Göring had the grandest title. He was Reichsmarschall des Grossdeutschen Reiches. He was the most popular—after Hitler, of course—with the people. But he had failed to bomb England into submission, and later to protect Germany from American and British bombers. Moreover, he had become the next thing to a drug addict, and tales circulated of homosexual orgies at Carinhall, his hunting estate in the Schorfheide Forest north of Berlin, and his influence had suffered.
Canaris knew that many of the rumors about Göring’s sexual proclivities and drug addiction had been, if not invented, then circulated by the man everyone agreed was the most dangerous senior Nazi, Heinrich Himmler. He had two titles: He was Reichsprotektor Himmler and Reichsführer-SS Himmler. And, playing on Hitler’s distrust of his generals, Himmler had managed to create his own army—thirty divisions strong—called the Waffen-SS.
The third man likely to have traveled to Wolfsschanze in his own Heinkel, Martin Bormann, also had two titles. Originally, he had been the Parteileiter of the Nazi party, running it as Hitler’s deputy, and answering only to him. Recently, without objection from the Führer, he had started referring to himself as Reichsleiter Bormann, suggesting he was leading the Reich, not only the political party, and again subordinate only to Hitler.
And if those three—or only two of them—were there, Canaris reasoned, then chances were good that so was the clubfooted minister of public enlightenment and propaganda, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D.
He probably caught a ride with Bormann. Or Günsche commandeered a Heinkel for him as he did for me.
Four vehicles—a large Mercedes open sedan and three Kübelwagens, militarized, canvas-topped versions of the Volkswagen—came to meet the Heinkel as ground handlers showed the pilot where to park. An SS-hauptsturmführer was standing in the front seat of the Mercedes. Nine storm troopers under an SS-oberscharführer, all armed with Schmeisser machine pistols, got quickly out of the Kübelwagens and surrounded the airplane.
When the hauptsturmführer saw that his men were in place, he gestured rather imperiously to the sergeant to go to the airplane. He then got out of the Mercedes and walked to the Heinkel.
The door in the fuselage opened and Canaris came out.
The hauptsturmführer and the oberscharführer gave the Nazi salute. Canaris returned it with an almost casual wave of his arm and walked to the Mercedes, followed by von und zu Waching and Gehlen. They all got in.
The oberscharführer went into the Heinkel as the hauptsturmführer walked quickly to the Mercedes, which started off as soon as he got in.
They drove off the airfield to the collection of buildings and yellow-and-black-striped barrier pole guarding access to the inner compound.
A half-dozen SS officers and enlisted men gave the Nazi salute, and one of the latter trotted to the Mercedes and opened the car’s passenger doors. Canaris and the others got out. The barrier pole was raised, and they walked past it and got into another open Mercedes.
Changing cars saved the time it would take to thoroughly search a car entering the interior compound.
The car, a Mercedes reserved for senior officers, carried them a kilometer and a half past stark concrete bunkers and finally stopped before one of them, where another half-dozen SS officers and enlisted men, all armed with Schmeisser machine pistols, gave the Nazi salute.
They had reached the Führerbunker itself.
Canaris, von und zu Waching, and Gehlen got out of the Mercedes and walked to a sturdy steel door, which an enlisted man pulled open just as they reached it and closed after they had passed through.
They were now in a barren room, presided over by an SS-obersturmbannführer. There was a table, and a row of steel cabinets each large enough for a suitcase. A double shelf above a coatrack held perhaps twenty uniform caps.
The obersturmbannführer gave a crisp Nazi salute and barked, “Heil Hitler!”
Canaris again made a causal wave of his arm.
“These officers are, Herr Admiral?”
“They are with me,” Canaris replied.
“Regulations require I have their names and organizations, Herr Admiral, and see their identity documents.”
“Fregattenkapitän Otto von und zu Waching, my deputy,” Canaris replied, “and Oberstleutnant Reinhard Gehlen, of Abwehr Ost.”
As the two handed over their identity documents, which the obersturmbannführer scrutinized carefully before handing them to a clerk, who wrote the names and the date and time on a form, Canaris took his pistol, a 9mm Luger Parabellum, from its holster and laid it on the table.
“The Führer’s security, Herr Oberstleutnant,” Canaris said evenly, “requires that you surrender your sidearm, and any knives you might have, to these officers.”
“Jawohl, Herr Admiral,” Gehlen said, and laid his pistol on the table. “No knives, Herr Admiral.”
Canaris gave his uniform cap to one of the enlisted men, who put it on the rack. Canaris then raised his arms to the sides at shoulder height.
“With your permission, Herr Admiral,” the obersturmbannführer said, and patted him down.
Gehlen and von und zu Waching went through the same routine.
The obersturmbannführer nodded at a hauptsturmführer, who clicked his heels and said, “If you will be good enough to come with me, gentlemen?”
He led them through a steel door, down concrete corridors and stairwells, and finally stopped before another steel door.
Canaris had been here often enough to know this was not the door to where Hitler could usually be found poring over a stack of maps.
“What’s this, Herr Hauptsturmführer?”
“Reichsleiter Bormann wished to have a word with you, Herr Admiral, before you are received by the Führer.”
“Very well.”
“A word alone with you, Herr Admiral,” the hauptsturmführer said.
Canaris nodded and went through the door. Bormann was not there; the room was empty and unfurnished.
Is this a trick to get me in here?
What happens next?
The Bavarian corporal and half a dozen of Himmler’s thugs rush in to knock me to the floor?
Then Hitler looks down at me and says, “We know all about Valkyrie. I wanted to spit in your traitorous eyes before I turn you over to the SS”?
The door opened and Martin Bormann entered and closed the door.
“I’ll have to make this quick, Canaris. He knows you’re here.”
“What’s this all about, Bormann?”
“Early this morning, he sent for me. I found out later that he’d just heard Jeschonnek blew his brains out.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he was worried about Operation Phoenix.”
“Himmler told him how they blundered again over there?”
“No. He doesn’t know about that, and I’m not going to tell him. What he said—he was quite emotional—was that ‘if things go badly’ he and his senior officers will of course fight to the death in Berlin. But that it was important that National Socialism survive, and that meant some of its ‘relatively senior officers’—he mentioned von Wachtstein, which surprised me, until I learned that Keitel had sent von Wachtstein to tell him about yesterday’s disaster.
“Anyway, he said that we have to make sure relatively senior officers, military and especially in the party, find refuge in South America, and that they have the funds to keep National Socialism alive and bring it back. That I should consider it a high priority.”
“My God!”
“I told him things were going along according to plan, and he gave me a look that made me think he knew about the Froggers, et cetera. But then he said, ‘I’m going to send for Canaris. He’s reliable, he knows Argentina, and I don’t think he’s playing an active enough role in Operation Phoenix.’”
Canaris did not respond.
“And then he left. I thought I should tell you before you go in there. We’re going to have to be very careful, Canaris.”
“
I understand. Thank you.”
“You better get in there. I know he’s waiting for you.”
Canaris nodded, then walked to the door and pulled it open.
“Shall I announce you, Herr Admiral?” the hauptsturmführer at the door of what Canaris thought of as “the map room” asked.
“That won’t be necessary. The Führer sent for me.”
The hauptsturmführer pulled open the door. Canaris, with von und zu Waching and Gehlen on his heels, walked in.
Adolf Hitler—surprising Canaris not at all—was bent over a large, map-covered table. He was wearing rather ugly eyeglasses. His military staff, headed by Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, plus all the people Canaris expected to be there, including Himmler and Goebbels, were standing in a rough half-circle at the table. Behind them, against the wall, were lesser lights, among them Generalleutnant von Wachtstein and Luftwaffe General Kurt Student.
Canaris had expected to see von Wachtstein, but he wondered what Student was doing here; an advocate of “vertical envelopment,” Student had lost favor with Hitler after his Fallschirmjäger troops not only hadn’t easily captured Crete when they had parachuted onto it, but had suffered severe casualties.
The only ones who acknowledged Canaris, and that with a just-perceptible nod, were Keitel and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander in chief of the navy. The others looked at him as if they had never seen him before.
After perhaps thirty seconds, Hitler looked up at Canaris, who rendered another sloppy salute and said, “My Führer.”
Von und zu Waching and Gehlen stood to attention.
Hitler pointed at Gehlen.
“Who is this officer?”
“Oberstleutnant Gehlen, Reinhard, my Führer,” Canaris said. “The senior intelligence officer of the OKH.”
“And the oberstleutnant is here why?”
“I thought you might wish to receive him, my Führer. He returned from Russia only last night.”
Hitler started to walk around the table.
“Very thoughtful of you, Admiral,” he said. “But unnecessary. Bad news travels very fast. I have already learned of the daily disaster there. And the daily disaster here in Germany.”
He was now standing in front of Gehlen.
“Colonel, how good of you to come,” he said, putting out his hand and oozing charm. “I am always delighted to meet a fighting soldier; one doesn’t see many of them around here.”
He patted Gehlen’s arm, then turned to Canaris.
“What I hoped the admiral could tell me is the present location of Benito Mussolini. But before we get into that, I want to hear the admiral’s sage evaluation of the death of General Jeschonnek.”
“My Führer, I was very saddened to hear of General Jeschonnek’s death.”
“I asked, Admiral, for your evaluation of the effect of his death on Germany, not its effect on you.”
Canaris suddenly realized that Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, was not in the room.
I should have seen that sooner.
“My Führer, as I understand the situation—and I don’t know much; it only happened last midnight—General Jeschonnek took his life because he was in a state of depression and temporarily bereft of his senses. Apparently he felt that he had failed—the Luftwaffe had failed—to adequately protect Germany from Allied air raids.”
“As it has,” Hitler said. “But this ‘failure,’ as you so delicately put it, has not caused Reichsmarschall Göring to become depressed—to blow his brains out—and I would say, Admiral, wouldn’t you, that the reichsmarschall is at least as responsible for the Luftwaffe’s failure as was General Jeschonnek?”
“My Führer, I don’t pretend to understand suicide. My feeling is that men have different breaking points. I can suggest only that General Jeschonnek reached his when he realized what had happened.”
“Germany cannot afford to have its generals blowing their brains out every time they suffer a temporary setback,” Hitler said bitterly.
Hitler glared at him for a long moment, during which Canaris had decided it was his time to be on the receiving end of one of Hitler’s tyrannical rages.
“Dr. Goebbels suggests that we report that General Jeschonnek met his end, quote, test-flying a new fighter plane, end quote,” Hitler said, “and that he be buried, with all the attendant publicity, with full military honors. I have mixed feelings. I wonder if Jeschonnek didn’t take the coward’s way out.”
He looked at Canaris, waiting for him to reply.
“My Führer, I am wholly unqualified to offer an opinion about anything Dr. Goebbels says vis-à-vis a delicate situation like this one.”
Hitler stared at him with icy eyes.
Here it comes. I am about to be dressed down by the Austrian corporal in front of the leadership—less Göring, of course—of the Thousand-Year Reich.
It didn’t.
“Where, in your opinion, Admiral, is Benito Mussolini?” Hitler asked.
My God, where did that question come from?
On 25 July, Italian king Victor Emmanuel had stripped Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini of his power and arrested him. Nine days later, a representative of Marshal Badoglio, who had replaced Mussolini, secretly surrendered Italy unconditionally to a representative of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. The surrender would not be made public for weeks, on 8 September 1943.
“On the island of Ponza, my Führer.”
“Where?”
“On the island of Ponza, my Führer,” Canaris repeated. He pointed at the map-strewn table. “May I?”
“Please do,” Hitler said.
Canaris went to the table, found the map he needed, and pointed his index finger at a cluster of islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy.
“On Ponza, the larger island, my Führer,” Canaris said.
“Himmler, would you take a look at this, please?” Hitler asked.
Heinrich Himmler walked quickly to the table.
“That is where Admiral Canaris tells me Mussolini is,” Hitler said. “It is not where you told me he is. I wonder which of you is right.”
Himmler said firmly: “Captain Skorzeny reported within the last forty-eight hours, my Führer, that Il Duce is being held in the Campo Imperatore Hotel in Abruzzi, in the Apennine Mountains.”
“Admiral?” Hitler asked very softly.
“I have a man in the Italian marines who are guarding Il Duce, my Führer,” Canaris said. “In his daily report—as of four this morning, Mussolini is on Ponza.”
“Your man sends you a daily report on Il Duce’s whereabouts?” Hitler asked.
“Yes, my Führer. He has previously reported that Mussolini will be taken—as soon as safe travel can be arranged—to the Campo Imperatore Hotel.”
“Tell the admiral, Himmler, who Hauptmann Skorzeny is,” Hitler said softly.
“SS-Hauptmann Otto Skorzeny is something of a legend within the Waffen-SS, Canaris. I assigned him—as the best man for the job available to me—to track Il Duce when the Italians betrayed us and Mussolini was arrested. I can’t believe he made a mistake like this.”
“I can,” Hitler said. “Which leaves us with something of an administrative problem.” He fixed his eyes on Canaris. “You will learn, Admiral, if you already haven’t, that the reward for someone who doesn’t make mistakes is that other onerous chores are soon added to what chores he is already bearing by those who do make mistakes.”
Canaris thought: Someone like yourself, you mean? Who is incapable of making a mistake, and is thus doomed to correct the errors of others?
Hitler looked around at the other senior officers who were still standing in a rough semicircle behind him. He didn’t see what he was looking for, and he turned his attention to the officers lined up against the wall.
“General von Wachtstein, would you be good enough to join us?”
Von Wachtstein walked over to Hitler, who went on:
“Ge
neral, Reichsprotektor Himmler and Admiral Canaris are about to return to Berlin, where, together with General Student, they will replan and execute the liberation of Il Duce from his captors. Replanning is necessary because if the original plan—General Student’s Fallschirmjägers taking the Campo Imperatore Hotel in Abruzzi with irresistible force—had been executed, Il Duce would not have been there.
“A little mistake on the part of one of the Reichsprotektor’s men. Or perhaps on the part of the Reichsprotektor himself; he didn’t consider it necessary to consult with the chief of Abwehr intelligence vis-à-vis the actual location of Il Duce. Why should he? The SS is perfect and knows everything.
“Your role in this, General von Wachtstein, is to witness the discussions between these gentlemen and, when they have made any decision at all, to relay that decision to me so that I will have the chance to stop any blunders before they occur. Telephone each decision these gentlemen reach to Obersturmführer Günsche, who will pass it to me. Any questions?”
“No, my Führer,” von Wachtstein said.
“That will be all, gentlemen,” Hitler said.
And then he walked to Gehlen.
“I very much appreciate the good work Abwehr Ost has been doing, Herr Oberstleutnant. Please convey my compliments to your associates when you return to the east.”
“Jawohl, my Führer. Thank you, my Führer.”
Hitler walked back to the map-covered table and leaned over it.
One by one, Himmler, von Wachtstein, Student, Canaris, von und zu Waching, and Gehlen walked to the door, gave the Nazi salute, and left. Nobody seemed to notice.
[THREE]
Tempelhof Airfield
Berlin, Germany
1605 19 August 1943
The Honor of Spies Page 16
