“I’ll drink to that,” Tony Pelosi put in, and tapped his glass to el Jefe’s.
Dulles then glanced at Karl Boltitz and said: “I take it that everyone recalls what our U-boat expert said about the short period of time that U-977 spent in dock at Kristiansand before heading to sea?”
“That she was made ready for sea elsewhere,” Pelosi offered, “and went to Norway to pick up something?”
“Yes, except not ‘something.’ Rather, ‘someone.’”
“Who?” Clete Frade said.
“What fevered imaginations have come up with is that U-977 went to Norway to pick up Adolf Hitler and his new wife, to transport them to safety in Argentina.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Jerry O’Sullivan blurted. “Everybody knows they committed suicide. Hitler married her, then shot her, then bit on a cyanide capsule.”
“On May one,” Dulles said, “Grand Admiral Doenitz went on the radio and announced that Hitler had met a hero’s death on the battlefield.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Tony Pelosi said.
“That suggests,” Dulles went on, “that Hitler died—or that Admiral Doenitz wants us to believe he died—on April thirtieth, or even earlier. We’ve heard he took his life on April twenty-eighth. Time-wise, there would have been plenty of time for him to fly to Norway and get aboard U-977.”
“Presuming he wasn’t dead,” O’Sullivan said with some sarcasm.
“According to Zhukov,” Dulles said, “he isn’t dead, and neither are Frau Hitler, Martin Bormann, Herr Doktor Goebbels, and a half dozen other important Nazis. Suggesting, if true of course, that Operation Phoenix was indeed known all the way to the top.”
“According to who did you say, Mr. Dulles?” Clete asked.
“Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov,” Dulles said. “The victor of the Battle for Berlin. Eisenhower’s counterpart.”
“He actually said that?” Peter von Wachtstein asked.
“His interpreter told Ike he said just that, and that most of them, including Mr. and Mrs. Hitler, are on their way to a safe haven in Argentina. If nothing else, this bit of what my gut tells me is disinformation is a classic example of why our having Gehlen’s intel about the Russians is absolutely critical. They are not to be trusted.”
“Jesus!” Frade said. “It’s incredible. Ike can’t believe him, can he?”
“Ike thinks it has something to do with General I. D. White,” Dulles said.
“Who’s he?”
“The commanding general of our Second Armored Division. General White not only moved into what will be the American sector of Berlin without asking Ike, but he also ignored Zhukov’s order that he was required to wait for permission. The rape of Berlin—which has been ghastly—bothered General White. He ordered the Russians out of the American sector. When they refused to go, he issued a proclamation stating that anyone but Americans found with a weapon in the American sector would be presumed to be Germans refusing to obey the surrender order and would be shot on sight. As would rapists, armed or not.”
“Good man!” Ashton said, raising his glass in salute. “Here’s to General White.” He took a sip, then looked at Frade and added, “Colonel, no disrespect intended, but can I go work for him when we’re disbanded?”
That earned him a couple chuckles and at least one grunt of agreement.
Dulles went on: “White could have started World War Three right there, but after a half dozen of Zhukov’s troops had in fact been shot, the Russian caved in and ordered all his troops out of the American zone. Eisenhower believes, not with a great deal of conviction, that what Zhukov is up to, in case there is anything to the inevitable rumors that Hitler did not commit suicide and escaped Berlin, is to blame it on General White. In any event, Eisenhower has ordered the OSS to look into it as a high priority, and David Bruce is doing just that.”
“The OSS guy in London?” Frade asked.
Dulles nodded.
“I’m su
rprised Bruce didn’t turn that wild-goose chase over to you,” Frade said.
“It was the other way around, Clete. Unfortunately for poor David, he takes his orders from me.”
“I’m afraid to open this can of worms,” Schultz said, “but how the hell was Hitler supposed to get out of Berlin? It was surrounded, right?”
“Yes, it was, Jefe,” Dulles said. “But we’ve heard that Hanna Reitsch flew into Berlin on April twenty-eighth, just before Hitler’s suicide, and then supposedly flew out with the newly appointed chief of the Luftwaffe, General Robert Ritter von Greim, a day or two later.”