The Leader And The Damned Read online

  By his side stood Alois Vogel, chief of the SS security guard. A tall man with a thin face and a tight mouth, Vogel was clad in his black uniform with the SS lightning flashes on his collar. While he stamped his frozen feet, crunching the rutted snow, Vogel glanced impatiently at his watch. He used his gloved thumb to remove the film of ice which had formed on the glass casing.

  'He should arrive soon now,' he remarked. 'I wish this accursed fog would lift..

  'It is normal,' Bormann replied calmly, 'and the Führer's pilot is an expert.'

  It was indeed normal. For half the year this dreary part of Germany was smothered in a white mist and covered with snow. It was an eery, hushed atmosphere. The mist rolled in drifts like a sea-fog, occasionally parting to expose vague silhouettes of the stands of endless pine forest. Unlike the SS officer, Bormann stood quite motionless, always patient, his hands clasped behind his back.

  One of the most puzzling figures in recent history, Bormann was a short, heavily-built man with a Slav face. He had a strong nose, a mole-like head and rarely showed any emotion. It was impossible ever to know what he was thinking: on the surface he appeared to be no more than Hitler's faithful secretary who transmitted the Führer's orders and ensured their immediate execution. But to more perceptive observers there was something sinister in his chameleon-like personality. 'He is Hitler's shadow,' one general had observed. 'And the shadow is darker than the man who casts it.'

  'Here he comes,' said Vogel.

  He left Bormann's side and issued orders to the twenty armed SS men who formed the Führer's personal bodyguard. Bormann turned his head slightly. Vogel was right: the sound of an approaching plane's engines had broken the silence of the rolling mist. Still no more than a distant mutter, the sound was growing louder. Bormann went inside a building and emerged with an Alsatian he held on a chain. After his long flight from Smolensk the Fuhrer would be pleased to see Blondi, the dog Bormann himself had found for Hitler to comfort him after the defeat at Stalingrad.

  It was by little considerate acts such as this that Bormann had cemented his position as Hitler's personal secretary; the man who passed on most of the Führer's orders to everyone. Bormann had even changed his sleep pattern to accord with the Führer's. In this way he was never absent from Hitler's side at the Wolf's Lair. The fact that he was hated by Goering, Himmler and all the other Nazi chiefs disturbed him not at all. Bormann's ambition was to be what he was, Hitler's shadow, ever present when decisions were made.

  'He's coming in to land,' Vogel called out. 'Shall I inform headquarters?'

  'No. Leave that to me.'

  Bormann remained where he was, scanning the heavy overcast for his first sight of the plane which was very close now. Luckily the mist was briefly dissolving as a light wind blew up, exposing the runway on which the machine would land.

  Hitler's luck again, Bormann said to himself wryly. For the whole day the airfield had been blotted out and now it was going to be an easy task for the pilot to bring his plane down safely. As though sensing the arrival of his master, the Alsatian tugged at his lead. 'Stay still!' Bormann snapped, his cold eyes searching for the machine.

  Aboard the Condor Adolf Hitler had donned his military greatcoat and peaked cap. His expression was severe and arrogant, the face of a world-conqueror ready to be greeted by the waiting SS guard. Yet only half an hour earlier he had reduced his small group of aides to hysterical laughter as he paraded up and down the corridor mimicking Prime Minister Chamberlain when the Englishman had visited him at the pre-war Munich conference. He peered out of the window for his first sight of the ground.

  No one with him inside the plane could have guessed that he was a bundle of nerves at this moment. He hated landing just as much as he hated take-off. I shall never fly again, he promised himself. But he knew that, if he had to, he would do the same thing all over again. His blue glaucous eyes flickered. He had caught sight of a glimpse of pine trees.

  On the airfield below Bormann had seen the machine descending. It appeared and then disappeared again as the pilot turned for the final run-in. Glancing round the airfield where Vogel had drawn up his troops ready for the Fuhrer's arrival, Bormann sensed the normal atmosphere of tension and excitement which always surrounded these occasions.

  What news would Hitler bring back from the Eastern front? A few minutes before his departure he had taken the Chancery Leader aside and hinted at his plans - which was most unusual. It was Hitler's invariable rule to keep to himself all major strategic decisions until the moment of announcement.

  'Bormann,' he had confided, 'we are on the eve of a massive manoeuvre which will tip the whole balance of the war in our favour - a manoeuvre so audacious it is worthy of Napoleon or Frederick the Great...'

  'I will await your return eagerly,' Bormann had replied.

  The plane came into view again, much lower now and no more than one kilometre from the airfield. It was descending rapidly when it again vanished in the overcast. As Bormann stood there he saw a blinding flash which dissipated the mist. He actually glimpsed the machine breaking up in mid-air followed by a muffled detonation. Then the mist rolled in again and the hush of the fog-bound forest descended. Silence.

  Stunned, he didn't move for several seconds, but the Alsatian did. With a low, moaning howl it leaped forward, freeing itself from his grip, running off in the direction of the explosion. The dog's flight jerked Bormann into action. He shouted towards Vogel.

  'Send two men to the control tower! Close down all communications! Ring the airfield with troops! No one is allowed in or out! Then come with me.'

  Vogel reacted instantly, issuing the instructions before running to join Bormann who had hurried over to where a Kubelwagen stood. The strange vehicle - with wheels at the front and caterpillar tracks at the rear - was for negotiating difficult terrain. Bormann was behind the wheel as Vogel arrived with his warning.

  'They may have heard the explosion at headquarters...'

  Bormann thought for a moment, idling the engine as Vogel got into the passenger. seat beside him. 'Kempner, he called out to Vogel's second-in-command. He studied the SS man who stood at attention below him. No sign of panic. He took another quick decision.

  'Kempner. Drive back to headquarters. Inform them that the Fuhrer's plane has been delayed by bad weather - that it has put down at another airfield. Tell them he has cancelled tomorrow's conference at noon. And if anyone mentions hearing an explosion, say it was caused by a fox running over a mine..

  It was only too plausible an explanation. The Wolf's Lair was ringed by minefields and there had been many a false alarm when foxes had detonated a mine. Leaving Kempner running for a car, Bormann set the Kubelwagen in motion, beckoning for several SS men to climb aboard.

  Soon he was driving along a track through the pine forests, the airfield lost from view as the mist swirled amid the trees in a sinister fashion. He did not have to drive far. Suddenly they came to a clearing where pine trunks were blasted stumps projecting at awkward angles like mutilated limbs. As he stopped the vehicle the scene they gazed at was appalling, horrific.

  Bits of the plane were scattered everywhere. It must have been close to tree-top level when the detonation occurred - and the blast had gone downwards. Fragments of bodies were caught in the branches of trees. It was like a slaughterhouse where a maniac with a meat-axe had run berserk. A stench of petrol mingling with burnt flesh hung in the mist. Blondi, the Alsatian, was sniffing around the charnel house. Bormann and Vogel climbed out, followed by the SS men.

  'He could not have survived this,' Bormann said slowly.

  'What do we do?' asked Vogel.

  'Wait a minute while I think...'

  Bormann had risen to the position of being Hitler's right-hand man because of his powers of meticulous administration and planning. The Fuhrer hated the donkey work of routine and had come to rely on the quiet, stocky deputy to deal with all details. He would issue an order and Bormann would process it - to such an extent that he
could send out any instruction, ending it with the words no one dare question: 'By order of the Fuhrer.'

  At this moment he held the fate of Germany in his hands and he showed what he was made of. As he stood in the snow with the mist drifting among the encircling pines, surveying the carnage with the stench of death in his nostrils, his mind was racing.

  'Vogel, cordon off the entire area. Shoot anyone who tries to approach it. Bring in trucks and clear up the mess. Miss nothing. Every remnant of corpses - bits of the plane - go aboard the trucks which will be driven to a remote spot. Empty the mess out and burn it - then bury it...'

  He was interrupted by a nearby sound of someone retching. An SS man came stumbling through the mist, so shaken he omitted to salute Bormann. He had difficulty speaking.

  'What is it?' Bormann snapped. 'Get a grip on yourself.'

  'Karl has just found the pilot's head in his helmet - just his head...'

  'First item to go aboard the trucks,' Bormann told Vogel brutally.

  'There is something else,' the SS man stammered. He showed them what he had been hiding behind his back. A briefcase with the relic of a hand still clutching the handle tightly. 'It is the Fuhrer's

  Without a sign of squeamishness Bormann took the briefcase, holding its sides before he tipped it open. The hand fell to the ground, still clutching the handle which had broken off.

  Bormann examined the contents of the scorched briefcase. Yes, it was the Fuhrer's - he recognized the maps of Western Europe he had personally inserted inside the case before Hitler's departure for Smolensk. He returned the briefcase to Vogel.

  'Put that with the rest of the relics ready for the trucks.' He gestured to the grisly object on the ground. 'That goes with all the other remnants...'

  Vogel was appalled. 'But surely he must have a decent burial - a state funeral.'

  Bormann stared bleakly at Vogel. 'Do you think that a man like the Fuhrer did not foresee this contingency - that he might one day be assassinated? Do you really think he did not leave a contingency plan for just such a situation as we face now?' he lied.

  'My apologies...' Vogel stammered.

  'Your apologies are not accepted - yet,' Bormann told him coldly. 'Your entire future depends on your carrying out my instructions. By order of the Fuhrer,' he added.

  'I will start at once...'

  'When the trucks have been emptied, when their contents have been burned,' Bormann continued, 'you will drive the trucks to the nearest lake and sink them.'

  'There will still be all this.' Vogel gestured towards the broken tree stumps, the charred pines, their branches hanging like limp limbs in the drifting mist.

  'Bring a mine and detonate it - that will explain ,the wreckage.'

  Turning his back on the SS man, Bormann climbed up behind the wheel of the Kubelwagen and drove away from the scene of carnage.

  It was still 13 March 1943. Adolf Hitler was dead - over two years before the end of the war.

  Chapter Three

  Martin Bormann sat at the nerve centre of the huge power apparatus which controlled the movement of millions of armed men, vast fleets of planes and columns of tanks and guns - one of the greatest war machines assembled in history.

  He sat inside the Lagebaracke, a single-storey wooden building which housed the room where Hitler held his twice-daily military conferences at noon and midnight; the telephone system which relayed the Fuhrer's orders throughout his huge empire; a cloakroom, a washroom and an entrance hall.

  The Lagebaracke was located at the heart of Security Ring A, the heavily cordoned-off Wolf's Lair protected by three separate barbed wire fences and a minefield. Elite SS troops patrolled the area and admittance through three checkpoints was strictly controlled by special passes issued by Himmler's chief of security.

  Bormann sat alone with the telephone on the table, thinking carefully before he picked up the receiver and gave the orders on which the fate of Germany hung. So far his precautions had concealed the catastrophe. Kempner, Vogel's second-in-command, had arrived earlier and spread the story that the Fuhrer's plane - delayed by bad weather - had landed at another airfield.

  Returning to the Wolf's Lair, Bormann had met Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, the Fuhrer's Chief of Operations. Jodl had helpfully supplied his own explanation for the delay.

  'I suppose this is another of his sudden changes of schedule - to foil any assassination attempt?' 'Possibly,' Bormann had replied.

  'And the next conference with the Fuhrer will be noon tomorrow?'

  'That is the present intention,' Bormann agreed cautiously.

  'Now, alone in the Lagebaracke, the meticulous Bormann studied the list of names he had written down on a scratch pad. Timing was everything if he was to pull off this coup - timing and the sequence of events which must be fitted together like a cleverly designed jigsaw. He studied the list of names afresh.

  Commandant, Berghof

  Kuby

  Reiter, SS, Smolensk

  Schulz, SS, Berlin

  Vogel, SS, Wolf's Lair

  His decision taken, he picked up the phone and asked to be put through immediately to the Commandant at the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden on what had once been the frontier between Austria and Germany before the Anschluss incorporated Austria into the Greater German Reich. His conversation with the Commandant was terse and to the point.

  . so you have understood your instructions perfectly? Kuby is to be flown here tomorrow in a Condor - it must be a Condor - and the markings on the plane, are to be exactly as I have specified. Now, put me on to Kuby himself...'

  His instructions to Heinz Kuby were equally curt and brief.

  'I will meet you personally at the airfield and brief you before we proceed to the Wolf's Lair. You know exactly what you have to do?'

  'I have no doubt at all in my mind,' the familiar voice replied. 'The fate of Germany is in my hands.

  'Don't overdo it,' Bormann interjected coldly. 'Everything depends on my briefing when you arrive here at the airfield.'

  He put down the phone. Despite the rebuke Bormann, felt relieved, suddenly realized that for the first time he himself was convinced that it could work. God in heaven, it had to work or he would be dead within days. His next call was the really dangerous one, the call to Otto Reiter, chief of the SS guard at Smolensk. The trick, he decided, was to let Reiter do most of the talking. He ticked off from his list Commandant, the Berghof, and Kuby while he waited for the Smolensk call to come through.

  'Bormann here,' he announced when Reiter came on the phone, 'I am calling by order of the Fuhrer. You were in charge of the guard which watched over his plane while he conferred with Field Marshal von Kluge?'

  'Yes, Reichsleiter. I personally supervised all checks while the machine was on the ground.' There was a hint of pride verging on arrogance in Reiter's voice. Bormann smiled thinly; the idiot was obviously hoping for promotion or even decoration.

  'While the plane was waiting did anything unusual happen? Did anyone at all approach or go aboard the aircraft?'

  'Reichsleiter, is there something wrong?' The arrogance had been replaced by anxiety.

  'Yes - you have not answered my question.'

  Words began tumbling across the wire as Reiter explained. 'I can think of nothing unusual. The most strict precautions were taken, I assure you. When General von Tresckow took a package on board I examined it personally. He was not pleased, I can tell you. But I know my duty, Reichsleiter. This package contained two bottles of brandy. I even noticed the make,' he continued. 'It was Courvoisier. No one else boarded the machine until the Fuhrer himself left Smolensk...'

  'Obviously this has nothing to do with von Tresckow,' Bormann interjected smoothly. 'A map appears to be missing from the Fuhrer's briefcase - but now I am sure we shall find it here.'

  'My story can be confirmed by Lieutenant Schlabrendorff who is coming to the Wolf's Lair via Berlin - he is von Tresckow's aide..

  Bormann froze. He decided Schl
abrendorff's visit must be postponed until after the plane from the Salzburg airstrip arrived.. What later happened was that Tresckow's aide was stopped from approaching the aircraft and - to cover his failure - returned to Berlin and reported to his chief he had removed the unexploded bomb, dismantling it on the train and throwing the pieces out of the window. Bormann resumed talking to Reiter.

  'No confirmation is necessary. Put me on to Field Marshal von Kluge at once.'

  When von Kluge came on the line Bormann explained that with his eye for even the smallest detail the Fuhrer had observed that Otto Reiter had performed sloppily while he was at Smolensk. 'Please arrange for him to be sent to the front to join an SS division today. By order of the Fuhrer!'

  Von Kluge, puzzled and a little irritated that Hitler should bother himself with such details, was not entirely surprised. The Fuhrer seemed to miss nothing. He acted at once on the instruction. Reiter never reached the front. On his way a long-range Soviet shell burst within metres of the vehicle he was travelling in and he died instantly. When the news reached Bormann he crossed Reiter's name off the list.

  His next call was to Rainer Schulz, commander of a special SS execution team then stationed in Berlin. Again the conversation was brief, but this time Bormann did most of the talking.

  1.. you have been here once before, Schulz... we went for a drive in the Kubelwagen, so you know the spot... the lake which is little more than a large swamp... you remain hidden until they have sunk the trucks...'

  'It seems an extreme measure,' Schulz ventured cautiously, 'the killing of twenty men...'

  'One of whom, as I have already told you, is a spy. Since we cannot detect which one, all must go. Realize - this man, whoever he may be - has access to the Wolf's Lair Needless to say, you do not come with your men anywhere near Security Ring A. As soon as the job is done you return to Berlin under oath of secrecy. By order of the Fuhrer!'