117
Berlin
ERICH VON DER HAAS stood looking out over the battered city of Berlin. The street in front of their building had burst open overnight, the target of an aerial bomb that had spared their building by only meters.
“We can’t stay here anymore,” said Thomas Bauer. “It’s not safe.”
Von der Haas ignored him, continuing to scribble notes on a pad of paper.
“Erich?” Bauer said again.
His friend turned. “The shelling and bombing increase over seventy percent once night falls. During the day, it’s only scattered pockets. The moment it gets dark, they turn up the attacks significantly.”
“They probably figure they’ll be more effective when people are sleeping. Even soldiers have to sleep.”
“I guess.”
“You have a different theory?”
“No. I don’t really care why. I just care about that fact. It’s counterintuitive. Berlin is actually safer during the day.”
“Are you kidding? It’s not safe at all out there. There’s Red Army everywhere—”
“I didn’t say ‘safe,’ Bauer. I said ‘safer.’ It’s safer during the day. It’s all relative.”
“Okay, well, it’s not safe in this flat at all anymore. We have to leave.”
Von der Haas nodded. “I know. And you know what that means. We have to move into the Vorbunker.”
“I assume nobody will object. The place has lost more than half its staff. Anyone dumb enough to want to stay in the bunker is probably welcome.”
“Yeah, and it also means we’ll probably never get out.” Von der Haas put down his notepad and walked over to Bauer. “You’ve done your best to help get me close to him. You don’t have to—”
“I’m going with you.” Bauer loaded bottles of liquor into his rucksack. “Pack up.”
They ran through the streets of Berlin as the city grew dark. There was only one guard outside the bunker. He nodded to them as if they were old friends. “You have any vodka in there?”
“How much time do we have left?” Bauer asked him.
“A day or two at most,” said the guard.
Nobody noticed the oversized bags they carried.
Everyone was on edge. The end was near. The dreaded moment was coming soon.
The alcohol helped but could not altogether blunt the rising sense of panic.
The shelling began to intensify, reverberations felt every ten minutes or so.
Erich is right, Bauer realized. The Allies step up the attacks from dusk to dawn.
One of the staff, Ingrid, pulled a bottle of champagne from an SS guard and poured herself a glass. “What are you going to do when the Russians breach the bunker?” she asked the guard. “Are you going to lay down your weapon or fight?”
The SS guard, his feet up on the table, grunted. “You mean am I going to choose to live or choose to die? That’s what you’re asking me. There’s nothing left to fight for.”
“They won’t kill us,” said another soldier. “Not if we lay down our arms. They’ll take us into custody. They’ll probably interrogate us about the Führer. They may get rough with us. But in the end, we were merely soldiers following orders.”
“No,” said a third soldier, who looked a bit older and much stockier. “They’ll take no prisoners. They’ll kill us all.” He slammed back a shot of vodka. “I’m not going down without a fight.”
“Hey, what’s for dinner?” one of the soldiers asked the assistant chef, Rolf, the man Bauer once mistook for the Führer.
“I’m sure it will be soup,” said Rolf. “Whatever I can find in the pantry and refrigerator and stretch out into a meal. If I haven’t passed out by then.” He drank from his glass of wine.
“Are you the only cook left?” someone asked.
Rolf raised his glass. “Just me.”
A man in uniform walked into the room. “General!” said one of the soldiers, starting to his feet.
“At ease, for God’s sake, at ease.” The tall and graying officer took a seat. “Just wanted to join you for one drink.”
“That’s Hans Baur,” von der Haas murmured to Bauer. “Brigadier general with the police. He was Hitler’s pilot when he was running for president in 1932. Been with Hitler ever since. Kept moving up the ranks.”
“General,” one of the soldiers said to Baur. “Is it true that the Führer plans to take his life?”
“It’s true.” The general poured himself a vodka from one of the many bottles in the center of the dining table. “He’s doing it for Germany. A leader can’t be seen paraded around, either dead or alive.”
Bauer noticed von der Haas steel himself. The suicide speculation was rampant throughout the Vorbunker. There was open talk of cyanide pellets, which the bunker would offer to anyone who wished, and how quickly one would die, how much pain they would suffer.
The question was not if but when. How much time did they have?
The party, such as it was, never really stopped.
Some people never left the dining room. Others came and went for a quick drink.
As always, Bauer and von der Haas were careful to monitor their drinking, to participate without overdoing it.
They both wandered toward the entrance to the lower bunker from time to time, tried to strike up conversations with the stairwell guards, offer them liquor of any kind, but to no avail.
These guards were hard-core loyalists. There was no way to penetrate them or their MP machine guns.
They also kept an eye out for Eva Braun, whom they considered their best chance.
There were no hallways per se in the Vorbunker, just a series of interconnected rooms. The closest thing to a corridor or hallway were the middle rooms, of which the dining room was one and the large conference room the other.
Past the conference room was a stairwell up to the chancellery garden or down to the Führerbunker.
“Remember the bet,” von der Haas said as he passed Bauer.
Around one in the morning, to much fanfare, Braun appeared in the Vorbunker, curtsying and bowing like a celebrity, dressed in a tight frilly pink dress with several necklaces, beaming as always.
Erich von der Haas grabbed Bauer’s arm. “This is it,” he whispered. “This could be our last chance. So be charming, Bauer, for once in your life.”