Spandau Phoenix (88 page)

Two years later (January 1941) Hitler informed Heydrich that a powerful, highly placed clique of Nazi sympathizers existed in England, men who wished to arrange a peace treaty with Germany. These Englishmen claimed to be in a position to seize their government, if only two obstacles could be got out of the way. The main obstacle was Winston Churchill, who considered Adolf Hitler his personal nemesis.

The second was King George VI, who, unlike his dethroned older brother was a fervent anti-Nazi. Hitler's English sympathizers saw this dethroned brother-then called the Duke of Windsor-as a malleable alternative British monarch.

Hitler charged Heydrich with removing the human obstacles to this alliance, and Heydrich naturally turned to me. Because an AngloGerman alliance would virtually guarantee the destruction of Stalin's regime, I volunteered immediately.

Heydrich's plan, though complex in execution, was simple and ingenious in theory. We would assassinate both Churchill and the king, then lay the blame on our archenemies the communists-just as the Nazis had done with the Reichstag Fire! To accomplish this, Heydrich envisioned using one of the British communist cells infiltrated by our agents. He asked if I thought we might dupe one of these groups into carrying out the assassinations for us, and I must admit that I expressed pessimism. The revelation of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939

had disil&sioned communists around the world; consequently, I considered the chance of finding western communists still fanatical enough to attempt a suicide mission very small But Heydrich was undaunted On his orders I set to work bringing his plan to fruition.

The communist cell I chose for the operation was based in London, and, from our point of view, was under the command of one Helmut Steuer-a former Wehrmacht sergeant. This Helmut deserves special mention, for he-like the unit he had created-was uniq Helmut had@ been spying on .

communists since Munich, where he was "sole survivor" of the massacre at the Hauptbanhof.

When he "fled" to Britain (on our orders) the British communists welcomed him as a hero. His bond with them was so strong that when these communists went to Spain to fight in the International Brigades in 1936, Helmut went with them.

Heydrich could not believe it. It was an insanely dangerous thing for Helmut to do, but I understood. He was a young man then, a man of action, and he craved danger In Spain he fought heroically for the Republicans, all the while feeding to the Fascists information on the movements of the very armies he was fighting in! Helmut lost an eye at Guernica, and probably because of the accuracy of his own reports! It was truly a miracle that he survived at all, yet his service in Spain made him irreproachable in the eyes of his English comrades. After returning to EnglandStern stopped reading. His heart was pounding. He put his finger to the paper, traced the sentences backward and read again: Helmut lost an eye at Guernica "My God," he muttered. "I've found you out at last. Alfred Horn ...

You're not Rudolf Hess, and you're not'Zinoviev either."

Stern's mind raced as he tried to assimilate this new information.

There actually was a Helmut involved in the Hess affair-just as the Oxford draft research had claimed. Professor Natterman would be extremely disappointed to hear it! Stern heard himself laughing. It all fits, he thought with satisfaction. I simply couldn't accept the idea that Rudolf Hess had survived the war, that he had wormed his way into South A ica's power elite, and I was right!

.fr "Well," he murmured, "let's find out exactly what Helmut the great German spy did during the war." Stern picked up reading Zinoviev's narrative where he had left off-.

After returning to England, Helmut-on our ordersorganized his own communist cell. It was small (six men, not counting Helmut) and every man had been seriously wounded either in the Great War or in Spain. In his communiques Helmut called them his Verwunden Brigade-the "Wounded Brigade. " These men had come from the British working class, and no men everfelt more betrayed by their government than they-The flower of their generation had been slaughtered in the Great War, yet they had survived.

And when a neighboring republic was threatened by a newly risen German monster, their government had not only turned its back, but disparaged its sons who went to defend the democratic ideal that their friends and brothers had died for in the Great War There is no hatred like that of idealistic men who have been betrayed Even the Hitler-Stalin pact had not disillusioned these men. They saw it merely as an adroit political move by Stalin-a temporary alliance that would be rescinded as soon as Russia could defend herself against Germany.

If any Englishmen could be made to take up arms against Churchill and their king, I knew, it was Helmut's Verwunden Brigade.

I arrived in London in April of 1941, armed with secret documents bearing the signatures of the highest officials of the Soviet Communist Party-all excellent forgeries, of course. This deception was risky but necessary. No communist cell, howeverfanatic, would undertake an operation of the magnitude we planned without the full weight of the Party International behind them. My mission was to symbolize this authority. I was the holy messenger sentfrom Moscow, the sacred city, and the documents I carried sanctified my crusade. They made the planned assassinations sound like the first shot of a worldwide communist revolution. One document even bore Stalin's signature! The SD forgers had done their jobs so well that I myself was tempted to believe in my newfound power Of the operation itself there is much to tell, and yet little.

The mechanics were relatively simple. From English collaborators and German agents-in-place we received regular reports on our targets' daily movements, along with predictions of their future agendas. That part was easy.

Churchill tramped all over the country with his fat cigar, inspecting troops or viewing air-raid damage. With an assassin willing to die in the deed, the prime minister was as good as dead King George presented a more difficult problem, but not insurmountable. Though better protected than Churchill, he occasionally left Buckingham Palace to put on a show of solidarity with the common people.

What made the mission impossibly difficult was Hitler's commandment that the operation be carried out on the tenth of May.

Limiting the mission to a single day meant that our assassins would have to strike regardless of circumstances I wasn't concerned about their chances of survival; on the contrary, we wanted to insure that the assassins would be killed in the accomplishment of their mission. But I also had to be reasonably sure that the targets would be sufficiently exposed for our men to reach them. When I expressed my apprehension to Heydrich, however he assured me that Hitler had devised a diversionary ploy that would bring our targets into the open on the given day. At the time he would tell me no more than that.

With Helmut's help I set to work selecting our assassins.

We had decided to choose three men-one man for each target, with one backup man I . n case of unforeseen circumstances. The men we ultimately chose were named William Banks and William Fox. I shall neverforget them. The confusion caused by the similarity of their names was circumvented by their nicknames. Banks, a red-haired giant, was known as "Big Bill, " and the more diminutive Fox as "Little Bill.

" The backup man-selected by Helmut-was a distasteful little fanatic named Sherwood This Sherwood almost wrecked the operation on the first day. During the Spanish war he'd been captured at Jarama, and the first time he saw me he turned pale as a fish. When Helmut asked him what was wrong (I spoke little English) Sherwood asked if I had ever been in Spain. Naturally I said I hadn't, whereupon the little man told his comrades that I could have been the twin brother of a certain El Muerte@

sadistic Russian interrogator who worked for the Germans in Spain.

Helmut laughed outright, and the rest o us joined !f in. All but Sherwood The memory had shaken him badly. It had shaken me too.

In Spain-where I had used my Okhrana methods ruthlessly-the communists had christened me El Muerte.

My job was to motivate Banks and Fox to carry out their suicidal attacks. Helmut had prepared them well, and this made my role much easier From the day he founded his tiny cell, Helmut had promised his disenchanted men that when the revolution came, they would be called on by Moscow to carry out the first strikes against the iniperiali's't oppressors.

My years in the Okhrana had given me an encyclopedic knowledge of communist-methods and terminology, and I used it to the full in dealing with these Englishmen.

I told them solemnly that Hitler intended to break his pact with Stalin and attack Russia within thirty days. To this terrifying news I added the usual Stalinist drivel, .e that while the industrialized nations would eventually fall like rotten apples from the tree, the war had presented an opportunily we could not afford to let pass. Now was the time for revolution, I cried with passion, and the names of the martyrs who struck down the imperialist leaders would be engraved forever in the histories of the new world.

Stalin, I told them, had decided to save Russia and ignite the worldwide revolution in one daring stroke. Not only were Churchill and George VI to die, but the leaders of imperialist France and the fascist leaders of Italy and Germany. The forged documents I carried added the weight of holy writ to my tale, and these two Englishmen accepted it all with grave pride. It was a sobering thing to see-two men who had fought so bravely for their homeland agreeing to bring it to its knees.

Of course, in their minds they were liberatorsdowntrodden proletarians who would free their fellowcountrymen from the clutches of warmongers like Churchill.

One week before the target date we received reports that Churchill would be spending the weekend of May 10th at Ditchley Park, a private country house owned by a friend.

The king, of course, would be at Buckingham Palace. Soon after I received a coded message from Heydrich, outlining the "diversion" that Hitler would provide. The Fuhrer had ordered an air raid on London for the night of May 10th-to occur simultaneously with our mission. And not just any air raid, Heydrich said, but the largest bomber strike yet visited on the city. Hitler believed that such a raid would not only provide us with a perfect diversion, but would also demonstrate to the English the futility of continued struggle against GermanyThe moment I read this message I decided to change the strike date to May 11th, regardless of Hitler's orders. I knew that our targets would not leave their protected shelters during the air raid,- and if our assassins attempted to break into Ditchley Park or Buckingham Palace, they would be shot dead long before they reached their targets. But on May 11th-when both Churchill and the king would emerge to view the unprecedented bomb damage of Hitler's raid-the chances of success would be highest.

The weapon we chose for the attacks was the British Sten gun.

Although prone to jamming, the Sten was easily concealable and insured that a high number of bullets would penetrate the targets. Each man was to carry a revolver as a backup in the event of a jam.

Five days before the strike date, I suggested to Helmut that we dismiss the alternate-Sherwood-from training.

Helmut agreed and informed Sherwood of the change. From this moment on, things began to go wrong. First "Big Bill" Banks, the man assigned to kill Churchill, refused to remain in the safehouse during the final days before the strike date.

His parents lived in London, and he wanted to spend his last days with them. Helmut's best efforts could not change the man's mind.

"Little Bill " Fox-the man assigned to King George-had no family, and agreed to stay in the safehouse with us. Together we passed the days playing cards and listening to the radio. At night around ten-thirty "Big Bill" would show up to make sure the plan had not changed.

Twice during this period Sherwood found an excuse to break orders and come to the safehouse. I should have found some way to kill the Bolshevik rat, but since "Liule Bill" was with us all the time, I couldn't risk doing it in the house.

I thought of ordering Helmut to slip out and kill Sherwood, but I must confess I had some doubt as to whether he would do it. Helmut had lived with-andfought b@these Englishmen for years, and I could see that the inevitability of their deaths was beginning to weigh upon him.

Helmut wasn't disloyal, but the strain of living a perpetual lie had started to build up in him to a significant degree. Because of this, I let the Sherwood matter go unresolved.

On May 10th-the final night before the strike-the atmosphere in the house was electric. We had a car parked behind the house, filled with black-market petrel. Every minute it sat unattended was another minute of increased risk.

Around ten p.m. we heard the first Luftwaffe bombs falling outside. They were far away from us-Heydrich had seen to that-but the noise was still frightening. I began to worry.

By eleven p.m. "Big Bill" had still not arrived. I began to wonder if he had lost his nerve, or even-God forbid-if he might have been killed in the air raid. His lateness did not help Fox's resolve, either The little man paced the room like a prisoner in solitary confinement.

At elevenfifteen, disaster struck. The door burst open and "Big Bill"

stormed into the room, his eyes blazing. "They're dead! " he shouted like a madman. "Dead dead dead! " I will neverforget his huge redface, shaking in anguish. I couldn't imagine what he was screaming about, but he soon told us.