He proved to be a short, thickset man with thinning. black hair and a receding hairline, small bright eyes, and a scraggly mustache, and he was holding a cigarette. There was a flick of a smile, but she could see he was a serious sort.
Nitz stood in the middle of the room watching her.
"I'm so pleased you could come, Mr. Nitz," she said. "Will you have lunch? I can ring room service."
"I've had lunch, thank you. But you go ahead and order for yourself."
"I had a snack on the plane. It should last me a while. Maybe you'll have something to drink?"
"Well—"
"There are some bottles on the TV, and ice."
Unceremoniously he stepped to the television set, uncapped the bottle of Scotch, dropped some ice into a glass, poured himself two fingers, and took a sip. Smacking his lips, he patted down his wet mustache and walked to the couch where Emily had seated herself. He lowered himself at the far side of the couch.
"Most of all," Emily began, "I wanted to see you to thank you in person for your kindness in sending me that letter."
"It was something I felt I had to do. I hope it didn't upset you?"
"On the contrary."
"I mean where I wrote you all I had witnessed of your father's death."
"I'm glad you were so forthcoming. I wanted to know what actually happened." She hesitated. "You suggested it might not have been an accident."
Nitz shrugged. "It could have been. It might not have been. How does one know? I thought that the hit-and-run looked—well—deliberate. Still, I couldn't be sure. Did you speak to the Berlin police?"
"A man named Schmidt. The chief of police. He had little to offer except that they'd be watching for the truck. But he didn't even know what make of truck it was. I don't think the police will be able to do very much."
"They won't," Nitz agreed.
Emily showed her bewilderment. "But if the accident was deliberate, who would want to do it and why? My father knew few people here. As far as I know, he had no enemies."
Nitz tinkled the ice cubes in his glass and drank. "No enemies—that is, unless Adolf Hitler did survive when he was supposed to have died."
"Does anyone truly believe that?"
Nitz downed the remainder of his drink and set the glass on the coffee table. "Since the afternoon of April 30, 1945, when Hitler was supposed to have committed suicide with a bullet in his brain and his bride, Eva Braun, allegedly killed herself with potassium cyanide, the speculations have never ceased. Josef Stalin himself always believed Hitler had escaped in a submarine, possibly to Japan. General Eisenhower told reporters that there was reason to believe Hitler had slipped away unharmed. British intelligence often maintained that a Hitler double had been incinerated in the Chancellery garden. Russian identification of the charred bones, skull, and jawbone that they recovered beside the Führerbunker were always contradictory and uncertain. But you know all that, Miss Ashcroft."
"I know one thing," said Emily. "Since Hitler could not be tried at Nuremberg, he was tried in absentia by a Munich denazification court in the fall of 1947 to settle his estate. Forty-two witnesses testified as to Hitler's death. The Bavarian Ministry of Justice announced its conclusion in October of 1956. The court declared, 'There can no longer exist even the smallest doubt that Hitler took his own life on 30 April 1945 in the Führerbunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin by shooting himself in the right temple.'"
"Correct," Nitz said.
Emily stared at the German reporter. "In the light of that, Mr. Nitz, do you think it is possible that Hitler survived? Do you believe he got away?"
Without hesitation, Nitz replied, "No, I don't believe he got away." He paused. "But your father surely entertained that possibility. I heard him personally say so at a press conference before his death. Let me remind you, your father spoke of some evidence indicating that it was not Hitler's jawbone and teeth that had been found by the Russians. He felt that this could be verified, or dismissed, after he was able to excavate the Führerbunker area. Do you know what your father was looking for?"
"I don't, I'm sorry to say. We were about to under-take the conclusion of our biography, when my father received a letter from someone in Berlin who had been close to Hitler. This person stated that the accepted version of Hitler's death was false. My father learned that this informant was not a crank, and so he came to Berlin to see him. My father phoned me in Oxford the night before his death. He was in a jubilant mood. His informant had advised him to dig for something in the Chancellery garden area, and my father told me that he had received permission to dig. He intended to begin his excavation the day after his press conference."
"You know, of course, who his informant was—and is."
"I do. But I'd rather not mention any name until I have permission to do so."
"Do you know what he told your father to dig for?"
"No. My father didn't want to tell me on the phone. Now I hope to find out for myself." Her gaze held on Nitz. "But you think that's fruitless. You think there's no chance Hitler survived."
Nitz dug into his jacket for a package of cigarettes, plucked one out, and put a lighter to it. "Look, Miss Ashcroft, I don't want to discourage you. It would be wise to satisfy yourself. At the same time, as a journalist who has seen and heard so much nonsense, I am a cynic, and I remain a cynic in this matter. I think Hitler and his lady died as history tells us. Before you meet your dissenting informant, and maybe go off the deep end, you might speak to an actual witness who was in the Führerbunker when Hitler took his life. There are still some of them around, scattered about Germany, old people now, but many of them with vivid memories of the events of April 30, 1945. In fact, there was one of them right here in the neighborhood."
Emily sat forward. "Who?"
"Ernst E. Vogel. He was an SS bodyguard at the Führerbunker when both Hitler's corpse and that of Eva Braun were carried out and cremated. I interviewed him for a short feature about two years ago. He was very convincing as he related the facts that he remembered."
"This Herr Vogel, is he still alive?"
"I should think so. He seemed healthy enough then. You might start with seeing him before you go further. Then you can judge for yourself. I have Vogel's phone number and address in my desk at the office. I'll call it in to you as soon as I get back."
"I'd be most grateful, Mr. Nitz."
"Once you've seen Vogel, you can then see your dissenting informant, and weigh their opposing views."
Emily was silent for a few moments, watching Nitz smoke his cigarette. At last, she gave an embarrassed cough. "I have a confession to make to you, Mr. Nitz. I want to be truthful. I don't have an appointment to see the German informant my father saw, the one who was close to Hitler. So far, he's refused to see me."
Nitz's ears seemed to perk up. -He won't? Why not? He saw your father."
"Yes," said Emily. -Then, after my father's death, I wrote him that I was coming to Berlin to follow through, and I hoped he would see me and give me the same cooperation and information that he had given my father. He answered me with one line—he could not see me or anyone else about the matter.- She paused. -I wonder why the change of heart?"
Nitz considered this. "He may have been scared into silence by your father's suspicious death. He may have become worried about neo-Nazi fanatics—oh, yes, some of them still exist." Noting the quick curiosity on Emily's face, Nitz decided to elaborate the point. -Miss Ashcroft, you are familiar with Unternehmen Werwolf created in the closing days of the war?"
Emily nodded. "Enterprise Werewolf, guerrilla groups of German soldiers established by Himmler, trained by the Waffen SS, after D day. They were dressed in civilian clothes, and were supposed to infiltrate the Allied lines and assassinate any important Germans who were collaborating with the enemy. You think there are some still around?"
"Not unlikely. They were secret fanatics determined to protect Hitler's image—and his life. Your informant might very well worry about these neo-
Nazis, might fear one of them could search him out and kill him, too. I suspect your informant is simply afraid to see you."
"Well, I'm going to persuade him otherwise," Emily said with determination. "I'm going to use all the wiles I possess to make him see me."
Nitz stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. "I wish you good luck. Remember me if you get a story I might be able to use."
Emily was on her feet. "I won't forget. I owe you a good deal. Not only for your kindness, but for your suggestion about Vogel."
"Well, don't let Vogel discourage you with his firsthand stuff. Just listen to him. When you've heard him out, go after your reluctant informant even harder. Use the eyewitness stuff you learn from Vogel to bait the other man. That tactic often works. If you get lucky, go ahead with the bunker search." At the door, hand on the knob, Nitz halted, and appraised her. "Please heed one piece of advice I'm going to give you. If you are going ahead, if you do decide to dig, don't announce it publicly as your father did. Don't take any chances. Hit-and-run accidents in Berlin are not uncommon occurrences. Find the truth. But also stay alive."
Emily had waited restlessly in her suite for the telephone to ring.
Forty-five minutes later, true to his word, Peter Nitz had called her upon returning to his office at the Berliner Morgenpost . He had Ernst Vogel's telephone number and his apartment house address.
Emily had begun to thank him, when the reporter interrupted her. "Before speaking to Vogel, I think you should know something about the man," Nitz had said. "I pulled out my interview notes from two years ago, just to refresh my memory. Ernst Vogel was twenty-four on the day he claims Hitler died. That would make him sixty-four today. Vogel was an SS sergeant and honor guard on a twelve-hour shift. Very proud of the black sleeve band with 'Adolf Hitler' stitched in silver on it. On duty, he was armed with a machine gun and hand grenade. He was at the entrance to the Führerbunker during the last ten days Hitler was down there, the ten days between Hitler's fifty-sixth birthday and his announced suicide. Vogel must have been well trusted, because he got down into the bunker at several crucial moments toward the end. On the final day he was one of those who witnessed the cremation of Hitler and Braun. He'll tell you the whole story. He's a garrulous fellow with a good memory. Those ten days were the high spot in his life. If he's still around, you should find him at home. He's always worked out of his apartment."
"Doing what?"
"He runs a mail-order business. Rare books. German, of course. Oh, one more thing. You'll have to speak up when you're with him. He has a hearing defect. Both ears. From an injury suffered when he was at the Führerbunker due to the constant Russian bombardment of the Chancellery area. Anyway, try him. If he's there, I'm sure he'll see you. You can mention my name."
"I don't know how to thank you enough, Mr. Nitz."
"Never mind. Call Vogel for the standard version."
She had hung up, then dialed Ernst Vogel's number. After a few rings, a loud male voice had answered. With his impediment in mind, Emily had raised her own voice. Was this Ernst Vogel? It was. Emily had introduced herself and said that Peter Nitz, a reporter on the Berliner Morgenpost, had once interviewed him about Adolf Hitler's death and had thought he might be a reliable witness for her to contact. She hastily added that she had come to Berlin to wind up research on a definitive history of Hitler. She then had given Vogel her academic credentials.
"A book?" Vogel had shouted. "You are writing a book about Hitler's death?"
"Actually about his entire life, but it will include his death. I want it to be accurate. I hope you can help me."
There had been a pause. "Yes, I can help you. You've come to the right person." Another pause. "I suppose I owe it to posterity. Very well, I will see you. Do you have my address?"
Emily had read it to him.
"Exact," he had said. "Be here at-four o'clock."
After that, with time to spare, she had considered also calling Dr. Max Thiel, the dentist whose doubts about Hitler's death had brought first her father and then Emily herself to Berlin. Eager to do so, she had hesitated, recalling Nitz's advice that she use whatever Vogel told her as bait to gain a meeting with Dr. Thiel.
Instead of calling, she had gone to the suitcase filled with her research files, taken out the files, sorted them. Finally, she had reviewed lists of Germans who had known Hitler or been in the Führer bunker during Hitler's final days, those people her father had already interviewed during his visits to Berlin. Ernst Vogel had not been among them. Curious, Emily had thought. Anyway, she would soon make up for the oversight.
She had taken a taxi for an eight-minute ride to what proved to be a five-story apartment building on Dahlmannstrasse, about a block and a half north off the Ku'damm. A mailbox in the small lobby had told her Ernst Vogel could be found on the floor above the street floor. Climbing the flight of stairs between scarred mahogany banisters and sickly green walls in need of fresh paint, she had arrived at Vogel's apartment.
To her surprise, the person who greeted her turned out to be a small man with sparse gray hair, a hearing aid set into one ear, an emaciated Goebbels-like face. She had imagined that all the Führer bunker SS guards had been giants.
Now, seated next to Ernst Vogel, she in an old fashioned armchair, he in a rocker, Emily intended to find out why her father had not interviewed this former SS guard.
"Another book on Hitler?" Vogel asked her once they were seated. "There have been so many. It has become an industry."
"True," said Emily calmly. "But most were written in the forties and early fifties when some of the members of Hitler's inner circle were not available to be inter-viewed. You may remember that they were taken to the Soviet Union for interrogation and confinement. The Soviets would not allow outsiders to see them. They were available only after they were gradually re-leased and allowed to come back to Germany. My father thought it was time for a more complete and up-to-date biography of Hitler."
"I suppose so," said Vogel.
Emily brought her briefcase to her lap and took out one of her paperclipped lists. "These are the persons my father interviewed." She handed it to Vogel. "I could not find your name on it."
Vogel's eyes ran down the names. Handing the sheets back, he asked, "When did he interview these people?"
"He started ten years ago. He and I began writing the biography five years ago. But my father died recently, so I'm concluding the work alone."
Vogel had been leaning forward to hear her better. "Ten years ago, five years ago, I was not seeing interviewers. He probably wrote me and I did not reply. In those times, I thought I would write about my experience myself. So I would give my story to no one.
Eventually I learned, despite all my notes, I am not a writer. I am a reader and a bookseller. But I wanted the story told, so I began to see interviewers. The young man on the Morgenpost . . ." He tried to recall the name.
"Peter Nitz."
"Yes, Nitz, he was one of the first I met with a few years ago. So you are writing a book on Hitler? I have never given an interview for a book. I suppose it will be printed in German also, and I will have copies?" He waved behind him toward the dining room area. The walls were lined with shelves of books, and the floor was littered with unopened crates. "Some are popular recently published books, but my main business is mail order of older books, rare ones. I inherited the business from my parents. They were killed in an American aerial bombing of Berlin, while I was in the army. Books are my life, but I also have a hobby. Hunting. I am a crack marksman. Have always been an expert shot since I was in kneepants. That's why I did well in the SS.''
And that's how he came to be an SS guard at the Führerbunker, Emily thought. They wanted not only giants, but crack marksmen, too.
"Can we talk about Hitler?" Emily asked.
"About Hitler, I must say this. He was, in his way, a great man, no question. I had only two things against him. I did not agree with his anti-Semitism. Some of my parents' best customers were Jew
s. They were always decent and honest people. The other thing I held against Hitler was his trying to conquer Russia. Hitler and all his army and air force couldn't conquer Russia. That was the beginning of Hitler's downfall. But before that, he was a great man. So you want to know more about his death?"
"About the last day or two of his life. I have considerable material on what happened in the bunker. But material on his death is very contradictory."
"Everyone sees what he wants to see," said Vogel. "I can only tell you precisely what I saw and heard."
"That's exactly what I want you to do."
Vogel gently bobbed in the rocking chair as he adjusted his hearing aid. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" he asked.
"I said whatever you're prepared to tell me is exactly what I want to know," she said more slowly and distinctly. She pushed the lists back into her briefcase and withdrew a yellow pad and pen.
Vogel was fiddling with his hearing aid again. "This impairment—happened the last day—the Soviet bombardment of our Chancellery area was fierce—one explosion, the concussion from it, knocked me over—a rocket-firing Katyusha truck was nearby, I think. I had a ringing in my ears for months after that until I could get to a doctor." Satisfied with his adjustment of the hearing aid, he faced her directly. "Hitler knew it was the end five days before it happened. We knew that the Russians had encircled Berlin and were beginning to penetrate its perimeters. That's when he told Linge— Heinz Linge, the SS colonel who was his valet and head of his personal bodyguard—that he did not intend to be taken alive. 'I will shoot myself. When I do, carry my body into the Chancellery garden. After my death, no one must see me and recognize me. After I am cremated, go to my private rooms in the bunker, collect all my papers, and burn them also.' Hitler reaffirmed this decision to Otto Giinsche, his SS adjutant and chauffeur. 'I want my body burned,' he said. 'After my death I don't want to be put on exhibition in a Russian zoo.'"
Emily was making her notes. Vogel waited. She looked up. "Those were his words?"
The Seventh Secret Page 8
