Secretaries kept their eyes averted when he appeared or they had errands that chased them from their stations. 'I am a ghost,' he whispered into the mirror one afternoon, and saying it, he realised that he must do something. He must at least try to get out. Then the idea came back to him - this time something more than a fantasy. Running was not the answer. Not for a knight of the Blood Lance.
On the last day of the month, Rahn passed an envelope to one of Himmler's assistants. 'Make sure the Reichsführer sees this first thing tomorrow,' he said.
'What is this?' the man asked with a degree of suspicion that made Rahn uneasy.
'My letter of resignation.'
The man's face washed pale. 'You took an oath!'
'If the Reichsführer is interested I will be glad to explain my reasons in person. For now, if you will, simply give him my letter.'
Rahn was not sure he would make it out of the building, but he had decided he must resign. If all else failed, if the Gestapo arrested him before he could act, he had at least declared he was no longer a sworn knight of the Order of the Skull. Whilst his letter still lay unopened on Himmler's desk, he proceeded to the car pool and took a staff car for an early morning trip. With a near-perfect forgery of Himmler's signature, the paperwork was impeccable, and Rahn proceeded out of Berlin holding his breath the entire way.
On the following afternoon, Rahn presented another letter written over Himmler's signature to the SS guard at the entry to Wewelsburg. The corporal made a phone call, and seemed to take longer than before. Every nod of his head, every answer he gave, spelled doom in Rahn's overworked imagination, but he finally signalled Rahn through. 'You may park inside the gate, Dr Rahn!' As he had anticipated, his resignation would take several days to filter through the bureaucracy. On this day, at least outside of Berlin, Dr Rahn was still an important man.
Himmler kept the relic Rahn had given him in a locked room close to the officers' apartments on the upper floor of the fortress. A sergeant had directed Rahn to it and even unlocked the door for him. Then he waited whilst Rahn retrieved the thing.
Himmler had not responded well to the Lance of Antioch because he was, in the end, a profoundly unimaginative man. That was not to say Himmler had no interest in the object. He was mad for occult ceremonies, secret societies, and anything at all that hinted of being a magical talisman. He believed in ghosts and the power of objects that had been touched by destiny. And though Himmler might tell the Führer the Lance of St. Maurice had pierced the side of Christ, in his heart he believed Rahn, believed as well that
he
owned the True Lance - and with it the destiny of the world. But for the time, still a young man, Himmler had kept his secret talisman locked away in his secret castle.
Nothing, Rahn knew, would cut as deep as losing this - especially as a Jew had stolen it from him.
Elise told the maid not to admit Dr Rahn. When he appeared, her maid following him helplessly, Elise told the woman to go upstairs. 'Shall I telephone the police, Ma'am?'
'No,' Elise said with a calmness she did not feel. 'I will handle it.'
Alone, the two of them seated on the settee in the parlour, she told him, 'Otto, we cannot see you anymore. I am sorry, but Dieter insists we keep our distance - at least until you are cleared.'
'That's not why I am here,' he told her. 'I came to ask you if Sarah is ours.'
Elise seemed startled by this, but answered him honestly. 'I was certain you already knew the answer to that.'
'Does Dieter know as well?'
'There has been nothing between us for years. He can hardly imagine Sarah is his own.'
'Will he protect Sarah - if she is threatened?'
'Protect?
You think she is in trouble?'
'If anyone finds out she is my daughter she will be.'
'No one will ever know that. Dieter has been very good about keeping our secret. It is in his interest as well - as you have probably guessed.'
'I don't understand.'
'Haven't you ever noticed his affinity for young men?'
Rahn was surprised. He had always. . . well, he had seen things, but he had not been willing to believe that Bachman might actually. . .
'I suppose maybe I knew. . .'
'Sarah and I protect him from scandal, but he is also genuinely in love with both of us. Sarah means the world to him, and he is very good with her. He is a very kind man, Otto.'
Rahn lifted the rucksack he had set at his feet and placed it between them. 'If you show this to Dieter, he will take it from you and you will have nothing that can help you and Sarah if they come to take you away.'
'I don't understand. Why would anyone—?'
'If you keep it hidden from him until it is needed I think he can use it to save you.'
'Otto, no one is going to take us away! Our secret is safe!'
'No secrets are safe anymore. It takes only a maid looking at your letters or a bureaucrat checking
your
family. . .'
'You think
I'm
Jewish?'
'I can do basic genealogical research, Elise.'
'You know then?'
'Go on,' he said. 'Have a look. It just might save your life.' She observed the rucksack with interest now.
'What is it?'
'Open it.'
She brought the gilded, battered box out of the bag and set it on her lap. 'Have a look inside,' he said. Opening the lid, Elise saw the lump of iron and the rotted linen cloth beneath it. She looked at Rahn without understanding. Bachman had obviously kept everything from her. 'You are being very mysterious, Otto.'
'Promise me you will hide this someplace where no one can find it.'
'I don't understand!'
'It is something Himmler wants, and with it Dieter can save you if he has not already given it back.'
'Otto, what have you done?'
'Elise, promise me you will only tell Dieter about this if you and Sarah are in trouble - for Sarah's sake if not your own!'
'You don't think he can be trusted - even if he knows it will save Sarah's life?'
'He will convince himself nothing is going to happen to Sarah. He is very good at lying to himself. I think we all are, actually.'
'If Himmler wants this he will find it! You aren't saving me with this, Otto! You are getting me into the middle of something horrible!'
'We are all in the middle of something horrible, Elise. Besides, he isn't going to know to look at you. He is going to be following
me.'
Her eyes fixed on him with an expression of utter tragedy. He had never before seen her face like this. 'You aren't coming back, are you?'
'I want to see Sarah before I go.'
March 15, 1939.
It took two days for Himmler to learn that Otto Rahn had stolen a car from the motor pool, three to discover he had taken the Lance of Antioch from Wewelsburg. The moment he realised what Rahn had done to him, he called off the Gestapo and put Colonel Bachman in charge. 'No matter the cost, no matter the time involved,' he said, 'You
will
find out where he has hidden it!'
'Of course, Reichsführer!'
'As for Dr Rahn, once you have recovered what he has taken, I want him brought back to Berlin so that I may have a word with him before he is shot.'
Operating directly under Himmler's authority, Bachman directed a nationwide manhunt. Additionally, he sent men to the south of France and to Geneva, Switzerland, where he knew Rahn had a number of old friends. Bachman set up his headquarters for the search in Berlin, coordinating a number of teams. He kept a plane on standby night and day. He gave orders to call him the moment Rahn had been detained. On the fifth night after Rahn had run, Bachman was spending another sleepless night when he suddenly sat up in bed, wide awake. They had not found Rahn in France or Switzerland or at any of the border crossings, he realised, because Rahn was
not
running. He was still in Germany.
' We are plotting to kill Hitler!
' That was what he had said as a joke one evening when Bachman had caught him whispering to Elise, but there had been something in his eyes when he had said it. . .
The following morning Bachman ordered everything in Otto's office and apartment reviewed a second time. It took three days and ten agents before they found he had taken a look at the plans of the Eagle's Nest. Hitler was going there for his birthday in just over a month, and Rahn - the doomed romantic with his deluded notions of right and wrong - intended to be there!
Bachman flew to Berchtesgaden on Monday, 13 March, and began directing a discreet search of the villages and towns. They were looking for a soldier on leave who was passing his time quietly. Late on Wednesday, one of his agents reported a tall, fairly young captain in the SS who was renting a room from a widow in the village of Kufstein - not more than forty kilometres from Berchtesgaden.
Bachman moved in just after dark.
Rahn travelled by car to central Germany, then by train as far as Munich. He got ahead of the first investigators and hitchhiked southeast to the village of Kufstein on the Austrian side of the border. His papers were checked at the border, but his forged papers had stirred no interest. He got a room with a widow by telling the woman he was on medical leave from the army and wanted to do some hiking in the area for a few weeks before he reported to Berchtesgaden for active duty. She did not ask for proof, but to assuage her curiosity he left his orders to transfer to Berchtesgaden on 19 April out on the bureau for her to find. His uniform, he kept hanging in his closet.
He sometimes spoke with the woman about his parents and a fiancée who had broken off the engagement with him without explaining herself. He told a good story, and won the old woman's sympathy with it. She told him he ought to make up with his parents before it was too late. There would be a time when he would be sorry for the quarrel. As for the young woman, it was her loss. He just needed a little time getting past a broken heart! He told her she was probably right, but for the time being he just needed some time to himself. She seemed to understand, and certainly showed no concern when he stayed locked in his room or went alone into the woods as the weeks passed.
On the night they came for him, Rahn heard her answer the door and then her cry of surprise as they pushed into the house. Rahn got his military uniform and his papers together before they hit the bedroom door. In the mad scramble to get away, he had nothing else. He went out through a window, threw his boots and uniform to the ground and risked descending by the drainpipe. Neither man giving chase was willing to risk a fall. They watched as he ran. They might have shot him easily enough. When they didn't, Rahn knew Elise had done as he had asked her. If Himmler had any hope of retrieving his Lance he needed Rahn alive.
He changed into the uniform when he got to the base of the Wilder Kaiser. He hid close to a fine ledge, where in ancient times prisoners of war had been tossed. It was a good place for a soldier to die.
March 15-16, 1939.
Bachman brought several squads in from the roads to converge on the mountain. Once the search was started, he did what he could to reinforce the area quietly. He did not intend for Rahn to slip free, but neither did he want the villagers to notice any sort of military action.
They found his civilian clothes an hour past midnight. Twenty minutes later they found Rahn. He was wearing a captain's uniform but hiding like a runaway slave inside a hollow log. By the time Bachman arrived, the soldiers had been standing around with their captive for nearly an hour. As per instructions Rahn had not been hurt, but they had stripped him of his officer's hat and of course his
Totenkopf
ring. A sergeant presented Bachman with the forged transfer papers.
Bachman considered the transfer with his torch and then walked toward his old friend with a smile that evinced no affection. 'It never would have worked, Otto. They would have arrested you the moment you showed these papers. I was on to you! I know how you think!' He let this fact settle, before adding, 'You understand I am going to have to kill you?'
Rahn smiled. 'You, or someone you order to do it, Dieter?'
'I don't suppose it is going to matter much to you who does it, but you may want to consider how much pain you want to endure. Reichsführer Himmler has given me complete autonomy in that respect. I can still be your friend, Otto. I can make it very quick. You will feel nothing. But for that, my friend, I am going to need what you took from the Reichsführer.'
Rahn looked at the men holding him and then at Bachman. 'Swear it - on the eyes of your daughter! Swear to me you will make it as painless as possible!'