‘Here is good.’
‘Okay. Probably best not to be overheard. Do you remember at boarding school in England when I did a presentation on the Nazis and archaeology? A pretty edgy subject for a German boy in those days, but my parents’ estate was in Westphalia, near here, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it all.’
‘As I recall, the main excitement was a story you’d unearthed about a German expedition to Egypt to uncover a fabulous treasure of the pharaoh Akhenaten. Something you didn’t tell the class about in your presentation, but you did tell me in secret later that day.’
‘Still a big one on our to-do list, very big,’ Hiebermeyer said, the old glint in his eyes back for a moment. ‘But it wasn’t just about following up treasure stories. I also wanted to distil the true archaeology from the nonsense. Himmler was influenced by a mystic named Karl Maria Wiligut, who convinced him that Westphalia would be the site of an apocalyptic battle between East and West, one in which the West would triumph and the River Rhine would run red with blood. At the time, people made the mistake of dismissing Himmler’s fantasies as harmless nonsense, even some fellow Nazis. But like his anti-Semitism, all his obsessions had a horrible fallout in real life. It was Himmler who pushed Hitler to launch Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia in 1941, and there’s no doubt he would have incited Hitler by regaling him with the story of that mythical showdown between East and West.’
‘And yet when it came to the Rhine running red with blood, it was the Western Allies who were the enemy, and this time the Germans were doomed to defeat.’
Hiebermeyer pursed his lips. ‘Yet even that showdown may have been preordained by Himmler, and I don’t mean in mythology. The more I studied him, the more it seemed as if he were willing the Reich to self-destruction. He was Hitler’s right-hand man, in many ways the brains behind the Nazi ideology. It was he who engineered the Holocaust, with ruthless efficiency and attention to detail. He was capable of the kind of cold-headed and practical decision-making that mostly eluded Hitler. Yet it was Himmler who pushed Hitler to make some of his more catastrophic decisions, above all the invasion of Russia. That single decision doomed the Third Reich. I began to look again at Himmler’s obsession with the occult, with all the absurd symbolism and ritual, and to me it seemed more and more like a smokescreen. It was almost as if he had wanted the higher echelons of the Nazi party to treat him as something of a joke, in order to keep them from poisoning Hitler against him and to retain the ear of the Führer, to make sure he was there to influence the most important decision-making. If he’d exposed too much of his rational side, others in the party might have warned Hitler that he was a threat, a possible Führer-in-waiting.’
‘These are some pretty radical ideas for a boy archaeologist,’ Jack said.
Hiebermeyer paused. ‘I felt a need to tackle my own past, my family’s, that of Germany. For me, it was not just a matter of acknowledgement, but of questioning.’ He gestured up at the castle again. ‘This place seemed to represent the dichotomy in my mind about Himmler. On the one hand, Wewelsburg is a Nazi fairy tale, a kind of perverse Disneyland. From that viewpoint, it’s easy to walk in there and dismiss all the occult symbolism as absurd. On the other hand, it was the stronghold of an empire Himmler had carved out for himself, the ideological headquarters of the SS and the focus of the Ahnenerbe, the Department of Cultural Heritage. In 1941, Himmler even declared that Wewelsburg would become the centre of the Third Reich. That might seem little more than a grandiose statement of his ambitions for his cult, but it could also be read at face value. When he said it, some must have known his mind, a hard core of followers, perhaps a secret cadre within the SS. His pronouncement may even have signalled the beginning of the process he had been building towards since acquiring this place years before the war even began. It came in 1941, just at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the beginning of the countdown to apocalypse.’
Jack turned to Hiebermeyer. ‘Are you suggesting that Himmler engineered that? And that he was setting up a rival Reich?’
Hiebermeyer paused. ‘A kind of shadow Reich. But not here, no longer at Wewelsburg. That was part of the smokescreen too. He would have known perfectly well that the castle would not survive the fall of Hitler, that it would be taken by the Allies. And the idea in those final days of April 1945, when he tried to negotiate with the Americans – that Himmler really saw the Third Reich as viable, with himself at the helm, fighting alongside the Western Allies against the Russians – has always seemed to me to be at odds with the man’s cunning intelligence. Nor do I believe that he was fuelled by the fantasy of some kind of miracle deliverance that sustained the remaining Nazis in Berlin in those final dark days. I began to think that he had another scheme, and that he had only been trying to buy time, perhaps for a plan of escape to some other secret base that required a few days more to pull off, with the hours suddenly running short as the Red Army closed in.’
‘And by April 1945, Wewelsburg was already in American hands.’
Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘But Camelot’s a movable feast. With so much focus on the ideology and mystique, Himmler could persuade his followers that the bricks and mortar had become less important. A new order-castle could be built elsewhere. Gangsters always have more than one hideaway. I began to think that his vision for a future Wewelsburg lay beyond Germany, beyond Europe. But there I left it. When we were at school, in the 1970s, there was still a lot of speculation about top Nazis who might have escaped to places like Argentina and Brazil, men who for decades may have contemplated a resurgent Reich. There were dozens of novels and investigative books and films. For me to have speculated about Himmler in that way would just have added to the slush pile on some literary agent’s floor.’
‘Especially as Himmler had committed suicide in British custody in May 1945,’ Jack said.
Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘Something didn’t go quite to plan for him in those final few days after Hitler’s own suicide, when Himmler was on the run. He’d been at Grand Admiral Dönitz’s headquarters at Plön, close to the last surviving U-boat pens, and I can’t help feeling there was a connection. There have always been rumours about U-boats taking fleeing Nazis away.’
‘And that’s why you were so interested in those Ahnenerbe expeditions? Because you thought Himmler was really searching for a new Camelot?’
‘I came to believe that the expeditions weren’t just about finding evidence for Aryan roots, for anything that could be hijacked and slotted into the Nazi foundation myth. They were about shoring up the future. Specifically, about shoring up Himmler’s future. But this was not just about refounding Camelot. This was about something more grandiose, more audacious. Remember, this was a man who brazenly stated that Wewelsburg was to be the centre of the world. Wherever he was going, even if it involved no bricks and mortar, even if the archaeology he so yearned for was elusive, made up, he would preside over his new citadel of power, the one that had driven him to send out expeditions searching for evidence of the greatest lost civilization. Not Camelot, but Atlantis. Atlantis refounded.’ Hiebermeyer nodded at the edifice in front of them. ‘Because I believed that Himmler’s fantasies overlaid a ruthless practicality, I felt that he was looking for more than just a bolthole. There had to be some basis for continuing power, something that would allow him to pursue his dream of world domination. I began to think about the wonder-weapons in production at the end of the war. The German atomic research programme seems unlikely; by April 1945, Himmler would have known about the Manhattan Project – the Allied effort to produce the first atomic bomb – and realized that the threat of a single nuclear bomb, even if the Germans had one ready, would not have been enough to bring the world to its knees. Gas or chemical weapons would never have been practical, requiring aircraft or missiles or artillery for delivery. That left one possibility: a biological weapon.’
Jack stared at Hiebermeyer. ‘Good God. The bunker. You think that wasn’t about some apocalyptic scheme of Hitler’s to t
ake the world with him, but a plan for post-war global threat by Himmler.’
‘It fits the bill exactly. The Spanish flu virus would be the perfect weapon. A single phial would have been enough, a threat to release it in one large city. And it seems consistent with what we can make out of the secretive nature of the experiments at the bunker, the SS involvement, the Agamemnon Code, which seems to have activated a chain of agents. I believe that Himmler had been planning to take the virus with him to his secret destination, or to have an agent do it for him in advance, and that was what he had been trying to arrange in those final days.’
‘Your aunt Heidi,’ Jack murmured. ‘Wasn’t she a scientist?’
Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘A toxicologist. She’d been a biochemistry student when the Nazis came to power, and then worked as a medical researcher in a hospital in Berlin until her son Hans was born. I know that she gave herself up to the British near Plön, where she was hiding with Hans. She was evidently seen as a good catch, and was given a succession of research positions in England, where she remained until retiring back to Germany in the 1970s.’
‘Her son was the one who joined the Baader–Meinhof gang?’
‘He died in an explosion in 1972. He’d been a brilliant student, but had been seduced by the anarchists. Aunt Heidi once told me she saw it as part of the legacy of the Nazis, the damage wrought on the next generation. I don’t think she’s ever got over it, especially after losing her husband too, in the war.’
‘The Stuka pilot? I remember you talking about him.’
Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘Ernst Hoffman. One of the top tank-busters of the war. Knight’s Grand Cross with oak leaves and swords. He was grounded after being wounded on the Russian front, and was posted as some kind of attaché in Berlin. Aunt Heidi said he disappeared like so many others in the final Soviet onslaught, presumed killed.’
‘So why does Heidi want us to meet here now?’
Hiebermeyer paused. ‘I’m not sure. But there was a connection with Himmler, something that dogged Ernst right to the end. Heidi told me that as a boy, he’d seen a newsreel of an Ahnenerbe expedition to Tibet showing biplanes flying over the Himalayas, and had written to Himmler to volunteer as a pilot. After that, Himmler took an undue interest in his Luftwaffe exploits, and arranged his final posting to Berlin, where Ernst was feted as a war hero. Several years before that, it was Himmler who had organized the party where Ernst had first met Heidi. Himmler brought his favourites to Wewelsburg, and maybe Ernst and Heidi came with him. There must be something here she wants us to see.’ He looked at his watch, and stood up. ‘It’s a quarter to eleven. We’d better be on time.’
Fifteen minutes later Jack and Hiebermeyer stood at the entrance to the Obergruppenführersaal, the SS Generals’ Hall, on the ground floor of the north tower of the castle. It was a stark room, devoid of furniture or wall hangings, focusing the eye entirely on the architecture and the pattern in the floor. Surrounding the open central space of the chamber were twelve columns joined by a groin vault, and between them lay deeply recessed apses with tall windows. The daylight coming through the windows illuminated the symbol in the centre of the floor, a green marble Sonnenrad sunwheel with a central axis of gold. Jack knew that this had been the epicentre of Himmler’s vision for Wewelsburg, the place where he had summoned his twelve top SS generals for ideological preparation before Operation Barbarossa in 1941. He heard a low electric hum, and a wheelchair appeared from one of the window niches. Sitting in it was an elegant woman wearing a flowery dress, her white hair done in the fashion of the 1930s. She had a striking face, with high cheekbones and startlingly blue eyes. She waved at Hiebermeyer, who bounded over and kissed her forehead. ‘Heidi,’ he said, holding her hand. ‘Meine liebe Tante.’
Her bright eyes caught Jack’s and he quickly proffered his hand. ‘Frau Dr Hoffman. Pleased to meet you at last.’
‘Call me Heidi,’ she said in beautifully precise English, with the clipped accent of the 1930s. ‘You must be Jack Howard. It is such a pleasure to meet you. Maurice used to tell me about you when he visited during his school holidays, but by then I’d moved back to Germany and he never did bring you along. I was delighted when Maurice phoned to tell me you would be joining us. Ever since reading your Atlantis book, I’ve wanted to bring you here to show you some symbols. My son Hans sketched them once, but I can’t find his drawings now.’ She took a tissue out of her sleeve and dabbed one eye. Jack saw that her hands were shaking. He glanced across at Hiebermeyer. So that was it. Some symbols. The place was filled with symbols, every kind of device the Nazis had come across, including at least three different runic sequences that Jack could see. Some were genuine transcriptions of medieval runes; others clearly were made up. There were bound to be a few that looked like those they had discovered five years ago in Atlantis. For a moment Jack wondered if he was about to be sucked into the world of fringe archaeology, of so-called evidence collated by Himmler’s Ahnenerbe, picked from disparate sources and then arranged together in an apparently convincing whole. For all of the reality of their discovery in the Black Sea, he knew there would always be those who preferred to inhabit this parallel world, where the dream of Atlantis would remain just beyond reach.
‘Tante Heidi,’ Hiebermeyer said, glancing again at Jack. ‘When did you come here before? When Hans was a boy?’
She put away her tissue. ‘Once, when he was a high-school student, to try to interest him in a mystery. But of course I had been here before, when I first came to this chamber and the vault below and saw what I am going to show you now. Have you told Dr Howard about Ernst?’
‘He knows as much as I know.’
She took a deep breath, shuddering slightly, then composed herself. ‘Himmler brought us here on a celebratory tour after Ernst had been awarded the oak leaves and swords cluster to his Knight’s Cross. We were the perfect image of the Nazi couple, the war hero and his blonde Aryan wife, heavily pregnant. Only it was a charade, of course. We were taken first to this chamber, where Ernst was anointed an honorary knight. I thought Himmler was about to induct him into the SS, which would have been the worst horror for Ernst. Fortunately, Himmler said it was more important for the time being that he remain a shining star of the Luftwaffe.’
‘You always told me he only thought of the men in his squadron, Aunt Heidi,’ Hiebermeyer said quietly. ‘That was where his loyalty lay, and to you and Hans.’
Her eyes filled with tears again, and she wiped them. ‘It seems just like yesterday. I feel as if I could walk out of this wheelchair into the sun of the courtyard, see little Hans and hold Ernst by the hand. They were days of happiness, but it was a time of horror. In truth I cannot go back to them, even in my mind’s eye. When I shut my eyes, I only see again the horrors that I myself witnessed.’
She shuddered again, then held her hands tight on the armrests of the chair. ‘Now, we must go down the stairs, to the vault below.’ She raised herself with a walking stick that had been leaning on her wheelchair. The two men quickly took an arm each, and walked alongside her as she moved slowly to the spiral staircase, where Hiebermeyer led, with Jack taking up the rear. In a few minutes they had reached the bottom. They were in a gloomy beehive-shaped chamber, about eight metres high, positioned directly below the SS Generals’ Room and dug into the bedrock. Heidi pointed up to the vault with her stick. ‘There’s a swastika in the apex, directly below the Sonnenrad sun symbol in the floor above,’ she said. ‘The vault’s based on the shape of a Mycenaean Greek tomb, the so-called Treasury of Atreus at the ancient site of Mycenae. Himmler was obsessed with warrior kings of the ancient past. This vault is really a shrine to Agamemnon, the king of the Greeks who attacked Troy, the hero of another war between West and East.’ She brought down her cane and tapped on a marble slab in the centre of the floor. ‘If you look under this, you’ll see why.’
She sat down abruptly on a wooden bench beside the wall. Jack stared at the floor, but saw nothing in the closely fitted marble slabs to
suggest an opening. Hiebermeyer knelt down and put his hand on the slab she had tapped. ‘How do you know anything’s here, Aunt Heidi?’
‘Because Himmler showed it to me. Ernst regarded all of Himmler’s archaeology as occult, and found a ready excuse that day to avoid the tour by volunteering to fly Nazi officials who accompanied us over the site of the castle to see Himmler’s grandiose construction scheme from the air. Himmler brought me down here alone. I never told Ernst what I saw; he would have scoffed at it. Himmler was very proud of this chamber. It was meant to be a kind of holy of holies, and a burial vault for the ashes of the greatest SS heroes. His top SS officers were meant to come and swear allegiance over the object buried below. But only a select few knew what it was.’
‘Is it still here?’
‘You can see where it rested.’ She tapped her stick against the wall behind her, then tapped it again, as if trying the find the right spot. The second tap produced a hollow sound, and where Hiebermeyer had been looking, an octagonal slab of marble about the size of a large dinner plate rose a few inches out of the floor. ‘There,’ she said. ‘I’m probably the only one left who knows how to do that. Even the curators of this place don’t know this is here. Go on, Maurice, pull it out.’
Hiebermeyer got down on all fours, grasping the block by two recessed handles on either side. He lifted it up and set it down beside the hole. Jack took out a Mini Maglite and knelt beside him. About six inches below was a ring of symbols, surrounding a hollow shape cut into the rock. Jack peered closely at the shape, panning his torch over it, then looked at Hiebermeyer. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
Hiebermeyer was staring at it. ‘Incredible.’
Jack’s mind raced. A reverse swastika. It was the same as the shape in the bunker laboratory door. And it was the shape he had seen six months before in the strongbox he and Costas had retrieved from deep inside the mine in Poland, the shape of an object that Saumerre had so coveted but which had remained elusive.
The Gods of Atlantis Page 30
