Berlin, April 1945
These are dark days. As Schwerin von Krosigk remarked to me only yesterday: ‘All this week there has been nothing but a succession of Job’s messengers. How will it end? How can it end?’
Living down here, hidden away from the daylight and fresh air, it is indeed difficult to gain a true perspective on what is happening throughout the country. All the reports are bad. We hear that the Americans are over the Elbe and that the Russians have crossed the Oder and are marching on Dresden and threatening Berlin itself. In the north a combined force of Japanese and Americans are meeting little resistance as they approach Bremen and Hamburg, and in the south the French are swarming along the upper Danube, having already taken Vienna. Even the Führer’s sacred Bavaria is threatened by General Patton and his merciless armoured brigades.
But the worst news of all came this morning. Goebbels sent a personal messenger from his headquarters in the cellars beneath the Propaganda Ministry with an urgent dispatch which dealt a blow to the heart: the Blackshirts have capitulated. Our hopes had all been pinned on their holding the Low Countries and opening a corridor through to Berlin as a means of escape, but now we hear that Montgomery has entered into negotiations with Eisenhower in the hope of saving the remnants of the 7th Army. As a final cruel sting in the tail the message added that the Leibstandarte AH, the Führer’s personal SS Division, had been a party to the surrender and is now no more.
The conditions down here, twenty metres below ground underneath the Chancellery, leave a lot to be desired. Our quarters are perpetually damp and even the air-conditioning cannot get rid of the smell of many human beings forced to live like animals on top of one another, day in and day out. The Führerbunker consists of eighteen rooms (little more than concrete cubicles) divided by a central passageway which is used as a general sitting area and, further along behind a wooden partition, a space where the daily staff conferences are held. On either side of this narrow passage are the private rooms: on the left Hitler’s bedroom and study, and next to these Eva’s bedroom, bathroom and dressing-room. A small anteroom adjoining these is used by the Führer’s personal SS bodyguard.
My two rooms – bedroom and office – along with Stumpfegger’s bedroom and first-aid station are on the right of the passage; further along are the rooms which contain the emergency telephone exchange, the guardroom and the Diesel power house. At our end of the Bunker we are fortunate in having the emergency exit which leads up four flights of concrete stairs to the Chancellery garden. But even the close proximity of this isn’t much of a comfort, for there is a general standing order that no one is allowed outside until after dark and then only for a maximum period of forty-five minutes. It’s like living in a submarine moored permanently at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Cold, damp, depressing.
Every day there is a constant stream of visitors: Doenitz, Bormann, Keitel, Jodl, Kesselring, Christian, Speer, Krebs, and dozens of aides and adjutants ferrying messages back and forth. I try, as much as possible, not to get too involved in the continuous and wearying round of staff meetings, map conferences, Orders to General Staff, and so on. I find it very tedious and there isn’t much to be gleaned by listening to their endless inane chatter, so I stay in my room writing my diary and reading Carlyle’s History of Frederick the Great (the Führer’s personal copy, which I borrowed). Sometimes I while away the hours by chatting (!) to Eva in the comparative privacy of her bedroom. We are rarely disturbed there, which is convenient.
Much of the current activity, I gather, is concerned with persuading the Führer to move south to Obersalzberg. Bormann puts in an appearance several times a day, emerging from the SS Bunker under the Party Chancellery and making a dash (brave soul!) to be by the Führer’s side, imploring him to move his headquarters before the Russians encircle the city. His pleadings are backed by Himmler, Goebbels and Krebs, and all four are passionate in their entreaties to withdraw south while the opportunity remains. But the Führer is unmoved. He listens to their pleas, slumped in his chair, his face ashen, and when they have finished launches into his battle plans for the week ahead; it’s as though they haven’t spoken – indeed I’d be very surprised if he hears a single word they say.
After one of these abortive ‘conferences’, which go on for three hours or more, Goebbels took me to one side and told me in the strictest confidence that he was concerned for the Führer’s sanity. He didn’t actually mention that word but instead spoke delicately of ‘his mental condition’. Was there nothing to be done? he wanted to know. Couldn’t I prescribe something which would restore his mental faculties to their usual peak of sustained intellectual brilliance?
I answered that I was apportioning the remaining supply of drugs on a very careful rota to ensure they would last out till fresh supplies arrived. ‘When these are gone,’ I said sombrely, ‘he will not live three days. You have my word as an experienced medical practitioner.’
‘Thank God you are still loyal, Theo,’ Goebbels said fervently. ‘There are some close to the Führer I view with the greatest suspicion. Though it may not be apparent, both Goering and Himmler are panic-stricken, out of their wits with fear. It will not be long before the rats desert the sinking ship.’
His dark intelligent eyes and lean sallow face were grave in aspect and he was himself obviously in the depths of depression.
‘I have never let you down, Herr Reichsminister,’ I said to him fiercely, ‘and I do not intend to start now.’
He patted my shoulder and there was a glint of life in his eyes. ‘Good man. As long as we remain faithful to the Führer there is hope yet that we shall conquer all. The Reich will triumph. His will be done!’
*
A touching little scene in the Chancellery garden during the afternoon. Reichsjugendführer Axmann, leader of the Hitler Youth Movement, brought a squad of boys along to receive the Führer’s blessing. These are the last-ditch defence troops about to be sent into action against the Russian onslaught which every day advances ten kilometres towards Berlin.
Grasping the opportunity for a little sunshine and fresh air additional to our quota, Eva and I stood near the concrete observation tower and watched as the Führer hobbled along the line of boys, most of them not more than fourteen years old, shaking their hands, patting their unblemished cheeks, and pinning medals to their warriors’ chests. They stood proudly, conscious of the historical immensity of the occasion, and made a beautiful picture for the film camera which Goebbels, always ready to use every conceivable situation for propaganda purposes, had arranged for with his usual unobtrusive efficiency.
I am almost prepared to swear that the Führer had tears in his eyes as he reached the end of the line. He looked up from his stooping crouch and seemed to turn away abruptly as if overcome by the unflinching patriotism in those young faces of the future, faces unlined by five years of war or any of life’s tribulations and harrowing disappointments. It was a glorious moment and one I shall always treasure.
Due to the events of the day, that same evening in the Führerbunker was one of melancholy reflection and nostalgia for the bright dead days of long ago. There were several of us gathered together, sitting on hard straight chairs in the anteroom to the Führer’s quarters, listening to the non-stop monologue which is his mode of conversation whenever he’s had a little too much wine and is in a contemplative frame of mind. It went on for some considerable time and I must confess I dozed off once or twice, so my recollection of what was said is sketchy and incomplete. However the gist of it was to the effect that he had missed his true path in life, taken the wrong direction, regretted his mistakes, etc, etc.
One of the adjutants present (I think it was Rittmeister Boldt) asked what on earth the Führer could mean by such a declaration, obviously playing the part of the slimy fawning toad for the evening. Hitler replied that he was not, never had been and what’s more had no ambition to be, a politician. ‘Many people have commented on the fact – probably you yourself have noticed it – that I have an artistic nature,’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ Boldt assented at once, nodding his stupid empty head like a mechanical doll’s.
‘I appreciate the finer things of life, the aesthetic virtues. I should, by rights, have been an artist. My nature rebels against regimentation, something that should be obvious to anyone with eyes in his head.’
We all nodded at how obvious this obviously was.
He went on, ‘But I was persuaded to thwart my artistic inclinations and instead to lead the German people along the road of National Socialism in order that they might fulfil their historic destiny. It is untrue that I, or anybody else in Germany, wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked exclusively by those international politicians who either came of Jewish stock or worked for Jewish interests. After all my offers of disarmament, posterity cannot place the responsibility for this war on me. My true nature was violated and I was forced, against my better judgement, to become Führer of the Fatherland. What couldn’t I have been? What couldn’t I have achieved as an architect, say, or a painter of landscapes? All gone, wasted, my talents cast aside and not allowed to flower.’
‘Some seeds fall on stony ground,’ a voice murmured, possibly under the mistaken impression that this was apposite to the Führer’s melancholic meanderings.
Fortunately Hitler was listening only to the sound of his own voice and he rambled on in this vein for the next twenty minutes. Finally he took it into his head to send one of the secretaries for his horoscope, the one drawn up on 30th January, 1933, and we spent the next hour perusing this sacred document in the hope that it might point to a way out of the present difficulties.
The predictions (I must admit) were shattering. It forecast that war would break out in 1939, that the Allies would win victory after victory until the summer of ’42, and then would follow a series of defeats until, in the autumn of 1944, the tide would turn against us and the Reich would be subject to tremendous pressure. In the spring of 1945, stalemate – and then in May a new and unexpected factor would suddenly emerge to change the course of the war. Further inactivity would follow till August, and finally peace. The three years after this would be a difficult time for Germany but from 1948 onwards it would rise to its former greatness.
Otto Guensche, Hitler’s SS adjutant, was the first to voice the puzzlement that many in the room felt. He sat by the Führer’s right elbow, a large heavily-built man with a vee of wrinkles descending from a receding hairline, and inquired what this ‘new and unexpected factor’ could be. Everyone waited in a hush of expectancy.
‘What can it mean?’ the Führer said, looking round the circle of curious faces. ‘It can mean only one thing: the wonder weapon.’
I saw the light of hope and enthusiasm die in the eyes of those gathered in the small cramped smelly room, for we all knew that insurmountable technical problems had forestalled the development of the so-called ‘Atomic Bomb’ and many of us had long since lost all faith in it as a credible means of saving the Reich, even were it to be used as a propaganda threat. All through 1944 we had been waiting with growing impatience for the announcement that it was ready to be tested; the rumour had it that the Bomb would be detonated in Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, wiping out a major city or two as a demonstration and a warning of its awesome effect. Nothing had come of this grandiose scheme and the Bomb was nowadays rarely mentioned, and even then as a sour joke. The fact that the Führer still believed it to be a decisive factor in winning the war for the Allies only gave rise to greater fears as to his – to use Goebbels’ euphemistic phrase – ‘mental condition’.
*
It is now two days since the Führer’s birthday (20th April) and the atmosphere down here in the Bunker is strained to the limit of desperation and despair. Sporadic artillery fire has been heard in the southern suburbs and our intelligence service reports that it is the Russian pincer movement tightening its grip on Berlin.
Yesterday the Führer ordered an all-out attack and took personal command of battle operations. As head of the force he placed SS Obergruppenführer Steiner, with explicit instructions to deploy every man, every tank and every aircraft in the defence of the city. The final briefing conference was tense and, on occasion, traumatic. He summoned the remnants of his senior staff, including Steiner and Karl Koller, the General der Luftwaffe, and told them that he would not accept failure, no matter what excuses they might have to offer. Towards the end he had worked himself up into a frenzy, stamping his feet on the concrete floor and screaming at them: ‘Any commanding officer who keeps men back will forfeit his life within five hours! You will guarantee with your heads that absolutely every man is employed!’
For twelve hours we awaited the outcome of the battle. Had the Russians been repulsed or were they making headway? The Führer sent message after message demanding confirmation that the attack had been launched but the reports were conflicting: Himmler telephoned to say that it had taken place and the enemy advance had been halted; then came a report from the Luftwaffe saying that no such encounter had taken place. Hitler was in a ferment, grey-faced, shaking, eyes bloodshot with rage and fatigue, and I was twice called upon during the afternoon to administer additional injections to regulate his pulse and blood-pressure. He was becoming less and less aware of his surroundings, staring through people as though they didn’t exist.
At four o’clock in the afternoon a special conference was called, with Bormann, Burgdorf, Keitel, Jodl and Krebs attending. It turned out to be an exhausting marathon which went on till the early hours of the next day. Nothing, it appears, had been done: General Steiner hadn’t ordered the attack: the battle was a mythical one, existing only in the Führer’s brain.
Then he went berserk.
Screaming abuse, spittle bubbling on his lips, his discoloured complexion a mass of grey blotches, he dragged himself up and down the concrete chamber denouncing them all as traitors. He said that the Army General Staff should be hanged ‘to the last craven coward’, that he had been betrayed by a conspiracy of ‘treason, corruption, and lies’, and that he was done with the lot of them; they could sink or swim without him.
When Jodl summoned up the nerve to speak the Führer turned on him with all the viciousness of a rabid dog. ‘If the German people are to be conquered in the struggle,’ he spat in Jodl’s face, ‘then they are too weak to face the test of history and are fit only for destruction. We shall not surrender. We shall never capitulate, no never! We may be destroyed, but if we are we shall drag half the world with us – a world in flames. There will be no one left to triumph over Germany.’
Bormann, I could see, was in a funk of indecision. He was wringing his hands and nervously avoiding the inflamed stare from those blue-grey demonic eyes, now filmed with a haze of exhaustion.
‘We must go south,’ he kept whining. ‘Within hours all the escape routes will be cut off. We must go south to Obersalzberg and set up new command headquarters. It is the only hope. We must go south.’
Hitler stood stock-still (as still as it is possible to be when the entire left side of the body – face, arm, leg – is twitching uncontrollably) and fixed Bormann with a terrible madman’s glare.
‘I will never leave Berlin – never! I have taken up an immovable position. I cannot change it. I shall take over the defence of Berlin but I shall not fall into enemy hands alive or dead. I will shoot myself and have my body burnt. It is all over, finished. The Third Reich is no more. I shall stay in Berlin and wait to meet the end.’
Jodl, Keitel and Krebs were plainly distressed at this. They looked at one another in the manner of three bewildered schoolboys who have just been informed by the headmaster that henceforth they will have to teach themselves. Jodl spread his hands piteously. ‘But what are we to do? After you have been directing and leading us for so long how can you suddenly send us away and expect us to lead ourselves? It is not possible.’
‘What are we to do without you?’ asked Krebs, and Keitel looked on blankly, totally bemused and bewildered. They were three lost sheep.
The Führer was supporting himself on the corner of the table, his knuckles pressing whitely and his breathing shallow and quick like an animal with one leg caught fast in a steel trap. He said in a low voice, all the strength and resolve drained out of it:
‘I have no orders to give you. If you require orders then you should seek them from the Reich Marshal.’
Krebs blinked and stepped back at these astounding words. ‘There isn’t a single German soldier who would fight under the Reich Marshal,’ he said.
‘There is no question of fighting now,’ Hitler said, astounding them even more. ‘There is nothing left to fight with. If it’s a question of negotiating, Goering can do that better than I.’
This, plainly, was a bombshell, and the dank concrete room was filled with an unbearable claustrophobic silence. But even worse was to follow. While we were still taking in the enormity of these momentous utterances a courier arrived with a top secret message. Hitler read it and his eyes started to bulge out of his head. He choked and gasped for breath and I had to steady him to prevent his legs giving away completely. The paper fluttered out of his hand and Jodl picked it up and read it aloud.
Mein Führer!
In view of your decision to remain at your post in the fortress of Berlin, do you agree that I take over, at once, the total leadership of the Reich, with full freedom of action at home and abroad, as your deputy, in accordance with your decree of 29th June 1941? If no reply is received by ten o’clock tonight I shall take it for granted that you have lost your freedom of action, and shall consider the conditions of your decree as fulfilled, and shall act for the best interests of our country and our people. You know what I feel for you in this gravest hour of my life. Words fail me to express myself. May God protect you and speed you quickly here in spite of all.
Your loyal—
Hermann Goering.
I led the Führer to a chair and he sagged into it like a puppet whose strings have snapped. His eyes were glazed and rivulets of sweat, shining on his neck like slug’s trails, had soaked into the collar of his shirt. I ordered one of the adjutants to fetch my bag and waved the others back to give him air, chill and stuffily damp as it was.
He raised his head and his slack wet mouth worked uselessly. I told him to remain calm and not to excite himself further, but he would insist, through pale tight lips, on attempting to speak.
‘Hermann Goering has betrayed both me and the Fatherland,’ he croaked hoarsely. ‘Behind my back he has plotted to usurp the authority vested in me by God and the German people. His action is a mark of cowardice.’
‘Mein Führer—’ I started to say.
‘And against my orders he has sent me a disrespectful message, saying that I once named him as my successor, and that now, since I can no longer rule from Berlin, he is ready to rule from Berchtesgaden in my place.’
‘Do not upset yourself,’ I said soothingly, filling a syringe with 50 mg. of dextromoramide mixed with 4 mg. of dihydromorphinone hydrochloride, a preparation of my own concoction that is the only thing these days that seems to have any effect on him. I shot the full load into his arm and he didn’t even wince. ‘Calm yourself,’ I said, wiping a trickle of blood from the puncture hole. ‘It isn’t important enough to work yourself into a tizz.’
He choked and the muscles in his face went rigid. His bloodshot eyes, I noted, were filled with moisture.
‘An ultimatum!’ he suddenly screeched at the top of his voice. ‘A crass ultimatum! Nothing now remains, nothing is spared, no loyalty is kept, no honour observed. There is no bitterness, no betrayal that has not been heaped upon me – and now this! It is the end. No injury has been left undone!’
‘Yes yes,’ I consoled him, patting him on the shoulder. ‘It really is a crying shame.’
*
The ceremony took place at 2.40 in the morning on 29th April. It was a simple affair, held in the map room adjoining Hitler’s study, officiated over by somebody in the uniform of the Volkssturm and attended by several people including Goebbels, Bormann, myself and two secretaries.
As she was about to go through from her bedroom Eva caught my arm and hissed under her breath, ‘I never thought it would go this far. You never mentioned marriage. I’m stuck with him for life now!’
‘You make it sound like for ever.’ I smiled, squeezing her left buttock. ‘Life can be long or life can be short.’
Eva frowned at me and I gave her a broad wink.
As she was signing the register the bride was about to write ‘Eva B—’ She glanced at me from under her eyelashes and crossed out the B and wrote instead ‘Eva Hitler, née Braun.’
Berlin, 1st May, 1945
I cannot believe it. It isn’t true. The whole thing is as topsy-turvy as a fairy-tale.
Who should suddenly appear in the Führerbunker this morning but Nicolaus von Below, Wehrmachtattaché (Luftwaffe) on a mission of the most vital importance. He had piloted a Focke-Wulf 190 from Rechlin, dodging Russian fighters and surviving an intensive air barrage on the way, and managed to make Gatow, the last remaining Berlin airfield in Allied hands. At Gatow he had commandeered a light training aircraft and flown into the city at tree-top level, intending to land in the Wilhelmstrasse, within walking distance of the Chancellery. Hit by Russian anti-aircraft fire above the Grunewald, he had sustained a wound in the right shoulder but had succeeded in landing the aircraft and making his way to the Bunker through the ruins of the Reich Chancellery.
I was attending the Führer when he was admitted, giving him the first of his eight daily injections; Eva was there too, still in her night attire, and the three of us were taken aback by von Below’s miraculous appearance, out of the blue as it were. His wounded arm had been hastily dressed and put in a sling and even so he made a commendable attempt at saluting with his left hand, snapping to attention and clicking his heels, which brought a spasm of pain to his face.
The cerebral stimulant I had just administered to the Führer was beginning to take effect, overcoming the chloral hydrate which allowed him to snatch a few hours’ sleep, and he sat up on the bed, his dulled gaze seeking out the newcomer. I propped him up with pillows and wiped a smear of saliva from his chin.
‘Mein Führer!’ began von Below, staring fixedly ahead at the concrete wall. ‘This is a great and glorious day for the Fatherland. I b-b-bring you tidings of great joy: the salvation of the Reich!’
‘Yes, very well,’ I said, waving my hand. ‘Get on with it.’
He was struggling to extricate an envelope from his inner pocket, making heavy weather of it due to his injured arm and shoulder.
I sighed ponderously. ‘Come along, we haven’t got all day.’
‘This message—’ von Below said, at last pulling it out ‘—this message has been entrusted to me b-b-by the—’
‘Good God, man,’ I said peremptorily, ‘can’t you even speak properly? What’s the matter with you, are you a cretin?’
He shook his head. ‘N-N-No—’
‘Then get on with it, get on with it! The Führer is waiting.’
He handed the envelope to me and I opened it. Inside there was a single sheet of flimsy grey paper, unheaded, containing perhaps a dozen typewritten lines. I held it in front of the Führer’s face and he stared at it uncomprehendingly for several moments.
‘Oh dear,’ I said, glancing at Eva. ‘I think he’s gone again.’
‘Give him another shot,’ she said. ‘A big one.’
‘I’ve just given him double the usual dose. He should be leaping around like a spring lamb.’
Eva groaned. ‘Anything but that; he might start getting ideas.’
I crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and stuck it in my pocket. ‘You’d better give it to him direct,’ I told von Below. ‘He’s forgotten his reading glasses.’
‘The Führer wears glasses?’ he said, astounded.
‘The message?’ I suggested, very softly. ‘Could we possibly, do you suppose, hear the message?’
‘Oh yes.’ Von Below clicked his heels. ‘Mein Führer! I have the proud honour to inform you that at long last, after many years of patient and dedicated research by German scientists, the Atomic B-B-Bomb is now at the service of the Reich. All difficulties have been overcome and the wonder weapon is at this moment capable of being delivered to any point on the globe and successfully d-d-detonated. I have been commanded by General Koller, Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, to inform you that the Bomb is on board an aircraft which is standing b-b-by awaiting your instructions. With mid-flight refuelling we have an unlimited range of operation. General Koller only wishes to know the t-t-target you have selected for the first atomic explosion in the history of the human race.’
‘Is that it?’ I inquired. ‘Have you done?’
‘My mission is c-c-completed,’ von Below said, saluting and clicking once more. ‘Heil Hitler! God save the Reich!’
‘He does go on, doesn’t he?’ Eva said, filing her nails.
‘Did you hear that, mein kleiner Misthaufen*?’ I said, waving my hand in front of the Führer’s face. ‘We have the Bomb. The B-O-M-B. We can drop it anywhere we like. Pick a city.’
Hitler suddenly jerked upright and a gob of mucus fell on the bed. He was looking into the top corner of the room with absolute concentration, no doubt seeing glorious visions of the thousand-year future.
‘Historical Necessity and Justice,’ he said in a high tremulous tone, so unlike his normal voice that I looked round to see who was speaking. Eva raised her eyes to heaven and carried on filing her nails.
‘We shall win through to ultimate victory,’ the Führer continued, a semblance of colour returning to his cheeks. ‘German science and German might shall triumph in the end. We are indestructible!’
Von Below, it seemed, was fired by this outburst, for into his eyes came a gleam of fanatical zeal. ‘Picture it, mein Führer, the charred, b-b-bodies and the creeping radiation sickness. C-C-Cancer of the blood cells for generation after generation. Babies deformed in the womb. A race of mu-mu-mutants with bent limbs and twisted brains. An entire land, an entire people, reduced to crawling subservience. The establishment of a truly Aryan m-m-master race!’
Hitler was nodding, spittle drooling from his lips (Apropos of this, I’ve often noticed that when he talks a dry whitish powdery substance forms at the corners of his mouth, as though his body was excreting poison of some sort. Most odd.)
Now the Führer was burbling to himself, von Below leaning forward and straining to catch the mumbled wisdom of the greatest military strategist of all time, the Messiah of the German people, Godhead of the Teutonic Soul.
‘Ho-hum,’ Eva said, patting her curls into place in the mirror.
‘Thank you for delivering the message,’ I said to von Below. ‘Most courageous and loyal of you. The Führer, as you can see, is delighted. You will be suitably rewarded. Good day.’
Von Below tore his eyes away from the Führer and stared at me. His jaw went up and down. ‘B-B-B-B-B-But—’
‘Thank you so much,’ I sang out. ‘There’s the door. Nice of you to call.’
‘B-B-But the B-B-Bomb,’ he stuttered, looking at me, then at Hitler, then at me again. ‘General Koller is awaiting the Führer’s instructions. We must d-d-decide on a target and issue an ultimatum at once. There is no t-t-time to lose.’
‘And no time will be lost,’ I assured him. ‘But as you can see, the Führer is rather overcome at the moment. When he has rested and his mind has cleared he will be much more able to make a sensible decision. We mustn’t rush these things.’
‘But General K-K-Koller is wai—’
‘Are you questioning the medical advice of the Führer’s personal physician?’ I asked, thunderstruck. ‘Are you prepared to gamble with the Führer’s life? Is this treason I hear? Are you insane? Do you want to be put in front of a firing-squad?’
‘No, no.’ Von Below retreated a step or two, his eyes blinking in alarm. ‘I didn’t realize.’ He saluted and clicked his heels. ‘Forgive me, mein Führer. My abject apologies. I shall wait outside for your d-d-decision.’ He turned to go.
I said, ‘You will leave the Führerbunker at once and return to Rechlin. Frau Junge will see to it that you have a packed lunch to take with you.’
Von Below gaped at me. ‘F-F-F-Fly back? To Rechlin? But how?’
‘The same way you came. Over the Russian lines.’
‘I will be shot down. There is a solid wall of anti-aircraft fire surrounding the city.’
‘You got here,’ I pointed out, not unreasonably I thought.
‘But I had a fighter escort as far as Gatow. They diverted the b-b-barrage but even so I was hit. It will be madness to return. Suicide.’
‘Nevertheless you must leave immediately,’ I informed him. ‘It is the Führer’s wish that you report back on the success of your mission to General Koller. Tell him that everything is in hand.’
‘I heard the Führer say nothing to that effect.’
‘He whispered it. You were busy saluting at the time and didn’t hear him. Good-bye.’
‘B-B-B-B-B—’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘Bye.’
When he had gone I patted Hitler on the head and said, ‘There we are, kränklicher Knose*, all taken care of; nothing to worry about.’
‘New York,’ he croaked, staring into the corner of the room, his breath coming faster. ‘We will devastate New York as a warning.’ He turned his gaze slowly towards me. ‘Summon Sturmbannführer Guensche. I wish to dictate a message, top priority.’
‘He is already here.’
‘Good, all is well,’ Hitler murmured. ‘Guensche!’
‘Yes, mein Führer.’
‘Send this message, top priority, to General Koller.’
‘Yes, mein Führer.’
‘Instruct him to detonate the Bomb over New York without any warning whatsoever to the military or civilian authorities. When this has been carried out I shall require immediate confirmation so that I can issue an ultimatum. Is that perfectly clear?’
‘Yes, mein Führer.’
Hitler’s grey haggard blotchy features relaxed into something that might have been a smile. ‘When they realize that we possess the ultimate weapon there will be no alternative left open to them but total and abject surrender. It is Historical Necessity and Justice.’ He jerked his head, almost in the old manner. ‘Guensche: send the message to General Koller without delay.’
‘Very good, mein Führer,’ I said, clicking my heels.
‘Oh Jesus,’ Eva said, ‘he’s completely over the top. Lock him up and throw away the key.’
I opened my bag and took out a 500 mg. bottle of trichlorethylene and a gauze pad. I soaked the pad in the solution, holding it well away from my face, and returned the bottle to the bag.
Eva frowned at me through the dressing-table mirror. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just something to relax him. His nerves are on edge.’
‘What an awful smell,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.
‘It is rather strong,’ I said, ‘but extremely effective.’
I pushed him back against pillows and held the gauze pad to his face. His bloodshot eyes, the broken blood-vessels like cracks, stared straight at me for what seemed a long time, without fear or panic, and then crossed. The lids drooped and closed. He didn’t struggle or twitch a muscle. I kept the pad there a while longer and put it away in my bag.
‘Is he out?’ asked Eva.
‘Like a baby.’
‘Thank God for that.’ She was humming to herself and examining the lines round her eyes. ‘He bores the arse off me, Theo.’
‘He bores the arse off most people,’ I said, taking the Luger automatic pistol out of the bag and checking the clip. Eva was preoccupied with her face and didn’t pay any attention as I put the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and with my other hand arranged the pillows over the top in a kind of soft white mound, like a snow castle, and pulled the trigger. There was a low dull thud, not terribly loud, and a few feathers flew into the air and floated about.
Eva turned and looked at me. She looked at the door. She said, ‘Did …?’
I smiled and shook my head. ‘Nobody heard.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Of course he’s fucking dead,’ I said, withdrawing my arm from the mound of pillows and dropping the pistol on the bed. The barrel was smeared with bits of red and grey stuff. ‘What do you think I used, a pea-shooter? The back of his head’s gone.’
‘Oh Theo,’ she said, running to me. ‘Theo.’
‘It’s all right,’ I calmed her, stroking her shoulders, ‘they’ll think it’s suicide. I’ll make it look that way. No need to worry or get upset.’
‘I’m not upset. I’m not.’
I patted her and smiled reassuringly. ‘Just take this.’ I reached down into the bag and took out a vial containing a dozen bluish-coloured capsules. Eva at once looked frightened. ‘Don’t be afraid, there’s no need.’
‘What are they? What are they for?’ Her breathing was light and fluttery. She was staring at the vial.
I led her across to the small sofa and we sat down. ‘Now listen carefully. These capsules are a mild extraction of cocaine. When you take them you will lose consciousness for, oh, a couple of hours or so. While you are unconscious I will tell Guensche, Kempka and the others that you and the Führer have taken your own lives. However—’ I held up my finger ‘—I will make an attempt to revive you by using Ultraseptyl and of course I will succeed. In that way they can’t blame you for having survived when the Führer has perished. It will not be your fault that the drug didn’t act swiftly enough.’
‘Oh Theo, do I have to?’
‘Of course you have to. How else can we explain the situation to them? And just think, mein kleines Entchen*, think of it – from tomorrow we shall always be together, you and I. Always and for ever’!
Eva pressed herself to me and I could feel her body trembling. She said, ‘Love me, Theo. I need your strength.’
‘There will be plenty of time for that later. We shall have all eternity together.’
‘You must love me now, then I’ll know that you truly love me. Please, Theo!’
So I had to curb my impatience and waste precious time making love to her on the sofa. The fabric made my knees sore. I knew that any minute Kempka or Linge or one of the others might decide to inquire if the Führer was in need of anything; they would not enter unless bidden but even so their suspicions might be aroused. Anyway, I thought, what the hell. What would a few minutes more matter to destiny?
We pumped away and sweated at it for a while and turning my head and brushing her damp hair out of my eyes I could see the mound of pillows speckled with red, the ones near the bottom soaking it up like dark heavy wine. The Führer’s legs stuck out at ridiculous angles, the feet splayed, and I recalled that he always was flat-footed.
Eva clung to me and whimpered as I released myself inside her. She laid her head on my chest and told me she loved me.
‘I love you too,’ I said, looking at my watch.
‘How did you get this?’ she asked. ‘Is it a birthmark?’ She touched the faint scar below my left shoulder, the pale indented tissue like that of a brand. ‘You’ve never told me what it is or how you got it.’
‘A memento of long ago. Nothing important. I’ll tell you all about it some other time.’
‘Oh I do love you, Theo.’
‘So you keep saying.’ I pushed her away and sat up. ‘Now you must take the capsules, there isn’t much time.’
‘How many must I take?’
‘All of them,’ I said, emptying the dozen capsules into the palm of my hand. She took them, one by one, washing them down with water, and I laid her on the sofa, arranging her limbs neatly. Three tablets wouldn’t have done her much harm, five would have knocked her out, but all twelve would produce a toxic effect of palpitations, vomiting, convulsions, rapid pulse rate, circulatory collapse, crawling of the flesh, and eventually death. The whole process took about ten minutes.
While I waited for the end I took out my special brand, manufactured only for me, and at the same time remembered the crumpled piece of paper in my pocket: setting fire to it I inhaled deeply on the Nexus-T and watched the paper burn itself to flimsy grey ash.