William Tyree - The Fellowship

Suddenly deflated, Seiler leaned against the train window, removed his eyeglasses and rested the fedora over his eyes. Within minutes, he was asleep.

Occupied Paris

The black BMW 335 bore the license plate SS-1. The car sped down the Quai de la Tournelle, tracing the southern edge of the Seine River. It seemed to Wolf that they were cornering too fast for such a drizzly night. From the vehicle’s cramped rear row, he pressed a leather glove against the window and wiped away a layer of condensation. The silhouette of Notre Dame Cathedral’s massive central spire appeared against the rainy Paris skyline.

The priests of Notre Dame were forbidden from illuminating the cathedral at night, so as to deprive Allied bombers from a valuable aerial landmark. With only the dimmed lights of Paris as a backdrop, the silhouette of gothic architecture cut a forbidding, jagged figure in the night sky.

Heinrich Himmler rode in the front passenger seat, peering at the Parisian skyline through round wire-frame glasses. “Turn right at the bridge,” he instructed his driver. The BMW’s tires squealed as it turned onto the bridge to Ile de la Cite, the oldest part of Paris.

Dr. Seiler rode in the middle of the rear row, between Wolf and Lang. He and Himmler had shared little conversation since the rendezvous at Gare du Nord.

Wolf gazed up in awe as the car crossed over the river and neared the cathedral’s front facade. Notre Dame, a place he had only dreamed of. Except for the Sistine Chapel, it was the most revered cathedral in Europe. Wolf recalled from his history courses that Napoleon had been married here, as well as countless members of French royalty. It was even said that the Holy Crown of Thorns, forced upon Jesus’ head before the Crucifixion, was kept within its walls.

The car crawled the last 20 meters over the cobblestone square, its headlights illuminating the cathedral’s western entrance. Wolf and Lang were the first out, exiting the car before it came to a full stop. They knelt in defensive positions, MP-40 submachine guns tucked tightly against their shoulders as they scanned the rainy square.

On the far end of Rue de la Cite, Wolf spotted a figure watching them — a hooded man in a long robe on a bicycle. It was too dark to see his face. Wolf whistled and waved for the cyclist to move away. The figure turned the bike eastward and pedaled into a side alley.

Satisfied, he rapped twice on the BMW’s roof, giving Himmler’s driver, Obersturmfuhrer Franz Hoffman, the all clear. Hoffman shut off the motor, but left the headlights fixed on the cathedral entrance. Himmler stepped out of the car, using the finger of his glove to smooth his narrow mustache. The reichsfuhrer’s five foot nine frame was dwarfed by the youthful, textbook Aryan physiques of his bodyguards. Seiler was out of the car next, walking slightly behind Himmler.

Himmler’s eyes searched the plaza. “Where are the others?” he asked Hoffman.

“We’re early. Perhaps we should wait in the car.”

“No. The professor and I will keep the priest occupied upstairs while you begin.”

Himmler turned, appreciating the first of three elaborate portals leading into Notre Dame. “Besides, I will be the first to admit that there is much to see and admire.” His eyes danced excitedly at the statues engraved into the stone entranceway. A decapitated Saint Denis, holding his own head. A demon trying to extinguish the candle of Saint Genevieve. Mary on her deathbed, surrounded by Jesus and the 12 disciples. “Magnificent,” Himmler muttered, and with his entourage following in line behind him, he wordlessly moved toward the center entrance, the Portal of the Last Judgment. The carvings surrounding the heavy wood doors were even more violent. A sculpted figure of Christ displaying his wounds. Warrior angels bearing spears and crosses. The Virgin Mary and St. John kneeling at either side. Dozens of tormented souls writhing in hellish agony.

“Catholics,” Himmler muttered to no one in particular, “have always understood the power of symbolism and fear.”

“Precisely,” Seiler said. “That’s why the church has survived two thousand years.”

Hoffman focused his attention on Wolf. “What are you waiting for? Check inside!”

Wolf pushed the front doors wide, revealing the most cavernous, grandiose structure he had ever laid eyes upon. Germany’s own Trier Cathedral did not begin to compare. Only the majesty of Munich’s urban palace even came close. Notre Dame’s vaulted ceiling was impossibly high for a building created some 800 years earlier. How had mere mortals done this?

There was no mass at this time of night, but the rear pews were nevertheless occupied by a handful of worshippers in silent meditation. Behind and above him, eight thousand massive organ pipes clustered before a circular spectacle of stained glass that seemed, with every step deeper into the cathedral, to fan out like the feathers of a magic peacock. He was overcome with emotion. With his superiors still outside, he quickly dropped to one knee and crossed himself, mouthing a Hail Mary. Only then did he compose himself and return to the entrance to give the all clear.

The Nazi presence in the cathedral was felt before it was seen. The half-dozen worshippers in the rear pews broke from prayer to turn and regard the invaders. Although the red armband bearing the swastika on Himmler’s sleeve was a well-known ancient Tibetan symbol. To the faithful in Notre Dame, the swastika was antagonistic — a twisted, deliberate perversion of the holy cross of Jesus.

Himmler removed his trench coat and handed it to Hoffman, revealing a new black dress uniform that Hugo Boss had personally designed for him. The uniform was both elegant and sinister, resurrecting the skull-and-crossbones imagery of the early 1920s German Worker’s Party uniforms. Black tie with swastika tiepin, twin death’s head patches on his cap, and a silver dagger on his belt. A fitting costume for the high priest of the Nazi religion.

Wolf noted a hooded figure on each side of the hall, lighting prayer candles. They were wearing the same style of brown robe he had seen on the cyclist on the street. Simple wooden crosses strung with strips of black leather hung from their necks. Perhaps they were monks.

He tightened the rifle against his shoulder and checked his weapon to ensure the safety was off. However confidential the nature of their mission, Wolf imagined that news of Himmler’s presence in Paris would travel quickly.

With the professor on his heels, Himmler stomped down the long center nave, looking for the priest on duty. An elderly clergyman emerged near the main altar. He was dressed in a white collar and a simple black cloak that reached the tops of his shoes. As the Nazi entourage approached, he pressed his fingertips against his chest, outlining the four points of the cross. It seemed to Wolf that he was steeling himself for unpleasant business.

The priest lifted his arm in a perfunctory sieg heil as he greeted them. Such a gesture would have been unheard of a year earlier. But that had been before the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of French citizens over the summer and fall. “I am Father LeFevre,” he said in passable German. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Let’s talk in private,” Himmler said. He turned to Hoffman. “You have your orders.”

Father LeFevre pulled a heavy gas lamp from its wall fixture and led the other four Nazis — Himmler, Seiler, Wolf and Lang — across the choir ambulatory to a doorway in the far south corner. They soon came to a tightly wound stone staircase leading up to the south tower. Before ascending, Wolf turned back and observed Hoffman lingering by the high altar. He seemed to be examining it. What were his orders? Wolf wondered. Who were the others Himmler had been expecting?