the reason he had developed his own plan. The voice on the radio was continuing.

“… the circle of these usurpers is very small and has nothing in common with the spirit of the German Wehrmacht and, above all, none with the German people. It is a gang of criminal elements which will be destroyed without mercy …”

Von Schraeder leaned over and switched the radio off. For a long time he stared at the floor; then he came to his feet and padded over to his dispatch case. He unlocked it and took out a sealed envelope that had been prepared over a month before. He opened it, checked the contents carefully, and then reached for the telephone. It took several minutes before the operator at the camp switchboard answered; von Schraeder could only assume they were listening to the radio. He cleared his throat.

“Dr. Schlossberg in Ward Forty-six,” he said into the telephone, and waited. When the ringing was finally answered, he said to the orderly at the other end, “This is Colonel von Schraeder. Tell Dr. Schlossberg I’m sorry to wake him, but I’m afraid I’m coming down with something.”

They sat in the small, sterile office of Dr. Schlossberg in Ward Forty-six, the colonel neat as always in his dapper uniform, the doctor with a laboratory coat over his pajamas.”

“… headache, vomiting. It’s typhus, without a doubt,” von Schraeder said, looking the picture of health. He waited for the doctor to speak, but the thin baldheaded man sat silent, watching the colonel with no expression at all on his face. Von Schraeder smiled; the shock he had felt on hearing Hitler’s voice when he was supposedly dead was now completely gone. Valkyrie had always been problematical at best; now it was time to put his own plan into effect. It was why he had perfected it, gone to such troubles with it, made such complicated arrangements over it. He watched the doctor’s face. “I expect this attack will be fatal.”

“I’m sure,” said the doctor, again with no expression. “And after you are dead?”

“I expect to be cremated together with my uniform and any effects I brought with me to the ward. I expect to be put into a burial sack and placed into the crematorium without any autopsy, since they seldom do autopsies on typhus victims—”

“Not seldom,” Schlossberg said. “Never. It’s the one disease we all respect around here.”

“I meant never,” von Schraeder said. “You may be sure I was quite informed on that point.”

“I’m sure.” The doctor closed his eyes a moment, as if resting them against the bright glare of the lights reflected from the tile walls, and then reopened them. “Of course, after Colonel von Schraeder is dead and cremated, someone will be born in his place.”

“Exactly. It’s the law of life.”

“And who, exactly, will be born in the place of Colonel von Schraeder?”

Von Schraeder leaned forward, his eyes intent on the doctor’s face.

“His name will be Benjamin Grossman. His papers are all here.” He tapped the envelope he had brought with him. “Grossman is in Ward Forty-six for experimental work, under your jurisdiction. When your experiments on him are complete—that is, when your plastic surgery is completely healed—then Benjamin Grossman is to be transferred to Natzweiler Camp in the Vosges. And your part in the matter will be forgotten.”

“Grossman?” The doctor stared. “You intend to take the identity of a Jew?”

“That is correct.” Von Schraeder smiled.

“And be transferred to a camp as an inmate?”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know what you are doing? You’ve seen how—” The doctor seemed to realize he had been on the verge of criticizing the SS treatment of prisoners. He changed his argument. “It will mean being circumcised, which can be extremely painful for an adult. And most of the prisoners—the Jews—speak Yiddish, and you don’t. And—”

“I know everything it will mean,” Von Schraeder said calmly. “Believe me, I’ve studied this plan for many months. I know it will mean being circumcised, and I know it is painful. It also means extensive work on my face, and I’m not looking forward to that. Or having my head shaved, or any of the rest of it. Although,” he added, smiling, “after some of the barbers I’ve encountered in the camps, having my head shaved should be no great sacrifice—”

“Anyone who comes into Ward Forty-six as a patient has his head shaved in any event. It’s a precaution against typhus.”

“I suppose so.” Von Schraeder shrugged. “And I shall have to starve myself, which is a pity, although I never allowed myself to get fat as a pig, like Mittendorf. And I shall either have to stop smoking, or discover how prisoners manage to get cigarettes, which I know they do, even without money.”

“And what of your not speaking Yiddish? Have you considered that?”

“I believe,” von Schraeder said evenly, “that I have considered every possible problem. In the part of Germany where I come from, the Jews never spoke Yiddish. They considered it—one of the few things they considered rightly—to be a bastard language fit for the Russians and the Poles, but far beneath the dignity of a German. And that’s the kind of Jew Benjamin Grossman is. An upper-class German Jew.” He swung his chair around to face the doctor squarely. “Well? What do you think?”

“Of the scheme?”

“No, Of my face.”

Dr. Schlossberg nodded. Contrary to the colonel’s idea, the doctor was really not surprised at all. He had long since come to the conclusion that it was his ability as a plastic surgeon that had accounted for his transfer to Buchenwald under von Schraeder’s sponsorship.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “It is very possible. With no intent to insult you, Colonel, but merely speaking as a professional man, I may say that your face is remarkably without distinction. The features are small and quite regular. A slight change to the nose, the raising of an eyebrow, a small scar—nothing disturbing,” he added quickly before von Schraeder could object, “merely character-indicating.”

“What about the cheekbones?” von Schraeder asked curiously. They might have been discussing the proper selection of a uniform for a formal party.

“I do not believe it vital. Starvation alters a man’s face in a remarkable fashion. Before you leave here, your cheekbones will naturally be far more prominent.”

“Except, Doctor, I do not expect to continue starving forever,” von Schraeder said dryly, “but I do expect to remain disguised forever.”

“True. Odd that I should have overlooked that,” the doctor said apologetically. “Still, I haven’t done any serious plastic work for some time. However, it should be no problem.” In an equally apologetic tone of voice he went on. “And what if, under the anesthetic, my knife should happen to slip? I mention this because I’m sure you’ve considered the possibility. You seem to have considered everything else,” he added bitterly.

“Of course I considered it. Either Benjamin Grossman leaves Ward Forty-six to be transferred to Natzweiler, or sealed papers being held somewhere, by someone, will automatically be opened. Tell me,” he went on in the same amused tone, “have you listened to your radio this evening?”

“No.” The doctor was mystified by the question.

“Ah, well, you’ll hear of it in the morning, if not sooner. There was a serious attempt on Hitler’s life this afternoon; a bomb exploded at a conference. He wasn’t scratched—can you imagine?—but all those involved will be rounded up. The purge of ’34 will be a tea party in comparison. They will strangle colonels with picture wire; they will drown generals in their own excrement. You should never have gotten involved …”

The doctor’s face had gone white. Von Schraeder smiled and reached over, patting Schlossberg on the shoulder.

“But there is no need to discuss unpleasant alternatives, especially those that need never arise. What other questions do you have?”

The doctor stared down at the hands in his lap a few moments and spoke without looking up. “What of the nurses I will need to work with me in the surgery?”

“You will use orderlies and they will be prisoners. Who, I’m afraid, will not survive. That will also be your responsibility.”

“I see.” Now the doctor looked up. His expression was more curious than anything else. “And what assurance do I have, when the surgery is complete and the stitches have finally been taken out, that I, myself, will survive?”

Von Schraeder looked honestly surprised at the question.

“The best. My word. Besides, I will need you to arrange my transfer to Natzweiler, to the experimental work there. The papers are all complete; as an ex-Sonderkommando and as a volunteer—in quotes—at Ward Forty-six at Buchenwald, I shall go there as an orderly, and the papers will be signed by you. And at that stage, being a prisoner, I would scarcely be in any position to harm you.” He sounded slightly hurt by the question. “Besides, what kind of a man do you think I am? If you help save my life, do you think I am so lacking in gratitude that I would allow you to be killed? That’s a monstrous accusation.”

The sheer inconsistency of the man almost took the doctor’s breath away; he mentally shook his head. He means it, he thought; how very odd, but von Schraeder actually means it!

“As a matter of fact,” the colonel went on, “among those papers are an introduction to a Major Gehrmann, who will introduce you to a group dedicated to saving people like you, if the necessity should arise. There is also a check made out to cash on a special Swiss account, a bank in Zurich, and signed with a signature they will recognize electronically. You will be well paid for your work, Doctor.” And if Gehrmann is picked up and executed for his part in Valkyrie, can I help that? Although the check is honest enough.

Dr. Schlossberg shook his head. “You’re a strange man, Colonel.”

“Benjamin,” von Schraeder said gently with a smile. “Benjamin Grossman. A product of our times, is all, Doctor. Shall we get started?”

The death of Colonel Helmut von Schraeder caused small stir in the camp; he had not been there long enough to make friends, nor had he appeared to be the sort to make many friends in any event. In Berlin the news was also received with small concern, even by people who, like Willi Gehrmann, had known him for some time. There was too much to worry about at the moment, with the thorough investigation being conducted into the bombing plot, to be greatly concerned about a colonel who died of typhus in a camp hospital. Too many others of equal name and higher rank were being taken prisoner by the Gestapo and the SS and died in far more terrible fashion.

And five days later, when a bandaged Benjamin Grossman lay in pain in his moldy bed in Ward Forty-six, slowly starving on a liquid diet that consisted of a thin tasteless soup and nothing else, desperately wanting a cigarette and wondering, for the first time, if possibly his plan had been unnecessary and that he might have done better taking his chances with the Strasbourg Group, Dr. Schlossberg came by and sat down beside his bed.

“Maidanek fell to the Russians yesterday,” he said softly. “You were right; the camp was captured almost intact.” He wondered even as he spoke whatever had happened to the girl Sarah; had he known, he may or may not have been concerned. She had been stoned to death by the inmates of Field V the day she appeared there after von Schraeder’s leaving. “The gas chambers and the ovens hadn’t been touched; the burial pits were as they were. Oh, someone tried to burn the ovens and managed to destroy the wooden shed over them, but that was about all. Most of the prisoners were still there, and even six SS guards, and they were hung by the Russians on the spot. Mittendorf got away, of course, but six of the lesser men were caught.”

There was a strange sound from the bandaged face on the stained pillow. Benjamin Grossman was chuckling.