To the envy of most of the others who, had they dared, would willingly have risked death in the streets rather than remain with their mad Fьhrer in the bunker, von Below said good-bye to his friends and set off into the, flame-torn darkness.
The score of men and women left in the bunker had received orders that they were not to go to bed; so they stood about, drinking heavily. At last, at half past two in the morning, Hitler emerged and took a ceremonial farewell of them all. He shook hands with everybody, but his eyes were glazed with a film of moisture, his walk was unsteady, he seemed dazed and could do no more than mumble inaudible replies to those who spoke to him.
When he had retired they continued to stand about, expecting to hear the shot that would release them from their thraldom. But no shot came. Instead, the Fьhrer’s valet emerged with an order. In the upper basement there was a canteen for the use of the guards and orderlies. With the desperation of despair they were holding a dance and the strains of the music were penetrating to the bunker. Hitler had sent out to say that the music must be toned down because it prevented him from getting to sleep.
Some of his staff lurched drunkenly up the stairs to join the dancers. Gregory, with the awful feeling that this nightmare would never end, went to von Below's now vacant bunk, flung himself fully dressed upon it and fell into a troubled doze.
Next day, the 3oth April, the old iron routine was followed, just as though Hitler were still directing armies fighting on fronts many hundreds of miles from the capital. But for once he listened in silence to the reports of the Generals, who were now conducting the defence of central Berlin. Overnight the enemy had captured the whole of the Tiergarten and reached the Potsdamer Platz. The underground railway tunnel in the Friedrichstrasse was in their hands and they were fighting their way through the Vons Strasse tunnel towards the Chancellery.
At two o'clock Hitler had lunch with his two women secretaries and his cook, while Eva remained in her room. Over the meal he conversed quite normally, but before it he had made his final preparations. The guards had been told that they were not to enter the bunker again and his chauffeur, Erik Kempka, had carried two hundred litres of petrol up to the Chancellery garden in preparation for the funeral pyre.
After lunch Hitler came out into the passage with Eva and they again shook hands with all those who had remained to the last. They then returned to their suite. At two-thirty a single shot was heard. For a few minutes those outside stood as though petrified, then they went in. Hitler had shot himself through the roof of the mouth. Eva was also dead, but she had taken poison.
The Devil's emissary who, for so many years, possessed by the spirit of Evil, had done his work in the world so well had, at last, gone to join his Infernal Master. It was as though an almost tangible black cloud, that had stifled clear thought, honest aspirations and all humane instincts, had suddenly been lifted from the bunker. The place had been reeking with treachery, fear, cruelty, blood-lust, and suddenly the atmosphere they breathed had become clean again.
They looked at one another in astonishment, seeing faces they hardly recognized because the features had become relaxed and the eyes no longer held the wary glint of animal’s intent only on self-preservation.
Smoking had never been permitted in the vicinity of the Fьhrer, but one of them lit a cigarette. The others quickly produced their cases and followed suit. Calmly, not even bothering to bow their heads, they watched the guards carry the bodies of Hitler and Eva up to the garden to be burned.
Goebbels heavily declared that there was now nothing left to live for; so he meant to honour his promise to Hitler that he would kill his wife and children and himself. Krebs and Burgdorf agreed that it was better to put bullets through their brains than risk falling into the hands of the Russians. But the others were throwing away the poison capsules that Hitler had given them. Bormann had already begun to daft a telegram to Doenitz as a first move in an attempt to establish a similar relationship with the new Fьhrer to that he had had with the old. The rest were eagerly discussing the chances of -escaping through the Russian lines that night under cover of darkness.
Gregory, knowing that the Russians had captured Potsdam on the previous day, was almost off his head with fear that by this time they might have reached Sabine's villa. Reports were coming in from all the suburbs overrun by the Russians that their brutal Mongolian troops were shooting every man and raping every woman that they captured. If they had advanced up the east shore of the Havel, what might now be happening to Erika, Sabine and Trudi did not bear thinking about.
As long as some eleventh-hour twist in Hitler's disordered mind might have led him to attempt to leave Berlin and, perhaps, owing to the dark power that had so often protected him, succeed in reaching Bavaria where he would have bludgeoned the German Armies into fighting on, Gregory had felt it his inescapable duty to remain. But now that malignant beast in human form was dead nothing would have induced Gregory to postpone until darkness his bid to save Erika.
Without a word of farewell to anyone, he ran up the stairs and snatched from a pigeonhole in the arms depository the first pistol he could lay his hand on. Deciding to leave by the way the officers sent off on the previous day had taken, he ran on through the empty echoing corridors to the back of the building, where the garages faced on to the Hermann Goering Strasse.
A pall of smoke hung low over the city and the air stank from the fumes of high explosives. There were great holes in the road from one of which a burst water main was fountaining. Broken paving stones and shell splinters littered the sidewalks. In three directions flames from burning buildings lit up the sulphurous clouds with an orange glow. The noise from bursting shells was deafening but through it came the clatter of machine guns: a clear indication that the Russians had that morning fought their way to within a few hundred yards of the Chancellery. From close at hand there came the dull rumble of falling masonry. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive for more than a few minutes in the flaming heart of the stricken city. But great love begets great courage. Without hesitation Gregory plunged into the inferno.
29
Death Intervenes
TURNING left, Gregory set off at a run. A shell exploded fifty feet above him and he narrowly escaped the shower of bricks that it brought down. A minute later another cramped some way off in the middle of the road and he was half blinded by the dust it threw up. He had covered no more than three hundred yards when ahead of him the murk was stabbed by the flashes of rifle and machine-gun fire. Then he saw that a high barricade sealed off the end of the street. Beyond it lay the Potsdamer Platz and there fierce fighting was in progress.
Finding his way blocked he entered a ruined building on his right and began a laborious climb over piles of rubble and fallen beams. On the far side he came out into another street. Keeping under cover he looked swiftly from side to side.
A hundred yards to the north of him there was another barricade, but this time he was on the Russian-held side of it. Taking his life in his hands he sprinted across the road towards the ruins opposite. A Russian coming up the street saw him, raised his Sten gun and fired a burst. By a miracle the bullets whistled past him and he was able to dive into a stone porch that was still standing. Fearing that the Russian would pursue him, he clambered up a sloping girder to the first floor of the wrecked building. There he waited for a few moments with his pistol at the ready; but the Russians had so many people to shoot at that the one who had fired on him did not bother to give chase.
Another long perilous climb, with bricks and plaster slithering under his feet, brought him to the Potsdamer Strasse. In it a line of Russian tanks was moving north-eastward. Hiding behind a jagged piece of wall he waited until they had passed, then made his dash across the road. This time he was not spotted. Again, his hands and knees now bruised and bleeding, he crawled, slithered and staggered over the mountains of wreckage until he reached a block of which a part was still intact. By an iron fire escape he made his way to a
first-floor window that had been shattered. It gave on to a landing with a stone staircase. Descending it he climbed over a fallen door and found himself in the pillared hall of a large bank. Next moment he heard a movement. Before he had time to draw back a Russian soldier emerged from behind the nearest pillar and was facing him less than six feet away.
For a second they stared at one another in mutual surprise. But Gregory's luck was in. The Russian, intent on loot, had left his Sten gun lying on the bank counter. Before he could turn and grab it Gregory had put two bullets through his head. Things might have gone very differently but, as they had turned out, Gregory looked on the encounter as a special gift from heaven. He now had the thing that above all he had hoped to secure but feared it almost impossible to obtain and change into without being seen-a Russian uniform.
Swiftly, he undressed the dead man and himself. The soldier, a flat-faced yellow-skinned Mongolian, was short but broad, so his tunic was very loose on Gregory and his cloth pantaloons too short, but their ends just tucked into his calf-length leather boots and those, to Gregory's relief, were, if anything, a little large. As a precaution against any Russian officer he might meet calling on him to take part in the battle, he tore a long strip from his victim's shirt, wet it with the dead man's blood and tied it round his own head. Also, much to his regret, he had to abandon his steel helmet and, instead, put on the pointed cloth cap worn by Mongolian troops. But he found the Sten gun was fully loaded so would serve him better than the few bullets left in the pistol, which he tucked into its holster.
By making a half-circle through the ruins he had bypassed the Potsdamer Platz and emerged opposite the Potsdamer Station. At the sight of its gaping roof it occurred to him that it might prove quicker and safer if he followed the straight course of the railway rather than worked his way southwest through miles of half-blocked streets.
Inside the station he found great activity going on. Although it was roofless, and in places great girders had fallen across the tracks, the Russians were using the platforms for dumps of ammunition and stores. Gregory saw too that, although trains could not enter the station, the Russian engineers must have got some of the lines working as, in the distance, several engines were puffing.
Now that he had got out of the Chancellery area he no longer had to fear being blown up by a shell or shot by a Russian, but there was still the danger that an officer might speak to him and discover that he was wearing a stolen uniform. Since he had tied the bloodstained strip of shirt round his jaw as well as his head he was in hopes that if accosted it would provide an adequate excuse for not answering; but there was an unpleasant possibility that some well-meaning `comrade' might take him by the arm and insist on leading him to the nearest first-aid post.
Keeping a wary look-out, he walked out of the far end of the station and along the tracks to a great open siding where two trains were being unloaded by fatigue parties. A third, he saw, was empty and in the process of shunting, so it looked as if it was about to move out to fetch up another cargo of supplies. Now that he was in full sight of the unloading parties he slowed his pace, let his head hang forward and staggered a little, as though in great pain. Then, as the shunting train came to a halt, he lurched forward in a stumbling run, grasped the ledge of an empty cattle truck that had its doors open and pulled himself up into it.
For some minutes the train remained stationary while he lay in the semi-darkness, fearing that at any moment a transport officer would come along, find him there and, perhaps, accuse him of attempting to get away from the battle without permission.
At length the train jerked into motion. Travelling at not more than twenty miles an hour it covered some three miles, then for about a quarter of an hour it continued on between the vast areas of ruined buildings, frequently stopping and starting until, Gregory judged, it must be a good five miles from central Berlin. His belief that it had passed Lichterfelde
was confirmed as it moved on into comparatively open country. So next time it jolted to a halt he jumped from it to the ground.
To his alarm, as he crossed the neighboring track to the edge of an embankment be heard someone shouting at him. Turning his head he saw that in the rear truck of the train a heavy machine gun had been mounted and that its crew were making violent signals to him to return. Ignoring them, he slithered down the embankment and climbed a fence into a garden.
He had no sooner got over it than the machine gun started to chatter and individual rifle shots rang out. Believing that he was being shot at he flung himself flat among some low bushes, but no bullets came anywhere near him. After a few minutes he peered out. Machine guns both at the front and rear of the train were being fired by the Russians, but not in his direction. As he watched one of them fell wounded, hit by a bullet fired from somewhere along the side of the track. Gregory then realized why the Russians, believing him to be one of themselves, had yelled at him to come back. The train was passing through an area still held by the Germans.
The knowledge filled him with dismay. By taking the Russian soldier's uniform and getting on the train he had covered in three-quarters of an hour a distance that, dodging about on foot, would have taken him at least three hours. But he had come out of Berlin by the main line, not the one further west which served the Grunewald and the suburbs along the Havel; so to reach the villa he had still some four miles to go across country, and since it was held by Germans he was now liable to be shot on sight at any moment.
For a few minutes he contemplated hiding until darkness came down, but he knew that if he did thoughts of what might be happening to Erika would drive him insane. Taking off his pointed cloth cap, so that from the distance his Russian uniform would be less readily identifiable, he stuffed it inside his tunic. As he did so he saw that the pistol was no longer in its holster. The flap must have been wrenched open and the weapon have fallen out as he climbed the fence; but, as he had the Sten gun, the loss of the pistol gave him no concern.
Getting to his feet he warily approached the house at the other end of the garden.
It had been bombed, but appeared to be only slightly damaged. Tiptoeing round it, he looked in through several shattered windows; then, as the house was apparently deserted, he climbed through one of them. The floor of the room he entered was covered with fallen plaster and broken ornaments. In the hall he saw there had been a fire that had burnt part of the staircase. As he went up it the boards creaked ominously, but took his weight. In one of the bedrooms he found, as he had hoped, a wardrobe containing several suits of clothes. Laying the Sten gun close at hand on the unmade bed, he got out of his uniform.
He was still in his underclothes when he heard the stairs creak. Grabbing up the gun he took cover behind the bed. Next moment a big bull-necked crop-headed German, who had evidently been down in the cellar, came into the room. He was in his shirtsleeves and holding a Mauser pistol. As he raised it threateningly and called to Gregory to come out, Gregory ducked. On the floor beside him there was a pair of heavy shoes. Taking one of them in his left hand, while still covered by the bed, he threw it in the direction of the door. The German jerked himself sideways to avoid it. At that instant Gregory bobbed up and fired a burst from his Sten gun.
As he traversed the Sten gun its bullets thudded into the German's chest and both his arms. He coughed, blood spurted from his mouth and he fell dead, doubled up on the floor.
Gregory would have preferred only to wound him, but he had not dared risk being shot himself or chance the man's shouting for help and perhaps raising a hue and cry. At all costs he had to get to Erika. Quickly he got a suit out of the wardrobe and put it on. It was much too big for him but that could not be helped, and the turn-ups of the trousers served to conceal the greater part of the Russian's regulation boots. On the top of the wardrobe there was a light weekend case. Getting it down he crammed the Russian uniform into it on the chance that it might again prove useful. It then occurred to him that a civilian carrying a Sten gun might have it taken from him b
y some soldier who had run out of ammunition; so he
threw it on the bed, retrieved the German's Mauler and thrust it into his jacket pocket.
Two minutes later he was out in the street, looking cautiously to right and left. No-one was about and he soon realized the reason. As the Germans still held this area, the Russians were shelling it; so all the inhabitants had taken refuge in air-raid shelters or their cellars. Taking his direction from a watery sun, he hurried through several streets that were similar to that in Dahlem where Ribbentrop had lived, but with smaller houses.
Half of them had been ‘gutted by fire and many of the trees in their gardens were black and leafless from having been set alight by incendiary bombs. Two German armoured cars rattled past but their crews took no notice of him. Every few minutes a shell whined over or burst a few hundred yards away. No one can judge where a bomb will fall, but anyone who has had experience of being shelled can guess roughly where a missile is likely to land; so whenever one seemed likely to fall near him, Gregory was able to take cover behind a low wall, or throw himself flat. Here and there he glimpsed German troops posted in ruined buildings that they had made into strong points, and twice on looking down roads leading south he saw that manned barricades composed of wrecked cars, tree trunks and paving stones had been erected.
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