‘It was dark in Berlin that night. The air raids were bad enough to make the blackout regulations very strict. Even the railway men had to work with the merest glimmer of operating lights. I stayed with Breslow and we checked the manifest to be sure that the boxes were loaded safely. The Führer’s personal papers were not the only freight on the train that night. The Foreign Office building had been badly hit a few nights previously, and a railway wagon of Foreign Office documents was attached to the train.
‘Breslow said that we would send a signal when the train passed Halle. It was then that we would open the sealed orders. Since our message was going to be in cipher, we would have to halt. No top-secret – Chefsache – messages could be transmitted by radio for fear of interception by enemy monitoring services. I went and warned the communications officer that a signals mechanic must be ready to connect the teleprinters to the Reichspost landlines when we stopped the train at Halle. Then I told the senior railway official aboard of the intention to stop, and told the train’s military police commander that his men must be ready to provide the normal security screen round the halted train.’
‘You sent the message from Halle?’
‘No. There was only a single line working for ten miles north of Halle – it’s a big junction and the Allied bombers had hit it again and again – the train was rerouted through Leipzig. We opened the sealed orders there.’
‘And?’
‘Our orders were to take the Führer’s personal papers to a salt mine at Merkers in the Thüringer Wald. An infantry regiment stationed at Hersfeld, not far from the mine, would provide us with help and assistance. The sealed orders specified that the papers were to be referred to as “songs”, the military escort as “pianoforte”, the movement of the material to the mine was a Lied mit Klavierbegleitung, song with piano accompaniment.’
‘Curious code names,’ said Stuart.
‘You cannot call such words code,’ said Wever pedantically. ‘They give very little security to a message. Such words are intended only for convenience and brevity. The German word Begleit means escort as well as accompany – the FBB was the Führer Begleit Bataillon. It would not require a team of cryptographers to guess what we were doing, always providing they had an Enigma decoder.’
Wever reached into the pocket of his coat and got out a cigarette machine. He dumped a tin of dark tobacco on the table and then a packet of papers. ‘Even so, Breslow was most particular about the security of the messages to Berlin and to the army at Hersfeld.’ Wever pinched some tobacco and rolled it into the machine before feeding a paper into it, licking the gummed edge and rolling it some more. ‘You need two operators to work one of those old Enigmas, three to be really fast. It’s like a typewriter, but the letters light up instead of going on to paper. Breslow helped me with it. He called out the letters as they came up.’ Wever continued rolling the machine as if he had forgotten what he was doing. Then suddenly he clicked it open to release the newly made cigarette. He picked it up and carefully tucked a few loose strands of tobacco back into the open ends. Then he studied it, as if pleased with the result of his handiwork. He lit the cigarette and inhaled gratefully with that very deep breath which marks the tobacco addict. Then he blew smoke and smiled with satisfaction.
‘How far did you get with the train?’ Stuart asked.
‘We couldn’t get beyond Erfurt,’ said Wever. He smoked the cigarette with a furtiveness which suggested that his wife would not have approved of his weakness. ‘A railway bridge was damaged. The engineers said it could not bear the weight of the Führer’s train which was specially constructed with tons of lead in the bogies to give an extra-smooth ride. And there was the weight of all our special equipment and the Flakwagen at front and back. It would have been too much for the buckled girders. Moving it across piecemeal would have meant several hours’ delay. And there were hospital trains coming back up the line as well as troop trains going westwards. Erfurt was close to the autobahn, so we called Hersfeld – which was also on the autobahn – and asked them to come and get us. What a fiasco!’ Wever got up in order to tap his ash into the stove. ‘We couldn’t reach them by teleprinter, no operators on duty. The Americans were heading directly for Hersfeld and the regiment had moved on. Next we tried telephoning them. Eventually, after a long and acrimonious conversation with a half-witted major who refused to believe that we were engaged on a special mission for the Führer, they sent us two trucks and a platoon of infantry.’ He inhaled and looked at the cigarette again.
‘When they arrived they were more like walking wounded than infantry: old men, kids, cripples and rejects. Even the trucks the major sent us were in such poor mechanical condition that the drivers had to nurse them to keep them going.
‘When we got to the mine at Merkers there was no one ready to accept the papers. It is a bleak and dirty place, the yard was muddy and littered with broken boxes and rubbish. Some of the mess was the outer packing from other treasures which had been put into the mine. There was another truck there when we arrived. It contained Reichsbank Director Dr Frank and a Reichsbank procurist – the official who was in charge of all newly printed paper money. It was Dr Frank who signed for our consignment, and eventually let me go.
‘I wanted to get back to my parents in Berlin. The railway was still working – it was just the heavy trains, transporting big guns and tanks, that could not get through Erfurt. Breslow said he wanted to find the nearest Waffen SS outfit and get back into the fighting. It was probably true, but at the time I suspected that he was merely looking for some way of changing his SS papers and uniform for those of an ordinary army officer before surrendering himself to the Americans, who were getting closer every hour. There was a railway transport officer at Merkers who agreed to give me top-priority orders to rejoin my unit in Berlin. Anything less than a top-priority movement order would expose me to the risk of being given a rifle and sent into action by any military police patrol that stopped me and asked for my papers. There was a delay while I got a photo for the movement order.’
‘But you had top-priority papers from Hitler,’ said Stuart. ‘What could be better than that?’
‘These were dangerous times, Mr Stuart,’ said Wever. ‘The American armies were very close and the Red Army pressing nearer day by day. I would have been a fool to carry any document associating me with the Führer’s immediate entourage. I wanted very ordinary military papers that showed that I was going to the Berlin signals office – no mention of the Reich Chancellery assignment – just a teleprinter specialist returning to special duty. I got hold of the army photographer but by the time the papers were all ready the American soldiers had arrived … that was 4 April. I was interrogated by an American military police officer but he thought I was part of a military escort provided for the gold from the Reichsbank. It was a perfunctory interrogation and after that I went to a POW cage and eventually to England.’
‘Any more interrogations?’
‘Everyone wanted to know about the gold. They kept asking me about the origin of the gold – was it from the Reichsbank, was there any gold still in Berlin, were there shipments of foreign gold? France, Holland and Norway were already asking for the return of the gold that had been taken from them. I knew nothing about any of this, and eventually the interrogators lost interest in me.’
‘And what happened to Hitler’s papers?’
‘They went down into the mine. There were only six boxes of them. I went down into the shaft with Reichsbank Director Frank. He had the keys of a vault which had been built to protect the gold and foreign currencies. It was very light; the low roof of the salt mine had been strung with hundreds of electric light bulbs. Frank warned us that the atmosphere of the salt mine was too dry to be suitable for the long-term storage of archives. He had similarly warned the museum officials who sent valuable documents there. He said that more than six months in the mine could result in permanent damage. Breslow said that he did not expect that they would remain there that long
.’
‘I’ve been through the statements, interrogations and reports about the mine, Mr Wever,’ Stuart told him. ‘But I don’t recall anyone named Frank. Certainly there is no record of a Reichsbank director of that name.’
Wever looked into space and nodded. ‘I always suspected that Frank was not his real name.’
‘Why?’
‘Breslow was not the sort of officer who would so readily hand those secret papers to a civilian in return for a scribbled receipt. I believe Breslow had secret orders to make contact with this man who called himself Reichsbank Director Frank. I think Frank was a Sicherheitsdienst official working for Kaltenbrunner so that they could be quite sure where the documents were.’ Wever nodded as if to confirm this idea to himself. ‘And Breslow spent a lot of time with Frank – meetings from which I was excluded.’
‘And this man who called himself Frank had access to the gold too?’
‘And also to the foreign money that was there – Swiss paper money, Swedish paper money, US dollars and British pounds. All foreign money, including that acquired by the SS, the army or anyone else, had to be sent to the Foreign Notes Department, Reichsbank New Building, Berlin. It was unlawful for a German to possess foreign money. The procurist was in charge of all foreign paper money, another Reichsbank director – Herr Thoms – was in charge of all the gold. Now – in 1945 – virtually all the gold and foreign money was in a salt mine, and Herr Frank had the key.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that this gold and foreign currency was placed there to finance the escape of the Nazi leaders?’
‘All I know is that, when the American soldiers arrived at Merkers, Reichsbank Director Frank was nowhere to be found, and neither was my old friend Breslow.’
‘You think that they had taken gold from the mine?’
‘I have no theories to offer,’ said Wever. ‘I am simply telling you what happened.’
‘Did you look at the documents?’
‘Breslow took one,’ said Wever. ‘It was a long train journey. One of the boxes was unlocked; we couldn’t resist looking. Each metal filing box was divided into compartments, with thickly wadded brown manilla envelopes jammed into each. We opened one of them. Inside there were two shorthand notebooks, the pages crossed through diagonally by someone as the notes were typed up. The shorthand was hastily written but still easy enough to read. At the back of the file there were typewritten sheets which had been completed. They were the Lagebesprechungen – the Führer’s military conferences, two each day normally.’
‘And Breslow took one?’
‘As a souvenir, I suppose. It was a mad thing to do, but that final part of the war was a mad time. People did crazy things.’
‘Not you, Wever,’ said Stuart. ‘You never did a crazy thing in your life.’
Wever stared at him. ‘I don’t risk my life for ridiculous pieces of waste paper, if that’s what you mean. The fact that it had Führerkopie at the top of the page meant little to me. I could never understand those fools, fighting in Russia as if they were on some wonderful crusade. What did they get out of it?’
‘We know what they got out of it,’ said Stuart. ‘The lucky ones got twelve years in a Russian work camp.’
The telephone rang. There was something inappropriate about the sound of it in that mean little room, smelling of mildew and farm manure. Wever rose from his chair with a crack of stiff bones. ‘Hello?’ he said, reaching into the gloom for the telephone.
There was a gabble of conversation at the other end. Wever said ‘Ja’ but changed it to ‘yes’ by the time there was a need for a second affirmative. ‘Yes’ and ‘yes’ again.
Suddenly Wever’s patience snapped. He broke into rapid German, its consonants sharp and brittle as only Berliners speak. ‘Damn you and damn the rest of them. For years no one cared and now suddenly … You tell them I sent it almost a week ago. Negative.’ He nodded to himself. ‘The only negative. Tell them to stop their silly little games.’ Wever’s tirade stopped and he bent his head as if trying to hear better. He stood framed against the oppressive rain clouds which pressed with a leaden weight upon the landscape through the window. He lowered the phone from his ear, and it purred for a moment before he hung up.
‘Is there anything else?’ said Wever.
‘Not for the moment,’ said Stuart. ‘Thanks for helping me.’
‘There is no alternative,’ said Wever. ‘When your people arranged all my permits and permissions thirty years ago, they made it clear that they could withdraw them just as quickly.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Mr Wever,’ said Stuart. ‘By now you are one of us.’
Wever grunted as he bent over to retie his bootlaces.
‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’
‘No,’ said Wever. ‘Go ahead. And mind the patch of mud near the shed; the baker’s van got stuck in that last night. Took him half an hour to crawl out of it.’
‘Thanks, I will,’ said Stuart, and tucking his head down he hurried through the rain to his car. The motor started at the first touch of the key and he switched on all the lights so that he could negotiate the muddy lane without sharing the baker’s fate.
Stuart was almost at the Red Fox when the explosion occurred. The flash lit up the grey countryside like lightning, and the force of it made his ears pop even before he heard the noise. He turned his head in time to see the column of smoke. It was not the oily black smoke that stunt crews make for war movies. This was the real thing: a wraithlike smudge which dissipated almost immediately.
Stuart heaved on the brakes as a hailstorm of wood chips and metal fragments splashed into the puddles round him and nicked his car’s paintwork. He opened the door and got to his feet in the pouring rain. This part of the country had long since had its hedgerows ripped away by cost-conscious farmers. The open fields gave Stuart a view of the Wever house. There was little left of it; the merest trace of smoke hung over the scattered stones and a large piece of the roof was leaning upon the nearest of the chicken houses.
Stuart returned to his Aston Martin. There was no sense in going back there. Even now there would be police cars and ambulances on the way. Furthermore, the standing instructions gave a strong warning against field employees becoming involved in police inquiries of any kind. The Secret Intelligence Service got no pleasure from sending high-ranking department officials across to the Home Office, cap in hand. In spite of all this, he turned his Aston in the car park of the Red Fox and went back.
The clock, thought Stuart. Perhaps the man who had come to mend the chimes had not been installing new ones. Perhaps he had planted explosives in the long case. It was that part of the house which had suffered most. But who had phoned Wever, and was it a warning?
The kitchen was the scene of the greatest damage. Only a close scrutiny by explosives experts would reveal whether the bomb had been placed in the clock, and they would have to search a long time to piece it together. The smell was almost overwhelming. He spat the soot from his mouth.
Wever must have been standing near the stove. There was hardly any signs of damage on his face or his clothes but he was bundled up like a rag doll in a toy box, and was unmistakably dead. Stuart went through his pockets but there was nothing there that one would not expect to find on a hard-working chicken farmer who was too old to cope with the work demanded of him and had cash problems that required him to put aside the payments on a second-hand rotovator.
So that was the man who had brushed shoulders with Hitler. Well, there were worse fates than ending up on an East Anglian chicken farm. There was no sign of Wever’s wife. He stepped carefully over the wreckage of wood splinters and broken glass to get to what had once been a bedroom. There was a cot in the corner. He picked up the woollen blankets. There was no sign of a baby.
The rain was still coming down steadily, soaking into the broken furniture, hissing upon the hot stove and dampening down the dust of the broken plaster. He turned back towards his car, glass cracking
underfoot. It was as he stepped over the broken wall of the bedroom that he saw it. The rain had made the metal box shine and he stooped down to inspect the object more closely.
It was an expensive wall safe, built right into the brickwork of the bedroom, in a wall added to the house by the enterprising handyman, Franz Wever. The front of the safe was intact and its door firmly locked. It was the back of the safe that had sprung open with the collapse of the wall. He prised the metal back as if it had been the bent lid of a half-opened sardine can. His hand went into the gap and he found some bundles of papers.
There was an insurance policy, some letters from the local planning office giving permission for building new chicken houses. There were Wever’s permits and a West German passport stamped only twice for visits to Berlin. He had lied about never going back – what other lies had he told?
With this bundle there was another one, wrapped in the black plastic from which fertilizer bags are made, held tight with two rubber bands. Stuart snapped the fastenings off and unwrapped the packet. There was Wever’s old German army pay book, some souvenirs of foreign paper money dating from the war, and a medical form dated 18 September 1944, certifying him fit for infantry duties. Nothing of importance, thought Stuart, and looked at his watch. The police would surely be here any moment. There were houses and farms nearer than the Red Fox, and even there the sound had come like a thunderclap.
It was as he was about to rewrap the pay book that he saw the envelope tucked in amongst the ancient paper money. He ripped the flap open. There it was – Führerkopie, a page from one of the Lagesbesprechungen, Hitler’s daily military conferences, with the names of Jodl, Göring and Hitler down the left-hand side. A script of some demented screenplay which played to packed audiences for six long nightmare years. So it had not been Breslow who was so obsessed by the contents of the tin boxes that he had to steal a souvenir, but Wever himself, the arch cynic to whom Hitler meant nothing.