93
Nuremberg
TWO AND A HALF years after Unternehmen Kolibri (Operation Hummingbird), better known as the Nacht der langen Messer or Night of the Long Knives, Thomas Bauer and Erich von der Haas stood together at the window of a hotel room in downtown Nuremberg, trading a pair of binoculars while they surveyed the train station a block away.
By now, the Nazis had made official much of what Hitler had long planned.
Under the Reich Citizenship Law, the government would issue citizenship papers only to people of “German or kindred blood” who agreed to “serve loyally the German people and the Reich.” Jews were stripped of citizenship and political rights and made subjects of the state.
They were banned from marriage or even sexual relations with “pure” Germans.
Once the Olympics ended in August, it was time to start enforcing those laws.
And enforce them they did. Jews who married or even interacted romantically with Aryans were prosecuted.
Establishments run by Jews were shunned.
Jewish students were banned from all schools.
Jews were not allowed to partake in any profession that required licensure by the government—which was most professions.
SS leader and now chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler established the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion.
Units were devoted specifically to tracking down men suspected of homosexuality, including raids on establishments popular with the gay community and mass arrests.
Many men would be given short prison sentences, only to be transferred to a concentration camp by the Gestapo upon their release.
If Bauer and von der Haas were not unwelcome enough before, they certainly were now. Bauer was a “Jew” by virtue of marriage. Erich was not only Jewish but gay as well.
“He is a university student named Helmut Hirsch,” said von der Haas. “He studied in Stuttgart until they outlawed Jews attending university. He emigrated to Prague. He’s been involved with Otto Strasser’s opposition group, the Black Front.”
“And he’s been discreet?”
“I am told even his family is unaware of his work with the Black Front.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Tomorrow afternoon, two suitcases will arrive on a train from Paris. Those suitcases will contain explosives. They will be checked at the train station. The person dropping them off will be given claim tickets. He—or she—will deliver those claim tickets in an envelope to the front desk of this hotel addressed to our room.”
Bauer nodded. “So that brings us to our student, Helmut Hirsch.”
“Yes. He has purchased a ticket from Prague to Stuttgart for tomorrow. But he will not make it to Stuttgart. He will disembark here in Nuremberg at 5:09 p.m. He will disembark from car 4.”
“Car 4,” Bauer repeated. “5:09 p.m.”
“You will meet him on the platform near the lamppost in the center. He will be dressed conservatively, I’m told, but he will have an orange scarf around his neck. You will be leaning against the lamppost and reading a copy of Der Sturmer.”
“Orange scarf. Okay. And I hand him the claim tickets?”
“Yes. That’s it. The student will retrieve the two suitcases.”
“And he’ll travel later that night to the Nazi rally in Nuremberg,” said Bauer.
“Yes.”
“Where you’re absolutely sure Hitler will be.”
“Yes.” Von der Haas raised a hand. “As sure as we can be.”
Bauer grimaced. He grabbed a bottle of beer off the nightstand and took a swig.
He hadn’t eaten since this morning. He and von der Haas were living a nomadic, spartan existence, traveling from spot to spot, gathering intelligence, engaging in acts of sabotage, meeting with fellow members of the Nazi resistance, sleeping in different quarters nearly every night, always looking over their shoulder, never knowing if they might be betrayed.
“I don’t like it,” said Bauer. “It should be me. I should take the suitcases to the Nazi rally. I’ll make sure we blow up that asshole.”
“I agree, Bauer, but that is not how the Black Front operates. They don’t know you. So they don’t trust you. This student, Hirsch, is one of their own.”
Bauer let out a long sigh. As soon as you can, come back to us. Amalie’s words, the last time he saw her face-to-face. Thank God his family was safe in Vienna, for the moment. As soon as you can, thus far, had been over three years. Three years of plans gone awry, aborted plots.
His plan to assassinate Hitler with a rifle across the street from the Berlin book burning, thwarted when Hitler did not attend.
The officers in the German Foreign Office plotting a coup but showing their hand too soon—putting their plans in writing, for God’s sake—and getting caught by the Gestapo.
Bauer’s plan to place a bomb under the grandstand in Olympic Stadium, where Hitler would be sitting during the Berlin Olympics, was nullified when the insider who was going to deliver him the uniform and credentials necessary to get him access failed to show up.
Bauer picked up the most recent letter from Amalie, who mailed letters to the home of a sympathetic member of the resistance.
She only used initials—R for their son Ridley, M for Maxine—and described how M had found an outstanding violin instructor and was thriving, while R was now more interested in sport than piano.
Both were taking English lessons and becoming quite adept. They all missed their father.
Talk about missing. Bauer was missing their childhood. He couldn’t take much more of it. He was becoming a stranger to his children.
He looked at the last photos she’d sent, too. Ridley, now ten years old, was starting to fill out, and Maxine, now eleven, was a miniature version of her mother.
“This operation has to work,” Bauer told von der Haas.
“For your sake?” he asked. “Or for Germany’s?”
Bauer nodded. “Both.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your leather bag?”
Von der Haas dropped onto the bed, exhausted, and bellowed out a sigh. “Why do you need it?”