The Leader And The Damned (71 page)

He had over-ruled his generals by sanctioning the audacious invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1940. He had shown the same insight when he tore up the Schlieffen Plan for the invasion of the West, backing Manstein. and Guderian with their operation for a blitzkrieg through Sedan against France and Great Britain.

Had Western Intelligence agents found the remains of Hitler's burnt-out corpse - and under Trevor- Roper's guidance they looked hard enough for it - pathologists could well have proved it was the wrong body.

The savage irony of the story is that it started with blood. When the Fuhrer's plane returning from Smolensk was blown up in mid-air, just before landing at the Wolf's Lair, it triggered off a bloodbath.

It ended in a similar bloodbath. For similar motives Stalin liquidated everyone - with two exceptions - who knew Bormann had been brought to Moscow. The men who shot Bormann in their turn were killed, by men who knew nothing of Bormann's journey to Moscow.

Yelena Rzhevskaya, the woman who commanded the special squad flown to Berlin, was one exception. Even dictators can act inconsistently. There is evidence that Stalin had a soft spot for this remarkable woman who led her team into the raging inferno of Berlin.

'Yelena, apart from myself and Beria, you are the only person alive who knows what really happened. So, if anything should ever leak out I will know where to look, wouldn't you agree?'

It was probably something like that. It is a fact that in 1965, twelve years after the death of Stalin in 1953, Yelena contributed an article to the Russian journal,
Znamya
, which she called Berlinskie Stranitsky - Berlin Notes. In this she alluded to her special mission to the German capital 'to find Hitler, alive or dead...' The article was vague and no reference was made to Martin Bormann. This was in the days of the 'great thaw'. Two years later in 1967 Yuri Andropov took over the post as Chairman of the Ministry of State Security and revived the sinister power of the KGB.

As he had said he would to Beria, Stalin did take the opportunity to do his bit in fuelling the rumours Beria's Soviet agents in South America were spreading that Bormann had escaped to that continent.

He was talking to Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's special representative. He inserted the remark casually into their conversation.

'I have serious doubts as to whether the Fuhrer is dead. He surely escaped and is in hiding in Argentina with Martin Bormann.'

This was Stalin's only epitaph for Woodpecker.

Epilogue

Returning from abroad a few years ago, the author met David Stein (that is not his real name), a diamond broker living in Hampstead. He was shown an opened envelope containing a black, leather-bound diary. On the outside of the envelope were the following words.

Account of my visit to the Third Reich in the year 1943 and my subsequent sojourn in Yugoslavia. In the event of my death to be handed to Lieutenant Jock Carson, Section 3, Grey Pillars, Cairo, Egypt. Ian Lindsay, Wing Commander.

He was not permitted to take away the diary, so he read it as he sat in Stein's study. When he returned it, he gained the impression the diary would shortly be destroyed. Stein explained that the thought of his home being invaded by security men was abhorrent. In any case, his brother, Aaron, had died in a car crash recently.

The fate of certain leading characters in this story is now a matter of record. All the facts can be found in historical archives.

Colonel-General Alfred Jodl
. Tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. Condemned. Hanged.

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
. Tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. Condemned. Hanged.

Brigadier Roger Masson
. The head of Swiss Intelligence survived the war. The man who protected Lucy (and therefore, without realizing it, Woodpecker) retired at the end of World War Two. Accused of collaboration with the Nazis, because of his dealings with Schellenberg, he had to endure a government inquiry which completely exonerated him. Nevertheless, it was an embittered man who took up residence in his home overlooking Vevey on Lake Geneva.

Rudolf Roessler
. The asthmatic German codenamed Lucy, who played one of the strangest roles in history, lost all sense of purpose when peace came. He had devoted himself with such dedication to his task of defeating Hitler that he felt like a fish stranded on a beach when it all came to an end. Tired out and disillusioned, he died in October 1958. His grave may be seen in the cemetery at Kriens near Lucerne. The small marble plaque bears a brief inscription.
Rudolf Roessler. 1897-1958
.

Walter Schellenberg
. The chief of SS Intelligence reached the Allied lines at the war's end. He spent the next three years in Great Britain as the guest of the Secret Service. He undoubtedly provided invaluable information. Tried at Nuremberg, he should have been acquitted, but the Russian judge insisted on a verdict of 'Guilty'. Sentenced to four years' imprisonment, he was released after serving three years because of ill-health. He died a few years later.

Tim Whelby
. During 1944 Whelby was promoted to run a new department formed by SIS. Its purpose: counter-espionage. It's sphere of operations: Soviet- occupied Eastern Europe.

It all happened a long time ago.