They Used Dark Forces (71 page)

‘That's certainly an idea,' Erika agreed. Then she added with a smile, ‘But don't you think your girl friend might spit in my eye?'

‘Of course not; since for your part you've already said you are willing to bury the hatchet. She will be only too pleased to see you, because it will be a guarantee to her that when we do make our attempt to get through the Russian lines we will take her with us.'

When full daylight came they roused themselves from their few hours of troubled sleep. Erika dressed herself in her nurse's uniform and Malacou, as calm as ever, loaded into the Red Cross van all the oddments they thought might prove useful. Gregory promised to join them as soon as he possibly could and, after a heartrending parting from Erika, waved them away on their perilous journey.

Over in the bunker he found nearly everyone still asleep. The wedding party had gone on till dawn. After Gregory had left, Krebs, Burgdorf, von Below and the vegetarian cook had all been called in to join those already with the newly-weds. They had drunk lashings of champagne while talking of the glories of the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg in the old days and of how Hitler had been Goebbels' best man.

It emerged that, at intervals between declaiming to his friends, Hitler had dictated his personal will and a testament addressed to the German people. But this did not prevent him from holding his usual midday conference.

Reports were made at it that the Russians had advanced in Charlottenburg and in Grunewald and had taken the Anhalter Station. Gregory, hovering with other adjutants in the outer side of the partition, learned, too, that the Russians had established themselves in force in Potsdam. At that piece of news his stomach contracted and he was almost sick from apprehension; for Sabine's villa was less than half the distance from Potsdam than it was from central Berlin. Erika was on her way there and there was no possible means by which he could recall her.

When he managed to concentrate again, from the hushed and
stilted conversation of his companions he took in the fact that the Führer, in his will, had appointed Admiral Doenitz as his successor and that three copies of the will had been sent off that morning by Lorenz, Johannmeier and Bormann's adjutant, Zander. Also that Hitler's imitator in immolating a nation for his own glorification, Mussolini, had been caught by partisans and shot the previous day. A mob in Milan had later kicked his body and that of his mistress, Clara Petacci, to pulp, then hung them up by the ankles.

Soon afterwards three other officers were called in to the conference: von Loringhoven, Weiss and Boldt. No news had been received from General Wenck and, at Burgdorf's suggestion, these three were to be despatched in an attempt to get through the enemy lines and urge Wenck to hurry, otherwise the Chancellery might be captured before he reached it.

That afternoon von Below had the courage to go in to the Führer and ask permission to leave. Hitler was then in one of his calm spells and readily agreed; but added that he must wait until after the evening conference to take, if he could, a despatch to Keitel at the OKW headquarters, which had now been moved to Ploen in Schleswig-Holstein.

The long, terrible hours dragged by while the Russian shells crumped into the upper storeys of the Chancellery. At ten o'clock the evening conference began. General Weidling reported that the Hitler Youth still held the bridges over the Havel, but that the Russians had penetrated as far as the Wilhelmstrasse and almost reached the Air Ministry. Later Krebs came out, handed von Below a despatch and, in case he had to destroy it, told him its contents. They were to the effect that the situation in Berlin was now desperate, they could no longer hope that General Wenck would come to their rescue, and the Russians would capture the Chancellery within twenty-four hours. But the Führer expected the troops on all fronts to fight to the last man.

To the envy of most of the others who, had they dared, would willingly have risked death in the streets rather than remain with their mad Führer in the bunker, von Below said good-bye to his friends and set off into the flame-torn darkness.

The score of men and women left in the bunker had received orders that they were not to go to bed; so they stood about, drinking heavily. At last, at half past two in the morning, Hitler emerged and took a ceremonial farewell of them all. He shook hands with everybody, but his eyes were glazed with a film of moisture, his walk was unsteady, he seemed dazed and could do no more than mumble inaudible replies to those who spoke to him.

When he had retired they continued to stand about, expecting to hear the shot that would release them from their thraldom. But no shot came. Instead, the Führer's valet emerged with an order. In the upper basement there was a canteen for the use of the guards and orderlies. With the desperation of despair they were holding a dance and the strains of the music were penetrating to the bunker. Hitler had sent out to say that the music must be toned down because it prevented him from getting to sleep.

Some of his staff lurched drunkenly up the stairs to join the dancers. Gregory, with the awful feeling that this nightmare would never end, went to von Below's now vacant bunk, flung himself fully dressed upon it and fell into a troubled doze.

Next day, the 30th April, the old iron routine was followed, just as though Hitler were still directing armies fighting on fronts many hundreds of miles from the capital. But for once he listened in silence to the reports of the Generals, who were now conducting the defence of central Berlin. Overnight the enemy had captured the whole of the Tiergarten and reached the Potsdamer Platz. The underground railway tunnel in the Friedrichstrasse was in their hands and they were fighting their way through the Voss Strasse tunnel towards the Chancellery.

At two o'clock Hitler had lunch with his two women secretaries and his cook, while Eva remained in her room. Over the meal he conversed quite normally, but before it he had made his final preparations. The guards had been told that they were not to enter the bunker again and his chauffeur, Erik Kempka, had carried two hundred litres of petrol up to the Chancellery garden in preparation for the funeral pyre.

After lunch Hitler came out into the passage with Eva and they again shook hands with all those who had remained to the
last. They then returned to their suite. At two-thirty a single shot was heard. For a few minutes those outside stood as though petrified, then they went in. Hitler had shot himself through the roof of the mouth. Eva was also dead, but she had taken poison.

The Devil's emissary who, for so many years, possessed by the spirit of Evil, had done his work in the world so well had, at last, gone to join his Infernal Master. It was as though an almost tangible black cloud, that had stifled clear thought, honest aspirations and all humane instincts, had suddenly been lifted from the bunker. The place had been reeking with treachery, fear, cruelty, blood-lust, and suddenly the atmosphere they breathed had become clean again.

They looked at one another in astonishment, seeing faces they hardly recognised because the features had become relaxed and the eyes no longer held the wary glint of animals intent only on self-preservation.

Smoking had never been permitted in the vicinity of the Führer, but one of them lit a cigarette. The others quickly produced their cases and followed suit. Calmly, not even bothering to bow their heads, they watched the guards carry the bodies of Hitler and Eva up to the garden to be burned.

Goebbels heavily declared that there was now nothing left to live for; so he meant to honour his promise to Hitler that he would kill his wife and children and himself. Krebs and Burgdorf agreed that it was better to put bullets through their brains than risk falling into the hands of the Russians. But the others were throwing away the poison capsules that Hitler had given them. Bormann had already begun to draft a telegram to Doenitz as a first move in an attempt to establish a similar relationship with the new Führer to that he had had with the old. The rest were eagerly discussing the chances of escaping through the Russian lines that night under cover of darkness.

Gregory, knowing that the Russians had captured Potsdam on the previous day, was almost off his head with fear that by this time they might have reached Sabine's villa. Reports were coming in from all the suburbs overrun by the Russians that their brutal Mongolian troops were shooting every man and raping every woman that they captured. If they had advanced up the
east shore of the Havel, what might now be happening to Erika, Sabine and Trudi did not bear thinking about.

As long as some eleventh-hour twist in Hitler's disordered mind might have led him to attempt to leave Berlin and, perhaps, owing to the dark power that had so often protected him, succeed in reaching Bavaria where he would have bludgeoned the German Armies into fighting on, Gregory had felt it his inescapable duty to remain. But now that malignant beast in human form was dead nothing would have induced Gregory to postpone until darkness his bid to save Erika.

Without a word of farewell to anyone, he ran up the stairs and snatched from a pigeonhole in the arms depository the first pistol he could lay his hand on. Deciding to leave by the way the officers sent off on the previous day had taken, he ran on through the empty echoing corridors to the back of the building, where the garages faced on to the Hermann Goering Strasse.

A pall of smoke hung low over the city and the air stank from the fumes of high explosives. There were great holes in the road from one of which a burst water main was fountaining. Broken paving stones and shell splinters littered the sidewalks. In three directions flames from burning buildings lit up the sulphurous clouds with an orange glow. The noise from bursting shells was deafening but through it came the clatter of machine guns: a clear indication that the Russians had that morning fought their way to within a few hundred yards of the Chancellery. From close at hand there came the dull rumble of falling masonry. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive for more than a few minutes in the flaming heart of the stricken city. But great love begets great courage. Without hesitation Gregory plunged into the inferno.

Turning left, Gregory set off at a run. A shell exploded fifty feet above him and he narrowly escaped the shower of bricks that it brought down. A minute later another crumped some way off in the middle of the road and he was half blinded by the dust it threw up. He had covered no more than three hundred yards when ahead of him the murk was stabbed by the flashes of rifle and machine-gun fire. Then he saw that a high barricade sealed off the end of the street. Beyond it lay the Potsdamer Platz and there fierce fighting was in progress.

Finding his way blocked he entered a ruined building on his right and began a laborious climb over piles of rubble and fallen beams. On the far side he came out into another street. Keeping under cover he looked swiftly from side to side.

A hundred yards to the north of him there was another barricade, but this time he was on the Russian-held side of it. Taking his life in his hands he sprinted across the road towards the ruins opposite. A Russian coming up the street saw him, raised his Sten gun and fired a burst. By a miracle the bullets whistled past him and he was able to dive into a stone porch that was still standing. Fearing that the Russian would pursue him, he clambered up a sloping girder to the first floor of the wrecked building. There he waited for a few moments with his pistol at the ready; but the Russians had so many people to shoot at that the one who had fired on him did not bother to give chase.

Another long perilous climb, with bricks and plaster slithering under his feet, brought him to the Potsdamer Strasse. In it a line of Russian tanks was moving north-eastward. Hiding behind a jagged piece of wall he waited until they had passed,
then made his dash across the road. This time he was not spotted. Again, his hands and knees now bruised and bleeding, he crawled, slithered and staggered over the mountains of wreckage until he reached a block of which a part was still intact. By an iron fire escape he made his way to a first-floor window that had been shattered. It gave on to a landing with a stone staircase. Descending it he climbed over a fallen door and found himself in the pillared hall of a large bank. Next moment he heard a movement. Before he had time to draw back a Russian soldier emerged from behind the nearest pillar and was facing him less than six feet away.

For a second they stared at one another in mutual surprise. But Gregory's luck was in. The Russian, intent on loot, had left his Sten gun lying on the bank counter. Before he could turn and grab it Gregory had put two bullets through his head. Things might have gone very differently but, as they had turned out, Gregory looked on the encounter as a special gift from heaven. He now had the thing that above all he had hoped to secure but feared it almost impossible to obtain and change into without being seen—a Russian uniform.

Swiftly, he undressed the dead man and himself. The soldier, a flat-faced yellow-skinned Mongolian, was short but broad, so his tunic was very loose on Gregory and his cloth pantaloons too short, but their ends just tucked into his calf-length leather boots and those, to Gregory's relief, were, if anything, a little large. As a precaution against any Russian officer he might meet calling on him to take part in the battle, he tore a long strip from his victim's shirt, wet it with the dead man's blood and tied it round his own head. Also, much to his regret, he had to abandon his steel helmet and, instead, put on the pointed cloth cap worn by Mongolian troops. But he found the Sten gun was fully loaded so would serve him better than the few bullets left in the pistol, which he tucked into its holster.

By making a half-circle through the ruins he had bypassed the Potsdamer Platz and emerged opposite the Potsdamer Station. At the sight of its gaping roof it occurred to him that it might prove quicker and safer if he followed the straight course of the railway rather than worked his way southwest through miles of half-blocked streets.