Traitor's Gate (36 page)

‘So what do I do?’ said Conrad.

‘Let me think.’

Four hours later, at about midnight, a tall upright figure in the uniform of a lieutenant of the Wehrmacht, cap pulled down over his eyes and carrying a small case, left Theo’s flat, strode smartly over to his car, started it up, and pulled off. A minute later four Gestapo officers, led by Klaus Schalke, broke down the door of Theo’s apartment and rushed in. Barely two minutes after that they were retreating back on to the street, Theo’s invective raining down on them.

Conrad drove the Horch to a street a couple of blocks from the U-Bahn station at Dahlem, an affluent suburb on the Grune­wald’s eastern edge. Having parked the car, Conrad pulled out his shirt and trousers from the case and changed out of Theo’s uniform. He locked the case and the uniform in the boot, and after checking to make sure no one was watching, placed the key behind the rear tyre. Then, glancing at the torn square of map he had brought with him, he tramped the leafy streets of Dahlem until three in the morning. There was no one around, no one to see him. Finally he approached a small, white-painted cottage with a thatched roof that backed on to the forest itself, and knocked softly. A short young man came to the door in his pyjamas. He fumbled for his spectacles and scanned the note Conrad had brought him from Theo and let him in.

They were three tourists driving around Berlin looking at the sights: a middle-aged woman at the wheel of the powerful Hispano-Suiza with a young man, just a little too old to be her son, sitting next to her, and a middle-aged gentleman in the back. The young man was Theo, the woman was Elisabeth Strünck, a wealthy friend of Oster’s, and the gentleman in the back seat was General Count Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt, the commander of the 23
rd
Division based at Potsdam and General von Witzleben’s right-hand man. They had driven slowly up and down Wilhelmstrasse, past the Reich Chancellery, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and Göring’s Air Ministry, and were now en route to the SS barracks at Lichter­felde. Theo was busy scribbling his notes as von Brockdorff identi­fied the strengths and weaknesses of each building – points which were vulnerable to attack, escape routes that needed to be cut off, estimates of how many men would be required to capture and hold it.

Theo had almost cancelled the outing. The Gestapo’s sudden interest in Conrad had disrupted things. The morning after Conrad had slipped through the Gestapo’s net, Theo had spoken to Canaris, who in turn had spoken to Heydrich. Heydrich had told Canaris about the rumours of a German politician reaching London, and also that the Gestapo had evidence that Conrad had been seen in Halle spying on them. The admiral decided it was time for the Abwehr to drop its support for Conrad, at least in the eyes of the Gestapo. To Heydrich he had sounded troubled and promised to try to find out what Conrad had been up to and where he was now. And he told Theo to make sure that Conrad laid low and stayed out of the way.

All the agitation meant that Theo was now under Gestapo surveillance. He had shaken off his tail by going for a ride in the Tiergarten with a friend in the early morning, galloping to the other side of the park and leaving his horse at a stables there. The Gestapo had not yet perfected a technique for surveillance on horseback. Theo had then taken the U-Bahn, and met General von Brockdorff at Yorckstrasse station, where Frau Strünck had picked them both up in her car.

After a hesitant start, plans for the coup were coming together well. Oster was coordinating everything, with Theo sup­porting him from below and Canaris from above. Halder was still com­mitted to leading the coup, and Beck was helping in the background. Generals von Witzleben and von Brockdorff would deliver the army units around Berlin, and General Hoepner’s First Light Division, based in Thuringia, was prepared to cut off the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division should it march on Berlin from its position on the Czech border.

The plotters had kept the circle of officers who knew the specifics of their plans to a minimum, but they had a list of those generals, like General Adam on the West Wall, on whom they could count. Theo had drafted detailed orders to be sent out as soon as the coup was launched to the leader of each military district, specifying which buildings were to be secured and who was to be arrested. They wouldn’t know how many of the generals would obey these orders until the day of the coup itself, but Oster was optimistic that it would be most of them.

Even the consciences of the conspirators had been taken care of. General Beck had arranged for a number of them to visit the canon of St Hedwig’s Cathedral, Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, a persistent critic of the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. The deeply Protestant officers listened to the Catholic as he justified the oath-breaking and even assassination that they were contemplating. For men whose primary motivation was a sense of duty, it was an important preparation.

Politicians, police, army, lawyers, civil servants: they were all ready.

Because of Halder’s insistence that they should wait until the country was on the brink of war, the timing of the coup was entirely in the hands of Hitler. The conspirators judged that the most likely date was 14 September, only three days away. The Nuremberg Party rally was in progress, and Hitler was due to make the closing speech on 12 September. There was a good chance that he would use the opportunity to provoke war with Czechoslovakia. Göring had already ranted about a ‘miserable pygmy race without culture’ that was ‘oppressing a cultured people’ with ‘Moscow and the eternal mask of the Jew devil’ behind it. If Hitler decided to act, the conspirators had to be ready to move as soon as he returned to Berlin and ordered the commencement of Case Green.

The sightseers spent a whole day on their tour, visiting all the principal strongpoints that would have to be seized. By the time they had finished, Theo and von Brockdorff had a clear idea of what needed to be done. They were optimistic: it would require more troops than they had initially estimated, but with the tacit support of the police, control of Berlin could be theirs.

Confident that he had no Gestapo tail, Theo went on to Dahlem to see Conrad and the people he had sent him to without warn­ing. The house belonged to an old friend of his from Prussia, Hans-Jürgen von Wedemeyer, and his Swedish wife Elsa. Hans-Jürgen was a lawyer and Elsa was seven months pregnant. Theo had some explaining to do.

Hans-Jürgen greeted Theo at the door. ‘Your friend’s up­stairs, in the attic.’

‘I’m so sorry for imposing him on you like this. He was in a bit of a tight spot. You were the best people I could think of.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hans-Jürgen, although he looked nervous. ‘How long will he be staying?’

‘A week perhaps? I don’t know, we’ll have to see.’

‘A week?’ Hans-Jürgen said dubiously.

‘He can stay as long as he wants.’ Elsa had appeared, her belly thrusting forward in her summer dress. ‘As long as he’s careful. He’s a charming man, although we’ve decided we shouldn’t know his real name. We call him Jan.’

Theo climbed up the narrow stairs into what was little more than a roof space. There he found Conrad squatting on the floor with a copy of
The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann.

‘Isn’t that banned?’ Theo asked.

‘I knew there was a reason the Gestapo were after me.’

‘How are you doing?’

‘Bored to tears. But your friends are nice people. Are the Gestapo still chasing me or did your admiral call them off?’

‘I’m afraid he hasn’t. In fact, as far as the Gestapo are con­cerned, the Abwehr are after you too.’ Theo explained what Heydrich had said: that Conrad had been seen in Halle spying on the Gestapo.

‘Halle? I’ve never been there in my life. Schalke has set me up,’ said Conrad.

‘Well, you won’t be able to show your face around Berlin any more. We can probably work out an escape route for you back to England.’

‘I’d rather stay here until the coup. It should only be a couple of weeks now, shouldn’t it?’

‘Probably less, if Hitler starts the ball rolling at Nuremberg tomorrow. We’re ready.’

‘Excellent! I’m happy to help, Theo. I’d like to be involved. Perhaps you’ll need someone to talk to the British government?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Can you track down Warren for me? Tell him to let my family know I’m all right. And can you also ask him to get in touch with Wilfrid Israel and see if he has any news for me?’

‘The owner of the department store?’ Conrad hadn’t men­tioned Wilfrid to Theo before.

‘That’s right. He might have news about Anneliese.’

‘All right, I’ll speak to him.’ Theo began to climb down the stairs. ‘I probably won’t come here again myself; I don’t want to risk leading the Gestapo to you. But I will send a message when I have news. Be patient, Conrad. And please be careful. These are old friends, I would hate them to be caught hiding you.’

It was 12 September, the seventh and last day of the Nuremberg rally, the annual celebration of the National Socialist Workers’ Party. For a week the Gothic façades and gabled roofs of the medieval town had been draped in crimson flags as tens of thousands – no, hundreds of thousands of men and women marched back and forth in the multitude of uniforms of the Third Reich. There were speeches and music every­where: Beethoven’s
Egmont
overture, the overture to Wagner’s
Die Meistersinger
, Hitler’s favourite, ‘Do You See the Sun Rise in the East?’, ‘The Heath­lands of Brandenburg’ and countless other marches. Trains converged on the city from all over Germany bring­ing eager participants and spectators, and during the frenetic week the crowds and the marchers merged into one: ‘
Ein Volk’.
Among the goose-stepping thousands strutted the Nazi leaders, accompanied this year for the first time by swaggering Italians in white uniforms and gold tassels.

The last day was ‘Army Day’, when, three miles outside the city on the Zeppelin Field Stadium, recently built by Albert Speer, infantry, tanks and artillery dashed about amidst bangs and flashes. Overhead the Luftwaffe flew in relentless formations, wave upon wave of modern monoplanes. From one rally to the next the people had seen their country grow more powerful. The tanks were sleeker, faster, bigger, as were the aeroplanes: the old biplanes were banished from the skies. The Arbeitsdienst, the massed ranks of young labourers goose-stepping along with shovels glinting on their shoulders were still there, but the crowd knew that in a matter of days they would be re-equipped with rifles and ready to fight for their fatherland.

At the end of the day, tens of thousands were gathered to hear the Führer speak, their hearts full of the excitement, the glory, the promise of the Third Reich. On the platform were the Nazi leaders: Goebbels, Göring, Hess, Himmler and the generals who had spent the day watching the army manoeuvres. Behind them were foreign dignitaries, including Lords Brocket and McGowan, and Unity Mitford, Diana Guinness’s younger sister, and her mother, Lady Redesdale.

Sitting next to Unity was Veronica de Lancey.

Diana had been to the Nuremberg rallies many times before, but was unable to attend this one because she was seven months pregnant with Oswald Mosley’s child. But Veronica had heard so much about it that she wanted to go. It was Unity who had first successfully stalked Hitler in the Carlton Terrace Tea House in Munich and who had introduced Diana to ‘Uncle Wolf’. Unity was absolutely besotted by the Führer, so much so that Diana was worried about her mental stability. War with Britain, which seemed inevitable, would tear her apart.

Veronica had arrived in Nuremberg as a detached observer, but her diffident cynicism had been worn away by the rousing music, the pageantry and the handsome men in their stylish uniforms. She hadn’t understood a word of the speeches, but the euphoria of the crowd, the mass of thousand upon thousand of ecstatic Germans, had affected her, sweeping her along so that she awaited the appearance of the Führer with as much eagerness as everyone else in the stadium.

The Führer was late; the crowd wasn’t restless – he was always late, they knew that – but the anticipation grew. Finally, the catchy ‘Badenweiler March’ flowed out over the loudspeaker system, and Adolf Hitler appeared on the platform in a blaze of white light, a small man with a long shadow surveying the tens of thousands of upturned, expectant faces. For what seemed an age he saluted the cheering crowd and the wheeling, goose-stepping formations in front of him.

And then he began to speak, very quietly at first, so quietly that every ear in that huge field strained to hear him. The speech grew in volume, as Hitler used every rhetorical device in his armoury. His voice, whether low and halting or loud and insistent, was laden with emotion, an emotion that was reflected and magnified by his audience a hundredfold. His Viennese-suburban accent, which on first hearing had sounded mildly unpleasant to his German listeners, was now familiar and intoxicating. As the speech rolled towards its end, he turned his attention to Czechoslovakia.

‘The misery of the Sudeten Germans is indescribable. The Czech state has sought to annihilate them. As human beings they are oppressed and scandalously treated in an intolerable fashion.’

Horror and outrage rippled through the crowd.

‘I have not demanded that Germany should subjugate three and a half million Frenchmen, or that we should sub­jugate three and a half million Englishmen: my demand is that the subjugation of three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia shall stop, and that in its place they will have the free right of self-determination. If the English and the French support the continued subjugation of the Sudeten Germans, then their decision will have serious consequences! I serve peace best if I leave no one in any doubt on this point.’

Then, his face flushed and his eyes bulging, his voice rose to a crescendo as he bellowed: ‘The German Reich has been asleep for long enough! The German people are now awake and are stepping forward to accept their rightful crown of the millennium!’

The crowd erupted into a surge of
Sieg Heil
s
as the speech echoed around the stadium and beyond, across Germany, across the continent of Europe to Paris, London and Prague.