‘I am sure that Canaris is being hoodwinked by these two as much as we are. And, as I said, it would be most regrettable if Lieutenant Hertenberg were hurt in the operation. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Crystal clear, Herr Gruppenführer! Heil Hitler!’ Schellenberg clicked his heels and saluted. He understood his orders.
Unter den Linden, Berlin
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t get away, Theo.’
‘I know, Dieter,’ Theo replied. ‘I haven’t been home since May.’ Once again he had had to drop everything and fly to Holland, this time to meet Conrad. He couldn’t explain this to Dieter, of course. His aeroplane was leaving Tempelhof that afternoon.
Theo and his younger brother were strolling along Unter den Linden, both in their Wehrmacht uniforms. Although Dieter was only five years Theo’s junior, he looked a lot younger than twenty-five. He was an enthusiastic soldier, in fact he was enthusiastic about everything, with a wide grin full of innocent charm, and unruly red hair which even a military haircut could not completely tame.
They had agreed to meet at Café Kranzler on the corner of Friedrichstrasse, but it was too crowded and Dieter said he needed the exercise between two long train journeys: one from Koblenz to Berlin, another to Stettin, and then on to the little town in Pomerania near which their family owned a small manor house and estate. The war was playing havoc with Germany’s rail system; the trains never ran on time, with delays of many hours, and there had been two major crashes with hundreds dead. During this Sitzkrieg it was safer sitting on the western front than taking a train home.
It was cold, but at least it wasn’t raining. Unter den Linden was busy, with sleek modern vehicles fluttering swastikas and men dressed in the smart uniforms of the modern German Reich passing purposefully in front of the grand buildings and statues of the old, glorious Prussia. The biggest statue of all, Frederick the Great, looked down approvingly on it all from his horse further down the avenue.
‘Father said we are going hunting tomorrow. The Bismarcks will be there. And the Kleists.’
‘Give my regards to Uncle Ewald,’ said Theo. ‘And the others.’
‘So you and Uncle Ewald haven’t been discussing things recently?’
Theo knew Dieter was referring to the various plans to remove Hitler. While Dieter had never been involved directly in any of the plotting, it was impossible to be a member of one of those close-knit Prussian families and not know about them. Uncle Ewald — Ewald von Kleist — had been right at the centre of those discussions, and had visited Britain in the summer of 1938 with the help of Theo and Conrad to meet senior British politicians.
‘It’s been called off,’ said Theo. ‘I don’t think Brauchitsch and Halder ever really had the guts for it.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Dieter.
‘Are you?’ Theo asked sharply.
Dieter walked in silence for a bit. ‘Yes, I am. I agree with all of you that Hitler is a madman and the country would be better off without him. He will ruin Germany. But I am a soldier and we are at war. I want us to win, Theo. This isn’t the time for a putsch. This is the time for fighting the enemy.’
In some ways Theo admired his brother’s loyalty and straightforward patriotism. Dieter was no Nazi; he was a decent man who believed in his country. But it had long been Theo’s role in life to explain things to his little brother.
‘Look at the linden trees,’ said Theo.
‘What lindens?’ said Dieter.
The tall lindens that gave the street its name had been chopped down in 1934 to facilitate the construction of the S-Bahn. Saplings had replaced them, but it had changed the whole character of the boulevard.
‘Precisely. You know the song: “As long as the old trees stay on Unter den Linden, nothing can defeat us. Berlin will stay Berlin.” The trees are gone, Dieter.’
‘And that’s just an old song,’ said Dieter. ‘I saw what we did in Poland. I know we can do it again in France.’
‘What was Poland like?’
‘We did well,’ said Dieter. ‘Mostly the Poles retreated or surrendered, but we were involved in one action. There was a counter-attack near the River Bzura, and we held off a Polish cavalry brigade for two days. They fought bravely and so did we.’
Theo was curious about what real battle was like. In his role in the Abwehr he had faced danger, but never a visible enemy. Conrad had, and now so had Dieter.
‘Did you take many casualties?’ he asked.
‘Our company lost fifteen men killed and twenty-three wounded.’
‘Were you afraid?’
Dieter glanced at his older brother. It wasn’t the sort of question one soldier asked another, at least not in the Wehrmacht. ‘Yes. I was. But I was also excited. And when we realized on the third day the Polish brigade had given up their attack, I felt so proud. Our unit worked well together: all that training paid off. And, yes, I felt that I was doing what I was born to do, what all those Hertenbergs from Father back through history have done. We fight wars. It’s dangerous, sometimes we get killed, but we usually win. I often think you don’t understand that, Theo.’
‘You are probably right.’
‘So I am happy to kill and be killed in battle. Not happy, so much as willing. But the horrific killing I saw had nothing to do with battle.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Afterwards we marched past a POW camp guarded by the SS. Except it wasn’t really a camp, and the POWs were not really prisoners of war. It was a field outside a village with a couple of hundred Poles inside it, soldiers but also women and children. The SS had set up machine guns around the perimeter of the field. There were about fifty bodies lying in the perimeter where they had been shot — we heard later most of them had been trying to relieve themselves. We took over the camp from the SS; it turned out the prisoners had been given no food or water for days. Our major has filed a report and we’ll see what happens. But the whole thing made me feel bad, dirty even. It was as if what those SS men did betrayed the bravery of our own comrades who had died by the River Bzura.’
‘That’s why Hitler has to go,’ said Theo.
Dieter grunted. They passed beneath the Brandenburg Gate and crossed the road into the Tiergarten. A new thoroughfare had been bulldozed through the park, at the end of which was the recently relocated Siegessäule victory statue, which Berliners claimed looked like a giant asparagus. The light was fading.
‘So you are on the western front now?’ Theo asked.
‘Yes. I’ve been made ADC to General Guderian. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve never met him, but I’ve read Achtung Panzer!’ said Theo. ‘He’s XIX Corps commander in Army Group A, isn’t he?’ Theo remembered the ‘cowhide’ relief map at Zossen and his conversation with Major Liss.
‘You are well informed.’
‘I am,’ Theo admitted. ‘How did you manage that?’
‘I mended his wireless in Poland; all that messing around with electronics when I was a boy finally paid off. Guderian pulled up next to our unit in his command vehicle swearing blue murder. I fixed the set and we got talking about radios. He believes reliable wireless communications are what allow a general to lead panzers from the front and keep the initiative in battle. He seemed to like me and arranged the transfer. Cousin Paul helped — Guderian reports to him.’
‘Cousin Paul’ was General of Cavalry Paul von Kleist, their mother’s cousin, and the commander of Panzer Group Kleist of which XIX Corps was a part. When it came to the Wehrmacht the Hertenbergs were well connected.
‘What’s Guderian like?’
‘Impressive. If you’ve read his book you’ll know he is a great believer in the blitzkrieg. Mobility, concentration, seizing the initiative and keeping it.’