The Gods of Atlantis

by David Gibbons

  ‘Listen well. From here you will go to the entrance of the ammunition elevator. My two Waffen-SS guards will accompany you. You will take the spiral staircase down to the magazine. From there, follow the tunnel to the underground water reservoir, then the walkway round to the far wall. You will see a swastika symbol impressed into the wall, 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 will use the palladion to open the door behind it, keeping the iron side of the palladion inwards. The door lock is magnetic and will spring open. Go down the shaft, and follow the tunnel that leads under the reservoir. There you will see another door with the same symbol. Use the key again. Inside you will 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 will self-destruct. The Zoo tower will collapse inwards. A hundred thousand tons of concrete will fall on you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Go back up the shaft to the walkway around the reservoir. The guards will have been waiting for you there, and they will leave you and return to tell me of your success. Count four doors to the right from the shaft, and you will find another door with the swastika, leading to your escape tunnel. On opening that door with the palladion, you will have thirty seconds to close it behind you. Explosive charges around the reservoir will detonate, flooding the chamber beneath it and sealing off all 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 will 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 all 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 still alive. There was still a chance.

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

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘You will 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 still fly, Herr SS-Brigadeführer?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘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 swallowed 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 will fly low out of Berlin, down the streets. The Soviet gunners will 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 will 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 will 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 fall of Berlin, the horror in the Zoo tower, all 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 shall I go?’

  ‘You will keep the cylinder with the phial and the palladion with you. When the U-boat arrives at its secret destination, you will be shown your quarters. There will be a reverse swastika in the wall. Use the palladion again. Put the cylinder inside, and close the door. Your task will be complete. Then your family will be sent for from Germany and will 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 still under enemy attack, and your wife and child will 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 will 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 follower who was dispatched there two weeks ago has failed to deliver to me. After that I will return to Plön. Once there is a radio signal to show that you have arrived, I will leave to follow you out in the last U-boat. I will personally 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 all too well. This much he had learned over the last months in the Chancellery and the Führerbunker, in the heart of the Nazi empire: the w
eb 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 follow 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 follow 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. All 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. A sudden banging rattled the door, and it swung open. A boy’s voice rose above the noise, shrill and panic-stricken. ‘Herr Oberstleutnant! Alarm! Alarm! Der Iwan kommt! Der Russ kommt!’ The boy with the lederhosen stood between the two SS men, panting, his face smudged with cordite and his clothing dishevelled. For a moment everything seemed paralysed, as if time had stopped. The Russians were coming. The boy looked at Hoffman, then wrenched off his outsized helmet, tossed it down and ran back towards the mass of people on the stairway, disappearing from view.

  ‘Go!’ the voice behind him ordered. ‘I will leave by the other tunnel. Schnell!’ Himmler thrust the swaddled package into the satchel, and Hoffman slung it over his shoulder. It was incredibly heavy. Gold and meteoritic iron. He tried to remember what he had been told, how he was to use it. As he passed the two generals, he caught the eye of the one nearest to him. They were locked into Himmler’s plan as much as he was. The general’s eyes were grey, devoid of hope, the eyes of a man who knew his last act would be to kill his own family to save them from the Soviets. But Hoffman hoped he saw something else, a humanity, something that Himmler would not even be able to recognise. When it came to it, when the two officers sat with pistols to their heads in front of the detonator switch, they might not do it. The people in the tower might be spared. The little boy might not die.

  He reached the door. The rooftop entrance to the gun platform above the spiral staircase had been left open, and he felt the pressure waves of explosions pulsing down the stairwell. The Katyusha rockets were flying directly overhead now, shrieking like Valkyries. This was real-life Götterdämmerung, the battle at the end of the world. Only it was not a battle fought between gods, and no heavenly hall awaited the heroes. The new breed of gods who had created this horror were dead or cowering in underground places, or planning new schemes of apotheosis like the monster in this room with him now.

  The two SS guards loomed out of the dust and fell in beside him. Then the voice spoke again. ‘Halt.’ Hoffman felt his stomach lurch. The diary. Had Himmler found it? Perhaps he would die in this place after all. He braced himself and turned around. Himmler was walking towards him, the SS dagger in his hand, still sheathed. He fumbled with it, nearly dropping it, then offered Hoffman the hilt. Hoffman took it, feeling the clammy sweat on the grip, then stood to attention and clicked his heels. Himmler took something out of his pocket and pressed it into Hoffman’s other palm. Hoffman looked down and saw a silver ring with the Totenkopf design, the death’s-head insignia of the SS. Around the sides of the ring were three roundels with runic signs. Two of them he vaguely recognized from the symbols he had been shown at Wewelsburg Castle, but the third was unfamiliar, a curious construction of parallel and right-angle lines like two garden rakes set front to front. Himmler watched him staring at it, then closed Hoffman’s palm around the ring. ‘That symbol is an ancient rune my Ahnenerbe explorers discovered in the place that is now your final destination. I have made it the symbol of my new order. This ring is for you to give to Heidi. It is my token of assurance to her. Keep it safely.’ He reached up and adjusted Hoffman’s Knight’s Cross, patting him. Hoffman could smell his breath, just as he had smelled Hitler’s when the cross had been awarded. The crooked smile was on Himmler’s face again, his eyes roaming until they fixed on Hoffman’s. ‘That dagger is now your sacred symbol. Show it to others in the SS, and they will know you have my authority. And Heidi will have my greatest symbol of respect and honour. In your task ahead, think always of your family. We will be the new Übermenschen, the new supermen, yes? The new gods of Atlantis.’

  Hoffman clicked his heels and turned away. His world had closed in, as if the noose tightening around Berlin were tightening around him as well. All that flashed before his eyes was the panic-stricken boy in the dishevelled lederhosen, as if that were the last image of light he had seen, imprinted on his retina. The jarring of the explosions made him see repeated images of the boy’s face, lining the edge of his vision, and then ahead of him a swirling image of the reverse swastika, drawing him into the underworld. He opened his eyes and breathed hard, thinking of what he had written in his diary. That was history, a terrible history of crime and horror. But what he knew now, the future that lay ahead if Himmler’s plan were to be carried out, was incalculably worse. He remembered the sheets of paper he had torn off and put in his pocket, the pencil. Somehow he must find a way of writing a message for posterity, in case the truth died with him and the deadly weapon remained intact. If he was unable to thwart Himmler, someone else might.

  He thrust the SS knife into his pocket, unsheathing it and grasping the exposed part of the blade as hard as he could, savagely, feeling the blood from his fingers ooze out. A rage coursed through him, the rage and adrenalin he had once felt as he held the stick in his Stuka dive-bomber, hurtling towards the target, the siren screaming. He knew why his family would not be joining him until he had completed Himmler’s task. His wife and boy were being held to ransom. But Himmler had forgotten what he did, what he was good at, how he had survived five years of war. He remembered Himmler’s pudgy hands fumbling with the knife. These people had created the worst killing machine in history. But for them the killing was remote, abstract. It was other people who did their dirty work for them, people like those boys on the roof, like the countless dead soldiers outside, like the thugs of the SS and Gestapo, people like Hoffman. That was Himmler’s biggest weakness. For him the SS knife was a symbol, not a weapon. He had lost sight of another aspect of humanity.

  What it was that made men kill.

  PART 3

  15

  Wewelsburg Castle, Germany

  Jack swung his legs out of the car and stood in the car park, stretching his arms and savouring the cool morning air. Even though he had not gone inside the Nazi bunker in the forest the day before, he still felt as if some of that horror were clinging to him, filling his lungs as it had filled the lungs of the first Allied soldiers who had entered the death camp beside the bunker almost seventy years before. He took another deep breath, then watched as Maurice Hiebermeyer clambered out of the car on the driver’s side, adjusting his trousers around his ample waist and pushing his little round glasses up his nose, then picking up a shoulder bag and coming round to stand beside him. For Maurice, the bunker experience had been far worse, not only for the sheer horror of what he had seen but also because of his German background, and Jack knew that his intense focus on planning their visit today had been a way of pushing away an experience that had unsettled him, something that Jack himself had found difficult to watch.

  Together the two men stared up at the great bulk of the castle in front of them, its off-white masonry stark against the blue sky. It looked unreal, as if it had just been completed, too good to be true. Jack ha
d to remind himself that he was not in England, where so many castles were ruins; in Germany, castles like this had been continuously occupied through to modern times. He caught sight of the name at the entrance to the car park: Wewelsburg. This castle was a special case, reinvented in the twentieth century as the bastion of a new knightly order, an odious fantasy in one man’s mind and the centrepiece of his dream of world domination.

  ‘The castle’s early medieval originally,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘When Heinrich Himmler bought Wewelsburg in 1934, he set about transforming it into his fantasy SS order-castle. From 1939, the slave labour used in the reconstruction came from a concentration camp set up nearby at Niederhagen, eventually including Soviet prisoners of war as well as Jews. Over a thousand of them were worked to death. A thousand. It was everywhere, you know, everywhere in Nazi Germany, the taint of racism and slave labour. Since being in that bunker, I can’t look at anything from that period without feeling physically sick. I can’t believe that I never felt that before. I think the whole of Germany must have been in a state of shock after the war, for years afterwards, even my generation.’ He looked down, distraught for a moment, and then took a deep breath and shook himself, clearing his throat and pointing to the walls. ‘The most dramatic transformation of the castle was where we’re meeting my aunt Heidi, in the so-called Obergruppenführersaal, the SS Generals’ Room in the North Tower. It’s a kind of perverse realization of King Arthur’s Camelot, where Himmler’s top SS generals would meet as if they were latter-day Knights of the Round Table.’

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Jack said.

  ‘Once, when I was a child.’ Hiebermeyer glanced at his watch, then leaned back against the car. ‘We’ve got twenty minutes until I said we would meet her. I wanted to fill you in on a few things before we go into the castle. You and I have known each other since we were boys, and we know pretty well everything in each other’s minds, but this is a chapter I’ve kept mostly to myself. We could go to the café?’