They Used Dark Forces (52 page)

Already, during the past five days, Gregory had racked his brains in vain for some means of intriguing Goering into sparing him should his true identity be discovered. Now, he had made his bid and, as he had expected, having no concrete proposal to offer, it had been rejected. He began to wonder if the Reichsmarschall would have him taken out and shot at once, or give an order for him to be executed in the morning.

Goering again raised his hand. Gregory thought that he was about to press the bell on his desk to summon the guard, but the gems on it flashed as he waved it towards a chair and said, ‘Those people in the next room bore me. Sit down again and tell me about yourself. How long have you been in Germany? What have you been up to, and what did you hope to gain by masquerading as a fortune-teller?'

It was seven months since Gregory had left England and even any information that could have been extracted from him under torture was long out of date; so he had no hesitation in relating how he had been flown into Poland to collect the mechanism of a V.2 and had become stranded there.

‘What damnable luck,' Goering commented. ‘And on account of that stupid firework, too. I always maintained that to manufacture a weapon that was as expensive as an aircraft, yet could deliver only one medium-sized bomb, was the height of idiocy; but the Führer wouldn't listen. Instead he let that loud-mouthed
little crook Goebbels build it up as a war-winner, with the result that the people no longer believe our broadcasts. When I think of the millions in money and man hours that went into that damp squib it makes me hopping mad. With the same cash and effort I could have added ten thousand ‘planes to the Luftwaffe and made the Normandy beaches present a very different picture. But go on. What happened to you then?'

Having no doubt that within eight hours at most he would be dead, Gregory took some pleasure in describing how he had killed the two S.S. men in Malacou's cottage and disposed of their bodies, then made his way to Berlin dressed in an S.S. uniform. But, having told how he had got rid of it, he temporarily abandoned the truth in order to protect Sabine; simply saying that he had hidden for some days in an empty boathouse on the Wannsee, and during the nights broken into a number of garages until he found one with a car that had a driving licence in the locker and for which there was a good supply of petrol. To that he had only to add that the licence had happened to be that of Prince Hugo von Wittlsebach zu Amberg-Sulzheim to return to a true account of all that had since befallen him.

Goering listened to all this with interest and, at times, amusement; but when Gregory spoke of the success that Malacou had had while at Sachsenhausen in predicting the future, the Reichsmarschall frowned and said, ‘Surely that was no more than intelligent guesswork. For a long time past I could have foretold the way things would go for Germany and been right in all but minor matters.'

‘No doubt,' Gregory agreed. ‘But you had all the information available to go on, whereas Malacou, cooped up as he was in a concentration camp, had nothing other than rumours and news that was often weeks old. Even you could not have foreseen that the British airborne landings at Arnhem would prove a failure.'

‘Oh yes I could. Montgomery's successes have been due mainly to his extreme caution and being backed by overwhelming air power; but for once he stuck his neck out. It was clear to us that he had allowed the airborne forces to be put
down too far ahead for them to be supported by his armour, since it had to advance along a road that our artillery was able to enfilade from both sides.'

‘Perhaps. But remember, you had the battle maps showing the dispositions of the opposing forces to judge from; whereas Malacou had nothing. And the Ardennes offensive. How could he possibly have known in adance about that by any ordinary means?'

‘No; well, possibly you are right. Do you really believe what he said about May being the critical month for Germany, with us Nazi leaders at one another's throats and some of us trying to negotiate a peace?'

‘I certainly do.'

Goering gave a heavy sigh. ‘I would to God we could get peace tomorrow. We are finished. There is no way out. Nothing to be done. The nation is dead already but, still animated by the will of the Führer, refuses to lie down. And to think that we had the game in our hands; the whole world for the taking, in 1941.'

‘You still had Britain against you, and the people were solid behind Churchill. We should never have given in.'

‘In the end you would have been forced to,' Goering replied with a bitter laugh. ‘That is, if I'd had my way. You and I know that the real danger to the civilisation of the Western World is Communism—or, to give it another name, Soviet Russia. But Russia could wait. She would not have dared attack us, so we ought first to have devoted our entire energies to putting an end to the Government systems in other countries that tolerated Communist Parties within them. We had already made ourselves the masters of Austria, Czechoslovakia, half Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslovia and Greece. Italy, Spain, Rumania, Portugal and Finland already had Governments that had made Communism illegal. Sweden and Switzerland could have given us no trouble. In Europe only Britain remained as the refuge of our real enemies, who continue to take advantage there of your outworn custom of affording asylum to anarchists, saboteurs and revolutionaries. If Germany had not dissipated two thirds of her strength by invading Russia, we could have brought
such weight to bear on Britain that she would have found herself compelled to accept our terms and become our ally in a war to destroy the Soviets.'

‘I doubt it, Excellency. And what of the United States?'

‘The Yanks, eh?' Goering gave a great bellow of laughter. ‘Surely you are too intelligent to share the belief common among Englishmen that the top Americans are really the friends of Britain? Under a screen of good will their State Department never ceases to work for the disruption of your Empire. They care only for making money, and in the markets of the world Britain is still their most formidable rival. For all their vaunted democracy, did they rush to help Britain and France in 1939? Certainly not. They sat back smugly watching their greatest trade competitors exhaust themselves.'

‘That is by no means fair. By bringing in Lease-Lend, President Roosevelt gave Britain invaluable assistance.'

‘But not until Britain had pawned her shirt; so could no longer find the money to pay for further armaments. Lease-Lend, my friend, was a shrewd move to enable Britain to continue the fight and so further exhaust herself. And even then the Americans got their pound of flesh for it—fifty obsolete destroyers in exchange for a lease of British possessions in the West Indies. Believe me, had it not been for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour the United States would have remained neutral to the end. It was Pearl Harbour which gave Churchill his opportunity to force her hand; and that clever old devil seized upon it. Within the hour he declared Britain to be America's ally in her war against the Japs. After that how could the Americans refuse to reciprocate by declaring war on Germany? But if Churchill trusts Roosevelt he's more of a fool than I take him for. When it comes to making the peace those American money-grubbers who behind your backs always refer to you as ‘the bloody British' will do you down and bring about the dissolution of your Empire.'

While listening to the views of such a shrewd and well-informed man as the Reichsmarschall, Gregory's fears for himself were momentarily forgotten and he said, ‘You are convinced, then, that had Germany played her cards rightly in 1941 she would now be the master of the whole of Europe?'

‘I've not a doubt of it; and of Africa as well. That is, had my advice been followed. Again and again I urged the Führer to let Russia wait and, with or without Franco's consent, go into Spain. We could have closed the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar and cut off the British Army in Egypt; leaving it to rot, as did the Army of Napoleon there after Nelson had cut its lifeline by the Battle of the Nile.'

‘After Italy came in, it was in any case virtually cut off for a long period; but we succeeded in supplying and reinforcing it by the long route round the Cape.'

Goering laughed. ‘Do you think that having got as far as Gibraltar we should have stopped there? In '41 the French saw no hope for themselves except by collaborating with us. They believed Britain to be finished, so would have given us a free hand in North Africa, and in Equatorial Africa too. From there it is a short step to the Belgian Congo. Then we would have launched a
Blitzkreig
against South Africa. The handful of aircraft there would have been helpless against the Luftwaffe. A few nights' bombing of Johannesburg and Cape Town would have forced the South Africans to give in. Look now at the strategic picture that would have resulted. With our U-boats and aircraft operating from bases in Northern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, the Canaries, West Africa, St. Helena and South Africa, we could have made it impossible for you to send convoys round the Cape. With her army in Egypt stranded and all supplies to Britain from Africa, Asia and Australasia cut off, how could Britain possibly have refused to accept the reasonable terms we would then have offered her?'

There could be no doubt that Goering's great strategic conception had been the right one for Germany and, while Gregory still believed that if Britain had been
in extremis
the United States would have come to her aid, he said with a wry smile, ‘I can only thank God that Your Excellency's advice was not taken. No part of Africa could have offered any prolonged resistance against the might and organising ability of Germany, and you could have had the whole continent for only half the effort that was put into the attempt to conquer Russia.'

‘You're right!' Goering sighed. ‘Yet even that false move need not have proved so utterly disastrous if the Generals had been listened to. We could still have fought the Russians to a standstill on a line along the Vistula and the Carpathians down to the mouth of the Danube, and so kept them out of Western Europe, had it not been for the Führer's obsessions about holding every foot of ground, and the Jews.'

‘The Jews?' Gregory echoed in surprise. ‘What had they to do with it?'

The Reichsmarschall shrugged and adjusted the laurel wreath on his head, which had slipped a little. ‘I suppose you could not be expected to realise it, but it is the Jewish question that has bedevilled our entire strategy for the past year. At least you must be aware that Himmler's one aim in life is the complete elimination of the Jewish race, and that the Führer wholeheartedly supports him in his endeavours to achieve it.'

‘I know that in Poland they were murdered by the million and that, since then, hundreds of thousands more of them have been collected from all over Europe to be driven into gas chambers.'

‘Yes, poor devils. They are not my favourite people, but many of them were intelligent and useful citizens and there was nothing to be gained by their wholesale slaughter. On the contrary, it has robbed Speer and the Todt Works Organisation of a great reservoir of slave labour. Far worse, Himmler's policy of “the ultimate solution”, as it is called, has led to a great part of the Army being diverted from the job it should be doing.'

‘Surely you cannot mean that the S.S. have found the job of rounding up the Jews too much for them, and have had to call on the Army for help?'

‘Not precisely; but that's what it amounts to. Even after the loss of von Paulus's Army outside Stalingrad, and our Northern Army that became bottled up in Courland because the Führer refused to allow it to withdraw, we still had ample troops to fight a defensive war successfully. But when Rumania showed signs of collapse the Führer insisted that the front there must be held long enough to get the Jews out to Germany, so that they could be executed. The result was that another
sixteen of our Divisions were encircled and destroyed. The line of the Carpathians was lost and a great gap torn in our south-eastern front. To fill it an Army was moved from Warsaw and its withdrawal so weakened our all-important Russian front that it caved in.

‘And this madness about putting the killing of Jews before all other considerations continues. We had nothing to gain by going into Hungary. Up till last spring the Hungarians observed a favourable neutrality towards us and acceded to all our requests for supplies and volunteer Divisions to help fight the Russians. But there were seven hundred thousand Jews there and the Hungarians refused to have them murdered; so Himmler got permission to send in his Waffen S.S. troops to do the job, instead of their being employed on a battle front. Rounding up and eliminating such hordes of Jews takes time; so half of them are still alive. The thought that they might be saved by the arrival of the Russians in Budapest sent the Führer berserk. Rather than let them escape he has transferred yet another German Army from our vital Central front to Hungary with orders to hang on there whatever the odds against it, until Himmler's man, Eichmann, has administered “the ultimate solution” to the remainder of the Jews.'

That Hitler's demand that every yard of conquered ground should be held had led to immense losses of German troops by encirclement was now common knowledge; but that his disastrous strategy had been dominated largely by his obsession to eliminate the Jews was a revelation to Gregory. After a moment he said:

‘Had anyone other than yourself told me this,
Herr Reichsmarschall
, I would not have credited it. But, of course, you know the facts. And how extraordinary it is that indirectly the Führer's persecution of the Jews should have played so large a part in Germany's defeat. One cannot help seeing in that the hand of fate.'

‘Perhaps.' Goering shrugged his great shoulders. ‘Anyhow, that's the way things are. This last attempt to hold Hungary is bound to fail. Instead we should have withdrawn our southeastern Armies to the Bavarian Alps. And the price to be paid for having weakened our northern front will be to have the
Russians in Berlin. I've had a grand life while it lasted so I'll have no complaints when my time comes; but you and I both know that the game is up. We are finished; all of us.'