The Leader And The Damned (6 page)

'Already cancelled,' the small fat Nazi told him. 'And if you value your life you have never seen me. Heinz Kuby is leaving with us. Now, get out of my way..'

'Will he be coming back?' the manager enquired. 'The playbill for next week has to be prepared.. 'You will never see him again.'

One week later when Hitler arrived at the Berghof from Berlin his secretary, Bormann, was careful to choose the right moment to raise the subject. It was ten o'clock at night. The Fuhrer had finished his evening meal of spaghetti and apple rind tea and was settling himself in front of a great blazing log fire made up of small tree trunks. Bormann began tentatively.

'I am always searching for new methods to protect you from the attack of a madman..'

'Very commendable,' Hitler agreed affably, staring into the leaping flames. He seemed to find some comfort in the destruction of the massive trunks.

'I found someone in Salzburg the other day who could provide a novel form of protection. May I bring him in?'

'By all means, my dear Bormann..'

With a dramatic flourish he opened a door and ushered in Heinz Kuby who was now wearing a suit of the Fuhrer's — earlier Bormann had been astonished to find it was a perfect fit — with an armband carrying the swastika symbol. Hitler rose slowly to his feet, staring at the apparition, his face expressionless.

'
What
is this?' he asked after staring for a whole minute.

'Your double,
mein Fuhrer
...' He hurried on, sensing that something very serious had gone wrong. 'On occasions when you have to expose your presence when there might be danger we could instead substitute..'

Bormann got no further. Still gazing at Heinz Kuby as though he were afflicted with some loathsome disease Hitler pronounced his verdict.

'T-a-k-e
i-t
a-w-a-y. Never let me see
it
again.
You hear!
'

The last words were spoken in a shriek. Bormann hastily took the terrified Kuby to another room and equally hastily returned to try and repair the damage. As he came into the room Hitler was walking up and down in a characteristic pose, hands clasped behind his back. He gave Bormann no chance to speak first.

'Where did you find that hideous freak? No one else has seen it, I hope? Thank God for that. You must get rid of it. You think I want someone just like me hanging round the place? The next thing we know General von Brauchitsch will arrive, see it, and mistake it for me!'

'We all have our doubles somewhere,
mein Fuhrer
..'

'I am unique!'

Ten minutes later Bormann had a brainwave. He felt sure the idea would appeal to the Fuhrer's devious mind.

'There is one advantage in keeping him in a back cupboard - if you want to appear to be in one place while secretly you are in another. Kuby would have been useful during the Rohm crisis..

'Bormann, you are right!' Hitler, who revelled in tricks, was delighted. He had just one observation - inside which back cupboard should the 'dummy' be kept?

'Why, here at the Berghof,' Bormann replied confidently. 'I will allocate him quarters and personally guarantee he never leaves them when you or anyone from the outside world is here.'

'In any case he must never leave Berchtesgaden, I insist.'

'That, also, I will guarantee. The only other problem is the adjutant who found him. I suggest we post him immediately to a minor post at a Far East embassy..

'Excellent! He can stay there forever - until his skin turns yellow!'.

Bormann inwardly heaved a sigh of relief. The crisis was over. The Fuhrer had even switched from referring to Kuby as it in favour of he. He really wished he'd never brought the blasted actor anywhere near the place, but now Hitler had agreed, Kuby must be kept in a 'back cupboard'.

In October 1938 Bormann can never have foreseen the earthquake-making proportions of the minor episode which was now forgotten as Hitler, settled again in front of the log fire, welcomed Eva Braun as she came into, the room, and began one of his endless monologues on the story of his youth in the bad old days.

Chapter Five

12 March 1943. The pilot of the British Mosquito, wearing the German uniform of a colonel in the SS, swept across the Obersalzberg. He saw the jagged tip of a snow-covered mountain sheer up immediately ahead, climbed and missed the tip by feet.

The timing of Wing Commander Ian Lindsay's long flight had been perfect. Dawn was now spreading an eery light over summits which. stood like sentinels guarding the Fuhrer's refuge at the Berghof. He turned the aircraft - made of wood to boost speed - in a wide circle, searching for a suitable drop point.

He was crammed into the small cockpit, his parachute attached to his back, making movement difficult. Then he saw his objective far below. The rooftops of the Berghof heavy with snow. The tracks of a vehicle which had recently made its way up the curving read to the refuge showed up clearly.

Ian Lindsay had taken off from Malta - after being flown to the island from Algiers in a Dakota - in the early hours. His course had taken him up the centre of the Adriatic Sea, across a small area of northern Italy where he had then turned north-east over the Alps.

Even up to the last minute, permission to undertake his mission had been in doubt. The argument had gone as high as General Alexander who had asked to see Lindsay personally at Allied Forces Headquarters in Algiers. Inside his villa the General had returned Lindsay's salute casually and asked him to sit down.

'What is all this pother about - your flying to meet Hitler?' he asked amiably.

'Just how many people
do
know about this mission?' demanded the Wing Commander. 'Two in London and one here who flew out with me to arrange liaison was supposed to be the limit..'

'And now you get me babbling on about it?'

Alexander pulled at his trim moustache, his expression amused. He heard that Ian Lindsay ranked high in the field of insubordination and clearly he was not intimidated by a mere Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces. Alexander rather liked that as he studied the man on the other side of the simple trestle table.

Twenty-six years old, Lindsay had thick blond hair, a nose like that seen on coins of Roman emperors, a good jaw and firm mouth. Five feet nine inches tall, he exuded an, aura of strength of character.

His expression was mobile - like an actor's. He had, in fact, toured with a repertory company before the war.

'Babbling is what worries me,' Lindsay replied. 'Sir,' he added as an afterthought.

'I have worries, too,' Alexander drawled, leaning back in his chair. 'Keeping the peace between Eisenhower and Monty. Planning the final attack on the Germans in northern Tunisia. Little things like that. And Telford, your liaison officer told me your own plans in confidence. I compelled him to - no info, no cooperation..'

'Surely you had a signal?' Lindsay rapped back. Was this general with his casual air any damned

good?

'Read it for yourself, Lindsay...' Alexander pushed a slip of paper across the table. 'And I like to know
everything
that is going on in my command.'

Lindsay revised his opinion. There had been a snap in the general's eye as well as in his voice as he sat and waited while his visitor digested the decoded signal.

Please extend all facilities to Wing Commander Lindsay who is engaged on special rear area duties. Brooke.

'Suitably camouflaged - the wording - I trust you will agree,' Alexander suggested in an ironic tone. 'And apart from myself no one else in Africa even knows you're here. Good luck on your suicide mission. A sort of Hess in reverse, wouldn't you say?'

Manoeuvring the Mosquito in ascending circles high above the Obersalzberg, Lindsay recalled the Alexander conversation while he tried to watch for a host of perils through his goggles. A German fighter plane sent up on a visual spotting? Another of those bloody peaks appearing out of nowhere in the isolated mist patches? Above all, the dreaded down draught which could suck a machine into the abyss before the pilot was aware of it happening.

He decided he had used up his portion of luck in the air and that it was time to leave the comforting confines of his cockpit. He took a deep breath and ejected. Exposed to the bitter elements of icy space, he had a brief glimpse of a snowbound world far below.

He seemed to descend with extraordinary slowness, to float in space — which they had warned him was a danger sign. He could lose consciousness in seconds. He took a firm grip on the parachute ring and gave it a hard tug. Nothing happened. He continued to drift in nothingness. They had warned him about this, too, but the sensation was no less terrifying.

He looked up and a cloud had appeared from nowhere. God! A storm was blowing up... The straps jerked at his shoulders. The 'cloud' was the huge umbrella of his opened 'chute. And he was conscious of the return of a sense of
purpose
- of control. He looked down and saw the Berghof in the distance.

Lindsay became aware of a breeze carrying him straight towards the vertical rock face of a mountain wall. He tugged at the left-hand strap, held on and now he was descending diagonally on a course which should carry him close to the Berghof. Then he saw something he had forgotten about - the shaft of his abandoned Mosquito.

No more than a rapidly-falling spear, it was heading for another mountain. Subconsciously he felt it hit - his last link with a world he might never see again. A flaring flash as the fuel tank detonated, a distant thump which he could have imagined, then a shower of fragments fluttering into the valley.

He was engulfed by an eery silence, a lack of sound characteristic of the desolation of the winter-bound mountains. He had never felt more alone.

Lindsay concentrated on guiding the parachute away from those vicious precipices which reared to north and south. Was the Fuhrer at the Berghof, he wondered? He hoped to God he was and that if so he would remember their pre-war meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler had taken a distinct liking to the young Englishman who spoke fluent German and who was sympathetic to Nazi aims. For over four hours they had talked together alone.

The hard, snow-crusted ground of the valley was very close now - and he was going to land near the curving road which led up to the Berghof. What was it General Alexander had said?
A Hess in reverse
.

On Saturday 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess, the Fuhrer's Deputy, had flown on his own to Scotland to meet the Duke of Hamilton on a 'peace mission' to Britain. On 12 March 1943, Ian Lindsay, nephew of the Duke of Dunkeith and a pre-war member of the Anglo-German Fellowship flew to Bavaria on a 'peace mission' to Bavaria.

A Hess in reverse?

Chapter Six

'Take me to the Berghof! Immediately!
Heil Hitler!
' Lindsay rasped.

His right arm shot out in the Nazi salute as he stared arrogantly at the SS officer who had alighted from the military thick which had come racing and skidding down the road from the Berghof. Four other SS men armed with machine-pistols had emerged from the rear of the vehicle and they gazed curiously. at the German parachute billowing in the breeze on the slope below.

Lindsay noticed with satisfaction that he out-ranked the officer who automatically returned his salute and showed signs of hesitation. It was the first thirty seconds when you appeared on stage which counted -- the Englishman had learned that from his pre-war experience in repertory, and he had learned a great deal more. He followed up his verbal offensive.

'What the hell are you standing about for? I'm frozen. Get me to the Berghof, I said..'

'Why did you not land at the airstrip?' the SS officer enquired. He was a slim, thin-faced man with full lips more appropriate for a girl.