Midnight in Berlin (20 page)

He was commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, prime minister of the state of Prussia, chairman of the State Opera House and every important museum in the country. As supreme head of the Ministry of Economy, he had appointed himself commissioner for the four-year plan designed to make Germany economically independent of other countries. He owed his indisputable but unofficial position as second in command to Hitler not only to his unswerving loyalty but also to his talents as an administrator.

Beyond that, there was one outstanding feature about the clownish figure that now stood on the dais. As Macrae had recorded in his reports to the War Office in London, Göring was the only senior figure in the Nazi hierarchy who was personally popular with the public. Hitler was regarded with awe and fear, Himmler and Goebbels were hated, but somehow Göring, with his childish vanity and love of display, struck a chord with the German people.

The field marshal pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket and talked for ten minutes about the need for animal conservation and the importance of giving endangered species such as the Siberian tiger a safe environment in which to breed. Shortly, he said, they would be privileged to see the latest arrivals, a magnificent pair of tigers that he had personally arranged to be imported from a zoo in Vladivostok.

There was a gasp as the crowd registered surprise. Russia was the declared enemy of the Third Reich. A state of cold war existed between the two countries. Why had Joseph Stalin gifted two tigers to Adolf Hitler? It was a surreal moment in a city where every day life moved closer to the grotesque.
Macrae had often thought that of the many writers he admired, only Edgar Allan Poe could do justice to the Gothic absurdity of Berlin in 1938. It was as if someone had taken the mythical land of the vampires and placed it in the heart of Europe.

Göring finished his speech and pulled a cord with a flourish. There was a sigh of admiration from the crowd as the sheeting dropped, revealing the tigers. The female lounged languidly on a platform at the back of the cage while the male paced restlessly along the bars, the black-striped rusty red coat rippling with menace, the tail swishing back and forth. There was an outbreak of applause as the crowd moved closer to the cage. Göring was talking again to those around him, pointing to the animals.

Macrae suddenly realised where Koenig would be. In the darkness of the reptile house, it was difficult to see at first, but then Macrae spotted him peering into the window of the python cage. He stood beside him for a moment while the tall, stooped figure inspected two pythons, rare species imported, a notice said, from the Amazon region of Brazil. Macrae wondered whether Göring's interest in conservation extended to snakes. Since they hardly moved and rendered themselves almost invisible, thanks to their ability to camouflage themselves, he thought not.

Without looking round, Koenig said, “They can take a crocodile, you know.”

“I'll remember that,” said Macrae.

“It's been seen. The struggle goes on for several hours and eventually the python squeezes the life out of the croc – even a big one.”

“I didn't know you were interested in snakes.”

Koenig straightened up and laughed. “How did you like the tigers?” he said.

“Splendid animals. I'm amazed Göring finds the time.”

“He's a busy man.”

He was in full colonel's uniform, which surprised Macrae, until he realised that there were so many senior Wehrmacht officers in the zoo that day that uniform was his camouflage. Koenig began walking slowly, peering into the glass windows as if inspecting the reptiles within. He talked in a low and urgent tone.

“It's Beck. Chief of the General Staff. He will lead. Halder, a very high-ranking general, is with us. There is significant support from within the High Command of the army. The air force and navy are not involved; they don't matter because they don't have guns and boots on the ground.”

“When?”

“That depends on you British and the French. If you confront Hitler over Czechoslovakia, we will move.”

“Meaning?”

“Hitler will be arrested along with the top five: Göring, Himmler, Goebbels, Hess and Heydrich. A provisional government will be formed, headed by a civilian; elections will be announced.”

There was a clatter of feet and a babble of conversation from the entrance. Macrae saw that some guests from the tiger event had come to look at the reptiles. There were several officers with their wives and officials from the zoo moving down the row of reptile cages. Macrae turned to warn Koenig, but the colonel had gone.

Walking back to the embassy through the Tiergarten, Macrae considered the extraordinary information he had been
given. Senior generals in the Wehrmacht were prepared to arrest their own leader, the chancellor of the Third German Reich, an emperor in all but name, and install a civilian government. He took a seat on a bench and asked himself questions that had to find answers if he was to pass on the information with any hope of being believed.

First, was Colonel Koenig telling the truth, or was this a provocation designed to entrap and expel an unpopular military attaché? The answer had to be yes to the first question and no to the second. Koenig was a Prussian officer with a long family history of military service. He had every reason to betray a Nazi regime that threatened the very future of the army he served.

Secondly, was there a good reason why the army should take such high-risk action? Again the answer was yes. Macrae had ample evidence that the generals feared a two-front war against east and west. And, of course, those Prussians loathed the little upstart from Austria.

Thirdly, was Hitler seriously planning such campaigns, taking on Russia on one front and Britain and France on the other? He must know of the army's misgivings. Why would he gamble on such a risky strategy? This was a more difficult question. Macrae felt the answer to be credible, but he knew it would never stand up to cross-examination by Sir Nevile Henderson.

Hitler had become supremely confident after five years in power, during which he had acquired the aura and trappings of divinity in the eyes of most Germans. The Führer's self-belief was such that in recent speeches he had talked not just of the expulsion of Jews from Germany but the racial cleansing of the inferior Slav peoples of the east. And by east, Hitler meant every nation that lay between Berlin and the Ural mountains, including Russia. In short, the man had
become a megalomaniac bent on the domination of an entire continent.

And now to the question to which every diplomat, every service attaché, every intelligence officer and most intelligent Berliners wanted to know the answer. Who would come out on top in the struggle between the Nazi Party and the army?

Hitler and members of his immediate senior circle, Himmler and Goebbels especially, had never trusted the army. After the enforced retirement of Blomberg and Fritsch, their distrust deepened. Hitler was now commander-in-chief, but he was aware that the hard core of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, the old Prussian elite, resented what they regarded as a political coup.

He knew they would never truly accept a one-time corporal, and what is more an Austrian, in the most senior position of power. In their eyes, Hitler lacked class, character and pedigree. Where had he come from? A hick town in Austria. As for his service in the Great War, he had been a mere messenger boy running errands in communication trenches.

Macrae looked at a group of sparrows on the path before him, cheeky little birds that he had seen everywhere he went in the world. Somehow, those tiny bodies had crossed oceans and deserts to colonise cities from Cape Town to Delhi, from London to Singapore. No other small bird was such an opportunistic adventurer.

For all the snobbery that coloured their view of the chancellor, the officers were all too aware of the raw power that Hitler had gathered into his hands. The Nazi leadership ruled through the efficiency of a brutally effective secret police, backed by an extensive and well-armed paramilitary network.

The military were also aware that the major industrialists were doing very nicely under the Nazi regime. Krupp, I. G. Farben and the others were not complaining. As the malcontents
in the messes would also admit, the rearmament programme had given all three services, but most notably the army and air force, vast quantities of new equipment, especially tanks and field guns, but also right down to modern radio sets and medical kits. These supplies were flowing into the quartermasters' stores all over Germany.

If Colonel Florian Koenig was correct, Beck and all those other generals knew what the supplies were for. They knew the Austrian Anschluss was the beginning and not the end. And at that moment in the early summer of 1938, they were apparently planning to do something about it.

The sun rolled behind a cloud. It was chilly and Macrae rose from the bench to continue his walk. The sparrows scattered, wheeling behind him to perch on the bench and inspect the seat for crumbs that might have dropped from a sandwich.

If all this was true, what was Hitler doing about it? The Gestapo must surely have warned him that elements of the senior command might turn to conspiracy as his plans for war became clearer. Hitler would not ignore such warnings. He had survived a number of assassination attempts through extraordinary good luck. He had Fate on his side and the remarkable figure of a man he trusted to root out all traitors, Reinhard Heydrich. Hitler called him “the man with the iron heart”, and Heydrich had once boasted at a Nazi gala that “a man's mark of success is to have made powerful enemies”.

The remark had been overheard by a French journalist. By the time he had been appointed Obergruppenführer of the Gestapo, Heydrich had indeed assembled a remarkable collection of enemies: the aristocratic officer class of the army, the liberal intelligentsia of the decadent West, Jews, communists, Gypsies, homosexuals. He hated them all and pursued them with a savage efficiency driven by desire for vengeance.
Revenge was writ large across everything Heydrich did. He had never forgotten the humiliation of his dismissal in disgrace from the navy over some trifling affair with a woman.

If anyone was going to put a stop to a military coup, it would be Heydrich, thought Macrae. All roads in the Nazi Party led to him in the end.

Macrae passed by the Brandenburg Gate and turned into Wilhelmstrasse, noting the flag above the embassy entrance. The Union Jack had flown there for over fifty years, but the mere sight of it so infuriated Hitler that he had asked Göring to demand that it be flown only on ceremonial occasions.

Sir Nevile had refused to lower the flag. Macrae marvelled at the mystery of a man who would insist on serving German wine for fear of upsetting his official guests but somehow had the mettle to run up the Union Jack in defiance of the Führer.

Bonner was also thinking of Heydrich as he entered the Salon that same day. Heydrich had told him that Noel Macrae, Percy Black of the US embassy and the French attaché Pierre Moutet had been identified as personally hostile to the regime. They were therefore likely conduits for messages from disloyal military officers to their respective governments.

“I don't just want them dismissed, I want them disgraced,” he had told Bonner.

Bonner noted with satisfaction that Kitty herself was behind the bar. She had seen him at the door and prepared his favourite cocktail. He sipped the vodka martini. The restaurant was half full. It was nearly nine o'clock, midway through the evening. Bonner looked around but could see no one of interest or importance at the tables.

“Where's Sara?” he asked.

Kitty jerked her head towards the fanlight door.

“Who?” said Bonner.

Kitty smiled and leant over the bar. “Italian diplomat, number two in the mission.”

“First time?”

“No, he's been before, I think. Difficult to tell. They all look alike when they're drunk.”

“Men or Italians?”

“Men,” she said, and laughed.

Bonner frowned and ordered another drink. Sara should not be wasting her time with Italians. There was no point.

He was halfway through the drink when she seated herself in the chair beside him. She was wearing a short black dress and looked so fresh and well groomed that she might have come straight from the hairdresser.

“How was your Italian friend?” he said.

“They are all the same,” she said, “boring.”

Bonner pointed to the ceiling with a finger and raised an eyebrow.

“I told them not to bother. No point,” she said.

She should not have done that, thought Bonner. Sometimes she behaved as if she ran the club. The trouble was that the recording team upstairs really liked her. Everyone did. He would talk to Kitty.

“Have you seen the Englishman?” he said.

“Which one?”

Bonner slammed his fist onto the counter. “You know bloody well which one!”

“The attaché?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, him. He was in the other night with the American correspondent.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I had a drink with him, that's all.”

“Don't tell me your famous charms have failed you at last?”

She moved her face close to his and whispered in his ear. “Sarcasm doesn't suit a secret policeman. He's not interested.”

He brushed her off. “Make him interested.”

“He's English; they don't do that,” she said, nodding to the fanlight.

“Of course they do. The English are the most repressed people in Europe. Get him drunk and show him a few tricks.”

“I told you, he's not like that.”

“Well, put something in his drink. I want him done and soon.”

“I want something from you first.”

“You don't make conditions here, Sara.”

“Why have I had no letter from my brother for a month?”

Bonner sipped his martini. It was a good question. The boy was in Buchenwald camp and there had been orders to keep him alive. That was all he knew.