Sirius (20 page)

The Führer stares grimly into space. His face doesn’t even brighten when he opens his Christmas present from Joseph Goebbels: twelve
Mickey Mouse
films.

He says “A-ha!” and Goebbels notes in his diary “He was pleased and very happy with the treasure.” But the truth is he’s not happy. He wants the Final Victory. That would make him happy, and only that.

*

In Hollywood, it’s time for the premiere of
Hercules and Cleopatra
.

The movie is so pitiful that the audience members indignantly set fire to their tickets after the showing and throw them back into the box office.

The critic from the
Hollywood Reporter
writes: “One finds oneself regretting that cars hadn’t yet been invented in Ancient Egypt. Or some other contraption that might be capable of running over dogs.”

The critic of the
New York Times
says only “
Cave canem!
”

Carl Crown can’t help feeling a certain
Schadenfreude
as he flicks through the papers and confirms that Sirius is still the King of Hollywood. His successor has failed miserably.

He pictures Jack Warner tearing his hair out in agitation. It turned out that Hercules really is irreplaceable.

But that’s not the only reason why the family is keen to celebrate.

There is important news: Georg has American citizenship. He is now no longer a German, but an American.

A fitting celebration is called for. A table stands ready in Rondo, the restaurant in the Hilton Hotel Townhouse.

The table is set for eight people. Carl, Rahel, Else, Andreas, Georg and Electra take their seats. Only the two surprise guests are still to arrive.

Then they come. Conrad Nicholson Hilton and Zsa Zsa Gabor in person. Zsa Zsa has her peach-coloured Doberman pinscher, Caruso, under her arm.

“Daddy!” calls Electra, beaming with joy.

“Hello sweetheart,” replies Father Hilton with a smile, sinking down into a chair. It goes without saying that he is at the head of the table.

“Mister Hilton!” says Crown respectfully. The man is the leader of an army of Bordeaux-red-clad soldiers, after all, and Crown is one of them.

“Conny,” corrects Hilton in a friendly tone.

He orders champagne for everyone. They all look at each other in surprise, apart from Georg and Electra, who are obviously in the know.

“Conny,” says Georg, lifting his glass, “yesterday I asked for your daughter’s hand…”

Electra giggles.

“You are the King of America,” Georg continues. “I love your daughter and I want to marry her. You gave me your approval.”

Everyone cheers. Rahel conceals her emotion behind a serviette.

Conrad Hilton towers up imposingly, just like one of his famous hotels in Manhattan.

“My grandmother’s surname,” he says, “was Laufersweiler. She was a simple woman from Dörebach, a farming village in the Hunsrück mountains. German blood flows in our family’s veins.”

“But,” he continues, slamming his fist down on the table, “Hitler has destroyed my German roots. Hitler is our enemy, and we must win this war!”

“Conny,” Georg assures him courageously, “I swore to you that I would fight. For my love for your daughter, I will go to war. And when we have won the war, Electra and I will marry.”

“Okay,” replies Conny. “Be quick about it.”

“Look after yourself!” warns Zsa Zsa.

The following day, Georg Crown reports as a voluntary military doctor with the 9th Army of the American Forces in Europe.

*

The plight of the German troops is becoming increasingly bleak. On the Eastern Front, a catastrophe is looming: the army group there is in danger of collapsing, more than a million soldiers have already lost their lives, and the replacements are nothing but trembling children in uniform.

“Enough of this hopeless bloodshed!” demands Lieutenant-General Bamler.

In the South, the Allies have already pushed forward to central Italy. The German army is retreating. The Battle of Monte Cassino rages.

In the West, Field Marshal Rommel is making all the necessary preparations for the opening of a new front. They are expecting the Allies to invade France.

The Führer is hoping for a miracle. Because only a miracle can save Germany now.

“What do the stars say?” he asks.

Heinrich Himmler feels as though the question is directed at him. Although you wouldn’t think it to look at him, he is always all ears when the subject of mysticism comes up. He is known only as the austere SS Commander who is responsible for the
Final Solution
, zealously trying to keep the gas ovens burning in the midst of war.

“The stars?” responds Himmler. “We would need to ask the astrologists for that. But none of them are alive any more. On your orders,
mein Führer
, if I may remind you.”

“Yes, yes,” the Führer waves his hand dismissively. “And rightly so. They were poisoning the German people with their relentless pessimism. But who knows, maybe the stars have changed their minds.”

“There was this one fellow,” murmurs Himmler, as though he is rummaging through his memory for the name. “Professor Wulff. I had him put in the Fühlsbuttel concentration camp. I’ll check it out, maybe he’s still alive.”

Professor Wulff is still alive. And Himmler knows that very well, for he gets his horoscope from him once a month. He even sees to it that the astrologer is able to leave the camp under strict observation in order to perform his duties as an “academic employee” of the High Command of the Navy. Secretly, behind the Führer’s back.

The High Command oversees a department whose role it is to detect enemy submarine fleets with the help of supernatural forces. Psychics and prophesiers are employed there. Day after day, they circle their pendula over the sea maps. Astrology is used there too.

A short while later, Professor Wulff finds himself in the Führer’s office. He is portly, elegantly dressed and wears a monocle. The Führer had imagined a concentration camp inmate to look a little bit more, well, miserable.

“You’re keeping well, I see,” says the Führer. Not for the first time, he is overcome by the uneasy feeling that he can’t trust Himmler as far as he can throw him. But that is another matter.

“Thank you for asking,” says the professor, seeking refuge in poetry. “Called a star’s orbit to pursue, What is the darkness, star, to you? Nietzsche.”

“A star’s orbit, indeed,” the Führer seizes his cue. “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Is the German Wehrmacht under a good star? What are the signs?”

The professor is well-prepared. He rolls out the celestial chart, picks up the compass, circles it with dramatic movements over the planets, referring in particular to the lunar nodes, consulting the lines of latitude and historical data. He warns of Mars, offers encouraging news on Saturn.

Then the Führer interrupts. “Drop the hocus-pocus,” he roars, “I just want to know one thing: will we win the war?”

A difficult question. The astrologist knows, of course, that if he delivers bad news he will be punished with death; and if he delivers good news, he may be rewarded with his life. But either way, any prophecy will inevitably fall back on him as soon as it proves itself to be wrong. What to do?

Professor Wulff tries to buy himself some time.

“You have a new dog, don’t you?” he asks.

The Führer is baffled. “How did you know that?”

Wulff points at the celestial chart and explains ceremoniously: “The Big Dog is in your zodiac sign. You can see it clearly, here is Sirius.”

Sirius sticks his head out from under the desk, pricking up his ears at the sound of his name. Are they talking about him?

“You see!” calls the professor as he catches sight of the dog. “He hasn’t just come into your life by accident. The stars wanted it that way. He’s your fate.”

“My fate?” asks the Führer.

“Indeed,” responds the professor. “Even the ancient Egyptians listened to the warnings of Sirius. Whenever he appeared on the firmament, it was the sign for the annual flooding of the Nile. The Sumerians worshipped him as the Wanderer of the Seas. He is a harbinger of danger from the water.”

“The invasion in France!” guesses the Führer. “He’s warning us!”

“He is indeed,” confirms the professor.

“And?” asks the Führer anxiously. “Will there be a miracle?”

The professor takes out his monocle and peruses the celestial chart once more with even greater concentration.

“I see the signs of a miracle,” he says.

“Where? Where?” the Führer demands to know.

“Here,” says the professor, circling Mars with his finger. “It’s in the constellation with Sirius. According to Ptolemy, that means mortal danger.”

“For the Führer?” asks the Führer in shock.

“The gravest mortal danger,” confirms the professor. “But as I said: I also see a miracle.”

The Führer is crushed. He wavers between unbridled rage at the lowlifes who are after his blood, and heartfelt gratitude to the stars for warning him about it.

The astrologer, his head lowered, waits to discover which sentiment will ultimately win the upper hand.

He is in luck, and is ushered out. He mops the sweat from his brow with relief. He survived. It was also in the celestial chart that the Führer’s days are numbered, to the very day even, but he stayed quiet about that.

The stars already know.

*

So now the focus is on war again, total war. Whenever the greatest field commander of all time has his hands full, he takes up residence in the “Wolf’s Lair”. That’s the name of the secret command headquarters in East Prussia, where “Wolf”, as the Führer’s friends call him, likes to hide away. With Sirius, of course.

The Wolf’s Lair is anything but dog-friendly. For a start there is the ten-kilometre-long barbed-wire fence which encloses the bunker town, and then the hundred-metre-wide mine zone surrounding it.

The Führer and his doggy reside in Bunker No. 13.

“Take good care of Hansi!” the Führer orders his adjutant. ‘I don’t want him to tread on a Teller mine while he’s out for walkies.”

“Yes,
mein Führer
!” replies the adjutant.

“That’s what happened to Ribbentropp’s dachshund,” explains the Führer, imitating an exploding dog with his hands.

So Sirius is on his guard. Luckily there is enough to explore within the confines of the complex.

Within Exclusion Zone 3 are the barracks of the guard staff and the anti-aircraft guns. Within Exclusion Zone 2 is the accommodation for the Wehrmacht command staff and the Führer’s guard battalion.

Exclusion Zone 1, the “Führer Zone”, is the most interesting. Here are the news headquarters, the officer’s mess with its dining rooms, the camp barracks, the cinema, the Führer bunker, the hair salon and the residential bunkers of the leadership team; of Martin Bormann, leader of the Chancellery, Reichsmarshall Göring, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and so on.

SS guards stand at the barriers to each exclusion zone. They check special identification documents and request the passwords which change on a daily basis. This doesn’t apply to Sirius, of course. He is the Führer’s personal dog, which gives him access to all areas, apart from the sauna.

It all reminds Sirius a little of the Warner Brothers’ studio city. The comparison may be slightly inappropriate, but Sirius is merely thinking of the many halls behind the barrier, the bustle of extras in their military costumes, the props, the canteen, the office bunker of the Hollywood mogul. As if this were a movie,
Hercules Against the Rest of the World
.

It’s an unsettling thought. Is the deluded Führer playing the role of Hercules? Does he perhaps believe that the whole world is Luckyville and only he can save it?

By now, anything seems possible to Sirius. He sets off on his way to the canteen. Maybe fate will prompt a chicken bone to fall out of the window.

Two men come towards him. They stop and point.

“Look,” says one.

“Yes, I see,” says the other.

They step closer.

“Not bad,” says one.

“Yeah, very good,” says the other.

Sirius looks at them, wide-eyed.

For some reason, the scene seems familiar to him. Didn’t his success in Hollywood begin with those very same words? Could it be that they now spell bad luck? He is a superstitious dog.

The men walk off again. They are part of the Planning Staff in Barrack 99. There, fantastical ideas are being concocted for a completely new wonder weapon. The High Commander of the Army is becoming more and more desperate.

The prototype of a UFO, built in the Skoda factories, turned out to be a failure. So now there is a new plan: Why not fire dogs into the enemy lines? One would only need to inject them with the neurotoxin Tabun or Sarin, which would be released on impact and destroy everything in its vicinity. The production of expensive bomb shells could then be dispensed with.

And this is what they want to try out on Sirius? Luckily, the news comes through just in time that he is the personal dog of the Führer.

Sirius goes to see what happens in the briefing barracks. The building is named as such because this is where the Führer is briefed on the current situation, and in fact this is happening right now. The map of the world is spread out on the huge table. Rommel is predicting an Allied invasion in the straits of Calais, where the distance between France and England is the smallest. Jodl disagrees; he suspects that the landing will be in the south of France. One index finger after the other pushes its way along the Atlantic Wall.

Sirius reflects on how wonderful it would be to be sitting at the piano right now. The Circle would take pleasure in every hint. How is the Circle doing, he wonders?

There is no need to worry. The Circle is still around. They were very concerned, of course, when the dog didn’t turn up from one day to the next. But then his photo appeared in the newspaper, a snapshot by Heinrich Hoffmann, and they figured out the rest by themselves. In any case, Sirius is fit and well.

They miss the piano playing. But action is the priority now. There has to be a successful coup, and as soon as possible. No more procrastination. Even large sections of the Wehrmacht, the aristocracy and the administration are in agreement on that point. There are numerous “circles” by now. Their mission: to assassinate Adolf Hitler.