Winter, page 44
‘There you are.’ Alex poured some more schnapps from the flask, then held it up, but Pauli shook his head to decline again. Alex drank. Usually on Sunday he limited himself to only one drink, but today was different.
‘Not quite,’ said Pauli. ‘The police pushed him along to the Gestapo desk that deals with the suppression of homosexuality….’
‘Is there such a department?’ He wiped his lips on the back of his hand.
‘We think of everything,’ said Pauli sardonically. He watched Alex carefully; Pauli had become an expert observer. In the next stall a restless horse put its weight against the wooden partition so that it creaked. ‘And they showed him photos. He picked out the photo of the C in C.’
‘Hardly reliable evidence.’
Still studying his friend’s face, Pauli said, ‘He is prepared to say he saw Fritsch committing a homosexual act with a youth he picked up at the Wannsee station.’
‘Oh,’ said Alex, keeping his emotions under control. ‘What will happen now?’
‘Quite a lot has happened already. A file on the case went to the Führer. Reichsführer Himmler took it to him personally, so we kept the tightest security.’
‘And?’
‘The Führer said, “Burn this muck.”’
‘Good for the Führer. Was it burned?’
‘We don’t burn anything.’
Alex sighed. ‘Oh, come along, Pauli, old friend. Some things get burned in the Third Reich. Didn’t I see big piles of books by Jewish authors being burned in Unter den Linden not so long ago? At Opernpiatz; I stopped to watch. A big bonfire. I noticed quite a few books there I rather fancied. Freud, Gide, Proust, Zola, Wells, Zweig, Mann…’
‘I wish you’d trust me, Alex.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
It was not easy to help people; Pauli had found that again and again. They all acted as though Pauli were talking to them in some incomprehensible foreign tongue. ‘Warn Colonel General Fritsch.’
‘You expect me to walk into his office and tell him that Hitler suspects him of committing homosexual acts at the Wannsee station?’
Alex still couldn’t get it into his head. All these years in the army seemed to have made him incapable of understanding the simple facts of German political life. Pauli explained it as simply as he could. ‘Now that it seems as if von Blomberg must go, Göring will persuade Himmler to bring up the Fritsch business again.’
‘But why?’
‘Don’t be naïve, Alex. Göring wants Blomberg’s ministry, and Fritsch is next in line right now. “War Minister Göring”: he’d love that.’
‘And how would Himmler benefit?’
‘If Fritsch went, the Reichsführer-SS would also take the opportunity to extend his powers.’
‘Himmler, extend his powers? My God, the fellow has taken over all the police forces in Germany. And now he’s expanded this SS army of his to three regiments, plus a combat-engineer company and a communications unit.’
‘Top marks to the Abwehr, Alex. They keep you well informed.’ He took out a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke. ‘And the concentration camps, too. The Totenkopfverbände who guard the camps are also part of his command.’
‘And you, too?’
‘Yes, me, too.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Don’t you know that, Alex?’
Alex paused. ‘The army? Does it mean so much to you still?’
‘I don’t know, Alex. Perhaps I simply want to prove I can be my own master sometimes. Inge keeps telling me I should be my own master.’ He got up, took his overcoat off the hook.
Alex watched his friend putting the heavy leather overcoat on. Pauli moved like an infirm old man. Goodness knows what he was doing these days, but he looked as if he was working too damned hard. Even the Bendlerblock let its inmates spend Sunday at home. ‘You don’t believe it, either, do you?’
‘About Fritsch? No, it’s all nonsense. The man who paid blackmail money to this Schmidt filth is someone quite different; a retired Captain von Frisch.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘His address was in Schmidt’s original statement. I went along to the address and spoke with him. After a little questioning he admitted it, and we got his bank statements to prove the payments.’
‘Then it will be all right,’ said Alex. Pauli patted the horse and it nuzzled him affectionately. He loved horses; he always had.
‘No, it will not be all right. Someone had better tell Fritsch.’
‘Tell him what? He’s innocent. You’ve just said so.’
‘Tell him that being innocent is no defence.’ Pauli smiled, buttoned his coat, and decided to say no more about it. Already he’d said too much.
Alex nodded and took another drink. The world had gone mad.
Case Otto
On the evening of Friday, March 11, 1938, the most splendid social event in Berlin was undoubtedly the lavish party given at the newly named and redecorated Haus der Flieger – the old Prussian Diet building on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse – by Hermann Göring.
Göring himself, forty-five years old, Commander in Chief of the newly created Luftwaffe and in charge of all civil aviation, too, had recently been made a field marshal. The promotion was to compensate him for his disappointment at not taking over von Blomberg’s job as war minister (Hitler had taken that authority for himself). This night he arrived at his gala pink-faced and excited. He was wearing his new field marshal uniform, complete with an array of medals. At his neck there was the Orden Pour le Mérite, the nation’s highest award for valour, which Göring had won as a fighter pilot in the war. Short in stature, as so many fighter pilots are, and very overweight, Göring this night was the essence of charm.
It was a sumptuous affair: more than a thousand guests, including diplomats and high-ranking officials, were entertained by the orchestra, singers and ballet of the Berlin State Opera. Among the many guest performances was a Beethoven piano sonata played by Erich Hennig.
Ever since playing before the Führer at the Bach Festival in Leipzig in June 1935, Erich Hennig had been a celebrity of the Third Reich. Once Hitler had admired him, he’d become noted as an interpreter of Bach as well as of Beethoven and Mozart, and Hennig was regularly to be heard on the radio. A handsome man, thin and rather drawn, with a carefully trimmed moustache and intense black eyes, Hennig had cultivated the appearance that audiences expected of a concert pianist. It was his appearance – and such mannerisms as flicking his coat tails and ‘washing’ his hands quickly before the piano’s first entry – as much as his talent, that had earned him a regular place on the new entertainment medium, television. On March 22, 1935, Germany had started the first regular public TV broadcasting system in the world. Despite the small number of TV receivers in use, performers such as Erich Hennig were becoming famous ‘personalities’.
And so, when Hennig took the stage that evening, this familiar figure was given a welcoming applause that outmatched that given to any other performer.
‘Erich would have got tickets for you,’ Lisl Hennig told her sister Inge after showing her some snapshots of the Hennigs’ eight-year-old son.
‘We were invited anyway,’ said Inge haughtily. ‘Pauli gets tickets for all the big events.’
‘How wonderful,’ said Lisl as she put the photos back in her handbag. Inge sometimes liked to pretend she preferred the freedom of being childless, but her face, as she looked at Lisl’s snapshots, made it obvious how much she wanted a baby. And Pauli – unlike Erich – was wonderful with children. ‘Forgive me for the way I keep watching the stage, but Erich will probably be presented to Field Marshal Göring, and he’ll want me to be with him.’
‘How is Papa?’ asked Inge to change the subject.
‘He misses Mama terribly. Though he hardly ever mentions her, he just isn’t the same without her. It’s easy to forget how old he is, but his memory is going. He has no sense of time. Last week I mentioned that I’d seen you buying fish in Ka-De-We and he said, “Is Inge going to marry that young Peter Winter? He’s a polite young fellow.” I replied, “She’s married his brother.” Papa said, “Oh, is that legal?” We laughed. We were eating dinner at the time. Erich laughed so much I thought he would choke. Yes, Papa says odd things at times.’ Lisl chuckled.
Inge didn’t laugh. She said, ‘Pauli couldn’t come. Pauli’s packing to go to Vienna.’ She shouldn’t have said it, really – Pauli had sworn her to secrecy – but she’d suffered enough of her sister’s tormenting.
‘Vienna? So the Anschluss is happening?’
‘At dawn tomorrow, our troops cross the border. Please God the Austrians won’t start shooting.’
‘Start shooting? You can’t be serious, Inge. The Austrians will love to become a part of the Reich.’ She looked at Inge. ‘Why is Pauli going there?’
‘He’s taking into custody the dissidents, the Marxists and troublemakers. A lot of German criminals have gone there to hide.’
‘And Jews,’ said Lisl.
‘Yes. The Gestapo have nearly a hundred thousand names with Vienna addresses,’ said Inge.
‘So Pauli will be there for a long time.’
‘No, thank goodness. The SS-Reichsführer has promised that Vienna will be safe for the Führer to visit by Tuesday. I couldn’t bear to have Pauli away for a week. I miss him dreadfully, and he needs me, Lisl. Without me the poor darling doesn’t even remember to change his linen, and he never eats properly when he’s away from home.’
At ten-thirty that evening, those favoured musicians and members of the corps de ballet and corps diplomatique who’d been alerted to the prospect of shaking hands with Field Marshal Göring were told that plans for these formal presentations had been cancelled.
Although no reason was given, it was because Göring – who’d taken a major role in the planning for the annexation of Austria – was closeted with one of his guests. Göring was determined to persuade Dr Mastny, the Czechoslovak ambassador, that Germany’s aggression boded no such similar fate for his country. This was just a ‘family matter’, said Göring – the Austrians were in fact Germans – and Germany was determined to have excellent relations with Czechoslovakia. He hoped that there would be no question of Czechoslovakia’s mobilizing against this entirely German affair.
Dr Mastny was not entirely convinced.
‘It’s a lovely dress, Inge,’ Lisl told her, and there was no doubt of her sincerity. It was a floor-length dress of grey shot-silk that shimmered in the light of the chandeliers. The bodice was buttoned high to the neck in a style based deliberately upon some of the old German country costumes. It was a ‘model dress’ exclusive to her. Inge had chosen it from one of the expensive couturiers in Ku-damm. She had in mind taking it with her when they next went to the Obersalzberg. She knew it was the sort of dress the Führer would approve of. ‘It must have cost a fortune.’
‘Well, I told Pauli that now he’s an important man in the administration, I have to dress accordingly.’
‘You’re lucky,’ said Lisl. ‘Erich is awfully mean about my clothes.’
‘You must speak with him,’ said Inge. ‘You entertain all sorts of interesting artists. And if you are going to come to events like this, where there are lots of foreigners, it’s important that you look your best. Germans must show them that we have a new place in the world.’
‘That’s all right for Pauli,’ said Lisl, ‘but you’d never get away with that with Erich. If I said I had nothing suitable to wear, Erich would just leave me behind.’
Colonel Alex Horner first heard officially on Thursday, March 10. It all started just before 9:00 a.m., when General Wilhelm Keitel arrived. Although Keitel was officially styled the chief of the Armed Forces Command (the OKW, an office that Hitler created to replace von Blomberg’s War Ministry), everyone knew that Keitel was no more than Hitler’s office boy.
But, as Alex Horner noted, ‘Hitler’s office boy’ could certainly make the Bendlerblock come alive. When Hitler had got rid of Fritsch and Blomberg, he’d ruthlessly purged the generals: there had been fifty transfers and forced retirements. Now, when Keitel came through the door unexpected, the anxiety could be smelled in every corridor.
The Austrians were planning a plebiscite on Sunday as a way to appeal to world opinion and so counter the German ultimatum. The Führer had decided that, to prevent it, the army must occupy Austria by Saturday. It was already mid-morning Thursday. Colonel Horner’s immediate superior – an elegant and cultured old general whom Horner had come to distrust if not despise – sent for him urgently.
‘Anything on Austria, Colonel Horner?’
‘Nothing in the way of military plans, Herr General.’
‘No contingency plans against the Austrians? Nothing at all?’ He was trying to maintain his usual supercilious, patronizing manner, but to Horner he sounded harassed.
‘Nothing, Herr General.’
‘Come along, Horner. General Jodl says there is something.’
‘Did he say what it was, Herr General?’
‘I gather it is a rather impractical scheme that was prepared when there were rumours that the Austrians were planning to restore Otto of Hapsburg to the throne.’
‘I don’t remember it, Herr General,’ said Horner.
‘He thinks it’s called Case Otto. Perhaps it’s filed downstairs in one of the storerooms. Get some reliable officers to go through the filing cabinets downstairs.’
‘Immediately, Herr General.’
‘And Colonel Horner. I’ve decided to deny that application for you to go to Spain.’
‘As the General wishes.’
‘Oh, I know you must be disappointed, but with your wife pregnant with a first child, and the High Command’s decision to cut back on the forces in Spain…’
‘I understand, Herr General.’ His General was not the sort of man who considered the feelings of pregnant wives, he simply had another protégé lined up for the Spanish posting.
‘What would you say to a weekend in Vienna instead? It looks as if the army is heading that way.’
‘Vienna, Herr General?’
‘Type yourself some orders for attachment to one of the units in the order of battle. I’d choose one of these Panzer outfits, unless you relish some hard marching.’
‘The Herr General is very kind.’
‘Lots of time for Spain, Horner. That young General Franco is not going to beat the Reds for a long time yet, judging by the way the Russians are putting material into the fighting.’
‘Yes, Herr General.’
‘You don’t want to go to Spain, Colonel Horner. It’s full of flies and beggars. The food’s terrible, too: olive oil and rice with odds and ends in it. Go to Vienna: better food, decent music and far more beautiful women.’
‘I’ll get started on the search for the plans for Case Otto, Herr General.’
‘Don’t break your heart on it, Colonel. If those plans were here, I would have seen them; and I don’t remember them.’
‘I thought General Jodl…’
‘General Jodl is getting old, Colonel. You go and dust off your dancing pumps. Send a couple of officers downstairs, then go and prepare your orders, and get me to sign them while I’m still in a good mood.’
‘Yes, Herr General. Thank you.’
Meanwhile, Keitel had left the building to hurry across to the Reichskanzlei for his ten o’clock meeting with the Führer and was relieved to hear that Hitler would be satisfied with Case Otto. But when he returned to the Bendlerstrasse, no one had found it, and despite more searching the plans were never located.
‘It’s a typical Bendlerstrasse balls-up,’ Alex Horner told the two young officers who’d emerged from the storerooms with hands and faces blackened with the dirt and dust of filth-encrusted bundles of old documents.
Keitel went into immediate conference with General Beck, Chief of the General Staff. When Beck was summoned to see the Führer, he had the luck to grab General Erich von Manstein – the army’s most capable general – to go with him.
Manstein was supposed to be on his way out of Bendlerstrasse where, until Hitler’s purge, he’d been deputy chief of the General Staff. By now he should have been on the train to Liegnitz, to the humiliatingly low job of commanding the 18th Infantry Division.
It took Manstein five hours to draft the plans, which, to conceal the fact that the original was lost, were called ‘Case Otto’. By 6:30 p.m. orders were on the teleprinters to mobilize three army corps and the necessary air-force units.
Alex Horner found an excuse to go into the room where the fabled General Manstein was at work. He was a ferocious-looking man with grey hair, bushy eyebrows, and a big beak of a nose. But Manstein’s ferocity was not selectively targeted. Everyone remembered that it was the lonely voice of Manstein who’d objected to the order that in 1934 had dismissed Jews from the army. And Manstein was not afraid to put his objection in writing and send it to the High Command. He protested the meting out of such treatment to men who’d proved, by voluntary enlistment, that they were ready to give their lives for Germany – and added that the army had shown cowardice in surrendering to the Nazi Party on such an issue. Manstein’s courageous protest had alarmed those generals who were frightened to rock the boat. War Minister Blomberg was furious and ordered General Werner von Fritsch (the army C in C) to take disciplinary action against Manstein, but the stalwart Fritsch said it was none of the War Minister’s business.
Now Blomberg had gone, and Fritsch had gone, too, and Manstein was perfecting Hitler’s plans for the invasion of Austria.
TOP SECRET
§ If other measures prove unsuccessful I intend to invade Austria with armed forces to establish constitutional conditions and to prevent further outrages against the pro-German population.
§ The forces of the army and air force detailed for this operation must be ready for invasion on March 12, 1938, at the latest by 1200 hours.
It all seemed a long time ago, thought Colonel Alex Horner as he sat by the roadside perched upon the hull of a broken-down tank.
Alongside him sat his old friend Captain von Kleindorf wearing the black uniform of the tank men. ‘They’re not tanks at all,’ complained von Kleindorf, thumping the thin steel of the PzKw IA with his fist. ‘Five metres long, and armed with nothing better than a couple of machine guns. The damned thing only weighs six tons! Look at it.’
