What in the world is that all about?
Okay. Himmler is covering his backside again. He’s very good at that.
“What I could do, I suppose, to assist the Reichsleiter is have a word with Bormann.”
Which I will do tomorrow, when he returns to Berlin.
I will broach the subject of sending someone to Argentina to, as von Deitzberg puts it, “straighten things out.” If he mentions von Deitzberg, I will oppose the idea. That will guarantee his being sent there.
If he doesn’t mention this slime, I will, saying that I wish he could be spared, but Himmler certainly wouldn’t agree.
Same result. Von Deitzberg will go to Argentina.
Where he and Cranz and possibly even Raschner will be eliminated by the Americans, ridding the world of three scum it can well do without.
And very possibly do something to keep Operation Valkyrie from being uncovered.
And, as the icing on the cake, humiliate Himmler. Three of his best men eliminated by those incompetent Americans.
“I think that might well deal with the situation, Herr Admiral,” von Deitzberg said.
VI
[ONE]
Hauptquartier Abwehr
Bendlerblock, 76 Tirpitzufer
Berlin, Germany
0655 20 August 1943
Canaris’s Mercedes, which was smaller and far less ostentatious than any of the other official cars of the senior members of the Nazi or OKW hierarchy, was crowded.
Max—now wearing a somewhat shabby dark blue business suit and a light gray snap-brim felt hat, both of which looked too small on the muscular old sailor—was driving. Canaris rode beside him.
General von Wachtstein, Oberstleutnant Gehlen, and Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching were in the backseat, each holding a briefcase on his lap.
When Max drove into the Bendlerblock—a large, drab collection of connected four-story masonry buildings south of the Tiergarten—there were three larger official Mercedeses backed into the four-place parking area reserved for the cars of senior officers. Two of them had mounted on the right front fender a metal flag appropriate to the rank of the passenger it would carry. One flag was that of a General der Fallschirmtruppe and the other that of an SS-Brigadeführer.
That meant that von Deitzberg and Student were already here waiting for him. Canaris wondered who was in the third car.
Canaris thought that while there were at least a half-dozen brigadeführers in the SS—maybe more—there was only one General der Fallschirmtruppe in the Luftwaffe: Kurt Student.
A pilot in World War I, Student had stayed in the service, and had been involved with German military aviation from the beginning, before there had been a Luftwaffe and while Germany was at least paying lip service to the Versailles Convention, which forbade Germany to have an air force.
Student had taught fledgling German pilots to fly gliders, hiding the program as a sport. He had become, in the process, an expert in engineless aircraft, and had drawn plans for the construction of enormous gliders. These would be towed by transport aircraft once the Germans had stopped following the pro scriptions of the Versailles Convention.
While they were waiting for the right moment to do that, Germany struck a secret deal with the Soviet Union. It made available airfields deep in Russia on which German pilots were secretly taught to fly powered aircraft and German engineers secretly built and tested a whole new generation of fighter and bomber aircraft. All far from prying French and English eyes.
Student had been in charge of this program, reporting to Hermann Göring and Hitler directly. In those days, not all senior officers could be trusted to keep their mouths shut about Germany’s blatant violation of the Versailles Convention, and what was secretly going on in Russia was very much a secret in Germany as well.
Until the Crete disaster provoked Hitler’s wrath, Student had what looked like a promising career before him in the upper echelons of the German armed forces. He had had the backing of Göring, not only because he was a fellow World War I pilot and had made such substantial contributions to the Luftwaffe, but also because the Fallschirmtruppe were, in effect, the infantry of the Luftwaffe—much like the U.S. Marine Corps is the Navy’s infantry—and Göring liked the idea of having his own army, especially now that Heinrich Himmler had formed the Waffen-SS as the private army of the Schutzstaffel, which had begun as Hitler’s bodyguard.
And Hitler’s displeasure had been tempered. He had ordered that henceforth the Fallschirmjäger would fight as ordinary infantry, but he had not stripped Student of his rank. Hitler even permitted Student to remain on the periphery of those gathered around his Wolfsschanze map tables.
But until the rescue of the deposed Italian dictator had come along—General von Wachtstein had told Canaris that it had been named Unternehmen Eiche (Operation Oak)—Student had not been given, by Hitler or by the OKW staff, any meaningful duties or missions.