115
IT BECAME A ROUTINE. Every evening for the next ten days, Corporals Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto returned to the Vorbunker with liquor.
It quickly reached the point where the only question the guards asked was what kind of booze they had brought that night.
Vodka, beer, and champagne were mainstays, sometimes schnapps and, if they were lucky, a bottle of J?germeister.
Their supply came from a resistance sympathizer and liquor wholesaler named Newberry, who’d fled Berlin for Switzerland ten days ago.
He’d gladly offered them his flat, preferring to leave it inhabited so Russian soldiers wouldn’t plunder it.
And he couldn’t possibly take the stacks of alcohol sitting in his pantry with him on his getaway to Switzerland.
While Adolf Hitler never showed his face in the upper bunker—besides his strolls through the chancellery garden with his dog, Blondi, he remained behind steel-reinforced doors, twenty-eight feet belowground—Eva Braun would often make an appearance at the Vorbunker parties.
She’d been a party girl her entire life, relegated to the role of hostess at dinners. She’d always been a heavy drinker, champagne her favorite, and had become a heavier smoker as she grew older, though she aimed to cover up the smell by chewing mints in Hitler’s presence.
Bauer had trusted she wouldn’t recognize him from fifteen years ago.
He’d introduced himself to her as Henrik Becker.
He didn’t want to seem too obvious, didn’t want to force the matter.
But time was short. He needed to get some meaningful time alone with her, and he had to figure out something soon.
The Battle of Berlin began on April 16. The Soviet Army began a full-on assault of the city. It was not a matter of if but when the Russians would overcome the beleaguered and disorganized German troops and seize control of the city.
Bauer and von der Haas sat in the kitchen of the liquor wholesaler’s flat, which was in the western district of Charlottenburg, only blocks from the Tiergarten and the chancellery and, thus, the Führerbunker beneath.
But they were under no illusions of safety.
Nobody could predict how swiftly Russia’s ground troops would overtake the city.
And the Allied aerial bombing spared no part of Berlin.
Any moment of any day, an Allied bomb could flatten the building.
They ate slices of bread while they reviewed a map that von der Haas had drawn. The room vibrated from a bomb dropped nearby. The sound of artillery fire was as common as birds chirping in the spring.
“This is my best understanding of the Führerbunker.” Von der Haas spread it out. “Just from conversations. I can’t be sure of this.”
“Better than nothing,” said Bauer.
“You have to get past an armed guard to take the stairs down from the upper bunker,” von der Haas said.
“Once you’re down there, you get another set of armed guards.
Get past them, you walk into a hallway, a lounge area, something like that.
Past that lounge is a steel-reinforced door at least two meters thick, also—”
“Also guarded by soldiers with guns,” said Bauer. “Three sets of armed guards.”
“But that, hopefully, is how Eva helps us. If she’s drunk enough and feels like showing off the mysterious Führerbunker—”
“Assuming the guards will heed her direction, Erich. Can she issue commands to the guards? What if they say they need the Führer’s permission to allow unauthorized visitors inside?”
Von der Haas sat back in his chair. “I don’t have a better idea.”
Bauer got out of his chair and walked to the window, looking out over a battered city. “I’m going to ask you again.”
“And I’ll give you the same answer,” said von der Haas. “I’m doing this.”
“The war’s lost. The man’s been humiliated on the world stage. He’s the most hated man on the planet. The Russians almost certainly will kill him, if he doesn’t kill himself first. And if he survives, he’ll endure a public trial and be executed.”
“He didn’t kill your family.”
Bauer sighed. “I know that. I get it. I can imagine how I’d feel if my family—”
“Imagining it and experiencing it aren’t the same thing.” Von der Haas stood up and threw his chair across the room. “I want to watch him die. At the hand of a Jew.”
This debate was going nowhere. “Fine,” said Bauer.
“How many times have I told you to leave, Bauer? It’s not too late to leave Berlin. Go to your family—”
“Goddamnit, Erich, how long have we worked together? How many times have I put my life in your hands? Haven’t you figured out by now that you’re my family, too?”
That stopped von der Haas cold. These men did not typically share their feelings.
They’d spent over a decade together plotting and executing acts of assassination or sabotage in a vain attempt to stop the Nazi war machine.
They’d faced death together on countless occasions.
Von der Haas had stayed by Bauer’s side for nearly six months while he recovered—barely—from being shot twice in Berchtesgaden.
They’d had more disappointments than victories, yes, but they’d remained true to their cause.
There was only one person in all of Germany whom they could trust, and that was each other.
Von der Haas exhaled and put his hands on his knees. “Bauer, I’ll never forgive myself if you die. If my need for vengeance prevents you from a reunion with your wife and—”
“Then let’s not die.” Bauer picked up the chair von der Haas had thrown. “If you’re doing it, I’m doing it. That’s it.” He cleaned off the kitchen table, putting the dishes in the sink. “Didn’t you ever learn to clean up after yourself?”
Von der Haas managed a chuckle, a release of the tension. “Don’t forget our bet.”
“I won’t,” said Bauer, wiping off the plates. “I remember it.”