by Ward Wagher
“And if Canaris finds out about it?”
“I’m sure he has his sources in the SS. I mean, he views them as a greater enemy than England.”
“That’s a bit unfair to Canaris, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Schloss raised his eyebrows.
Schloss picked up his coffee cup. The remains were cold. “I think I’ll try your trick, Peter.”
He raised his cup into the air. Renate had just walked into the room and she snatched the cup from his hand.
“Getting imperious, are we?” she asked.
“I’m just following your husband’s example.”
“God help us all,” she said.
“I suppose I should ask why we keep Canaris around,” Peter commented. “He seems only marginally competent.”
“He is what we have,” Schloss said. “I do not have visibility into his organization. If there is one thing I can say about him, not to mention Goering and Himmler, is the genius required to build large bureaucratic organizations.”
“And do we truly control the government?”
Renate slid a fresh cup of coffee in front of Schloss. “Here you go, Your Majesty.”
Schloss glanced at Peter, but said nothing to Renate. Perhaps she would interpret that as his thinking she was pushing it a bit hard. He sipped on the coffee.
“Rainer has confided to me his struggles in bending the SS to his will. The military pretty much does what it wants, regardless of what Goering says. Canaris built his organization, and I think they are loyal to him, personally. We probably have the party under control. The Gauleiters don’t give me much trouble.”
“So, if something happens to you, the country snaps back to the way it was with Hitler?” Peter asked.
“Not immediately. If Heydrich were to get in the saddle it certainly would.”
“Some of his pamphlets certainly suggest that,” Peter said. “My shop has been paying close attention to that.”
“Have your people responded?” Schloss asked.
“So far, Heydrich’s stuff is at the nuisance level. I thought it would be better to simply ignore it for the present. Responding to it gives it legitimacy.”
“Good thinking, Peter. Do you control your shop?”
Peter nodded. “In the main. I don’t have any problems that I know of. Of course, I haven’t gone around turning over rocks. Whatever his fault, and they were legion, Goebbels built a fine organization. It doesn’t say a lot about the morality of people who quickly switched their allegiance to me back in December.”
“And if Heydrich scored a coup, they would just as quickly jump into his boat.”
“Exactly.”
The thunder from a near lightning strike shook the house. The children shrieked. Hans-Friedrich trotted into the dining room.
“Are the English bombing us tonight, Poppa?” he asked.
“No, Hans. That is a thunder storm. I do not think the English will be flying tonight.”
“Thank you, Poppa,” he said. He turned and walked out of the room.
“I just hate seeing the children grow up like that,” Peter said.
“They are more resilient than we,” Schloss said. “I have discovered my worries there to be misplaced. Oh, they fear the English and have nightmares. But, they are matter of fact about it. I am concerned, however, that they will grow up hating the English. In the long run, we will have to get along with them.”
“What is going to happen to Churchill, Hennie?”
Schloss had been cradling his coffee cup and he set it down to hold his hands palms up. “I really do not know. He is perhaps the most brilliant leader of the century. But his actions of late have been erratic. That worries me.”
“You are talking about his rationality?”
“Yes. We have backed him into a corner and he is getting desperate.”
“I should think he would be glad to have an opening to end the war.”
“Exactly. We are going to have to play this carefully,” Schloss said as he picked up his coffee cup again.
“How many cups of coffee do you drink each day?” Peter asked.
“Too many. I am starting to have trouble sleeping.”
“I heard that,” Gisela said as she walked into the room. She eased the cup out of his hand. “Nor more coffee tonight, Hennie.”
“I think that was a directive,” Schloss said.
Peter chuckled. “There was no question in my mind.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
June 10, 1942; 11AM
Augsburg, Germany
“I don’t mind telling you, Karl, that I am very uncomfortable subjecting our pilots to potential fire from the ground,” Schloss said.
“We have already located the army vehicle with the guns installed. I have people watching it. As soon as the key players arrive, we will move in,” Rainer patiently explained to Schloss.
They had diverted Schloss’s Condor to Augsburg, where his party disembarked. A pair of Luftwaffe pilots had taken over the aircraft and would fly it to the Luftwaffe base in Lechfield. Schloss would follow in a vehicle convoy. Even though Rainer was confident of acting in time to stop the attack, he was not willing to risk Schloss in the airplane.
The grosser Mercedes waited on the tarmac next to the gate. Schloss and Kirche waited in the back seat. Rainer stood by the open door as they conversed.
“Will we not attract a lot of attention by driving a convoy through the countryside?” Schloss asked.
“It was hard to keep your trip here completely secret, Herr Schloss,” Rainer said. “We are relying upon an element of surprise to throw the Heydrich group off the scent.”
“And we are using a couple of innocent pilots to trail blood in the water.”
Rainer held his hands up in frustration. “They are SS pilots, Herr Schloss. They assumed risk when they signed up for the job. They were volunteers.”
“Volunteers?” Schloss asked. He jabbed his finger in front of him. “You, and you. You just volunteered.”
“We asked for volunteers from the SS Flight Services in Berlin for a task involving some risk. They all volunteered, Herr Reichschancellor.”
“Oh, very well, Karl. I will stop being an old woman. I can see that look on your face.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he replied. “You are simply raising legitimate questions about the operation – things I have already examined.”
“So, what are we waiting for?” Schloss asked.
Schloss felt a pang of guilt at his baiting of the Reichsprotektor. But it was fun, if a bit mean. Plus, he could see Rainer’s stoicism warring with his desire to put Schloss in his place. He wondered what it would take to get Rainer to finally lose his temper. Then he wondered if that was wise. Gisela had warned him about tormenting those who worked for him. However, most of those people seemed to enjoy the attention. He thought that Rainer merely endured it.
“The other vehicles are arriving as we speak,” Rainer said. “As soon as I finish the final instructions, we will proceed to Lechfield.”
“Thank you, Karl.”
“It is my pleasure, Herr Schloss.”
Schloss concluded that pleasure was not the word that Rainer wanted to use. The convoy consisted of two more large Mercedes sedans along with two trucks containing a platoon of SS troops. Rainer trotted around and climbed in the front seat of the Mercedes, next to the driver. As much as possible, when Schloss traveled, Rainer was not very far away from him. He had confessed to Schloss that he blamed himself for the events in Italy.
The convoy began moving. Schloss looked over at Kirche. “Do you have my speech, Willem?”
Kirche slipped a sheet of paper from a folder and handed it to Schloss. “Of course, Sir.”
Schloss read down through the speech again. He had written it originally, but Kirche had cleaned it up. Schloss wanted to praise the pilots as much as possible. This needed to be the elite of the Luftwaffe, and the best way to make it so was to work to inform ever
yone else.
§ § §
June 10, 1942; 12PM
A meadow between Augsburg and Lechfield
Konrad Mussen stepped over next to Reinhard Heydrich. “You need to be gone, Sir.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Konrad. “Once we bring down the Condor we can quickly disperse in the confusion.”
“But the risk to the movement is extreme, if you are captured. We cannot permit that.”
“And you are being an old woman,” Heydrich said. “I refuse to rot in the safe house another day. I am a man of action. I cannot gauge the opposition unless I am in the field.”
Without another word, Heydrich stalked towards the truck. He understood the risks as well as Mussen. But he was confident in his abilities. And he needed to set an example for the men. He could not do that huddled in an upstairs bedroom in one of the cities of the Reich.
Heydrich decided his guards were as aware of the risks as he. The twelve men had spread around the meadow and were alert. This was probably overkill, he thought. If some hapless farmer stumbled across them, his guards would cause a moment of regret on the part of the farmer before he died. No one else knew they were here. He was confident in his security.
Rolf Friedle stood next to army truck parked in the meadow. The twenty-five-year-old corporal had been in contact with the renegade elements of the SS, and was excited about the prospect of getting proper Nazis back in leadership. He was nervous about their mission, though. There was no question it was dangerous. Although they were in a wooded area, when whey uncorked the anti-aircraft guns, there was no way they could avoid attracting attention. He was reassured that Reinhard Heydrich was with the team. The man clearly knew what he was doing, and showed confidence.
“Are the guns prepared, Corporal?” Heydrich asked as he strode over to the truck.
Friedle popped to attention. “Yes, Herr General. I have personally checked them and they are ready. Unfortunately, we could not test fire them.”
Mounted on the truck, the four barrels of the Flak 38 anti-aircraft gun raised bulges in the cover.
Heydrich chuckled. “Not to worry. Your reputation precedes you, Corporal. If you say they are ready, I am prepared to believe you.”
“Should we remove the tarp from the guns?” Friedle asked.
Heydrich looked at his watch and then scanned the sky. “Yes, I think we should go ahead. I do not want to be struggling to get the guns ready when the traitor’s aircraft flies over.”
Friedle climbed upon the frame of the gun carriage and began pulling the heavy canvass from the guns. He then jumped to the ground and began carefully folding the cover.
“I rather doubt you need to worry about that, Corporal,” Heydrich said with a chuckle. “We will be leaving the guns as soon as our job is done.”
“But the unit will find its way back to the army, and one of our people might need it. I want to leave things in good condition.”
Heydrich nodded. “Very well, Corporal. Carry on.” He wasn’t allowing anything to disturb his good mood. This was the day he would finally remove Heinrich Schloss and his poison from Germany. In the distance, he could hear the low moan of the Bramo radials as the Condor descended towards the Lechfield air base.
“Get ready, Corporal,” Heydrich said suddenly.
A group of fifty SS stormtroopers appeared in the meadow. A major in charge blew a whistle and screamed, “Halt!”
“No!” Heydrich shouted. “Open fire!”
His guards had been paying attention, and reacted quickly. Though outnumbered, they poured fire into the troops. A dozen went down before they were able to react and shoot back.
Reinhard Heydrich scrambled up onto the platform and swung the guns around. As bullets whistled around him, he lined up on the Focke-Wulf Condor as it coasted over the meadow with flaps and gear extended. Just as he had expected, the aircraft was, in the parlance of the pilots, low and slow.
He felt a bullet slice into his stomach as he pulled the triggers and the Flak 38 barked its payload of death into the air. He swept the aiming reticle across the Condor as it drifted overhead. The troops who had arrived in the meadow concentrated their fire on him.
Heydrich’s last view was the left wing of the Condor collapsing and the aircraft diving into the forest. And then he died.
§ § §
June 10, 1942; 1PM
Lechfield Aerodrome
As the convoy pulled across the tarmac of the Lechfield Luftwaffe base, a portly figure turned towards them, and began trotting towards them.
“Is that Goering?” Schloss asked.
“Yes, and I wonder what he is about,” Rainer said. “Driver, stop here.”
“What is he doing?” Schloss asked. “He is going to give himself a coronary.”
Rainer quickly got out of the car and pulled his pistol. This brought Goering to a quick halt. He bent over and struggled to catch his breath. Schloss climbed out of the car and stepped over next to Rainer.
“Hermann, whatever is the matter?”
“Thank Gott, Herr Reichschancellor. We thought you were dead.”
“What?”
Goering pointed to the cloud of black smoke boiling from the forest past the end of the runway. “The Condor crashed before making the runway. We thought it was your plane.”
“Explain, please!” Schloss snapped. “What happened?”
“The aircraft was approaching for a landing. It was in contact with the tower. It suddenly burst into flames and a wing collapsed. It happened quickly.”
Schloss looked at Rainer. “I suppose you should find out what happened to your people, Karl. Things may be spinning out of control.”
“What are you talking about, Herr Reichschancellor?” Goering demanded. “Why did you come by car? Was that your airplane?”
“I need a secure place to talk to you, Herr Goering,” Schloss said. “I have an incredible mess to sort out, and not a lot of time to do it.”
“May I suggest, Karl,” he continued, “that you find us some additional security. Someone has badly miscalculated. And, call Berlin to throw additional security around Gisela and the children.”
“At once, Herr Reichschancellor,” Rainer said.
“Now, Hermann, where can we go to talk?”
Goering was speechless and his jowls quivered. He pointed to the flight operations building.
“Very well,” Schloss said, “let’s go.”
Schloss took Goering by the arm, and marched him towards the building. Rainer silently pointed to the guards, raised four fingers, and then pointed at Schloss. Four guards detached themselves and followed the two men. A Luftwaffe Captain walked briskly over to where Rainer stood.
“How may I help you, Herr Reichsprotektor?”
“You are Captain...”
“Werner Thierfelder, at your service, Herr Reichsprotektor. I am the squadron commander.”
“I need two things, Captain,” Rainer said. “The Reichschancellor is going to need access to a secure telephone. I will also need you to explain what you saw here today.”
“The Condor was coming in for a landing, Sir,” Thierfelder said. “We saw it catch fire and then the left wing collapsed. It crashed into the forest short of the runway. I immediately dispatched a team to rescue any survivors.”
“Was there any gunfire?” Rainer asked.
Thierfelder shook his head. “The mechanics were running up the engines on one of the Swallows, so it is entirely likely we would not have heard gunfire if that is what brought down the Condor. Is it true this was the Reichschancellor’s aircraft?”
“There were two SS pilots in that aircraft. Other than that, I can tell you nothing further at this time. Please let me know as soon as possible their status. And now, if you will take me to the room.”
Goering led Schloss into the Operations building, and walked through the doorway into an empty office. Schloss shut the door and turned to face Goering.
“All right, Hermann. Be so good as to explain what
happened out there.”
“Herr Reichschancellor, I do not know,” Goering said. He was still breathing heavily from the unaccustomed exercise. “The pilots were lined up to welcome you, and I was sure that was your airplane. If it was not you, who was on the Condor?”
“That is a very good question,” Schloss said. “I was supposed to be on that Condor. Along the way I decided to transfer to a different mode of travel. I am very glad that I did. But, it does nothing for those poor people who remained aboard.”
“But you are safe, Herr Schloss. That is all that matters.”
“Is it, Hermann? My travel to Lechfield was not widely known. I purposely kept it close. You and I knew about it. Karl knew about it. We purposely planned the trip at the last moment. Even so, you can see what happened. You were the one who issued the invitation...”
“Herr Reichschancellor,” Goering gabbled, “I swear to you that I did not arrange something like what happened.”
“Then, what did you do?” Schloss advanced and poked Goering in the chest. “The leak did not come from Rainer or the SS. It did not come from my office. It had to come from your office. I want to know who leaked it. I grow weary of having people shoot at me.”
“I promise you I will find the culprit,” Goering said. “You have my word of honor.”
“Oh, I think we can be assured of that,” Schloss said. “I have asked Rainer to bring the SS in to investigate. I know they will be thorough.”
“That is not something the SS has done before,” Goering said. “We have always respected one another’s central offices.”
“Then what would you suggest?”
“I am sure we can find out who spread the word.”
Schloss shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hermann, but we must let Karl do this. When your people ask you what is going on, I expect you to tell them you have every confidence the SS will act thoroughly and fairly in isolating the security violation in your office.”
“That… is not acceptable.” Goering seemed to be recovering his footing.
