Sins of the fathers, p.13
Sins of the Fathers, page 13
“There is no place for loyalty to the Devil.”
Tears trickled down my cheeks. “Truth be told, I have thought about it. But removing Hitler means Gӧring, Himmler, Heydrich, and Goebbels all remain. Any one of them would step into Hitler’s shoes. Nothing would change.”
A blanket of silence covered us.
After what seemed like an eternity, Carla said, “This is too incomprehensible to absorb.”
Then a kernel of an idea formed in my mind. “There may be a way out of this after all. I need to think it through, but it may be the answer.”
“Tell me.”
I shook my head. “You have your brother to think about. The less you know the better.”
“At least, let me meet Bernhard Weiss. He has had such an impact on you. We could take a weekend and go to Prague.”
“Thankfully, he’s in London now.”
Her concern turned into a glorious smile. “Well, guess what, Obergruppenführer Richard? A gallery in London has expressed interest in showing my photos. There’s been talk that it might be this summer.”
Chapter 18
I left Charité Hospital late the next morning with sixteen stitches in my hand. The phone jangled as I entered my office.
“Friedrich. It’s Heidi. I need your help.”
“Have those cops gotten out of hand, again?”
“Nothing like that. I don’t know what you did to get them to behave, but they have been perfect gentlemen since your little talk. I’m calling about something else. Is it possible for you to come to the club now?”
If Heidi’s voice had not been edged with concern, I would have said, “No.” My bandaged hand throbbed. My head ached. I was spent thinking about Hitler’s plans to plunge us into war. The last thing I wanted to do was drag myself to the Nightingale.
“No trouble at all,” I said. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
I found Heidi at the bar. Though empty of patrons, Heidi said, “Not here.” But first, she slipped behind the bar and reached for a bottle of scotch.
I waved my bandaged hand. “Not for me. I had a date with a bottle last night. This is the result.”
She winced. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when I think about it.”
I followed Heidi into Max’s old office. It was unchanged since my days as a bouncer.
How many times had I come to Max in this room to have him save my neck?
Heidi took Max’s seat; I sat in the chair I had parked myself in countless times before. “Is Kitty coming?”
Heidi shook her head. “This has nothing to do with Kitty. It’s about me. I want more.”
“If you are not being compensated enough, it does have to do with Kitty. I will put in a word for you.”
“Friedrich. I don’t need help when it comes to money or position.” She pursed her lips, looked away, and then met my eyes. “How should I best explain this? Living in Aachen, I was removed from the day-to-day horrors I now see in Berlin. People were nice to each other there, not like here. More to the point, even though I never knew I was part Jewish, we welcomed the Jews. Their history in Aachen dates back to the Roman empire.”
“These are rough times for everyone in Germany. Where are you going with this, Heidi?”
“That’s just it, Friedrich. I want to do something useful. Help people. I don’t want to wiggle my ass showing patrons to their tables while keeping a smile plastered on my face until my cheeks hurt. You know people. Can you find me a more meaningful position?”
When she finished, Heidi’s jaw was clamped tight and the muscles in her face pulsed.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“This took a lot of courage especially since Kitty has been so generous. They don’t need me here. They never did. Marta ran the Nightingale before I ever showed up. Kitty offered me a job because of Max.”
“But you are Max’s daughter.”
“Which is why you should help me.”
Her strong jaw melted into an impish smile. I knew the look. She could not know it, but her father made the same face. There would be no deterring her until she got what she wanted.
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Besides German, French, Dutch, and English. I understand Italian, but don’t speak it very well.”
“Give me a few days. I will find the right thing for you.”
*
I never raised a child but could appreciate the trials and tribulations they put parents through. Helping Heidi was not the issue. Keeping her out of danger from the Nazis was. But first things first: I had to run this past Kitty . . . or she would never forgive me for not consulting her.
*
“What was I supposed to do?” Kitty said when I told her about Heidi. “She knew how to cook, and an extra pair of hands is always needed in a kitchen. When she wanted to be part of the action, we moved her to the front. I know she doesn’t belong there. But these are rough times, Friedrich.”
She poured two coffees.
“Someone with Heidi’s ambition needs challenges. The trouble these days is that whatever she ends up doing will shine an unwanted spotlight on her. Any query into her past will bite her,” I said.
“That doesn’t leave many options for her in Germany. Not these days.” Then, as if describing a ho-hum day, she said, “Heidi could always have a job here.”
“Did you really say that? Max’s daughter in a brothel?”
Kitty, the businesswoman, had blurted it out before thinking; we both knew it was absurd. “Speaking of which, I took your advice, Friedrich.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“About no longer using Jews to run money to England or Holland. So . . . I did it myself.”
“You did what? Do you realize what would have happened had you been stopped?”
“A quick turnaround. Amsterdam. Deposited the funds. No problem any step of the way.”
“Kitty! You were lucky. Smuggling money out of Germany is a serious crime. It’s not worth it. Promise you’ll never do it again.”
Kitty leaned forward. Her ample bosoms half-exposed. A diamond pendant drew my eye to her cleavage. “Who’s going to stop me, Friedrich? Don’t you worry. I can take care of myself.”
*
What to do with a young woman whose only prior experiences were as a chef and club hostess? Then it came to me: I could kill two birds with one stone.
“Thank you for taking the time to see me.” Abwehr operations were in the Army Headquarters Compound on Bendlerstraße.
Admiral Canaris closed the door behind me, lit his pipe, and said, “I am glad you called. There is something I wish to discuss with you, too.”
“Is Erika putting another musical soirée together?” I asked.
Canaris cracked a rare smile. “Not to my knowledge.” He pointed his pipe stem at me. “You, first. What’s on your mind?”
“One way of looking at it: I need a favor.”
“And the other?”
“I’m doing you a favor. Either way, you benefit,” I explained.
“Seems I can’t lose.” Puffs of smoke curled upward. “I like the odds.”
I described how I knew Heidi Koch, what her father—Max Klinghofer—meant to me, and that she wanted a challenging job.
“The coup de grâce is that she speaks four languages fluently . . . and understands a fifth.”
“Multilingual agents are hard to find.”
“A spy? No. She’s like a niece to me. I don’t want her in harm’s way. My thought was to put her linguistic talents to effective use inside Abwehr headquarters. Is that a possibility?”
Canaris relit his pipe. “I should have no problem finding something here for her. Have her see me tomorrow morning.”
“There is one more thing,” I added. “I don’t want her to come to the attention of the Gestapo. Not for any reason. They killed her father at Dachau. I want to make certain she is left alone.”
Canaris’s thin smile vanished. “Is she a Jew?”
“A mischling. Heidi has her mother’s last name: Koch. She was raised Catholic. She only recently found out she was part Jewish. Is that a problem?”
“I’m not a big fan of their tribe, but people are people. I would never turn someone away for how they were born or what they believed in. There’s no problem,” he said as he retrieved papers from his desk drawer. He handed them to me. “Your name is mentioned.”
It was the memo of the November 5 meeting between Hitler and the heads of the armed services. Given Canaris’s long reach, I was not surprised he had a copy.
“According to Hossbach’s notes, you were present. There is no mention that you spoke. What was your perception of what happened?”
“I was both horrified and terrified for Germany.”
Without comment, Canaris produced another report. “Have you seen this? Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck sent the Führer his analysis. He was not there but based his memo on Hossbach’s minutes.”
“That was meant only for the Führer’s eyes.”
Canaris shrugged. “I have my sources. Beck agrees with Blomberg and Fritsch. It is preposterous to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia for food. Beck offered a number of suggestions to solve our food shortages as well as identifying the shortcomings of Göring’s Four-Year Plan.”
Before saying anything else, I reached for pen and paper. In clear letters, I wrote:
Is it safe to talk here?
He nodded.
Unchecked, I said, “Yes, I came to find a position for Heidi. More importantly, I needed to be certain of your reaction to the November 5 meeting. Along with our conversation about Pasewalk, I hoped to find steps to avoid the disaster Hitler is certain to create.”
Canaris tapped the cold ashes into a glass ashtray with a polished silver rim. He opened the Cherrywood humidor and repacked the bowl. After tamping down the few shards that stuck out like blades of wild grass, he struck a match. The random pieces curled and vaporized. Swirls of smoke spiraled above his head.
“Agreed. We must find those steps and the people to take them with us.” Then, unexpectedly, Canaris said, “I know about you and Bernhard Weiss.”
My mouth slowly opened.
“Come now. Don’t be surprised. I have agents abroad. Many in England. How could I explain failing to keep tabs on such a prominent former citizen . . . so passionately an anti-Nazi? We both know we can rely on Weiss.”
It didn’t escape me that Canaris used “we.”
Canaris continued. “There will come a day, sooner than later, when we will need Weiss’s help, and others like him.”
“Others? What others?”
“Chief of the general staff Beck, for one. Then there is Hans Oster, my right-hand man in the Abwehr. Oster does his best to hire recruits to the Abwehr that have strong feelings against the regime. Recruits like Werner Schrader. Do you happen to know him?”
“Only that years back he was one of the leaders of the veterans’ organization from the Great War—Der Stahlhelm—the Steel Helmets. He squawked when his group was incorporated into the Brown Shirts. He lost his standing after that. When we came to power, he was tossed into a concentration camp. I wondered what happened to him.”
“If you can believe it, he escaped from the concentration camp and rejoined the Wehrmacht as a captain. He kept a low profile until he came to someone’s attention from his past. He was about to be rearrested when I snatched him in time and stationed him in Vienna. He is one of my best at espionage.”
“Are there others like him?” I asked.
“Hans Gisevius, for one.”
“I know Hans from when I worked with Frick in the Ministry of the Interior.”
“Now he works with the Berlin Police,” Canaris explained. “A name that might surprise you is Hjalmar Schacht.”
“Head of the Reichsbank? That is a name! More than anyone else, he guided Germany out of the Great Depression.”
“Hossbach’s memorandum incensed Schacht. He is convinced Hitler’s policies are wrong for Germany,” Canaris explained.
Hearing about other prominent Germans who felt the same reinforced my resolve. “Does that include the Anschluss with Austria? They have raw materials Germany does need.”
Canaris drew on his pipe, orange embers flared. “Forget Austria. Italy is the only country that might care about them. To insure that won’t happen, Hitler has been romancing Il Duce ever since those Austrian Nazis bungled their attempted coup four years ago. Our line in the sand must be Czechoslovakia.”
“I agree. At first, Hitler will claim that the Sudetenland Germans should be reunited with Germany the way other German-speaking territories already have been. Then, when every European leader, plus Roosevelt and Stalin, give a sigh of relief that all Hitler wanted was that fraction of land, Hitler will waltz in and take the whole country. Wilhelm. How do we stop this? We both know that, in the end, military leaders fight wars.”
“Friedrich. You more than most know that is not true. Beck, Blomberg, and Fritsch are all against Hitler’s proposed aggression. Many others think the same way. What has been missing is someone to coordinate the various segments in the Abwehr, the Foreign Service, the Wehrmacht, and those influential citizens against the regime.”
“You’re talking insurrection, Wilhelm.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about this whole time?”
“I never framed it that way. I just knew Hitler had to be stopped.”
“Are you certain now?”
“I am.”
Canaris stuck out his hand. “Good. Because we can’t move forward without eyes and ears in the Führer’s inner circle. Welcome to the rebellion, Friedrich Richard.”
Chapter 19
By the time I left Canaris, I wanted nothing more than a quiet evening with Carla.
It was an Arctic-cold November night. I came home to find a roaring fireplace. I stood in front of the hearth, leaning in to get warm.
“I’ll put tea up,” she said.
“Brandy is quicker.”
She frowned.
I gave in. “Tea it is.”
I changed into warmer clothes and returned to find a cup of steaming hot tea waiting on an antique sideboard.
“What’s all this?” I asked. Photos covered every part of the dining table.
“Given my series about soldiers twenty years after the war, it seemed logical to visit cemeteries where our soldiers are buried. What do you think of them?”
“Is that where you went a few days ago? I thought you visited Ludwig.”
“Forgive me. I prefer an air of secrecy about projects until I know they will amount to something. This worked.”
I pointed to one picture. “Where is this?”
“It’s the Langemarck German War Cemetery in western Flanders.”
“Why Belgium?”
It was near the Second Battle of Ypres . . . where Hitler was exposed to a gas attack. As a result, Germany was changed forever.
“Soldiers were buried where they fell during the war. It was too costly to ship them home,” Carla explained.
I held the photos by their edges. They depicted rows and rows of flat granite grave markers in various lights taken from different angles. Far and closeup.
“How many are buried here?”
“Forty-five thousand all together. It’s quite remarkable, don’t you think?” Carla said.
“I’m not sure ‘remarkable’ is an apt description,” I answered. “These are stark. Powerful. Beautiful in their simplicity. Their symmetry.” I pulled one closer. “There’s a Jewish star on that headstone.”
“Twelve thousand German Jewish soldiers died in the Great War. Their graves are intermixed with everyone else’s.”
“It was one army then,” I said.
“I am glad you feel that way because you and I are going on a little trip this weekend. For me, it’s business. For you, well, I’ll let you decide for yourself.”
“Apparently, I have little say in this. Do you mind if I ask where we’re going?”
“Belgium. I got to thinking that if you visited the cemetery where soldiers from the Second Battle of the Marne are buried, it might jar more memories.”
“Where is this place? How would I know what I’m looking at?”
“The Loupoigne Franco-German Cemetery. Half the buried there are French, the other half are German. Four-hundred seventy-eight to be exact.”
I shook my head. “You’re asking me to travel to a cemetery in Belgium in order to read names of dead soldiers . . . hoping something might register?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. It will probably turn out to be a huge waste of time. More than one hundred thousand Germans lost their lives in that battle. Why start at such a small cemetery?”
“We have to start somewhere. This is manageable. Humor me. If nothing else, we take a short trip and I get some work done.”
*
I cleared my schedule. A few days later, Carla and I found ourselves fifty kilometers south of Brussels on Rue de Presbytère. The cemetery was simple. The mowed grass field was punctuated by row after row of crosses rimmed by stands of trees. Could I picture a pitched battle here? Not at all.
“Let’s walk through the rows,” said Carla. “Maybe a name will be familiar.”
I let go of her hand. “Let me do this myself. Besides, you can’t take pictures if I’m hanging on to you.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“There is no one here but us two. You’ll know if I’m not.”
I broke away from Carla and read the name on each cross out loud. None registered.
Halfway through the third row, I stopped. Inched closer. “Eberhard Zinnmacher.”
I know that name.
Carla was on the other side of the cemetery. I called out.
She ran back.
I pointed to Zinnmacher’s name etched on the cross. “I remember that name.”
Carla almost jumped on top of me. “This is so exciting. Are you sure?”
I knelt and ran my fingers across Zinnmacher’s name.
“I used to call him Ebbe. You know how they say opposites attract? Well, I was the tallest one in the regiment, and he was the shortest. Somehow, we became sidekicks.” I squinted, as if it would bring the memory into sharper focus. “I’m trying to picture him. All I see is the top of his head. He had blondish-brown hair and green eyes. He was thin. Wiry. He used to give me some of his food because I was so big and hungry all the time.”
Tears trickled down my cheeks. “Truth be told, I have thought about it. But removing Hitler means Gӧring, Himmler, Heydrich, and Goebbels all remain. Any one of them would step into Hitler’s shoes. Nothing would change.”
A blanket of silence covered us.
After what seemed like an eternity, Carla said, “This is too incomprehensible to absorb.”
Then a kernel of an idea formed in my mind. “There may be a way out of this after all. I need to think it through, but it may be the answer.”
“Tell me.”
I shook my head. “You have your brother to think about. The less you know the better.”
“At least, let me meet Bernhard Weiss. He has had such an impact on you. We could take a weekend and go to Prague.”
“Thankfully, he’s in London now.”
Her concern turned into a glorious smile. “Well, guess what, Obergruppenführer Richard? A gallery in London has expressed interest in showing my photos. There’s been talk that it might be this summer.”
Chapter 18
I left Charité Hospital late the next morning with sixteen stitches in my hand. The phone jangled as I entered my office.
“Friedrich. It’s Heidi. I need your help.”
“Have those cops gotten out of hand, again?”
“Nothing like that. I don’t know what you did to get them to behave, but they have been perfect gentlemen since your little talk. I’m calling about something else. Is it possible for you to come to the club now?”
If Heidi’s voice had not been edged with concern, I would have said, “No.” My bandaged hand throbbed. My head ached. I was spent thinking about Hitler’s plans to plunge us into war. The last thing I wanted to do was drag myself to the Nightingale.
“No trouble at all,” I said. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
I found Heidi at the bar. Though empty of patrons, Heidi said, “Not here.” But first, she slipped behind the bar and reached for a bottle of scotch.
I waved my bandaged hand. “Not for me. I had a date with a bottle last night. This is the result.”
She winced. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when I think about it.”
I followed Heidi into Max’s old office. It was unchanged since my days as a bouncer.
How many times had I come to Max in this room to have him save my neck?
Heidi took Max’s seat; I sat in the chair I had parked myself in countless times before. “Is Kitty coming?”
Heidi shook her head. “This has nothing to do with Kitty. It’s about me. I want more.”
“If you are not being compensated enough, it does have to do with Kitty. I will put in a word for you.”
“Friedrich. I don’t need help when it comes to money or position.” She pursed her lips, looked away, and then met my eyes. “How should I best explain this? Living in Aachen, I was removed from the day-to-day horrors I now see in Berlin. People were nice to each other there, not like here. More to the point, even though I never knew I was part Jewish, we welcomed the Jews. Their history in Aachen dates back to the Roman empire.”
“These are rough times for everyone in Germany. Where are you going with this, Heidi?”
“That’s just it, Friedrich. I want to do something useful. Help people. I don’t want to wiggle my ass showing patrons to their tables while keeping a smile plastered on my face until my cheeks hurt. You know people. Can you find me a more meaningful position?”
When she finished, Heidi’s jaw was clamped tight and the muscles in her face pulsed.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“This took a lot of courage especially since Kitty has been so generous. They don’t need me here. They never did. Marta ran the Nightingale before I ever showed up. Kitty offered me a job because of Max.”
“But you are Max’s daughter.”
“Which is why you should help me.”
Her strong jaw melted into an impish smile. I knew the look. She could not know it, but her father made the same face. There would be no deterring her until she got what she wanted.
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Besides German, French, Dutch, and English. I understand Italian, but don’t speak it very well.”
“Give me a few days. I will find the right thing for you.”
*
I never raised a child but could appreciate the trials and tribulations they put parents through. Helping Heidi was not the issue. Keeping her out of danger from the Nazis was. But first things first: I had to run this past Kitty . . . or she would never forgive me for not consulting her.
*
“What was I supposed to do?” Kitty said when I told her about Heidi. “She knew how to cook, and an extra pair of hands is always needed in a kitchen. When she wanted to be part of the action, we moved her to the front. I know she doesn’t belong there. But these are rough times, Friedrich.”
She poured two coffees.
“Someone with Heidi’s ambition needs challenges. The trouble these days is that whatever she ends up doing will shine an unwanted spotlight on her. Any query into her past will bite her,” I said.
“That doesn’t leave many options for her in Germany. Not these days.” Then, as if describing a ho-hum day, she said, “Heidi could always have a job here.”
“Did you really say that? Max’s daughter in a brothel?”
Kitty, the businesswoman, had blurted it out before thinking; we both knew it was absurd. “Speaking of which, I took your advice, Friedrich.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“About no longer using Jews to run money to England or Holland. So . . . I did it myself.”
“You did what? Do you realize what would have happened had you been stopped?”
“A quick turnaround. Amsterdam. Deposited the funds. No problem any step of the way.”
“Kitty! You were lucky. Smuggling money out of Germany is a serious crime. It’s not worth it. Promise you’ll never do it again.”
Kitty leaned forward. Her ample bosoms half-exposed. A diamond pendant drew my eye to her cleavage. “Who’s going to stop me, Friedrich? Don’t you worry. I can take care of myself.”
*
What to do with a young woman whose only prior experiences were as a chef and club hostess? Then it came to me: I could kill two birds with one stone.
“Thank you for taking the time to see me.” Abwehr operations were in the Army Headquarters Compound on Bendlerstraße.
Admiral Canaris closed the door behind me, lit his pipe, and said, “I am glad you called. There is something I wish to discuss with you, too.”
“Is Erika putting another musical soirée together?” I asked.
Canaris cracked a rare smile. “Not to my knowledge.” He pointed his pipe stem at me. “You, first. What’s on your mind?”
“One way of looking at it: I need a favor.”
“And the other?”
“I’m doing you a favor. Either way, you benefit,” I explained.
“Seems I can’t lose.” Puffs of smoke curled upward. “I like the odds.”
I described how I knew Heidi Koch, what her father—Max Klinghofer—meant to me, and that she wanted a challenging job.
“The coup de grâce is that she speaks four languages fluently . . . and understands a fifth.”
“Multilingual agents are hard to find.”
“A spy? No. She’s like a niece to me. I don’t want her in harm’s way. My thought was to put her linguistic talents to effective use inside Abwehr headquarters. Is that a possibility?”
Canaris relit his pipe. “I should have no problem finding something here for her. Have her see me tomorrow morning.”
“There is one more thing,” I added. “I don’t want her to come to the attention of the Gestapo. Not for any reason. They killed her father at Dachau. I want to make certain she is left alone.”
Canaris’s thin smile vanished. “Is she a Jew?”
“A mischling. Heidi has her mother’s last name: Koch. She was raised Catholic. She only recently found out she was part Jewish. Is that a problem?”
“I’m not a big fan of their tribe, but people are people. I would never turn someone away for how they were born or what they believed in. There’s no problem,” he said as he retrieved papers from his desk drawer. He handed them to me. “Your name is mentioned.”
It was the memo of the November 5 meeting between Hitler and the heads of the armed services. Given Canaris’s long reach, I was not surprised he had a copy.
“According to Hossbach’s notes, you were present. There is no mention that you spoke. What was your perception of what happened?”
“I was both horrified and terrified for Germany.”
Without comment, Canaris produced another report. “Have you seen this? Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck sent the Führer his analysis. He was not there but based his memo on Hossbach’s minutes.”
“That was meant only for the Führer’s eyes.”
Canaris shrugged. “I have my sources. Beck agrees with Blomberg and Fritsch. It is preposterous to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia for food. Beck offered a number of suggestions to solve our food shortages as well as identifying the shortcomings of Göring’s Four-Year Plan.”
Before saying anything else, I reached for pen and paper. In clear letters, I wrote:
Is it safe to talk here?
He nodded.
Unchecked, I said, “Yes, I came to find a position for Heidi. More importantly, I needed to be certain of your reaction to the November 5 meeting. Along with our conversation about Pasewalk, I hoped to find steps to avoid the disaster Hitler is certain to create.”
Canaris tapped the cold ashes into a glass ashtray with a polished silver rim. He opened the Cherrywood humidor and repacked the bowl. After tamping down the few shards that stuck out like blades of wild grass, he struck a match. The random pieces curled and vaporized. Swirls of smoke spiraled above his head.
“Agreed. We must find those steps and the people to take them with us.” Then, unexpectedly, Canaris said, “I know about you and Bernhard Weiss.”
My mouth slowly opened.
“Come now. Don’t be surprised. I have agents abroad. Many in England. How could I explain failing to keep tabs on such a prominent former citizen . . . so passionately an anti-Nazi? We both know we can rely on Weiss.”
It didn’t escape me that Canaris used “we.”
Canaris continued. “There will come a day, sooner than later, when we will need Weiss’s help, and others like him.”
“Others? What others?”
“Chief of the general staff Beck, for one. Then there is Hans Oster, my right-hand man in the Abwehr. Oster does his best to hire recruits to the Abwehr that have strong feelings against the regime. Recruits like Werner Schrader. Do you happen to know him?”
“Only that years back he was one of the leaders of the veterans’ organization from the Great War—Der Stahlhelm—the Steel Helmets. He squawked when his group was incorporated into the Brown Shirts. He lost his standing after that. When we came to power, he was tossed into a concentration camp. I wondered what happened to him.”
“If you can believe it, he escaped from the concentration camp and rejoined the Wehrmacht as a captain. He kept a low profile until he came to someone’s attention from his past. He was about to be rearrested when I snatched him in time and stationed him in Vienna. He is one of my best at espionage.”
“Are there others like him?” I asked.
“Hans Gisevius, for one.”
“I know Hans from when I worked with Frick in the Ministry of the Interior.”
“Now he works with the Berlin Police,” Canaris explained. “A name that might surprise you is Hjalmar Schacht.”
“Head of the Reichsbank? That is a name! More than anyone else, he guided Germany out of the Great Depression.”
“Hossbach’s memorandum incensed Schacht. He is convinced Hitler’s policies are wrong for Germany,” Canaris explained.
Hearing about other prominent Germans who felt the same reinforced my resolve. “Does that include the Anschluss with Austria? They have raw materials Germany does need.”
Canaris drew on his pipe, orange embers flared. “Forget Austria. Italy is the only country that might care about them. To insure that won’t happen, Hitler has been romancing Il Duce ever since those Austrian Nazis bungled their attempted coup four years ago. Our line in the sand must be Czechoslovakia.”
“I agree. At first, Hitler will claim that the Sudetenland Germans should be reunited with Germany the way other German-speaking territories already have been. Then, when every European leader, plus Roosevelt and Stalin, give a sigh of relief that all Hitler wanted was that fraction of land, Hitler will waltz in and take the whole country. Wilhelm. How do we stop this? We both know that, in the end, military leaders fight wars.”
“Friedrich. You more than most know that is not true. Beck, Blomberg, and Fritsch are all against Hitler’s proposed aggression. Many others think the same way. What has been missing is someone to coordinate the various segments in the Abwehr, the Foreign Service, the Wehrmacht, and those influential citizens against the regime.”
“You’re talking insurrection, Wilhelm.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about this whole time?”
“I never framed it that way. I just knew Hitler had to be stopped.”
“Are you certain now?”
“I am.”
Canaris stuck out his hand. “Good. Because we can’t move forward without eyes and ears in the Führer’s inner circle. Welcome to the rebellion, Friedrich Richard.”
Chapter 19
By the time I left Canaris, I wanted nothing more than a quiet evening with Carla.
It was an Arctic-cold November night. I came home to find a roaring fireplace. I stood in front of the hearth, leaning in to get warm.
“I’ll put tea up,” she said.
“Brandy is quicker.”
She frowned.
I gave in. “Tea it is.”
I changed into warmer clothes and returned to find a cup of steaming hot tea waiting on an antique sideboard.
“What’s all this?” I asked. Photos covered every part of the dining table.
“Given my series about soldiers twenty years after the war, it seemed logical to visit cemeteries where our soldiers are buried. What do you think of them?”
“Is that where you went a few days ago? I thought you visited Ludwig.”
“Forgive me. I prefer an air of secrecy about projects until I know they will amount to something. This worked.”
I pointed to one picture. “Where is this?”
“It’s the Langemarck German War Cemetery in western Flanders.”
“Why Belgium?”
It was near the Second Battle of Ypres . . . where Hitler was exposed to a gas attack. As a result, Germany was changed forever.
“Soldiers were buried where they fell during the war. It was too costly to ship them home,” Carla explained.
I held the photos by their edges. They depicted rows and rows of flat granite grave markers in various lights taken from different angles. Far and closeup.
“How many are buried here?”
“Forty-five thousand all together. It’s quite remarkable, don’t you think?” Carla said.
“I’m not sure ‘remarkable’ is an apt description,” I answered. “These are stark. Powerful. Beautiful in their simplicity. Their symmetry.” I pulled one closer. “There’s a Jewish star on that headstone.”
“Twelve thousand German Jewish soldiers died in the Great War. Their graves are intermixed with everyone else’s.”
“It was one army then,” I said.
“I am glad you feel that way because you and I are going on a little trip this weekend. For me, it’s business. For you, well, I’ll let you decide for yourself.”
“Apparently, I have little say in this. Do you mind if I ask where we’re going?”
“Belgium. I got to thinking that if you visited the cemetery where soldiers from the Second Battle of the Marne are buried, it might jar more memories.”
“Where is this place? How would I know what I’m looking at?”
“The Loupoigne Franco-German Cemetery. Half the buried there are French, the other half are German. Four-hundred seventy-eight to be exact.”
I shook my head. “You’re asking me to travel to a cemetery in Belgium in order to read names of dead soldiers . . . hoping something might register?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. It will probably turn out to be a huge waste of time. More than one hundred thousand Germans lost their lives in that battle. Why start at such a small cemetery?”
“We have to start somewhere. This is manageable. Humor me. If nothing else, we take a short trip and I get some work done.”
*
I cleared my schedule. A few days later, Carla and I found ourselves fifty kilometers south of Brussels on Rue de Presbytère. The cemetery was simple. The mowed grass field was punctuated by row after row of crosses rimmed by stands of trees. Could I picture a pitched battle here? Not at all.
“Let’s walk through the rows,” said Carla. “Maybe a name will be familiar.”
I let go of her hand. “Let me do this myself. Besides, you can’t take pictures if I’m hanging on to you.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“There is no one here but us two. You’ll know if I’m not.”
I broke away from Carla and read the name on each cross out loud. None registered.
Halfway through the third row, I stopped. Inched closer. “Eberhard Zinnmacher.”
I know that name.
Carla was on the other side of the cemetery. I called out.
She ran back.
I pointed to Zinnmacher’s name etched on the cross. “I remember that name.”
Carla almost jumped on top of me. “This is so exciting. Are you sure?”
I knelt and ran my fingers across Zinnmacher’s name.
“I used to call him Ebbe. You know how they say opposites attract? Well, I was the tallest one in the regiment, and he was the shortest. Somehow, we became sidekicks.” I squinted, as if it would bring the memory into sharper focus. “I’m trying to picture him. All I see is the top of his head. He had blondish-brown hair and green eyes. He was thin. Wiry. He used to give me some of his food because I was so big and hungry all the time.”
