Chapter Three.
Outside, it was beginning to rain again. The streets glistened under the pallid glare of the streetlamps, and the air was heavy with the smell of coal smoke, mixed with the harsh metallic miasma of the vivid blue flashing sparks showering from the overhead power cables and the sparking hiss of the wheels of the yellow BVG trams arcing on the rain-soaked tracks as they rattled up and down Stresemannstrasse.
Parked directly in front of the great, pillared entrance portico was a sleek black, Horch saloon with SS licence plates. The taller of the SDs opened the rear door for her, as the other one placed her suitcase in the trunk. They both climbed into the front seats; the driver started the big engine and moved away from the building. As they approached the exit of the station concourse, the driver switched on the green Polizei lamp and Martin-Horn, and the Horch cut out to the right, onto Schönebergerstrasse; then swerved left onto the rain-glistening Stresemannstrasse into the throng of traffic coming off Askanischer Platz… which parted, as if, by magic. With a squeal of tyres, the Horch negotiated the scattering traffic and sped away up towards Potsdamer Platz... the seething hub of the city. Six of the main City thoroughfares met at Potsdamer Platz... with all the traffic directions being controlled by a solitary young Verkehrspolizei Unterwachtmeister sitting in the small cabin of "Der Fünfeckige Verkehrsturm"… the five-sided, combined police traffic control box and municipal clock tower, rising eight-and-a-half-metres above the roadway on its five legs, out of the traffic island opposite Leipziger Platz.
He saw the green Polizei lamp blazing; and heard the raucous, penetrating Low-High-Low tones of the Horch's Martin-Horn, even above the roar of the traffic surrounding his lonely, isolated perch. Stabbing at his control panel, he switched the traffic control lights above the windows of his box to red in all directions.
The Horch made no attempt to reduce speed as the traffic screeched and slithered to a halt; merely threading its way through the jumble of vehicles, and accelerating away up Bellevueallee towards its junction with Siegesallee at Skagerakplatz, with the strident tones of the Martin-Horn echoing back mournfully from the high, five-storey Gothic Revival buildings.
With another squeal of tyres, the driver cut across the bonnet of the ugly, yellow ABOAG-BVG Büssing six-wheeled doppeldecker-omnibusse trundling laboriously out of Tiergartenstrasse around the Rolandbrunnen, and accelerated north into Siegesallee. As the Horch sped up the boulevard, the green Polizei lamp reflected off the glistening, wetted pavements and flickered eerily on the grouped marble statuary and busts of the Royal figures of the Hohenzollern Kings that lined each side of the avenue. This whole composition was widely regarded by the Berliners as grossly immoderate, and a pretentious show of Imperial strength. They dubbed it "Puppenallee"... The Avenue of Puppets; or "The Avenue de Kitsch."
In the more tolerant Weimar twenties, the reprobate Jewish artist, Max Liebermann, had complained that he "needed dark glasses to look at this crime against good taste"; and blamed the Kaiser for forcing him to wear them for the rest of his life, so that he would never have to look at it again.
At the junction of Siegesallee and Charlottenburger Chaussee, the Horch scarcely slowed as it cut across the four lanes of traffic, then executed a similar manoeuvre across Zeltenallee into the Königsplatz, with the Martin horn still braying and echoing back from the trees in the eastern end of the Tiergarten.
The Great Siegessäule column, topped with the Goddess of Victory... "Die Vergoldete Sieggöttin" that the Berliners, with their fondness for disrespectful names of famous buildings, called "Goldelse,"..."Gold Lizzie" gazed down from her high perch; and the crouching, shadowy Reichstag building towered to their right, as the car sped past the Kroll-Oper and swung right into the short Strasse am Königsplatz to stop outside the huge, and gloomy, Neo-Gothic, four-storey Ministry of Internal Affairs building bedecked with long, blood-red Hakenkreuz banners stirring ominously in the thin, damp breeze rustling through the thickly-wooded Tiergarten.
The SS-Sturmscharführer jumped out of the Horch and opened the rear door for the young woman. He escorted her across the pavement to the high, three-arched, pillared portico that protected the entrance to the Ministry. Two black uniformed SS-Scharführers, wearing white belts and gloves, as they always did on this guard duty, snapped to attention, presenting arms with their highly polished rifles. The SS-Sturmscharführer gave the full Hitlergruss as he strode into the building. They crossed the marble floor to a vast desk, where a portly, and somewhat unsavoury looking SS-Untersturmführer sat shuffling papers. After a suitable pause, he looked up.
The SS-Sturmscharführer cracked off another perfect Hitlergruss and crashed his heel irons together. In an unnecessarily loud voice, he shouted...
'Heil Hitler! SS-Untersturmführer; I wish to report that I have collected Fräulein. Doktor von Seringen, of Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt -am-Main, for audience with the ReichsFührer-SS, at his request.'
SS-Sturmscharführer Rudi Beckmann stood rigidly at attention before the SS-Untersturmführer seated at the desk and studied him with ill-concealed disdain. "Ein Etappenschwein"… a "Rear swine"… a desk jockey! Beckmann mused on how the fat desk-pusher would have handled him if he had been in Spain with "Gruppe Imker"… as he had been; with the panzer units "Grupper Drohne." Before he was inducted into the SS, Beckmann had been an instructor in Spain with Oberst Ritter von Thoma's Gruppe Imker, tasked with training General Francisco Franco's Spanish Nationalist officers and men, in tanks, infantry tactics, and artillery and signals employment. While ostensibly in Spain in a training role, the German instructors also rotated to the front to provide further technical support to the Spanish, and to engage in direct combat operations.
The two-man Panzerkampfwagen 1 "Ausf A" tank that Beckmann had commanded was of limited use against the Soviet-provided, T-26 tanks of the Republicans. It's very thin armour offered protection only against small firearms, and its twin 7.92mm, MG13 Dreyse machine guns were no match for anything other than infantry unit weapons. Beckmann quickly discovered… being both Commander and gunner… that the tanks were completely useless in combat.
His PzKpfw1 had been lost at Casa de Campo... the main assault of the battle for Madrid. He had only just managed to scramble through the lower escape hatch after his tank had been disabled with a grenade in the tracks, and a couple of Molotov cocktails to finish the job. He was the only one to escape. His driver fried as the PzKpfw1 blew up. Beckmann had been a bit burned; but worse, was a piece of grenade shrapnel embedded in his side.
A couple of thugs from the Republican Aranjuez group had tried to finish him off, but he had laid into them with the sharpened "Spaten"… the entrenching tool they carried on the tank. Now that really was a weapon. Chop somebody between the neck and shoulder with the edge of one of those… and they didn't come back for more… because it usually took their heads clean off. After that, the approaching Republicans had ignored him. Perhaps it was because he was unconscious for a couple of hours; perhaps it was because he was drenched with the blood of the two men that he had killed with the entrenching tool, and they thought him dead. All he knew was that he awoke in a soft bed being tended by a pretty, Spanish Nationalist nurse.
The same night, the thugs of the first International Brigade to deploy in Spain…the XIth… had come to the makeshift hospital. He was down in the basement operating theatre at the time, having just had the shrapnel removed. Semi-comatose from the anaesthetic, Beckmann had been swiftly placed with the dead, and a sheet had been thrown over him. It was the last thing the young Nationalist doctor did before he was cut down in a hail of machine-gun fire.
Hours later, when he came round, Beckmann had made his way out through the hospital. The corridors and wards were choked with corpses. The XIth had slaughtered everyone… doctors, nurses, and patients. In the ward where he had been tended, he found his pretty Spanish Nationalist nurse… but she wasn't pretty now. They had beaten her up; stripped her, and tied her to a bed. Then she had been brutally raped, time and again. Her throat had been cut, and a crude Hammer and Sickle had been carved into her chest between her lacerated breasts.
Beckmann had gone a little crazy after this. He had prowled around the backstreets and alleys of Madrid, and discovered a drunken Republican soldier in an alley in the Ciudad Universitaria district, just off the Avenue Complutense. Beckmann proceeded to interrogate the drunken soldier to find out who was responsible for the rape, torture, and killing of his little nurse. The soldier told that it was XIth International Brigade, commanded by the Hungarian General, Máté "Lukacs" Zalka; and strengthened by the remains of the notorious Thälmann Bataillion.
The Thälmann Bataillion of the International Brigade was named after Ernst Thälmann, the original leader of the RFB... Der Rot Frontkämpferbund… the Red Front Fighters Association. This was a paramilitary organization of the Communist Party of Germany, created in 1924 in the Weimar Republic period.
The Bataillion was made up of approximately fifteen hundred Germans, Austrians; Swiss and Scandinavian communists and revolutionaries; and also many German Jews who had fled Germany when Hitler rose to power, and had been welcomed by the Republican government. Most of the Germans volunteering were working-class... members of the Weimar Republic's "lost generation," who had never known stability or regular employment after Germany's defeat in 1918. Two battalions had taken Thälmann's name, and had lost close on a third of their strength to date. The survivors had joined the XIth International Brigade.
Having viciously extracted this information; Beckmann then proceeded to beat the unfortunate Republican soldier to a pulp, and went seeking vengeance for his pretty nurse. He became a predator. All through that dreadful November of 1936, he prowled the shabby, war-torn streets of Madrid. He lost count of the number of Republicans he killed around the backstreets and alleys. Young or old, male or female… it didn't matter. He became a master of the long drawn-out death. He always used a blade; it was more personal, that way. He became an embarrassment to the Nationalist Commanders until at last, in late December, he was sent back to Germany as being mentally unstable… a loose cannon.
Beckmann considered this to be... to say the least; hypocritical, when the same commanders regularly used to order everyone suspected of being a Republican to be rounded up and taken off to the Calle del Ave Maria, in central Madrid, where they would be lined up against the wall of the abattoir, and mown down with machine-gun fire. The executioners used to laugh that the sand there was so dry, the blood used to soak up in a matter of seconds, so there was never the need to bother with any cleaning-up operations.
Beckmann had developed a bitter hatred for Communists and Jews; a penchant that was eagerly seized upon by the lunatic talent scouts of the ReichsFührer-SS; and once inducted into "Die Schutzstaffel," his rise through the ranks had been rapid.
In the reception area of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the SS-Untersturmführer, Otto Giesler, stared at the young woman with ill-concealed disdain. He was one of the Party's hard-liners, who held the "Kinder, Kirche, und Küche "… "Children, Church, and Kitchen" attitude to all German women... as ordained by Hitler on 8th September 1934 in a speech to the Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft, NSF; the National Socialist Women's Organization…
"Für die deutsche Frau ist ihre Welt ihr Mann, ihre Familie, ihre Kinder und ihr Zuhause"..."For the German woman, her world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home."
Still, he chose not to make some caustic comment... it didn't do to upset The Boss upstairs. He motioned that the young woman should take a seat. He then returned to shuffling his papers and ignored her. He ignored her for about ten minutes. She watched him. He felt her watching him, and looked up to throw her a dirty look. Then… he noticed the small, Party "Golden Honour" badge in her lapel.
Giesler was just about to scrape his chair back from his desk and challenge her as to her right to wear such a Party badge; but as he rose, he half-turned and caught sight of the elegant grey figure descending the great, sweeping staircase behind him. Snapping rigidly to attention, and crashing his heels together, he froze; not daring to twitch a muscle. He didn't even have to flicker an eyelid to recognise the tall officer with the sharp, aquiline features; close-set, blue, ice-pick eyes and swept-back, brilliantined, blonde hair.
SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich... Reinhard Eugen Tristan Heydrich, Chief of the "Sicherheitspolizei:" The Security Police, and the "Sicherheitsdienst"… The SS Security Service for the whole of the Third Reich, crossed the floor to the young woman; clicked his heels, and kissed her hand. No Hitlergruss here. Reinhard Heydrich, urbane, charming; and completely deadly. The man whom Hitler called "The Man with the Iron Heart;" the man whose recreation consisted of playing the violin; horse-riding in the Tiergarten, and prowling the nightclubs, bars and restaurants of Berlin; picking up whores and much useful information at the same time; smiled at Karyn and spoke,
'Good evening, Fräulein Doktor von Seringen, The ReichsFührer-SS apologises for the lateness of the hour. He wished to make your acquaintance as soon as you arrived. However, the meeting proper will be in the morning. The ReichsFührer-SS has personally arranged an apartment for you at The Kaiserhof Hotel on Wilhelmstrasse. You will be conveyed there directly. Now, come with me, if you please.'
He ushered her up the great staircase to the office where ReichsFührer-SS Heinrich Himmler awaited her.
Giesler relaxed. He had felt the trickle of fear-induced sweat soaking his collar for the entire time that Heydrich had stood in the reception hall. Thank Christ he hadn't laid into this woman about the Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP badge that she wore. She must be really important for Heydrich himself, to greet her... so how close had he been to a ten-stretch in Torgau? No, he didn't fancy even thinking about that, at all. Even worse, they might have had him court-martialled and sent to Dachau... and who was in command of Dachau? his old enemy, SS-Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke.
Giesler had a run-in with Eicke during "Der Nacht der Langen Messer"… The Night of The Long Knives, back in '34. Giesler had been an SA Sturmhauptführer, ordered to attend a meeting at the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee near Munich. Halfway through the meeting, the Police units… Landespolizeigruppe-General Göring and Himmler's Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler went into action; having received the codeword "Kolibri"..."Hummingbird"... the signal used to set the execution squads in motion on the day of the purge. Eicke was there too. He had brought a squad of handpicked Dachau camp guards to back up the Leibstandarte. Giesler had shot two of the Dachau concentration camp goons, and managed to escape.
Eicke had tried to pin this on Giesler, but all those who might have been "persuaded" to say that they had seen him in the Hanselbauer Hotel had been shot out of hand, and Giesler had managed to swing a cast-iron alibi that he had been delayed in Berlin and hadn't been able to make it to Bad Wiessee that night. Eicke couldn't break this alibi, but Giesler knew that Eicke would love to get his hands on him. He shivered at the very thought.
While Giesler was regaining his composure, Heydrich had conducted the young woman along the first floor hallway to a doorway that was guarded by two SS-Oberscharführers of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler. They stood motionless, in their sinister black uniforms. They wore gleaming black Stahlhelms, snow-white leather belts with a shoulder cross-strap; and two groups of three white cartridge boxes on their belts. Their white-gloved hands were folded around the muzzles of their highly-polished rifles which they held shoulder-stock to the floor. Their blood-red Hakenkreuzarmbinden armbands glowed ominously in the bright corridor lighting. As Heydrich and the girl approached, there was no snapping to attention… just the merest flicker of eyes from beneath the rims of the glittering black Stahlhelms, and the sharp click of boot heel-irons coming together.
Heydrich opened the door and ushered the young woman inside. The room was huge. A large portrait of the Führer hung above the yawning marble fireplace, and the room almost dwarfed the expansive mahogany desk that sat in front of the windows that looked out over the Königsplatz. Behind the vast desk sat an unassuming, narrow-chested, weak-chinned man dressed in a well-fitting black uniform with his decorations prominently displayed; and wearing on the cuff of his left sleeve, the plain, woven silver, and thin-black-bordered, "Ärmelstreifen für ReichsFührer-SS" cuff title. At first glance, he might be mistaken as being a rural schoolteacher, with his receding hair, and dark blue eyes behind glittering, thin-framed spectacles. To make such an assumption however, would be the gravest mistake, for this was ReichsFührer-SS Heinrich Himmler… Heinrich Luitpold Himmler, former chicken farmer; and now, second only in power in the Third Reich to Adolf Hitler himself. Technically, Himmler was subordinate to Wilhelm Frick, the Minister of the Interior, but, in practice, he acknowledged only one superior… Adolf Hitler.
Karyn's first impression of the ReichsFührer was that he reminded her of a myopic black rat.
In 1936, the entire German police force had been reorganised, and placed under the direction of the Ministry of Interior. The police were then divided into two main branches: the Main Office of the Security Police… the Sicherheitspolizei - the "SiPo," headed by Heydrich, which included the Gestapo and the Kripo; and the Main Office of General Police… the Ordnungpolizei - the "Orpo," headed by Kurt Daluege; responsible for the Municipal Police… the "Schutzpolizei," the Rural Police… the "Gendarmerie," and the Local civil Police… the "Gemeindepolizei." Himmler; who had never actually seen a shot fired in anger; controlled them all.
He glanced up from his sheaf of papers as Heydrich came to attention, clicking his heels, and raising his arm in an impeccable Hitlergruss, the regulation five paces away from the desk. Himmler's responding salute was a mere rising of the forearm and hand.
Heydrich spoke.
'Herr ReichsFührer, may I present Fräulein Doktor Helle von Seringen.'
The schoolteacher looked up and smiled; or rather, his mouth smiled. The eyes behind the narrow-rimmed round lenses peered owlishly, but were cold, and impassive. A small, trimmed moustache below the straight nose traced a dark line on his closely shaven, punctilious little face. His lips were colourless and very thin. Below the inconspicuous, receding chin, the skin of his neck was flabby and wrinkled. His thin, pale, and almost girlishly soft hands displaying a noticeable network of blue veins lay motionless on a buff file placed in front of him on the desktop.
The ReichsFührer stood up. Of average height, he was however, somewhat taller than the wealth of photographs of him would lead one to believe. He spoke with a Bavarian accent, in a high-pitched, shrill voice…
'Thank you Reinhard. That will be all.'
Heydrich saluted again and left the room. Himmler invited the girl to sit. He reseated himself behind the large desk, and opened the slender file stamped across the front cover with the distinctive red "GEHEIME REICHSSACHE"… "Secret Reich Matters"… the highest secret designation. He studied several papers and quietly looked up, peering through his spectacles at her. Then, he began to read the papers aloud…
"Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen."
Born 15th February, 1912, at Grünheide, Landkreis Rastenburg, Ostpreussen.'
'Enrolled NSDAP, 15th February 1925, by your Godfather, Herbert Jankuhn. A somewhat young age, but then; Jankuhn had great foresight for your future; being an archaeologist himself.'
'Full membership of Schwesternschaft der Hitler-Jugend, from 1928.'
(There was not yet an official female organization, but plenty of young women whose brothers were members of the Hitler Youth had begun forming their own groups which became known as Hitler-Jugend Schwesternschaften, or Hitler Youth Sisterhoods.)
'Bund Deutscher Mädel Untergauführerin. Grünheide, Landkreis Rastenburg. 1930.'
'Youngest recipient of Das Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP... Party number 21,242.'
'Only female recipient of Das Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP in Grünheide, Landkreis Rastenburg.'
'Party funded scholarship to Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1931.' Obtained a First in Russian Linguistics, 12th November, 1933.
'Obtained Doctorate in Archaeology, 25th September, 1934.'
He glanced up from his papers, and peered owlishly though his spectacles at her.
'Now, to business. The Fatherland has need of your services, Fräulein Doktor von Seringen. I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but there are certain formalities that need to be set in place.'
He pushed a thick buff envelope across the desk. He spoke again.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
'In the envelope, are certain documents you will need. Specifically... A Diplomatic passport. A Consulate pass. An SD identity card. A Gestapo pass. There is also an envelope containing a "Führerbefehl" - a Führer Directive, giving you complete autonomy over all Reichs-personnel including my deputy, SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich, and myself.'
Again, the mouth smiled thinly at this comment… but again, his eyes did not.
'Tomorrow, we shall talk again. Now, you must sign the passport and the identity cards. This must be done in the presence of SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich and myself. He must be in Munich tomorrow, and that is why you are here at this late hour, for which I must apologise.'
He gave what might be called a benevolent smile, but again, his eyes were cold and dead.
'You brought the five photographs that were requested?'
She replied,
'Yes, Herr ReichsFührer,'
And rummaged in her handbag. She brought out the photographs and slid them across the desk. Himmler picked them up and studied them. Then, fixing her with his cold gaze, he spoke.
'Sehr Gut; a pleasing likeness. Now, the four documents, if you please.'
She emptied the contents of the envelope onto the desk and slid the green, linen-covered Diplomatic passport… "Der Ministerialpass"; the red linen-covered Consulate pass… "Der Auswärtiges Amt Ausweis"; the SD identity card… "Der Borläufiger SS-Ausweis"; and the Gestapo pass… Der "Geheime Staatspolizei Durchlassschein" across the highly polished surface of the desk. Himmler reached into a drawer and brought out a pot of gum, an eyelet punch and eyelet rivets; two large rubber stamps and an ink pad. He pressed a bell push under the lip of the desktop. The door opened; Heydrich entered, and walked to the desk as Himmler pasted one of the photographs into each of the documents.
The Gestapo Pass was a single piece of white, medium-weight card stock printed on both sides with a red background pattern consisting of tightly interlocking circles producing a ''chain-mail'' effect; completely covering both sides of the card except for two small spaces on the front. The left half of the front had space in the centre for a photograph to be affixed; with a white circle overlapping the top left-hand corner; obviously to allow for an official rubber stamp impression. Below the space for the photo, was a box, for the signature of the bearer.
Himmler affixed one of the photographs to the pass, using two of the eyelet rivets; stamped the photograph across the top left corner, and slid it across the desk to Karyn for her signature. When it was duly signed; he scrawled his angular, green ink signature across the rubber-stamp impression. The other documents were then signed by Karyn; each was rubber-stamped across the lower edge of the photograph, after the eyelet rivet had been fitted through one of the top corners of each photograph; and Himmler again scrawled his sharp, almost italic signature across the purple ink stamp impression of the Hoheitszeichen National Insignia Eagle and Hakenkreuz circled with the words: "Der ReichsFührer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei 1." Inside this outer circle were the circled words: "Im Reichsministerium des Innern." This was probably the most frightening… and valuable rubber stamp in the entire Third Reich!
Heydrich countersigned the documents. All were then handed back to Karyn. Neatly folded into the back of the green Diplomatic passport was another document. She glanced up at Himmler, who held her in an unblinking stare. She unfolded the document, and saw that it was an open Russian visa... dated from two days hence, with no restrictions and no expiry date; issued by The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Moscow. She read the authorisation signature... Nikolai Yezhov; People's Commissar for Internal Affairs… which actually, was the title for the Head of the NKVD. Then; below Yezhov's scrawled signature... the counter-signature leapt out of the document. Her blue eyes widened in complete disbelief. There, on the thin paper... scrawled across a red rubber stamp impression of a Hammer and Sickle, circled with Cyrillic script, of which she made out the one word, "MOCKBA," was the red pencilled swirl and slash, followed by a scrawl that appeared to begin with the capital letter "G." She looked at Himmler. He gave her a thin, cold smile.
'Yes, Fräulein Doktor von Seringen; it is the signature of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With this document, and the Führerbefehl... the Führer's Directive in your possession; you are now probably the most powerful woman in the entire Third Reich... next, of course, to Reichsfrauenführerin Scholtz-Klink; and I would advise you to be exceptionally prudent in your use of them.'
Karyn sat stunned. What the hell was this all about? Himmler was speaking again.
'If you would be so kind, could you let me have your Party membership book? You will not require it now that you carry an SD identity card.'
As if in a trance, Karyn handed the red-linen covered NSDAP Mitgliedsbuch to him. He slipped it into the slim file, which he then closed. Then he stood up, and extended his hand.
'Thank you, Fräulein Doktor von Seringen. Until tomorrow.'
She took his proffered hand. It was very like clasping a wet fish... damp and cold... with no firmness whatsoever in the handshake.
Heydrich accompanied her to the door. He turned and raised his arm in another impeccable Hitlergruss. Karyn thought she had better do the same. The ReichsFührer-SS didn't even bother to look up... merely raising his hand with a dismissive wave. Heydrich walked her to the head of the sweeping staircase. He turned to her, saying,
'The car will take you to your hotel, Fräulein Doktor von Seringen. I bid you good evening.'
He clicked his heels and bowed, taking her hand and kissing it. She gave a little smile, thinking to herself, "Smooth bastard!" Heydrich was definitely a womaniser, but his piercing blue eyes were cold... icy-cold. Refuse his advances and you were just as likely to get a little visit from the Gestapo. As she walked down the staircase, she shivered.
Untersturmführer-SS Giesler leapt up from his desk and escorted her to the main entrance. She could smell his panicky sweat from three metres away. Then, she was out into the clear, damp Berlin night air. The Horch was waiting, its big, eight-cylinder engine whispering. The two SS-Sturmscharführers who had brought her from the station were lounging against the glittering black paintwork, having a crafty smoke. As she came out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs building, one jumped to open the rear door for her; the other climbed into the driving seat. Settling herself in the soft, red plush of the rear seat, Karyn gazed across to the great, crouching Reichstag, wondering what the hell they would have to say in the morning.
The driver slipped the big Horch into gear and moved away from the Ministry building. As it passed the Roon Denkmal... the stern, ponderous Memorial statue of Albrecht Graf von Roon, The Prussian Minister of War, situated at the threshold of the short Alsen Strasse; the Horch turned right, out onto the circle of the Königsplatz, sweeping past the Reichstag. The glare of the car's headlamps reflected back off the "Bismarkdenkmal"... The huge, austere Bismarck memorial flanked by the large, semi-circular Brunnenteiche… the fountain ponds. The headlamps glittered briefly on the rain-slicked statues that sat in the fountain ponds at the feet of the Reichstag steps and plaza, as the shadowy Siegessäule loomed to the right.
The driver swung left, out of the Königsplatz, switching on the green Polizei lamp and Martin-Horn as the Horch gathered speed down Friedensallee; then cut diagonally across the northern reach of Hermann-Göring-Strasse towards the Brandenburger Tor. The traffic coming up the Charlottenburger Chaussee ground to a halt… as did the traffic emerging from under the Brandenburger Tor. The Horch swung left and sped through the central roadway under the towering Brandenburger Tor into Pariser Platz, then turned hard right off Unter Den Linden with a squeal of tyres, into Wilhelmstrasse.
Karyn gazed out of the car windows as they sped down Wilhelmstrasse. Here, were all the buildings she had seen in the newsreels. On her left; the ominous Reichsministerium der Justiz… the Ministry of Justice; and Das Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda… Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. On her right, loomed Das Auswärtiges Amt… The Foreign Office; and the Old Reichs Chancellery. The Horch was slowing, moving over to the left against the oncoming traffic. Just before the intersection with Voss-strasse, it pulled over and stopped at the kerbside under the projecting glazed canopy of the towering arched and pillared portico of the Hotel Kaiserhof.
SS-Sturmscharführer Beckmann climbed out of the front seat and walked around the front of the Horch, his insignia glittering in the beam thrown by the green Polizei lamp. He opened the rear door for her. As she stepped onto the shining wet pavement where the wind had blown in the cold, drizzling rain, she looked across towards Voss-Strasse. The unfinished new Reich Chancellery extension stretched away into the reflected shimmer of the rainy Berlin night. She glanced down Wilhelmstrasse. Just beyond the next major intersection with Leipzigerstrasse, the huge new bulk of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's Air Ministry building crouched in the darkness - if crouched was the word for the massive six-story, concrete block.
She gave an involuntary shiver; but it was impossible to decide whether it was because of the chill night wind coming up over Belle-Alliance-Brücke and Halleschen Tor from off the Landwehrkanal, or because she was in the very heart of the "Tausendjähriges Reich"… the Thousand Years Empire. Besides which; some of the most feared institutions in the Third Reich: Gestapo Headquarters, the SS Central Command; the SS Security Service, and the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais which housed the offices of the SS Reich leadership were just a little farther down Wilhelmstrasse, around the next corner to the right, beyond the Air Ministry; in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. These days, there were few Berliners who ever walked down Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse unless they really had no choice but to do so.
SS-Sturmscharführer Beckmann guided her under the pillared portico and into the reception. A doorman ran to collect her suitcase as the SS-Sturmscharführer announced her arrival to the receptionist. The staff fussed and fawned around Karyn. They hadn't the slightest idea who she was, but the whisper had escaped that the office of ReichsFührer-SS Himmler had ordered Frau Schroeder of the management of the Kaiserhof to make one of the twenty-five private apartments available for her. Fräulein Doktor von Seringen was obviously a very big wheel, or had very high connections in the Party.
As she was ushered towards the elevator, a group of SS officers, who had been lolling in the salon bar, noticed her passing, accompanied by the two SS-Sturmscharführers. They stared at her appraisingly, nudging one another. Then they caught sight of Das Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP in her lapel. They leapt to their feet, crashing their iron-shod heels together, and shooting their right arms up in a synchronised Hitlergruss… shouting "Heil Hitler!" As she returned the obligatory salute, Karyn was hard-pressed not to smile. If only they knew.
The five-storey, four-hundred-beds Kaiserhof Hotel had long been one of the finest hotels in the Government quarter of Berlin. Every room had an electricity supply, its own bathroom, and its own telephone. Situated on Wilhelmplatz, it stood directly across the square from the Reichchancellery and Adolf Hitler's residence on Wilhelmstrasse. Hitler himself had often stayed at The Kaiserhof prior to becoming Chancellor, and had retained an apartment on the top floor during the extensive renovations of the Chancellor's apartments in the old Reichchancellery. Anybody who imagined they were anybody in the Third Reich Government hierarchy suspired for a personal invitation to stay at the Kaiserhof.
Karyn was ushered to private apartment fourteen on the third floor. As he unlocked the door and handed her the key, Beckmann clicked his heels, and with a slight bow, said:
'Gute Nacht, Fräulein. I shall return for you at ten o'clock tomorrow morning.'
Ten o'clock! She hoped they would drive a little slower through the Berlin traffic tomorrow!
The apartment was magnificent. She walked to the floor-length window and gazed out onto Wilhelmstrasse. In front of the floor-length window was a stone-balustraded balcony. Private apartment fourteen was directly above the portico entrance. She stepped out onto the balcony; gazed out across Wilhelmplatz, and breathed in the "Berliner Luft"... the special Berlin atmosphere. Back in Frankfurt-am-Main, she had heard it said that no one was born a Berliner; everyone had to become one. You breathed in the "amphetamine-like air," which was described as being as addictive as cocaine or alcohol, and slowly you became a Berliner. Karyn wasn't sure that she really wanted to become a Berliner... far too many sinister uniforms and dangerous, powerful individuals.
She closed the windows, opened the door to the dressing room... and stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide. The dressing room rails were packed with gowns and dresses, coats and hats. Her eyes scanned the labels from Wertheim, Herman Tietz; Kaufhaus des Westens, and Leinenhaus Grünfeld on Ku'damm. There were dresses with labels from all the famous Jewish Konfektionsfirmen… the "Damenkonfektion"… Ladies Wear Establishments; including Bette; Bud & Lachmann, and Kersten & Tuteur Damenmodehaus on the Leipziger Strasse; Briese & Loepert on Hausvogteiplatz; Orgler & Fidelmann; Dreifus, and Altschul & Sinzheimer on Friedrichstrasse… all located in, and around the Berlin-Mitte District. These garments must have cost a fortune.
The drawers were full of silk underwear and stockings, and there must have been a dozen pairs of "Salamander" shoes lined up on the floor. On the dresser was a collection of cosmetics. There were also several packs of Waldorf Astoria, and Sonder Mischung Nr.4 cigarettes, and an Austrian "Imco" safety cigarette lighter. Karyn was dumbfounded. For some time now, the Party hierarchy had frowned upon red lips, lacquered fingernails; high heels, fashionable clothes and the enjoyment of nicotine; (except, of course, for their wives, mistresses, or girlfriends.)
Hitler, being a committed vegetarian, took the stance... at least, officially; that he was not overly-fond of cosmetics since they contained animal by-products, and frequently chided his mistress Eva Braun about her habit of wearing make-up. Eva Braun, however, defiantly smoked when the Führer was not around, and freely used Elizabeth Arden cosmetics.
Since the early thirties, the slogan: "Die Deutsche Frau raucht nicht"... "The German woman does not smoke" appeared on posters in restaurants and elsewhere all over Germany. Brown-shirts had confronted women on the street wearing too much make-up… the new German woman was expected to rely on exercise to create a natural glow… and sometimes snatched cigarettes from their painted lips. Police chiefs of numerous German cities had put up posters in all public restaurants forbidding females to smoke, or to wear make-up.
The Erfurt Police chief actually invited the population to accost women who were wearing make-up, or smoking… and remind them of "Their duty as German women and mothers." Stridently pro-Nazi women's magazines, such as "NS Frauen-Warte," and "Deutsche Frauenkultur" ranted that "The present international fashion is unsuitable for the Arisch-Nordic spirit." These days, for women, at least… "German" and nicotine; "German" and lipstick, or "German" and fashion, were incompatible concepts. The official edict for the appearance of German women brought two images to mind: the blonde, braided, buxom wench in a dirndl dress, or the severe, uniformed party worker. Anything else was, as near as dammit... "Verboten"… forbidden.
Karyn thought of the new poster that had appeared on the billboard of her apartment building. It said:
"Deutsche Frauen; Ihr Führer und Ihr Land vertrauen Ihnen"... "German women; your Führer and your country trust you."
She had thought how nervous and insecure that sounded; the Nazis, or perhaps, just Goebbels, subconsciously revealing a deep fear of the unquantifiable mystery of the fairer sex.
On the salon table was an uncorked bottle of '35 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Piesporter sitting in an ice bucket. Karyn reached for the stemmed glass engraved with a Prussian Imperial coat of arms with the words "KAISERHOF BERLIN" engraved below it. She poured herself a glass of the crisp, clean wine, and gazing into the golden depths, wondered again just what the hell they had planned for her.
She took out the slender envelope containing the Führerbefehl. The Gothic Script printing in the top left-hand corner of the innocent-looking buff envelope leapt out at her:
ADOLF HITLER.
PRIVATKANZLEI. BERLIN W 35.
FRIEDRICH-WILHELMSTR.13.
Jesu! This was from the Führer's private office. This was no obscure secretary in the Reich Chancellery office typing pool, tapping away on her Orga Privat Bingwerke typewriter from some third-hand, dictated shorthand note. This had been personally sent by one of his private secretaries; Senior Secretary Johanna Wolf, or perhaps, Christa Schröder.
Across the centre of the envelope was handwritten her full, titled name in dark blue ink. The envelope was sealed with a red and white, Hoheitsabzeichen embossed, scalloped edge, circular paper seal. This paper seal was Hitler's personal
"Der Führer und Reichskanzler"
Reichchancellery seal securing the back of the envelope.
With a slight tremble in her nervous fingers, Karyn broke the seal, and timidly opened the envelope. She unfolded the sheet of paper, tracing her fingertips across the heavily-embossed, seventy-five-millimetre, Hoheitsabzeichen National Eagle and Hakenkreuz Seal in the bottom left corner of the sheet. The paper was high quality, hand-made; and embossed in gold in the top left-hand corner with a Parteiadler Eagle with out-spread wings and its head turned towards its left shoulder; clutching in its talons a laurel wreath containing a Hakenkreuz, rather than the specific Nazi-era version Reichsadler looking to its right shoulder. Beneath the crest was printed, in uncompromising golden capital letters…
ADOLF HITLER
PRIVATKANZLEI.
The Führer's Personal Notepaper! With her hands shaking, she scanned down the page. It was, just as Himmler had said; a Führerbefehl… A Führer Directive.
Below the Golden Capital letters were typed the following:
Der Fuhrer und Oberste Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht.
WFA/ Abt.L. Nr. A05. 209/37. gK 06h.
Below that; in the centre of the page, was typed the following heading:
Weisung Nr. A/05.
There, at the bottom, beneath the typed line:
Der Führer und Reichskanzler.
was Hitler's signature in black ink; the "A" looking more like a single SS Sig-Rune, and alongside it; beginning with a looping "H"… the "Hitler," with a diagonal slash across the bridge of the letter "H." The remaining letters of the signature squiggled down, almost illegibly. Both parts of the signature slanted at an angle down towards the bottom edge of the sheet. A real signature… not just a rubber stamp.
The contents of the Führerbefehl were simple and concise. With wide eyes, Karyn read the bold-case, typewritten contents:
The Bearer of this Document: Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen is acting under my direct and personal order on a matter of utmost importance to The Fatherland. She is to receive unquestioning, and immediate co-operation from all members of The Armed Forces, and Citizens of the Third Reich.
Fräulein Doktor von Seringen is, on my Authority, granted the equivalent Honorary Rank of Standartenführer. Her requests are to be accepted without questionment, as my Direct Order. Fräulein Doktor von Seringen is hereby duly authorised to requisition transport, materiel, and weapons at her discretion.
Given at the Reichs Chancellery, Berlin. 24th May 1937. 06, 00 Hrs.
Der Führer und Reichskanzler,
Karyn sat on the edge of the bed, and, with shaking hands, read the document again. She had never heard of such a thing. Even the wide-reaching powers of the District Gauleiters of the regional branches of the NSDAP didn't have the sort of power that the named bearer of this document possessed. She took a deep gulp of the Piesporter, draining the glass, and, with a trembling hand, poured herself another.
She thumbed through the other documents. Opening the green Diplomatic passport, she gazed at her photograph staring back at her. The information read that Karyn Helle von Seringen was a Senior Administrator to The German Military Attaché in Moscow. The red linen Consulate pass held the same information. Both these documents held the counter-signature of Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg, Reich Ambassador to The Soviet Union.
The SD identity card identified her as Karyn Helle von Seringen; holding honorary equivalent rank of SS-Standartenführer, attached to Persönlichen Stabes ReichsFührer-SS… the Personal Staff of ReichsFührer-SS Himmler. That would mean that, within the ranks of the Sicherheitsdienst she was subordinate only to SS-Gruppenführer Karl Wolff; the Head of ReichsFührer-SS Himmler's personal staff and Himmler's Personal Adjutant and Liaison officer.
This document was a complete fabrication. The Schutzstaffel membership was closed to women. There would only ever be sixteen women in the true SS ranks, other than the female SS-Auxiliaries… the SS-Helferinnen; and then… not for years. The Third Reich was not a society that typically placed women in a position of power. The SS was originally conceived as, and bound by a form of mystic brotherhood, as well as by the corresponding impulse that Germanic men must defend their women and children; were hardly disposed to integrate women fully into their Schwarze Korps.
In the present Nazi command structure, no female could ever give orders to a male, even if the woman outranked the man. Hitler believed that women should remain relegated to their domestic sphere, subordinate to the State, and to their male superiors… but this Führerbefehl stood all that on its head.
She emptied the glass and poured another. Her thoughts were racing. What on earth did they want with her? Why should they go to such extraordinary lengths to fabricate these powerful credentials for a young archaeological professor from some distant Provincial University? She gazed at the Gestapo pass. Across the top was stamped in black ink, the words "ÜBRIGES REICHSGEBIET"… which denoted that the pass was good throughout the entire Reich, when accompanied by an identification document for the named and photographed holder… Karyn Helle von Seringen. With this one document alone, she could go wherever she wanted, and no one would dare challenge her. When put up against all the rest... save for the Führerbefehl; this was the most powerful document of all.
She gazed at the rubber stamp impressions. Again, in purple ink; the Hoheitszeichen National Insignia Eagle circled with the words "Geheime Staatspolizei" around the upper edge of the circle, and "Staatpolizeileitstelle. PrinzAlbrechtstr. 9" around the lower edge enclosed the words "Aussendienstelle Berlin. SW11"… it was the stamp of the ugly, and ominous, former Hotel Prinz Albrecht Strasse... an unremarkable four-storey building of arched windows and mock Corinthian pillars, with two long, dictator-sized balconies on the first floor, surmounted by an enormous ornate clock. Its seventy rooms meant that it had never been in the same league as the big hotels like the Bristol or the Adlon, which was probably how it came to be taken over by the SS. Now known throughout Berlin as Das SS-Haus, and situated next door to Gestapo headquarters at number eight, it was also headquarters to Himmler in his capacity as ReichsFührer-SS. She read the signature: Heinrich Müller… Gestapo Müller; Chief of Operations; and she shivered again.
She had heard tell of Müller from her mentor and professor, Doktor Schweizer at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt-am-Main. Müller was a professional Munich policeman who had the reputation for being extremely ruthless in rooting out spies and malcontents. He was an able organizer… a man who lived for his work. A man of limited imagination; being non-political, and non-ideological; his only fanaticism lay in an inner drive to perfection in his profession and in his duty to the State ... which, in his mind, were one. Müller would eventually become a member of the Nazi Party in 1939 for the purely opportunist reason of improving his chances of promotion. He was a servant of the regime out of ambition, not devotion to Hitler. In fact, he had once referred to Hitler as "An immigrant unemployed house painter" and "An Austrian draft-dodger."
As Gestapo Chief of Operations, Müller had played a leading role in the detection and suppression of all forms of resistance to the Nazi regime. Under his leadership, the Gestapo succeeded in infiltrating and to a large extent, destroying the underground networks of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party by the end of 1935.
Most of the leaders of these two organisations were, on his direct order, beaten to a pulp in the upper floor offices of Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. In short, he was a nasty piece of work in a frighteningly threatening organisation… an organisation that had doubtless, fully vetted her before the Gestapo pass would even have been considered to be issued. How it must have rankled them, that here, was at least, one academic who was untouchable… and they had been commanded by the Führer himself to make her so.
Karyn racked her memory as she tried to piece all this together. Then she remembered. While she was still studying for her Doctorate at Frankfurt-am-Main, she had attended a lecture given by a rising young anthropologist and SS member, Bruno Beger. He had attended the model National Socialist University of Jena, and worked in the Race and Settlement Office of the SS. While at the University of Jena, he had fallen under the malign influence of Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, a German race researcher and eugenicist in the former Weimar Republic, and now, in the Third Reich.
This rabid racist was also sarcastically known as "Rassengünther"... "Race" Günther; or "Rassenpapst"... "Race Pope." He was a major influence on National Socialist racialist thought, and had held the chair of racial theory at Jena since 1931. He was renowned for poisoning young minds with his theories of eugenics, and Beger had been a willing pupil.
Karyn had been shocked, yet fascinated by Beger's lecture, and had lobbied him afterwards. She did not hold with any of his views, but had found him charming. He was quite taken with her, Blonde, blue-eyed, high cheekbones… her imperious, self-confident behaviour… a classic, eugenic "Arisch"... Aryan.
This brief meeting must have been the link to the situation in which she now found herself. Beger had obviously mentioned her name to someone influential in "Der Deutsches Ahnenerbe-Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte"… the German Ancestry-Research and Teaching Society headquarters at Berlin-Dahlem, Pücklerstrasse 16. It would probably have been SS-Obersturmführer Wolfram Sievers… Reich Manager of the Ahnenerbe. Sievers was another creepy individual who would come to be known as "The Nazi Bluebeard" for his grisly practices in a few years time due to his involvement as Director of "Das Institut für Wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung"... The Institute for Military Scientific Research, which conducted extensive experimentation on concentration camp prisoners.
Karyn shivered again. Suddenly, she felt very vulnerable and very alone, in spite of these unbelievably powerful documents spread out on the bed before her.
She sat at the dressing table and began to remove the subtle traces of make-up she wore, with the horribly expensive, Elizabeth Arden Eight-hour cream, which had been provided with the assorted cosmetics. She might as well make the best of it. What they might reveal at the meeting in the morning really didn't bear thinking about. She undressed, and slipped into the silk nightgown that had been folded neatly on the pillow. Snuggling down into the huge bed, she flicked out the lights, and lay there; her mind whirling, until at length, she drifted into a Piesporter-fuelled, dreamless sleep... slowly lulled away by the soft hum of the traffic up on Unter Den Linden.