David Gibbins - The Gods of Atlantis

The light bulb above the desk trembled, and the dust in the air shimmered. There was a screeching groan, and then another. The electricity jolted off with each shuddering percussion, and the luminous paint on the ceiling flashed pastel blue as the bulb flickered on and off. Himmler dropped his feet back to the ground and leaned over, holding his ears and grimacing; the two SS generals in the shadows did the same, unused to the terrible noise. Hoffman clapped his hands to his ears. This would be it. The final barrage. The battery commander would be firing the south-facing flak guns simultaneously in salvos, for maximum noise effect inside the tower. There would be twenty, maybe twenty-five rounds. He and Hoffman had planned the barrage to give them cover, to allow them to get out unnoticed by the Feldgendarmen and surrender the tower to the Russians before the final onslaught, to save the thousands of civilians crammed inside. It had been a desperate scheme, but now it appeared a forlorn hope. There seemed no chance that Hoffman could escape from this room – and whatever scheme Himmler had for him – in time to reach the Russians and call for a ceasefire.

Hoffman’s mind raced. What was Himmler’s game? The man was as mercurial as the many hats he wore. Head of the Ahnenerbe, the Department of Cultural Heritage. Head of the SS and the Gestapo. All the Nazi arteries of hate seemed to lead to him. Even the Ahnenerbe was malign, a racist front. Before the war, Hoffman had thrilled as much as any schoolboy to the newsreel footage showing heroic German expeditions to Tibet and Iceland and the Andes, searching for lost Aryan civilizations. He had even applied to be a pilot on one of those expeditions, far too young but overcome by his passion to fly. Himmler had made a public spectacle of him, had called him to Berlin and paraded him as the perfect Nazi youth, willing to volunteer to serve the Fatherland even before he was of age. But then Himmler’s scientists had shown him photographs and skull measurements of Tibetans and native Greenlanders. Hoffman had said nothing, but he had realized that the treasure they were seeking was not so alluring after all. It was only later that he understood that those measurements were another instrument of hate, part of the collection of data that supposedly gave proof of the physical superiority of the German people.

He had seen what Himmler’s other hats meant too. A few months ago he had been invited to a party at Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, where he had been shown the manacles for hanging prisoners and the guillotine room. The victims were so-called political prisoners, anyone who displeased Himmler. Berliners who heard the screams at night called it the House of Horrors. And there was worse. As a university student in 1938, Hoffman had witnessed Kristallnacht, the smashing and burning of Jewish shops across Germany. Later, on a tour of factories as a Luftwaffe hero, he had seen Jewish slave labour at the V-1 and V-2 rocket sites. Everyone knew how the Jews were treated; you could see them in work gangs around Berlin, with their Star of David armbands. Then one afternoon six months ago, on one of his last missions as a Stuka pilot over the Eastern Front, Hoffman’s aircraft had been leaking fuel and he had been forced to land in Poland near the town of O wie cim, where they had flown over a vast camp with barracks and a railhead. The aircraft engine had nearly choked on a thick cloud of smoke that smelled like roasted meat. His gunner in the rear seat had glimpsed the scene below: crowds of people disembarking from a train, men, women, children, a ragged line leading to an underground entrance next to the source of the smoke. He had seen the Star of David armbands, and guards kicking and beating people. The Polish labourers in the field where they had landed called it Todesmuhle, the death mill. When he came to Berlin for his new posting, Hoffman discovered that it was Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, the man in front of him now, who had been the architect of that horror, something he referred to with his humourless grin as die Endlosung, the Final Solution – in his mind a logistical challenge that continued to preoccupy him even after Hitler had got bored with the Jewish question and had shut out everything except his dream of an art museum at Linz.

The tremors stopped. The guns had ceased firing, as if a monster had expended itself in a final frenzy. Hoffman could smell the freshly pulverized paint from the walls, and the reek of vomit and shit seeping in through the door from the people crammed in the stairwell below. Himmler took his hands from his ears, dusted himself off and raised his feet back on to the planks of the desk. He reached over and picked up the bottle of schnapps, uncapped it and took a long swig. He exhaled hard, put the bottle down and looked at Hoffman. Then he smiled again, crookedly. ‘We are not a nation of partisans, are we, Herr SS-Brigadefuhrer?’

Hoffman did not know what to say. He clicked his heels. ‘ Mein Fuhrer.’

‘No, we are not.’ Himmler took another swig from the bottle, then slammed it down, smacking his lips. ‘This new partisan army that’s supposed to carry on the war in the forests. What did Adolf call it? Werewolf.’ He sniggered. ‘And this force you were posted here to command? The 9th Luftwaffe Parachute Division Lebelstar. A crack new division? The snotty little boys on the roof.’ He cocked an ear theatrically, then stared penetratingly at Hoffman. ‘And speaking of which, is that not the end of the shooting I hear? Was that not to be your cue, to remuster the crews from the flak guns and lead them into battle?’

Hoffman clicked his heels again. His heart was pounding. This might be his chance. ‘ Mein Fuhrer. I must go. My duty…’

‘Your duty, SS-Brigadefuhrer, is to me,’ Himmler snarled, slamming his hand on the plank. The bottle of schnapps tottered, then smashed on the floor.

Hoffman felt the blood drain from his face. ‘ Mein Fuhrer. Those were to be my words exactly. I have sworn the SS oath.’ He snapped his arm up in the Nazi salute. ‘ Sieg Heil! ’

Himmler suddenly relaxed, and waved again. ‘Take your arm down. We don’t need that nonsense in here, you and I.’ He looked wistfully at the broken glass, than back up at Hoffman, leaning forward. ‘Now, to business. What do you know about the Wunderwaffe?’

Hoffman stared past Himmler, unflinching. So that was it. Moments of apparent sense, moments when Himmler derided the last-ditch schemes of Hitler and his cronies, then back to the madness. The mythical Wunderwaffe was the biggest delusion of all, the wonder-weapon that was going to save the Reich. First, it was going to be unleashed on the day of President Roosevelt’s death, as some kind of a holy sign. Then on Hitler’s birthday, ten days ago. But of course nothing had happened. Hoffman cleared his throat. ‘Reichsleiter Goebbels promised it. A secret weapon to be used at the chosen moment.’

Himmler waved his hand again. ‘Goebbels. That little monster. I always loathed him.’ He gave his disarming grin. ‘His children are dead, you know, in the bunker. Goebbels’ fallen angels. An injection of morphine, then a cyanide tablet forced into their mouths while they were asleep. Only I’m told they weren’t all asleep. Not the oldest one, anyway.’ He pushed his spectacles up his nose, then peered inquisitively at Hoffman. ‘Well? What weapons?’

Hoffman remembered the older Goebbels girl. He swallowed hard. ‘In the Luftwaffe, we knew about the rocket programmes, the V-1 and the V-2. A few months ago I toured the test site at Peenemunde with Reichsmarschall Goring. There was talk of another rocket in secret production, a V-3.’

Himmler waved his hand and snorted contemptuously. ‘Goring. That fat pig. He stole art from this storeroom for his chateau, you know. And the rocket factory is history now, bombed to oblivion by the English. Anyway, rockets are just vehicles, not weapons.’