They Used Dark Forces (60 page)

Bormann glowered. ‘It's as well for you that you did not. Are you sure of this?'

Gregory shrugged. ‘How can I be? I can only say that I have confidence in the Turk's predictions.'

‘I see. Well, this must be stopped. At the moment, if Himmler were free to come frequently to Berlin he would exert a bad influence on the Führer.'

As Goering had told Gregory that Bormann was scheming to replace him as Hitler's successor and that Bormann, regarding Himmler as his most serious rival, had got him out of the way by securing for him the command of an Army Group, Gregory knew what was really in Bormann's mind. But he simply bowed and said, ‘
Herr Parteiführer
, you may rely on me to accept your guidance at all times.'

The following afternoon the storm broke. Guderian, the Chief of the General Staff, arrived with a letter from Himmler in which he asked to be relieved of his command on the grounds of ill health. A conference was called and those on the far side of the partition heard a battle royal take place, with shouts and screams, between the Führer and his General.

Later, Gregory learned that Guderian had defied Hitler and told him that Himmler had proved such a disaster as an Army Group Commander that he had forced him to offer his resignation, then insisted that it be accepted. Keitel and Jodl had, as usual, played for safety by saying the Führer was the best judge, while Bormann had insinuated that this was another plot to weaken the Führer's control of the armed forces. After hours of wrangling Hitler, near collapse, had got up from the table and, mumbling that he would ‘think it over', staggered off to his room.

On the following day Gregory heard about the other letter. It had been from Albert Speer. In it he had stated his conviction that Germany's situation was now hopeless, so an armistice should be asked for in order to save Germany's cities from further bombing and conserve as much industrial plant as possible to aid in Germany's recovery. The letter invoked another outburst of self-pity in the Führer and vituperation against the young Minister who had made his dreams of magnificent buildings and splendid autobahns come true. But he took no action.

Malacou had told Gregory that it was his belief that Speer was now actively plotting to put an end to Hitler and as that, above all things, was what they desired they had at the séance done their best to protect him. One thing was certain. He was the only decent and honest man in the whole of Hitler's court.

On March 22nd Hitler suddenly made up his mind about Himmler and, despite Bormann's endeavours to prevent him, accepted his resignation.

Gregory immediately took alarm; for that could lead to Himmler visiting the bunker and it was possible that he might bring Grauber with him. He endeavoured to calm his fears by the thought that at least for some days that was unlikely. But, with Koller's consent, he used the private line from the Air Ministry to Karinhall to telephone Goering and also, with apparent casualness, took the first opportunity that offered to discuss the results of Himmler's resignation with his representative at Führer H.Q., the horrid little ex-jockey, Obergruppenführer Fegelein.

From both sources he received reassurances. Himmler had had a breakdown and was unlikely to leave the clinic at Hohenlychen for some time, while Grauber was remaining on the Russian front to keep an eye on General Heinrici, who had been appointed as Himmler's successor in command of the Army Group.

Yet Hitler, with his now chronically illogical assessments, having decided on Guderian's advice that Himmler must be replaced, suddenly made up his mind to get rid of the unpopular but extremely able Panzer expert too; so overnight Guderian was replaced as Chief of Staff by Colonel-General Krebs.

On the 24th General Montgomery launched his great offensive on the lower Rhine and the Luftwaffe's attempts to prevent the crossing proved hopelessly ineffective. When the news came through Hitler sent for the unfortunate Koller, and so lashed him with his tongue for an hour without stopping that when the poor old man emerged from the Führer's sanctum he was white, shaking and in tears.

By then the Remagen bridgehead was thirty miles deep, and further north the British and Americans were streaming
over the new crossings in their tens of thousands. In a frantic effort to stave off complete defeat another spate of murderous decrees was rushed out. That issued by Keitel read:

In the name of the Führer
.

Any officer who aids a subordinate to leave the combat zone unlawfully, by carelessly issuing him a pass or other leave papers citing a simulated reason, is to be considered a saboteur and will suffer death. Any subordinate who deceitfully obtains leave papers or who travels with false leave papers will, as a matter of principle, suffer death
.

And General Blaskowitz, the Commander of Army Group H, in Holland, supplemented it by issuing a decree of his own, announcing that any soldier found away from his unit who declared himself to be a straggler looking for it should be summarily tried and shot.

The Replacement Army was scraped to the bottom of the barrel and new units of teenagers or sexagenarians, for whom it had not yet been possible even to find uniforms, were sent up to the front. Their pleas that if captured while still in civilian clothes they would shot as
franc-tireurs
were ignored, and they were being driven into battle by S.D. men threatening to mow them down with machine guns from behind.

From von Below Gregory learned that Hitler had sent for Speer and in a demonaic spate of words that had gone on for hours poured out his reaction to the Minister of Armament's letter. The Führer had said, ‘If the war is to be lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no need to consider the basis of even the most primitive existence any longer. On the contrary, it is better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The nation has proved itself weak, and those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen.' In vain Speer pleaded that, for humanity's sake, those who survived should at least be left the material means by which they could sustain life. Hitler would not listen and ordered Speer to go away on permanent leave. Speer had refused, saying that it was his duty to remain at his post.

When he had gone Hitler, trembling and purple in the face,
issued further orders through Bormann. As the Allies advanced, everything in their path was to be destroyed: factories, railway junctions, power stations, houses; everything was to be blown up or burnt down. Nothing was to be left. Since the German people had betrayed him they were not entitled even to the means to continue to exist after Germany's defeat.

Next day, March 30th, as so often happened the storm was succeeded by calm. After the daily conference Hitler sent for Gregory and told him that he wished him to accompany him on his late afternoon walk round the Chancellery garden. Together they ascended the stairs at the far end of the bunker and emerged into the spring sunlight. Immediately they began their promenade Hitler said, ‘Tell me your reasons for believing in reincarnation.'

‘
Mein Führer
, they are quite simple,' Gregory replied, and proceeded to produce the arguments he had thought out as most likely to appeal to his megalomaniac companion.

‘No sensible person can believe in the Christian God or, for that matter, any personal God. The very conception of a universal resurrection followed by a judgement, awarding all of us either perpetual bliss or consigning us to eternal torment, on our conduct during one short span of life, is absurd. One has only to think of those who are born half-witted or as the children of criminal parents. What chance in life have they? To condemn such unfortunates because they had led evil lives would be a travesty of justice. And what of young people who die when still in their teens? Are they to be held fully responsible for their actions? Were you or I brought before such a tribunal we should feel only contempt for a God who had given life to men on such arbitrary terms; so the teaching that He exists must be false.'

‘I agree. I agree,' Hitler said huskily.

‘Yet,' Gregory went on, ‘that the spirit which animates man continues to exist after death none of us who knows anything about the occult can doubt. If, therefore, there is no personal God to whom our spirits are accountable, it follows that we are our own masters and responsible only to ourselves for our acts down here. But nothing stands still. The declaration of Gautama Buddha, when he said that everything of which we
are aware is in a state of either growth or decay, cannot be challenged. It applies not only to vegetable and animal life, but also to mountains, the earth itself and every heavenly body in the universe. Since it is a universal law our personalities must also be subject to it. This could not be more clearly demonstrated,
mein Führer
, than by giving only a moment's consideration to your own personality. One thinks of your wisdom as a law giver, your great abilities as a strategist, your extraordinary flair for creating beautiful buildings, your immense knowledge of every aspect of life of the people over whom you rule. All these abilities could not conceivably have been accumulated in the short space of fifty-odd years.'

‘I see that. Yes, you are right.'

‘Between your mind and that of an Australian aborigine there lies an immense gulf; and the explanation of that is simple. Such a man can have lived only a few lives whereas, in different bodies, as men or women, rich or poor, healthy or crippled, you have had many hundreds; and in each you have progressed, learning some lesson which is stored up in your subconscious. It is rarely given to people to be able to recall their former lives, but the lessons they have learned remain. How can one doubt that it is owing to this vast experience that in your present incarnation you have emerged as the genius that everyone acknowledges you to be?'

At that moment Bormann came hurrying across the garden, a piece of paper in his hand. Having given his ‘
Heil Hitler!
' he said, “
Mein Führer
, only my duty and my devotion to you give me the courage to make this report. But it would be wrong to conceal even the worst news from you. This signal has just come in from Field Marshal Model. His entire army has been cut off in the Ruhr, and he asks permission to fight his way out.'

The blotches on Hitler's face stood out more clearly as it drained of blood. Suddenly he screamed, ‘Abandon the Ruhr! Never! Never! Dolts! Fools! Traitors! These Generals should be burnt over a slow fire for their cowardice and crimes. Model is to hold the Ruhr to the last man. If they are driven in, as the circle narrows they are to destroy everything. Everything. What good will Krupps be to us if we lose the war?
The plants must be blown up—not one brick or girder left upon another.'

Ignoring Gregory, he trudged off with Bormann, still shouting at the top of his voice and wildly waving his good arm.

Speer was again summoned, but remained in the outer bunker for some time before Hitler would see him. He told the officers there that nothing would induce him to carry out the Führer's orders for the destruction of everything in Germany which could help those of the German people who survived to carry on their lives somehow and, eventually, enjoy prosperity again. On the contrary, he was using his own immense powers as the Controller of German Industry and Labour to ensure that everything possible should be saved from the wreck. He had ordered that no more explosives were to be made and that as the Allies advanced every piece of undamaged plant was to be handed over to them intact. To check the fanatical S.S. in attempts to enforce the orgy of destruction the Führer had decreed, he was now issuing hand grenades and sub-machine guns to the staffs of all factories and installations, so that they could prevent the sabotaging of the plants on which their future would depend.

When Speer faced his master and disclosed what he was doing, yells and curses rang through the bunker; yet when Speer emerged from the ordeal, he left the bunker still a free man. Gregory felt that this miracle could be attributed only to divine intervention.

Of the satraps who visited the bunker in these days, the most frequent were Goebbels and Ribbentrop. The little doctor, with his twisted foot and twisted mind, although normally concerned only with inventing endless clever lies and distortions of fact to boost the morale of the German people, could at times show an unscrupulous brutality rivalling that of the worst of the other Nazis. On one occasion, infuriated by the mass air-raid on Dresden, he demanded that the Führer should repudiate the Geneva Convention, order the massacre of forty thousand Allied airmen prisoners as a reprisal, and bring into use two poison gases that had terrible effects on their victims.

Hitler, so his doctors said, was subject to a pathological blood lust. It is in any case certain that he always became happy and excited after ordering an execution; so the idea of this wholesale slaughter made a strong appeal to him. But Koller hastily sent for Goering who, with the aid of Doenitz and several Generals, all of whom feared mass reprisals on the prisoners of war in their own Services, succeeded in dissuading Hitler from carrying out this heinous crime.

Ribbentrop gave Gregory an extremely nasty moment; for one day they came face to face in the outer passage. It was two and a half years since Gregory had been a guest at a small supper party given for the Reichsaussenminister at a nightclub in Budapest, but from the stare he gave Gregory it was obvious that he was trying to remember where he had previously met him. Fortunately, Major Johannmeier, General Burgdorf's assistant, distracted Ribbentrop's attention by coming up just then and saying that his Chief would like a word with him while he was waiting to see the Führer. After that Gregory always kept a wary eye out for Sabine's ex-lover and, whenever he came to the bunker, stayed well out of his way.

For some time past, Gregory had been very worried by the thought of Sabine; for, knowing her unhappy state, he had had every intention of keeping his promise to go out and spend a few hours with her at least once a week. But once he had succeeded in interesting Hitler in Malacou's predictions and the subject of reincarnation he had felt that in no circumstances must he again leave his post for any length of time, in case he or both of them were sent for. Much as he owed Sabine, the war, and the millions involved in it, had to be put first.