The Berkut (82 page)

My intent was to take what is known and weave these facts in an alternative pattern, another possibility. It's speculative, to be sure, but much of what is here is real.

Many of Hitler's senior a
dvisers were with him in the Fü
hrerbunker under the Reich Chancellery at the end, and after Hitler's suicide these people attempted a mass escape through the Russian lines. Many of them were captured by the Russians and imprisoned for ten years, but others escaped successfully and only a small number were killed in the attempt. The sequence of events immediately before and after Hitler's suicide presented here is faithful to official reports and primary sources, and where differences of opinion exist, I have used those facts on which there seems to be some agreement.

The Russians alternately reported having Hitler, or his body, and having no idea where he was. This is
fact
.
It is also fact that in the summer of 1946 the Russians flew all of the major players in the bunker drama back to Berlin, where a film was made in the bunker using the Nazis themselves rather than actors to act out the final drama. Why? This has never been explained, and the film, to my knowledge, has never been seen by anyone from the West, though two American journalists saw the filming in 'progress one night. Why such a reenactment if the Russians had found Hitler's body a year before? And why no autopsy report until twenty-three years later? The Russians finally published an official autopsy report in 1968, but its intent seems more political than scientific, and there are some serious flaws in the scientific methods employed during the autopsies.

The role of the Catholic Church in aiding German refugees after the war is well documented, and there have been numerous works published on the failings of the Church and Pope Pius XII during the war.

Otto Skorzeny was real, of course, and after the war he was suspected by the Allies of having helped Hitler to escape, though he denied it.

The Office of Special Services (OSS) did commission a psychological profile of Hitler that predicted possible outcomes for the German leader; while suicide was selected as the probable outcome, there were many others as well.

There is also the matter of an odd battle staged by the Germans in the area of the Harz Mountains after the Allies crossed the Rhine; this battle, both then and in retrospect, makes no strategic sense.

There is much more, but what we know, it seems to me, is not nearly as important or interesting as what we don't know.

Stalin wanted Hitler; he felt that the German leader had betrayed him, and the cost to the Russians was an estimated twenty million dead, about twice the number of people who died in Nazi death camps. It is ironic that Stalin, America's amiable ally Uncle Joe, probably surpassed Hitler's body counts in what the crude Georgian called "wet business. "

Did Hitler die in Berlin's ruins in 1945? History suggests that perhaps only one man on earth knew the truth about Hitler's fate, and he died in 1953. His name was Stalin.

All things are possible, for better or for worse. Keeping the monster alive so that we might have the accounting we were denied in 1945 has social value for all of us-even in fiction
.

About the Author

The eldest son in an Air Force family that lived a nomadic life, JOSEPH HEYWOOD was born in Rhinebeck, New York. He earned a B.A. in journalism from Michigan State University, and then served five years in the Air Force as a navigator, spending fifteen months in the Vietnam theater. Thereafter he did graduate work in English literature at Western Michigan University.

The Berkut
is Mr. Heywood's second novel; research for it took four years and included a visit to Germany. He spends his spare time coaching high school soccer in Portage, Michigan, where he lives, and is currently working on his third novel.