‘Kammler was in the perfect position to arrange all this. Now trusted implicitly by Himmler – and therefore revered by his SS troops – Kammler could move men and equipment anywhere without being questioned. More so because by this time he had been placed in full charge of the V-2 program and that program had become Hitler’s final hope. Naturally, since the job gave Kammler the freedom to travel at will around the German-occupied territories, he worked like a demon on the launching of the V-2s and made sure that all his movements were noticed. In this way, Wilson could assemble the complete prototype of his flying saucer in the underground factory at Kahla – undisturbed by the increasingly disillusioned Himmler, ignored by the V-2 obsessed Hitler, and otherwise protected by General Nebe and his runaway subordinates.
‘Kammler had another useful job at this time. While the infamous Alpine redoubt had never really existed, Hitler was still dreaming of forming a last redoubt in the mountains of Germany. Since his chosen area was to include the metaphorical arc that ran from the Harz Mountains to Thuringia, south of Prague and across to Mahren, Kammler was put in charge of all the important research centers hidden deep in those areas. Again, this made it easy for him to protect Wilson’s project in Kahla and insure the continuing shipment of men and supplies to the ships and submarines in Kiel Harbor.
‘By early February 1945, Wilson had completed a truly advanced flying saucer and a test flight was arranged for the fourteenth of that month. Unfortunately, when the saucer was wheeled out of its hangar during the early hours of that morning, bad weather, including rain and snow, caused the test to be canceled. Two days later, however, a resoundingly successful test flight was made.
‘The saucer tested near Kahla on the morning of February 16, 1945, was known as the Kugelblitz. Basically, it was a triple-layered, disk-shaped machine with a diameter of fourteen thousand and four hundred millimeters and a height from base to canopy of three thousand and two hundred millimeters. The central body was made from heatresistant, nickel-based alloys and titanium; and the top and bottom disks of this circular body rotated at varying speeds around the two-pilot control cabin, which was molded to the solid body that housed the engine. While the spinning disks were devoid of all surface protuberances such as wings and stabilizers, their porous metal composition would suck the air through the machine and utilize it as an added propulsive force.
‘As with the previous turboprop version, this saucer’s four legs also functioned as downward thrusting, swiveling tail pipes used for lift-off, but now activated by low and high pressure compressors generating an enormous thrust and including a new vaporizing fuel injector system that rendered the jet thrusters smoke-free. The jet burners lifted the Kugelblitz vertically, at modest speed, to a height of just over one hundred feet; once there, the downward thrusting tail pipes would swivel up through the bottom disk and be locked into position in the molded central body. Four similar boosters, situated at equal distances around the immovable central body, would then be used for horizontal propulsion and direction control, while the upper and lower disks, with their porous composition, would revolve at high speed to utilize the boundary layer and achieve unprecedented high speeds.
‘The Kugelblitz was in fact a giant-sized Feuerball – the most recent spin-off from Wilson’s endeavours – and as such was remarkably sophisticated. During the test flight it reached an altitude in excess of forty thousand feet at a speed of approximately twelve hundred and fifty miles per hour. Not yet capable of the extraordinary maneuvers of the modern UFO, it nevertheless incorporated a special inertial shield for the protection of the pilots; an automatic control system that utilized the profile of the terrain below; high frequency, omnidirectional, automatic navigation; and a few primitive, but fairly effective, pulse beam weapons.
‘Naturally, with the flying saucer project completed, our most urgent task was to transfer the project to the Antarctic, obliterate all signs of our work in Kahla, and ensure that nothing was left for the advancing Allies. Bear in mind that we had, as each separate section of the machine had been successfully tested, been shipping those parts to the Antarctic, component by component, throughout the last few years. Now, the only components that still had to be shipped out were those belonging to the redesigned jet engines. Within a week of the test flight those components were removed from the Kugelblitz, the machine itself was blown up, and then Wilson, accompanied by Nebe and other SS personnel, made his way by truck and train to the port of Kiel. Two days after that, on February 25, 1945, the remaining slave workers of the underground Kahla complex were driven back to Buchenwald where they were gassed and then incinerated in the crematoria. The Kahla complex was then a deserted shell.
‘Himmler never knew about the evacuation of Kahla since he was too obsessed with the rapid Soviet advance. To distract him further, General Kammler suggested that the scientists still at Peenemünde be made to join the others in Nordhausen, pointing out that a new research center was being built in the Bleicherode mine and that accommodations had been prepared for the technicians and their families in the surrounding villages. Himmler gladly agreed to this move, and not long after, Wernher von Braun and his associates were moved by train, truck, private car and barge to their new quarters deep in the Harz Mountains.
‘By this time, exactly as Wilson had anticipated, Himmler was falling to pieces. No longer trusted by Hitler, and having just made a fool of himself by allowing the Russian army to reach the outskirts of Berlin, he was spending most of his time in Dr Gebhardt’s sanatorium at Hohenlychen, seventy-five miles north of Berlin, and idiotically planning his private surrender to the Allies.
‘At the end of February, while Wilson and General Nebe were hiding just outside Kiel and Kammler was transferring the Peenemünde technicians to Nordhausen, I paid the Reichsführer a visit. Babbling dementedly, he told me that his peace negotiations were not progressing, that he was going to try approaching Eisenhower, and that he intended using Schriever’s flying disk as a bribe to the Allies.
‘Following Kammler’s instructions, I informed the Reichsführer that the Wilson project had made no progress, that Wilson had been shot while trying to escape toward the Allied lines, and that the research complex at Kahla had been evacuated and then blown up to prevent it from falling into Allied hands. I also told him that since the enemy would soon be reaching Hohenlychen, there was little chance of escaping to the Antarctic and that his peace negotiations were therefore our only hope. Himmler, terrified by this news, asked me to inform Kammler that the last redoubt was to be held at any cost. Meanwhile, he, Himmler, would arrange for the Schriever disk to be tested as soon as humanly possible.
‘Knowing that the Schriever disk could not possibly fly, I returned to wait for Kammler at Nordhausen. At the end of March, Kammler returned to the Hague where he had, ostentatiously, been firing the last of the V-2 rockets on London. Unfortunately, just before we could join Wilson and Nebe in Kiel, Kammler received orders from Himmler stating that American forces were approaching Nordhausen and that the whole complex therefore had to be evacuated. Determined to ensure that no suspicion fell upon him, Kammler went ahead with this task.
‘However, Kammler did not go with the evacuees. Seeing a more surreptitious way of making his escape, Kammler, on the second of April, took about five hundred V-2 experts to the Bavarian Alps in the region of Oberammergau, traveling with them in his private SS train. Once there, the technicians were imprisoned in army barracks and guarded by some SS fanatics. Included in this group were Wernher von Braun and General Dornberger – and shortly after they were imprisoned, General Kammler quietly disappeared for good…
‘Did I go with him? Obviously not. On that very same day, when Kammler was on the train to Oberammergau, I returned to Berlin to check on the general situation. However, once in Berlin I found myself buried in plots, counterplots and other intrigues. As for Himmler, he just wouldn’t let me go. Now totally hysterical, hiding pathetically in his sanatorium, he was studying his horoscope, sti
ll trying to negotiate a separate peace, and babbling constantly about Schriever’s flying disk and how it could save us all.
‘In the end, it was Schriever’s worthless saucer that got me trapped in Berlin. Now believing that the Wilson project had been terminated and that Wilson had been shot, Himmler insisted that I supervise the test flight of Schriever’s supposedly completed prototype. Reluctantly I did this – I arranged the test flight for mid-April – but the test was called off in the face of the Allied advance, the prototype was destroyed by the retreating SS, and Schriever’s few worthwhile drawings were stolen from him and burned in my presence. After that, Himmler collapsed, eventually killing himself, and I fled the holocaust of Berlin and finally ended up here.
‘And the others? On April 25, 1945 – five days after Hitler’s birthday, two days after the first meeting between Soviet and US troops on the banks of the Elbe, three days before the Allies crossed to the Eastern Bank, and five days before Hitler killed himself in his bunker in Berlin – General Kammler joined Wilson and General Nebe aboard submarine U-977 – bound for the Antarctic.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
April 26, 1945. We had left Kiel illegally, not daring to ask for fuel, so we pulled into Christiansund South to fill up the tanks. The war news was bad. The Soviets were in Berlin. The Americans and Russians had finally met at Torgau on the Elbe. The end was in sight. The submarine submerged the next day and kept hugging the coastline. I often went to the hold to check the crate, though I knew this was pointless. General Nebe kept to himself, his dark eyes revealing nothing. General Kammler was obsessed with the radio and passed on the news. None of this news was good. The Reich was obviously about to fall. When the death of Adolf Hitler was announced, we all knew it was over.
Captain Schaeffer called a meeting. Nebe and Kammler sat together. General Kammler was tense and energetic, Nebe was expressionless. The war was over, Schaeffer said. That raised certain problems. There would be no submarine tankers in the South Atlantic, which meant no food nor fuel. We would have to change our plans. We would never make it to the Antarctic. With luck, we might reach Argentina, but we couldn’t go farther.
I confess: I was shocked. My one thought was for the wilderness. I glanced at Nebe but his dark gaze was unrevealing, so I then looked at Kammler. The general’s eyes were bright. He mentioned Colonel Juan Peron. He reminded us that Peron was a man who could not resist money. Kammler smiled when he said this. He was an organized man. He then added that he had already discussed the matter with the necessary people. General Nebe did not smile. Captain Shaeffer looked relieved. We agreed to head straight for Argentina at no matter the cost.
Not quite straight: a digression. Some of the crew became rebellious. The war was over and they wished to return to Germany, and Schaeffer agreed to this. We hugged the Norwegian coastline. We only surfaced at night. A few days later we reached the mountainous coast of Bergen and let the men off.
I climbed up to the deck. I had to breathe the cooling air. I saw patches of stars between the clouds, the dark water, the jagged cliffs. The men shivered on the deck. General Nebe surveyed them coldly. The men shuffled their feet on the deck and shook hands with their comrades. I looked across the calm sea. The coastline was featureless. The sea lapped against the submarine as the men clambered overboard. I felt a great yearning. I wanted to rest my feet on dry land. After this, we would spend months in the submarine, mostly submerged.
May 10, 1945. The real voyage began. My strongest memories are of constant heat and stench and the engine’s bass rumblings. It was too long for sanity. We were living on top of one another. First a day, then a week, then two weeks, the submarine like a tomb. The North Sea and the English Channel. The blackened breast of Gibraltar. When we surfaced, our freedom was brief and airplanes made us fearful. In truth, we rarely surfaced. The hatch was opened to let air in. We would see a glittering circle of sky and then the hatch would be closed again. Then along the coast of Africa. A stolen glimpse of sun and sand. Then thirtysix days underwater, a nightmare of sweat and noise.
By June the crew was restless. There were arguments and fist fights. Once a man took his knife from his dinner plate and slashed the face of a friend. Captain Schaeffer gave them beer. He was a careful, thoughtful man. There was peace for at least another week, but then more fights broke out. General Nebe’s dark eyes were watchful. His hand often stroked his pistol. He started pacing up and down the submarine, murmuring words here and there. His words calmed some restless souls. Nebe’s dark eyes tamed their rage. They would stare at his eyes, at his pistol, and remember his history. After that, it was easier. It was miserable, but less dangerous. We turned away from one another, faced the walls, and let our own thoughts sustain us.
We surfaced six weeks later. We were in the middle of the South Atlantic. A fierce sun burned a hole in the sky, and the green sea was placid. This reprieve was a blessing. The next month was more bearable. We alternated between floating on the surface and diving back to the depths. Then the Cape Verde Islands. We went ashore on Branca Island. The men frolicked on the burning white sand and washed themselves in the dazzling sea. That day was all too brief. The droning of aircraft made us leave. The submarine dived back to the depths and our journey continued.
Nevertheless, life was easier. We started surfacing almost daily. Once we stayed on the surface for a week by disguising the submarine. False sails and false funnel. From the air we looked like a cargo steamer. The airplanes droned overhead but ignored us, not suspecting a thing. The men waved at the planes. They fought their boredom with such humor. They would watch the planes flying away, and then lie down and sun themselves.
Nebe usually remained below. He liked the claustrophobic depths. Kammler paced the deck and searched the horizon like a man with no time to spare. Eventually we saw land. It was the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Kammler smiled and climbed down through the hatch to listen in on the radio. The news was not good. Kammler relayed what had happened. Another fleeing submarine, Captain Wehrmut’s U-530, had recently put into the River Plate with unfortunate results. The whole crew had been taken prisoner and handed over to the Americans. Kammler told us this, studied us, enjoyed our despair, then grinned and mentioned a place called Mar del Plata and went back to the radio.
August 17, 1945. We docked at Mar del Plata. Four months after we had boarded at Kiel we stepped off in the Argentine. We had no need to worry. An arrangement had been made. From here we were to be transported to a secret airfield in Bahia Blanca, and from there flown directly to the Antarctic.
The thought filled me with pleasure. I looked along the crowded deck. The Argentinian officials crossed the gangplank, their medals flashing and jangling. They did not look too happy. They were mopping their sweaty brows. I sensed immediately that something was wrong and crossed over to Kammler. He shook hands with the officials. The man with most medals whispered. Kammler’s lips formed a single, thin line that expressed his concern. He then smiled at Captain Schaeffer. He introduced us to the officials. We all had wine and biscuits on the desk, the sun blazing upon us. A short delay, someone said. An unfortunate mishap regarding transportation. We would have to spend some days on the submarine before we could leave. Captain Schaeffer agreed to this. He was a reasonable, thoughtful man. The Argentinians all smiled and bowed politely and then left in a hurry.
I spoke to Kammler and Nebe. We met at midnight on the deck. It was dark and I saw the moon reflected in Nebe’s depthless eyes. Kammler spoke in an urgent whisper. He told us what had really happened. He said that British and American Intelligence had picked up the information that Hitler was not dead and that he and Martin Bormann had escaped from Germany. Reportedly they had fled in a submarine. They were thought to be heading for Argentina. It was the British and American wish that the Argentinians report the arrival of any German submarines in their waters. Thus the Argentinians were in a panic. They felt that something must be done. What they wanted was to offer the Allies a little something to che
w on.
General Nebe lived by intrigue. It was bread and meat to him. His dark eyes offered no pain or pleasure as he outlined a compromise. We three alone would leave. We would take the precious crate with us. But to save the Argentinians embarrassment, we would leave the rest of our men behind us. They would be held as political prisoners. The Argentinians would hand them over. That way, the Argentinians would look good and we would save our own necks.
Ruthless? Yes. But then the three of us were ruthless. We had lived in the Third Reich a long time and learnt how to survive.
We agreed to Nebe’s plan. It could not possibly fail. The fate of Schaeffer and his crew did not concern us and could hardly affect us. It didn’t matter what they told the Allies. By then it would be too late. By then we would be hidden in the Antarctic, our whereabouts unknown. The Allied forces would then be helpless. They would never locate our underground base. They would know that the underground base existed, but they wouldn’t dare admit to it. How could they mention it? It would only lead to panic. And so, aware of this, knowing the Allies would be helpless, we decided to drop Schaeffer and his crew and go on by ourselves.
We unloaded the crate the next day. This aroused no curiosity. Schaeffer assumed that we were simply unloading it for safekeeping on shore. That same night we slipped away. Some army officers were waiting for us. I saw my crate in the rear of their truck and I climbed up beside it. Nebe and Kammler quickly followed. We glanced back at the submarine. We saw the other troops moving along the dock, their rifles aimed at the submarine. Then we were driven away in the truck, leaving the submarine behind us. The flat plains of Argentina lay about us and the stars glittered brilliantly. Kammler looked at me and smiled. Nebe pursed his lips and slept. The night passed and a pearly dawn broke and then we reached Bahia Blanca.
GENESIS (Projekt Saucer) Page 55
