Gisevius noted the puzzled look on Donovan's face.
"Yes, men who morally opposed the brutality and inhumanness of the Nazi state felt bound to it by an oath. It is difficult to understand, especially for me as a civilian, but there it is. Jealously guarding their honor as soldiers, they would let an oath to Hitler drag their honor down to hell with them. One of the good generals, General Halder has since advanced a theory, one that we call his 'setback theory.' The generals would not feel justified in a coup unless the Army and the German people could see a defeat that could not be disguised.
"Once they saw the disaster looming, then the time would be right to put an end to this. We would have the support of the wavering generals and the rest of the officers. To that aim, General Oster and others have made the difficult choice to try saving their country by betraying their government. General Oster, through an acquaintance in the Dutch embassy, passed the dates of Hitler's new offensive in the West, through the Low Countries and then on to France. With his characteristic wiliness, Hitler changed the date again and again, and General Oster was not believed. The Allies were caught unawares, and Hitler's army rolled across Europe. The disaster to fortify the generals never came.
"And this leaves us where we are now. After several contacts with the British and several failed coup attempts, the world has come to the conclusion that there simply is no German opposition to the Nazis. This, gentlemen, is the reason we have asked you here. We believe that Halder's setback is truly upon us in Russia. Goebbels and his propagandists will not be able to hide the calamity that is upon the Wehrmacht in the Russian winter. The generals are already talking amongst themselves. Now is our time to strike.
"For the past three years, we have tried again and again to get the support of the British, but we have been told not to try anymore. They will offer us no assistance. They see us as simply an internal power struggle, not a profound moral reaction to the horrors of Hitler. We have asked for some assurances that a new German government would receive fair treatment. They have told us that we should get on with our coup and then they would see where things were."
Gisevius looked around the table. Goerdeler, von Dohnanyi and Oster stared intently at Donovan and Dulles.
"A return to decent government in Germany must be led by Germans," Gisevius continued, "and we will do it. With whatever help the United States can give us."
Donovan shifted in his chair.
"What help did you have in mind, exactly?" he asked.
"All we ask for is assistance with drawing up the terms of a just peace with the Allies and help in creating a new Germany." Gisevius held up his hand before the Americans could respond. "I realize that the British see us as the boy who cried wolf. They have probably warned you against having any contact with us. So we have brought you a gesture of good faith."
With that he turned and looked to Johanna with a smile.
For a split second, she didn't understand. Then the answers came flooding in and everything made sense.
"I'm your gesture of good faith," she said in a quiet voice with everyone looking at her. "You sent me with Hagen to witness his actions and report here to General Donovan and Mr. Dulles that he did indeed stop the plot."
Gisevius nodded.
"Dr. Falck, would you please explain?" Donovan asked.
She did.
Johanna related everything that had happened to her from the first 'Gestapo' sighting in the Stuttgart market. She told them about Hagen ("He was a part of your conspiracy," she said. Gisevius nodded.) She told them about the search for Viersing and the Lindbergh plot. She told them what had happened at MadisonSquareGarden. When she got to the part where Viersing killed Hagen, Johanna heard Oster mutter a prayer in German.
"I still don't understand that part of it," she said. "So, it was the SS that was going to assassinate Lindbergh?"
"It was," Gisevius replied.
"It just doesn't make any sense. I suppose that if they had succeeded in killing Lindbergh and framed Communists, it might have inflamed isolationist feeling. But Viersing and my brother couldn't have had any hope of fooling anyone that they were Communists acting on behalf of Moscow."
"My dear, nonsensical plans are the hallmark of the SS. It was a stupid plot, but with a devious origin. If the plot had succeeded, Himmler would have struck a major blow for isolating Russia and keeping the United States from supplying her with arms and materiel. This would get him what he really wants, which is total control over German intelligence operations. If it failed, he would blame it on Admiral Canaris and the Abwehr, to that same end. Therefore, we had double motivation to ensure that it did not succeed. We need the defeat that looms in Russia, and we needed you to witness our thwarting of the Lindbergh plot."
Johanna thought for a moment. What Hagen had told her was true, but he had never even hinted at the true purpose of his mission.
"And after being rebuffed by the British," she continued, "you wanted to bring something to the table besides words and good intentions. You needed an American to convince the American government that you were serious."
"Precisely."
Johanna shook her head.
"All along I thought Hagen was just another Nazi, but something didn't seem right about him."
For the first time, Dohnanyi spoke up. He rapped his knuckle on the table.
"No, Dr. Falck. Everything was right about Major Hagen, who was no Nazi. It was the others that were wrong."
Johanna knew it was true. She wished she had known it when he was alive.
"Wait a minute," she said, standing up. "I just remembered something."
She walked across the suite to her bedroom and returned with the object she had gone to retrieve.
"Here you are, General. I believe this is yours."
She handed Donovan his passport, with Hagen's dried blood on the cover.
Donovan took it from Johanna and looked at it with a puzzled expression. Then she saw the flash of recognition in his eyes.
"I'll be damned. The train in Bulgaria," he muttered. He leaned over to Dulles and whispered something in his ear. Dulles nodded.
"Gentlemen," Donovan continued. "I must say that we are very impressed with what we've heard here today. One question still remains. You spoke of the generals being reluctant to betray their oath. Won't that still be a major obstacle for you, even if your 'setback theory' proves to be correct?"
Oster gave Donovan a wry look.
"You are missing the obvious answer to that question," he said.
Donovan furrowed his brow. "Sorry?"
"In order to release the generals from their oath, Hitler must die. And we are going to be the ones to kill him."
The room was silent for several long seconds. Johanna knew it made sense and knew it was the only way. She just hoped she could play some part in helping these men. Just as she would have been more help to Hagen if she had known what he was. Why didn't he just tell her?
Donovan pushed his chair back and stood up. Everyone else followed suit.
"Gentlemen, I will personally convey my impressions from this meeting to President Roosevelt." He saw the faces of the Germans brighten. "Of course, I cannot speak for the President, all I can do is report to him. Please know that you have my sincerest wishes for success."
Donovan and Dulles shook hands all around and made their way to the door. As Gisevius opened the door, Donovan turned to Johanna, standing in the back of the room. She had felt like a far-away observer in a dream. Now with Donovan looking right at her, it brought her back to reality.
"Are you coming, Dr. Falck?"
47
The engines of the Dixie Clipper droned a constant note, punctuated by the occasional thump of turbulence. Johanna, still trying to process everything she had just learned, stared out the window at the towering clouds below.
There is an anti-Nazi conspiracy within the German government and military that reaches to the highest levels. And they have been operating for years, trying aga
in and again to warn the Allies and asking for assistance in their plans, only to be shut off. Everything I've believed about Germans and their total support for Hitler was wrong. And if Oster and his men succeed in killing Hitler, the whole world will know it, too.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes.
God, I hope they do it.
Johanna felt someone tap her on the arm. She opened her eyes to see Allen Dulles and General Donovan take the two seats facing her. Donovan had a faint smile on his face.
"Ready to get back to work, Dr. Falck?" he asked.
Johanna sat up straight in her seat.
"I guess that depends on what kind of work you had in mind," she replied.
Donovan laughed. She noticed how impossibly blue his eyes were.
"Don't worry -- I don't think we'll have you on any more trans-Atlantic U-boat voyages. I have something a little more academic in mind."
Dulles leaned forward.
"We have established a New York COI office in conjunction with British intelligence. From what we just heard, they're not to keen to give these Germans the time of day. Maybe we can change their minds, I don't know. We'd like you to head up our liaison with the German Resistance. Starting in New York, we'll recruit some German-Americans and recent immigrants, then possibly go to Switzerland and set up shop there."
Dulles sat back and watched Johanna's reaction. Donovan looked at her with eyebrows raised.
"Yes, of course I'll do it," she replied right away.
"Good," Donovan replied. "Now, get some sleep and enjoy the rest of the flight. We should be in New York first thing in the morning."
With that, the two men were gone, back to their makeshift office in the rear of the plane.
Johanna looked out the window again and thought of Erich Hagen. Now that she knew the whole story about him, she wished he'd told her.
Things could have been very different, she thought, looking down to the ocean below. From the air it was a placid, smooth sea. But she knew that on its surface and below, shells streaked toward targets, fires burned and the world was at war.
Now she was a part of it.
Afterword
On July 20th, 1944, Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg entered a conference room in the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's eastern headquarters, carrying a time bomb in his briefcase. Telling Hitler that his hearing had been damaged during the North Africa campaign, von Stauffenberg got a seat next to the Führer and placed his briefcase under the table.
A short time later, while General Adolf Heusinger delivered a report on the eastern front, von Stauffenberg muttered that he had something to attend to and left the barracks.
The ensuing explosion created a flash of flames and a dark cloud of smoke that floated above the wreckage of the wooden building. Von Stauffenberg and fellow plotter Werner von Haeften jumped into a staff car and ordered the driver to take them to Rastenburg airfield. On their way out of the compound, they saw a body being carried out of the rubble on a stretcher. Seeing that it was covered with Hitler's cloak, they assumed that they had succeeded.
They were wrong.
Through a string of improbable coincidences and plain bad luck, the assassination attempt failed. Due to the summer heat, the meeting was held above ground in a wooden building, rather than the usual underground concrete bunker. Rushed to the meeting by one of Hitler's aides, von Stauffenberg, a wounded veteran with just three fingers on his one remaining hand, was only able to arm one of the two bombs he carried. After the bomb had been placed next to Hitler under the massive oak conference table, a general noticed it at his feet and moved it out of his way by placing it on the other side of a thick table leg.
When the explosives detonated, four men in the room were killed but Hitler escaped with only minor injuries.
The July 20th plot was much more than just an assassination attempt, however. It was intended to be a complete coup d’état. It involved more than a hundred conspirators, from generals to intelligence officers to a farmer and a grammar school teacher. A new government had been formed, complete with a head of state and a new Chancellor chosen from among the conspirators. Wehrmacht troops were to take over Berlin and senior SS and Gestapo officials were to be arrested.
Hitler lived and the coup failed.
While von Stauffenberg and the July 20th assassination attempt are well known to students of World War II, the size and scope of the coup are less so. This was not the last, desperate action of one lone hero, but the end of a very long line of calculated plotting.
Hitler had gained a reputation in his diplomatic dealings, military affairs and personal security as a man graced by Providence. Foreign politicians crumbled before him, armies were swept away by the Wehrmacht, and no man had been able to kill him. Many tried. July 20th represented the 17th time that an attempt had been made on the dictator's life. On one occasion, Hitler changed his schedule at the last minute, leaving an ambush site minutes before a bomb went off. Another time, explosives placed on his personal airplane failed to detonate for no discernible reason. Time and again, Germans tried to kill their Führer and were unsuccessful.
Which raises the question – who was trying to kill Hitler and why?
The story told in this novel is purely the creation of the author. However, some of the characters are not. William Donovan was indeed President Roosevelt's Coordinator of Intelligence and later chief of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Allen Welsh Dulles worked for Donovan and later became head of the CIA. General Hans Oster, Hans Bernd Gisevius, Dr. Carl Goerdeler, Dr. Hans von Dohnanyi were real members of the Resistance, known in Germany as the Widerstand. These four men were among the hundreds that, due to a moral objection to Hitler and the Nazis, decided to take action.
Oster played a major role in the Resistance. His position as head of the Central Section of the Abwehr (German military intelligence) gave him the power and the opportunity to organize the conspiracy. Indeed, it can be said that the Abwehr was the central clearinghouse for the German anti-Nazi opposition. For this opposition, all but Gisevius paid with their lives.
Following July 20th, every German suspected of involvement with the assassination attempt and the Resistance was rounded up. Some, like von Stauffenberg, were tried and shot before the day was done. Others, like Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Oster, found themselves in the notorious People's Court for a brief show trial. Most defendants tried to find a way in the proceedings to save their lives. Oster simply said, "I can only say what I know. I'm no liar," and told all that he had done, proud and defiant.
Canaris and Oster were sent to the Flossenburg concentration camp where they were later hanged. Both were forced to strip and walk naked to the gallows in a final humiliation by the SS guards. In his cell before his execution, Canaris tapped out a message to a fellow prisoner, "My days are done. Was not a traitor."
At the time, any perceived opposition to Hitler or any attempted assassination was seen by the Allies as an internecine conflict – internal struggles involving Nazi power brokers. With rare exception, no one saw a German Resistance, motivated by courage and moral outrage.
Allen Welsh Dulles was one of those exceptions. As OSS Station Chief in Bern, Switzerland, Dulles had regular contact with the conspirators, especially Gisevius. Although Allied policy prevented him from giving any real aid to the Resistance, he was able to monitor their activities and gain valuable military intelligence from them. Dulles knew from his interactions with Gisevius that the Resistance was motivated by love of country and hatred for the Nazis. Following the July 20th plot, Dulles provided Gisevius with a fake passport and helped to smuggle him into Switzerland and to safety. Gisevius later wrote To the Bitter End, the most complete insider's account of the conspiracy ever published.
The German anti-Nazi Resistance is regarded as a failure. They failed to assassinate Hitler. They failed to overthrow him. They failed to avoid or forestall war, once in 1938 before the disaster at Munich, in September 1939 on the eve of the
Polandblitzkrieg and again in 1940 before the invasion of the Low Countries and France. They failed to stop the attempted eradication of Polish and Slavic culture to the East. They failed to stop the Einsatzgruppen and the Holocaust.
In one regard the Resistance can be seen as a success. From our comfortable vantage point, we can ask ourselves what we would have done in the face of Nazi evil, living in a totalitarian state under a maniacal ideology enforced through terror and murder. Millions of Germans were enthusiastic supporters of Hitler and the Nazi creed. Many Germans, some of whom may have felt outrage at the crimes of the Nazis, kept quiet lest they become victims. They said and did nothing while their neighbors disappeared in the middle of the night. And surely yet more people considered themselves apolitical and made no judgments at all. The success of the German Resistance was that the men, women (and even children) who took part in the many anti-Nazi opposition groups succeeded in affirming that they were still moral human beings. Once they took the step of acting on their convictions, they became heroic.
Fifth Column Page 31
