"Surely now, at this place and time the best thing you could do would be to kill Russians. Everyone you eliminate saves a helpless person some misery. There are no Jews in Berlin for you to rescue. Hitler will die by his own hand shortly, and I will be done before you're permitted to have any weapons. So it amuses me to give you your freedom. But don't worry, we will be watching and will most certainly keep track of your movements in the future. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some matters to take care of."
The following morning, Casca was issued a new uniform, complete with his rank badges and decorations for service to the Reich. Casca attended the party in the company of SS Reichführer Himmler. The reception was being held at the Chancellery Ehrenhof, the traditional spot for the occasion. Casca thought about the word Ehrenhof, place of honor. Bullshit.
He received a number of strange looks from the assorted guests, but Himmler made no introductions and did not allow him to converse with anyone. Inside for the first time were the orchestrators of the war and their own disaster. The ministers who gave Hitler legal authority over the fate of millions.
Hermann Göring sailed through the guests, an overweight ship bemedaled and dressed in one of his elaborate parade uniforms, smiling and wishing everyone well on this auspicious occasion. The official affair lasted about an hour and there was no liquor served. The Führer was a teetotaler and a nonsmoker.
Langer watched the master of Germany move around greeting first one then another of his ministers, his face, drawn and haggard, looking more like that of a tired old man who should have been in a rest home rather than the leader of the victorious German legions.
Himmler checked his watch. "Time for me to go." Casca looked at him questioningly. "One moment, please." Himmler signaled to a Lieutenant of Führerbegleitkommando, Hitler's personal bodyguard from the SS.
Clicking his heels, the junior officer stood at rigid attention.
Himmler made the introductions.
"Stabsfeldwebel Langer, may I present Obersturmführer Joachim Wolff, a member of my personal staff now assigned to the FBK during these trying times. He will a little later present you to the Führer and afterwards see to your being given weapons and whatever gear you may desire.
"I will now go and present my felicitations to the Führer and take my leave of his happy celebration. Herr Wolff knows only that he is to do as I have said. He knows nothing of you or of your history. Please do not try to enlighten him in any way, it would do no good. After you have met the Führer you may be off and about your business as I will mine." Himmler gave a short smile, clicked his heels in a half bow and left to join Hitler.
The SS lieutenant addressed himself to the sergeant. "You will please stay close to me until after the presentation." Langer grunted his assent. The whole feeling of this was weird, the atmosphere of forced cheer. Most of the ministers had already packed and would be on their way out of Berlin before nightfall. Politicians always covered themselves, and transport was standing in wait for them.
Their loyalty as such to their leader was that they would leave him to face the future alone. Several already had their escape routes out of Germany prepared along with documents giving them citizenship in different countries, though neutral Switzerland was the favorite.
Langer and his escort followed the Führer outside. There Adolf Hitler disappeared for a while inside the entrance to his bunker. Langer and the officer smoked a cigaret during his absence.
There was no conversation. The officer had evidently been ordered to refrain from any familiarity, though he did give his companion a number of questioning looks. Why would the Führer wish to see a common enlisted man from the army at this time? Steeling his mind he mentally disciplined himself for the unspoken infraction of his orders.
An hour passed and Wolff led Langer to the barren garden just outside the bunker, checked his watch, straightened his tunic and stood ready. He butted out his smoke and adjusted the visored cap with the Deathshead and Reich adler insignia.
Hitler made his appearance just as twenty members of the Hitler youth were led into the garden and placed into a single rank. They had come from the fighting in Berlin. The oldest was sixteen, the youngest was thirteen. All of them were children that the state had taken control of when their parents had died or been killed from either the bombings or the Russians. They were from Dresden and Breslau. Hitler wore an ordinary gray coat which looked too large for his stoop-shouldered frame. He moved from one to the other passing out the Order of the Iron Cross. He stopped at one youth and patted the child's cheek with a grandfatherly gesture, sighed deeply and moved on to the next. These were the last of his Thousand-Year Reich. Children called in to fight in the great battle, children who still believed the myth of their leader.
Two of the boys had knocked out Russian tanks with bazookas the day before in the street fighting. Others had manned the barricades and fought the Asiatics of Russia with the ferocity that only those who believe in fairy tales could muster. Killer children died on the streets of Berlin. If they died fast, they did so with the thought that they had served their leader well and died as did the heroes of the Nordic myth. If it took a little longer for them to expire, and the pain was great, they called for their mothers.
Finishing the awards, for the first time, Hitler looked at Langer. For a moment the dullness left his eyes. He motioned for them to follow and reentered the subterranean bunker that served him as his personal haven.
Wolff and Langer followed. The children were led off to return to the battle. All but two would die in the next three days. Eyes watched them as they followed. One of those pairs belonged to Hitler's personal aide, who looked with mistrust at anyone too near his god.
Langer counted the steps down—forty-four. Inside, he could smell the mustiness that all concrete seems to keep forever wet, damp. Passing gray or moldy orange-colored walls, they followed. The fetid mixed smells of urine from backed-up toilets and sweaty uniforms and boots went with them. The hum of a diesel generator droned constantly, stopping only for a second when it was switched over, coughed and restarted.
Normally to go into the bunker one would have to go through an elaborate system of security checks, but Himmler's presence and the assignment to Wolff evidently served as all the authorization Langer needed.
They followed Hitler down the corridors and corners of his labyrinth. They stopped at a small conference room two doors down from Hitler's rooms and obeyed his beckoning finger to enter.
Hitler sat at the far end, his back to the wall. He didn't like people to be behind him.
Hitler had removed his greatcoat and sat in the familiar gray plain coat with the Iron Cross he had won in the First World War on it. He was a definite contrast to the peacock dress of his general staff, in particular, Hermann Göring. By his plainness he understood that he stood out in a crowd of brilliant uniforms and bemedaled chests. He was, as always, a master showman.
But now the play was ending and he was a tired old man. He thanked Wolff and told him to wait down the hall in the guard and switchboard room until he was sent for.