SECRET HONOR
HEADQUARTERS
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
TRANSPORT AND STORE THE SPECIAL CARGO
AND THEIR DEDICATION TO THE PRINCI PLES OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND THE
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
II
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE MADE
FAMILIAR WITH THE INCIDENT.
SECRET
0600 SURVEILLANCE TERMINATED
1623 ARENALES
IV
Schloss Wachtstein
17."
BACARDI AT FIRST OPPORTUNITY WILL
VI
VII
She poured herself a cup of coffee.
PRIORITY
VIII
THE SITUATION IS BEING EVALUATED AT
FREIHERR VON WACHTSTEIN AND
TERNICH. KORVETTENKAPITAN KARL BOLTITZ,
IX
GENERALMAJOR MANFRED VON DEITZBERG
THE FUHRER'S HEADQUARTERS 30
HIM AS AN OLDER BROTHER-TO EXPRESS
XI
"OK."
"OK."
XII
OK?"
URGENT
XIII
1943
Or was it Baron Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, the Graf-to- i
XVI
ENGINE START."
XVII
XVIII
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
BOTH LUTZEN AND DEITZ, WITHOUT PRIOR
CONSIDERS TO HAVE 'BEEN HIS BEST
WHO IS BELIEVED TO BE AN AGENT OF
OF OBERST GRUNER AND STANDARTEN FUHRER GOLTZ. IN THIS CONNECTION,
REGRETS THE UNFORTUNATE DEATH OF
THE UNDERSIGNED PARTCIPATED IN THE
XIX
"OK."
LEFT ENGINE START."
Canaris
"OK."
SECRET HONOR
W.E.B.
GRIFFIN
Prologue
During the spring of 1943, 240 German submarines were operating in the North and South Atlantic Ocean. Their mission was the interdiction of Allied shipping carrying war supplies from the United States to England and North
Africa, and of Allied shipping carrying wool, beef, and other foodstuffs from (primarily) Argentina to England. During that month German submarines sank fifty-six Allied ships, totaling 327,900 tons, at a cost of fifteen submarines sunk, most of them in the North Atlantic.
German submarines operating in the North Atlantic- often in groups called "Wolf Packs"-operated out of Euro pean ports and returned to them for replenishment.
German submarines assigned to the South Atlantic
Ocean, however, were faced with the problems of the great distances between their European home ports and their operational areas. It took approximately a month for a submarine sailing from a French port to reach the mouth of the River Plate in Argentina. Once there, it had little fresh food or fuel-often barely enough to return to its home port. Once its torpedoes were expended, there was no resupply closer than France.
In the months before April 1943, the Germans tried to solve the problem in various ways. At first they dispatched replenishment ships-often flying the neutral flags of Spain or
Portugal-to the South Atlantic. The Americans countered by furnishing specially modified (smaller bomb load, more fuel capacity) B-24 aircraft to Brazil, which had declared war on the Axis in January 1942. These aircraft kept the South Atlantic coast off Argentina and Uruguay under surveillance. Any ship caught replenishing German submarines was considered a legitimate target under the
Rules of Warfare, no matter what flag the ship was flying.
The next German tactic was to anchor "neutral" merchant ships close to the Argentine shore in the River Plate. The
Plate is 125 miles wide at its mouth, and is shared by
Argentina and Uruguay. The government of Argentina, then led by pro-Axis president General Ramon Castillo, looked the other way.
It was politically impossible either to bomb ships flying the flags of nonbelligerent powers anchored in neutral waters, or to stop and search suspected vessels of neutral powers on the high seas.
April 1943 was a busy month in a world at war: On 3 April,
General George S. Patton launched an attack against the
Germans near El Guettar, Tunisia; and two days later, British general Bernard Montgomery attacked the Italians on the Wadi
Akarit line.
On 7 April, the Japanese sent 180 aircraft to attack the
Americans on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon
Islands. A United States destroyer and two cargo vessels were sunk.
The same day, Adolf Hitler met with Benito Mussolini in
Salzburg, Austria. They decided that Africa had to be held at all costs.
[ONE]
Near Sidi Mansour, Tunisia
1530 7 April 1943
A solitary Afrika Korps staff car-a small Mercedes convertible sedan-moved as quickly as it could across the desert. It had of course been painted in the Afrika Korps desert scheme: tan paint mimicked the color of the Tunisian desert, and crooked black lines on the hood and doors were intended to break up the form of the vehicle and make it harder to spot at a distance.
Nothing could be done, however, to keep the dust of the
Tunisian desert road from boiling up beneath the wheels of the
Mercedes and raising a cloud scores of feet into the air. If anyone was looking, the dust cloud formed an arrow pointing to the Mercedes.
And someone was looking-an American pilot in a P-51
Mustang.
The North American P51-C and -D aircraft used in the North
African campaign were powered by a Packard version of the
British Merlin engine. They had a top speed of 440 knots, and were armed with four.50-caliber Browning machine guns.
Hardpoints in the wings permitted the use of droppable auxiliary fuel tanks and could also be used to carry 1,000 pound bombs.
Even at 500 feet and an indicated airspeed of 325 knots, it hadn't been hard for Captain Archer C. Dooley, Jr., U.S. Army
Air Corps, to spot the boiling dust and then the Afrika Korps staff car that had caused it.
"Oh, shit!" Captain Archer Dooley, Jr., said sadly.
Finding a Kraut staff car running unprotected across the desert did not please him. When young Archie Dooley first signed up to fly fighter aircraft, he expected to become a
"Knight of the Sky"-flying mano a mono against other knights of the sky. He didn't expect to be killing people like cockroaches.
Fifteen months before, Archie Dooley had been the valedicto rian of the 1942 class at St. Ignatius High School in Kansas
City, Kansas. Six weeks before, he had been Second Lieutenant
Dooley. He had come to Tunisia fresh from fighter school, looking forward to sweeping Nazi Messerschmitts from the skies with the four.50-caliber Brownings in the wings of his
Mustang, much as Errol Flynn had swept the Dirty Hun from the skies over France in World War I in Dawn Patrol.
After which, with a little bit of luck, there would be a girl in the Officers' Club with an exciting French accent, long legs, long hair, and firm breasts, who would express her admiration for a Knight of the Sky in a carnal fashion.
It hadn't turned out that way.
For one thing, by the time Archie got to the squadron, the
Allies had attained air superiority over the enemy. In other words, no German or Italian aircraft were left to be swept from the skies.
The day Archie reported in, the squadron commander had informed him that the 23rd Fighter Group had ordered the squadron to be engaged in ground support. That broke down into two missions: The first was to attack the enemy in front of
American infantry and armor with either wing-mounted bombs or the.50-caliber Brownings. The second was recon naissance and interdiction. This meant flying over enemy held desert to see what you could see, and to interdict- which meant to shoot up-anything you found.
Second Lieutenant Archer Dooley, Jr.'s first mission had been to fly wingman to the squadron commander on a two plane reconnaissance and interdiction mission. At first, that had been sort of exciting… even fun.
They had raced across the desert close to the ground at better than 300 knots, a maneuver flatly forbidden in flight school. Here it was perfectly acceptable.
Like drinking in the Officers' Club, even if you were a long way from being old enough to vote.
They had come across a railroad engine, puffing along tracks in the desert, dragging a line of boxcars. The squadron com mander had signaled to Archie that they should engage the tar get 'Take the locomotive," he had ordered. "I'll get the boxcars."
Second Lieutenant Archer Dooley, Jr., had gotten the locomotive, enjoying the sight of his one-tracer-round in-five stream of.50-caliber projectiles walking across the desert, and-as he raised the Mustang's nose just a hair-moving into the locomotive's boiler.
As he flashed over the locomotive, the locomotive had blown up. His first kill. Then there was a ball of fire, from which rose a dense black cloud of smoke.
As Archie pulled up to make a second run at the train, he realized that the ball of fire was several hundred yards from the railroad tracks. What else had they hit, he wondered, even by mistake, that had exploded like that?
Then, as he lowered the Mustang's nose for his second run, taking care not to collide with the squadron comman der's Mustang, he realized that the squadron commander's
Mustang was no longer in sight. And then he realized what the ball of fire really was. At the time, it seemed probable that the squadron commander had been hit by ground fire.
The squadron commander had told him that some of the trains were armed with antiaircraft machine guns and light cannon, mounted on flat-cars. Because his attention had been fixed on the locomotive, Archie hadn't noticed anything on the cars behind it.
That night, at the Officers' Club (empty, as always, of females-long-legged, firm-breasted, or otherwise), he learned about the Group's promotion policies: Everybody got to be a first lieutenant after eighteen months of commissioned serv ice, which meant he had about ten days before that happened.
There were two ways to get to be a captain. If you lived to serve twelve months as a first lieutenant, then promotion was automatic. But promotion came a lot quicker in another cir cumstance. The senior first lieutenant was the squadron exec utive officer (senior, that is, in terms of length of service in the squadron, not date of rank). If the squadron commander got either killed or seriously injured (defined as having to spend thirty days or more in the hospital), then the Exec took the
Old Man's job and got the captain's railroad tracks that went with it.
Four weeks and six days after Archie reported to the squadron, the squadron first sergeant handed him a sheet of paper to sign:
HEADQUARTERS
4032ND FIGHTER SQUADRON
23RD FIGHTER GROUP
IN THE FIELD
2 MARCH 1943
THE UNDERSIGNED HEREWITH
ASSUMES COMMAND.
ARCHER DOOLEY, JR. CAPT. USAAC FILE
201 DOOLEY, ARCHER, JR. 0378654
COPY TO CO, 23RD FIGHTER GROUP
He hadn't gotten to work his way up to executive officer.
The young man who had become the Old Man and the Exec had both gone in on the same day, the Old Man when his
Mustang ran into a Kraut antiaircraft position that had gotten lucky, and the Exec when he banked too steep, too low to the ground and put a wing into the desert.
That left Archie as the senior first lieutenant in the squadron.
The colonel had driven over from Group in a jeep, told him to cut orders assuming command, and handed him two sets of railroad tracks, still in cellophane envelopes from the quartermaster officer's sales store.
Archie had pinned one set of captain's railroad tracks over the embroidered gold second lieutenant's bars still sewn to the epaulets of his A-2 horsehide flight jacket, and put the other set in the drawer of the squadron commander's-now his-desk. If he ever had to go someplace, like Group, he would pin the extras on his Class A uniform then.
Being a captain and a squadron commander was not at all like what he'd imagined. A lot of really unpleasant shit went with being the Old Man. Like writing letters to the next of kin.
He hadn't actually had to compose these, thank
God. There were letters in the file that some other Old
Man had written, full of bullshit about how your son/husband/brother/ nephew died instantly and courageously doing his duty, and how much he would be missed by his fellow officers and the enlisted men because he had been such a fine officer and had been an inspiration to all who had been privileged to know him.
Not the truth, not about how he'd tried to bail out but had been too close to the ground and his 'chute hadn't opened; not that he'd been seen trying and failing to get out of the cockpit through a sheet of flame blowing back from the engine; not about how he'd tried to land his shot-up airplane and blew it, and rolled over and over down the runway in a ball of flame and crushed aluminum. Or that they really didn't know what the fuck had happened to him, he just hadn't come back; and later some tank crew had found the wreckage of his Mustang with him still in the cockpit, the body so badly burned they couldn't tell if he had been killed in the air or died when his plane hit. He didn't have to type the letters, either. The first sergeant just took one from the file and retyped it, changing the name.
But Archie had to sign it, because he was now the Old Man and that's what was expected of him. And he was always getting bullshit pep talks from some major or light colonel at Group that he was supposed to pass down the line.
Like what he remembered now, staring down at the
Kraut staff car:
"Dooley, what interdiction means is that you and your people are supposed to engage whatever you come across, like one fucking Kraut with a rifle, one motorcycle messenger, not pass him by to go looking for a railroad locomotive, or something you think is important, or looks good when you blow it up. The motorcycle messenger is probably carrying an important message. Otherwise he wouldn 't be out there.
You take out a Kraut staff car, for example, you 're liable to take out an important Kraut officer. Interdict means every thing that's down there. You read me, Captain?" "Yes, Sir."
"And pass the word to your people, and make sure they read you, and read you good." "Yes, Sir."
And Archie had passed the word, and gotten dirty looks. And now there was a Mercedes staff car down there, and it wasn't like being in a dogfight, it was like running over a dog with your car; but you had to do it because you had told your people they had to do it, and Archie believed that an officer should not order anybody to do what he wouldn't do himself.
Archie banked his Mustang steep to the right, lined up on the cloud of dust boiling out under the wheels of the Mer cedes, and when he thought he had him, closed his finger on the trigger on the joystick. When he saw his tracer stream converge on the Mercedes and he didn't have to correct, he thought he was getting pretty good at this shit.
The Mercedes ran off the road, turned over, and burst into flames. Maybe a couple of bodies had flown out of the Mer cedes, but Archie couldn't be sure, and he didn't go back for a second look, because if he did and saw somebody running, he wasn't going to try to get him.
He leveled off at about 500 feet and started looking for something else to interdict
And at 2105 hours that night, at Afrika Korps General Hos pital #3, near Carthage, Tunisia, the chief surgeon and hospital commander, Oberst-Arzt (Colonel-Doctor) Horst
Friederich von und zu Mittlingen, pushed his way through the tent flap of the tent euphemistically called "Operating
Theater Three" and reached beneath his bloodstained surgical apron for a package of cigarettes.
The hospital's name implied something far more substantial than the reality. General Hospital #3 (which served the Tenth
Panzer Division) was a sprawling collection of tents and crude sheds, most of them marked with red crosses to protect against bombing or strafing. The tents served as operating theaters, the sheds as wards. Both were covered with the dust raised by the trucks and ambulances-and sometimes horse drawn wagons-bringing in the wounded and dying.
Von und zu Mittlingen was a fifty-two-year-old Hessian trained at Marburg and Tubingen. Before the war, he had been professor of orthopedic surgery at St. Louise's Hospital in
Munich.
The cigarettes were Chesterfields. One of the nurses, who didn't smoke but knew the Herr Oberst-Artz did, had taken them from the body of an American pilot who had survived the crash of his fighter plane but had died en route to Afrika Korps
General Hospital #3. The lighter, too, was American, a Zippo, found on the floor of one of the surgical tents. There had been no telling how long it had been there, or to whom it had belonged, so he kept it.
He lit a Chesterfield, inhaled deeply, and felt with his hand behind him for one of the vertical poles holding up the corner of the tent. When he found it, he leaned against it, then exhaled, examining the glow of the cigarette as he did.
His hands were shaking. He willed them to be still.
It had been time to take a break, to leave the operating theater and step outside into the welcome cold of the night.
And to light up a cigarette. And get a cup of coffee, if he could find one.
Though patients were still awaiting his attention, he had learned that he could push himself only so far. After so many hours at the table, his eyes did not see well, his fingers lost their skill, and his judgment was clouded by fatigue.
What he desperately wanted was a drink. But that would have to wait until later, much later, until there were no more wounded requiring his services. He would probably have to wait until the early morning for that. Then he would take several deep pulls from the neck of his bottle of brandy before falling into bed.
He took two more puffs on the Chesterfield, exhaled, and pushed himself away from the tent pole.
I will go to the mess and see if there is coffee. I will do nothing for the next ten minutes except smoke my cigarette and drink my coffee and take a piss.
His route took him past three tents on the perimeter of the hospital area. A medical team-a physician, a nurse, and stretcher bearers-stood outside the three tents as the ambu lances and trucks brought the wounded to the hospital.
The physician categorized each incoming patient: Those who would most likely die if they did not go under the knife immediately, he ordered to be carried into the first tent, where a team of nurses would prepare them for surgery. As soon as a table was free, they underwent the knife. Those who had a reasonable chance of survival, but could wait a bit for surgery, were given morphine and moved into the second tent.
As soon as the really critical patients had received attention, their turn in an operating theater would come.
Those who stood little chance of survival were moved into the third tent and given morphine. When everyone in Tent A and Tent B had received treatment, an attempt would be made to save those in Tent C.
Oberst-Artz von und zu Mittlingen violated his own rule about never going into Tent C. The sight of dead men, and men in the last-too often agonized-moments of their lives, upset him. He knew it was better to be calm and emo tionless when he was at the table. There were six men on stretchers in Tent C. The first two were dead. One looked asleep. The second's face was frozen with his last agony.
Von und zu Mittlingen covered their faces with blankets and went to the last man on that side of the tent. He was surprised that he was still alive. His entire head was wrapped in blood soaked bandages. That implied, at the least, serious trauma to his eyes and probably to his brain. Both of his hands were similarly bandaged, suggesting to von und zu
Mittlingen that he would probably lose the use of both hands, and might actually lose the hands themselves.
Another heavily blood-soaked bandage was on his upper right leg, and his torso was also bandaged; but the amount of blood on these last suggested to von und zu Mittlingen that the wounds on his torso were not as serious as the others, though internal bleeding of vital organs was of course possible.
It would probably be better if the poor bastard died; the alternative is living as a blind cripple.
He noticed that the patient was wearing U.S. Army trousers but an Afrika Korps tunic. That quickly identified him as an officer, someone in a position to ignore the rules forbidding the wearing of any part of the enemy's uniform.
Von und zu Mittlingen reached for the patient's ID tag.
"Who's that?" the patient asked, sensing the hand on the tag.
"I'm a doctor."
The tag identified the patient as Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant
Colonel) von Stauffenberg.
Oh, my God! This mutilated body is Claus!
"You've got yourself in a mess, haven't you, Claus?" von und zu Mittlingen said.
"Who's that?"
"Horst Mittlingen, Claus," Horst Friederich von und zu
Mittlingen said. "We're going to take care of you now."
"One of their Mustangs got me," Oberstleutnant Graf
(Count) Claus von Stauffenberg said.
"Claus, what did they give you for the pain?"
"I decided I would rather be awake."
Oberst-Artz Horst Friederich von und zu Mittlingen stood up and walked to the flap of the tent and bellowed for stretcher bearers, then returned to the bloody body on the stretcher. "We'll take care of you now, Claus," he said.
"You'll be all right."
"Really?" von Stauffenberg asked mockingly.
"Yes, really," von und zu Mittlingen said. "I am about to violate my own rule about never working on my friends."
Two stretcher bearers appeared.
"Put this officer on the next available table," von und zu
Mittlingen ordered. "Tell Sister Wagner I will want her beside me."
"Jawohl, Herr Oberst."
"If I could see, I would say I'm glad to see you, Horst," von Stauffenberg said.
On 12 April, the Germans announced the discovery of mass graves in Poland's Katyn Forest. The graves contained the bodies of 4,100 Polish officers and officer cadets who had been captured by the Soviet army. They had been shot in the back of the head with small-caliber pistols. A week later, after refusing Polish Government in Exile demands for an investigation by the International Red Cross, the Soviet gov ernment said the whole thing was German propaganda.
On 17 April, in its largest operation to date, the 8th U.S.
Air Force attacked aircraft factories in Bremen with 117 B 17 bombers, sixteen of which were shot down.
[TWO]
The Office of the Reichsfuhrer-SS
Berlin
1545 17 April 1943
The interoffice communications device on the ornately carved desk of Reichsfiihrer-SS Heinrich Himmler buzzed discreetly.
Though he was wearing his customary ornate black uni form, the forty-three-year-old Reichsfuhrer's round spectacles and slight build gave him the look of a low-ranking clerk.
It would have been a mistake to act on that assumption.
Without taking his eyes from the teletypewriter printout he was reading, Himmler reached for the box and depressed the lever that allowed his secretary, Frau Gertrud Hassler, to communicate. The Reichsfiihrer-SS had had the device rigged in that manner. He was a busy man, and could not afford an interruption every time his secretary had something to say. If he was busy, he simply ignored the buzzing and she would try again later.
"Herr Reichsftihrer," Frau Gertrud Hassler announced.
"Herr Korvettenkapitan Boltitz, from Minister von Ribben trop's office, is here." Korvettenkapitan was the German
Navy rank equivalent to major.
The Reichsfiihrer-SS was not busy, but that did not mean he was prepared to be interrupted by the woman every time a messenger arrived in the outer office.
"And?" the Reichsfuhrer-SS said impatiently.
"He insists that you personally sign for the message, Herr
Reichsfuhrer-SS."
"Mein Gott! Well, show him in, please, Frau Hassler."
Himmler rose from his desk and walked toward the double doors to his office. A moment later, one of them opened; and a tall, blond young man in civilian clothing stepped inside. In his hand was a briefcase. He raised his arm straight out from the shoulder. "Heil Hitler!" he barked.
Himmler raised his right arm at the elbow. "Korvet tenkapitan Boltitz, how nice to see you," Himmler said.
"Herr Reichsfiihrer," Boltitz said. "I regret the intrusion on your valuable time, Herr Reichsfiihrer, but I was directed to give this to you personally."
Himmler knew that Boltitz's assignment to the office of
Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop meant that he was really Admiral Wilhelm Canaris's man-read spy-in the
Foreign Ministry. Canaris was Director of Abwehr
Intelligence. Neither he nor von Ribbentrop was really a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, and Himmler wasn't entirely sure either of them could be completely trusted. "I understand," Himmler said, and put out his hand for the message.
Boltitz opened the briefcase and took from it a clipboard, whose clip held an envelope. He removed the envelope, and then handed Himmler the clipboard and a pen. Himmler scrawled his name, acknowledging receipt of the message, and the young man then handed him the envelope.
"Thank you, Herr Reichsfiihrer."
"Are you to wait for a reply?" Himmler asked. "No, sir, but I am at your disposal if you wish to reply." "Just a moment, please," Himmler said, then tore open the envelope and read the message.
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
CONFIDENTIALITY: MOST SECRET
DATE: 15 APRIL 1943 1645 BUENOS AIRES
TIME
FROM: AMBASSADOR, BUENOS AIRES
TO: IMMEDIATE AND PERSONAL ATTENTION
OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF THE GER MAN REICH
HEIL HITLER!
STANDARTENFUHRER-SS JOSEF GOLTZ RE QUESTS THAT APPENDIX ONE ATTACHED
HERETO BE IMMEDIATELY BROUGHT TO THE
ATTENTION OF REICHSFUHRER-SS HEIN RICH HIMMLER.
MANFRED ALOIS GRAF VON LUTZENBERGER
AMBASSADOR OF THE GERMAN REICH TO
THE REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA
BEGIN APPENDIX ONE
TO: REICHSFUHRER-SS HEINRICH HIMMLER
FROM: SS-STANDARTENFUHRER JOSEF
GOLTZ
SUBJECT: OPERATION PHOENIX, PROGRESS
REPORT
HEIL HITLER!
THE UNDERSIGNED HAS THE HONOR TO
REPORT TO THE HERR REICHSFUHRER-SS THE
FOLLOWING:
(1) ALL ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO
OFF-LOAD THE SPECIAL CARGO ABOARD THE
MOTOR VESSEL COMERCIANTE DEL OCEANO
PACIFICO EARLY IN THE MORNING OF 19
APRIL 1943.
(2) ALL ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO
TRANSPORT AND STORE THE SPECIAL CARGO
UNDER THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE SECURITY
ONCE IT IS ASHORE.
(3) ALL ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO
EFFECT THE TRANSPORT OF NAVAL OFFICERS
FROM THE GRAF SPEE FROM THEIR PLACE OF
INTERNMENT TO PUERTO MAGDALENA ON
SAMBOROMBON BAY ONCE THE ACTIONS
DESCRIBED IN (1) AND (2) ABOVE HAVE
BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.
(4) THE NAVAL OFFICERS WILL FIRST BE
TAKEN ABOARD THE OCEANO PACIFICO AND
THEN REPATRIATED TO THE FATHERLAND AS
SPACE BECOMES AVAILABLE ABOARD U-BOATS
RETURNING TO EUROPEAN PORTS.
(5) WHILE THE UNDERSIGNED HAS ASSUMED
PERSONAL COMMAND OF OPERATION PHOENIX
SINCE ARRIVING IN ARGENTINA, HE WISHES TO ACKNOWLEDGE
THE CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY AMBASSADOR
GRAF VON LUTZENBERGER AND MEMBERS OF
HIS STAFF, IN PARTICULAR FIRST SEC RETARY ANTON VON GRADNY-SAWZ, MILI TARY ATTACHE OBERST KARL-HEINZ GRUNER
AND ASSISTANT MILITARY ATTACHE FOR
AIR MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER VON
WACHTSTEIN. THEIR IMMEDIATE GRASP OF
THE IMPORTANCE OF OPERATION PHOENIX
AND THEIR DEDICATION TO THE PRINCI PLES OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND THE
FUHRER HAS EARNED MY ADMIRATION.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
JOSEF LUTHER GOLTZ
STANDARTENFUHRER SS-SD
END APPENDIX ONE END
MESSAGE
The Comerciante Oceano Pacifico, a Spanish-flagged merchantman, had been sent to Samborombon Bay in the
Argentine section of the River Plate estuary ostensibly with the clandestine mission of replenishing the increasingly des perate South Atlantic U-boats. Replenishment was not, how ever, its only secret mission. It was also charged with smuggling into Argentina equipment and supplies intended to aid the escape from internment of the crew of the German pocket battleship GrafSpee, which had been scuttled in the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay, in December 1939, after a running battle with the Royal Navy.
The repatriation of the GrafSpee crew was especially dear to the heart of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who had himself escaped internment in Argentina during the First World War.
There was a third, far more secret, mission for the Oceano
Pacifico. It had become clear to a number of Hitler's highest ranking associates that the war might be lost-and probably would be-and that the life span of the Thousand-Year
Reich was likely to be only a matter of years, perhaps less.
With that in mind, it was deemed prudent to establish in
South America a place of refuge. "Operation Phoenix" was set in motion. Money was obtained, largely from Jews, either from the dead-jewelry, gold fillings, and the like-or from the living, by way of extortion.
The equivalent of $100,000,000 (in various currencies, including American dollars) was aboard the Oceano Paci fico. Once smuggled ashore, along with the material for the interned Graf Spee crew, the money would be covertly placed in Argentine banks and used to establish a South
American refuge for Nazis who not only hoped to escape punishment for their crimes, but who also sought a place where the Nazi philosophy could be kept alive for an even tual return to Germany.
Himmler raised his eyes to Korvettenkapitan Boltitz.
"Please be so good as to thank Herr von Ribbentrop for me," he said.
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsfiihrer."
"That will be all," Himmler said. "Thank you."
Korvettenkapitan Boltitz rendered another crisp Nazi salute, which Himmler again returned casually, then made a military about-face and marched out of Himmler's office.
Since the door to the outer office remained open, rather than returning to his desk and using the intercom, Himmler raised his voice and called, "Frau Hassler!"
Frau Hassler was tall, thin, and in her early fifties; and she wore her gray-flecked hair in a bun. When she appeared at his door moments later, she was clutching her stenogra pher's notebook and three pencils.
"Please ask Oberfuhrer von Deitzberg to see me immedi ately." Oberfiihrer was a rank peculiar to the SS that fell between colonel and brigadier general.
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsfuhrer," Frau Hassler said, and pulled the door closed.
Manfred von Deitzberg, Himmler's adjutant, appeared in less than a minute. He was a tall, slim, blond, forty-two year-old Westphalian; his black SS uniform was finely tai lored, and there was an air of elegance about him.
He entered the room without knocking, closed the door after him, then leaned against it and looked quizzically at
Himmler. He did not render the Nazi salute, formally or informally.
"We've heard from Goltz," Himmler said, and held the message out to him.
Von Deitzberg walked to the desk, took the message, and read it. When he'd finished, he looked at Himmler, returned the message to him, but said nothing.
"Comments?" Himmler asked.
"It looks like good news," von Deitzberg said.
"But?"
'The Operation has not been completed. Either part of it."
"He seems confident that it will succeed… that both parts of it will succeed. You aren't?"
'There is an English expression, 'a bird in the hand…' "
" '… is worth two in the bush,' " Himmler finished for him. "I agree. Anything else?"
"I hesitate to criticize Goltz. I recommended him for this mission."
"But?"
"When next I see him, I will have a private word with him and suggest that it is never a good idea to put so many details in a message."
"I saw that, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was obviously pleased with himself."
"And I think he wanted you and me to be pleased with him as well."
"Yes. Josef is not overburdened with modesty."
Von Deitzberg laughed dutifully. "I was a little curious about his fulsome praise for von Lutzenberger," he said.
"And von Lutzenberger's people."
"Perhaps he really meant it."
"And he knew, of course, that von Lutzenberger would read the message."
"And that Griiner is one of us," Himmler said, smiling.
"Do you think our Luther is becoming a politician, Man fred?"
"I think that's a terrible thing to say about an SS officer," von Deitzberg said.
It was Himmler's turn to laugh dutifully.
"What are you going to do about it?" von Deitzberg asked, nodding at the message. "Are you going to tell the Fiihrer?"
"I thought I would solicit your wise counsel, Herr Ober fiihrer."
"I have a tendency to err on the side of caution," von
Deitzberg said. "I think I would wait until we have the bird in hand."
"If he hasn't already, von Ribbentrop is about to tell Bor mann, knowing full well he will rush to the Fiihrer, that there has been word from Himmler's man that Operation Phoenix will shortly be successful."
Party leader Martin Bormann was second only to Adolf
Hitler in the hierarchy of the Nazi party and one of his closest advisers.
"You don't think he would wait until after we get the
'operation completed successfully' message, so he could say, 'Our man'?"
"I think von Ribbentrop would prefer to go to the Fuhrer now. using 'Himmler's man.' Then, if something does go wrong, he could pretend to be shocked and saddened by that man's failure. On the other hand, if it does go well, it will naturally be 'our man.' "
Himmler looked at von Deitzberg for a moment, then con tinued: "I could, of course, get to the Fuhrer first, either directly, or through Bormann-"
"The Fiihrer's at Wolfsschanze," von Deitzberg inter rupted. Wolfsschanze was Hitler's secret command post, near Rastenburg in East Prussia.
"-then through Bormann," Himmler went on. "And take a chance our friend-actually he's your friend, isn't he, Manfred?-is everything he-and you-say he is.
Claim him as our man now, taking the chance that he won't fail."
"Were you really soliciting my wise counsel?" von
Deitzberg asked.
"Of course. And your wise counsel is that we should wait until we see what actually happens, right?"
"Yes, Sir."
"On second thought, what I think I really should do now is call Bormann and tell him that we have just heard from
Oberfuhrer von Deitzberg's man in Buenos Aires. That way, if
Goltz is successful, I can claim the credit because he is one of my SS, right? And if he fails, it's obviously your fault, von Deitzberg. You recommended him for that job."
Himmler smiled warmly at von Deitzberg.
"May I suggest, with all possible respect, Herr Reichs fiihrer-SS," von Deitzberg said, "that is not a very funny joke."
"Joke? What joke?"
He pressed the lever on his intercom, and when Frau Has sler's voice came, told her to get Reichsleiter Bormann on the telephone immediately.
One of the telephones on Himmler's desk buzzed not more than ninety seconds later. Himmler picked it up and said "Heil Hitler" into it, then waited impatiently for who ever was on the line to respond.
"Martin," he said finally, and with oozing cordiality,
"There has been good news from Buenos Aires. Our project there, under Standartenfuhrer Goltz, of whom I am very proud, is proceeding splendidly. We expect momentarily to hear that the special cargo has been delivered, and that the first of the officers from the Graf Spec are on their way home."
There was a reply from Bormann that von Deitzberg could not hear, and then Himmler went on: "The SS exists solely to serve the Fuhrer, Martin. You know that." This was followed by another pause, and then Himmler barked "Heil
Hitler!" into the mouthpiece and hung up. He looked at von
Deitzberg and smiled. "That put our friend Bormann on the spot, you understand, Manfred?"
"Yes, indeed," von Deitzberg said.
"He doesn't want to go to the Fuhrer with good words about the SS," Himmler added unnecessarily, though with visible pride in his tactics. "But he wants even less for the
Fuhrer to get his information from other people, such as our friend von Ribbentrop. So he will relay the good news about
Argentina to the Fiihrer, saying he got it from me, and the
Fuhrer will not only like the information but be impressed with my quiet modesty for not telling him myself."
"Very clever." von Deitzberg said.
"You have to be clever with these bastards, Manfred.
They're all waiting for a chance to stab us in the back."
"I agree. Is there anything else?"
Himmler shook his head, "no," and von Deitzberg walked to the door.
"Manfred!" Himmler called as von Deitzberg put his hand on the knob.
Von Deitzberg turned to look at him.
"Are you, in your heart of hearts, a religious man, Man fred?"
"You know better than that," von Deitzberg replied.
"Pity," Himmler said. "I was about to say that now that the die has been cast, Manfred, it might be a good time to start to pray that Goltz is successful."
"Are you worried?"
"I'm not worried. But if I were you, I would be. You're the one who selected Goltz for this."
"I recommended him," von Deitzberg said. "You selected him."
"That's not the way I remember it, Oberfuhrer von
Deitzberg," Himmler said. "Thank you for coming to see me."
On 18 April, more than half of the 100 heavy German transport aircraft attempting to resupply the Afrika Korps in North
Africa were shot down by American fighters.
And across the world, in the South Pacific, over
Bougainville, P-38 Lightning fighters shot down a transport carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief of the Japanese
Navy, and Japan's principal strategist. American cryptogra phers, in one of the most tightly guarded secrets of the war, had broken many high-level Japanese codes, and had inter cepted messages giving Yamamoto's travel plans and routes.
The decision to attack his plane, which carried with it the grave risk of the Japanese learning the Americans had broken their codes, was made personally by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
On 19 April, the Argentine government of General Ramon
Castillo was toppled by a junta of officers, led by General
Arturo Rawson, who became President.
On 22 April, the U.S. II Corps, led by Lieutenant General
Omar Bradley, began a major attack against the Germans in
Tunisia. Another attempt by the Germans to supply the
Afrika Korps by air resulted in the shooting down by American fighters of 30 of 50 transport aircraft.
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
THE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1 January 1943
Subject: Letter Orders To: Colonel A.F.
Graham, USMCR Office of Strategic
Services Washington, D.C.
[ THREE ]
Biscayne Bay
Miami, Florida
2215 23 April 1943
After a very long flight at 160 miles per hour from Caracas,
Venezuela, the four-engined Sikorsky Flying Boat of Pan American Grace Airways splashed down into the calm waters of Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida. Among its thirty-four passengers was a tanned, balding man of forty eight who wore a trim, pencil-line mustache. The name on his passport read Alejandro Federico Graham, ^and his occupation was given as "Business Executive." In the breast pocket of his splendidly tailored suit was another document:
1. You will proceed to such destinations as your duties require by U.S. Government or civilian motor, rail, sea or air transportation as is most expedient. JCS Travel Priority
AAAAAA-1 is assigned. The wearing of civilian attire is authorized.
2. United States Military or Naval commands are authorized and directed to provide you with whatever assistance of any kind you may require to accomplish your mission(s).
By Order of The Chairman, The Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Official:
Matthew "j, Markham Lieutenant
General, USAAC J-3, JCS
[FOUR]
The Office of the Director
The Office of Strategic Services
National Institutes of Health Building
Washington. B.C.
1045 24 April 1943
Colonel William J. Donovan, the stocky, gray-haired, sixty year-old Director of the Office of Strategic Services, rose from his desk and walked to the door when his secretary announced Colonel Graham's arrival. When Colonel Alejan dro Federico Graham, USMCR, passed through the door,
Colonel Donovan cordially offered his hand. "Welcome home, Alex," he said. "How was the flight?"
"From Buenos Aires to Miami, it was slow but very com fortable. Cold champagne, hot towels; Panagra does it right.
From Miami to here it was very fast and very uncomfortable.
That was my first ride in a B-26. What was that all about?"
"I'm going to have dinner tonight with the President. I really had to talk to you before I did."
Donovan had been a Columbia University School of Law classmate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he and the President remained close personal friends. In the First World War, he had won the Medal of Honor as a colonel, commanding the famous "Fighting Sixty-Ninth" Infantry in France. After the war, he had become a very successful Wall Street lawyer.
At the request of President Roosevelt, he had become the
Director of the OSS at an annual salary of one dollar.
Graham grunted.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee?" Donovan asked.
"Coffee would be nice, thank you," Graham said.
Graham, who was now the Deputy Director of the OSS for
Western Hemisphere Operations, had served as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in France in World War I.
After the war he had been active in the Marine Corps
Reserve, eventually rising to Colonel, USMCR.
An engineer by training, he had become president of the nation's second- or third-largest railroad (depending on whether the criterion was income or tonnage moved annu ally). He had made, additionally, a considerable fortune building railroads all over Central and South America.
A political conservative, he had made substantial financial contributions to the presidential campaign of his close friend,
Wendell L. Willkie, who had been defeated in a landslide by
Roosevelt in the 1940 election.
When called to active Marine Corps service, he had expected to be given command of a regiment; but Donovan- along with the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps, an old friend-had convinced him that his intimate knowledge of South America and its leaders made him more valuable to the OSS than he would be to the Marine Corps, and he had reluctantly given up his dream of commanding a Marine regiment.
"Sit down, Alex," Donovan said, and went to his office door and ordered coffee.
Graham lowered himself onto a green leather couch, took a long, thin black cigar case from the pocket of his well tailored suit, extracted a cigar, and, after biting its end off, lit it with a gold Dunhill lighter.
"Nice-looking cigar," Donovan said. "Argentine?" Graham started to take the cigar case from his jacket again. Donovan signaled he didn't want one. Graham shrugged. "Brazilian," he said.
"That's right," Donovan said. "There's a layover in Rio de
Janeiro, isn't there?"
"And in Caracas," Graham said. "It took me four days to get here from Buenos Aires." "Shall I get right to the point?"
Donovan asked. "That's often a good idea."
"I need to know the name of your intelligence source in
Argentina," Donovan said, "the one who helped us with
Operation Phoenix. I want to know who Galahad is." "We've been over this, Bill," Graham said. "That was an order,
Colonel."
"Well, we are getting right to the point, aren't we? Sorry, I'm not in a position to tell you." Donovan glared coldly at him.
"Bill," Graham said. "When I took this job, I had your word that you wouldn't try to second-guess my decisions." "I can take you off this job, Alex." "Yes, you can. Is that what you're doing?" "What am I supposed to tell the President? 'Sorry,
Mr. President, Graham won't tell me who Galahad is'?"
"When all else fails, tell the truth." "What if the President asked you-ordered you-to tell him?"
"Same answer."
"What I should have done was order Frade up here." "In the
Marine Corps, Bill, they teach us to never give an order that you doubt will be obeyed." "You don't mean he'd refuse to come?" "That's a very real possibility." "He's a major in the
Marine Corps." "And he's an ace. Who was just awarded the
Navy Cross. And is smart enough to understand that court martialing a hero might pose some public relations problems for you. And for the President. That's presuming, of course, that he would put himself in a position, coming here, where you could court-martial him."
"It wouldn't have to be a court-martial…" "Saint
Elizabeth's? You're not thinking clearly, Bill." In an opinion furnished privately to the President by the Attorney General, the provisions of the law of habeas cor pus were not applicable to a patient confined for psychiatric evaluation in a hospital, such as Saint Elizabeth's, the Federal mental hospital in the District of Colombia.
"I'm not?"
"Cletus Marcus Howell, who dearly loves his grandson, is a great admirer-and I think a personal friend-of Colonel
McCormick."
Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the
Chicago Tribune, made no secret of his loathing for President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"And I suppose I could count on you to be with Howell when he went to see McCormick."
"That's a possibility I think you should keep in the back of your mind, Bill."
"You realize, Alex, that you're willfully disobeying a direct order? This is tantamount to mutiny."
"I'll split that hair with you, Bill. I thought about that on the way up here. You're not on active duty, Colonel; legally, you're a dollar-a-year civilian. I don't think that you have the authority to issue me a military order. But let's not get into that-unless you've already made up your mind to go down that road?"
"What road should we go down?"
"Be grateful for what we have."
"Which is?"
"Cletus Frade has done more for us than either of us dreamed he could. He earned that Navy Cross by putting his life on the line when he led the submarine Devil Fish into
Samborombon Bay to sink the Reine de la Mer. Only a bona fide hero or a fool would have flown that little airplane into the aircraft weaponry on that ship, and whatever Cletus is, he's no fool."
"I wasn't accusing him of being either a fool or a coward,"
Donovan said.
"And because of what he did during the coup d'etat, he's
President Rawson's fair-haired boy," Graham went on. "Do I have to tell you the potential of that?"
"Point granted," Donovan said.
"Not to mention that his father-who was the likely next president of Argentina-was killed by the Germans during the process."
Donovan gave a snappish wave of his arm to acknowledge the truth of that.
"Not to mention that he was the one who located the Com erciante del Oceano Pacifico," Graham went on. "Which really deserves mentioning-"
"She's in the middle of the South Atlantic," Donovan inter rupted. "On a course for Portugal or Spain. There was a report from the Alfred Thomas, who is shadowing her, early this morning." The USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, was a destroyer.
"Why don't we sink her?" Graham asked. "We know what she's carrying."
"The President made that decision," Donovan said. "There are… considerations."
"Getting back to the Oceano Pacifico," Graham went on.
"If he hadn't flown Ashton and his team, and their radar, into
Argentina, we never would have found her. And flew them, let me point out, in an airplane he'd never flown before. We sent him that airplane, Bill. We screwed up big time by sending him the wrong airplane. And he pulled our chestnuts out of the fire by flying it anyway."
"You sound like the president of the Cletus Frade fan club," Donovan said, tempering the sarcasm in his voice with a smile.
"Guilty," Graham said. "And while I run down the list, it was Frade's man, Frade's Sergeant Ettinger, who found out about the ransoming of the Jews. And got himself murdered."
"Can I stipulate to Major Frade's many virtues?"
"No, I want to remind you of them. Of all of them. And it was Frade who found out about Operation Phoenix."
"From Galahad. Which brings us back to him," Donovan said. "The President is very interested in Operation Phoenix.
He wants to know-and I want to know, Alex-who Galahad is."
"In my opinion, and Frade's, Galahad is a Class I intelli gence source whose identity must be kept secret, so that he won't be lost to us because somebody here does something stupid and the Germans find out about him. Or even have suspicions about him."
"That's not good enough, Alex. I want to know who he is.
Who all of Frade's sources are."
"He's not going to tell you, and neither am I," Graham said. "I guess we're back where we started."
"And if Frade is taken out-which, after what they did to his father, seems a real possibility-that would leave only you knowing who Galahad is. That's not acceptable, Alex."
"There are others who know who Galahad is," Graham said. "But I won't tell you who they are, either."
Donovan looked at Graham, expressionless, for almost a minute before he spoke.
"I'm going to have to think about this, Alex," he said.
"Think quick, Bill. I want an answer right now, before I leave your office."
"That sounds like another threat."
"Either you fire me, which I think would be a mistake, or you tell me I can stay on under the original ground rules. You will not second-guess me. Your choice."
"That's not a choice. I can't do without you, and you know it."
"I have your word, Bill?"
"I can be overruled by the President," Donovan said. "He's not used to having anybody tell him something's none of his business."
"Roosevelt can't do without you, and both of you know it,"
Graham said. "What's it to be, Bill?"
Donovan exhaled audibly. "OK," he said. "You have my word."
"Thank you."
Graham pushed himself off the couch. "I need a long, hot shower and several stiff drinks," he said. He got as far as the door before Donovan called his name.
"Yes?" Graham asked, turning.
"This is a question, Alex, rather than second-guessing. Did you approve of Frade's killing those two Nazis-the military attache and the SS guy-on the beach?"
"Frade didn't kill them," Graham said. "They were shot by two retired Argentine army sergeants."
"How did that happen?"
"I sent the lieutenant from Ashton's team to the beach to take pictures of the Germans landing the Operation Phoenix money from the Oceano Pacifico. I sent the sergeants down to the beach to guard him. That's all they were supposed to do.
But one of the sergeants not only had been el Coronel
Frade's batman for thirty years, but the brother of the woman who was killed when they tried to assassinate young
Frade. And they're Argentines, Latins, like me. Revenge is a part of our culture. The minute they saw who it was… bang! Ashton's lieutenant was very impressed. It was at least two hundred yards. Two shots only. Both in their heads."
"You sound as if you approve."
"I wouldn't have ordered it," Graham said. "And Frade didn't. But was I overwhelmed with remorse? No. You ever hear 'an eye for an eye'?"
"Yeah, I've heard that. I've also heard 'the devil you know is better than the one you don't.' They'll send somebody else."
"Yes, I'm afraid they will. Anything else, Bill?"
Donovan shook his head, "no," and Graham walked out of the office.
II
[ONE]
The Office of the Reichsfuhrer-SS
Berlin
1430 26 April 1943
"Herr Reichsfiihrer," Frau Gertrud Hassler's high-pitched voice announced, "Deputy Minister von LQwzer of the For eign Ministry, Ribbentrop's office, asks to see you." "Ask the gentleman to wait a minute or two, please,"
Himmler said courteously, and returned to reading the tele typed report from Warsaw. It both baffled and infuriated him.
If the report was to be believed, and he had no reason not to believe it, the day before, "a group estimated to number approximately 2,000 Jews" in the Warsaw ghetto had risen up against their captors, protesting a pending "transport" to resettlement in the East. "The East" was a euphemism for the Treblinka concentration camp, but the damned Jews were not supposed to know that.
For one thing, a revolt of Jews against German authority is on its face unthinkable.
For another, these vermin, in their walled ghetto, have obviously somehow managed to obtain a few small arms.
Someone will answer for this.
And even if it isn't "a few small arms," but many, and every slimy Hebrew in the ghetto has somehow managed to lay his hands on a pistol or a rifle, there is in Warsaw-in addition to the SS personnel-a division of German soldiers, a division of German soldiers!!!; the uprising should have been put down minutes after it became known.
According to the report, the uprising had been going on for twenty-four hours, and there was no estimate of when it would be contained.
The Reichsfiihrer-SS grew aware that his knuckles on the band pressing down the teletypewriter paper to keep it from curling were white with tension. When he lifted it from his desk, the hand was trembling.
Obviously, I am very angiy, and-even though I have every right to be-therefore I should not make decisions that might be influenced by that anger.
One should never discipline children when angry, he con tinued, musing, his mind taking something of a leap. One should discipline children very carefully, and with love in one's heart, not anger. And then his focus returned to the matter at hand: My God, that's incredible!-filthy Jewish swine confined to a ghetto having the effrontery to rise in arms against the German State! Whoever is responsible for this incredible breakdown of order will have to be disci plined. Perhaps sent to a concentration camp, or shot.
But I will make that decision calmly, when I am no longer angry.
The Reichsfiihrer-SS pulled open a narrow drawer in the desk, rolled the teletypewriter print out into a narrow tube, then put it in the drawer and closed it.
Then he went to his private toilet, emptied his bladder, studied himself in the mirror, decided to have his hair cut within the next day or so, adjusted his necktie, and went back to his desk.
He pushed the SPEAK lever on his interoffice communication device. "Would you show the Herr Deputy Foreign
Minister in, please?" he asked courteously.
The left of the double doors opened a moment later. "Deputy
Minister von Lowzer, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS," Frau Hassler announced.
Georg Friedrich von Lowzer, a plump forry-five-year-old in a too-small black suit, was carrying a leather briefcase. He took two steps inside the office and raised his arm and hand straight out from his shoulder in the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!" he said.
Reichsfiihrer-SS Heinrich Himmler stood up and returned a less formal salute: He bent his arm at the elbow and replied, "Heil Hitler!", then added, with a smile: "My dear von Lowzer, what an unexpected pleasure to see you."
"I regret, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS, that I am the bearer of unpleasant news." Now what?
He smiled at von Lowzer. "Of such importance that someone of your stature in the Foreign Ministry has to bear it?"
"I believe when the Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS reads the docu ment, he will understand Herr Foreign Minister von Ribben trop's concern that it be seen immediately and by no one but yourself," von Lowzer said. He unlocked the briefcase, took a sealed, yellowish envelope from it, and handed it to Himmler.
"Please, have a chair," Himmler said graciously. Can 1 have Frau Hassler get you a coffee? Something a little stronger?"
"No, thank you, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS."
Himmler stood behind his desk and attempted to open the envelope flap with his fingernails. He failed in that attempt and had to reach for his letter opener-a miniature version of the dagger worn by SS officers. It had been a gift to him from one of the graduating classes of the SS Officer Candidate School at Bad Tolz.
When the envelope had been slit, he found that it con tained another sheet of teletypewriter paper. He laid it on his desk, then placed a coffee cup at its top and his fingers at the bottom to prevent curling.
CLASSIFICATION: MOST URGENT
CONFIDENTIALITY: MOST SECRET
DATE: 23 APRIL 1943 FROM:
AMBASSADOR, BUENOS AIRES
TO: IMMEDIATE AND PERSONAL ATTENTION
OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF THE GERMAN
REICH
HEIL HITLER!
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT
STANDARTENFUHRER JOSEF LUTHER GOLTZ
AND OBERST KARL-HEINZ GRUNER WERE
KILLED BY GUNFIRE AT APPROXIMATELY
0945 19 APRIL 1943 NEAR PUERTO MAG DALENA, ARGENTINA., MAJOR FREIHERR
HANS-PETER VON WACHTSTEIN NARROWLY
ESCAPED DEATH IN THE SAME INCIDENT.
INASMUCH AS BRINGING THE MURDERS OF
THESE MEN TO THE ATTENTION OF THE
Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler looked up from the document and fixed his gaze on Deputy Minister von Lowzer, who was now sitting in the center of a small couch, his hands folded on his lap, his briefcase at his feet. "You are aware of the contents of this message?" he asked.
"I am privy to the details of Operation Phoenix, Herr
Reichsfiihrer-SS," von Lowzer replied solemnly.
ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE MADE
IT NECESSARY TO EXPLAIN THEIR PRES ENCE AT PUERTO MAGDALENA, THE UNDER SIGNED HAS INFORMED THE ARGENTINE
GOVERNMENT THAT BOTH OFFICERS, IN
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDERS, HAVE RETURNED
TO GERMANY, AND HAS ARRANGED FOR THE
TRANSPORT OF THEIR REMAINS TO CADIZ,
ABOARD THE SPANISH MOTOR VESSEL
OCEANO PACIFICO, WHICH AS THE RESULT
OF UNSUPPORTED CHARGES OF ATTEMPTED
SMUGGLING HAS BEEN ORDERED TO LEAVE
ARGENTINE WATERS IMMEDIATELY.
CAPTAIN JOSE FRANCISCO DE BANDERANO,
MASTER OF THE OCEANO PACIFICO, WAS
DENIED PERMISSION TO OFF-LOAD ANY OF
HER CARGO, AND NONE OF HER CARGO OF
ANY KIND WAS UNLOADED IN ARGENTINA.
ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS FROM YOUR
EXCELLENCY TO THE CONTRARY, THE
UNDERSIGNED IS RELUCTANT TO ENTRUST
OTHER DETAILS OF THIS TRAGIC INCI DENT TO A RADIO TRANSMISSION. THE
UNDERSIGNED SUGGESTS THAT A FULL
REPORT OF THIS INCIDENT COULD BEST
BE MADE TO YOUR EXCELLENCY AND OTHER
OFFICIALS BY SOMEONE PERSONALLY
FAMILIAR WITH THE INCIDENT.
IN ADDITION TO THE UNDERSIGNED,
LISTED IN ORDER OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE
OF THE INCIDENT, THESE ARE:
MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER VON WACHT STEIN
FIRST SECRETARY ANTON VON GRADNY-SAWZ
STURMBANNFUHRER WERNER VON TRESMARCK
OF THE EMBASSY OF THE GERMAN REICH
IN MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY.
THE UNDERSIGNED BEGS TO REMIND YOUR
EXCELLENCY THAT A LUFTHANSA CONDOR
FLIGHT IS EXPECTED TO REACH BUENOS
AIRES IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, AND
RESPECTFULLY SUGGESTS THAT ANY, OR
ALL, OF THE ABOVE-NAMED OFFICERS
TRAVEL TO GERMANY ON THE RETURN
FLIGHT SO THAT YOUR EXCELLENCY MAY
BE MADE PRIVY TO THE DETAILS OF THIS
UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT, AND OF OTHER
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS HERE OF IMPOR TANCE TO GERMANY.
THE UNDERSIGNED RESPECTFULLY AWAITS
YOUR EXCELLENCY'S ORDERS.
HEIL HITLER!
MANFRED ALOIS GRAF VON LUTZENBERGER
AMBASSADOR OF THE GERMAN REICH TO
THE REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA
So van Ribbentrop has told him of Phoenix? Is he smarter than he looks? Obviously, you don't get to be a deputy for eign minister unless you are bright.
I wonder how many others I don't know about are privy to
Operation Phoenix?
"You may inform the Foreign Minister that I appreciate his entrusting the document only to someone like yourself, and that I will hold myself ready to meet with him at his earliest convenience."
"I will relay your message, Herr Reichsfilhrer-SS."
Von Lowzer rose to his feet but made no move to leave the office.
"Something else, von Lowzer?"
"The message, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS. You still have it."
"I thought it was for me," Himmler blurted.
"The Foreign Minister thought that making copies of the document was unwise," von Lowzer said.
"Yes," Himmler said, signifying nothing.
"I am under the Foreign Minister's orders to show it as soon as possible to the others who have an interest," von
Lowzer said.
"Bormann, for example?"
Von Lowzer nodded.
"Bormann hasn't seen this yet?" Himmler asked.
"You are the first to see it, Herr Reichsfuhrer-SS," von
Lowzer said. "Except, of course, for the Foreign Minister."
And yourself, of course. I'm going to have to find out about you.
But that's interesting. Von Ribbentrop sent the message to me first.
"And your next stop is where?" Himmler asked casually.
"Reichsleiter Bormann, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS, and then
Admiral Canaris. Then I will go to Wolfsschanze, to see
Generalfeldmarschall Keitel and Admiral Donitz."
Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, chief of the German army, and Admiral Donitz were with Hitler at his secret headquar ters. As were Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring and Propa ganda Minister Josef Goebbels.
Obviously, von Lowzer knows a good deal. The location of the Fiihrer, and of those officials with him, is known to only a few wholly trustworthy people.
But does that mean von Lowzer knows everything about
Operation Phoenix?
"Then I had best not keep you," Himmler said.
He picked up the message from Buenos Aires and read it through again carefully before handing it to von Lowzer.
"You will be good enough to tell the Herr Foreign Minister that I understand the gravity of the problem and am at his disposal to discuss it?"
"Of course, Herr Reichsfiihrer-SS," von Lowzer said, rendered the Nazi salute, and walked out of Himmler's office.
Himmler waited three minutes-long enough for von
Lowzer to have certainly left the outer office-and then pressed the lever on his interoffice communications device and ordered Frau Hassler to summon Oberfuhrer von
Deitzberg.
"The Reichsfiihrer-SS requests your presence immedi ately, Herr Oberfuhrer," Frau Hassler's voice announced metallically through the intercom device on von Deitz berg's desk.
Von Deitzberg had been sitting slumped in his high backed chair with his feet resting on an open drawer. He put his feet on the floor, leaned across his desk, pressed the TALK lever, and very politely said, "Thank you very much, Frau
Hassler."
He slumped back into his chair and smiled at his deputy,
SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Erich Raschner. "Raschner, I believe the Reichsfiihrer has just seen the telex from Warsaw," he said.
The telex had been laid on his desk by a Signals Oberschar fuhrer, the SS rank equivalent to technical sergeant, at 1120.
As Adjutant to the Reichsfiihrer-SS, von Deitzberg was charged with the administration of all correspondence-mail, teletype, or radio-that would come to Himmler's personal attention. That is to say, von Deitzburg was the gatekeeper for a good portion of the information flow to the Reichsfuhrer-SS.
He determined what was important enough for Himmler to see, what he himself could deal with, or what he could pass farther down the chain of command for action.
Next, he determined when the Reichsfiihrer-SS actually saw the correspondence that in von Deitzberg's view merited his attention. Very rare pieces would be important enough for von Deitzberg to personally carry to Himmler himself. Imme diately below that priority were messages that he would leave with Frau Hassler for delivery to Himmler the moment he was free. Below that priority were several categories: Some corre spondence was stamped IMMEDIATE ATTENTION and placed in the box on his desk reserved for the Reichsfiihrer SS; some was stamped IMPORTANT and then placed in the box; and some, finally, was simply placed in the Himmler box without a stamp.
At least once an hour, a Signals messenger (always an SS noncommissioned officer) would make deliveries to von
Deitzberg's In box and pick up the contents of the Out box.
The Reichsfiihrer-SS's correspondence would be immedi ately passed on to Frau Hassler, who would sort it (IMME DIATE ATTENTION material on top, IMPORTANT below that, and unstamped on the bottom), and then place it on
Himmler's desk at the first opportunity.
Reichsfiihrer-SS Heinrich Himmler's time was, of course, very valuable. Oberfiihrer von Deitzberg was a splendid manager-with the result that he was gatekeeper not only of
Himmler's correspondence but of his appointments. He was the final arbiter of who got to see the Reichsfiihrer-SS, when, and for how long.
Even senior government officials, like Deputy Foreign Minister von Lowzer, had to pass through von Deitzberg's "gates." When someone senior appeared unannounced to meet with
Himmler, the SS officer on duty in the lobby of the building would pass the official into the elevator, then immediately tele phone von Deitzberg. If von Deitzberg decided that the
Reichsfuhrer-SS had no time for the official, von Deitzberg would head him off in the corridor and explain that he was so very sorry, but the Reichsfuhrer-SS had just left, and could he be of some help?
Today, von Deitzberg had decided that von Lowzer could be passed into the office of the Reichsfiihrer. Whatever von
Lowzer's business, asking him about it, and then checking with Himmler about that, would be more trouble than sim ply passing von Lowzer in. Thus von Deitzberg was not aware of the reason for von Lowzer's visit with the Reichs fiihrer.
As for the teletype message from Warsaw announcing the
Jewish insurrection, ordinarily, on receiving a message of that importance, von Deitzberg would have immediately car ried it to Himmler and handed it to him personally. But today the Reichsfuhrer had been lunching with his wife at the Hotel
Adlon and hadn't been expected back until at least 2:30.
And besides, that message offered von Deitzberg a per sonal opportunity.
The only trouble with his job was that he was so good at it. That meant, in other words, that he had become indispen sable to the Reichsfuhrer-SS. And that meant Himmler always listened sympathetically to his requests for an assignment in the field, and more or less promised one at the earliest opportunity; but that never seemed to happen.
He didn't want to stay in the field, and wasn't asking for that. What -he wanted was a brief assignment in the field-ten, fifteen days, no more than a month-so it would appear on his record when he was being considered for pro motion. And besides, he had no doubt that he could clean up this Warsaw insurrection nonsense in ten days.
Moments after the teletype from Warsaw had reached- his desk, von Deitzberg had ordered Raschner to call the Luft waffe and order a Heinkel bomber flown to Templehof Air field, where it was to be prepared to fly "senior officers of the office of the Reichsfiihrer-SS" to Warsaw on twenty minutes' notice. Raschner had also reserved two compart ments on each of the next three trains departing for Warsaw, in case the weather should preclude travel by air. Von
Deitzberg's orderly had been instructed to pack luggage containing uniforms sufficient for a week in Warsaw.
Even before Himmler had ordered him to his office, as he had indeed just done, Von Deitzberg had the scenario clear in his mind: Himmler would summon him to ask him why he hadn't been immediately informed of the Warsaw affair, even if that meant interrupting his luncheon with his wife. Von
Deitzberg would explain that the Reichsfiihrer had left orders that he was not to be disturbed; and in any event, he had already done all that he felt the Reichsfiihrer-SS would have ordered. An airplane was waiting at Templehof, et cetera, et cetera.
At that point, Himmler would wonder if the insurrection of some Jews was worth his personal attention.
"I think I had better tend the store, Manfred," he would say. "Who else could we send?"
At which point, von Deitzberg would say, "It would have to be someone who could act for you, Herr Reichsfiihrer."
And then Himmler would say, "I hate to do this to you,
Manfred, but I think it would be best if you went there. You will be acting with my authority, of course."
"Good afternoon, Herr Reichsfuhrer. I trust you had a pleasant lunch?" von Deitzberg said as he entered Himmler's office.
"We have two problems on our hands, Manfred," Himmler said.
"Two, Herr Reichsfuhrer?" von Deitzberg asked, sur prised.
Obviously Lowzer brought the second one. Did I make a mistake in letting him in to see Himmler without knowing what he wanted?
"Deputy Foreign Minister von Lowzer was just here. To show me a message to von Ribbentrop from Buenos Aires,"
Himmler said. He paused and looked at von Deitzberg before going on, somewhat dramatically. "Goltz and Griiner are dead," he announced.
It took a moment for Oberfuhrer von Deitzberg to absorb what he had just been told. "Dead, Herr Reichsfuhrer?" he finally asked. "Murdered by person or persons unknown.
Their bodies are aboard the Oceano Pacifico… which, by the way, the Argentine government has ordered from
Argentine waters, on the grounds of attempted smuggling."
"And the cargo of the Oceano PacificoT von Deitzberg asked carefully.
"The Oceano Pacifico was not able to unload her cargo,"
Himmler said. "Von Lutzenberger was obviously reluctant to go into all the details in a cable, but he made that point quite clearly." Von Deitzberg nodded.
"And said more details were available," Himmler went on.
"Three people are familiar with them, in addition to the
Ambassador himself. He suggested that von Ribbentrop arrange for at least one of them to come to Berlin on the next
Lufthansa Condor flight." "Did he provide their names?"
"Yes. Gradny-Sawz, von Wachtstein, and Sturmbann fiihrer von Tresmarck. I think your first order of business would be to have their dossiers sent up, so that you and I can have a fresh look at them." "Jawohl, Herr Reichsfiihrer."
"There will be a meeting of the others, and I would like to have that information before I go to that." "I understand, Herr
Reichsfuhrer." "And then I'd like your recommendations for someone to send to Warsaw to deal with that incredible problem."
"Before I knew of this, Herr Reichsfiihrer, I made arrangements to take you there. There is a Heinkel at your disposal at Templehof."
"I thought perhaps you might suggest yourself. " "If the
Reichsfiihrer-SS had decided going to Warsaw was not worth his time, yes, sir."
Himmler was aware that von Deitzberg was ambitious and that he stood a far better chance of promotion to
Brigadefuhrer (brigadier general) if he had some operational experience in the field.
"The problem, Manfred, is priority," Himmler said kindly.
"The Argentine operation is of far greater importance to the
Reich than the unfortunate business in Warsaw. I need you here, at least until some decisions are made about Argentina."
"I understand, Herr Reichsfuhrer."
"Can you think of someone off the top of your head?"
"Three or four people, Herr Reichsfuhrer. But I thought you might wish to go over their dossiers with me before you made your decision."
"Good idea. Get the dossiers as soon as you can."
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsfuhrer."
[TWO]
The Chancellery of the German Reich
Wilhelmstrasse
Berlin
2230 27 April 1943
Though it was officially the Reich Chancellery Air Raid
Shelter, everyone thought of it-and called it-"the
Fiihrerbunker."
Under the supervision of Hitler's personal architect,
Albert Speer, a new Chancellery had been built in 1938-39 on the grounds of what was now known as "the old Reich
Chancellery." The new structure was far more imposing than the old, in both size and style.
The Fiihrer had studied the proposed plans for the new
Reich Chancellery and the bunker carefully, made a few
"suggestions" for improvement, and then had watched the actual construction with great interest.
After the bunker was finished, the courtyard of the old
Chancellery looked very much like it had before the shelter was built. There were two exceptions.
The first was a round-roofed one-story building in a cor ner of the courtyard, which served as an above-ground observation post for the guards of the SS-Leibstandarte (Life
Guards) Adolf Hitler Regiment, who had been assigned the duty of protecting the bunker. A three-story flight of stairs under this building led down into the bunker and provided an emergency exit from it.
The second was the main entrance to the bunker. Con structed of thick concrete, and equipped with theoretically bombproof doors, it clashed architecturally with the Chan cellery Building, but aesthetics had to give way to practical military engineering when the lives of the Fiihrer and his closest advisers were at stake.
Only two senior Nazi officials had their own quarters in the
Fiihrer bunker: the Fiihrer's closest advisers, Martin Bormann and the clubfooted Dr. Josef Goebbels, Minister of Propa ganda.
Not even Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring or Field Mar shal Wilhelm Keitel had space in the Fiihrer bunker. Nor did
Admiral Karl Donitz, head of the German Navy, nor
Joachim von Ribbentrop, nor Rear Admiral Wilhelm
Canaris, nor Reichsfiihrer-SS Heinrich Himmler.
Space had been found, however, for Adolf Hitler's good friend, Fraiilein Eva Braun, who had her own bedroom mod estly apart from the Fiihrer's.
Since it was useful to have an intelligent and trustworthy second pair of eyes and ears at important meetings, when
Reichsfiihrer-SS Heinrich Himmler went to the Reich Chan cellery this afternoon, he took Oberfiihrer Manfred von
Deitzberg with him, but managed to get von Deitzberg only as far as the foot of the stairway leading downward from the courtyard of the Chancellery.
When Himmler and von Deitzberg passed through the two steel doors leading to the main bunker stairs, they were snappily saluted by the Schutzstaffel noncommissioned offi cers on duty and passed through without question. Himmler was, after all, the Reichsfiihrer-SS, and the guards knew von
Deitzberg was his adjutant. But as Himmler reached the bottom of the last of the long flights of stairs, he realized he wouldn't be able to take von Deitzberg any farther. Sitting in a row on steel chairs in the small area outside the bunker waiting room were Deputy
Minister Georg Friedrich von Lowzer of the Foreign Min istry and the aides-de-camp to Admirals Donitz and Canaris.
Someone has decided, Himmler thought, that a deputy foreign minister, a Navy captain, and a Navy commander- not to mention an SS-Oberfiihrer-are not important enough to wait in the actual waiting room.
And there is no question in my mind that that someone is
Martin Bormann.
"May I get the Herr Oberfuhrer a coffee?" a Leibstandarte
Hauptsturmfuhrer politely inquired of von Deitzberg.
I wonder, Himmler thought as a Leibstandarte Obersturm fiihrer opened the door to the waiting room for him, if that bastard Bormann will have the effrontery to keep me waiting in here.
There was no one in the long, narrow waiting room but another Leibstandarte Hauptsturmfiihrer, who gave Himmler the Nazi salute.
'This way, if you please, Herr Reichsfuhrer-SS," he said, and led him through a cloakroom lined with metal wall lockers into Martin Bormann's office. It was furnished simply with a metal desk and chair, a low filing cabinet, and a small table.
The two admirals and the Foreign Minister were seated at the table.
Bormann, leaning against his desk, wore the brown uni form of the National Socialist Workers party. He was forty three, a stocky man of a little less than medium height, and wore his hair close-cropped.
"Ah, there you are, Heinrich!" Bormann greeted Himmler with a smile, and offered his hand. "We've been waiting for you."
Himmler consulted his wristwatch. He forced himself to smile.
"You said half past seven," he said. "It is seven twenty nine.
"No one comes in here," Bormann announced to the Leib standarte Hauptsturmftihrer. "And no calls, except from the
Fiihrer. Or someone calling for the Fiihrer."
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsleiter," the Hauptsturmfuhrer said, and closed the door.
Himmler nodded in turn to Donitz, von Ribbentrop, and
Canaris. Each returned the nod.
"The Reichsmarschall, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, and
Dr. Goebbels are with the Fiihrer at Wolfsschanze," Bor mann announced. "Keitel is aware of the cable from Buenos
Aires. I thought I would wait until we see what this meeting decides before seeking instructions from the Fiihrer."
Himmler thought: There is an implication in that which I don't like, that he alone decides what the Fiihrer will or will not be told.
In this case, since the Fiihrer is likely to be furious when he hears about the mess in Argentina, I will allow him to indulge his vanity.
"Has there been anything more than the first cable?"
Himmler asked.
Von Ribbentrop shook his head. He was wearing a busi ness suit, the only one there not in uniform. He was fifty, a small, once-handsome man whose blond hair was turning gray.
"The cable said very little," Bormann said, addressing von
Ribbentrop and making the observation an accusation.
Ambassador von Lutzenberger was a diplomat, and diplo mats were the responsibility of the Foreign Minister.
"It gave us the facts, Martin," Himmler argued reason ably. "And I rather admire von Lutzenberger's concern that our cables might not be as secure as we would like to believe."
"What did it tell you?" Bormann snapped.
"That we were lucky we didn't lose the Oceano Pacifico's special cargo-the Operation Phoenix special cargo-as well as Goltz and Griiner."
"It didn't say what happened, or who is responsible," Bor mann said.
"I would hazard the guess that either the papal nuncio or the American OSS is responsible," Himmler said sarcasti cally.
"There has to be someone in the embassy," Admiral
Canaris said.
The others looked at him. Canaris, too, was a short fifty five-year-old whose face was just starting to jowl. He had been a U-boat commander in World War I.
"I didn't know Goltz well, but Griiner was a good man,"
Canaris went on. "And from what little we know, I agree with Himmler that it was almost certainly the OSS-meaning that someone had to tell them not only what was going on but where and when."
"I will of course defer to the both of you in this area," von
Ribbentrop said, nodding at Himmler and Canaris. "But I did have the thought that the Argentines themselves might be responsible. They are, after all, Latin. Latins practice revenge. The two killings might be in retribution for the unfortunate death of Oberst Frade."
"They're capable of it," Canaris said thoughtfully. "That's worth thinking about."
Canaris was the acknowledged expert in this group about things Argentine. Not only had he been interned by the
Argentines during the First World War, but he had escaped from them.
"It was the OSS," Bormann pronounced.
"Von Lutzenberger's cable said other details were avail able," Himmler said. "Details he obviously did not wish to transmit in a radio message. And he provided us with the names of those people privy to those details."
"What do we know about those people?" Bormann asked.
"I took the trouble to review their dossiers," Himmler said, "this afternoon."
"And?" Canaris asked.
"Gradny-Sawz's family," Himmler began, "has served the
Austro-Hungarian diplomatic service for generations, and
Gradny-Sawz has followed in that tradition. Sometime before the Anschluss," he went on, referring to the 1938 incorporation of Austria into the German Reich, which men became the German state of Ostmark, "he was approached by one of my men, who solicited his cooperation. Gradny Sawz not only readily offered it, but was of no small value to us during the Anschluss."
"From one perspective-the Austrian perspective-that could have been viewed as treason," Admiral Donitz said.
Donitz, the tallest of the group, was fifty-two, slim, and intelligent looking.
"Or enlightened self-interest," Bormann said, chuckling.
"The man who recruited Gradny-Sawz was Standarten fuhrer Goltz, who himself was recruited by Oberfubrer von
Deitzberg," Himmler said. "Goltz had been close friends with Gradny-Sawz for years."
"And the others?" Bormann asked.
"Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck," Himmler said,
"was recruited for this assignment by Goltz. He worked for
Goltz here. Goltz had absolute confidence in him."
"That leaves the aviator," Bormann said.
"Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein," Himmler said, "the son of Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von
Wachtstein…"
"Who is on the staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrma cht," Donitz added. "The family has served Germany for hundreds of years." The Oberkommando was the High
Command of the armed forces.
"The boy-I suppose I shouldn't call him 'the boy'- received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from the
Fiihrer himself," Canaris chimed in.
"And whose two brothers have laid down their lives for the Fatherland in this war," Donitz added.
"So these three are above suspicion, is that what you're saying?" Bormann challenged. "Somebody has talked to the
Americans."
"Or to the Argentines," Canaris said. "Von Ribbentrop may well be onto something. The Argentines are quite capable of taking revenge. I was a little uncomfortable with the decision to remove Oberst Frade."
"You think that's possible, do you?" Himmler asked.
"Anything in Argentina is possible," Canaris replied. "We haven't mentioned von Lutzenberger himself. I have nothing to suggest that he is anything but wholly reliable. Do you?"
"No," Himmler said simply.
"So where are we?" Bormann asked. "Two very good men are dead. What we sent to Argentina is now somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean en route to Cadiz…"
"Everything we sent over there," Donitz said. "We should not forget that in addition to the special shipment, the
Oceano Pacifico was carrying supplies for twenty-seven submarines operating in the South Atlantic."
"What about a rendezvous at sea?" Himmler asked.
"I began to work on that the moment I saw von Lutzen berger's cable," Donitz said. "Possibly something can be worked out. But it is not easy. And so far as the Oceano
Pacifico is concerned, it's out of the question. She is being followed by an American destroyer. And, unless I am being unduly pessimistic, I don't think the new Argentine govern ment will allow us to anchor a ship in their protected waters again."
"The more I think about it, the American involvement in this might be less than I thought at first," Canaris said.
"In any case," Bormann said, "our own priority, it seems to me, is to make certain that the special cargo of Operation
Phoenix is safely landed in Argentina."
"Safely landed," Canaris agreed. "Not lost at sea, not falling into the hands of the Argentines. Or, God forbid, the
Americans."
"Do you think the Argentines know-or suspect-any thing about the special cargo?" Donitz asked.
"You will recall, Admiral," Canaris said, "that one of the
American OSS agents was reported to have asked questions on that subject."
"Reported by von Tresmarck," Himmler said, "who rec ommended his removal."
"That happened, didn't it?" Bormann asked.
"Von Tresmarck dealt with the problem," Himmler said.
"We don't know how much he found out-or passed on-before he was removed," Canaris said. "And he was a
Jew. Jews talk to Jews."
"It would seem to me, gentlemen, with all respect,"
Himmler said, "that we have only a few facts before us.
Making decisions with so few facts is counterproductive.
Thus we need to talk to someone who, as von Lutzenberger said, is 'personally familiar' with the incident."
Canaris grunted his agreement, then asked: "Which of them? All of them?"
Himmler did not respond to the question directly. "The first thing we have to do is learn what we're facing."
"I agree," Canaris said.
"And the way to do that," Himmler went on, "is to send people to Buenos Aires to find out, and bring some of the people on von Lutzenberger's list here, to get their stories.
Once we have decided what the situation is, we can decide how to deal with it."
"Go on," Bormann said.
"What I suggest-what I intend to do immediately, unless there is serious objection-is to send my adjutant, Ober fiihrer von Deitzberg, and his deputy, Standartenfuhrer
Raschner, to Buenos Aires. As you know, von Deitzberg is conversant with all the details of this program. Between the two of them they can determine how this disaster came about."
"You mean, conduct the investigation entirely in
Argentina?" Canaris asked.
"Oh, no. The same plane that takes my men to Argentina will bring to Berlin some of the people on von Lutzen berger's list."
"Who, specifically?" Bormann asked.
"If I send von Deitzberg, that would permit me to bring von Tresmarck to Berlin," Himmler said.
"I would like to personally hear what von Tresmarck has to say," Canaris said.
"With that in mind," von Ribbentrop said, "What if I send von Lowzer? And bring back Gradny-Sawz?"
"Who is Lowzer?" Donitz asked.
"Deputy Minister Georg Friedrich von Lowzer," von
Ribbentrop said. "He is also privy to Phoenix. I don't want to leave him over there for long, however. I need him here."
"Our priority is the success of Operation Phoenix," Bor mann said, somewhat unpleasantly. "Whether or not that is convenient for anyone."
"I was speaking of von Lowzer's value to Phoenix," von
Ribbentrop said. "And once we have a talk with Gradny Sawz, I think we'll probably be able to send him back to
Buenos Aires. Then I can bring von Lowzer back here."
"Why not bring von Wachtstein to Berlin as well?" Donitz asked. "If I read that cable correctly, he was physically present on the beach."
"I thought about that, " Himmler responded. "We don't know how much-or how little-he knows about Phoenix.
But yes, I think it would be a good idea to have von Wacht stein come here."
"I agree," Donitz said.
"If von Wachtstein was on the beach when the two men were killed, he has to know something about what was going on," Canaris said.
"And once we have a chance to talk to him," Himmler said,
"we can decide whether to tell him more or eliminate him."
"You have some reason to suspect him of complicity?"
Canaris asked.
"No," Himmler said. "That's my point, Admiral. We need information. And I have suggested a way to get it."
"I agree with the Reichsfuhrer," Canaris said. "But I have a suggestion of my own. We need an immediate replacement for
Oberst Griiner. In both his military and Sicherheitsdienst roles." The Sicherheitsdienst, SD, were the secret police within the SS.
"That's true," Himmler said. "Who do you have in mind?"
"One of my officers, Korvettenkapitan Boltitz-"
"Karl Boltitz?" Donitz interrupted.
Canaris nodded.
"I know his father very well. And the son's a bright young man," Donitz added.
"More to the point, he's a bright intelligence officer,"
Canaris said. "He's been my liaison officer to von Ribbentrop.
I think he would be useful in Buenos Aires. But before we send to him to Argentina, I think we should have him talk, one sailor to another, so to speak, with Kapitan de
Banderano…"
"With who?" Bormann asked.
"The captain of the Oceano Pacifico," Himmler fur nished. "He was also present at Puerto Magdalena." And then he had a second thought. "He wasn't on von Lutzen berger's list."
"An excellent reason to talk to him, wouldn't you say?"
Canaris said.
Himmler chuckled.
"She should make Cadiz on the eighteenth or nineteenth of
May," Canaris said, which told Himmler that Canaris had been thinking of Captain de Banderano before he came to the meeting. "That would mean Boltitz couldn't go to Buenos
Aires immediately."
"I agree that talking to de Banderano is important,"
Himmler said. "I can send someone with Boltitz to Cadiz, to report to us here after Boltitz talks to de Banderano. Then
Boltitz could leave for Argentina that much sooner."
"That's fine with me," Canaris said, then added: "And
Herr Reichsfuhrer, with all possible respect, I have another suggestion for you."
"Which is?" Himmler asked with a tight smile.
"An army officer would draw less attention in Buenos
Aires than a senior SS officer. And the less attention in a sit uation like this, the better."
"You're suggesting we don't send von Deitzberg?"
"I was wondering how convincingly Oberfiihrer von
Deitzberg could wear the uniform of the Wehrmacht,"
Canaris said.
"I take your point, Admiral," Himmler said. "And I would say that Oberfiihrer von Deitzberg would make a convincing
Wehrmacht general officer. Do you think Keitel would object if I seconded him to the General Staff?"
"I think we can explain the situation to the Generalfeld marschall," Canaris said, smiling.
'Is there anything else?" Himmler asked, looking at each of them in turn.
No one had anything to say.
"If there are no objections, I'll send the necessary cable, and arrange for their passage on the Condor," von Ribben trop said.
"And what do we tell the Fiihrer at this time?" Donitz asked.
"I would suggest that the Fiihrer has enough to occupy his attention without bringing this to his table until we know what we're talking about, and what we are going to do,"
Bormann said.
He looked at each man in turn, and each man, in turn, nodded his agreement.
[THREE]
The Chancellery of the German Reich
Wilhelmstrasse
Berlin
2325 27 April 1943
The first of the official Mercedeses lined up on Wilhelm strasse to transport the senior officers who had attended the conference in the Fiihrer bunker was that of Reichsprotektor
SS Heinrich Himmler. The Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regi ment knew on which side their bread was buttered.
As soon as the car had moved away from the curb, Himmler turned to Oberfuhrer Manfred von Deitzberg.
"Manfred, how would you feel about going to Buenos
Aires?" he asked.
"Whatever the Herr Reichsprotektor thinks is necessary," von Deitzberg replied.
"I asked how you would feel about going there."
"From what I've heard, it's a beautiful city," von
Deitzberg said.
"It was decided in there that you should go to Buenos
Aires to find out what happened there," Himmler said.
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsprotektor. May I take Raschner with me?"
Himmler nodded.
"And Canaris suggested that you go in a Wehrmacht uni form… that of a Generalmajor," Himmler said. "He said he thought you would attract less attention that way. How do you feel about that?"
"I think he has a point," von Deitzberg said. "But how could that be done? Wouldn't Keitel object?"
"There will be no objections from Keitel," Himmler said flatly.
"It will be a strange feeling putting on a Wehrmacht uni form again," von Deitzberg thought aloud.
Himmler smiled knowingly at him.
Actually, the thought of putting on a Generalmajor's uni form-and I won't just be putting it on, there will be some kind of official appointment, even if temporary; I will be a
Generalmajor-is rather pleasant.
The von Deitzberg family had provided officers to Germany for centuries, and Manfred had been an Army officer-an
Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) of Cavalry-before he trans ferred to the SS.
In 1911, when Manfred was ten years old, his father- then an Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel)-had been assigned to the German garrison in German East Africa.
Manfred had clear memories of the good life in the African highlands, of their large houses, the verdant fields, the black servants.
His father had loved Africa and had invested heavily in
German East African real estate, borrowing against the family's
Westphalian estates to do so. When war came-Manfred was then fourteen-his father had been rapidly promoted to
Generalmajor, and had served until the Armistice as deputy commander of German military forces in German East Africa.
The Armistice had brought with it an immediate reversal of the von Deitzberg family fortunes.
Under the Versailles Treaty of 28 June 1919, Germany lost 25,550 square miles of its land and seven million of its citizens to Poland, France, and Czechoslovakia. Its major
Baltic port, Danzig, became a "free port" administered by
Poland. Most of the Rhineland was occupied by Allied troops. The Saar was given "temporarily" to France; and the
Rhine, Oder, Memel, Danube, and Moselle Rivers were internationalized. Austria was prohibited from any future union with Germany.
All German holdings abroad, including those of private
German citizens, were confiscated. Almost the entire mer chant fleet was expropriated. One hundred forty thousand dairy cows and other livestock were shipped out of Germany as reparations, as well as heavy machinery (including entire factories) and vast amounts of iron ore and coal.
Billions of marks were assessed annually as reparations, and German colonies in Africa and elsewhere were seized by the League of Nations and then mandated to the various
Allies (though not to the United States).
Under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, all the von
Deitzberg family property in what had become the former
German East Africa had been lost.
And since the loans against the von Deitzberg estates in
Westphalia had been still on the books of the Dresdener
Bank, when payments could not be made, the estates were also lost.
Soon afterward, Generalmajor von Deitzberg had com mitted suicide. He had not only been shamed that his deci sions had resulted in the loss of his family's estates, but he was unwilling to face spending the rest of his life in a small apartment somewhere, living only on his retirement pay.
Army friends of the family had arranged a place for Man fred in the cadet school, and in 1923, when he was twenty two, he had been commissioned a lieutenant of cavalry like his father and his grandfather. The difference for Manfred was that the family could no longer afford to subsidize its sons' military pay-meaning that Manfred had to live on his army pay, and it wasn't much.
Furthermore, because the Army was now limited to
100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty, promotions had come very slowly. In 1932, when Manfred was finally promoted
Oberleutnant, he was thirty-one and had been in the Army nine years.
A month before his promotion, he had joined the National
Socialist German Workers party, recognizing in Adolf Hitler a man who could restore Germany-and the German army-to greatness.
The next year, he learned that Heinrich Himmler was expanding the "Protective Echelon" (Der Schutzstaffel, formed in 1925 to protect Hitler) of the Nazi party into a more heavily armed, army-like force to be called the
Waffen-SS.
Manfred suspected that the Waffen-SS would become in time the most important armed force of Germany. And he knew that Hitler did not wholly trust the Army-an opinion shared by most of the senior National Socialist hierarchy.
The majority of the army's officer corps came from the aris tocracy, who looked down not only on Hitler himself (whom they referred to privately as "The Bavarian Corporal") but also on many in his inner circle. The Nazis were well aware of this.
Nevertheless, von Deitzberg had concluded that a profes sional officer who truly believed that National Socialism was the future would fare much better in the Waffen-SS than in the Wehrmacht, if for no other reason than that the
Waffen-SS would in the beginning be short of professional soldiers, since its officer corps would come predominantly from one branch or another of the police (many police officers had joined the Nazi party very early on).
He was well aware that you can't make an Army officer out of a policeman-no matter how good a Nazi-by simply putting him in a uniform and calling him Sturmbannfiihrer or Obersturmbannfiihrer. It takes training and experience, and he had both.
His application for an SS commission was quickly approved, and within a year he had been promoted to Haupt sturmfiihrer (captain). He was promoted to Sturmbannfuhrer
(major) two years after that-much sooner than he would have received the equivalent promotion in the Wehrmacht.
At the time of his promotion, von Deitzberg had been sta tioned in Munich, which exercised administrative authority over, among other things, the concentration camp at Dachau.
His superior staff work in this position brought him to the attention of Brigadefiihrer Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's adjutant.
Like von Deitzburg, Heydrich had been a professional officer (in the Navy, in his case). But for Heydrich it wasn't problems with making ends meet that sent him into the SS.
Rather, he had been forced to resign his naval commission because of an unfortunate affair with a woman. His military experience still left him convinced-with von Deitzberg- that you can't make good officers just by pinning rank insignia on them.
Heydrich had von Deitzberg assigned to his office in
Berlin, and there they became friends.
This turned out to be a mixed blessing. Heydrich liked fast cars, fast women, and good food. The SS provided his
Mercedes, and the fast women were free, but usually only after they'd been wined and dined at Berlin's better restau rants, where Heydrich was seldom presented with a check.
Since von Deitzberg did not enjoy Heydrich's celebrity, waiters and bartenders were not at all reluctant to hand the checks to him.
In August 1941, in the Reichschancellery, Hitler had per sonally promoted Heydrich to Gruppenfiihrer (Major Gen eral) and von Deitzberg-newly appointed as First Deputy
Adjutant to Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler-to Obersturm bannfiihrer.
After a good deal of Champagne at the promotion party at the Hotel Adlon, von Deitzberg confided to Heydrich that, although the promotion was satisfying for a number of rea sons, it was most satisfying because he needed the money.
Two days later, Heydrich handed him an envelope con taining a great deal of cash.
"Consider this a confidential allowance," Heydrich said.
"Spend it as you need to. It doesn't have to be accounted for. It comes from a confidential special fund."
With his new position as First Deputy Adjutant to Reichs fuhrer-SS Himmler came other perquisites, including a deputy. Heydrich sent him-"for your approval; if you don't get along, I'll send you somebody else"-Obersturmfiihrer
Erich Raschner, whom Heydrich identified as intelligent and trustworthy. And, who "having never served in either the
Waffen-SS," he went on, "or the Wehrmacht, has been taught to respect those of his superiors who have."
Raschner turned out to be a short, squat, phlegmatic Hes sian, three years older than von Deitzberg. He had come into the SS as a policeman, but a policeman with an unusual background.
For one thing, he had originally been commissioned into the Allgemeine-SS, which dealt mainly with internal security and racial matters, rather than the Waffen-SS. Later, he had been transferred -to the Sicherheitspolizei, the Security
Police, called the Sipo, of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or
RSHA (Reich Security Central Office).
Early on in his time with von Deitzberg, Raschner made it clear that as von Deitzberg was judging him for a long-term relationship, Raschner was doing the same thing. Von
Deitzberg understood that to mean that it was important to
Heydrich for them to get along.
Two weeks later, Heydrich asked von Deitzberg for an opinion of Raschner, and von Deitzberg gave him the answer he thought he wanted: They got along personally, and
Raschner would bring to the job knowledge of police and internal security matters that von Deitzberg admitted he did not have.
"Good," Heydrich said with a smile. "He likes you, too.
We'll make it permanent. And tonight we'll celebrate. Come by the house at, say, half past seven."
At half past seven, they opened a very nice bottle of Cour voisier cognac, toasted the new relationship, and then Hey drich matter-of-factly explained its nature.
"One of the things I admire in you, Manfred," Heydrich said, "is that you can get things done administratively."
"Thank you."
"And Erich, on the other hand, can get done whatever needs to be done without any record being kept. Do you follow me?"
"I'm not sure."
"The confidential special fund is what I'm leading up to,"
Heydrich said. "I'm sure that aroused your curiosity, Man fred?"
"Yes, it did."
"What no longer appears on Erich's service record is that he served with the Totenkopfverbande," Heydrich said. The
Death's-Head-Skull-Battalions were charged with the administration of concentration camps.
"I didn't know that."
"You told me a while ago you were having a little trouble keeping your financial head above water. A lot of us have that problem. We work hard, right? We should play hard, right? And to do that, you need the wherewithal, right?"
"Yes, Sir," von Deitzberg said, smiling.
"Has the real purpose of the concentration camps ever occurred to you, Manfred?"
"You're talking about the Final Solution?"
"In a sense. The Fiihrer correctly believes that the Jews are a cancer on Germany, and that we have to remove that cancer. You understand that, of course?"
"Of course."
"The important thing is to take them out of the German society. In some instances, we can make them contribute to
Germany with their labor. You remember what it says over the gate at Dachau?"
" 'Arbeit macht frei'?"
"Yes. But if the parasites can't work, can't be forced to make some repayment for all they have stolen from Ger many over the years, then something else has to be done with them. Right?"
"I understand."
"Elimination is one option," Heydrich said. "But if you think about it, realize that the basic objective is to get these parasites out of Germany, elimination is not the only option."
"I don't think I quite understand," von Deitzberg con fessed.
"Put very simply, there are Jews outside of Germany who are willing to pay generously to have their relatives and friends removed from the concentration camps," Heydrich said.
"Really?"
"When it first came to my attention, I was tempted to dis miss this possibility out of hand," Heydrich said. "But then I gave it some thought. For one thing, it accomplishes the
Fiihrer's primary purpose-removing these parasitic vermin from the Fatherland. It does National Socialism no harm if vermin that cost us good money to feed and house leave
Germany and never return."
"I can see your point."
"And at the same time, it takes money from Jews outside
Germany and transfers it to Germany. So there is also an ele ment of justice. They are not getting away free after sucking our blood all these years."
"I understand."
"In other words, if we can further the Fiihrer's intention to get Jews out of Germany, and at the same time bring Jewish money into Germany, and at the same time make a little money for ourselves, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing that I can see."
"This has to be done in absolute secrecy, of course. A number of people would not understand, and an even larger number would feel they have a right to share in the confi dential special fund. You can understand that."
"Yes, of course."
"Raschner will get into the details with you," Heydrich went on. "But essentially, you will do what I've been doing myself. Inmates are routinely transferred from one concen tration camp to another. And, routinely, while the inmates are en route, members of the Totenkopfverbande remove two, three, or four of them from the transport. For purposes of further interrogation and the like. Having been told the inmates have been removed by the Totenkopfverbande, the receiving camp has no further interest in them. The inmates who have been removed from the transport are then pro vided with Spanish passports, and taken by Gestapo escorts to the Spanish border. Once in Spain, they make their way to
Cadiz or some other port and board neutral ships. A month later, they're in Uruguay."
"Uruguay?" von Deitzberg blurted in surprise. It had taken him a moment to place Uruguay, and even then, all he could come up with was that it was close to Argentina, somewhere in the south of the South American continent.
"Some stay there," Heydrich said matter-of-factly, "but many go on to Argentina."
"I see," von Deitzberg said.
"Documents issued by my office are of course never ques tioned," Heydrich went on, "and Raschner will tell you what documents are necessary. You will also administer dispersals from the confidential special fund. Raschner will tell you how much, to whom, and when."
"I understand."
"We have one immediate problem," Heydrich said. "And then we'll have another little sip of this splendid brandy and go see what we can find for dinner."
"An immediate problem?"
"We need one more man here in Berlin," Heydrich said.
"Someone who will understand the situation, and who can be trusted. I want you to recruit him yourself. Can you think of anyone?"
That had posed no problem for von Deitzberg.
"Josef Goltz," he said immediately. "Obersturmbann fiihrer Goltz."
Heydrich made a "give me more" sign with his hands.
"He's the SS-SD liaison officer to the Office of the Party
Chancellery."
Heydrich laughed. "Great minds run in similar channels," he said. "That's the answer I got when I asked Raschner for ideas. Why don't the two of you talk to him together?"
In addition to his other duties, Heydrich had been named
"Protector of Czechoslovakia." On May 31, 1942, he was fatally wounded when Czech agents of the British threw a bomb into his car in Prague.
Before leaving Berlin to personally supervise the retribution to be visited upon the Czechs for Heydrich's murder,
Himmler called von Deitzberg into his office to tell him how much he would have to rely on him until a suitable replace ment for the martyred Heydrich could be found.
Meanwhile, von Deitzberg was faced with a serious problem.
With Heydrich's death, he had become the senior officer involved with the confidential fund and the source of its money, and he had never learned from Heydrich how much
Himmler knew about it.
He quickly and carefully checked the records of dispersal of money, but found no record that Himmler had ever received money from it.
It was, of course, possible that the enormous disburse ments to Heydrich had included money that Heydrich had quietly slipped to Himmler; that way there would be no record of Himmler's involvement.
Three months later, however, after Himmler had asked neither for money nor information about the status of the confidential fund, von Deitzberg was forced to conclude not only that Himmler knew nothing about it but that Heydrich had gone to great lengths to conceal it from the Reichspro tektor.
It was entirely possible, therefore, that Himmler would be furious if he learned now about the confidential fund. The
Reichsprotektor had a puritanical streak, and he might con sider that Heydrich had actually been stealing from the
Reich, and that von Deitzberg had been involved in the theft up to his neck.
When von Deitzberg brought the subject up to Raschner,
Raschner advised that as far as he himself knew, Himmler either didn't know about the fund-or didn't want to know about it. Thus, an approach to him now might see everyone connected with it stood before a wall and shot.
They had no choice, Raschner concluded, but to go on as they had… but taking even greater care to make sure the ransoming operation remained secret.
No one was ever found to replace Heydrich as Himmler's adjutant.
In von Deitzberg's view, Himmler was unwilling to bring a stranger, so to speak, into the office of the Reichsfiihrer-SS.
And besides, he didn't have to, since von Deitzberg was obviously capable of taking over for Heydrich. It would have been additionally very difficult to keep Heydrich's replacement from learning about the confidential fund.
The thing to do now was make sure that no one was brought in. In what he thought was a fine example of thinking under pressure, von Deitzberg had never mentioned that he, a relatively lowly Obersturmbannfiihrer, had been placed in the shoes of a Gruppenfiihrer, which was of course a fitting rank for the Adjutant of the Reichsfiihrer-SS.
Von Deitzberg recognized that when Himmler considered this disparity, he would conclude that anyone privileged to be of such high-level service to himself should be at least a
Standartenfuhrer (colonel)-a promotion for which von
Deitzberg was eligible-and that he would in fact be pro moted long before he would otherwise have a chance to be.
A week later, Himmler took him to the Reichschancellery, where a beaming, cordial Adolf Hitler personally promoted him not to Gruppenfiihrer but to Oberfiihrer, one grade higher, and warmly thanked him for his services to the SS and himself personally.
The risk of someone new coming into the Office of the
Reichsprotektor and learning about the confidential fund seemed to be over.
Von Deitzberg immediately arranged for Goltz to be pro moted to Sturmbannfuhrer, Raschner to Hauptsturmftihrer and, six months after that, to Sturmbannfuhrer. During that period, Goltz recruited a man-Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck-to be sent to Montevideo, Uruguay, osten sibly as the Embassy security officer, but actually to handle the affairs of the ransoming operation.
Later, when Operation Phoenix was put in motion, von
Deitzberg had recommended Standartenfuhrer Goltz as the man to set up and run the project in Argentina. This would also put him in a position to handle the South American end of the confidential fund. For several reasons, he was more capable, and more reliable, than von Tresmarck.
If Goltz did as well as von Deitzberg expected, his promotion to Oberfuhrer could be arranged; and if that happened, he could subtly remind Himmler that his own promotion to
Brigadefiihrer would be appropriate.
In that event, the risk of Himmler finding out about the confidential fund would have been even further reduced.
But that hadn't happened. Goltz was now dead, and there was a real possibility that when von Tresmarck was ques tioned, he would blurt out everything he knew about the confidential fund to save his own skin.
And who, von Deitzberg wondered, is going to fill in for him while he is gone? One of his men? Or someone who will eagerly try to fill the vacuum? And might that man come across a clue that would lead him to the confidential fund?
"I'm going to miss you in the office, Manfred," Himmler said as the Mercedes rolled down the Kurfiirstendamm.
"I will do my best to see that you are properly served in my absence, Herr Reichsprotektor."
"But I think you and Raschner are the right team to send over to get to the bottom of this."
"I will do my best, Herr Reichsprotektor."
"My feeling, Manfred, is that there are three possibilities."
"Which are, Herr Reichsprotektor?"
"One, someone has betrayed us. Two, Canaris is right, and the Argentine army is responsible for the murders of
Goltz and Grilner. And three, that the American OSS is involved."
"I agree, Sir."
"But the most important thing for you to find out is how much the Argentines and the Americans know about Operation
Phoenix-and I hope they know nothing. Operation
Phoenix is the priority, Manfred. That must go forward!"
"I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor."
"To that end-if I have to say this-you have my authority to do whatever you think is necessary."
"I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor. I am honored by your trust."
"Whatever is necessary, Manfred."
"Jawohl, Herr Reichsprotektor."
Ill
[ONE]
Office of the Director, Abwehr Intelligence
Berlin
0930 28 April 1943
"Korvettenkapitan Boltitz, Herr Admiral," Admiral Wilhelm
Canaris's aide announced.
Canaris looked up from the work on his desk and saw the two young naval officers standing in his open door. He didn't reply, but made three gestures. First, with his index finger he beckoned Boltitz into the office; then he signaled him to close the door; and lastly he pointed to a chair placed squarely in front of his desk.
After that, he returned his attention to the report on his desk; he didn't look up again for five minutes.
When he had finished reading, he raised his eyes toward the ceiling. After a moment he nodded his head, as if in agreement with something, exhaled audibly, lowered his eyes to the desk, reached out for a pen, and wrote something quickly on the report before him.
A moment later, his aide-de-camp opened the door to his office.
There's probably a button on the floor, Boltitz thought.
Canaris again signaled three times with his hand without speaking. He motioned the aide into the office, pointed to the report, which the aide came and took, and gestured a final time for the aide to close the door.
Then he looked at Boltitz, who started to raise himself from the chair.
Canaris held out his hand to signal him to remain seated.
Boltitz sat back down.
Canaris almost visibly gathered his thoughts.
"There is always difficulty, Boltitz, when gathering intel ligence that interests more than one agency; it becomes a question of priorities. Agency A, for its own reasons, is very interested to learn facts that are of little-sometimes no- interest whatever to Agency B, which, for its own reasons, is interested to learn a set of entirely different facts. I'm sure you're aware of this."
"I understand, Herr Admiral."
"The Filhrer has not found time in his busy schedule to share with me his thoughts about what happened in
Argentina, or, for that matter, to convey to me the impor tance he places on Operation Phoenix. Possibly this is because the Fiihrer-who not only believes, as we all do, in our ultimate victory, but is burdened with the leadership of the state-does not feel he should waste his time dealing with the contingency of being offered, or forced to seek, an armistice, and the ramifications thereof."
"I understand, Herr Admiral," Boltitz said.
This wasn't entirely true. Karl Boltitz was trying very hard to understand what Canaris was really saying.
Kapitanleutnant Boltitz recalled what his father, Vizeadmi-ral
Kurt Ludwig Boltitz, had told him as he was about to report to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht for duty with the
Abwehr: "The best advice I can give you, Karl, is to listen to what Canaris is not saying."
Kapitanleutnant Boltitz had not been at all happy about his assignment to a desk in Berlin. After a brief service upon the Graf Spee, he had been reassigned to submarines. He had quickly risen to become the Number One (Executive
Officer) of U-241, operating in the North Atlantic from the submarine pens at St. Nazaire, and there had been no question in his mind that he would shortly be given his own boat.
There had in fact been orders waiting for Leutnant zur See
Boltitz when U-241 tied up at the underground pens of St.
Nazaire after his seventh patrol. But rather than announcing that he was detached for the purpose of assuming command of another submarine, the orders told him to report for duty to
Section VIII (H) of the Naval Element, Oberkommando der
Wehrmacht.
He had been a bureaucrat in Navy uniform long enough to know what Section VIII (H) was. It was the purposely innocuous-sounding pigeonhole to which naval officers working for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the Chief of Abwehr
Intelligence, were ostensibly assigned.
Earlier, he had had no doubt that his father had arranged his assignment to the Graf Spec; and now he had no doubt that Vizeadmiral Boltitz's influence was getting him off sub marine duty… a situation that gave him a good deal to think about.
For one thing, he could not deny his first reaction to his orders… both the shame and the immense relief. Relief because he would no longer have to put to sea in U-241 and face the terrors of being depth-charged by British or American destroyers.
Shame because of the simple question of honor. His father had acted dishonorably in using his influence to remove his son from combat service. And consequently, as a man of honor, it was clearly his duty to protest the special treatment and to resist it in any way he could. If necessary, he decided, he would appeal upward in the chain of com mand all the way to Admiral Donitz, even if that meant embarrassing his father. That couldn't be helped. His father should not have done what he did.
When he confronted his father in Berlin with the accusa tion, Vizeadmiral Boltitz's response was not at all what he expected.
"I had absolutely nothing to do with your transfer," his father said.
"I have your word?"
"If you feel that that's necessary, Karl."
"In that case, I offer my apologies."
"Don't. If I had the influence you think I have, you would never have gone to submarines in the first place. And I have tried and failed ever since you went to submarines to get you out."
"That's dishonorable!"
"Let me tell you something, Karl," his father said. "For reasons we can only guess at, God gives some men authority over others. How a man uses that authority, for good or evil, is between himself and God, as well as between himself and the
State. We are engaged in an evil war, if I have to tell you that.
If I can keep my son from being killed in an evil war, I will do that, and I think God will be on my side."
Karl didn't reply.
"Tell me, Karl," Vizeadmiral Boltitz said, "do you remember your first cruise out on the U-241?"
Karl did, vividly.
His first patrol aboard U-241-as the gunnery officer, in charge of the deck-mounted cannon and the conning tower-mounted machine guns-had not been quite what he had expected.
For one thing, firing his cannon at an old, battered, and rusty merchantman and watching her sink mortally wounded beneath the waves, and then leaving her crew afloat in lifeboats, three hundred miles from shore in the
North Atlantic in winter, had not seemed to be much of a glorious victory at sea.
And what had happened in the captain's cabin immedi ately afterward was not in the honorable naval tradition of, say, Admiral Graf Spec.
The captain-Kapitanleutnant Siegfried von Stoup-had been two years ahead of Karl Boltitz at the Naval Academy.
They had not been friends, but they knew each other. "Con gratulations on your marksmanship, Boltitz," Kapitanleutnant von Stoup said.
"Thank you, Sir," Boltitz replied.
"You may examine the entry in the log," von Stoup said, and slid it across the tiny table to him.
Sank by gunfir e(obleBoltitz )ss star of Bombay, Est. 12000 Gross
Tons No Survivors.
"No survivors, Sir?"
"I am sure, Boltitz, that if there were any survivors, you would have seen them. In which case, in compliance with orders from our Fiihrer, you would, as an obedient officer, have made sure there were no survivors. Nicht war?"
"You mean fire at the seamen?"
"I mean ensure there were no survivors, as our Ftihrer has ordered."
"That's the order?" Boltitz asked incredulously.
Kapitanleutnant von Stoup nodded. "So far, I have not informed the enlisted men of the order," he said. "Except, of course, the Chief of the Boat. Some of them might find machine-gunning seamen in lifeboats distasteful."
"Good God!"
"The Fiihrer is of course right, Boltitz. Survivors of a sunk merchantmen are skilled seamen, who can serve aboard other ships. This is total war-we can't permit that to happen."
Karl had looked at him in disbelief.
"You will make sure, won't you, Oberleutnant Boltitz, that no one on your gun crew saw any survivors either?"
"Jawohl, Herr Kapitan."
"That will be all, Karl, thank you."
It was the first time Kapitanleutnant von Stoup had ever called him by his Christian name.
Later the same day, the Chief of the Boat told him that he had served under his father when he was a young seaman and would be grateful, when the Herr Oberleutnant had the chance, if he would pass on his respects. The Chief added that he had already spoken to the deck gun crew to make sure no one had seen any survivors of the Star of Bombay.
"As an honorable officer," Karl's father was saying, "how did you feel about machine-gunning merchant seamen in their lifeboats?"
"That never happened on U-241," Karl said.
"You have sworn an oath of personal loyalty to the Fiihrer.
Was it honorable to disobey an order from the Fiihrer? Or did you perhaps think that disobeying an order to commit murder was the more honorable thing to do?"
"I was never actually given the order," Karl said. "My captain-Kapitanleutnant von Stoup-was an honorable man, incapable of murder."
"It's always easier, of course, to let a superior decide questions of honor and morality for you. But sometimes you will have to make those decisions yourself. That, I suspect, is what you are going to have to do when you go to work for
Wilhelm Canaris."
"Are you suggesting he's not an honorable man?" Karl asked, genuinely surprised.
"My experience with him, over the years, is that he is far more honorable than I am, and certainly more than the people he serves."
"What are you saying?"
"The best advice I can give you, Karl, is to listen to what
Canaris is not saying."
The validity of his father's advice became immediately apparent on the second day of Oberleutnant Boltitz's duty with Section VIII (H).
His immediate superior-Fregattenkapitan Otto von und zu Waching, a small, trim, intense Swabian-took him to meet Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.
"I always like to personally greet officers newly assigned to me," Canaris began, looking intently into Karl's eyes. "To make a snap judgment, so to speak, about how well suited they may be for work in this area."
Karl could think of nothing to say in reply.
"You come highly recommended for this assignment, if I am to believe Kapitanleutnant von Stoup," Canaris went on.
"He seems to feel that your belief in, your dedication to,
National Socialism and your unquestioned obedience to the orders of our Fiihrer is to be expected from an officer of your heritage."
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm surprised that he even knows who Siegfried van Stoup is, much less that van Stoup recommended me for an assignment here.
God, what did the Old Man say? "Listen to what Canaris is not saying."
My God! Canaris is telling me that he knows van Stoup is disobeying the "no survivors" order; and that he also knows-the crack about "someone of your heritage"-that my father believes we are in an evil war.
"Where we're going to start you off, Boltitz, under Fregat tenkapitan von und zu Waching, is as the liaison officer between this office and that of Foreign Minister von Ribben trop. You will be expected to make yourself useful to both von Ribbentrop and von und zu Waching, and to keep your eyes and ears open over there for anything that might interest us. Additionally, to give you a feel for the conduct of a covert operation, I want you to come up with a plan to have the officers-and the men, if this is feasible-of the Graf
Spee to be returned to service from their internment in
Argentina."
"Jawohl, Herr Admiral."
"It would appear that you have some unusual qualifica tions for this assignment. You speak Spanish; you served aboard the Graf Spee; and it is self-evident that submarines will have to be involved. And it will serve as a learning experience for you. Both initial assignments will serve that purpose."
"Yes, Sir."
"I will be interested in your progress, Boltitz. I hope that you will not disappoint me. Or your father. Or Kapitanleut nant von Stoup."
"I will do my best, Herr Admiral."
"That will be all, gentlemen," Canaris said, dismissing them.
Though no one had told him anything specifically, Boltitz had quickly come to understand that making himself useful to both von Ribbentrop and von und zu Waching consisted primarily of carrying messages between von Ribbentrop and
Canaris without anyone in the Foreign Ministry knowing about it. But he additionally made mental notes recording everyone in the Nazi hierarchy who called on von Ribben trop, and passed this information in person to von und zu
Waching in a daily report.
Most of his time, however, was occupied with planning the escape from Argentina of the two hundred-odd German officers interned there and bringing them back to Germany.
Since he knew absolutely nothing about Argentina or about planning a covert operation, he at first imagined the assign ment was intended (as Canaris had said) to be a learning experience and nothing more.
But in time he came to understand it was more than that.
For reasons he couldn't imagine, Canaris and von und zu
Waching wanted him to acquire extensive knowledge of
Argentina. And in doing this, he found he had an unexpected ally in Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop himself, who ordered that he be given access to the files in the Argentine
Section of the Foreign Ministry.
All of these loose strands came together in January 1943 at what had been announced as a small dinner party at von und zu Waching's home in Potsdam to celebrate Karl's promotion to Korvettenkapitan. He had expected neither the promotion nor the party.
The presence of some of the people at the von und zu
Waching villa doubly surprised him-first because they were there at all, and second because they had come almost surreptitiously, in ordinary cars, rather than in the enormous and glistening Mercedeses and Horch limousines almost invariably used by the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy.
Martin Bormann was there, and Heinrich Himmler and
Admiral Donitz and Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, and of course, Admiral Canaris. Only Canaris stayed for dinner, the others having wanted only to see for themselves the young Naval Intelligence officer whom Canaris wished to involve in Operation Phoenix.
Two SS officers, Oberfuhrer Freiherr Manfred von
Deitzberg, Himmler's adjutant, and von Deitzberg's deputy,
Sturmbannfiihrer Erich Raschner, appeared ten minutes after Himmler left. Over dinner, Boltitz's role in Operation
Phoenix-essentially liaison between the Navy, von Rib bentrop's office, Himmler's office, and the Abwehr-was discussed at some length.
"I think I should tell you, von Deitzberg," Canaris said,
"with the exception, of course, that we will be using the
Oceano Pacifico and not a submarine, that the plan to repa triate the GrafSpee officers is Boltitz's. He has become our
Argentine expert."
"Then perhaps we should send him over there. Or is that what you're suggesting?"
"I discussed that with both Himmler and Donitz. We are agreed that he will be more valuable here. In case something goes wrong."
"Are you suggesting that something will go wrong?"
"Did you ever hear the phrase, my dear von Deitzberg,
'the best laid schemes of mice and men,' et cetera?"
"There is no room in Operation Phoenix for error," von
Deitzberg said.
"Even the more reason to expect the unexpected, my friend," Canaris said.
And now it was 0930 on the twenty-eighth of April, and the unexpected had happened. The GrafSpee officers would not be repatriated aboard the Oceano Pacifico, the special cargo had not been landed, the two officers in charge of the opera tion had been shot to death on the beach of Samborom-bon
Bay, and Admiral Canaris had summoned Karl Boltitz to his office.
"The Reichsfiihrer-SS," Canaris was saying, "has just about convinced himself that there is a traitor in Buenos
Aires. He may well be right, and he may have information in that regard that he has not seen fit to share with me. The pos sibility exists, however, that the Argentines-knowing abso lutely nothing about Operation Phoenix-are responsible for the deaths of Oberst Griiner and Standartenfuhrer Goltz.
Ordering the elimination of Oberst Frade may well turn out to have been very ill-advised in this connection alone, not to mention the damage it did to our relations with the Argentine officer corps."
Karl Boltitz nodded but said nothing. He had long before learned that Admiral Canaris had no time to listen to verbal agreements. If there was no objection, he presumed full agreement with him.
"I have no doubt that a means will be found to land the special cargo in Argentina, and that Operation Phoenix, sup ported as it is at all echelons, will ultimately go forward.
But I consider, and so does the Fiihrer, that the repatriation of the GrafSpee officers is also very important to ultimate victory."
He glanced at Boltitz as if looking for an indication that
Boltitz understood him.
"I have the feeling that the Fiihrer will wish to see the reports from Spain and Buenos Aires. Read them himself, rather than trust a synopsis. The Fiihrer does not like reports that offer ambiguities. So the report that you and whoever the Reichsfiihrer-SS sends with you to Spain should contain no ambiguities. If there is any disagreement as to what the report to Himmler should contain, defer to the SS."
Now a reply was expected, and Boltitz gave it. "Jawohl,
Herr Admiral."
"I would, of course, be interested in anything you develop there, or in Buenos Aires, that Himmler's man does not feel is worthy of the attention of either the Reichsfiihrer-SS or of the
Fiihrer."
The translation of that is that I am to report to him, unof ficially, anything in the report to Himmler I don't agree with, as well as anything I think-or suspect-he should know.
"I understand, Herr Admiral."
"If you can find the time, Boltitz, perhaps you could meet the Condor from Buenos Aires when it lands in Lisbon."
"Jawohl, Herr Admiral."
Admiral Canaris smiled at Boltitz, then signaled with his hand that their little chat was over.
[TWO]
Avenida Pueyrredon 1706
Piso 10
Buenos Aires
0405 29 April 1943
Alicia Carzino-Cormano was twenty years old, tall and slim; and when she came out of the bathroom, her intensely black hair hung down over her shoulders and almost below her bare breasts. The bedroom was flooded with moonlight, and she could see quite clearly.
What she saw made her smile tenderly. Twenty-four-year old Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein was lying naked in his bed, on his back, arms and legs spread, breathing softly, sound asleep.
She walked to the bed and looked down at him.
He was really blond, she thought, blond all over, not just the hair on his head, but the hair on his chest, between his legs, and under his arms.
There were blondes in Argentina, of course. Dorotea Mal 1m, Alicia's friend since childhood-and soon to marry Clems
Frade-was a natural blonde, an English blonde, but she had seen Dorotea changing clothes, and she wasn't blond all over the way Peter was.
She sat down on the bed very carefully, so as not to wake him, and looked at him again. After a moment, she swung her legs into the bed.
She ran her fingers very softly over the hair on his chest, stopping when she encountered a line of scar tissue.
Peter had told her that he had gotten that falling off his bicycle as a child, but she didn't believe him. She was sure he'd gotten that scar in the war, just as he'd gotten the longer scars on his lower abdomen and on his right leg in the war.
He never talked to her about the war.
She wondered if Cletus Frade talked to Dorotea about what he'd done in the war. Or if Peter talked to Cletus about what they'd done in the war. Did they talk about war? Or about women?
When Alicia leaned forward to run her fingers farther down Peter's chest, her hair fell forward, blocking her view, and she pushed it back and over her shoulders.
Her fingers reached the blond hair at his groin. His thing looked like a long, wrinkled thumb, she thought. And ten minutes ago it had looked like… like a banana, a large banana!
She touched it, and that woke him up.
She quickly removed her hand.
"Sorry, baby," Peter said.
"For what?"
"I fell asleep."
"You don't have to be sorry for falling asleep," Alicia said.
He raised his hand to her breast, cupped it momentarily, and then put his index finger on her nipple, causing it to stiffen and rise.
"That's chocolate, right?" he said. "The other one's vanilla."
A moment later, he chuckled. "I love it when you blush," he said.
"I'm not blushing."
He snorted.
"Precious," she said. "I have to go."
"Damn!" he said, and sat up and reached for the wrist watch on the bedside table.
It was American, a Hamilton chronograph, an aviator's wristwatch. Cletus Frade had one exactly like it, and
Dorotea had noticed that, just as Alicia had noticed Peter's.
Cletus had told Dorotea that he'd stolen his from the U.S.
Marine Corps, and Dorotea wasn't sure if that was the truth or not. Peter had told Alicia that he had "found" his American watch, and obviously hadn't wanted to talk about it, so she hadn't pressed him.
"It's six and a half minutes after four," Peter announced indignantly.
That was the German in him, Alicia thought. She would have said "it's four" or "a little after four," not "six and a half minutes after four."
"I have to go to the house," she said. "We're going to
Estancia Santo Catalina this morning."
"What time this morning?"
"Probably in time to have a late lunch at the estancia," she said, and computed the time. "Leave Buenos Aires at eleven." She paused. "You are coming out for the weekend?"
"Unless the Ambassador or Gradny-Sawz finds something for me to do," he replied, and then asked, "So why do you have to leave now? Is Mama sitting up in the foyer waiting for you?"
"She's sound asleep, but she will know five minutes after she wakes what time I came in. The maid will tell her when she brings her coffee."
"So if the maid tells her you came home at half past six?
Half past seven? What's the difference?"
"The roof garden at the Alvear closes at half past four. She knows that. She will expect me to be home half an hour after that."
"That's," he consulted the watch again, "fifty-two minutes from now."
"Yes," Alicia said, and felt herself blushing again. "I didn't say I had to leave this instant. Just very soon."
"Oh, baby!"
"Can you?"
"Of course I can. I'm a fighter pilot."
Her smile vanished.
"I wonder how often you've said that in the past," she said.
"Once or twice, I admit-"
"Once or twice, hah!"
"Always before I met you," he said.
"Do you think you'll hear something today?" she asked.
"That was a quick change of subject," he said.
"Do you think?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe today. Maybe not until next week."
"And if they tell you to go to Germany?"
"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," he said.
She felt tears form, and she was not quite able to suppress a sob.
"Honey, don't do that," Peter said.
"God, Peter, I'm so frightened!"
He put his arms around her.
"It'll be all right, baby," he said.
She held him tightly. He kissed her hair.
"Sorry," she said.
"Oh, Christ!"
He ran his hand down her spine.
"Senorita, your question has been answered," he said.
"What?"
He took her hand and guided it to his groin. "Our friend has also waken up," he said.
She held him.
"If I could see your face, would you be blushing?" he asked.
"Shut up, Peter," she said, and lay back on the bed, pulling him down on top of her.
Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, now wearing a shirt and trousers, knocked at the bathroom door.
"I'm brushing my hair," Alicia called softly, and he pushed open the door.
She was standing in front of the mirror in her underwear.
She smiled at him. "You didn't have to get up," she said.
"I'm going to drive you home," he said.
"I'm going to take a taxi," she said. "We've been through this before."
"Christ, you're as hardheaded as you are beautiful."
She smiled at him. "I've explained the rules to you," she said. "I pretend to have been dancing with friends at the
Alvear roof garden, and Mother pretends to believe me."
"You've had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, right?"
Her smile vanished, replaced by a look of hurt and anger.
"You know better than that," she said.
He knew better than that. Alicia had been a virgin.
"Just a little joke," he said.
"I don't like your sense of humor," Alicia said, and began to furiously brush her hair.
After a moment she said, "I learned the rules from Isabela."
Isabela was the older of the Carzino-Cormano girls.
"And has el bitcho been dancing at the Alvear tonight, too?"
"Don't call her that, Peter, I've asked you."
It had been loathing at first sight when Isabela and Cletus
Frade had met. Clete had dubbed her "el bitcho." Though it was neither Spanish nor English, the term had immediately caught on. Alicia often caught herself thinking of Isabela that way, and she had even overheard one of the maids calling her that to another maid.
"Has she?" he pursued.
"I don't know what she did last night. She's been…" Alicia stopped herself just in time from saying "bitchy," "… difficult about the wedding. She really doesn't want to participate."
Alicia finished brushing her hair and started to make up her face.
"I like to watch you standing there in your underwear, doing that," Peter said.
She smiled at him. "Go back to bed," she said.
"Not alone," he said.
"Sweetheart, I have to go."
"I'll put you in a cab," he said.
She nodded.
[THREE]
The Embassy of the German Reich
Avenue Cordoba
Buenos Aires
0915 29 April 1943
"And a very good morning to you, Fraiilein Hassell," Peter von Wachtstein said to the Ambassador's secretary as he entered the Ambassador's outer office. He was wearing a well-cut, nearly black pin-striped double-breasted suit, a stiffly starched white shirt, and a striped silk necktie. She was a middle-aged spinster in a black dress, and wore her graying hair drawn tight and gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck.
"His Excellency wanted to see you the moment you arrived at the Embassy," Fraulein Ingebord Hassell said, sounding to Peter much like a scolding schoolteacher.
"And here I am," Peter said.
"It's sixteen past nine," she said. "He sent for you at eight twenty-five."
"I was caught in traffic," Peter said. "May I go in?"
"One moment, please, Herr Major," she said.
She pushed the TALK lever on her intercom box. "Excel lency, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein is here."
"Send him in, please, Fraulein Hassell," the ambassador replied. "And would you bring us some coffee?"
"Jawohl, Excellency," she said, and glared at Peter. "One day, you're going to try his Excellency's patience too much."
"Oh, I hope not," Peter said.
He walked to the Ambassador's door, knocked, and then entered without waiting for a reply. "Heil Hitler!" he barked so that Fraulein Hassell would hear him, but he did not give the requisite salute.
"Heil Hitler," the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipo tentiary of the Fiihrer of the German Reich to the Republic of
Argentina replied.
Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger was a very slight man of fifty-three who wore his thinning hair plastered across his skull. He signaled for Peter to come in. "I sent for you forty-five minutes ago," he said.
"My apologies, Excellency, I was caught in traffic."
Fraulein Hassell scurried into the room with a tray holding coffee and sweets.
Von Lutzenberger waited until Fraulein Hassell had left and closed the door behind her, then pointed to the chair beside his desk, an order for Peter to sit down. "Traffic, eh? I thought perhaps you might have overslept." He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk to Peter.
"I wonder what Untersturmfuhrer Schneider did from ten fifteen to four A.M.," Peter said.
"His duty to his ambassador, von Wachtstein," von Lutzen berger said. "Making a report that will also be of great interest when the people arrive from Berlin."
Peter looked at von Lutzenberger with that question in his eyes.
"Not a word," von Lutzenberger said. "But it will come,
Peter, as inevitably as the sun rises."
Peter nodded.
"When do you next plan to see Senor Duarte?" von Lutzen berger asked. "I have something I want you to give him."
SECRET
ATTENTION OF AMBASSADOR AND FIRST
SECRETARY ONLY
SURVEILLANCE REPORT VON WACHTSTEIN,
MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER
PERIOD 1735 28 APRIL 1943 TO 0630 29
APRIL 1943
28 APRIL
1700 SURVEILLANCE COMMENCED
1735 OFFICER LEFT THE EMBASSY IN
PERSONAL AUTO
1758 OFFICER ARRIVED AT HIS APART MENT
1805 OFFICER TELEPHONED 78342 AND
SPOKE WITH SENORITA ALICIA CARZINO CORMANO, ARRANGING RENDEZVOUS WITH
CARZINO-CORMANO AT RESTAURANT MUN CHEN RECOLETA FOR 1930
1915 OFFICER TOOK TAXICAB TO RESTAU RANT MUNCHEN
1932 OFFICER ARRIVED RESTAURANT MUN CHEN, MET CARZINO-CORMANO
2115 OFFICER DEPARTED RESTAURANT
MUNCHEN WITH CARZINO-CORMANO IN TAXI CAB
2148 OFFICER ARRIVED HIS APARTMENT
WITH CARZINO-CORMANO
2215 ALL VISIBLE LIGHTS IN APARTMENT
EXTINGUISHED.
29 APRIL
0353 LIGHT, MASTER BEDROOM ILLUMI NATED
0430 OTHER APARTMENT LIGHTS ILLUMI NATED
0442 OFFICER APPEARED WITH CARZINO CORMANO IN APARTMENT LOBBY AND
PLACED CARZINO-CORMANO IN TAXICAB
0600 SURVEILLANCE TERMINATED
SUMMARY:
DURING THE SURVEILLANCE PERIOD,
OFFICER MET WITH ONE (1) PERSON,
CARZINO-CORMANO AND MADE ONE (1)
TELEPHONE CALL, TO CARZINO-CORMANO.
HEIL HITLER!
SCHNEIDER, UNTERSTURMFUHRER, SS-SD
"I've been invited to the Carzino-Cormano estancia for the weekend. I'm sure he'll be there."
"Well, as we have had no word from Berlin, I think you should accept the invitation. Don't go out there before I give you what I have."
"No, Sir."
"That will be all, Peter, thank you."
"Yes, Sir."
Peter made it as far as opening the door when von
Lutzenberger called out to him, loud enough for Fraulein
Hassell to hear.
He turned.
"I expect you to be in the Embassy during normal duty hours, von Wachtstein. If traffic is a problem, then leave your apartment earlier."
"Jawohl, Excellency!"
[FOUR]
El Club De Belgrano
Barrancas Del Belgrano, Buenos Aires
1315 30 April 1943
The dark blue 1939 Dodge four-door sedan turned left off
Avenida Libertador onto Calle Jose Fernandez and drove up its steep-for Buenos Aires-incline to the first corner.
There the driver tried, and failed, to make a very sharp left turn into the drive of the Belgrano Club. He had to back up twice before he was lined up in the drive and the porter could open the gate.
If he had turned a block earlier and come down
Arribenos, the passenger in the rear seat of the car thought, he could have done this a lot easier.
The Belgrano Club occupied most of a block in Barrancas del Belgrano, an upper-class district of Buenos Aires-a dis trict that looked, its Deutsche-Argentinishe residents often commented, much like the Zehlendorf district of Berlin. Its tree-shaded streets were lined with large villas, and here and there a luxurious apartment building.
Once inside the compound, the driver (following the directions of his passenger) drove past the buildings housing the swimming pool and the restaurant, and finally stopped by the door to the men's dressing room, near the tennis courts.
The driver jumped from behind the wheel, came to attention by the rear door, and pulled it open.
A tall, fair-haired, light-skinned man in his middle thirties, wearing a well-cut gray business suit and a snap-brim felt hat, stepped out and looked at the driver, then at his watch.
There is time.
"Manuel," he said kindly. "A little less militarily, if you would. We're in civilian clothing."
"Si, mi Coronel," Sargento Manuel Lascano said, still at attention.
Though Sargento Lascano was also wearing a business suit, he had spent five of his twenty-three years in the Army, and almost all of that in the infantry, and almost all of that in remote provinces. Two weeks earlier (after selection by the man in the well-cut suit as the most promising among ten candidates), he had been transferred to the Edificio Libertador
Headquarters of the Ejercito Argentine (Argentine Army) for "special duty."
The criteria for selection had been high intelligence, an absolutely clean service record, a stable marriage, a simple background, and, importantly, a reputation for keeping his mouth shut.
"And when we're in civilian clothes, Manuel," Coronel
Bernardo Martin said, "please try to remember not to call me 'coronel.' "
"Si, Senor," Sargento Lascano said.
"You'll get used to it all, Manuel," Martin said, meaning it. He had already decided that he had made the right choice in
Sargento Lascano. Lascano didn't know much about what was expected of him, but he wanted the promised-"if this works out, Sargento"-promotion to Warrant Officer, which meant he wanted to learn. So far, it hadn't been necessary to tell him anything twice.
Teaching him, Martin thought, is like writing on a clean blackboard.
"When you drop me off at a place like this," Martin said,
"try to find a parking place that leaves the door I went in vis ible. Try to be inconspicuous, but failing that, park where you have to, and if anyone questions you, show them your identification and tell them you're on duty."
That morning, when he had reported to Coronel Martin for duty, Sargento Lascano had been issued a leather-bound photo identification card identifying him as an agent of the
Bureau of Internal Security. He had also been issued a.45 caliber semiautomatic pistol manufactured in Argentina under license from Colt Firearms of Hartford, Connecticut,
USA, and a shoulder holster.
"Si, Senor."
"I'll probably be about fifteen minutes, Manuel," Martin said. "With a little luck, ten."
"Si, Senor."
Martin entered the men's locker room, resisted the temp tation to have a beer at the bar just inside, and went to his locker and stripped off his clothing.
The man he was looking for was not in the locker room.
I'm going to need a shower anyway. Why not?
Five minutes later, he came out of the tile-walled shower room, a towel around his waist. The man he was looking for, middle-aged, muscular, balding, was now in the locker room, sitting by his open locker, also wearing only a towel.
"Well, look who's here," Santiago Nervo said, almost sar castically cordial. "Buenas tardes, mi Coronel."
Commissario Santiago Nervo was, more or less, Martin's peer in the Policia Federal, in charge of their Special Investi gations Division.
Martin did not particularly like him, and he was sure that
Nervo felt much the same way about him. Policemen don't like soldiers, particularly soldiers in the intelligence busi ness, which they believe should be their responsibility. And intelligence officers don't like policemen whose jurisdiction sometimes conflicts with their own.
"Putting on a little weight, aren't you, Santiago?" Martin said, offering his hand.
"Screw you," Nervo said without rancor, and turned to his locker and took an envelope from it.
"You can have that," he said. "You owe me."
Martin opened the envelope. It contained a single sheet of paper.
1623 ARENALES
APARTMENT 5B
45-707
MARIA TERESA ALSINA
2103 SANTA FE
APARTMENT 4H
DOB 16 MAY 1928
It was the address and telephone number of an apartment building. Martin searched his memory a moment and came up with a mental image. It was at the corner of Arenales and Coronel Diaz in Barrio Norte, a northern suburb of the city.
"You're sure about this, Santiago?" Martin asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I saw el Coronel Juan Domingo Peron go in there myself."
"Sixteen May 1928. That makes her fifteen," Martin said.
"Next month, she'll be fifteen," Nervo said. "Well, you know what they say, if they're big enough to bleed, they're big enough to butcher."
"Who else knows about this?"
"One of my lieutenants, two of my sergeants, and me."
"Can you keep it that way?"
"Of course."
"You're right, Santiago, I owe you."
"Yeah, you do," Nervo said.
Martin offered him his hand, then went to his locker and dressed quickly.
The moment he stepped into the street outside the men's locker room, he heard the starter of the Dodge grind, and a moment later the car started moving toward him. He signaled to Sargento Lascano to stay behind the wheel and climbed into the backseat. "The officer's sales store, please, Manuel," he ordered.
"Senor, I don't know where-"
"On the Avenida 9 de Julio, across the avenue from the
French Embassy."
"Si, Senor."
"You'll learn these places soon enough, Manuel," Martin said.
But I think it will be some time before I start telling you things like what I have just learned. That the new Assistant to the Minister of War, the distinguished el Coronel Juan
Domingo Peron, has rented an apartment and installed in it his new mistress, who will be fifteen years old next month.
Lascano returned to Avenida Libertador by turning right onto Calle Arribenos, then making a right when the street dead-ended at one of the parks scattered throughout the Bar rancas del Belgrano. As he did, Martin happened to glance up and saw the miniature Statue of Liberty that had been erected there about the same time the real one was going up in New
York Harbor.
I wonder ifCletus Frade knows that's there? For that matter,
I wonder if the American Ambassador does?
Lascano drove downtown at a shade under the speed limit.
By the time they had passed the Hipodrome, and the
Frade family's guest house, a medium-size, turn-of-the century mansion, which was across the street from it, Martin became aware of their pace.
The police are not going to stop this car, much less issue a summons to any car carrying me, or any other officer of the
Bureau of Internal Security. So what do I do? Tell him to go faster? And give him the idea that he can ignore the speed limits?
"Manuel, pick it up a little, will you? Fm running late."
"Si, Senor."
The speed increased another five miles an hour.
"A little more, please, Manuel."
Manuel added another five miles per hour to their velocity.
Martin was pleased.
Lascano errs on the side of caution. That's a desirable characteristic in the intelligence business. The trick is know-ing when to take a chance.
The officers' clothing store was in a turn-of-the-century mansion much like the Frade place on Libertador.
"Where should I park, Senor?" Lascano asked. "There are no-parking signs."
"Right in front," Martin said. "I won't be a moment. I have to pick up a uniform."
"Senor, I'd be happy to go in for you."
I wonder if he volunteered to go in for me because he would rather not sit at the wheel of an illegally parked car on the busiest street in Buenos Aires? Or because he is sim-ply trying to please me?
"It will be quicker if I go," Martin said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. "But thank you, Manuel."
The uniform was waiting for him inside, with its new insignia in place.
This is the third time in three years I've been here. The last time was yesterday, when I came to see if they could take care of the insignia overnight. The time before that was three years ago, when I picked up this uniform, my present to myself, on my promotion to teniente coronel. I don't think
I've worn it a dozen times in three years.
And if I am growing middle-aged flab, the way Santiago
Nervo is, and can't get into this, then what?
Martin got back into the Dodge and ordered Lascano to take him to the Edificio Libertador.
When the car had stopped at a side entrance to the large, eleven-story building, Martin permitted Lascano to open the car's door for him.
"Manuel, have you ever heard of Estancia San Pedro y
San Pablo?" Martin asked when he was standing by the side of the car.
"Si, Senor."
"Do you know where it is?"
"Si, Senor. Near Pila, in Buenos Aires Province."
"And how would you get there from here?"
"Senor, I would need a map."
"Where would you go for mat?"
"To an ACA station, Senor," Lascano replied, referring to the Automobile Club of Argentina.
Martin was again pleased with his choice of driver/body guard.
"Go to an ACA station now. Buy every road map they have on sale. Get a receipt. Turn in an expense voucher. You have cash?"
"Si, Senor."
"Personal or official?"
"Both, Senor."
"When you have the maps, bring the one for Buenos Aires
Province to my office, and I'll mark Estancia San Pedro y
San Pablo and the best way to get there. The estancia is not on the ACA map."
"Si, Senor," Lascano said. "Senor, are we going to
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? I will need fuel-"
"We may. In this business, one never knows where one might have to go, or when. So whenever there is the oppor tunity, make sure you have fuel, et cetera, et cetera."
"Si, Senor."
Martin turned, and climbed a short flight of stairs to a metal door, carrying the bag with his uniform in it over his arm. A soldier in field gear, wearing a German-style steel helmet and with a Mauser rifle slung from his shoulder, pulled it open for him and came to attention, clicking his heels as Martin entered the building.
It made Martin a little uncomfortable, although he smiled at the soldier.
The soldier thinks he knows who 1 am, and that I am authorized to enter the building. The operative word is thinks. One of his officers-or more likely one of the ser geants of the guard-has apparently told him that a "civil ian" entering the building through this door, of such and such a height and description, is actually a coronet of the
Bureau of Internal Security, and should not be subjected to close scrutiny.
But how does he know, without actually checking my cre dentials at least once-and if this soldier had done that, I would have remembered-that I am that BIS officer?
The answer is he doesn't. It is one of the problems of the
Army… and, for that matter, of Argentina. Even before he entered the Army, he was taught that it is not wise to question your superiors. That it is wise to give your superiors-and to this country boy in uniform, the fact that I am wearing a suit and have a car with a driver makes me a superior-the benefit of the doubt.
Martin walked down a long corridor almost to the center of the building, then rode an elevator to the ninth floor.
There two BIS men in the elevator foyer did in fact examine him carefully before popping to attention in their civilian clothing.
"Buenas tardes, mi Coronel," the older of them, Warrant
Officer Federico Attiria, said.
"Has Mayor [Major] Delgano come up recently?" Martin asked.
"Haven't seen him, mi Coronel."
"Do me a favor. Call El Palomar, and see if and when he's landed out there. If he hasn't, call Campo de Mayo, and see if he's taken off from there, and if not, why not."
El Palomar (literally, "The Dove") was Buenos Aires's civilian airport. Campo de Mayo, on the outskirts of Buenos
Aires, was the country's most important military base, and the Army Air Service kept a fleet of aircraft there.
"Si, mi Coronel."
"If I ask Senora Mazza to do it, they give her the ranaround," Martin said. "They'll tell you."
Senora Mazza was the private secretary to the Director of the Bureau of Internal Security. It was said, not entirely as a joke, that she knew more of Argentina's military secrets than any half-dozen generals.
Attiria chuckled.
"Anyone dumb enough to give her the runaround will sud denly find himself up to his ass in ice and penguin shit in
Ushuaia," he said. "I'll let you know what I find out."
Because of its isolation and bitterly cold weather,
Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, at the southern-Cape
Horn-tip of South America, was regarded as the worst pos sible place to be stationed.
Martin smiled at him, then walked down the wide, pol ished marble corridor. Near its end, hanging over a standard office door, was a sign reading, "Ethical Standards Office."
The corridor ended fifty feet farther down, at a pair of twelve-foot-high double doors, suspended in a molded bronze door frame. On them was lettered, in gold, "Office of the Director, Bureau of Internal Security."
At the moment, there was no Director.
In Martin's judgment, El Almirante Francisco Montoya, the former Director, had done a magnificent-and nearly successful-job of straddling the fence between supporting the government of President Ramdn S. Castillo and the
Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (GOU), which had, under El
Coronel (Retired) Jorge Guillermo Frade, been planning its overthrow. When the revolution came, it had been far less bloody than it could have been, largely because of the careful planning of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Frade had been determined that the Argentine revolution would not emulate the bloody Spanish Civil War.
Frade himself had been assassinated shortly before the revolution began, and his friend and ally, General de Divi sion (Major General) Arturo Rawson, had stepped into the presidential shoes Frade had been expected to fill. Rawson was a good man, Martin thought. But he was neither as smart nor as tough as Coronel Frade.
He wasn't alone in this assessment. It was clear to Martin that the Germans had arranged for the assassination of Frade because he was smart enough and strong enough not only to control Argentina but to tilt his nation toward the Anglo American alliance.
Montoya's careful neutrality had not sat well with the new
Presidente Rawson, and he had ordered Montoya into retire ment within an hour of the occupation by the revolutionaries of the Casa Rosada (the Pink House-the seat of government) and the Edificio Libertador.
He had at the same time offered the post to Martin, who had, with some difficulty, managed to turn it down.
As Chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the BIS (an office that made him directly subordinate to the Director),
Teniente Coronel Martin had been responsible for keeping an eye on the GOU. Though he had regularly provided Admiral
Montoya with intelligence that made the intentions of Frade and the GOU quite clear, Montoya had been unwilling-or unable; he was not a man of strong character-to bring himself to either suppress the revolutionaries or join them.
Shortly before the revolution began-after much thought, some of it prayerful, and for reasons he really hoped were for the good of Argentina-Martin had decided that his duty required him to support the revolutionaries. From that moment, he had worked hard-and at great personal risk-to conceal the plans of the GOU and the names of its members from Admiral Montoya and the Castillo government.
Martin felt little sympathy for Montoya, for he believed that he had failed in his duty as an officer to make a decision based on his oath to defend Argentina against all enemies.
As far as Martin was concerned, el Almirante Montoya had made his decision to straddle the fence based on what he considered to be the best interests of Francisco Montoya. He deserved to be retired. Or worse.
But for reasons that were both practical and selfless,
Martin did not want to find himself sitting behind the ornately carved Director's desk as Montoya's successor.
For one thing, he had told el Presidente Rawson, the position called for a general or flag officer, and he was not even close to being eligible for promotion to General de Brigade
(Brigadier General, the junior of the general officer ranks).
Rawson had replied that Martin's contribution to the revo lution had not only been important but was recognized, and that he himself had been especially impressed with Martin's accurate assessments of the actions various officers in the
Castillo government would take when the revolution began.
As far as he was concerned, this proved that Martin could take over the Director's post with no difficulty. And with that in mind, he added, Martin's promotion to General de
Brigade in several months was not out of the question.
Martin had countered by respectfully suggesting that if he were promoted out of turn, and named Director, the resent ment from the senior officer corps of both the Army and the
Armada would be nearly universal and crippling.
He also believed, but did not tell Rawson, that if he was named Director-with or without a second promotion-it would be only a matter of time before he was forced from the office. The generals-and senior colonels who expected promotion to general officer as a reward for their roles in the revolution-might swallow their disappointment and resent ment toward a peer who was given the post, but they would unite against a Director who before the Revolution had been a lowly-and junior-teniente coronel.
That would leave (in what Martin liked to think was an honest evaluation of the situation) no one of his skill and experience to provide the government with the intelligence it needed. And when dealing with the North Americans and the
Germans, gathering intelligence should not be left to an amateur.
Six general officers (in addition to two colonels, Peron and Sanchez, who were about to be promoted) considered themselves ideally qualified to be Director, and were vying for the post. No admirals were being considered. The only significant resistance to the revolution had come from the
Armada.
Martin believed-but did not tell Presidente Rawson- that any of the eight would be delighted to have as their deputy a qualified intelligence officer who had already been given his prize-his promotion-for his role in the revolu tion, expected nothing more, and would not pose a threat.
He also did not tell Presidente Rawson that he could better serve Argentina from a position behind the throne of the
Director of Internal Security than by sitting in the ornate gilded chair itself, and that he could train whomever was finally appointed to the post, much as he had taught Almi rante Montoya, who had come from the School of Naval
Engineering and had known nothing about intelligence.
Rawson attributed Martin's reasons for declining the directorship to commendable modesty, and decided that for the moment, until a Director could be chosen, Martin would serve as Interim Director. Rawson assured Martin he would seek his advice about which officer he should name
Director.
Martin pushed open the door from the corridor to the foyer of his office. Three men rose to their feet. Two were in business suits, and by appearance could have been bankers or lawyers or successful shopkeepers. They were, in fact, agents of the BIS assigned to the Ethical Standards Office.
The third man, who wore the uniform of a Suboficial
Mayor, and was in fact a sergeant major, was also an agent of the BIS.
Martin motioned all three of them to follow him into his office. When they were all inside, he motioned to Suboficial
Mayor Jose Cortina to lock the door.
"Who's with the President?" Martin asked.
Cortina provided two names.
Martin nodded his approval.
President Rawson was accompanied everywhere by his armed aide-de-camp. There was also a Policia Federal body guard detail. It consisted of two bodyguards and the drivers of all the cars in any presidential motor parade, which might be anywhere from two to six cars. All of these drivers were also armed.
The Policia Federal believed this was enough protection.
Martin devoutly hoped it would be; but to err on the side of caution, he had ordered that two men from the Ethical Stan dards Office be with the President at all times.
The Policia Federal considered this an insult to their competence, but there wasn't anything they could do about it. Until a new Director of the BIS was named and took office, only the President himself could override Martin's decisions.
If the Germans were brazen enough to assassinate Coro nel Frade, they just might be brazen enough to try to elimi nate General Rawson. They might think he had been responsible for-or at least knew about and tacitly sup ported-the shooting of the two German officers on the beach near Puerto Magdalena, and be seeking revenge. Or they might decide to remove him because he shared Frade's pro-Anglo-American, anti-German beliefs. Or there might be an attempt on his life from officers or officials who had been deposed in the revolution. Because the threat was real,
Martin saw it as his duty to do whatever he could to protect the President, whether or not the Policia Federal liked it.
"And if the President decides to go to the Frade wedding, how many people will we have at Estancia San Pedro y San
Pablo to augment them?"
"Six, Senor," Cortina said.
"That should be enough," Martin said. "We do know, right, that he's going out there?"
"Si, Senor," Cortina said.
There came a rapping at the closed doors.
Too sharp for knuckles, Martin thought, and signaled with his hand for someone to open the door.
Sefiora Mazza, a squarish, fiftyish woman in a simple black dress, marched into the office. She held a miniature cavalry sword-her letter opener, and obviously the source of the sharp rapping on the door.
"Excuse me, mi Coronel," she said, and went to his desk and picked up one of the telephones there.
"Here is el Coronel Martin, Senor Presidente," she said, and extended the phone to Martin.
"Coronel Martin," he said into it.
"General Rawson, Coronel," the President of Argentina said. "I'm glad I caught you in."
"How may I be of service, Senor Presidente?"
"Obregon," Rawson said. "How does he strike you?"
El General de Division Manuel Federico Obregon was one of the eight senior officers in the running to be Director of the Bureau of Internal Security.
"General Obregon, Senor Presidente?"
"How would you feel if he took over BIS, Martin?"
My honest answer is that Obregon is the one man I des perately hoped would not be given the appointment.
"I would be honored to serve under General Obregon,
Senor Presidente."
"General Ramirez and Coronel Peron feel he would be the best choice."
He could tell from the pained looks of the faces of his three agents that they felt as he did.
The question now becomes: Is Rawson going along with
Ramirez and Peron because of-or despite-Obregon's hatred for the English and the North Americans? Is it possible he doesn't know? Or is he afraid to defy Ramirez? Or
Peron?
The question is moot. I am being told Obregon will be the
Director of BIS, not really asked for my opinion.
"I would never question the judgment of either General
Ramirez or Coronel Peron, Senor Presidente."
"How well do you know General Obregon?"
"Only slightly, Senor."
But well enough to know that he is intelligent and ruth less, and that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to become the Argentine version ofHeinrich Himmler.
"I want to get the two of you together, privately, as soon as possible," Rawson said. "I want him to know how much I appreciate your services in the execution of Outline Blue"
The plan-in American military parlance, the operations order-for the coup d'etat had been called "Outline Blue."
"The next few days will be out of the question, I'm afraid," Rawson went on, "but I am going to Estancia San
Pedro y San Pablo for Sefior Frade's wedding, and perhaps there will be the opportunity there."
"Sefior, I am at your disposal."
"It would help if we knew when, precisely, the wedding will take place, wouldn't it?" the President said somewhat petulantly.
"I understand the Cardinal Archbishop has promised his decision by today, Mr. President," Martin said.
"Don't tell me you have someone in the Cardinal Arch bishop's office?"
"An absolutely superb agent, Senor Presidente. My wife's sister. She considers Senor Frade's request outrageous."
Rawson chuckled, and then returned to the subject of
General Obregon.
"Martin, while the appointment has not been made public,
General Obregon has been told. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to Edificio Libertador to have an unofficial look around."
"I will hold myself at his disposal, Sefior Presidente,"
Martin said.
"I really think, under the circumstances, Martin, that this was the best choice."
If he believed that, he wouldn 't have said it. He has his doubts, which suggests that he gave in to some kind of pres sure. Or was trying to solidify his position by appointing
Obregon. Which is the same thing.
"I'm sure it was, Sefior Presidente," Martin said.
IV
[ONE]
Estancia Santo Catalina
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1005 1 May 1943
The wedding of Senor Cletus Howell Frade to Senorita
Dorotea Mallfn posed certain problems. The basic problem, the blame for which had to be laid squarely at the feet of the prospective couple, was that Dorotea was three months preg nant.
Her condition precluded the events that would otherwise surround a marriage between the offspring of two prominent
Argentine families. Ordinarily, there would have been a formal dinner party to announce the engagement. This would have been followed by a six-month engagement period, during which there would be myriad lunches, dinners, bridal showers, and the like.
Ordinarily, the wedding would have been held in the
Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, in the Recoleta section of
Buenos Aires; and, considering the prominence of the respective families, the nuptial mass would have been cele brated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires himself.
The bride's family would then hold a reception for the new lyweds at their home, or perhaps, considering the number of people who would attend, at either the Plaza or Alvear Plaza
Hotel.
That was all now impossible, because of the careless carnal impetuosity of the couple.
An immediate marriage was the obvious solution, but that itself posed problems, primarily because the groom was just beginning the year's mourning for his late father, during which, without a special dispensation from the Church, he could not marry.
Obedience to the canons of the Roman Catholic Church regarding marriage was required, even though the bride and groom were Anglican and Episcopalian, respectively. Roman
Catholicism was the official religion of the nation, and therefore only Roman Catholic marriages were regarded as legally valid.
Father Kurt Welner, S J., not without difficulty, had found solutions to the ecclesiastical problems. Welner was not only a close friend of the Frade family (and had been a trusted friend of Jorge Frade), he was an expert in canon law and an adviser to the Cardinal Archbishop.
First, he had obtained from the Right Reverend Manuel de
Parto, bishop of the Diocese of Pila, in which Estancia San
Pedro y San Pablo was located, a waiver of the year of mourning requirement for Cletus Frade. The waiver was not in fact difficult to obtain. He had had to mention to the
Bishop only twice that more than half of the diocesan budget came from the pious generosity of el Patron of Estancia San
Pedro y San Pablo.
Father Welner had not mentioned to Bishop de Parto that, in deference to the feelings of the bride and her mother, and the groom's almost belligerently Episcopalian family, he was also seeking from the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires a special dispensation permitting the bride's priest, the Very
Reverend Matthew Cashley-Price, of the Anglican Cathedral of Buenos Aires, to take part in the wedding ceremony.
The Cardinal Archbishop had told Father Welner that he had to think long and hard about this, and it had taken him until last night to decide how to handle the granting of the dispensation needed to make the Anglican priest a part of the wedding cere mony. Once the decision was made, he himself had decided that he had to be the one to inform Bishop de Parto. Both Welner and the Cardinal were aware that the Bishop would be very uncomfortable with the notion of the Very Reverend Cashley Price having anything to do with the wedding.
As would the two priests of El Capilla Nuestra Senora de los Milagros, who tended to the spiritual needs of the more than 1,400 people who lived and worked on Estancia San
Pedro y San Pablo, and in whose chapel the wedding would be held.
And so would Monsignor Patrick Kelly, of the Archdio cese of Buenos Aires, who would celebrate the mass, repre senting the Cardinal Archbishop. The Cardinal would not be able to personally participate, as he would "unfortunately be tied up with pressing business," or so he had explained to the
Jesuit.
Monsignor Kelly, the family priest of the bride's father and of the groom's aunt and uncle, had made it quite clear to Father
Welner that he held him responsible for this outrageous busi ness of having a bloody English Protestant involved in the wedding.
But there were other problems, of a more social nature.
Though Senora Carzino-Cormano-who had been "a very dear friend" of the groom-to-be's father and was a close friend of the bride's mother, and whose daughter Alicia and
Dorotea had been close since childhood-had felt that she had both the right and the obligation to provide any assis tance she could, and would open Estancia Santo Catalina to the family of the bride to use as their home until the marriage was accomplished, her ministrations could not make straight what had long been crooked.
Enrico Mallfn, for example, the father of the bride and
Managing Director of the Sociedad Mercantil de
Importacidn de Productos Petroliferos (SMIPP), was having a very difficult-and only partially successful-time con cealing his unhappiness with his daughter's intended.
Worse-or at least generating more problems-the groom's maternal aunt, Beatrice Frade de Duarte, had been under the constant care of a psychiatrist since the death of her son, the groom's cousin. The psychiatrist spent a large portion of his time feeding her just enough tranquilizing medicine to keep her behavior under control while not putting her into a trance. When not so controlled, she moved rapidly between euphoria and black depression. Usually, he was successful.
Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, the mistress of
Estancia Santo Catalina and its 80,599 (more or less) hectares, was a svelte woman in her mid-fifties, with a full head of luxuriant, gray-flecked black hair, drawn up from her neck to the top of her head.
When Sarita, her maid, entered to inform her that Padre
Welner had just arrived and wished to see her, she was standing before a triple mirror in the dressing room of the master suite in the main house, wearing a simple black silk dress and holding a cross on a chain in each hand. "Where is he?"
"On the veranda, Senora."
"Offer him coffee, or something to drink, and tell him I will be with him in a moment."
"Si, Senora."
Claudia dropped her eyes to the crosses she was holding.
The simple gold cross on its delicate chain in her left hand was quietly elegant, and was entirely appropriate for lunch eon. The cross in her right hand was maybe three times the size of the other. Its heavy gold chain looked sturdy enough to hold an anchor. There were four rubies on the horizontal bar of the cross and six on the vertical. At their junction was an emerald-cut 1.5-carat diamond.
It looks like costume jewelry, Claudia thought. Of the type worn by a successful brothel madam.
But it's real. The best that money could buy-if taste doesn 't enter the equation.
I can't even remember any more what Jorge did, just that I had every right to be angry with him, and he knew it, and this was his peace offering.
She had imagined then, and imagined now, Jorge standing in the jewelry store off the lobby of the Alvear Plaza Hotel, being shown their entire collection of crosses and picking this one because it was the most expensive.
Anything to make peace. He couldn 't stand it when I was angry with him. He really loved me.
Oh, Jorge!
Her eyes watered, and she closed them, and then she put the simple cross back in her jewelry box and fastened
Jorge's cross around her neck.
Padre Welner will understand.
Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano and el Coronel
Jorge Frade had been lovers-in fact, all but married-for many years. Though both of their spouses had died, for var ious reasons marriage had been out of the question.
She had just finished repairing the tear-caused damage to her mascara when Sarita returned.
"Father is on the left veranda, Senora."
"Thank you."
"You are going to wear that cross, Senora?"
"Obviously, wouldn't you say, Sarita?"
Claudia went into her bedroom, then passed through a
French door to the walled private garden just outside, and then through a gate in the wall, and then walked to the veranda on the left side of the sprawling house.
The Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J., was a slim, bespectacled, fair-skinned, and elegantly tailored man of forty-four with thinning light brown hair. Claudia found him leaning against the wall. His legs were crossed, and he was holding a crystal
Champagne glass by its stem.
As she approached, he raised it to his mouth and drained it. Then, stooping slightly, he set the glass on a small table beside him, took the bottle of Bodega San Felipe Extra Brut from its resting place in a silver cooler, refilled his glass, straightened up, and had another sip.
"A little early for that, isn't it, Father?" Claudia chal lenged.
"My dear Claudia," he said, smiling at her. "Certainly a good Christian like you is familiar with Saint Paul's words in his letter to Saint Timothy? 'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine other infirmities'? And besides, we have something to celebrate. The Cardinal Archbishop has come down, if not very firmly, on the side of indulging our Anglican brothers and sisters."
"Well, that's good news," she said. "When did you find out?"
"He called me to the chancellery about ten last night and told me. I decided it was too late to drive out then."
She smiled at him.
"There are two glasses," he said. "May I?"
"I shouldn't," she said.
"But you will?"
For answer she picked up the glass on the table and filled it herself. "To your amazing diplomatic skills," she said, raising the glass. "Thank you."
"No thanks required," he said. "I am but a simple priest doing what he can to ease the problems of the sheep of his flock."
She laughed.
"That's Jorge's cross, isn't it?" he asked.
"Jorge's peace offering cross," she said. "I don't even remember what he did, but to judge by this, it must have been something awful."
"They were doing The Flying Dutchman at the Colon," he said, smiling, referring to Buenos Aires' opera house. "You gave a dinner, at which he failed to appear. He showed up at the Colon during intermission, deep in the arms of Bacchus, and took improper liberties with your person."
"He was as drunk as an owl," she said, now remembering, without rancor. "He'd been playing vingt-et-un at the Jockey
Club. And he'd won. A lot. Enough to buy this incredibly vulgar cross!"
"Which you have chosen to wear on the day we can schedule his son's wedding," Welner said. "How appropriate,
Claudia! Good for you!"
"Oh, Father, I wish he was here."
"I was just thinking the same thing," Welner said. "I think he would be delighted with this union."
"That would make three of us," she said. "You, me, and
Jorge."
"I think you must add the bride's mother, the groom's aunt, and even, believe it or not, Senor Howell to your short list. You may be right about the others, unfortunately."
"I thought the groom's grandfather hated all things Argen tine," she said. "You really mean that?"
"Now that he is about to become the great-grandfather of another Argentine, I think he has been reevaluating his feelings vis-a-vis all of us."
She laughed. "When can we have the wedding?"
"Whenever we want," he said. "I was going to suggest that you schedule the date and present it as a fait accompli."
"That's really the bride's mother's business."
"Not, I would suggest, under these circumstances."
She chuckled.
"If I started right now," Claudia said, "and gave up the luxury of sleep, we could have it next Saturday. That would give me a week. There are so many people to invite…"
ТЕЛЕГРАМКанал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками
Книжный Вестник
Бот для удобного поиска книг (если не нашлось на сайте)
Поиск книг
Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
О психологии, саморазвитии и личностном росте
Саморазвитие
Детективы и триллеры, все новинки
Детективы
Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки
Фантастика
Отборные классические книги
Классика
ВКОНТАКТЕБиблиотека с любовными романами, которая наверняка придётся по вкусу женской части аудитории
Любовные романы
Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров
Фантастика
Самые популярные книги в формате фб2
Топ фб2
книги