It took another two days for Mueller to get permission to arrest the two physicists and to perform a full scale search of the Gottow facility. The Army objected, but presented with incriminating documents, the Army chief physicist had to agree that closure of the facility and a full search and investigation were a reasonable precaution.
Documents found in Gerlach’s safe indicated that the analysis of the Wolfsburg incident was falsified by Dr. Weizsacker of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute who had made the presentation that claimed Wolfsburg was destroyed by an atomic device.
Further searches at the Institute uncovered an interesting piece of evidence: a report written by Weizsacker stating that the huge explosion over Wolfsburg had been caused by conventional chemical explosives. He speculated that the explosives, all five or six thousand tons of them, were teleported to a spot about a thousand feet above the Volkswagen plant and then activated. In support of the theory the report cited clear evidence of nitrate residue all over the area. It also pointed out that tiny remnants of steel brackets, covered with a residue of heavy elements, strongly suggesting the use of a quantum teleportation device.
The evidence mentioned in the report was indeed to be found at both the Wolfsburg and Wolfsschanze sites, having been recently spread at night by a low-flying silent and undetected stealth jet.
The experts within the Gestapo speculated that Weizsacker had not published his original conclusions but decided instead to claim that the explosion was atomic because he held a patent for an atomic bomb. Even though the patent was shared with the Institute, if the Reich did manage to make the device a reality, the scientist would make a huge profit.
By the end of September, 1941, the Uranium project was over. Hitler told his underlings that his instinct concerning this “Jewish” science was correct. There was nothing to it - the Reich should waste no more resources pursuing it. Teleportation, on the other hand, was a different issue. Heisenberg, an innocent victim of the plot and an expert in quantum physics, was appointed to head the project and instructed “to stop all work on atomic weapons and dedicate all available resources to the development of teleportation.” There were not that many resources to dedicate, as the Fuehrer did not trust theoretical scientists and saw no reason to spend significant resources on developments that would not be useful in the ongoing war. Neither Heisenberg nor any of the staff, who knew better, dared to point out that this order was based on pure fantasy. The other physicists did not try to correct the terrible mistake either. No one wanted to put their neck on the block and be associated with proven spies and enemies of the Reich.
***
On September 29, 1941 Amos Nir attended a combined Military Intelligence and Mossad briefing.
“I think that we are in good shape,” Zvi Kaplan, the Chief of Military Intelligence, said. “It seems from our intercepts that the Nazis dismantled their nuclear effort and have no plans to proceed.”
“We have done a very thorough job,” added the head of the Mossad. “A number of their leading scientists disappeared in the Gestapo labyrinth and others, like the chief Army scientist who had been a staunch proponent of nuclear development, are silent on this issue. I think we have nothing to worry about. Except if they develop teleportation. That would be interesting.
”This operation was fairly easy. We have a serious technological advantage, which helps, but the main advantage we have is knowing who is who and what is about to happen. That advantage will be gone soon, since we are changing history quite vigorously. Next time we will have to do much more planning and it will be a lot more dangerous.”
Chapter 20
Colonel Hirshson presided over a weekly meeting to assess the progress of Operation Moses. He started the meeting formally: “Today is Thursday, September 30, 1941. I hope that this meeting will not be very long – tomorrow is Yom Kippur. It starts tonight at 5:54 pm. I would like to finish this meeting by 3pm to give everyone time to prepare. “We will start, as usual, with area reports. Ukraine first.”
The young woman responsible for organizing the Ukrainian exodus shuffled a pile of papers: “The evacuation is slow. The devastation from the recent fighting is slowing us down. Trains are running in the western Ukraine, but in the eastern part, including Kiev, the Germans are still working on restoring the tracks. We estimate that about a third of the Ukrainian Jews have already arrived and the rest are eager to come. Obviously living under Soviet rule for several decades has made these people eager to get out. The famine of 1932-1933 left them scared and the Communist party purges of 1937 undermined their trust in the party, any trust they may have had left, that is. Our only difficulty right now is moving people to the railways. The urban Jewish population is mostly gone. We have to use local resources – horse drawn carts mostly. The Germans assigned a number of trucks to this project, which helps. I think that we will be done by January, or sooner if the trains start moving again.”
“The Baltic countries, Belarus and Western Russia next.”
“We are done with about two thirds of Lithuania and Belarus. Our main limitation is the same as in the Ukraine, the availability of transportation. We’re still finding isolated pockets of anti-Zionists, mostly hardcore Communists, that are not willing to leave. My estimate is that once everyone else is gone, those people will reconsider. In any case, this is a very small portion of the population.
“Latvia and Estonia present a different problem. A large part of the Jewish community there is assimilated and, especially in Latvia, very proud of their German heritage. So far we’ve only been successful convincing the religiously observant and the active Zionists to evacuate. The rest are waiting. I think they’ll leave before too long. The locals are extremely unfriendly and the Germans can’t restrain themselves very well in this environment. We’ve rescued a third as of last Friday. It’s slowed down to a trickle now, but there were not that many Jews there to begin with. At the current rate they will all be moved by December, I think.
“Thank you. Romania and Hungary, please.”
A middle-aged, tired-looking, bookish man nodded. “It is slow-going, especially in Hungary. Like Latvia, a large percentage of Jews there are completely assimilated. Since the Horty regime stopped oppressing them as requested by the Germans, we are having trouble persuading the two thirds of the population who aren’t religious or Zionist to move. We were lucky to find a descendant of a famous rabbi from the area – he was of real help. The rest are refusing to leave their comfortable homes. I don’t see how we can force them.
“We tried persuasion; we even showed them a documentary of what happened in German occupied Poland before our intervention. They were impressed but still decided against trying to persuade their community to leave. The Polish experience doesn’t apply to civilized Hungary was their point of view. Documentaries of transports from Hungary to Auschwitz didn’t have much impact either since the Germans are not demanding Jewish blood.”
No one had any idea how to get the Hungarian Jews to move short of asking the fascist Horty regime to forcibly deport them, so the discussion moved on. Hirshson made a note to discuss this issue with Yaari and possibly ask Horty to deport the Hungarian Jews.
“It is different in Romania. There are several famous rabbinical schools there with well-respected leaders. As you remember, you gave us approval to transport ultra-Orthodox rabbis from Israel directly to Romania. That did it. The heads of the yeshivas were convinced and persuaded the observant community to follow. The rest are still hesitating, but I think that they will leave soon: they’re already feeling isolated and scared by the Antonescu regime. We have three German passenger ships taking people directly to Israel. The emigration should be completed by mid-November.”
“The Balkans, please.”
“Bosnia and Croatia are done. I guess that the combination of local pro-Nazi regimes, Muslim SS, and Croat murderers were enough to get our people moving. These were small communities anyway. Serbian Jews are also coming due to the partisan war there and the
German repressions. Bulgarian Jews are not moving at all. The Bulgarian government shielded them from Nazi persecution even before we intervened and is definitely friendly now. The population feels safe and isn’t interested in Israel.
“We had better luck with the Greek community; mostly because of German repressions there. Most of them have already left. Same goes for Montenegro and Albania.”
“Poland?”
A tall bald man smiled sadly: “We have no problem persuading the Polish Jews to leave: in western Poland they’ve been living under German occupation since 1939. They are so eager to leave that we had to establish priorities with the community councils. The Germans simply don’t have enough trains going to Italy to accommodate everyone who wants to leave. We started with Krakow – it is, as you know, the seat of the German Governor General for Poland who was irritated by all the Jews, so we took them out of there as soon as we could. I can report that as of last Friday both Krakow and the Warsaw ghetto have been completely evacuated. Lodz is three quarters done. We’ll start moving people from small towns as soon as we’re done with the larger ghettos. My estimate is that about three quarters of the Polish Jews have been evacuated.”
“Good. The low countries and Denmark are next.”
“We have a somewhat difficult situation,” the woman responsible for the region said. “In our history, the Germans did not act against the Danish Jews - there’s no imminent danger we can point to, so all 7000 of them are reluctant to move. On the other hand, the Dutch and Belgian communities were not given a choice – the local police rounded them up and deported them, to what amounts to concentration camps.
“As of today we have trains full of immigrants running from Holland and Belgium. Nothing from Denmark. At the current rate the Dutch and Belgian Jews will be out of danger in a week.”
“I think that the Danish Jews are safe where they are, at least for the time being,” Hirshson said. “France and Italy are next.”
“We probably would have had a serious problem in France, with so much of the community assimilated, but the Germans and the Vichy government did the job for us. A large part of France has been occupied by the Nazis for over a year. They’ve been deporting Jews to Poland. The remaining community needs little persuasion to come to us. The Vichy part of France is not much different. The French police have been enthusiastically finding and deporting Jews. When we arrived, the community, or what remained of it, was mostly eager to go. I think that about 80% of the Jews that were still remaining in France are safe now.
“Italy is a different story. Our presence here has an advantage; we can, and did, send a large number of emissaries to every community. Including some places in southern Italy that have only a few Jewish families. On the other hand, the fascists, despite a lot of anti-Semitic talk, haven’t actually done much against the Jews. The population is generally friendly and they don’t feel that they are in danger. Personally I think they are right, unless the Germans occupy Italy. We tried to be discreet in our dealings with this community – let them know that they can escape to safety but not make a big deal of it. We don’t want the Catholic Church to discover what we’re really doing and try to stop us. The Vatican was upset when the Croatian Jews left the death camps and actively tried to stop them from getting onto our boats in Dubrovnik. Who knows how the Church will react once they figure out who we really are.”
Colonel Hirshson nodded in agreement: “I think you are right. I also think that I skipped Czechoslovakia.”
“Yes, I was eagerly waiting to report and thought you didn’t think it important enough,” smiled the girl that was responsible for the area. “We have two distinctive areas. In the Czech part, we have a steady stream of immigrants. The Germans have been in the country for three years and started oppressing the Jews as soon as they got there. By the time we appeared, a large portion of the community had already been deported to either Theresienstadt or Poland. The rest relaxed when we came on the scene and the oppression eased. But we will have everybody out before January 1942.
“The picture is different in Slovakia. Their ruler, the Catholic priest Father Tiso, paid the Nazis to collect and deport the Slovakian Jews. By the time we arrived, some had been deported to Polish concentration camps but most of the community - about 50,000 - still remained. They needed no urging to go. As soon as we persuaded the leadership that we are for real, everybody left. We are done with Slovakia.”
“Good. Finally, Germany and Austria.”
“There is not much left for us to do in either country. There are still some Jews there but most left as soon as we offered them the opportunity. The remainder are either in hiding and very difficult to find, or are so sure that they are ‘Germans of the Moses persuasion’ and so patriotic that there is no way to make them leave. Our operation in both countries is winding down.”
Hirshson looked at his watch. It was time to get ready for the Day of Atonement. “The chance of the Nazis discovering our bluff increases daily. Thanks to all of you we are doing fairly well. I wish you all an easy fast and to be inscribed for a good year in the book of life.” Ephraim Hirshson wasn’t observant, but Jewish culture was deeply ingrained and the traditional blessing came naturally.
***
Three days later colonel Hirshson’s telephone blinked its red light: “Hirshson here.”
“Hi Ephraim. This is Gad.”
“Oh, hi chief. My red General Staff phone was blinking, but I didn’t expect you on the line. How are you?”
“Fine, thank you. I hear that you are doing well too.”
“Yes. We are bit crowded here, but this is much better than the alternative.”
“Ephraim, you think that your deputy can run the base for a week or so?”
“I am sure that the Major can run it until it’s closed. He is a good officer and manager.”
“Good, good. I think that you deserve a short vacation. Your wife is complaining she hasn’t seen you for five months. Hop on the next plane and come home. The orders are being delivered to the base teletype as we speak. Don’t forget to visit the General Staff the day after tomorrow. Call my secretary for details.”
Hirshson knew his superiors well enough to realize it wasn’t his wife’s loneliness they were concerned about. But at least he’d get to see the family before finding out why they wanted to see him.
Chapter 21
The Minister for Industry and Infrastructure looked at his watch. It was time to start the meeting.
“I welcome all of you. Please be seated. You were invited to this meeting for an update on the current situation and to improve our communications. First an update.” The Minister gestured to a young man waiting in the wings, “My assistant will do the honors.”
“The situation for today, September 29, 1941, is as follows: Our total industrial output is up by about 40%. Both exports and imports of industrial products are zero. Inflation is currently at less than one fifth of one percent…” The assistant went on for a while with statistical information.
Ze’ev Hirshson interrupted. “We all know the statistics. Maybe not to the second decimal point, but we know them. Can we go on to the next item on the agenda?” A murmur of agreement went through the crowd of thirty industry leaders.
“Fine” the Minister said. “I only wanted you to hear the statistics one more time because they point to a problem: we need a drastic change in our industrial makeup or we face a crisis. Before the Event we imported most of our industrial needs. This included everything from heavy earth-moving machinery to silverware. We paid for it mostly with earnings from the export of high tech and pharmaceuticals, plus a considerable income from tourism. All that is impossible now and will stay so until we establish diplomatic and trade relations with other countries.”
“It’s the government’s decision that made trade impossible,” a tall heavyset man said. “If you open the borders we can do business again as usual.”
“No, we can’t,” the Minister responded. “The world is
at war and many years behind us in technology and science. We could not buy a D12 Caterpillar bulldozer no matter how much we paid – They’ll start making them in the U.S. in about seventy years, assuming we haven’t messed everything up. We also can’t buy a Toyota or a digital clock. If we open our borders now we will be, with a little advertising, able to export anything we want, but we would not be able to buy one modern item. Some of the machinery available now may be useful and we will be able to buy raw materials.
“This is the reason you are here. We need to achieve industrial independence as soon as possible. The government wants to support you in this effort, if you are ready to cooperate.”
“What kind of support?”
“We’ll place orders with the companies that agree to participate in the program. The orders will be for items you’re capable of making in small quantities or close to being able to make. If necessary, we’ll advance you the capital you need to fill the orders. That will be the first phase. In the second phase, or maybe concurrently – depending on your response – we’ll fund, again, through loans, development of manufacturing capabilities. For example: we can produce fair numbers of computers but have only a tiny capacity to make specialty hard drives. We would like to be able to make computers for export when the time comes as well as in numbers sufficient for internal consumption. We also need to make mass storage - hard drives or something else. There’s no industrial base for that at all.”
“Sounds good to me,” the president of a large consumer electronics and appliance manufacturer announced. “How do we go about it?”
The Shield: a novel Page 28
