Gods of Atlantis

by David J. L. Gibbins

  Hoffman stared in amazement at the shape within the package, about fifteen centimetres across.

  Himmler held him in his gaze. ‘With the iron surface facing down, it is a reverse swastika, a symbol of ancient Troy. You can see it decorating ancient potsherds from Troy il ustrated in Schliemann’s book.

  But there’s more. When my scientists analysed the meteoritic iron, they found it had a unique magnetic signature. One of them came up with an ingenious idea. By holding the pal adion with the iron facing down, it could be used as a key, one that could never be replicated. A magnetic mechanism aligned to the unique signature of the meteoritic iron could al ow doors to be opened, doors to the secret vault that contained the Wunderwaffe.’

  ‘The chamber beneath this tower?’ Hoffman murmured.

  ‘I embedded the pal adion in the most secret core of SS ideology. It was concealed below the floor of my SS headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle, like a sacred reliquary. Every new SS general had to swear an oath on that spot. You yourself have been there, when I showed you the cover to the reliquary with the reverse swastika on top, the arms of the cross bending to the left instead of the right. But only a select few knew the significance of what lay concealed beneath – the pal adion – and its use as a key. For those, I devised an activation signal cal ed the Agamemnon Code. A simple message, an image of the reverse swastika inside a red roundel, would be sent to a few chosen fol owers when the time was right. It would signal the start of my plan. Not Adolf ’s plan, but my plan. A plan for a new Reich and a new Führer, but a Reich of global dimensions, one based far away from the squalor and mess of Nazi Germany.’

  Hoffman suddenly remembered Dr Unverzagt. He reached into his tunic pocket, and pul ed out the crumpled piece of paper the man had given him. He smoothed it out and held it up, showing the reverse swastika. ‘You mean like this?’

  Himmler nodded. ‘Dr Unverzagt was one of the select few. I knew that Wewelsburg would be stripped bare by the Al ies when they captured the castle, so I had the pal adion removed to a secret location deep inside a salt mine in Poland. Then, with the advance of the Russians, it was taken to the bunker in the forest in Upper Saxony where the disease weapon had been perfected. The bacterium was kept there, and the virus in the secret storeroom below us now in the Zoo tower. Both could only be accessed using the pal adion as a key. Twelve days ago, I persuaded Hitler to issue the command to destroy the infrastructure of Germany. My fol owers were ready, and the Agamemnon Code was activated. The pal adion was brought to me. Most of my fol owers are now dead, those who believed I was merely a devoted acolyte of Adolf, those who were deluded into thinking that releasing the Wunderwaffe was to be a final act of loyalty to Hitler. They served their purpose, as obediently and loyal y as I had apparently served Adolf. Their elimination was also part of my plan. Only a select few survived, those who knew my true intentions and were loyal to me and my cause above al else. Unverzagt was the penultimate link in the chain. Now it passes to you.’

  Hoffman stared at the package. Was his own elimination part of that plan, too? ‘If I am the last link, why am I only finding out about this now?’

  Himmler leaned back. ‘It was essential that this plan appeared to most of my fol owers to be about loyalty to Hitler. That way I could attract the most fanatical Nazis, the most ruthless. It was a plan to enact once Hitler was dead. It would seem to Hitler’s fol owers like Götterdämmerung, the final act of loyalty to the Third Reich. With impending annihilation, their loyalty could easily be switched to self-destruction. They believed that my intention was to release the disease weapon and inflict as much horror as possible on the world that had betrayed Hitler, and then to join Adolf in some kind of Valhal a with al the Aryan heroes and gods of the past.’

  Hoffman stared at Himmler, barely able to believe what he had been hearing, the ful truth of it only now hitting him. Himmler had always seemed so obsequious to Hitler, idolizing him. If he was tel ing the truth now, if this was not just some insane pipe dream, then it had al been a sham, al those years when Himmler had seemed like the bulwark of the Third Reich, the man whose administrative efficiency made up for the incompetence of Hitler and the others of his inner circle. Hoffman cleared his throat. ‘But for you the wonder-weapon has another purpose?’

  Himmler stared at him. ‘The victors in this war, the English, the Americans, the Russians, those who delude themselves that they are the world powers to come, have their own Wunderwaffe, the atomic bomb.

  We know the Americans already have it, and I ensured that the key developments of our own atomic research programme at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute were left there to be captured by the Russians. This means that the Americans and the Russians wil be trapped in a stalemate. Neither side wil be able to use the weapon against the other, knowing that to launch it would provoke a response that would destroy the aggressor as wel . But my new weapon is different. When I reveal it to the Americans and the Russians, they wil know that I am prepared to use it.

  They have discovered the death factories. They know that if I can do that to the Jews, then I am capable of anything. The Final Solution was not just about crackpot racial theory. That was a cover for me too.

  And the threat of destruction wil be entirely one-sided. I wil be safe, and they won’t know where to hit back. I can hold the world to ransom. We wil be safe.

  In our new Atlantis.’

  Hoffman’s throat was dry. How much of this was he to believe? Was it al a huge delusion, another Nazi fantasy of salvation? His mind raced back over the last few days, searching for anything that might corroborate Himmler’s story. He remembered the orders he had received to report to the Zoo flak tower, issued from Gestapo headquarters. That had been unusual, but nobody disobeyed orders from the Gestapo, with instant executions going on al round.

  Hoffman had been desperate to escape from the Chancel ery and the Führerbunker and had welcomed the orders without a second’s hesitation. It had never occurred to him that the order might have come from Himmler himself, since by then Himmler had been excommunicated and was on the run, possibly dead.

  But it made sense. If the Gestapo and the SS knew that Himmler was stil alive after Hitler’s death, their first loyalty would be to him, and they would obey any instruction he gave them. Himmler had created a nexus of power that had bound the strongest and most fanatical Nazis to him, knowing that that was what would matter in these final days. He had seen the fal of Berlin coming, and had planned for it.

  Hoffman had a sudden flashback to the Wagner concert a few days before. Behind al of Himmler’s symbolism, al the mythology, the heroic il usion that Wagner so embodied for the Nazis, there was a malign purpose. Himmler had been playing them al along. He had been orchestrating this since before the war.

  Hoffman thought hard. Himmler had set up the Ahnenerbe more than ten years before, when he had begun to create the fantasy SS order-castle at Wewelsburg. Hoffman was beginning to think the unthinkable. He remembered al the hats Himmler wore, his tentacles in every limb of the Nazi state, his fingerprint on al the worst crimes: a man who had the ear of Hitler, who could feed the delusions, who could stoke up Hitler’s insane interventions in al aspects of the war, dooming the Reich to col apse and orchestrating the slide into defeat. He recal ed what he had seen that day from his aircraft over Poland, the death camp at Auschwitz. Was this what that had real y been al about? Had the most vile crime against humanity been part of the scheme of one man to usurp Nazi power, to elevate himself to the status of a g o d ? All the death and suffering. The mass of humanity extinguished by this monstrosity seemed incomprehensible in its scale. He could only think of the children in the Führerbunker, of the boy in the outsized helmet on the rooftop, his ears bleeding, doomed forever to hear the guns of this place. Who had been the true Führer? Had they real y al been dancing to Himmler’s tune?

  He looked into the cold eyes opposite. Were they the eyes of a madman? Or were they the eyes of a ruthlessly calculating gangster, a megalomania
c whose time had come?

  ‘Do you have a torch?’ Himmler demanded.

  Hoffman snapped back to the present. He had to keep focused. He patted his tunic pocket, and nodded. ‘Essential in the tower when the generator fails.’

  ‘Listen wel . From here you wil go to the entrance of the ammunition elevator. My two Waffen-SS guards wil accompany you. You wil take the spiral staircase down to the magazine. From there, fol ow the tunnel to the underground water reservoir, then the walkway round to the far wal . You wil see a swastika symbol impressed into the wal , every metre. A reverse swastika.’ He put his hand on the swaddled object in front of him. ‘Go to the fifteenth swastika to the left from the entrance. You wil use the pal adion to open the door behind it, keeping the iron side of the pal adion inwards. The door lock is magnetic and wil spring open. Go down the shaft, and fol ow the tunnel that leads under the reservoir. There you wil see another door with the same symbol. Use the key again. Inside you wil find a lead box, and inside that a metal cylinder like a cigar case that contains a phial.

  Do not unscrew the cylinder. Seal it in your tunic pocket. You are with me?’

  ‘ Mein Führer.’

  ‘If you lose count and try any other than the fifteenth symbol, the chamber wil self-destruct. The Zoo tower wil col apse inwards. A hundred thousand tons of concrete wil fal on you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Go back up the shaft to the walkway around the reservoir. The guards wil have been waiting for you there, and they wil leave you and return to tel me of your success. Count four doors to the right from the shaft, and you wil find another door with the swastika, leading to your escape tunnel. On opening that door with the pal adion, you wil have thirty seconds to close it behind you. Explosive charges around the reservoir wil detonate, flooding the chamber beneath it and sealing off al the entrances. You understand?’

  Hoffman nodded, his face set grimly. It seemed another

  absurd

  farce,

  symbols

  and

  secret

  passageways like Wewelsburg Castle, but he had no choice. His family’s salvation was at the end of that escape tunnel. Himmler eyed him closely, his face set in the quizzical smile, then continued: ‘We planned for this contingency – for an enemy onslaught – when the complex beneath the Zoo tower was built, and it is essential now that we activate the self-destruct charges, because the Russians are using the city sewer system to come up behind our lines. But my engineers also secretly laid massive charges below the foundations that wil destroy the Zoo tower entirely.

  That is the job of the two generals behind you. Their families are here in the tower. I arranged that, so they could be reunited. Now their task is to destroy the tower before the Russians move in, to erase al evidence of what went on beneath the reservoir. They too

  are

  now

  SS

  knights.

  Herren

  SS-

  Obergruppenführer?’

  ‘ Mein Führer.’ The two men spoke in ragged unison, gruffly, and Hoffman heard their heels click.

  He felt a cold trickle of sweat down his back. Destroy the tower. Thirty thousand civilians were cowering inside. It was not the Russians the people of Berlin should have feared the most, but their own leaders.

  He saw images of the circus again, the insane spectacle he had been forced to attend after the Wagner concert, flashing and swirling before his eyes, confusing him. He was dizzy, reeling. He must try to stay in control, for the sake of his family, if they were truly stil alive. There was still a chance.

  Himmler looked at him. ‘The tunnel from the reservoir exits beneath Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. Use the pal adion again as a key to get out. Close the door, and thirty seconds after that the tunnel wil self-destruct.’ Himmler glanced at his watch. ‘Waiting outside the tunnel precisely thirty-five minutes from now wil be two Gestapo officers who wil be your security guards. The Gestapo headquarters building is defended by remnants of the SS-Charlemagne and SS-Nordland divisions, who wil fight to the death. You understand me?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘You wil arrive there after dark. There is an improvised landing strip on the street, kept clear by the Waffen-SS. A Fieseler Storch aircraft is waiting under cover. You can stil fly, Herr SS-Brigadeführer?’

  ‘Natural y.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Himmler cracked the crooked smile again. ‘That is why I chose you for this mission.

  You are one of our best pilots. Do you remember coming to me when you were a boy, wanting to fly for the Ahnenerbe? I was most impressed. Most impressed. You were the perfect age, the perfect material. And who do you think arranged for you to be posted six months ago to Berlin, to be feted, to be part of the inner circle where I could deploy you to this tower when the time was right? You were a hero of the Reich, a man with the perfect credentials, the perfect wife and family. Do you remember that it was I who introduced you to Heidi? I have looked after you in every way. I needed you here once I knew the end was near.’

  Hoffman swal owed hard. It was true. He had been played all along. And maybe Himmler had been right.

  Hoffman had been a fearless pilot, but maybe he had been too compliant. His passion for flying had clouded his ability to question the purpose of the war.

  Perhaps that was what Himmler saw in him, and nurtured. And his beautiful blonde wife, had that been arranged too? He banished the thought from his mind.

  He forced himself to smile, shaking his head as if in dawning realization, in wonder at Himmler’s scheme.

  ‘ Mein Führer. It is a great honour.’

  Himmler waved his hand dismissively. ‘The Storch has fuel and maps to get you to Plön by the Baltic Sea. You wil fly low out of Berlin, down the streets.

  The Soviet gunners wil be taken by surprise, as they believe the Luftwaffe is finished. You are an expert night navigator. Do you remember when you were ordered from your squadron to attend night navigation school? Odd for a Stuka pilot, didn’t you think? After landing at Plön, you wil be taken to see your family for half an hour, and then to a secret U-boat base. When the enemy finds out that Heinrich Himmler and his most loyal officers have escaped, they wil think we intend to carry on some pretence of Adolf ’s thousand-year

  Reich.’

  He

  curled

  his

  lip

  contemptuously. ‘The thousand-year Reich? It was always going to be a mess with Adolf in charge. I knew him twenty-five years ago when he was an obscure agitator. I created him. Good at rabble-rousing, but not much else. Perfect for my purposes.’

  Hoffman had a terrible realization. What was going on now, the fal of Berlin, the horror in the Zoo tower, al of this was part of the theatre, too. The Nazi machinery had not been brought to its knees through incompetence and madness. It had been part of a plan. He stared at Himmler. ‘Where shal I go?’

  ‘You wil keep the cylinder with the phial and the pal adion with you. When the U-boat arrives at its secret destination, you wil be shown your quarters.

  There wil be a reverse swastika in the wal . Use the pal adion again. Put the cylinder inside, and close the door. Your task wil be complete. Then your family wil be sent for from Germany and wil come to you themselves by submarine. There is too much risk to put them in a U-boat now, with you. The sea lanes are stil under enemy attack, and your wife and child wil be safer where they are until the time is right. I have little Hans’ best interests at heart.’

  A cold shiver went through Hoffman. ‘And you?’

  ‘Once the two Waffen-SS guards have returned to me here from escorting you below, I wil leave by the tunnel to the L-Tower and then make my way across the Elbe at night. I must visit Grand-Admiral Dönitz.

  Hitler was persuaded in my absence to appoint Dönitz his successor. That was not in my plan. It is intolerable. Intolerable. Dönitz must be removed.

  Then I must
go in disguise to the bunker near Bremen where something remains that I must retrieve, something my SS fol ower who was dispatched there two weeks ago has failed to deliver to me. After that I wil return to Plön. Once there is a radio signal to show that you have arrived, I wil leave to fol ow you out in the last U-boat. I wil personal y accompany Heidi and Hans. Personally. That is my assurance.

  Do you understand?’

  Hoffman clicked his heels. ‘ Mein Führer.’ It seemed a fantasy plan. If Himmler attempted to go in his absurd disguise to Upper Saxony, he would be behind enemy lines and would be captured. As for his family, Hoffman thought he understood al too wel .

  This much he had learned over the last months in the Chancel ery and the Führerbunker, in the heart of the Nazi empire: the web of lies, of deceit and counter-deceit, a world where nobody was trusted. It was the price for extinguishing morality. How could you trust your minions to be loyal, when you had taken away their ability to judge right from wrong? Hoffman knew exactly how he was being played: the guards had taken away his Luger, and would now accompany him down to the water reservoir to the point of no return.

  He was to fol ow a one-way tunnel, with Gestapo waiting for him at the other end. Then his family.

  Protected, or held hostage? He remembered the two generals standing behind him, both wearing the field-grey uniforms of the Wehrmacht. They were as much SS as he was, newly created fantasy warriors. Their families had been brought to this dungeon not out of any act of charity, but to provide the same leverage.

  They had no choice but to fol ow Himmler’s instructions. Their only reward would be the chance to create their own end, but that would be enough to keep them compliant. Everyone knew what the Russians did to the families of senior officers.

  There was a huge screech outside the door, the sound of a Russian rocket that must have impacted on the gun platform above. Al Hoffman could do now was think of his family. Carrying out Himmler’s plan was the only chance he had to see them again. He took a deep breath of the putrid air, and turned to go.