Hitler's peace

XVIII

The German army had hoped that withdrawing forces to the western bank of the Dnieper would provide them a respite from the Red Army, but Stalin had other ideas. Almost as soon as the withdrawal was completed, with enormous loss of life, he ordered his soldiers to attack. By November 6, Hoth’s Fourth Panzerarmee had been forced out of Kiev, and likewise the armor the Germans had concentrated on Zhitomir, a town eighty kilometers west of Kiev, with the aim of counterattacking the Russians. There was little appetite among German soldiers for a new offensive. The courage of the Wehrmacht was undiminished, but it was only those few reinforcements who had arrived from Germany and who lacked all experience of the Russian winter who were fanatical enough to believe that the war in Russia could still be won. Deeply demoralized, poorly equipped, and inadequately supplied, Germany’s soldiers-far from home in a vast and inhospitable country, and lacking any overall battle plan-faced an army that grew stronger every day, and for whom retreat now seemed impossible.

Of all the problems that faced Manstein’s army, none was greater than Hitler’s vacillating leadership: just as the counterattack on Kiev seemed ready, Hitler ordered his armor south, to defend the Crimea, leaving Zhitomir to be captured by the Red Army. It was recaptured by the 58th Panzerkorps on November 17, but long before then the headquarters for Operation Long Jump had been shifted seventy-five kilometers south, to the village of Strizhavka.

Strizhavka was the location of Hitler’s Wehrwolf Headquarters and close to Vinnica, a largish Ukrainian city with several cathedrals, a smaller, more parochial version of Kiev. The city was the center of a Jew Free Zone ruled by the Reichkommisariat of the Ukraine, the Vinnica Oblast. Some 200,000 Jews from Vinnica and the surrounding areas-some from as far afield as Bessarabia and northern Bukovina-had been murdered at the local brickworks and in the Pyatnychany Forest. Every one of Strizhavka’s 227 Jews had been “evacuated” before Hitler’s Ukrainian headquarters were built. Death, it was said by the local people, was a way of life in the Vinnica Oblast.

Even as Schellenberg was driven from the airport to the country house on the edge of the Yuzhny Bug River, where the Special Section from Friedenthal was now stationed, an execution was taking place at a gibbet erected in the main square of Vinnica. Six terrorists from the Trostyarets partisans were seated on the edge of a truck with nooses around their necks-seated because they had been brutally tortured and none of them was able to stand.

“Do you want to watch, Herr General?” asked the SS sergeant driving the surprisingly luxurious Horch that had fetched Schellenberg from the airport.

“Good God, no.”

“It’s just that these are the bastards who murdered and mutilated some friends of mine. All we found were their heads. Four of them. They were in a box with the word ‘shit’ painted on it.”

Schellenberg sighed. “Get out and watch, if you must,” he sighed impatiently.

The sergeant left Schellenberg alone in the back of the car. He lit a cigarette and placed his pistol on the seat beside him, just in case the partisans had any friends ready to attempt a revenge attack or carry out a robbery-the trunk of the car contained a box of gold he had brought from Berlin to reward the Kashgai tribesmen of northern Iran. He even removed his cap to make his rank seem less obvious, and, turning up the collar of his leather coat, tried to stay warm. Outside the car it wasn’t much above freezing, and a layer of damp fog hung over the town, chilling his bones and penetrating the distributor on the execution truck, which appeared to be having some trouble starting. Schellenberg laughed scornfully and shook his head. Serves the army right for trying to make a show of it, he thought; better to shoot a man and have done with it instead of this performance. Himmler would not have agreed with him, of course. Himmler was all for making an example of the victims of Reich justice. Which probably explained why, after Hitler, he was the most hated man in Europe. Not that he seemed to be aware of the loathing with which he was held, even in Germany. And it seemed ludicrous to Schellenberg that the Reichsfuhrer-SS should ever have believed that the Allies might choose to make a peace with him instead of Hitler. There was no doubt in Schellenberg’s mind; at some stage, Himmler would have to be removed.

It wasn’t just the Reichsfuhrer’s lack of realism, or his continuing, debilitating loyalty to the Fuhrer that offended Schellenberg’s scheming mind. It was also his apparent prevarication. Even now, Himmler wanted Operation Long Jump to proceed only as far as parachuting the team into Iran; the final order-if it ever came-to assassinate the Big Three was to be withheld until the last possible minute, much to Schellenberg’s irritation. He and Himmler had argued about it the day before his departure.

“It’s a pretty tall order,” he had told Himmler. “To parachute those men into Iran and then risk not being able to communicate with them.”

“Nevertheless, those are my orders, Schellenberg. Unless they receive a clear order from me or the Fuhrer, the mission is not to proceed. Is that quite clear?”

“It’s a good plan,” insisted Schellenberg. “Perhaps the best plan we’ve got right now.”

“That is your opinion. The Fuhrer and I have agreed to your plan thus far only in order to keep our options open.”

“It’s asking a lot of men to risk their lives going all that way for an operation that might be scratched at the last moment.”

“They are SS. They have taken an oath of obedience to me and the Fuhrer. They’ll damn well do what they’re told, Schellenberg, and so will you.” Himmler’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I hope these are SS men, Schellenberg. Waffen-SS, Fourteenth Grenadiers, Galicia Division, I think you told me. I should take a very dim view of you and this whole operation if I ever found out that your team was composed largely of Zeppelin volunteers. Ukrainian nationalist cadres. I trust you haven’t forgotten my speech at Posen.”

“No, Herr Reichsfuhrer, I haven’t forgotten that.”

That was another reason Himmler had to be removed, thought Schellenberg. All those Ukrainian volunteers who, with the exception of a dozen German officers and NCOs, now made up the Special Section. If Operation Long Jump was a success, then no one would ever mention that the team had not actually been German-no one in Germany, at least. But if the operation failed and Himmler ever found out about their true origins, things might go quite badly for him.

Lina Heydrich had agreed. She hated Himmler even more than her late husband had, especially now that Schellenberg had told her how he suspected the Reichsfuhrer of having been complicit in her husband’s murder. Lina’s hatred had hardly been softened by the death of her ten-year-old son, Klaus, on October 24, in a traffic accident in Prague: the boy had been knocked down and killed by a truck in the gateway of the Jungfern-Breschau Castle in Prague.

“I wrote to Himmler asking that Klaus be excused from the Hitler Youth,” she had said. “Remember how I told you I would? But Himmler replied that Klaus’s father wouldn’t have wanted him to leave the youth movement and that the boy should remain. That’s why he was in Prague. He was there on an outing with the Hitler Youth. I never liked it there, when Reinhard was running the Bohemian Protectorate. And Klaus should never have gone back. Not after what happened to his father in Prague. And, by the way, I made some inquiries about Reinhard’s death. You were right, Walter. It was Himmler’s own doctor who treated Reinhard after the attack in Prague. The drugs he used were experimental and should not have been administered.”

Lina so hated Himmler, she even suggested how Schellenberg might bring about his downfall.

“You must go to Rastenburg and see Martin Bormann,” she said. “You must tell him all about Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Russians. Bormann will know how to bring the evidence before the Fuhrer.”

The comforts provided by Lina seemed a long way off now, waiting in the cold for an execution to proceed in the main square in Vinnica. At last the truck’s engine turned over, and as it moved slowly away, the six partisans were left dangling from their gibbet. Schellenberg looked away in disgust and turned his mind to Operation Long Jump. If it succeeded and the Big Three were killed, surely the Allies would make peace. But until then he would have to try to facilitate Himmler’s removal, as Lina had urged. From Vinnica, he planned to fly to Rastenburg and, on the pretext of informing Hitler that Long Jump was ready to go ahead, would talk to Bormann.

But Lina had offered yet more advice on how he might protect himself against Himmler. “Those Ukrainians in your Special Section,” she had said. “The Zeppelin volunteers. You’d better make sure that if any of them do make it back from Persia, they don’t ever talk.”

She was right, of course, and the more he thought about her advice, the more he realized that whatever the outcome in Teheran, all of the Ukrainians would have to disappear. It wasn’t just Himmler who might decide to make an issue out of Long Jump. It might also be the Allies. He now thought it best if there were as few witnesses as possible who could ever speak about what he had set into motion.

His driver finally returned to the car. “Thank you, sir,” he said, starting the engine. “That meant a lot, to see those Popovs get their just deserts. Those heads that were in the box, you see. My friends. The Popovs cut off their noses, ears, and lips before they beheaded them. Can you imagine it?”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind, Sergeant,” said Schellenberg. “Now get a fucking move on, I’m freezing.”

They drove north along a road busy with German traffic: SMG machine-gun carriers, Pumas, 37-millimeter PAKs, some SdKfz troop carriers, and, most reassuring to Schellenberg, who was not used to being quite so close to the front line, a column of Panzer tanks-with its excellent armor and 88-millimeter gun, the Panzer was probably the best tank in the world. If only there had been more of them. If only they didn’t guzzle so damn much fuel. If only…

The country house where Schellenberg’s Special Section was headquartered looked like something from a Chekhov play. Surrounded with cherry trees and a forest of shrubs, the whitewashed wooden house was large and beautiful, with a big verandah and a high mansard roof. As soon as Schellenberg was inside warming himself in front of the fire and enjoying a cup of hot coffee, von Holten-Pflug asked Captain Oster to assemble his men in the ball-room, and under a magnificent chandelier, Schellenberg stood in the center of the room to address more than a hundred men. Among his audience were eighty Ukrainians, twelve German officers and NCOs, and twenty-four Luftwaffe officers who were to fly a combination of transport and bombing missions. It was the first time that any of them, with the exception of von Holten-Pflug and Captain Oster, had been informed of their target.

“Gentlemen,” said Schellenberg. “During the last few weeks you have all been training for Operation Franz. I have to tell you now that Operation Franz has been canceled.”

At this there was a loud groan from the men. Schellenberg raised his voice to make himself heard.

“The fact is, the name Operation Franz has always been a fiction. The task that lies before you is to be called Operation Long Jump. You will still be parachuted into Iran. But your target was never a railway. You have a different target, a target of great historical importance. Perhaps the most important in history. If you succeed, you will win the war. And that is no exaggeration, believe me.

“This morning, via our communications center in Ankara, I received a message from Wannsee. It came from one of our agents in Cairo. The message confirmed that today, November twenty-second, 1943, at nine thirty-five A.M. local time, Franklin Roosevelt landed in Egypt. He will remain there in talks with Winston Churchill and General Chiang Kai-shek for the rest of the week. It’s our reliable information that Roosevelt and Churchill will fly from Cairo to Teheran for talks with Stalin, on Sunday, November twenty-eighth. Tuesday, the thirtieth, is the British prime minister’s birthday, and we expect the British to throw a party at their embassy in Teheran. We intend to make sure that Germany sends a gift to Mr. Churchill. A gift that Marshal Stalin and President Roosevelt will be able to share in.”

At this there was a roar of approval.

“Ninety-five men will leave here today in two Junkers 290s. After a refueling stop in the Crimea, you will continue on to Iran. Half of you will be dropped near Qazvin and referred to hereafter as North Team. The other half will be dropped near the holy city of Qom and be known as South Team. Both teams will be met by friendly Kashgai tribesmen with trucks. They will transport you to your respective targets. All of you will be wearing Russian uniforms. South Team will travel to the Russian army airfield at Gale Morghe, west of Teheran, where, at seven o’clock that evening, you will destroy the enemy’s radar installation. Once that is accomplished, you will radio North Team, who will be staying at a safe house in Teheran’s bazaar, about half a mile from the British embassy. North Team will confirm to the Luftwaffe that the targets are in the embassy, and a squadron of four Focke Wulf 200s, each equipped with two radio-controlled missiles, will attack. These planes will be vulnerable to fighter attack, so you can see the importance of knocking out the radar. The enemy will put fighters up, but in the dark it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. As soon as the missiles are launched and the embassy destroyed, North Team will mount an attack and kill any survivors. After the operation is completed, each team will be collected by the Iranian underground movement and transported across the border into neutral Turkey.

“I know many of you will welcome a chance to kill Stalin. But by killing Roosevelt and Churchill as well, you will be hastening the end of this war. Of course, it won’t be nearly as easy as I’ve made it sound. Perhaps some of you are wondering what kind of a fool would dream up a plan like this. Well, I am that fool. And since many of you are Ukrainians, I’d like to remind you of an old Ukrainian saying: Ne takiy ya durniy yak ty mudriy!” Schellenberg waited a moment for the laughter among the Zeppelin volunteers to subside a little before supplying the German translation: I am not as stupid as you are smart.

“And because you are smart,” he added, “you will succeed. Because you are smart you will win. Because you are smart you will come home.”

It was time to go to the airport to see off the two parachute teams. Schellenberg rode with von Holten-Pflug, who was to command South Team, Captain Oster, who was to command North Team, and an ex-NKVD officer named Vladimir Shkvarzev, who was in charge of the Ukrainians. Shkvarzev was a heavyset, brutal-looking man with an eye patch and several gold teeth-most of his own had been kicked out by the Gestapo. But Schellenberg had no doubt of Shkvarzev’s loyalty. The Ukrainian knew what would happen to him if ever he was recaptured by the NKVD. The Gestapo were clever like that. They had forced Shkvarzev to torture some of his own comrades to death with a butcher’s knife before releasing other prisoners so that they could return to their own lines and denounce Shkvarzev to the NKVD as a Gestapo stooge. And when at the airport Schellenberg wished him and his Ukrainians good luck, the ex-NKVD man had smiled wryly.

“There’s another Ukrainian saying you might like to bear in mind, Herr General,” said Shkvarzev. “ Shchastya vysyt na tonenki nytci a bida na hrusim motuzi. Roughly translated it means, Good luck hangs by a thread, but bad luck on a thick rope.” Shkvarzev made a gesture as if clutching a noose around his neck and, still smiling horribly, got out of the car and walked toward one of the planes.

“Don’t worry about Shkvarzev,” said Oster. “He’s a damn good fighter. They all are. They were at Cherkassy, and before that Belgorod. I saw them in action. They’re a fearsome lot, I can tell you.”

“I heard it was pretty bad there,” said Schellenberg, offering the two senior German officers some cigarettes from the extra packets of Hannovers he had brought from Berlin.

Oster laughed bitterly. “Everywhere’s bad,” he said. “But I fear the worst is yet to come. Not least the cold. It was ten below last night. One of our NCOs, a fellow posted from Italy a month or two ago, was complaining about it, and we all just laughed. By January the glass will be down to fifty below.”

“It will be warmer in Persia,” said Schellenberg. “I can promise you that.”

“Let’s hope it’s not too hot,” said Oster.

“I wish we knew that this wasn’t all a dreadful waste of time,” objected von Holten-Pflug, lighting his cigarette. “I don’t fancy just sitting around with these Kashgai tribesmen and waiting for some fucking wrestler to work up the courage to betray us to the Allies. I hope there’s plenty of gold in that box you brought with you from Berlin. Because I’m sure we’re going to need it.”

“Himmler was quite immovable on the subject, I’m afraid,” said Schellenberg. “You’re to wait until you hear the old shah’s name on the Radio Berlin news broadcast before proceeding with the plan.”

Schellenberg watched the planes take off and wondered if he would ever see von Holten-Pflug or Oster again. He rather doubted it. Even if they did manage to kill the Big Three, the Allies would probably turn Persia upside down to find the assassins. Not so bad if the British or the Americans caught them, perhaps. Not so good if they were picked up by the Russians.

That afternoon, on the plane to Rastenburg, Schellenberg slept better than he had in a long time. There were no air-raid warnings at ten thousand feet, just the dull, monotonous, almost hypnotic roar of the Focke Wulf Condor’s four BMW engines. Hoffmann’s attempt to kill him on the flight to Stockholm was already a distant memory, and, wearing a thick lambskin flying suit and swaddled in blankets against the altitude and the November cold, Schellenberg did not awake until they were on the ground at Weischnuren Airfield, after a three-hour, 500-mile flight. He felt refreshed and hungry, and for once he was actually looking forward to his meeting with the Fuhrer. Not to mention his dinner.

But first there was his meeting with Martin Bormann.

Schellenberg met with the Fuhrer’s personal secretary at his home, less than one hundred yards from his master’s. It was always hard to explain just where Bormann had sprung from. For eight years, between 1933 and 1941, he had been nearly invisible, the right-hand man to Rudolf Hess; and it was only after the Deputy Fuhrer’s abortive peace mission to England in May 1941 that Bormann had started to make himself indispensable to Hitler-first as head of the Reich Chancellery, then as head of the Party Secretariat, and finally as Hitler’s personal secretary. And yet he and Hitler were old friends, the two men having known each other since 1926. Hitler had been a witness at Bormann’s wedding and was also godfather to Bormann’s eldest son.

Schellenberg knew Bormann better on paper, from the details in a secret file in his safe, than in the flesh. Not that anyone apart from the Fuhrer knew Bormann particularly well. But Schellenberg had all the dirt anyone would ever need on Bormann: about the murder he had committed in 1923, for example. Bormann had killed his own former elementary school teacher, a man named Walther Kadow. Then a member of the Freikorps (which was the Nazi SA’s predecessor in all but name), Bormann had been arrested for the murder and sentenced to just one year in jail, having successfully maintained the defense that Kadow had betrayed the Nazi martyr Leo Schlageter to the French occupation authorities in the Ruhr. Only Schellenberg and Bormann himself knew the truth of the matter: that Bormann and Kadow had been rivals for the affections of a woman, and a Jewish woman at that.

Schellenberg also knew of how rich Bormann had made himself. How he had embezzled millions of reichmarks through his control of the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund, which received money from German industry. Schellenberg even possessed evidence that Bormann had been skimming money from the royalties of Germany’s number-one bestselling book, Mein Kampf. And not even Goring had managed to pillage as many art objects from occupied countries in Eastern Europe as Martin Bormann. In his office safe in Berlin, Schellenberg had a letter from one of Zurich’s oldest private banks, setting out the full extent of Bormann’s private holdings. It was one of the young intelligence chief’s many insurance policies, and on the few occasions he had been obliged to deal with Bormann, it always gave him a pleasant feeling to know that he was relatively invulnerable to Bormann’s malign influence. Schellenberg even thought he had an explanation for just how it was that Bormann had managed to make himself so indispensable to the Fuhrer. He believed Bormann was what Bormann’s own father had been, and for that matter what the bull-necked bullying Bormann most resembled in the world: a regimental sergeant-major. Hitler had only ever been a corporal, and it was only natural that the sort of man with whom he should have felt completely comfortable was, temperamentally at least, a senior NCO.

“So,” said Bormann, ushering them both to some armchairs in front of a blazing log fire. Unlike his master, Bormann liked a fire. “How are things on the front?”

“They could be better,” said Schellenberg with what he thought was enormous understatement.

“Russians,” sneered Bormann. “They’re like rats. There’s no end to them. How can you defeat an enemy that doesn’t seem to give a fuck for his own casualties? They just keep coming, don’t they? The subhuman bastards. Like the Mongol hordes. They’re the complete opposite of the Jews. The Jews just roll over and die. But the Slavs are something else. Walter, there are times when I think that if you want to understand the true nature of this world you have to go to the Russian front. It’s a struggle for life, like something out of Darwin, I think. Not that your boss would agree with me there.” Bormann snorted with contempt. “According to Himmler, this earth is a sort of fairy land. All that crap about the spirit world and Buddhism. Jesus, Walter, how do you stand it?”

“As a matter of fact, Martin, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Himmler.”

“You know what Himmler’s problem is? He thinks too much. That and the fact that he’s an auto-whatsit. Self-taught.”

“Autodidact.”

“Precisely. He’s read too much shit, that’s all. Educated himself with no real discipline. He’s the living proof that education is a danger. I always say that every educated person is a future enemy. Me, I do my very utmost to live and act in such a manner that the Fuhrer should remain satisfied with me. Whether I shall always be able to do so is an open question. But the key to success is to take your lead from the Fuhrer. To read what he reads.”

“How is the Fuhrer?”

“He’s always quite cheerful, you know. No, really. Cheerful with all his heart. Especially when he’s having tea with his friends, or when he’s playing with his dogs. You would think he hadn’t a care in the world. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.”

All the time he talked to Schellenberg, Bormann clutched a small black leather notebook in which he took down all the Fuhrer’s queries and orders. During meals with Hitler, Bormann was forever making notes that might result in a reprimand for one officer, or a death sentence for another. Not for nothing was Bormann regarded as the most powerful man in Germany, after Hitler. At the same time, the impression gained by Schellenberg on the few occasions he had been in the Fuhrer’s presence was that, not infrequently, Bormann passed on as firm orders from Hitler what were really no more than casual dinner-table remarks, or, worse, Bormann’s own ideas to serve his personal ends.

“But,” said Bormann, “you wanted to talk about Himmler, didn’t you?” He opened the notebook to reveal a pencil that was as short and stubby as one of his own fingers: the impression of a butcher about to write down some housewife’s order might have made Schellenberg smile, but for the obvious dangers of what he was doing.

“Doubtless you are aware that it was me who took the Fuhrer’s letters to Stockholm,” said Schellenberg.

Bormann nodded.

“And that I have a good idea of the nature of those letters.”

Bormann kept on nodding.

“What you are not aware of, perhaps, is that Reichsfuhrer Himmler has also been feeling out the Allies with a view to a change of regime. Following a meeting in the Reich Ministry of the Interior on August twenty-sixth, an old acquaintance of Himmler’s, Carl Langbehn, traveled to Berne to meet Allen Dulles, the station head for the American intelligence service.”

At last, Bormann started writing.

“Is he the chiropractor?”

“No, that’s someone else. Langbehn is a lawyer. I believe his daughter goes to school with Himmler’s daughter, on the Walchensee. You may even remember that it was Langbehn who offered to defend the Communist leader, Ernst Torgler, at the time of the Reichstag fire. Now, I have a spy within the Free French in Switzerland, and thanks to him I am in possession of a copy of a telegram, sent to London, which says, and I quote, ‘Himmler’s lawyer confirms the hopelessness of Germany’s military and political situation and has arrived to put out peace feelers.’ Naturally I will furnish you with all the documentary evidence you need of the Reichsfuhrer’s treason in this matter. I did not act until I was quite sure, you understand. You do not go up against Himmler unless you are sure.”

“You were just as sure when you went up against von Ribbentrop, weren’t you?” objected Bormann. “And yet you failed to deliver his head.”

“True. But it was Himmler who saved his neck. The only person who could save Himmler’s neck is Hitler.”

“Go on.”

“For a while now it has seemed to me that by offering to seize power from the Fuhrer and negotiate a peace, and in exchange for their approval to continue the war against the Soviet Union, Himmler entertains hopes of some kind of personal absolution from Britain and America.”

“And what is you own opinion of that, Walter? Of continuing the war against the Soviet Union?”

“Insanity. At all costs we must make peace with the Russians. My own intelligence sources suggest that Stalin’s greatest fear is that the Red Army will mutiny because of the appalling casualties it is sustaining. If we make peace with the Russians before next spring, we will have nothing to fear from the Americans and the British. They would hardly risk a second front if Russia was out of the war. Himmler’s plan shows no understanding of the political practicalities here, Martin. Next year is an election year for Roosevelt. It would be suicide for him to go into an election while the United States Army incurs the kind of casualties now being received by the Red Army in order to liberate Europe. Which they would if Russia were no longer a belligerent.”

Martin Bormann was still nodding, but he had stopped writing, and his reaction had hardly been what Schellenberg had expected. Bormann hated Himmler, and Schellenberg thought he ought to have looked more obviously pleased at having just been handed the means of destroying his greatest enemy.

NO LESS PUZZLING to Schellenberg was Hitler’s own demeanor. Over dinner that night, Hitler seemed in such excellent spirits that Schellenberg was quite certain Bormann could not have told him of Himmler’s treachery. When Hitler left the table for coffee in his drawing room, Bormann slipped outside for a quick cigarette, and Schellenberg followed.

“Have you told him?”

“Yes,” said Bormann. “I told him.”

“Are you sure?”

“What kind of idiot do you take me for? Of course I’m sure.”

“Then I don’t understand. I still remember the Fuhrer’s reaction six months ago, in Vinnica, when there was news about a heavy bombing raid in Nuremberg. How angry he was with Goring.”

Bormann laughed. “Yes, I remember that, too. It was great to watch, wasn’t it? The fat bastard’s been a bad smell around here ever since.”

“Then why isn’t Hitler angry? After twenty years of friendship. Why isn’t he furious with Himmler?”

Bormann shrugged.

“Unless.” Schellenberg threw his own cigarette onto the ground and stamped on it. “Of course. It’s the only possible explanation. The Fuhrer has had a reply to at least one of those letters I took to Stockholm. That’s why Himmler’s not been arrested, isn’t it? Because the Fuhrer doesn’t want anything to interfere with these secret peace negotiations. And because Himmler now has the perfect alibi for what he’s been doing all these months.”

Bormann looked up at the freezing black Prussian sky and blew out a long column of cigarette smoke, as if trying to blot out the moon. For a moment or two he said nothing; then, stamping his feet against the cold, he nodded.

“You’re a clever man, Walter. But there are things happening right now to which you can’t be a party. Secret things. On the diplomatic front. Himmler and von Ribbentrop are in the driver’s seat, for the moment at least. The time will inevitably come when Himmler will have to be dealt with. The Fuhrer recognizes this. And until then, your loyalty has been noted.” Bormann took a last drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt into the trees. “Besides, you’re our ace in the hole, remember? You and your team of cutthroats and murderers in Iran. If Hitler’s peace comes to nothing, then we are going to have need of your Operation Long Jump after all.”

“I see,” said Schellenberg gloomily.

“I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. If things work out, then the war will be over by Christmas. And if they don’t, well, that’s good, too. I mean, the Big Three, they’ll hardly be expecting us to try to kill them while we’re still exchanging love letters, will they?”

“No, I suppose not.”

They returned to the dinner table, where they found themselves jeered by Hitler.

“Here they are. The nicotine addicts. You know something?” Hitler had turned to address his other dinner guests, who included some of the General Staff and a couple of stenographers. “As soon as peace has returned I’m going to abolish the soldier’s tobacco ration. We can make better use of our foreign currency than squandering it on imports of poison. I’ve a good mind even to make smoking illegal in our public buildings. So many men I’ve known have died of excessive use of tobacco. My father, first of all. Eckhart. Troost. It will be your turn, Schellenberg, if you don’t quit soon. Not many people know it, but I’m ashamed to confess that I used to be a smoker myself. This was thirty years ago, mind you, when I was living in Vienna. I was living on milk, dry bread, and forty cigarettes a day. Can you imagine it? Forty. Well, one day I worked out that I was spending as much as thirty kreuzers a day on cigarettes, but that for just five kreuzers I could have some butter on my bread.” Hitler chuckled at the memory of his time in Vienna. “Well, as soon as I had worked that out I threw my cigarettes into the Danube, and ever since that day I’ve never smoked again.”

Schellenberg stifled a yawn and glanced, surreptitiously, at his watch as Hitler complained about all the cigarette burns he had found in the carpets and on the furniture at the Reich Chancellery. Then Hitler abruptly returned to the subject of peace, or at least his own peculiar idea of peace.

“As I see it, we have two goals from any peace that is negotiated,” he said. “First, we must avoid paying any war indemnities. Each country must bear its own costs. With this achieved, we can reduce our war debt from two trillion to a hundred billion marks a year. I want us to become the only belligerent of this war to be free of our war debts within ten years and to be in a position to concentrate on rebuilding our armed forces. Because, as a general principle, a peace that lasts more than twenty-five years is harmful to a nation. Peoples, like individuals, sometimes need regenerating by a little bloodletting.

“My second goal is that we leave our successors some problems to solve. If we don’t, then they’ll have nothing to do but sleep. That’s why we must resist disarmament at all costs. So we can leave our successors with the means to solve their problems. But peace can only result from a natural order. And the condition of this order is that there is a hierarchy among nations. Any peace that doesn’t recognize this is doomed to failure.

“Of course, it’s Jewry that always destroys this order. It’s the Jew who would try to destroy these negotiations, but for the fact that we still hold the fate of about three million Jews in our hands. Roosevelt, who is in thrall to the Jewish vote in America, will not risk the destruction of what remains of Europe’s Jewry. I tell you this: that race of criminals will be wiped out in Europe if the Allies don’t make a peace. They know it. And I know it. If for some reason they don’t make peace, it will only be because they recognize the truth of what I have always said: that the discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revelations that has taken place in the twentieth century. Yes, the world will only regain its strength and health by eliminating the Jew.

“If the Allies fail to make a peace with us, it will only be because they want to see the removal of this Jewish problem as much as we do. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.”