by T J Kinsella
the few previous occasions that Gillitzer had worked under Richtofen, he had noted how poorly the major handled stressful situations. It could not only be seen in the shortness of his temper, but also in the fact that he appeared to display a number of nervous ticks when he became anxious; the most prominent of which, Gillitzer had observed, was a twitch of his right eyelid.
As he and the rest of the team returned to the landing site for a third time without their prize, Gillitzer could see that Richtofen’s eye was beginning to twitch with such rapidity, that it was spending more time shut than open.
“Is there no end to your incompetence?” bellowed Major Richtofen as his face turned crimson with rage, “can’t you do anything right?.. I don’t believe this...the most important mission of my career and I get lumbered with ‘Roswell Gillitzer’!”
Gillitzer rolled his eyes at the mention of his recently acquired nickname. The unwanted notoriety that he had received since crash of the Kolibri had been a source of quiet, but constant, embarrassment to him. The consequent mockery he had received from his fellow pilots had been merciless, typified by the fact that many of them now insisted on referring to him by the infamous location of the crash site.
“It’s not a question of incompetence,” Gillitzer answered defiantly, “There’s more to it than that...we think that we may be encountering the ‘Hertzog Effect’.”
“The Hertzog effect…that’s just a theory,” snapped Richtofen, “there’s absolutely no supporting evidence for it, whatsoever.”
“Well, it looks like we might have just found some.” replied Gillitzer dryly.
“It’s sounds like you’re simply trying to find excuses!” Said the Major, as he remotely activated the reversal generator again, “You may not be aware of this captain but the reversal generator has got a limited number of uses...probably no more than a dozen. You already fouled things up three times, which leaves us with eight or nine charges left. That should be is enough...even for you. Now get back out there, Captain, and get the job done!”
Tired of the Major’s belligerence, Gillitzer did not reply, instead offering an overly formal salute, before making his way back up to the Turmfalke. Whilst he had been aware that the quantum generator had a finite amount of uses, he had not known how few. As he reached the generator cables, his confidence in the mission started to ebb away.
Gillitzer connected himself to the generator and braced himself for suits unsettling sensation, once more. As the familiar tingling of the reversal process ran through his body, the Majors words echoed through his mind. If Ensign Schultz’s suspicion that they were experiencing the Hertzog effect was correct, and they were, indeed, battling against destiny itself, eight or nine more attempts may not be enough.
As the day wore on, his fears were proven to be well founded.
Their fourth attempt appeared to be going smoothly until they reached Goerring Strasse. As they started to walk along the footpath, Hitler somehow managed to stumble over his own feet and fell sprawling, head first into a pile of rubble. Whilst the impact to his head was not enough to kill him, the piece of reinforcement bar that embedded itself therein, certainly was.
The Fuhrer’s fifth fatality occurred no more than a few yards further down the street. One of the few cars that were travelling along Goerring Strasse, had, earlier that day, been stolen by a deserter from the ‘Volkssturm’, in a desperate attempt to flee the city. Being unfamiliar with the cars controls, and overly familiar with a bottle of peach schnapps, the elderly driver managed to lose control of the vehicle, just as he was approaching Gillitzer and his team. The car mounted the kerb, skidded along the footpath and sent the group scattering in all directions.
Gillitzer and Shultz leapt to the left on the oncoming vehicle, whilst Braal and Harris manage to dive to the right. Unfortunately for all concerned, the Fuhrer somehow only managed to find his way under it.
The sixth attempt ended in particularly freakish and gruesome fashion. High overhead, a Messerschmitt, locked in a deadly aerial duel, lost part of its tail section after it received a direct hit from an American fighter. The foot-long strip of metal scythed its way earthward through the air, straight towards the Fuhrer, who was subsequently sliced from collar-bone to crotch.
The seventh attempt ended with another freak bullet ricochet; the eighth when they temporarily forgot the events of the third attempt, and the Fuhrer was crushed by fallen masonry for a second time.
The way in which the ninth attempt ended was probably the most mundane of all. As the group reached the edge of the Tiergarten, they started, in turn, to clamber over the low brick wall that separated it from the footpath. when it was Hitler’s turn, he somehow managed to get his shoe laces entangled and went tumbling headfirst over the wall. The sickening cracking sound that resounded from his neck, made Gillitzer instantly aware the yet another attempt had gone awry.
The end of the tenth attempt was notable for the speed with which it happened, as well as the spectacular nature in which Hitler met his demise. Some distance away, a stray anti-tank rocket ricocheted off its intended target and started roaring in the direction of the Tiergarten. It glanced off walls, clipped off cars, never once hitting anything hard enough to set off its charge. It roared on, along its meandering flight path until it was headed, unerringly, straight towards the Fuhrer.
As the group cleared the dense shrubs that hug the Tiergarten wall, they all became suddenly aware of the sound of the rockets engines. They barely had time to react when the rocket flew passed them and directly through Hitler’s midriff, vaporising all but his extremities, before roaring on and exploding against a wall on the other side of the park.
By the start of eleventh attempt, Gillitzer and his team were on the verge of exhaustion. They were not only feeling physically drained from the many journeys to, and from, the bunker, but were also beginning to feel extreme, mental fatigue. They had to endure Richtofen’s ever escalating outbursts, multiple brushes with death, as well as having to witness Hitler’s demise a number of times.
Some of the Fuhrer’s deaths had been instant, others were slow and painful. None of them had been pretty.
Hitler was, of course, blissfully unaware of all the horrific events that had befallen him. With each activation of the quantum reversal generator, he was returned, in time, to his bunker, an hour or so before Gillitzer had stopped him from shooting himself. If, however, he had known about the many horrific fates that awaited him, he may have decided to pull the trigger anyway.
As with the previous attempts, everything went well enough, at first. Gillitzer and his group retraced the steps of their previous trips to the bunker, then deftly avoided the many hazards as they returned to the Tiergarten. They paused for a short time at the park wall, catching their breath, until they heard the explosion of the antitank rocket that had previously proved to be their undoing.
With the danger seemingly passed, the group started out, once again, through the dense border of shrubs and trees that bordered the park. Once they reached the grassy expanse of the Tiergarten, Gillitzer grasped Hitler by the arm and began to quicken his pace. Such was his urgency to reach the safety of the landing site, now just a matter of metres away, that he hardly noticed the commotion that was coming from behind them.
The city of Berlin had, through the previous days and weeks, been slowly bombed into submission by the allied air forces. Some of the bombs fell upon their intended military targets, some fell on civilian buildings, others exploded harmlessly in open areas, such as the chancellery Tiergarten. One such bomb, however, was about to prove that it hadn’t exploded that harmlessly, after all.
The bomb had exploded in the park a few days before, in the wooded border that they had just passed through. Whilst the damage it did was relatively minor, it had, significantly, destroyed a large portion of the roots of an old elm tree which stood there. The tree was left standing, but was so weakened, that a single strong gust of wind could bring it down.
And, as fate would h
ave it, there was a gust of wind, just strong enough to bring the tree down, at the precise moment that Gillitzer had started out across the clearing.
Harris, placed as he was at the rear of the group, heard it first. From behind him, above the rush of the wind, there was a loud creaking followed by the busy crackling of a dozen breaking branches. He turned instinctively, only to see the sight of the old elm toppling directly towards them, with much of its journey to the ground already completed.
“Look out!” was all Harris had time to shout, as the tree came thundering down.
Braal, Shultz and Harris, himself, were all able to scramble themselves away from danger with just a couple of hasty steps. Gillitzer and Hitler, who were a few yards ahead of the others, were not so quick to react, however.
Upon hearing Harris’ warning, Gillitzer’s first instinct was to turn to see what the danger was. When he caught sight of the trunk of the elm looming above them, he started to dive to his right, still clutching the Fuhrer’s arm. Whilst he had managed to remove himself away from the impact, he had only succeeded in pulling Hitler directly under the path of the trunk.
A split second later the tree came crashing to the ground and, not for the first time that day, Adolf Hitler was crushed
