way.
Had only three men gone out, or five, or any number not corresponding to
the photographs, alarms would have been triggered.
They walked in silence down the long, starched-white corridor, the Berliner
in front with the scientist who sat between the other two at the table, and
was obviously the spokesman; his companions were behind.
They reached a bank of elevators and once more went through the ritual of
the red tags, the grey plate and the tiny white light
30
that went on for precisely two seconds. Below the plate a number was also
lighted.
Six.
From elevator number six there was the sound of a single muted bell as the
thick steel panel slid open. One by one each man walked inside.
The elevator descended eight stories, four below the surface of the earth,
to the deepest levels of Peenemiinde. As the four men emerged into yet
another white corridor, they were met by a tall man in tight-fitting green
coveralls, an outsized holster in his wide brown belt. The holster held a
Uger Sternlicht, a specially designed arm pistol with a telescopic sight.
As the man's visor cap indicated, such weapons were made for the Gestapo.
The Gestapo officer obviously recognized the three scientists. He smiled
perfunctorily and turned his attention to the man in the pinstriped suit.
He held out his hand, motioning the Berliner to remove the red badge.
The Berliner did so. The Gestapo man took it, walked over to a telephone on
the corridor wall and pushed a combination of buttons. He spoke the
Berliner's name and waited, perhaps ten seconds.
He replaced the phone and crossed back to the man in the pinstriped suit.
Gone was the arrogance he had displayed moments ago.
'I apologize for the delay, Herr Strasser. I should have realized. . . .'
He gave the Berliner his badge.
'No need for apologies, Herr Oberleutnant. They would be necessary only if
you overlooked your duties.'
'Danke,' said the Gestapo man, gesturing the four men beyond his point of
security.
They proceeded towards a set of double doors; clicks could be heard as
locks were released. Small white bulbs were lighted above the mouldings;
again photographs were taken of those going through the double doors.
They turned right into a bisecting corridor - this one not white, but
instead, brownish black; so dark that Strasser's eyes took several seconds
to adjust from the pristine brightness of the main halls to the sudden
night quality of the passageway. Tiny ceiling lights gave what illumination
there was.
'You've not been here before,' said the scientist-spokesman to the
Berliner. 'This hallway was designed by an optics engineer.
31
it supposedly prepares the eyes for the high-intensity microscope lights.
Most of us think it was a waste.'
There was a steel door at the end of the long-dark tunnel. Strasser reached
for his red metal insignia automatically; the scientist shook his head and
spoke with a slight wave of his hand.
'Insufficient light for photographs. The guard inside has been alerted!
The door opened and the four men entered a large laboratory. Along the
right wall was a row of stools, each in front of a powerful microscope, all
the microscopes equidistant from one another on top of a built-in
workbench. Behind each microscope was a high-intensity light, projected and
shaded on a goosenecked stem coming out of the immaculate white surface.
The left wall was a variation of the right. There were no stools, however,
and fewer microscopes. The work shelf was higher: it was obviously used for
conferences, where many pairs of eyes peered through the same sets of
lenses; stools would only interfere, men stood as they conferred over
magnified particles.
At the far end of the room was another door, not an entrance. A vault. A
seven-foot-high, four-foot-wide, heavy steel vault. It was black; the two
levers and the combination wheel were in glistening silver.
The spokesman-scientist approached it.
'We have fifteen minutes before the timer seals the panel and the drawers.
I've requested closure for a week. I'll need your counterauthorization, of
course!
'And you're sure I'll give it, aren't you?'
'I am.' The scientist spun the wheel right and left for the desired
locations. 'The numbers change automatically every twenty-four hours,' he
said as he held the wheel steady at its final mark and reached for the
silver levers. He pulled the top one down to the accompaniment of a barely
audible whirring sound, and seconds later, pulled the lower one up.
The whirring stopped, metallic clicks could be heard and the scientist
pulled open the thick steel door. He turned to Strasser. 'These are the
tools for Peenernfinde. See for yourself.'
Strasser approached the vault. Inside were five rows of removable glass
trays, top to bottom; each row had a total of one hundred trays, five
hundred in all.
The trays that were empty were marked with a white strip across the facing
glass, the word Auffiallen printed clearly.
32
The trays that were full were so designated by strips of black across their
fronts.
There were four and a half rows of white trays. Empty.
Strasser looked closely, pulled open several trays, shut them and stared at
the Peenemtlnde scientist.
'This is the sole repository?' he asked quietly.
'It is. We have six thousand casings completed; God knows how many will go
in experimentation. Estimate for yourself how much further we can proceed.'
Strasser held the scientist's eyes with his own. 'Do you realize what
you're saying?'
'I do. We'll deliver only a fraction of the required schedules. Nowhere
near enough. PeenemUnde is a disaster.'
SEPTEMBER 9, 1943
THE NORTH SEA
The fleet of B-17 bombers had aborted the primary target of Essen due to
cloud cover. The squadron commander, over the objections of his fellow
pilots, ordered the secondary mission into operation: the shipyards north
of Bremerhaven. No one Eked the Bremerhaven run; Messerschmitt and Stuka
interceptor wings were devastating. They were called the Luftwaffe suicide
squads, maniacal young Nazis who'might as easily collide with enemy
aircraft as fire at them. Not necessarily due to outrageous bravery; often
it was merely inexperience or worse: poor training.
Bremerhaven-north was a terrible secondary. When it was a primary
objective, the Eighth Air Force fighter escorts took the sting out of the
run; they were not there when Bremerhaven was a secondary.
The squadron commander, however, was a hardnose. Worse, he was West Point:
the secondary would not only be hit, it would be hit at an altitude that
guaranteed maximum accuracy. He did not tolerate the very vocal criticism
of his second-in-command aboard the flanking aircraft, who made it clear
that such an altitude was barely logical with fighter escorts; without
them,
33
considering the heavy ack-ack fire, it was ridiculous. The
squad. ron
Commander had replied with a terse recital of the new navigational headings
and termination of radio contact.
Once they were into the Bremerhaven corridors, the German interceptors came
from all points; the antiaircraft guns were murderous. And the squadron
commander took his lead plane directly down into maximum-accuracy altitude
and was blown out of the sky.
The second-in-command valued life and the price of aircraft more than his
West Point superior. He ordered the squadron to scramble altitudes, telling
his bombardiers to unload on anything below but
for-God's-sake-release-the-goddamn-weight so all planes could reach their
maximum heights and reduce antiaircraft and interceptor fire.
In several instances it was too late. One bomber caught fire and went into
a spin; only three chutes emerged from it. Two aircraft were riddled so
badly both planes began immediate desobnts. Pilots and crew bailed out.
Most of them.
The remainder kept climbing; the Messersclunitts climbed with them. They
went higher and still higher, past the safe altitude range. Oxygen masks
were ordered; not all functioned.
But in four minutes, what was left of the squadron was in the middle of the
clear midnight sky, made stunningly clearer by the substratosphere absence
of air particles. The stars were extraordinary in their flickering
brightness, the moon more a bombers' moon than ever before.
Escape was in these regions.
'Chart man!' said the exhausted, relieved second-in-command into his radio,
'give us headings! Back to Lakenheath, if you'd be so kind.'
The reply on the radio soured the moment of relief. It came from an aerial
gunner aft of navigation. 'He's dead, colonel. Nelson's dead. ,
There was no time in the air for comment, 'Take it, aircraft three. It's
your chart.' said the colonel in aircraft two.
The headings were given. The formation grouped and, as it descended into
safe altitude with cloud cover above, sped toward the North Sea.
The rrdnutes reached five, then seven, then twelve. Finally twenty. There
was relatively little cloud cover below; the coast of England should have
come into sighting range at least two
34
minutes ago. A number of pilots were concerned. Several said so. 'Did you give
accurate headings, aircraft threeT asked the now squadron commander.
'Affirmative, colonel,' was the radioed answer.
'Any of you chart men disagree?'
A variety of negatives was heard from the remaining aircraft.
'No sweat on the headings, colonel,' came the voice of the captain of
aircraft five. 'I fault your execution, though.'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'You pointed two-three-niner by my reading. I figured my equipment was shot
up. . . .'
Suddenly there were interruptions from every pilot in the decimated
squadron.
'I read one-seven. . .
'My heading was a goddamned two-niner-two. We took a direct hit on.'. . .'
'Jesusl I had sixer-four. . .
'Most of our middle took a load. I discounted my reading& totally V
And then there was silence. All understood.
Or understood what they could not comprehend.
'Stay off all frequencies,' said the squadron commander, TI1 try to reach
base.'
The cloud cover above broke; not for long, but long enough. The voice over
the radio was the captain of aircraft three.
'A quick judgment, colonel, says we're heading due northwest.'
Silence again.
After a few moments, the commander spoke. TH reach somebody. Do all your
gauges read as mine? Fuel for roughly ten to fifteen minutes?'
'It's been a long haul, colonel,' said aircraft seven. 'No more than that,
it's for sure.'
'I figured we'd be circling, if we had to, five minutes ago,' said aircraft
eight.
'We're not,' said aircraft four.
The colonel in aircraft two raised Lakenheath on an emergency frequency.
'As near as we can determine,' came the strained, agitated, yet controlled
English voice, 'and by that I mean open lines throughout the coastal
defense areas - water and land - you're approach-
35
ing the Dunbar sector. That's the Scottish border, colonel. What in blazes
are you doing there?'
'For Christ's sake, I don't know! Are there any fields?'
'Not for your aircraft. Certainly not a formation; perhaps, one or two. .
. .'
'I don't want to hear that, you son of a bitch! Give me emergency
instructions!'
'We're really quite unprepared. . .
'Do you read me?l I have what's left of a very chopped-up squadron! We have
less than six minutes' fuel! Now you give I'
The silence lasted precisely four seconds. Lakenheath conferred swiftly.
With finality.
'We believe you'll sight the coast, probably Scotland. Put your aircraft
down at sea.... We'll do our best, lads.'
'We're eleven bombers, Lakenheathl We're not a bunch of ducks!'
'There isn't time, squadron Leader. . . . The logistics are insurmountable.
After all, we didn't guide you there. Put down at sea. We'll do our best
... Godspeed.'
36
Part One
SEPTEMBER 10, 1943
Reichsminister of Armaments Albert Speer raced up the steps of the Air
Ministry on the Tiergarten. He did not feel the harsh, diagonal sheets of
rain that plummeted down from the grey sky; he did not notice that his
raincoat - unbuttoned - had fallen away, exposing his tunic and shirt to the
inundation of the September storm. The pitch of his fury swept everything
but the immediate crisis out of his mind.
Insanityl Sheer, unmitigated, unforgivable insanityl
The industrial reserves of all Germany were about exhausted; but he could
handle that immense problem. Handle it by properly utilizing the
manufacturing potential of the occupied countries; reverse the unmanageable
practices of importing the labor forces. Labor forces? Slaves!
Productivity disastrous; sabotage continuous, unending.
What did they expect?
it was a time for sacrifice I Hitler could not continue to be all things to
all people! He could not provide outsized Duesenbergs and grand operas and
populated restaurants; he had to provide, instead, tanks, munitions, ships,
aircraft! These were the priorities I
But, the Fahrer could never erase the memory of the 1918 revolution.
How totally inconsistent! The sole man whose will was shaping history, who
was close to the preposterous dream of a
37
thousand-year Reich, was petrified of a long-ago memory of unruly mobs, of
unsatisfied masses.
Speer wondered if future historians would record the fact. If they would
comprehend just how weak Hitler really was when it came to his own
countrymen. How he buckled in fear when consumer production fell below
anticipated schedules.
Insanity I
But still he, the Reichsminister of Armaments, could control this
calamitous inconsistency as long as he was convinced it was Just a question
; of time. A few months; perhaps six at the outside.
For there was PeenemUnde.
The rockets.
Everything reduced itself to PeenemOnde!
PeenemUnde was irresistible. PeenemUnde would cause the collapse of London
and Washington. Both governments would see the futility of continuing the
exercise of wholesale annihilation.
Reasonable men could then sit down and create reasonable treaties.
Even if it meant the silencing of unreasonable men. Silencing Hitler.
Speer knew there were others who thought that way, too. The Fahrer was
manifestly beginning to show unhealthy signs of pressure - fatigue. He now
surrounded himself with mediocrity - an ill-disguised desire to remain in
the comfortable company of his intellectual equals. But it went too far
when the Reich itself was affected. A wine merchant, the foreign minister
I A third-rate party propagandizer, the n-dnister of eastern affairs I An
erstwhile fighter pilot, the overseer of the entire economyl
Even himself. Even the quiet, shy architect; now the minister of armaments.
All that would change with PeenemUnde.
Even himself, Thank God!
But first there had to be PeenemUnde. There could be no question of its
operational success. For without PeenemUnde, the war was lost.
And now they were telling him there was a question. A flaw that might well
be the precursor of Germany's defeat.
A vacuous-looking corporal opened the door of the cabinet room. Speer
walked in and saw that the long conference table was about two-thirds
filled, the chairs in cliquish separation, as
if the groups were suspect of one another. As, indeed, they were in these
times of progressively sharpened rivalries within the Reich.
He walked to the head of the table, where - to his right - sat the only man
in the room he could trust. Franz AltmUller.
Altmaller was a forty-two-year-old cynic. Tall, blond, aristocratic; the
vision of the Third Reich Aryan who did not, for a minute, subscribe to the
racial nonsense proclaimed by the Third Reich. He did, however, subscribe
to the theory of acquiring whatever benefits came his way by pretending to
agree with anyone who might do him some good.
In public.