James Becker - Echo of the Reich

Ludwikowice, Poland

April 1945

It was the sound of boots on concrete that puzzled him.

Footsteps were always echoing through the labyrinth of passageways and laboratories in the perpetual gloom of the mine, but these sounded different, organized almost-a squad of men marching with purpose rather than a handful of scientists ambling along. And as far as Georg Schuster knew, there were no soldiers based in the facility.

The Komplex Milkow was located in the Wenceslas Mine, a bewildering network of tunnels and chambers, some natural but others hacked from the rock, which covered an area of almost thirty-six square kilometers. It was the home of Der Riese — “The Giant”-an SS research facility and one of the most secret bases ever established by Nazi Germany. The research project being conducted there-it bore two project names: Der Laternentrager, meaning “the lantern bearer,” and Kronos, or “Saturn”-possessed the highest possible category of both secrecy and funding priority within the Third Reich. No other research of any sort, in any country, had been allocated the classification Kriegsentscheidend, “decisive for the outcome of the war.”

Schuster had no idea why soldiers should be inside the complex. Then an appalling thought struck him. Surely it couldn’t be the Russians? Not so soon? No, that was ridiculous, because if the Russians had arrived there would have been yelling and shooting, and the explosions of grenades.

Schuster opened the door of his laboratory and peered out hesitantly. Then he relaxed, reassured by the sight of the familiar uniforms of Wehrmacht soldiers.

Even so, the appearance of a uniformed German officer, accompanied by about a dozen soldiers, was unexpected, and Schuster stepped out into the corridor.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The officer leading the soldiers stopped and looked at the man who’d just appeared. The questioner was a middle-aged man wearing a white coat and a puzzled frown.

“I’m SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Wolf,” the new arrival replied politely, proffering a document that bore the distinctive signature of Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. “I’m in charge of the SS Evacuation Kommando, working directly under the authority of General Kammler. And you are?”

The scientist shook his head. “I’ve never heard of an Evacuation Kommando,” he said, glancing at the order before handing it back.

“That’s because you don’t have a sufficiently high security clearance,” Wolf responded, with a slight smile that vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. “And I still need to know your name.”

“It’s Schuster. Georg Schuster.”

Wolf took another sheet of paper from his uniform jacket and studied the list of names printed on it.

“You’re one of the electrical engineering specialists?” he asked, and Schuster nodded. “Good. Just wait over there, in that chamber,” Wolf ordered.

“What’s going on? What do you want?”

“What I want to do is complete the task I’ve been given. In case you haven’t noticed, Engineer Schuster, the Russian forces are almost upon us, and it’s vital for the future of the Reich that they don’t get their hands on the equipment you’ve been working on here. That’s what I’ve been sent here to achieve.”

“So you’re going to evacuate us?”

“There’s a Junkers Ju-390 heavy-lift aircraft waiting at Bystzyca Klodzka airfield just a few kilometers away,” Wolf replied, not quite answering the man’s question. Then he strode further into the complex, his men following on behind.

In less than an hour, Wolf had completed the first part of his assignment. He had identified all of the scientists and engineers at work within the facility, and these men and just a handful of women were now waiting in two separate stone chambers ready to leave the mine, one way or the other. But it wasn’t just the personnel that Wolf had been ordered to take care of. Far more important than them was the device itself.

The double doors to the test chamber were massive-heavy steel frames lined with copious layers of what looked like insulating or soundproofing material. Wolf ordered his men to swing them open, and then he strode inside and for a few moments just stood and stared at the object in front of him.

General Kammler had told him in broad terms what the device was supposed to do, although neither Wolf nor, probably, Kammler himself understood more than a fraction of the science involved. But they both knew that Hitler’s dream of a thousand-year Reich now lay in tatters. Not even the development and deployment of the V1 and V2 terror weapons, nor the latest generation of combat aircraft powered by jet engines, had been enough to hold back the armed forces of Germany’s enemies. Forces that Wolf knew would soon be baying at the very gates of Berlin itself.

What was left of the German army was being squeezed between the British and American forces advancing from the west and the rapidly approaching Russian army. It was now apparent that the Soviet forces were going to reach the area of Ludwikowice first, and that was the worst-case scenario by far. It would be a disaster if the Americans or the British got their hands on the device, but if the Russians took possession of it, that would be a catastrophe of global proportions.

The orders from Berlin had been unequivocal. It was essential that Die Glocke remained in German hands. There was a chance, just the faintest possibility, even when defeat seemed both imminent and inevitable, that the device could be used to snatch victory, or at least serve to prevent the total destruction of Germany.

It didn’t look like much of a weapon, Wolf thought as he stared across the chamber, though he could see exactly why it had acquired its nickname Die Glocke: what it resembled more than anything else was a bell. A big bell, almost three meters in diameter and over four meters high.

“What’s that?” one of his men asked, pointing at a number of objects positioned around the perimeter of the largely circular chamber.

Wolf walked across to the wall and looked down, then prodded one with the toe of his boot. They were small blackened lumps, largely shapeless and with a jellylike consistency. But a couple of them had appendages that gave a clue as to their origin.

“I think they’re plants,” Wolf said, “or they were plants, anyway. I can see a couple of leaves and a bit of stem on that one.”

“Quick! Over here,” another of his men said, walking around to the opposite side of the vast device.

What he’d found clearly weren’t more plants. Lying slumped against the wall, their wrists secured to chains attached to the wall, were two bodies. Both were male, both naked, and both very obviously dead. The numbers “3” and “4” were painted on the wall above the two corpses, and further over to the left were two more sets of chains and the painted numbers “1” and “2.”

“Test subjects,” Wolf commented. “I was briefed that we might see some of these. They’re of no consequence, just Jews from the Gross-Rosen camp.”

“So what killed them?”

“This, obviously,” Wolf said, gesturing at the metallic object that almost filled the chamber. “ Die Glocke.”

He stepped forward and looked closely at the bodies. Whatever had killed them, whatever lethal force was generated by the Bell, their deaths clearly hadn’t been pleasant. The faces of both corpses were contorted into expressions of absolute agony, and although their arms and legs were stick-thin, as would be expected of an inmate at Gross-Rosen, their torsos were bloated and lumpy in appearance, the skin discolored by reddish-purple blotches.