Sirius (19 page)

“We’ve gathered intelligence,” reports Canaris, “that the Allied invasion isn’t planned for Sicily, as we thought.”

“Not Sicily?” gapes the Führer in amazement. “Then where?”

“Sardinia,” says Canaris. “Our troops need to be withdrawn from Sicily at once and stationed in Sardinia.”

“What kind of intelligence?” the Führer demands to know.

“A briefcase,” says Canaris. “It was attached to a chain, and the chain was attached to a man. His body was washed up onto land in southern Spain. The man was a major in the British Royal Marines infantry. The files testify conclusively that it’s Sardinia.”

“Heavens!” cries the Führer. “That’s unbelievable.”

“I know,” says Canaris. “Unbelievable, but true.”

The Führer slams his hand down on the table, incensed. “Right then,” he roars. “So Eisenhower and Montgomery want to take us for fools! They want us to think: North Africa, they’re there already, and it’s only a hop, skip and a jump across to Sicily. It seems so obvious! And we Germans will be sure to fall for it, right? And meanwhile they land in Sardinia and laugh themselves silly. Is that it?”

“That’s it, yes,” says Canaris.

“Fine then,” shrills the Führer in a tremulous tone, taking perverse delight in his words. “Then they’re in for the shock of their lives! We’ll be waiting for their lordships in Sardinia!”

Admiral Canaris salutes. “What is your order,
mein Führer
?”

“Order General Field Marshall Kesselring to move the troops from Sicily to Sardinia. And inform Mussolini.”

*

Sirius, therefore, has exciting news to report that following Wednesday, and luckily he really can report by now. He has made progress on the piano.

The Circle can see that the dog is almost bursting with his news: instead of making himself comfortable as usual, he rushes immediately over to the instrument.

“Was in Führer headquarters,” he taps out. “Met Hitler.”

“Met Hitler?” cries the Professor, thunderstruck. “I can barely believe it.”

“Met Hitler,” confirms Sirius. “In person.”

He describes the encounter with the staccato of his paws. The Circle listens reverently, as though a medium in a trance had established a connection with the other side.

Suddenly, the Führer is speaking through Sirius. Top secret words which influence the world from behind the dense walls of the Reich Chancellery have found their wondrous way into the ears of a dog, and then onto the keys of a piano. And the enemy is listening in.

Canaris. Sicily. Sardinia.

Ted Bloomfield listens intently. He asks Sirius for absolute precision. “Even the smallest detail is important,” he says. “This is a sensation!”

Sirius reports of the dead British major who was fished out of the sea in Huelva, of the briefcase on the chain, of the files with the intelligence: the planned invasion of Sardinia.

“And?” asks Bloomfield nervously. “Reaction?”

Order. Troops. Sardinia.

“Really?” cries Bloomfield. “Withdrawal from Sicily?”

Sirius confirms. Order. Troops. Sardinia.

Bloomfield jumps up, throws his hands in the air and rejoices: “Victory! Victory! It worked. It worked! ‘Operation Mincemeat’ was a success!”

“What worked?” asked Count von Studnitz, dumbfounded. Fritsche and Wundt are also staring at each other in confusion.

Bloomfield needs to regain his composure again before he speaks. It is not the first time that he knows more than the others in the Circle. Exactly why this is, he is unable to divulge, as he always says. But according to his insinuations, he has a direct link to the British secret service.

“Operation Mincemeat,” he explains, “the dead major is a trick. A red herring. MI5 thought it up. All the documents were faked. They were intended to lead Hitler down the wrong path.”

“So it is Sicily then, after all,” Benno Fritsche catches on. “And now Hitler is withdrawing his troops.”

“I can’t say any more than that,” adds Bloomfield mysteriously. “Just one thing. The big question was: will the message reach Hitler? And if it does, will he fall for it? Now, thanks to Sirius, this question has been answered in the affirmative. Churchill will be very pleased.”

Sirius feels proud. His message will please Churchill. He has not only met the Führer in person, but personally double-crossed him. There’s not much more one could ask of a little Jewish dog, he thinks to himself.

The following day, the British Prime Minister receives a telegram with the words: “Mincemeat swallowed whole.”

“How do we know for sure?” asks Churchill.

“From a reliable source,” comes the answer. “We have a spy directly beneath Hitler’s desk.”

“Excuse me?” responds Churchill. “Are you serious?”

“Very much so,” comes the answer. “A living microphone. A dog.”

“A four-legged resistance fighter,” says Churchill with a smile. “A dog in the lion’s den. What a brave chap.”

*

Sirius – no, Hansi – is now a regular visitor to the Reich Chancellery. The Führer “dotes “ on the doggy, as he himself puts it. Ideally, he would have Hansi with him all the time. Even Bormann, his deputy, and Ribbentrop, his Foreign Minister, have by now grown accustomed to the fact that the dog is always present at their strategy meetings.

In the middle of a May meeting, to which the news is delivered that the Africa corps in Tunisia have had to surrender, the Führer tells Hansi to sit up and beg.

“Look, Rommel!” says the Führer enthusiastically to Field Marshal Rommel.

“I don’t know whether that will be of much use to our soldiers in Africa,” grumbles Rommel. “I’ve said all along that we should have retreated from the desert.”

“Well, it helps me,” responds the Führer. “You could learn a lot from this dog’s optimism!”

Ribbentrop and Rommel stare at each other in disbelief.

The Führer even goes so far as to ask the dog’s advice on military matters. In the situation report in June, at which Field Marshal von Manstein is present, “Operation Citadel” is up for discussion. The subject is the attack on the Russian city of Kursk.

The last chance for a major offensive against the Red Army.

The military staff advise against it. The Führer turns to Hansi. “What do you think?” he asks.

The dog waves his tail. The Führer listens to him, and the greatest tank battle in history is unleashed. The German Wehrmacht is about to go through hell.

In July, the Allies land in Sicily. Not Sardinia. The German troops have been outwitted. “Fortress Europe” is beginning to waver. Mussolini is deposed.

The Führer is depressed. Even his closest confidantes are now expressing doubt on the “Final Victory”. Only Hansi can comfort him.

“Good doggy,” says the Führer. “You understand me. You are the only one who understands me.”

If he only knew. The doggy does understand him, and word for word. Every Wednesday, he has his piano lesson, and the Circle finds out the latest developments. Thanks to him, even Churchill ends up understanding the Führer.

In August, Sirius brings warning of the so-called Wonder Weapon, a V-2 rocket which is being developed in the Peenemünde military research centre. The Royal Air Force immediately bombs the site.

In September, Sirius reports the planned occupation of Rome. Code name of the operation: Case Axis. But the Allies don’t succeed in preventing the abduction of Mussolini.

In October, Sirius has his greatest coup yet: he delivers news of “Operation Steinbock”. This is the code name for the planned bombing of London, scheduled for January.

The fount of information in the Führer headquarters is positively bubbling. Sirius has become the Allies’ most important spy.

In November, when Churchill meets the President of the United States in Cairo, Roosevelt asks curiously:

“Who is this super spy, anyway?”

Churchill replies: “You’ll laugh. A dog. In Berlin.”

Roosevelt furrows his brow. “Hang on a moment. A dog in Berlin? Then I think I know who that is. There’s no other dog it could be. Hercules!”

Sirius is now making world history.

And very speedily, too. Every Wednesday, his paws glide nimbly over the piano keys. No longer staccato, but
molto furioso
.

When Frau Zinke runs into Benno Fritsche again, she seems very impressed.

“You played particularly beautifully today!” she says approvingly. “Beethoven again?”

“Who else?” answers Fritsche with his most charming wink.

*

Yet it hasn’t escaped the German counter-intelligence office that there must be a leak in the Führer’s headquarters. And quite a considerable leak, as state secrets are literally gushing out of it.

Where could it be? And more to the point:
Who
could it be?

Admiral Canaris makes the investigation a top priority. As with everything else that is planned at the highest level with the greatest degree of secrecy, the action needs a code name. What could it be? The Führer loves names from the animal world. Operation Steinbock, Operation Sea Lion, Operation Arctic Fox. Why not Operation Hansi? It has a good ring to it.

There isn’t even a hint of suspicion regarding the dog, of course. How could a dog pass on state secrets?

His master, however, is much more worthy of suspicion. Didn’t the espionage start at exactly the time Erwin Wünsche began his service there? To do things by the book: Traudl Junge, the Führer’s secretary, also had her first working day around this time. And Julius Manti, the new man in the Führer’s team of guards.

Canaris thinks hard. Beforehand they didn’t have the leak, and afterwards they did. So one of the three is the traitor. Period. It’s a good thing he put himself in charge of the investigation, otherwise there wouldn’t have been results this quickly.

“
Mein Führer
,” he declares, “here is my report on
Action Hansi
.”

He presents the names of the three suspects. Traudl Junge is excluded; she wasn’t present during the situation reports. Nor is Manti a viable suspect. He was only there occasionally, so he can’t possibly have betrayed everything. That leaves Erwin Wünsche.

“True,” says the Führer with distrust lurking in his voice. “He’s always loitering around here, that man. Under the pretence of being the doggy’s master.”

“To be fair,” Canaris comments, “it is his job to be present. He’s your personal adjutant,
mein Führer
.”

“I suppose that’s true,” ponders the Führer out loud, “but for some reason I never warmed to him. The two-faced trickster’s up to something, you can feel it. He and the dog don’t quite fit together. There’s something not quite right.”

“So there you are,
mein Führer
,” attests Canaris. “Your instinct has never failed you.”

“Have the man executed!” orders the Führer. “Immediately!”

“Executed?” says Canaris in shock. “Don’t we need some clear evidence first?”

“My instinct is evidence enough,” retorts the Führer. “But fine, if that’s what you think. Summon him here.”

Wünsche is brought in. Flanked by two officers of the SS Death Camp Unit.

“Mein Führer!” salutes Wünsche.

“Mein Führer!” sneers the Führer. “Give it a rest with the two-faced whining.”

Wünsche trembles.

“You have betrayed the German Reich to the enemy!” roars the Führer. “Rome! Peenemünde!”

“Peenemünde?” asks Wünsche, as pale as a corpse.

“Peenemünde!” roars the Führer again. “Don’t act so innocent. How did the English know we were building rockets there, and underground at that? From you, of course!”

“From me?” asks Wünsche, horrified.

“Who else?” the Führer yells. “I should have had you executed, for high treason. But I don’t want to do that to Hansi. Canaris, take him to the concentration camp near Peenemünde. He belongs there, with his entire family!”

Canaris: “
Jawohl, mein Führer
!”

“And the dog?” stammers Wünsche in disbelief.

“He stays with me,” says the Führer contentedly.

*

Sirius is now the personal dog of the Führer.

What a twist of fate. Should he be thankful for it? Sirius broods it over. It is an uncomfortable thought. The very man who poses the greatest threat to the world is now his protector.

On the other hand, if you have to go through hell, it’s better to have the devil on your side. Or is even that no justification for a pact with the devil?

Sirius feels too small for such big questions. He just wants to survive.

The food – he won’t deny it – is one of the advantages of life in the Führer’s headquarters. For despite all the stories to the contrary, the Führer is by no means a strict vegetarian. He loves white sausage and game pie. He restricts himself from having too much of it, though, because he fears it will lead to flatulence. Ironically, the raw food he consumes in its place actually does lead to flatulence. It’s a vicious cycle.

So the meat from the Führer’s plate tends to end up in the dog bowl. That pleases the “doggy.”

Sirius is playing the role of Hansi so well that Heinrich Hoffmann, the Führer’s personal photographer, is brought onto the scene. The dog is a delightful motif, no doubt about it; he brings sunshine into the dark Reich Chancellery. At long last, Sirius is back in front of the camera, and he enjoys every moment.

Another advantage on the Führer’s side is the bunker. When bombs rain down over Berlin – and that happens all through December – one can be oblivious to it in the subterranean quarters.

The dog is allowed in there too, of course. He lies at the Führer’s feet. The closest military staff are there, as well as the servants. Everyone is lost in thought. Sirius thinks back to the nights when he was without shelter, wandering through the streets with bombs hailing down overhead. Now he has a roof over his head, and a concrete roof at that.

Each morning, following the night’s air raids, bad news is delivered. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is on fire, the Zoological Garden has been destroyed, the Kaufhaus des Westens no longer exists. By now, practically the entire city lies in ruins.

The English even bomb Berlin on Christmas Eve. The mood in the bunker is correspondingly bleak. Krause, the valet, is tying the Führer’s cravat. Kempka, the chauffeur, is humming
Silent Night
. Irma Zeisse, the dietary chef, has decorated a little tree. It shakes whenever the ground tremors in the city above their heads.