America Über Alles Read online

  Hitler slowly eased himself into the chair next to von Greim’s bed.

  ‘You are both the epitome of the ideal German. Even a soldier has the right to disobey an order when it is futile and hopeless. But you, you came here, risked everything. You have never wavered in your love for the Fatherland and for its poor servant, Adolf Hitler. If I had a hundred legions made up of Greims and Reitschs, ah! We would have seen off the Slavic hordes. But the German people have shown themselves to be weak, Herr Generaloberst, weak!’

  ‘My Führer, we are as honoured as ever to be with you. But, let us lead you from Berlin. If you were to fly south, there you can command our forces safely once again. There is too much risk in Berlin, the Bolsheviks are too close. You must leave. The German people need you safe. We must leave for Bavaria, to carry on the war for civilisation.’

  ‘Generaloberst, I am only the Führer as long as I can lead. And I can’t lead my troops and the German people while sitting remotely on a mountain top. I have to have authority over armies that obey me. I must be at the centre of the struggle. I’d regard it as a thousand times more cowardly to commit suicide on the Obersalzberg than to stand and fall here with a pistol in my hand. Let me win a victory here, however difficult, however tough, however impossible, it may appear in this moment. Then I hold the authority, the authority to do away with the sluggish forces that are holding us back. Then I’ll work with the generals who have proved themselves. Generals like you. And we will be victorious.’

  He stood up, slowly, painfully, and held von Greim’s hand in his.

  ‘Only here can I attain that victory. Even if it is only a moral one, it’s at least the victory of winning time. Only through a heroic attitude can we survive this hardest of times. If we win the decisive battle, I would be proved right. And even if I were to lose—’

  ‘No!’ screamed Magdalena Goebbels.

  ‘And even were I to lose, then I will have perished decently, not like some inglorious refugee sitting in Berchtesgaden and issuing useless orders from there. If we leave the world stage in disgrace, we’ll have lived for nothing. Rather end the struggle in honour than continue in shame and dishonour a few months or years longer. I am not made to run. My victory will come here in Berlin – or my honourable death.’

  Again he slumped back to the chair, a faraway stare coming across his pale face. Von Greim studied Hitler. The complexion deathly, sweat pouring off him, the relentless shaking left hand, this was not the man he had known since 1920, when von Greim had flown a then unknown thirty-year-old army propagandist to Berlin to observe the Kapp Putsch. Nor the man who had entranced him from the beer halls of Munich to the fields of Nuremberg. Now that man seemed finished. But Adolf Hitler suddenly snapped alive, once again there was that unmistakable passion in his voice, an echo of the furious oratory that had transfixed von Greim in Munich twenty-five years earlier.

  ‘But everything is not lost! The situation in Berlin looks worse than it is. Wenck’s army is outside Potsdam, they are coming. It will be here, perhaps tonight, tomorrow or at the latest, in two days. They will join with the Ninth Army and then we will see the Bolshevik behemoth for what it is! We will hold Berlin and then the Americans and the British will understand there will be only one way to defeat the Russian Moloch – an alliance with Nazi Germany. And the only man to lead such an alliance is me. So, you see, victory is still in our destiny.

  ‘And we have one more card to play, the ultimate card, the product of our scientific superiority, the card that will demonstrate to the world that National Socialism is the greatest vehicle for harnessing the powers of the human imagination. In this, our darkest hour, when our enemies surround us, mock us, humiliate us, in this hour when darkness seems to be total, we shall emerge into the light triumphant!’

  Von Greim raised his head, ‘So it is true? We have it, the weapon to end this war, as you promised we would?’

  ‘We do, we do. And here lies the reason I ordered you to Berlin, both of you. For I am frail—’

  There was a low murmur of dissent from Reitsch.

  ‘No, I am frail, my dear, my body is disappointing me. This weapon may have arrived too late for me to harness its powers. But I am blessed with having the perfect agents for its delivery and with it the delivery of our triumph. Generaloberst—’ Hitler rose to his feet once more. ‘In the name of the German people, I give you my hand. A traitor must never succeed me as Führer. You will ensure that does not happen. I can no longer trust the Army. The Luftwaffe yes, but the army – traitors, cowards, idiots, all of them! Even the leadership of the SS, they have proved themselves unfaithful – cowards, scum! This is why I turn to you. I am promoting you to Generalfeldmarschall. You will lead a group of our finest men on this mission. They have been training for six months. Our finest, most loyal SS division. Our pride. They are the very finest of the Reich and they are waiting for you to assume leadership.

  ‘There is little time. You must travel now, with Reichsminister Goebbels, to Dahlem, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. The Russians are desperate to capture the Institute, but you will get there before them and unleash this weapon. Goebbels will explain the details of the plan to you. And you, Hanna Reitsch, it is important that you go as well. All will become clear when you arrive.

  ‘There is an armoured car waiting for you. Generalfeldmarschall, I know your wounds are painful, but you must leave, this instant.’

  ‘My wounds are nothing, mein Führer. I shall take this commission with pride. I believe we will meet again in the future and celebrate our eventual victory.’

  ‘Ah! So do I, Robert von Greim, so do I!’

  And with that the leader of the German people turned on his heels and walked as sharply as he could out of the room, no longer the forlorn figure that entered it.

  Magdalena Goebbels pressed something into Reitsch’s hands. ‘Dear Hanna, take this. Please. A symbol of my affection for you. Please, always think of me when you see it.’

  It was a striking ring, gold with a large blue sapphire cabochon, surrounded by a ring of ten perfectly cut diamonds. Clasping both hand and ring, Magdalena looked into her friend’s eyes and said: ‘I wish I were going on this journey. Both Joseph and I wish we had been chosen by the Führer. You and Robert, you are blessed.’

  THREE

  The drive to Dahlem was perilous. The city, a roaring monster of flash and explosion. Constant bursts of detonation, shells raining down from every direction, tongues of orange, red and white flames licking buildings and sending them crazy, into a burning, exploding and collapsing fever. Bricks and debris bounced off their armoured car, the driver weaving between falling buildings and burning vehicles on roads pitted by craters. The closer they got to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute the more intense it became.

  To von Greim it was no surprise: since the 1930s, the Institute had been the centre for experiments with nuclear fusion under Werner Heisenberg and his team. The Soviets were hoping to take the Institute and with it the secrets of Germany’s atomic-bomb programme. He had been under the impression that Heisenberg and his team had been moved in January to the Black Forest to ensure that such a capture could not happen. But then the Führer had hinted that the building did indeed house a weapon. He was perplexed and wanted to ask Goebbels, but, under the cacophony of explosions, conversation was impossible in the car.

  Outside the Institute, a group of troops had dug deep trenches and built barricades. The building was pockmarked from incendiaries, but the huge white Blitzturm – the tower of lightning where the key experiments had been done – was intact. Now, however, it was simply serving as the perfect marker for the Soviet artillery.

  The armoured car thudded to a halt and Goebbels, without a word, threw open his door and marched off towards the entrance of the Institute. Von Greim struggled out of the car, Reitsch handing him the crutches he needed to walk. He surveyed the scene.

  It was clear that this defence of the Institute must have been planned for months and involved vast numbers o
f manpower and materiel. There were numerous concreted pillboxes, now pitted with shell marks, metres and metres of barbed wire, many sandbagged gun emplacements. Yet for how long could it hold back the Russians? A group of exhausted troops lay with their backs to the wall of the Institute, their faces smeared black with the dirt and sweat of the struggle, their eyes hollowed out by exhaustion.

  ‘Soldier, why are you here and not in the battle?’ Von Greim gently kicked the boot of one man.

  A shell exploded overhead, briefly illuminating the soldier’s face. He was expecting to see a veteran, but it was just another dirt-stained boy defending the Reich.

  ‘What?’ the youngster looked up, angry. ‘We’ve been fighting the Russians, house by house, building by building, retreating all the way from Potsdam. We haven’t slept for three days, haven’t eaten for just as long, the schnapps is the only thing keeping us going. In an hour we’ll be back out there. Holding someone’s parlour, falling back into someone’s bedroom, before it all turns to shit like every house we’ve been in. And where will you be, General? Will you be with us? Or will you be tucked up in bed or eating bratwurst and drinking champagne?’

  Von Greim thought about striking him for his insolence, but looked past him to the huddled ranks of his comrades. He could see from their exhausted faces, they had given everything. What right did he have to tell this teenager he should work harder? In an hour he would be back in the fire and he might not last beyond that. Without saying a word, von Greim pulled up on his crutches and hobbled towards the Institute’s entrance.

  Goebbels led his charges through the corridors of the first floor. The impact of the Soviet assault was increasingly felt inside the building: broken windows, fallen masonry, discarded books and files strewn across the floor, a small huddle of exhausted men wrapped around a staircase which had come away from the floor above. Goebbels clearly knew the route well, taking them to a metal cage lift.

  ‘We have several floors to travel down, I’m afraid. I’m sure that will be not be a problem for the two finest aviators of the Reich?’ he smiled, a grin breaking out of his hollowed cheeks, the dark, sunken eyes that carried a strange power of their own.

  They travelled for what must have been several hundred feet until the lift came to a halt. Down there, it was unearthly quiet, sterile and virginally clean. The tumult, the havoc of the world above seemed improbable. In the Führer’s bunker, it was impossible to forget what raged above: the smells, the dirt, sweat and filth that everyone brought with them saw to that. Not here. Not down the whitewashed corridors they walked, the lab-coated technicians they passed; there was no sense that the world they had come from seconds earlier even existed.

  Through several corridors they moved, until finally they entered what von Greim and Reitsch took to be some form of control room full of metal cabinets, dials, electrodes and metres of colour-coded cabling. A bank of chairs stood in front of a long window which looked down on to a larger room, a hall almost, in the centre of which was a large cylinder of highly polished steel; along its front edge ran embedded green lights, flickering intermittently. The centre of the cylinder was hollow, with a slightly raised platform in the middle. It stood about two and a half metres in height and was close to forty metres in length. It was an impressive construction and von Greim and Reitsch exchanged looks of awe.

  ‘Only the Reich could build something as marvellous as this,’ Reitsch mumbled.

  ‘Yes, only a Nazi state would have the imagination and desire to achieve such things, Hanna,’ Goebbels agreed. ‘Come, let us take a closer view.’

  They exited the control room and walked down a metal staircase to the floor of the hall, von Greim’s crutches clanging against the metal railing. Several technicians were busying themselves around the cylinder.

  ‘Herr Doktor Bewilogua,’ Goebbels addressed himself to the group. ‘I have arrived with Generalfeldmarschall von Greim and Frau Reitsch. Let us begin their briefing immediately.’

  Ludwig Bewilogua, a small, owlish man, spectacles perched on his nose, turned to the group, clipboard in hand. ‘You are late. We have been waiting on you for too many hours.’ He handed the clipboard to an assistant. ‘Come, we have little time for your briefing. We cannot miss this window.’

  Without further acknowledgement, he left them, walked past the cylinder and out of the hall, beckoning them to follow. Goebbels raised an eyebrow to von Greim. ‘Scientists. They lack finesse. Which is why we keep them in laboratories.’ Another hollow smile and then he gestured for von Greim and Reitsch to follow him.

  They went out of the hall and back down another corridor until they entered a final room, an enormous hall, in which over two hundred men stood immediately to attention. They were dressed in a peculiar form of the field uniform of the SS: grey-green, four-pocketed, five-buttoned jackets, with the SS emblems on the collar replaced by silver swastikas, and on each sleeve, an eagle. And on their right arm, a red armband with another swastika. A belt pulled the waist in, accentuating the powerful chest and shoulders of each man. Slate-grey, straight-legged trousers and black leather jackboots finished the uniform. They looked magnificent. It was a long time since von Greim had seen such well-finished uniforms, a long time since he had seen such fit, healthy and well-fed soldiers.

  Goebbels stepped forward.

  ‘Gentlemen, I give you your new leader Generalfeldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim.’

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ they responded as one, each raising a perfect Nazi salute.

  Von Greim returned the salute.

  Goebbels continued: ‘This is your special force, General-feldmarschall, hand-picked men from elite SS units. They are all, as you would expect, most excellent specimens of Aryan superiority. They have been trained especially for this mission for the last six months. Each has expert knowledge of the terrain, the enemy, the weaponry, the tactics. Aside from these fighting men, you will also be aided in your mission by a number of experts from the highest levels of the Reich.

  ‘You know, of course, of the work of Hugo Schmeisser, the finest weapon designer in the world, creator of the Sturmgewehr 44, among many others.’

  A balding, suited, bureaucratic-looking sixty-year-old man stepped forward, gave an awkward salute and a mumbled ‘Heil Hitler.’

  Goebbels paid him no heed, moving on to another suited man, ‘And, of course, you know only too well Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, our most respected Reichsminister für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion.’

  ‘Alfried, of course, what a surprise to find you here in Berlin. I had thought you might have been captured in Essen.’

  A tall, confident, patrician figure, Krupp was only thirty-seven and yet the leading German industrialist of the age, a supporter of the Nazis since the 1930s. He brushed past Schmeisser, warmly grasped both of von Greim’s hands and then kissed Reitsch on both cheeks. ‘Dear Hanna, Robert. Such a joy to see you both. I left the city the day before the Americans overran it. We at Krupp’s have been heavily involved in helping Doktor Bewilogua realise his vision here; it has been something of a special pet project for me. I came directly from Essen and begged the Führer to allow me to take part in this mission. Fortunately, he agreed and here I am. Unlike yourself, Robert, I lack military training, but my background in manufacturing, well, I hope it can greatly assist you.’

  ‘Ah, I beg of you to hold that thought, Herr Krupp,’ Goebbels interjected. ‘As yet, the Generalfeldmarschall has not been briefed. Before we do so, one more introduction. I especially wish you to meet the finest young historian of the Reich, Doktor Werner Conze of the University of Vienna.’

  An elegant young man, with a handsome face set off by a Roman nose, stepped forward and pushed out his hand towards von Greim.

  ‘Generalfeldmarschall, it is a honour to serve under you. And Frau Reitsch, I have long admired and thrilled at your aeronautical feats.’

  He leaned over to kiss Reitsch’s outstretched hand, a waft of cologne escaping from him.

  ‘Doktor C
onze has played a most important role in developing our thoughts on Lebensraum. You may have read his pamphlet “Die weissrussische Frage in Polen”, highly influential among the young members of the Bund Deutscher Osten?’

  Von Greim shook Conze’s hand.

  An intellectual. Von Greim despised intellectuals, especially those who had jumped on the bandwagon just before 1933 when the Führer’s ascent to power was all but confirmed. A cancer on the party ever since, with their political infighting and machinations. He recalled no intellectuals standing shoulder to shoulder with them in November 1923 when they marched out of the Bierkeller in Munich. No doubt this Conze had been shirking from military service while pontificating in Vienna.

  ‘You praise me too much, Reichmaster Goebbels.’

  ‘Nonsense. Since he was injured during the invasion of France, Doctor Conze has been researching both the realities of social life in the American revolution and the details of George Washington’s campaigns and staff.’

  Von Greim looked again at the younger man.

  ‘You served in France?’

  ‘Yes, 19th Korps under Guderian. I was wounded at Sedan, during the crossing of the Meuse.’

  ‘One of our greatest triumphs.’

  ‘It was an honour to serve, Generalfeldmarschall. My only regret is that I could not continue with the push on to Paris. My injuries were slight, but others decided I should not continue, but return to convalesce. I see that you have had better luck in persuading the doctors that you should be allowed to continue to serve.’ He pointed at von Greim’s bandaged foot.

  ‘A recent injury of little importance. We didn’t have an especially warm welcome into Berlin. But we cannot allow small obstructions to distract from the wider goal.’

  ‘I hope you will find that I can be trusted on that score.’

  Perhaps I am wrong about this one, thought von Greim.

  ‘I am sure you will be proved correct, but I don’t see the relevance of studying George Washington. What does a historian know of the atomic bomb?’ asked von Greim.