Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

organizations in those countries likely to be enemies of Germany in the

next war By 1923 we had put a large number of agents in place, and by

1939 we had the most extensive anti-communist intelligence network in

the world. There were losses and defections, of course, but the

strategy remained sound.

Two years later (January 1941) Hitler informed Heydrich that a powerful,

highly placed clique of Nazi sympathizers existed in England, men who

wished to arrange a peace treaty with Germany. These Englishmen claimed

to be in a position to seize their government, if only two obstacles

could be got out of the way. The main obstacle was Winston Churchill,

who considered Adolf Hitler his personal nemesis.

The second was King George VI, who, unlike his dethroned older brother

was a fervent anti-Nazi. Hitler's English sympathizers saw this

dethroned brother-then called the Duke of Windsor-as a malleable

alternative British monarch.

Hitler charged Heydrich with removing the human obstacles to this

alliance, and Heydrich naturally turned to me. Because an Anglo-German

alliance would virtually guarantee the destruction of Stalin's regime, I

volunteered immediately.

Heydrich's plan, though complex in execution, was simple and ingenious

in theory. We would assassinate both Churchill and the king, then lay

the blame on our archenemies the communists-just as the Nazis had done

with the Reichstag Fire! To accomplish this, Heydrich envisioned using

one of the British communist cells infiltrated by our agents. He asked

if I thought we might dupe one of these groups into carrying out the

assassinations for us, and I must admit that I expressed pessimism. The

revelation of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939

had disil&sioned communists around the world; consequently, I considered

the chance of finding western communists still fanatical enough to

attempt a suicide mission very small But Heydrich was undaunted On his

orders I set to work bringing his plan to fruition.

The communist cell I chose for the operation was based in London, and,

from our point of view, was under the command of one Helmut Steuer-a

former Wehrmacht sergeant. This Helmut deserves special mention, for

he-like the unit he had created-was uniq Helmut had@ been spying on .

communists since Munich, where he was "sole survivor" of the massacre at

the Hauptbanhof.

When he "fled" to Britain (on our orders) the British communists

welcomed him as a hero. His bond with them was so strong that when

these communists went to Spain to fight in the International Brigades in

1936, Helmut went with them.

Heydrich could not believe it. It was an insanely dangerous thing for

Helmut to do, but I understood. He was a young man then, a man of

action, and he craved danger In Spain he fought heroically for the

Republicans, all the while feeding to the Fascists information on the

movements of the very armies he was fighting in! Helmut lost an eye at

Guernica, and probably because of the accuracy of his own reports! It

was truly a miracle that he survived at all, yet his service in Spain

made him irreproachable in the eyes of his English comrades. After

returning to EnglandStern stopped reading. His heart was pounding. He

put his finger to the paper, traced the sentences backward and read

again: Helmut lost an eye at Guernica "My God," he muttered. "I've

found you out at last. Alfred Horn ...

You're not Rudolf Hess, and you're not'Zinoviev either."

Stern's mind raced as he tried to assimilate this new information.

There actually was a Helmut involved in the Hess affair-just as the

Oxford draft research had claimed. Professor Natterman would be

extremely disappointed to hear it! Stern heard himself laughing. It

all fits, he thought with satisfaction. I simply couldn't accept the

idea that Rudolf Hess had survived the war, that he had wormed his way

into South A ica's power elite, and I was right!

.fr "Well," he murmured, "let's find out exactly what Helmut the great

German spy did during the war." Stern picked up reading Zinoviev's

narrative where he had left off-.

After returning to England, Helmut-on our ordersorganized his own

communist cell. It was small (six men, not counting Helmut) and every

man had been seriously wounded either in the Great War or in Spain. In

his communiques Helmut called them his Verwunden Brigade-the "Wounded

Brigade. " These men had come from the British working class, and no

men everfelt more betrayed by their government than they- The flower of

their generation had been slaughtered in the Great War, yet they had

survived.

And when a neighboring republic was threatened by a newly risen German

monster, their government had not only turned its back, but disparaged

its sons who went to defend the democratic ideal that their friends and

brothers had died for in the Great War There is no hatred like that of

idealistic men who have been betrayed Even the Hitler-Stalin pact had

not disillusioned these men. They saw it merely as an adroit political

move by Stalin-a temporary alliance that would be rescinded as soon as

Russia could defend herself against Germany.

If any Englishmen could be made to take up arms against Churchill and

their king, I knew, it was Helmut's Verwunden Brigade.

I arrived in London in April of 1941, armed with secret documents

bearing the signatures of the highest officials of the Soviet Communist

Party-all excellent forgeries, of course. This deception was risky but

necessary. No communist cell, howeverfanatic, would undertake an

operation of the magnitude we planned without the full weight of the

Party International behind them. My mission was to symbolize this

authority. I was the holy messenger sentfrom Moscow, the sacred city,

and the documents I carried sanctified my crusade. They made the

planned assassinations sound like the first shot of a worldwide

communist revolution. One document even bore Stalin's signature! The

SD forgers had done their jobs so well that I myself was tempted to

believe in my newfound power Of the operation itself there is much to

tell, and yet little.

The mechanics were relatively simple. From English collaborators and

German agents-in-place we received regular reports on our targets' daily

movements, along with predictions of their future agendas. That part

was easy.

Churchill tramped all over the country with his fat cigar, inspecting

troops or viewing air-raid damage. With an assassin willing to die in

the deed, the prime minister was as good as dead King George presented a

more difficult problem, but not insurmountable. Though better protected

than Churchill, he occasionally left Buckingham Palace to put on a show

of solidarity with the common people.

What made the mission impossibly difficult was Hitler's commandment that

the operation be carried out on the tenth of May.

Limiting the mission to a single day meant that our assassins would have

to strike regardless of circumstances I wasn't concerned about their

chances of survival; on the contrary, we wanted to insure that the

assassins would be killed in the accomplishment of their mission. But I

also had to be reasonably sure that the targets would be sufficiently

exposed for our men to reach them. When I expressed my apprehension to

Heydrich, however he assured me that Hitler had devised a diversionary

ploy that would bring our targets into the open on the given day. At