The German Half-Bloods (The Half-Bloods Trilogy Book 1)

by Jana Petken

  “What time is it?” he asked Kurt, who’d been driving for almost an hour.

  “We have plenty of time. It’s only seven o’clock.”

  “Drive down to the river and park up. I want to go through the plan one more time before we get to the Grunewald.”

  “Dieter, we’ve been through the plan three times. We’re as prepared as we’re going to be.”

  Dieter smiled. “My father used to say that one can never be over-prepared for the unexpected or unthinkable.” He closed his eyes and inhaled a long, deep breath to relax him. He’d been calm up to this point, but his nerves, he was sorry to say, were fraying at the edges and his resolve was weakening.

  He had not wanted to act unilaterally. If he were honest, he had hoped that the Royal Air Force would take the decision out of his hands altogether and bomb his factory from the air. How difficult could it be to hit his massive building complex? He’d given Heller the coordinates, the night skies had been clear for over a month, and the Allies were now hitting targets in Berlin with greater accuracy. Yet after every bombing raid, not one brick or window of the factory had been damaged. “What are they waiting for, a bloody written invitation?”

  “Are you, all right?” Kurt asked.

  “I’m fine.” But that wasn’t true, Dieter admitted. He hadn’t been ‘fine’ since the meeting he’d attended two days earlier with SS officers in the Reich’s security headquarters. They had all sat so fiercely upright, they’d appeared to have poles stuck up their arses.

  The board executives from the chemical and pharmaceutical companies that manufactured and distributed Zyklon B gas had also been there, pacing up and down the conference room because the Chancellery officials and their host were a mere ten minutes late. He’d hated every minute he’d spent with the sycophants in that room, yet he admitted that he’d behaved in a less than honest way himself. Perhaps every one of them had been acting? It was difficult to truly know anyone nowadays. The meeting with the SS had ruined his enjoyment of the wedding.

  At the reception, he’d drunk champagne after champagne, had danced with Laura and his new daughter-in-law, and had laughed with Freddie and his Gestapo colleagues. But nothing, not even his beloved Laura, had been able to take his mind off that blasted meeting where he’d met SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, Reinhard Heydrich, for the first time.

  Heydrich, the man famed for being behind the attack on the Jews on Kristallnacht, was known throughout the Reich as having an iron heart, and it was rumoured that Hitler had personally given him that name. The Obergruppenführer had walked into the conference room just as people were being seated, but he had stayed only long enough to welcome Dieter and the other civilians present. He’d been polite, shaking hands, and thanking the executives from IG Farben, Degesch and Vogel Industries for their cooperation. Then, he had uttered the devastating words that would remain in Dieter’s mind forever, whether he succeeded tonight or not.

  “I am pleased to tell you that my aides have returned from Poland with excellent results from our first tests using hydrogen cyanide, known to us as Zyklon B gas,” he’d announced with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “I believe, therefore, gentlemen, that we have found our solution to the Jewish problem.”

  The SS officers in the room had clapped at that point, and Dieter had joined in while wondering if any of those present had found Heydrich’s announcement as abhorrent as he had. It had been impossible to gauge the feelings in the room, to see behind the veil of smiles and nodding approvals. Heydrich’s pronouncement had signified an evil, comprehensive policy to exterminate human beings, to all intents and purposes, genocide. But to his disgust, no one had dropped their smiles of satisfaction, not even him.

  After Heydrich had left the room, his aide outlined the Polish experiment, step by step, leaving nothing to the imagination. Dieter had not been told why he’d been invited to what had been a classified SS meeting, but as Heydrich’s aide went into more details, the reason for Vogel Industries’ presence became clear.

  “The testing took place in a makeshift gas chamber in the cellar of Block 11 in the Auschwitz camp,” the SS Brigadeführer began. “The location used was not ideal, given that we didn’t know if the area was fully airtight. But, as we had no other suitable venue within the concentration camp’s grounds we decided to forge ahead taking extra precautions for our own safety by wearing masks throughout our preparations and during the experimentation.

  “How many test subjects did you use?” An official from the Interior Ministry asked.

  “We worked with six hundred Soviet prisoners of war and two hundred and fifty ill or weak … let me see … those inmates who were not going to live very long due to their various conditions.” The Brigadeführer dithered as he read the brief.

  “And did the gas perform as quickly and as thoroughly as we’d hoped?” the same minister asked.

  “Yes, Herr Schmidt. It was a very smooth procedure from start to finish. The canisters were the right size, very well sealed, easy to move, and the gas, when released, was almost silent, apart from a couple of times when it was discharged too quickly by the handler. That problem will be eliminated as our men become better accustomed to the correct dispensing techniques.” The Brigadeführer paused to take a sip of water before making his final announcement. “The success of this latest experiment means we can confidently adopt Zyklon B as our preferred killing agent.”

  Minister Schmidt, the only other man to have spoken, thus far, asked, “Where will it eventually be used?”

  “Ah, that is a good question. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a list of locations until we investigate their suitability. I can tell you, however, that we received confirmation from Poland this morning that a new facility will be constructed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, specifically for our gas programme, and in time we will also manufacture and distribute the gas from there.”

  The Brigadeführer had then directed his attention to Dieter. “Herr Vogel, we plan to move the Zyklon B stock in your factory to Poland on Thursday of next week, and then close down our operation here and transport the machinery and equipment to the Auschwitz camp. On behalf of the Reich, I want to thank you for your cooperation during this experimental period – we will, of course, return your factory basement to its original condition.”

  Dieter had been quick to respond. “Your thanks are gracious, but not necessary, Brigadeführer. I played no part in the setting up of the gas plant, or the manufacturing process. I merely supplied the space.”

  His spirits had soared at the news, but as he walked to his car, so had his guilt. The rumours he’d refused to believe for over a year had become facts. The gas was an extermination weapon, and the Reich wouldn’t stop at Auschwitz, they’d employ it in other camps eventually, and perhaps even modify its uses on battlefields, or in heavy weaponry projectiles. He’d experienced mustard gas during the First World War, had tasted it in his mouth, had watched men squirm in agony as it blinded them and filled their lungs. He knew what a vile weapon poison gas was, especially this new generation, which would be fatal to every single victim exposed to it.

  He’d got into his car, cursing Reinhard Heydrich, and at the same time, trying for the umpteenth time to absolve himself of responsibility. He hadn’t manufactured the gas; that badge of horror belonged to Degesch. It was their name on the canisters, and the Vogels would not own it now or in the future. He’d played no part in the design and renovations that had transformed his factory’s basement into a secure chemical plant. His workers didn’t even use the machinery producing the canisters, for specialists on the manufacturer’s payroll managed the apparatus, using only a few of Vogel’s labour force to clean up after the outside contractors.

  On that day, Dieter had tried to soothe his beleaguered conscience, but the truth had been the more enduring enemy; he was as much to blame for the deaths of over eight hundred people in Poland, as Adolf Hitler, Heydrich, and the Third Reich.

  Chapter Sixty


  Kurt parked the car in a secluded spot at the edge of the Grunewald Forest, confident that it wouldn’t be spotted from the road. The two men then walked half a kilometre to the derelict gamekeeper’s lodge where they’d earlier hidden the wireless transmitter and equipment.

  Kurt cranked the generator and positioned the poles on which the antenna was strung while Dieter communicated with London. The Allies had secret agents in every corner of enemy territory, and even in Germany it was almost impossible to tune into a communications receiver of an evening without running across signals which were obviously not what they were pretending to be. In the early days, he’d wondered why spies weren’t captured the first time they went on air? It hadn’t taken him long to realise that the sheer volume of traffic on the airwaves using numerous different frequencies confused the hell out of the Gestapo and Abwehr, and that more transmissions, not less, thwarted their efforts to catch the perpetrators.

  After a successful transmission, Dieter and Kurt made their way to the Vogel factory, and when they got close they parked at the side of the road to check their equipment and weapons.

  “We have less than an hour to do what we need to do,” Kurt said. “I hope the British air raid isn’t early. I won’t be happy if I’m killed by our friends.”

  “It won’t be early. You worry too much.” Dieter scratched his head. Heller had assured him that the British bombers wouldn’t take off until ten o’clock GMT. They were going to hit Berlin, and the industrial zone where Dieter’s factory was located, was a priority. Dieter gave Kurt a sardonic smile. “C’mon, Kurt, what can go wrong? The British haven’t been able to hit my factory once in the last year, and if I thought they were going to hit it tonight we wouldn’t be here blowing the damn place up.”

  When the Vogel Medical and Surgical Equipment factory had begun manufacturing gas, the SS had erected a barbed wire fence around its perimeter, as well as a gate and guard post that was manned twenty-four hours a day by SS soldiers working twelve-hour shifts. Three more SS guards took on day and night watches inside the factory, but they were not interested in securing the main floors where Dieter’s workers manufactured legitimate equipment, only the basement and grounds.

  Gone were the days when one civilian night watchman would patrol the factory’s sprawling floors every couple of hours, and in between his rounds, eat sandwiches lovingly prepared by his wife, drink coffee from a flask, read a book or do a crossword. No nefarious act had ever tainted the factory’s proud history, no thieves or vandals had ever stolen or damaged property, spread graffiti on its walls or so much as pilfered a screw. The Vogels supplied a living to an entire neighbourhood of working-class people who protected the factory as though it were their own. The workers didn’t tolerate chattering moaners, unproductive wastrels, or anyone else who might get up to mischievous antics, for those people were seen to be risking everyone’s jobs in a place now run almost entirely by the SS and their toadies.

  The SS soldier at the entrance gate snapped Dieter a Heil Hitler salute before letting Kurt drive the car inside the property. Dieter found the gesture amusing, and not for the first time. Everywhere he went in the factory, SS soldiers, and his own people, saluted him in that way, as though they were afraid he was a Reich-loving bootlicker who’d report their lack of respect for the country’s demi-God.

  Kurt stopped the car but kept the engine running while Dieter got out and walked to the guard-post hut. “Good evening, is everything quiet?” Dieter asked the soldier who opened the log book.

  “Yes, all quiet, Herr Vogel. I’m surprised to see you here on a Sunday night. Sign in, please.”

  “You do know I own this factory, Schütze?”

  “Everyone signs in at night – orders.”

  After scribbling his name, Dieter asked, “Do you get a break during your shift?”

  “Yes, my watch finishes at eight o’clock in the morning, but I’m relieved every two hours to stretch my legs and have a hot drink, or maybe a cold one.”

  “And when is your next break?”

  “I’ve just come back from it.”

  “Very good, Schütze,” Dieter said, pleased with the information. “I’ll be here for an hour or so. Please inform the three guards inside to gather at the basement’s entrance. I would like to speak to them about a security matter.”

  Kurt drove the car to the factory’s main doors, parked right in front of them and then accompanied Dieter inside. There, the civilian night watchman, gave the salute, his eyes wide with surprise at seeing Dieter.

  “It’s been a while, Gert. How are you? How’s the family?” Dieter asked.

  “I’m well, Herr Vogel. The wife is fine, too, but my grandchildren are fed up with the air raids. They’re scared to go to sleep at night, and there’s the back and forwards to the shelter. The poor mites are having a hard time with their learning in school. Still, as Herr Goebbels says, we must put safety above our own comforts.”

  “And he’s quite right, Gert. I’m going down to the basement. You stay here and keep your eye on my car, there’s a good man.”

  The basement had two entrances: an airtight interior door situated at the bottom of a stairwell at the end of a corridor running the whole length of the building, and an exterior door in the basement that led to a loading bay, rarely used in the past fifteen years as there was another loading bay on the main floor upstairs.

  When Dieter and Kurt arrived at the entrance to the basement, the three guards were failing miserably at hiding their dereliction of duty. A wooden table with cards in a heap in its centre, matches, three stools brought from some other part of the factory, three mugs with tea dregs in them, and three men, half dressed, with collars and jackets undone, were evidence enough that they’d been enjoying a game of poker.

  The men stood in a line, red faced with embarrassment. “Herr Vogel, we had a short break,” one of the soldiers with glasses and a bald head rushed out.

  “So, this is how you defend my factory,” Dieter said, his stern expression matching his tone of voice. “Get properly dressed and clean up this mess.”

  As the soldiers buttoned their jackets and fixed their collars, Dieter and Kurt went for their Welrod Mk I pistols tucked into their waistbands, and then in unison, fired on the three men before they even saw the gun barrels.

  Dieter’s bullet hit one of the guards in the stomach. He fell to the ground, squirming in agony as he tried to go for his gun. Kurt had fired twice at the remaining two men with lightning speed and precision, killing them with shots to the chest.

  “Christ,” Dieter muttered, as his young victim’s eyes pleaded with him for mercy.

  Two more muffled shots from Kurt’s silencer hit the boy’s chest, putting him out of his agony. “Never hesitate, Dieter,” Kurt said. “Had he got to his gun, he would have shot you.”

  Dieter knelt to unhook the keyring holding the basement keys from the man’s belt. “I know that. You don’t need to tell me I mucked up,” he said getting to his feet.

  Dieter went into Kurt’s rucksack and pulled out two gas masks.

  Kurt shook his head. “I told you, I’m not wearing it. They won’t keep us alive if we get caught in the explosion, and they probably won’t protect us if we make a mistake and release the gas.”

  Dieter shrugged. “Suit yourself. One of these saved my life in the Great War.”

  “Well, that may be so, but the gas they make nowadays is much more lethal than it was in 1916. I’m telling you, putting them on is a waste of time.”

  Dieter had learnt quite a bit about the gas plant’s inner workings, but he didn’t fully understand the design of the gasholders and cylinders or what most of the dials, levers and gauges did. “If this Zyklon B stuff goes in your eyes, nose or mouth and you die, don’t blame me,” he said putting his mask on.

  Both men pulled the airtight door open. Made of iron, it was much thicker than a normal door. It also had a panel of three-inch-thick glass at eye-level height to enable those outside to monito
r the gasholder storage tanks and their pipes during periods when only the guards were in the building at night. The door’s purpose was also to protect everything outside the hazardous area from contamination, although they didn’t know if it had ever been tested in an explosion scenario, which was what they now hoped to achieve.

  Dieter had never been allowed to go into the basement without an SS escort, but he had been given access to the gas plant whenever he wanted. He’d told the SS officers at the outset that it was his building, his factory, his workers’ safety that would be on his conscience should something untoward happen.

  His hands shook, and his breathing was heavy in the stillness – he had his escort, he thought, looking back at the dead bodies. “We should have done what I suggested and slit their throats, so there would be no trace of bullets in them.”

  “I disagree. I’m not as quick on my feet as I used to be, and neither are you,” said Kurt, rummaging through his rucksack.

  “Even so, if a keen investigator gets to their burnt cadavers, he’ll see the bullet casings.”

  Kurt raised an eyebrow and then chuckled, “Dieter, this whole place will be incinerated by the time we’re finished. They’ll find rubble, that’s all.”

  Dieter looked again at the bodies. “I hated killing that young man – reminded me of my Wilmot – but you’re right, I’m getting too old for this game.”

  Kurt placed his hand on Dieter’s shoulders. “I know this is hard for you. You’re about to destroy the business you spent years building. But think about Laura. She’ll never leave Germany without you, and you can’t walk away into the sunset without leaving a mess behind for Paul and Willie to clean up. Your friend Freddie might act like a complete dolt, but I think he’s a snake slithering closer and closer to the truth about you. He’ll bite you in the arse, Dieter, you mark my words, he will.”

  Kurt’s analytical mind hit the mark, Dieter admitted, still thinking about the bullets in the dead men. He was worrying for nothing, for when the SS eventually came back in here they’d be more concerned about the gas they’d lost than the burnt bodies.