But by Sunday he was beginning to wonder if he really did understand Heydrich’s game. He had heard nothing since the SS officer’s visit on Wednesday morning. Heydrich must have realised he had won by now. A hot bath did not help to settle his nerves, and Bethwig now stood before the bathroom mirror, first wiping the moisture clear and then studying his face. The constant state of uncertainty was starting to tell on him. He combed his hair and wandered into the living-room where he dragged the furniture against the walls and spent a rigorous half-hour doing calisthenics.
Late Sunday afternoon the door was thrown open and the SS colonel stalked in. He glared at the sentry who had tried to follow, and slammed the door in his face.
‘We do not have much time,’ Ullman muttered as he checked the other rooms in the suite.
‘Did you do as I suggested?’
‘Keep quiet and listen to what I tell you.’
‘What in the name of God are - ‘
‘I went to see the young lady,’ Ullman interrupted. ‘That is why I am here. It has taken this long to find her. She is being cared for at a nursing hospital in a small town nearby. Held in protective custody would be a more accurate description. She told me what happened.’ He stared at Bethwig a moment, his expression quizzical. ‘She is halfwitted, you know?’
Franz nodded. ‘Go on.’
The officer turned to the window and studied the grounds below, then glanced at his watch, it was rather difficult to understand her story, but I finally made sense of it.’
He turned again to face the room. ‘I do not know exactly what Herr Heydrich was trying to do to you, but I discovered that you have a distinguished background as a scientist. You are too valuable to the Reich to be wasted in petty political nonsense. If you do as I say, you may yet leave Prague alive.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Bethwig stared at him, not able to believe what the man was saying.
Ullman offered a cigarette and lit it for him. Bethwig drew the smoke deep into his lungs. Something was radically wrong, he realised. ‘This is unbelievable. Why would Heydrich want to harm me? He has gone to these ridiculous extremes to force me to accept a position which he is certain only I can fill. Why would he change his mind so suddenly?’
Colonel Ullman shook his head. ‘Then no one has told you?’
‘Told me what?’
‘On Wednesday morning, as Herr Heydrich was driving to his office in Prague, British agents shot at his car and threw a bomb. The chauffeur was killed and Herr Heydrich was severely wounded. He is in hospital now and not expected to live.’ Bethwig swore in astonishment.
‘Soon someone will come for you. You will be taken to the basement and shot. The story will be that your aircraft was destroyed returning you to Peenemunde, or some other such foolishness.’
Bethwig sat down abruptly. ‘Shot... but why?’ he protested. Ullman shook his head. ‘I have no idea. Apparently the game you are playing - were playing, rather, with Heydrich had higher stakes than you were aware. In any event, with his death imminent his personal staff is scurrying about cleaning up any messes. You happen to be one of them.’
‘My God!’
‘It is not as bad as it sounds - yet. If Heydrich survives, you resume your game. If he dies, you die. It is as simple as that. But if you wish to leave Prague, you must do so now. I cannot promise that you will be left in peace afterwards, but at least your chances will be much better than waiting here for the execution chamber. The decision is yours.’
With a tremendous effort Bethwig pulled himself together. He went into the bedroom, and Ullman followed, ‘I assume you have some kind of plan?’ Bethwig asked as he began cramming clothes into his suitcase.
The colonel nodded. ‘Yes. We will simply walk out of the apartment and down the stairs to the main floor. My car is waiting at the door. I will drive you to the airfield, and if God is with us you should be home by midnight.’
‘Just like that? Won’t the guards have something to say?’
‘About what? There are no charges against you.’
‘What about rape, assault, and what was the other - extreme cruelty, or something like that?’ Bethwig growled.
‘All charges against you have been dropped. I saw to that before I came here. The orders were direct from Heydrich himself. Too bad he will never know about them.’
Bethwig straightened to study the officer. ‘Aren’t you taking one hell of a chance doing this for me?’
‘Only if Heydrich should recover, and that is not likely. Blood poisoning has set in. Now, no more talk. We must hurry.’
Bethwig shook his head. ‘There is one more consideration - Inge. She has to come with us.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible.’
For a moment the irony of repeating Heydrich’s own words struck Bethwig as funny, and he almost laughed aloud.
‘This is.’ Ullman gripped his arm. ‘Listen to me. She is under guard. There is no way that I can get her out. If it is known that I even spoke with her, I will be in serious trouble and might find myself part of the clean-up. I can assure you that she is safe for now. She will be released from the hospital in three days’ time, then I can arrange for her to leave Prague. But until Heydrich is dead, it is impossible for me to do more.’
Bethwig hesitated, his mind a whirl of apprehension.
‘Make up your mind,’ Ullman snapped, if you are dead, you can do nothing for her. This way she still has a chance, and so do you.’
Bethwig’s face was a study in frustration as he nodded. When they left the apartment, Ullman walked behind and a sentry followed at his nod. The three flights of stairs and the ornate lobby seemed endless, but no one paid them the slightest attention. The chauffeur was stiff and correct as he held the door, and the colonel dismissed the sentry.
A curious silence seemed to have fallen over Prague. Military patrols were everywhere, and on some street corners groups of people huddled together under the hostile eyes of SS detachments. The car stopped at four separate checkpoints where their papers were meticulously examined.
‘The round-up has begun,’ Ullman observed. ‘Orders have come from Berlin to find the assassins at all costs. Examples are already being made. They say that the Führer broke down and cried like a child when the news was given to him. Heydrich was his favourite.’
Bethwig kept silent, troubled by the haunted eyes that had stared at their car as they stopped at an intersection for a convoy of military trucks. The people - men, women, and children - seemed to have been rounded up indiscriminately, and all were clearly frightened. If what had been done to Inge was merely a casual lesson to persuade him, they had every reason to be afraid.
‘And I thought the Czech people loved him so much,’ he observed bitterly after the car had started up again.
‘Who told you that?’
‘He did.’
The colonel’s laugh was bitter, it’s hard to love your hangman. That’s what they called him, you know.’
Colonel Ullman’s estimate was not far wrong. It was just after midnight when Bethwig raced from the Peenemunde airfield to von Braun’s quarters. He pounded on the door until he heard a sleepy muttering on the other side.
‘Damn it, Wernher, open the door!’
‘Franz? Just a moment.’
The door opened and von Braun waved him in. ‘Damn it, Franz, couldn’t you have waited until morning to tell about the fleshpots of Prague?’ He shuffled back into the room, turning on the light and sorting through the jumble of papers on his desk for a cigarette.
Bethwig kicked the door closed. ‘Shut up and sit down. This is serious.’
‘What the devil are you ...?’
‘British agents shot Heydrich on Wednesday morning. He is not expected to live.’
Von Braun gaped at him. ‘Shot... Heydrich?’ He swallowed. The packet of cigarettes found, Bethwig then waited while he lit one, allowing him time to absorb the shock.
‘There was nothing about it on the wireless ... or in the papers...’
‘Of course not. And there won’t be until he dies.’
‘He isn’t dead yet?’ Von Braun’s voice was hopeful.
‘He is dying,’ Bethwig said harshly. ‘Blood poisoning. And good riddance as well.’
‘What are you saying, Franz? Without him, how can we continue the A-Ten?’
‘Damned good question. First you had better hear what happened to me. Then you might not be so saddened by our dear patron’s imminent departure for hell.’ Bethwig told him the entire story, leaving nothing out except the details of Inge’s mental history.
Von Braun listened with a growing amazement that quickly turned to grim anger. When Bethwig finished, he stubbed out his cigarette with a vicious twisting motion.
‘It’s damned good riddance then, as you said,’ he snarled. ‘Until things clarify themselves, I suppose we had better continue as we have. Try to get as much done as possible in case we have to persuade someone else to support us.’
Bethwig nodded. ‘That’s my feeling as well. As for finding someone else to back us, we’re still not out of the woods as far as the SS is concerned.’
‘Perhaps not,’ von Braun replied, his voice thoughtful. ‘But perhaps it is possible that we have enough results now to persuade the Army General Staff to back us, particularly if we let it slip that the SS, in the person of the soon-to-be-martyred Reinhard Heydrich, was behind it. That would scare the hell out of them.’
‘It might also get us shot by our own employers,’ Bethwig snorted.
Three weeks later two SS officers accompanied by the Gestapo officer Walsch arrived at Peenemunde to arrest von Braun. Walsch politely introduced himself and reminded von Braun that they had met several years before in Berlin, in the office of Colonel Dornberger. He smiled when von Braun recalled the circumstances, and they flew to Berlin that afternoon, in spite of Dornberger’s strenuous protests. The aircraft took off even as Dornberger was trying to get through to Gestapo headquarters.
Bethwig telephoned his father that evening to ask him to use his influence to fix an appointment with Reichsführer Himmler, reasoning that the order for the arrest of Wernher von Braun, an army employee, by the SD could only have come from his office. His father agreed to help, but it was three days before the meeting could be arranged. Dornberger threw up his hands in despair when he heard what Bethwig had done.
‘For God’s sake, Franz, now there will be two of you to get out of prison, or worse.’
Added to his worry about von Braun was the lack of any communication from Colonel Ullman. Twice he had tried to phone through, only to be told that lines were unavailable. And there was little news of any kind from the protectorate. God only knew what havoc the SD were causing there.
The following day Bethwig, taking a roundabout route through Hamburg, drove to Berlin to consult with his father.
‘Hah! British agents indeed,’ his father had exploded in anger. ‘Mark my words, young man, the deed was done and Heydrich murdered at the express order of that weak-chinned jealous little sadist Himmler.’ Bethwig had told him what he knew of the happenings in Prague.
‘Jumped-up chicken farmer!’ his father muttered, pacing about his cluttered office. The swastika armband he was never without seemed somewhat shabby on the sleeve of his suit jacket, Bethwig observed. As shabby as the party’s morals and mission were becoming. What happened to them? he wondered. It had all changed in such a short time. The war was to have tempered the movement; instead it seemed to be destroying it.
‘I do not understand why we must put up with such men as these. Even Goering has become a good-for-nothing drug addict. Such nonsense brings trouble in the end. Gangsters, that’s what they are. Nothing but gangsters.’
He spun and pointed a blunt finger at his son. ‘Do not let that little toad intimidate you. He is not quite as secure as he thinks. The Führer said to me not more than a week ago that perhaps it was time for the party to clean house again, and I heartily agreed. You know how he works; first the suggestions to high party members to test their opinion, then intensive planning and decisive action - swift, merciless action. That was the way it was when we got rid of Roehm. I suspect that this time he has people like Himmler and perhaps this Goebbels in mind. Never did like that little cripple. Too shrill.’ The old man sighed then. ‘Well, Franz, if you have told me everything, I doubt if you have anything to worry about. There seems to be nothing that monster can hold over your head. Be firm and remember your position and your strengths. We are Bethwigs and we are German. And the Führer knows who his supporters are.’
You would never think there was a war, Bethwig mused as he drove along the Charlottenstrasse past the well-dressed crowds. An amazing number of soldiers filled the streets, eyeing equally large numbers of girls clad in summer frocks. The mood was certainly not what one would have expected in the capital of a great nation at war. There were few signs of bomb damage visible, but air-raid shelters were conspicuously marked. Shop windows, although taped, were as full of goods as ever; and with war production in full swing, people had plenty of money to spend. Hitler’s promises were coming true, Bethwig thought, even though, by virtue of his father’s position and wealth, he tended at times to look upon the Austrian as a fool and a buffoon. Yet one had to admit that he had drawn the German people so solidly together after the disillusionment of the 1920s that the country was totally unified, and willing and able to meet the final Allied offensive against it. This time it will be different, he thought in a sudden burst of grim determination.
Opportunity enough, after the war was won, to clean out the scum that invariably worked its way to the top during periods of conflict. If only the Führer did not show so distinct a predilection for such men.
At the SS headquarters in Prinz Albrechtstrasse an elderly porter checked his credentials against a huge appointment ledger, and an unarmed corporal orderly then escorted Bethwig through quiet oak-panelled hallways to a tastefully furnished outer office where a receptionist offered him tea and telephoned through to announce his arrival.
He was made to wait less than five minutes - a gesture of high respect in Berlin these days, he realised - before an aide stepped through a side door, shook his hand, and in a flurry of meaningless small talk ushered him directly into Himmler’s office. A vast expanse of carpet stretched away to the far end of the room which, although the sun was bright outside, was shut into deep gloom by close-fitting curtains. So the rumours that Himmler expects to be killed by the British are true, he thought. Heydrich’s death must have sent him into a near panic.