Hitler's peace

II

Standing up, Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, came around his huge marble-topped desk and crossed the thickly carpeted room to face the two men seated on an ornate Biedermeier salon set upholstered in striped green-and-white silk. On the table in front of them lay a pile of curling photographs, each the size of a magazine, each the facsimile of a document that had been removed, covertly, from the safe of the British ambassador in Ankara, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen. Von Ribbentrop sat down, and, trying to ignore the stalactite of rainwater dripping off the Maria Theresa crystal chandelier and collecting, noisily, in a metal bucket, he studied each picture, and then the swarthy-looking thug who had brought them to Berlin, with a show of weary disdain.

“It all looks too good to be true,” he said.

“That is, of course, possible, Herr Reichsminister.”

“People don’t suddenly become spies, for no good reason, Herr Moyzisch,” said von Ribbentrop. “Especially the valets of English gentlemen.”

“Bazna wanted money.”

“And it sounds as if he has had it. How much did you say that Schellenberg has given him?”

“Twenty thousand pounds, so far.”

Von Ribbentrop tossed the photographs back onto the table and one of them slipped to the floor. It was retrieved by Rudolf Linkus, his closest associate in the Foreign Ministry.

“And who trained him to use a camera with such apparent expertise?” said von Ribbentrop. “The British? Has it occurred to you that this might be disinformation?”

Ludwig Moyzisch endured the Reichsminister’s cold stare, wishing he were back in Ankara, and wondering why, of all the people who had examined these documents provided by his agent Bazna (code-named Cicero), von Ribbentrop was the only one to doubt their authenticity. Even Kaltenbrunner, the chief of the Reich Security Service and Walter Schellenberg’s boss, had been convinced the information was accurate. Thinking to make the case for Cicero’s material, Moyzisch said that Kaltenbrunner himself now held the opinion that the documents were probably genuine.

“Kaltenbrunner is ill, is he not?” Von Ribbentrop’s contempt for the SD chief was well known inside the Foreign Ministry. “Phlebitis, I heard. Doubtless his mind, what there is of it, has been much affected by his condition. Besides, I yield to no man, least of all a drunken, sadistic moron, in my knowledge of the British. When I was German ambassador to the Court of St. James, I got to know some of them quite well, and I tell you that this is a trick dreamt up by the English spymasters. Disinformation calculated to divert our so-called intelligence service from their proper tasks.” With one of his watery blue eyes half-closed, he faced his subordinate.

Ludwig Moyzisch nodded with what he hoped looked like proper deference. As the SD’s man in Ankara, he reported to General Schellenberg; but his position was complicated by the fact that his cover as the German commercial attache to Turkey meant that he also answered to von Ribbentrop. Which was how he found himself justifying Cicero’s work to both the SD and the Reich Foreign Ministry. It was a situation that was enough to make any man nervous, since von Ribbentrop was no less vindictive than Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Von Ribbentrop may have looked weak and artificial, but Moyzisch knew it would be a mistake to underestimate him. The days of von Ribbentrop’s diplomatic triumphs might be behind him, but he was still a general in the SS and a friend of Himmler’s.

“Yes, sir,” said Moyzisch. “I am sure you’re right to question this, Herr Minister.”

“I think we are finished here.” Von Ribbentrop stood up abruptly.

Moyzisch rose quickly to his feet but, in his anxiety to be out of the Reichsminister’s presence, knocked over his chair. “I’m sorry, Herr Reichsminister,” he said, picking it up again.

“Don’t bother.” Von Ribbentrop waved his hand at the dripping ceiling. “As you can see, we are not yet recovered from the last visit of the RAF. The top floor of the ministry is gone, as are many of the windows on this floor. There is no heat, of course, but we prefer to stay on in Berlin rather than hide ourselves away at Rastenburg or the Berchtesgaden.”

Von Ribbentrop escorted Linkus and Moyzisch to the door of his office. To Moyzisch’s surprise, the Reichsminister seemed quite courteous now, almost as if there might be something he wanted from him. There was even the faintest hint of a smile playing on his face.

“Might I ask what you will be telling General Schellenberg about this meeting?” With one hand tucked into the pocket of his Savile Row suit, he was clinking a bunch of keys nervously.

“I will tell him what the Reichsminister himself has told me,” said Moyzisch. “That this is disinformation. A crude trick perpetrated by British intelligence.”

“Exactly,” von Ribbentrop said, as if agreeing with an opinion Moyzisch had first voiced himself. “Tell Schellenberg he’s wasting his money. To act on this information would be folly. Don’t you agree?”

“Unquestionably, Herr Reichsminister.”

“Have a safe trip back to Turkey, Herr Moyzisch.” And, turning to Linkus, he said, “Show Herr Moyzisch out and then tell Fritz to bring the car around to the front door. We leave for the railway station in five minutes.”

Von Ribbentrop closed the door and returned to the Biedermeier table, where he gathered up Cicero’s photographs and placed them carefully in his saddle-leather briefcase. He thought Moyzsich was almost certainly right, that the documents were perfectly genuine, but he had no wish to lend any support to them in Schellenberg’s eyes, lest the SD general be prompted to try to take advantage of this new and important information with some stupid, theatrical military stunt. The last thing he wanted was the SD pulling off another “special mission” like the one a month before, when Otto Skorzeny and a team of 108 SS men had parachuted onto a mountaintop in Abruzzi and rescued Mussolini from the traitorous Badoglio faction that had tried to surrender Italy to the Allies. Rescuing Mussolini was one thing; but knowing what to do with him afterward was quite another. It fell to him to deal with the problem. Installing Il Duce in the city-state Republic of Salo, on Lake Garda, had been one of the more pointless diplomatic endeavors of his career. If anyone had bothered to ask him, he would have left Mussolini in Abruzzi to face an Allied court-martial.

These Cicero documents were another thing entirely. They were a real chance to put his career back on track, to prove he was indeed, as Hitler had once called him-after the successful negotiation of the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union-“a second Bismarck.” War was inimical to diplomacy, but now that it was clear the war could not be won, the time for diplomacy-von Ribbentrop’s diplomacy-had returned, and he had no intention of allowing the SD with their stupid heroics to ruin Germany’s chances of a negotiated peace.

He would speak to Himmler. Only Himmler had the foresight and vision to understand the tremendous opportunity that was provided by Cicero’s very timely information. Von Ribbentrop closed his briefcase and headed for the street.

By the tall lamppost that flanked the building’s entrance, von Ribbentrop found the two aides who were to accompany him on his train journey: Rudolf Linkus and Paul Schmidt. Linkus relieved him of his briefcase and placed it in the trunk of the enormous black Mercedes that was waiting to drive him to the Anhalter Bahnhof-the railway station. Sniffing the damp night air charged with the smell of cordite from the antiaircraft batteries on nearby Pariser Platz and Leipziger Platz, he climbed into the backseat.

They drove south down Wilhelmstrasse, past Gestapo headquarters and onto Koniggratzerstrasse, turning right into the station, which was full of aged pensioners and women and children taking advantage of Gauleiter Goebbels’s decree permitting them to escape the Allied bombing campaign. The Mercedes drew up at a platform well away from Berlin’s less distinguished travelers, alongside a streamlined, dark green train that was building up a head of steam. Standing on the platform, at five-meter intervals, a troop of SS men stood guard over its twelve coaches and two flak wagons armed with 200-millimeter quadruple antiaircraft guns. This was the special train Heinrich used by the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, and, after the Fuhrerzug, the most important train in Germany.

Von Ribbentrop climbed aboard one of the two coaches reserved for the use of the Reich Foreign Minister and his staff. Already the noise of clattering typewriters and waiters laying out china and cutlery in the dining car that separated von Ribbentrop’s personal coach from that of the Reichsfuhrer-SS made the train seem as noisy as any government office. At exactly eight o’clock the Heinrich headed east, toward what had once been Poland.

At eight-thirty, von Ribbentrop went into his sleeping compartment to change for dinner. His SS general’s uniform was already laid out on the bed, complete with black tunic and cap, cross-belts, black riding breeches, and polished black riding boots. Von Ribbentrop, who had held the honorary rank of SS-Gruppenfuhrer since 1936, enjoyed wearing the uniform, and his friend Himmler seemed to appreciate him wearing it. On this particular occasion, however, the SS uniform was mandatory, and when the minister came out of his compartment, the rest of his Foreign Ministry staff aboard the train were also dressed in their coal black uniforms. Von Ribbentrop found himself smiling, for he liked to see his staff looking smart and performing at a level of efficiency that only the proximity of the Reichsfuhrer-SS seemed able to command, and instinctively he saluted them. They saluted back, and Paul Schmidt, who was an SS colonel, presented his master with a sheet of ministry notepaper on which was typed a summary of the points von Ribbentrop had wanted to make to Himmler during their dinner meeting. These included his suggestion that any Allied air crew captured after a bombing raid be handed over to the local population and lynched; and the issue raised by SD agent Cicero’s photographed documents. To the minister’s irritation, the issue of the deportation of Jews from Norway, Italy, and Hungary was also on the agenda. Von Ribbentrop read this last item once more and then tossed the summary onto the table, his face coloring with irritation. “Who typed this?” he asked.

“Fraulein Mundt,” said Schmidt. “Is there a problem, Herr Reichsminister?”

Von Ribbentrop turned on the heel of his boot and walked into the next carriage, where several stenographers, seeing the minister, left off typing and stood up respectfully. He approached Fraulein Mundt, searched her out tray, and silently removed the carbon copy she had made of Schmidt’s summary before returning to his private carriage. There, he placed the carbon copy on the table and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his SS tunic, he faced Schmidt with sullen displeasure.

“Because you were too damned lazy to do what I asked, you risk all our lives,” he told Schmidt. “By committing the specific details of this Moellhausen matter to paper-to an official document, I might add-you are repeating the very same offense for which he is to be severely reprimanded.”

Eiten Moellhausen was the Foreign Ministry’s consul in Rome, and the previous week he had sent a cable to Berlin alerting the ministry to the SD’s intention to deport 8,000 Italian Jews to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, “for liquidation.” This had caused consternation, for von Ribbentrop had given strict orders that words such as “liquidation” should never appear in Foreign Ministry papers, in case they fell into Allied hands.

“Suppose this train were captured by British commandos,” he shouted. “Your stupid summary would condemn us just as surely as Moellhausen’s cable. I’ve said it before, but it seems I have to say it again. ‘Removal.’ ‘Resettlement.’ ‘Displacement.’ Those are the proper words to use in all Foreign Ministry documents relating to the solution of Europe’s Jewish problem. The next man who forgets this will go the same way as Luther.” Von Ribbentrop picked up the offending summary and carbon copy, thrust them at Schmidt. “Destroy these. And have Fraulein Mundt retype this summary immediately.”

“At once, Herr Reichsminister.”

Von Ribbentrop poured himself a glass of Fachinger water and waited, impatiently, for Schmidt to return with the retyped document. While he was waiting, there was a knock at the other door of the carriage and an aide opened it to admit a small, plain-looking SS-Standartenfuhrer, a man not dissimilar in appearance to that of his master, for this was Dr. Rudolf Brandt, Himmler’s personal assistant and the most industrious of the Reichsfuhrer’s entourage. Brandt clicked his heels and bowed stiffly to von Ribbentrop, who smiled back at him ingratiatingly.

“The Reichsfuhrer’s compliments, Herr General,” said Brandt. “He wonders if you are free to join him in his car.”

Schmidt returned with the new summary sheet, and von Ribbentrop received it without a word, then followed Brandt through the concertina gangway that joined the two coaches.

Himmler’s car was paneled with polished wood. A brass lamp stood on a little desk beside the window. The chairs were upholstered in green leather, which matched the color of the car’s thick velour. There was a gramophone and a radio, too, though Himmler had little time for such distractions. Even so, the Reichsfuhrer was hardly the monkish ascetic he projected to the public. To von Ribbentrop, who knew Himmler well, his reputation for ruthlessness seemed ill deserved; he was capable of being very generous to those who served him well. Indeed, Heinrich Himmler was not a man without charm, and his conversation was lively and more often than not laced with humor. It was true that, like the Fuhrer, he disliked people smoking cigarettes around him, but on occasion he himself enjoyed a good cigar; no more was he a teetotaler, and often drank a glass or two of red wine in the evening. Von Ribbentrop found Himmler with a bottle of Herrenberg-Honigsachel already open on the desk, and a large Cuban cigar burning in a crystal ashtray that lay on top of a Brockhaus atlas and a Morocco-bound copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a book that Himmler was seldom, if ever, without.

Seeing von Ribbentrop, Himmler put down his notorious green pencil and jumped to his feet.

“My dear von Ribbentrop,” he said in his quiet voice, with its light Bavarian twang that sometimes reminded von Ribbentrop of Hitler’s Austrian accent. There were even some who said that Himmler’s accent was consciously modeled on Hitler’s own voice in an attempt to ingratiate himself still further with the Fuhrer. “How nice to see you. I was just working on tomorrow’s speech.”

This was the purpose of their rail journey to Poland: the following day in Posen, the old Polish capital that was now the site of an intelligence school run by Colonel Gehlen for German military forces in Russia, Himmler would address all of the generals, or “troop leaders,” in the SS. Forty-eight hours later, he would give the same speech to all of Europe’s Reichsleiters and Gauleiters.

“And how is that coming along?”

Himmler showed the foreign minister the typewritten text on which he had been working all afternoon, covered as it was with his spidery green handwriting.

“A little long, perhaps,” admitted Himmler, “at three and a half hours.”

Von Ribbentrop groaned silently. Given by anyone else, Goebbels or Goring or even Hitler, he would have risked taking a nap, but Himmler was the kind of man who later asked you questions about his speech, and what in particular you thought had been its strongest points.

“That can’t be helped, of course,” Himmler said airily. “There’s a lot of ground to be covered.”

“I can imagine. Of course, I’ve been looking forward to this, since your new appointment.”

It was just two months since Himmler had taken over from Frank as minister of the interior, and the speech at Posen was meant to demonstrate that the change was not merely cosmetic: whereas previously the Fuhrer had counted on the support of the German people, Himmler intended to show that now he relied exclusively on the power of the SS.

“Thank you, my dear fellow. Some wine?”

“Yes, thanks.”

As Himmler poured the wine, he asked, “How is Annelies? And your son?”

“Well, thank you. And Haschen?”

Haschen was what Himmler called his bigamous wife, Hedwig. The Reichsfuhrer was not yet divorced from his wife, Marga. Twelve years younger than the forty-three-year-old Himmler, Haschen was his former secretary and the proud mother of his two-year-old son, Helge-try as he might, von Ribbentrop couldn’t get used to calling children by these new Aryan names.

“She is well, too.”

“Will she be joining us in Posen? It’s your birthday this week, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. But, no, we’re going to meet at Hochwald. The Fuhrer has invited us to the Wolfschanze.”

The Wolfschanze was Hitler’s field headquarters in East Prussia, and Hochwald was the house Himmler had built, twenty-five kilometers to the east of the Fuhrer’s sprawling compound in the forest.

“We don’t see you there very much anymore, von Ribbentrop.”

“There’s very little a diplomat can do at a military headquarters, Heinrich. So I prefer to stay in Berlin, where I can be of more use to the Fuhrer.”

“You’re quite right to avoid it, my dear fellow. It’s a terrible place. Stifling in summer and freezing in winter. Thank God I don’t have to stay there. My own house is in a considerably healthier part of the countryside. Sometimes I think the only reason the Fuhrer endures the place is so he can feel at one with the privations endured by the ordinary German soldier.”

“There’s that. And another reason, of course. So long as he stays there he doesn’t have to see the bomb damage in Berlin.”

“Perhaps. Either way, it’s Munich’s turn tonight.”

“Is it?”

“Some three hundred RAF bombers.”

“Christ!”

“I dread what is to come, Joachim. I don’t mind telling you. That is why we must do all we can to succeed with our diplomatic efforts. It is imperative that we make a peace with the Allies before they open a second front next year.” Himmler relit his cigar and puffed it carefully. “Let us hope that the Americans can yet be persuaded to put aside this insane business of unconditional surrender.”

“I still think you should have allowed the Foreign Ministry to speak to this man Hewitt. After all, I’ve lived in America.”

“Come now, Joachim. It was Canada, was it not?”

“No. New York, too. For a month or two, anyway.”

Himmler remained silent for a moment, studying the end of his cigar with diplomatic interest.

Von Ribbentrop smoothed his graying blond hair and tried to control the muscle twitching in his right cheek that seemed only too obviously a manifestation of his irritation with the Reichsfuhrer-SS. That Himmler should have sent Dr. Felix Kersten to Stockholm to conduct secret negotiations with Roosevelt’s special representative instead of him was a matter of no small exasperation to the foreign minister.

“Surely, you can see how ridiculous it is,” von Ribbentrop persisted, “that I, an experienced diplomat, should have to take a backseat to-to your chiropractor.”

“Not just mine. I seem to remember he treated you, too, Joachim. Successfully, I might add. But there were two reasons why I asked Felix to go to Stockholm. For one thing, he’s Scandinavian himself and able to conduct himself in the open. Unlike you. And, well, you’ve met Felix and you know how gifted he is and how persuasive he can be. I don’t think magnetic is too strong a word for the effect he can have on people. He even managed to persuade this American, Abram Hewitt, to let him treat him for back pain, which provided a very useful cover for their talks.” Himmler shook his head. “I confess I did think it was possible that under the circumstances Felix might actually achieve some influence on Hewitt. But so far, this has not proved to be the case.”

“Abram. Is he a Jew?”

“I’m not sure. But, yes, probably.” Himmler shrugged. “But that can’t be allowed to matter.”

“You’ve spoken to Kersten?”

“This evening on the telephone, before I left Berlin. Hewitt told Felix that he thought negotiations could only begin after we have made a move to get rid of Hitler.”

At this mention of the unmentionable, both men grew silent.

Then von Ribbentrop said, “The Russians aren’t nearly so narrow in their thinking. As you know, I’ve met Madame de Kollontay, their ambassador in Sweden, on a number of occasions. She says Marshal Stalin was shocked that Roosevelt made this demand for unconditional surrender without even consulting him. All the Soviet Union really cares about is the restoration of its pre-1940 borders and a proper level of financial compensation for her losses.”

“Money, of course,” snorted Himmler. “It goes without saying that’s the only thing these Communists are interested in. All Stalin really wants is Russia’s factories rebuilt at Germany’s expense. And Eastern Europe handed to him on a plate, of course. Yes, by God, the Allies are going to find out damn soon that we’re all that stands between them and the Popovs.

“You know, I’ve made a special study of the Popovs,” continued Himmler, “and it’s my conservative calculation that so far the war has cost the Red Army more than two million dead, prisoners, and disabled. It’s one of the things I’m going to speak about in Posen. I expect them to sacrifice at least another two million during their winter offensive. Already the SS Division ‘Das Reich’ reports that, in some cases, the divisions opposing us have contained whole companies of fourteen-year-old boys. Mark my words, by next spring they’ll be using twelve-year-old girls to fight us. What happens to Russian youth is a matter of total indifference to me, of course, but it tells me that human life means absolutely nothing to them. And it never ceases to amaze me that the British and the Americans can accept as their allies a people capable of sacrificing ten thousand women and children to build a tank ditch. If that is what the British and the Americans are willing to base their continued existence on, then I don’t see how they’re in any position to lecture us on the proper conduct of the war.”

Von Ribbentrop sipped some of Himmler’s wine, although he much preferred the champagne he had been drinking in his own carriage, and shook his head. “I don’t believe that Roosevelt knows the nature of the beast to which he has chained himself,” he said. “Churchill is much better informed about the Bolshevik and, as he has said, he would make an ally of the devil in order to defeat Germany. But I really don’t think Roosevelt can have any real conception of the gross brutality of his ally.”

“And yet we know for a fact he was informed of the Katyn Forest massacre’s true authors,” said Himmler.

“Yes, but did he believe it?”

“How could he not believe it? The evidence was incontrovertible. The dossier that was compiled by the German War Crimes Bureau would have established Russian guilt in the eyes of even the most impartial observer.”

“But surely that’s the point,” said von Ribbentrop. “Roosevelt is hardly impartial. With the Russians continuing to deny their culpability, Roosevelt can choose not to believe the authority of his own eyes. If he had believed it, we would have heard something. It’s the only possible explanation.”

“I fear you may be right. They prefer to believe the Russians to us. And there’s little chance of proving otherwise. Not now that Smolensk is back under Russian control. So we must find another way to enlighten the Americans.” Himmler collected a thick file off his desk and handed it to von Ribbentrop, who, noticing that Himmler was wearing not one but two gold rings, wondered for a moment if they were both wedding bands from each of his two wives. “Yes, I think that I might send him that,” said Himmler.

Von Ribbentrop put on reading glasses and moved to open the file. “What is it?” he asked, suspiciously.

“I call it the Beketovka File. Beketovka is a Soviet labor camp near Stalingrad, run by the NKVD. After the defeat of the Sixth Army in February, some quarter of a million German soldiers were taken prisoner by the Russians and held in camps like Beketovka, which was the largest.”

“Was?”

“The file was put together by one of Colonel Gehlen’s agents in the NKVD and has only just come into my hands. It’s a remarkable piece of work. Very thorough. Gehlen does recruit some very capable people. There are photographs, statistics, eyewitness accounts. According to the camp register, approximately fifty thousand German soldiers arrived at Beketovka last February. Today less than five thousand of them are still alive.”

Von Ribbentrop heard himself gasp. “You’re joking.”

“About such a thing as this? I think not. Go ahead, Joachim. Open it. You’ll find it quite edifying.”

As a rule, the minister tried to avoid the reports arriving at the Foreign Ministry’s Department Deutschland. These were filed by the SS and the SD and detailed the deaths of countless Jews in the extermination camps in the East. But he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of German soldiers, especially when his own son was a soldier, a lieutenant with the Leibstandarte-SS and, mercifully, still alive. What if it had been his son who had been taken prisoner at Stalingrad? He opened the file.

Von Ribbentrop found himself looking at a photograph of what at first glance resembled an illustration he had once seen by Gustave Dore, in Milton’s Paradise Lost. It was a second or two before he realized that these were the naked bodies not of angels, or even devils, but human beings, apparently frozen hard and stacked six or seven deep, one on top of the other, like beef carcasses in some hellish deep freeze. “My God,” he said, realizing that the line of carcasses was eighty or ninety meters long. “My God. These are German soldiers?”

Himmler nodded.

“How did they die? Were they shot?”

“Perhaps a lucky few were shot,” said Himmler. “Mostly they died of starvation, cold, sickness, exhaustion, and neglect. You really should read the account of one of the prisoners, a young lieutenant from the Seventy-sixth Infantry Division. It was smuggled out of the camp in the vain hope that the Luftwaffe might be able to mount some sort of bombing raid and put them out of their misery. It gives a pretty good picture of life at Beketovka. Yes, it’s a quite remarkable piece of reportage.”

Von Ribbentrop’s weak blue eyes passed quickly over the next photograph, a close-up shot of a pile of frozen corpses. “Perhaps later,” he said, removing his glasses.

“No, von Ribbentrop, read it now,” insisted Himmler. “Please. The man who wrote this account is, or was, just twenty-two, the same age as your own son. We owe it to all those who won’t ever come back to the Fatherland to understand their suffering and their sacrifice. To read such things, that is what will make us hard enough to do what must be done. There’s no room here for human weakness. Don’t you agree?”

Von Ribbentrop’s face stiffened as he replaced his reading glasses. He disliked being cornered, but could see no alternative to reading the document, as Himmler had bidden.

“Better still,” the Reichsfuhrer said, “read aloud to me what young Zahler has written.”

“Aloud?”

“Yes, aloud. The truth is, I have only read it once myself, as I could not bear to read it again. Read it to me now, Joachim, and then we will talk about what we must do.”

The foreign minister cleared his throat nervously, recalling the last occasion on which he had read a document aloud. He remembered the day exactly: June 22, 1941-the day when he had announced to the press that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union; and as von Ribbentrop proceeded to read, the sense of irony was not lost on him.

When he had finished reading, he removed his glasses, swallowing uncomfortably. Heinrich Zahler’s account of life and death at Beketovka seemed to have conspired with the motion of the train and the smell of Himmler’s cigar to leave him feeling a little off-color. He stood up unsteadily and, excusing himself for a moment, walked into the concertina gangway between the coaches to draw a breath of fresh air into his lungs.

When the minister returned to the Reichsfuhrer’s private car, Himmler seemed to read his thoughts.

“You were thinking of your own son, perhaps. A very brave young man. How many times has he been wounded?”

“Three times.”

“He does you great credit, Joachim. Let us pray that Rudolf is never captured by the Russians. Particularly as he is SS. Elsewhere the Beketovka File makes reference to the especially murderous treatment that the Russians have inflicted on SS POWs. They are taken to Wrangel Island. Shall I show you where that is?”

Himmler picked up his Brockhaus atlas and found the relevant map. “Look there,” he said, pointing with a well-manicured fingernail at a speck in a patch of pale-looking blue. “In the East Siberian Sea. There. Do you see? Three and a half thousand kilometers east of Moscow.” Himmler shook his head. “It’s the size of Russia that overwhelms, is it not?” He snapped the atlas shut. “No, I’m afraid we will not see those comrades again.”

“Has the Fuhrer seen this file?” asked von Ribbentrop.

“Good God, no,” said Himmler. “And he never will. If he knew about this file and the conditions in which German soldiers are kept in Russian POW camps, do you think he would ever contemplate making a peace with the Soviets?”

Von Ribbentrop shook his head. “No,” he said. “I suppose not.”

“But I was thinking that if the Americans saw it,” said Himmler. “Then…”

“Then it might help to drive a wedge between them and the Russians.”

“Precisely. Perhaps it might also help to authenticate evidence we have already provided of the Russians being to blame for the Katyn Forest massacre.”

“I assume,” said von Ribbentrop, “that Kaltenbrunner has already informed you of this man Cicero’s intelligence coup?”

“About the Big Three and their forthcoming conference in Teheran? Yes.”

“I’m thinking, Heinrich-before Churchill and Roosevelt see Stalin, they’re going to Cairo, to meet Chiang Kai-shek. That would be a good place for this Beketovka File to fall into their hands.”

“Yes, possibly.”

“It would give them something to think about. Perhaps it might even affect their subsequent relations with Stalin. Frankly, I don’t expect any of this material would surprise Churchill very much. He’s always hated the Bolsheviks. But Roosevelt is a very different saucer of milk. If the American newspapers are to be believed, he seems intent on charming Marshal Stalin.”

“Is such a thing possible?” grinned Himmler. “You’ve met the man. Could he ever be charmed?”

“Charmed? I sincerely doubt that Jesus Christ himself could charm Stalin. But that’s not to say Roosevelt doesn’t think he can succeed where Christ might fail. But then again, he might lose his will to charm if he were made aware of just what sort of monster he’s dealing with.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“But the file would have to come into their hands from the right quarter. And I fear that neither the SS nor the Reich Foreign Ministry could bring the appropriate degree of impartiality to such a sensitive matter.”

“I think I have just the man,” said Himmler. “There’s a Major Max Reichleitner. Of the Abwehr. He was part of the war crimes team that investigated the Katyn massacre. Of late he’s been doing some useful work for me in Turkey.”

“In Turkey?” Von Ribbentrop was tempted to ask what kind of work Major Reichleitner was doing for Himmler and the Abwehr in Turkey. He hadn’t forgotten that Ankara was where the SD’s agent Cicero was also operating. Was this just a coincidence, or was there perhaps something he wasn’t being told?

“Yes. In Turkey.”

Himmler did not elaborate. Major Reichleitner had been carrying the diplomatic correspondence on another secret peace initiative, this one conducted with the Americans by Franz von Papen, the former German chancellor, on behalf of a group of senior officers in the Wehrmacht. Von Papen was the German ambassador in Turkey and, as such, von Ribbentrop’s subordinate. Himmler considered von Ribbentrop useful in a number of ways; but the Reichsminister was acutely sensitive about his position and, as such, was sometimes something of a nuisance. The plain fact of the matter was that Himmler enjoyed reminding the foreign minister of how little he really knew and how much he now relied on the Reichsfuhrer, rather than Hitler, to remain close to the center of power.

“I believe there may be something else we might do to take advantage of this forthcoming conference,” the foreign minister said. “I was thinking that we might attempt to seek further clarification of exactly what Roosevelt meant when he told reporters at Casablanca of his demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender.”

Himmler nodded thoughtfully and puffed at his cigar. The president’s remark had caused as much disquiet in Britain and Russia as it had in Germany, and, according to intelligence reports from the Abwehr, it had generated the fear among certain American generals that unconditional surrender would make the Germans fight all the harder, thereby prolonging the war.

“We might use Teheran,” continued Ribbentrop, “to discover if Roosevelt’s remark was a rhetorical flourish, a negotiating ploy intended to force us to talk, or if he meant us to take it literally.”

“Exactly how might we obtain such a clarification?”

“I was thinking that the Fuhrer might be persuaded to write three letters. Addressed to Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. Stalin is a great admirer of the Fuhrer. A letter from him might prompt Stalin to question why Roosevelt and Churchill don’t want a negotiated peace. Could it be that they would like to see the Red Army annihilated in Europe before committing themselves to an invasion next year? The Russians have never trusted the British. Not since the Hess mission.

“Equally, letters to Roosevelt and Churchill might make something of the brutal treatment of German POWs by the Russians, not to mention those Polish officers murdered at Katyn. The Fuhrer could also mention a number of pragmatic considerations which Roosevelt and Churchill might think could weigh against a European landing.”

“Such as?” asked Himmler.

Von Ribbentrop shook his head, unwilling to show the Reichsfuhrer all his best cards and telling himself that Himmler wasn’t the only one who could withhold information. “I wouldn’t want to go into the details right now,” he said smoothly, now quite convinced that Cicero’s discovery of the Big Three at Teheran might be the beginning of a very real diplomatic initiative, perhaps the most important since he had negotiated the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. Von Ribbentrop smiled to himself at the idea of pulling off another diplomatic coup like that one. These letters to the Big Three from the Fuhrer would be written by himself, of course. He would show those bastards Goring and Goebbels that he was still a force to be reckoned with.

“Yes,” said Himmler, “I might mention the idea to Hitler when I go to the Wolfschanze on Wednesday.”

Von Ribbentrop’s face fell. “I was thinking that I might mention the idea to Hitler myself,” he said. “After all, this is a diplomatic initiative rather than a matter for the Ministry of the Interior.”

The Reichsfuhrer-SS thought for a moment, considered the possibility that Hitler might not like the idea. There was a strong chance that any negotiated peace might require Germany to have a new leader, and while Himmler believed there was no one better than himself to replace the Fuhrer, he did not want Hitler to think that he was planning some sort of coup d’etat.

“Yes,” he said, “I think perhaps you’re right. It should be you who mentions this to the Fuhrer, Joachim. A diplomatic initiative like this one should originate in the Foreign Ministry.”

“Thank you, Heinrich.”

“Don’t mention it, my dear fellow. We will have your diplomatic effort and my Beketovka File. Either way, we must not fail. Unless we can make some sort of a peace, or successfully detach the Soviet Union from her Western allies, I fear Germany is finished.”

Since the purpose of the speech Himmler was to make at Posen the next day was the subject of defeatism, Ribbentrop proceeded cautiously.

“You are being frank,” he said carefully. “So let me also be frank with you, Heinrich.”

“Of course.”

Von Ribbentrop could hardly forget he was speaking to the most powerful man in Germany. Himmler could easily order the train stopped and Ribbentrop shot summarily by the side of the railway track. The foreign minister had no doubt that the Reichsfuhrer could justify such an action to the Fuhrer at a later date, and, aware of the secrecy of the subject he was about to broach, Ribbentrop found himself struggling for the words that might still leave him at arm’s length from being complicit in Germany’s crusade against the Jews.

In late 1941, he had become aware of mass executions of Jews by Einsatzgruppen-SS special action groups in Eastern Europe-and since then had tried his best to avoid reading all SS and SD reports that were filed, as a matter of routine, with Department III of the Foreign Ministry. These Special Action Groups were no longer shooting thousands of Jews but organizing their deportation to special camps in Poland and the Ukraine. Von Ribbentrop knew the purpose of these camps-he could hardly fail to know it, having visited Belzec in secret-but it bothered him a great deal that the Allies might also know their purpose.

“Is it possible,” he asked Himmler, “that the Allies are aware of the purpose behind the evacuation of Jews to Eastern Europe? That this is the true reason they have ignored evidence of Russian atrocities?”

“We agreed that we are speaking frankly, Joachim,” said Himmler, “so let us do just that. You are referring to the systematic extirpation of the Jews, are you not?”

Von Ribbentrop nodded uncomfortably.

“Look,” continued Himmler. “We have the moral right to protect ourselves. A duty to our own people to destroy all saboteurs, agitators, and slander-mongers who want to destroy us. But to answer your question specifically, I will say this. I think it’s possible that they do know of the existence of our grand solution to the Jewish problem, yes. But I would suggest that currently they imagine that accounts of what goes on in Eastern Europe have been dramatically exaggerated.

“If I might be allowed to pat myself on the back, it is incredible just what has been achieved. You have no idea. Nevertheless, none of us forgets that this is a chapter in German history that can never be written. But rest assured, Joachim, as soon as a peace has been negotiated, all the camps will be destroyed and all evidence that they ever existed erased. People will say Jews were murdered. Thousands of Jews, hundreds of thousands of Jews-yes, they will say that, too. But this is war. ‘Total war,’ Goebbels calls it, and for once I agree with him. People get killed in wartime. That is an unfortunate fact of life. Who knows how many the RAF will kill tonight in Munich? Old men, women and children?” Himmler shook his head. “So, Joachim, I give you my word that people will not believe it was possible so many Jews died. Faced with the menace of European Bolshevism, they will not want to believe it. No, they could never believe it. No one could.”