Dennis Wheatley - They Used Dark Forces

Although Berlin was now being shelled as well as bombed Gatow airport was still operative, so Hitler could have set off in an aircraft for Prague with a fair chance of arriving there safely: In spite of Bormann's pleading he refused to go; but the telegram had the unfortunate effect of re-arousing his interest in battles. Sending for maps, the latest situation reports and General Weidling, the Commandant of the Berlin area, he again assumed the role he had said, two nights earlier, that he meant to abandon for good, and began to issue orders right and left for the employment of both existent and nonexistent units. In addition he had a telegram sent off to Colonel General Ritter von Greim of the Luftwaffe to join him in Berlin immediately.

That night Gregory went back with a heavy heart to Erika. He told her what had happened and said that now that Hitler had changed his mind about no longer taking any part in directing the war he might also change it about remaining in Berlin; so it was imperative that he should stay on and do everything possible to keep him to his decision to die among the ruins of his capital.

Malacou had safely accomplished his journey to and from the Villa Seeaussicht. He had found Sabine still there and brought from her for Gregory a hastily scrawled letter, that read:

My dear,

In these frightful times it was good of you to think of me. You know the reason why I've stayed on here for so long, but thank God I'm completely cured now and you have no need to worry about me. Kurt has been to see me several tunes and has persuaded me to go with him to his family place, Sclaloss Niederfels, not far from the Bodensee. As he has not had the money to keep the old castle up, life there will be pretty grim; but at least I'll be safe from the Russians. His own departure has been delayed for a few days while he has been hiding his scientific paraphernalia, so that it should not fall into the hands of the enemy. He expects to be able to report to Speer by midday that he has finished the job, and as soon as he gets back from the Ministry he'll join me here, so Trudi and I are packing like mad to be ready to leave with him. Blessings on you, darling. I pray that we may meet again in happier times. Sabine.

That was one worry off Gregory's mind, although it did little to ease it because he was so terribly concerned for Erika. But she cut short his pleas that she should leave without him by saying, `It's not very complimentary of you, darling, to suggest that I haven't' got as much guts as a woman like Eva Braun.'

Next day, the 25th, `Corporal' Hitler was up to the ears in a wildly impractical new plan by which, not Berlin, but he, personally, was to be saved. Artur Axmann's battalions of Hitler Youth were to hold the bridges to the west of the city, over the Havel, while the Twelfth Army under General Wenck, which was fighting on the Elbe, was to disengage itself, fight its way round towards Potsdam, cross the bridges, rescue the Fuhrer, then turn south and fight its way out of the city again.

Keitel, true to form to the last, declared it to be a Napoleonic conception and set off to take Wenck his orders personally. Jodi returned to the new OKW headquarters which had been moved further out to Furstenburg, while Krebs remained in the bunker as, theoretically, the Fьhrer’s military adviser.

When Gregory arrived there on the morning of the 26th he found his friend von Below sitting gloomily at the table in the dining passage with a bottle of brandy and a half-empty glass in front of him. There was no lack of good liquor in the bunker and everyone who frequented it habitually drank heavily, in an attempt to keep up his spirits. Jokingly Gregory remarked, `The morning's news must be worse than worse for you to start tippling so early in the day.'

Von Below looked at him with lackluster eyes and said heavily, `No, I've just come from a hospital where I watched my nephew die. He was a boy of only fifteen and such a fine, happy lad; but, of course, he'd been called up and a Russian bullet got him.'

Gregory stammered such words of sympathy as he could find; then von Below went on, `There's no damned justice in it. That's what one resents. In the next bed there was a middle aged man I used to know. He was mixed up in the July Putsch, but had the luck to escape being executed. When they came to arrest him he tried to commit suicide, but only wounded himself. Two days ago a lump of ack-ack came down on his head, but not on the part of it that was vulnerable from his previous wound. So he's still alive, and unless the hospital is bombed he'll be out of it inside a week. Yet my young nephew is dead.'

Even as Gregory asked the man's name, his sixth sense told him what the reply would be. It was, 'Graf Kurt van Osterberg.'

So unless Sabine had set off on her own she was still at the villa. And the advance elements of the Russian Armies had now surrounded Berlin. From all quarters reports were coming in of Russian tanks and armoured cars ravaging the outer suburbs. But for the time being Gregory could do nothing about her, for it was imperative that he should remain in the bunker.

All through the afternoon the Fьhrer continued to issue new orders, to battalions and even companies. Then in the evening Ritter von Greim arrived. He was carried down to the bunker wounded and in considerable pain. While the giant Dr. Stumpfegger, who had remained there out of loyalty to Hitler, attended to the General's wound, Hannah Reitsch, who had accompanied him, gave a graphic account of the hair-raising journey they had made at the Fьhrer’s command.

Fraulein Reitsch was a famous test pilot and no-one could deny her courage; but in all other respects she was an odious woman with a neurotic mentality that led her to regard people either with vitriolic hatred or passionate devotion and dramatize herself to them accordingly. She was, of course, a fanatical Nazi and regarded Hitler as her god.

Early that morning they had landed at Rechlin. From there von Greim intended to go on by helicopter to Gatow. Only one had been available and that was damaged, but its sergeant pilot had made the trip before so von Greim ordered him to take it up. The aircraft was intended for only two, but Hannah, determined to be in at the death, had squeezed herself into its tail.

Forty Luftwaffe fighter’ planes were ordered into the air to act as escort and most of them were shot down, but the helicopter reached Gatow with only a few bullet holes in it. There von Greim found a training aircraft. Boarding it, he took the controls himself. By a miracle he escaped being shot down by the Russian 'planes overhead, but as he hedgehopped over the ruins of outer Berlin, where desperate street fighting was in progress, a shell-burst had wrecked the belly of the aircraft and a splinter from it had torn open his right foot. Hannah had then leant over his shoulders, zig-zagged the 'plane wildly and performed the extraordinary feat of landing it safely on the broad East-West Axis near the Brandenburg Gate.

And this desperate venture, involving the death of a score or more of German pilots, had been undertaken solely that Hitler, instead of sending von Greim a telegram, might tell him personally about Goering's treachery and that he was to succeed him as a Field Marshal in supreme command of the Luftwaffe.

On the morning of the 27th Russian shells were falling in all parts of the city and their troops had completely encircled it, so it seemed that the end could not now be long postponed. But the suburbs and built-up area to be occupied consisted of more than a hundred square miles… To the south the Russians were still thin on the ground and many people were managing to escape by dodging their flying columns.

Worried that Sabine might not know that von Osterberg had been wounded and still be waiting for him to pick her up, Gregory decided to send Malacou out to the villa again. By him he sent a note, telling her about the Count and urging her not to lose another moment in getting away before the Russian ring became too thick for there to be any chance left of getting through it. Still armoured in his belief that his time had not yet come to die, Malacou accepted the mission placidly and set off to dodge his way through the ruined and burning city. Gregory then went over to the bunker.