to the present readiness for Operation Long Jump. We found that some weapons and ammunition had been requisitioned by Hauptsturmfuhrer Skorzeny for the Mussolini rescue. Apart from that, however, everything is pretty much there. SS winter uniforms, SS fall- and spring-pattern uniforms, all the usual gear. Most important of all, the special stores we put together as gifts for the local Kashgai tribesmen are still there, too. The silver-inlay K98 rifles, and the gold-plated Walther pistols.”
“It’s not stores we lack,” said von Holten-Pflug. “It’s men. Skorzeny left us very shorthanded. Fortunately, those men who remain in the section are Farsi-speakers. I myself also speak a little Gilaki, which is the language of the northern Persian tribesmen. Of course, most of their leaders have some German. But given that we’ll very likely be up against Russian troops, I’d like to make a recommendation that we use a team of Ukrainians, and base the operation at Vinnica.”
“How many men do you think you would need?” asked Schellenberg.
“About eighty to a hundred Ukrainians, and another ten or fifteen German officers and NCOs, commanded by myself.”
“And then?”
Von Holten-Pflug unfolded a map of Iran and spread it out on the table in front of him.
“I recommend that we stick to the plan from Operation Franz and fly from Vinnica. Six groups of ten men wearing Russian uniforms to parachute into the country near the holy city of Qom, and another four groups near Qazvin. Once there, we’ll rendezvous with our agents in Iran and head for the safe houses in Teheran. We can then reconnoiter the embassy areas and radio precise coordinates back to Berlin for the air strikes. After the bombing, the ground force will move in and deal with any survivors. Then we’ll make our way to Turkey, assuming that it remains a neutral country.”
Schellenberg smiled. Von Holten-Pflug made the whole operation sound as straightforward as a stroll around the Tiergarten. “Tell me more about these Ukrainians,” he said.
“They’re Zeppelin volunteers. Naturally I’ll need to go to Vinnica to sort things out. There’s a local intelligence officer I’d like to use. Fellow named Oster.”
“No relation, I hope,” said Schellenberg.
Von Holten-Pflug adjusted the monocle in his eye and regarded Schellenberg blankly.
“There was an Oster in the Abwehr,” explained Sandberger. “Until a month or two ago. A lieutenant colonel. He was dismissed and transferred to the Wehrmacht on the Russian front.”
“This Oster is a captain in the Waffen-SS.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
Von Holten-Pflug smiled uncertainly, and to Schellenberg it was plain to see that the major had no idea of the intense rivalry that existed between Amt VI of the SD and the Abwehr. Indeed, Schellenberg thought “rivalry” hardly strong enough to describe his relations with German military intelligence and the man who was its chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. For it was Schellenberg’s greatest ambition that Amt VI should absorb the largely ineffective Abwehr; and yet, for some reason Schellenberg was unable to fathom, Himmler-and perhaps also Hitler-hesitated to give Schellenberg what he wanted. In Schellenberg’s view, there were obvious economies of scale a merger of the two agencies would bring. As things now stood, resources ended up being duplicated, and sometimes operational initiatives as well. Schellenberg understood Canaris wanting to hang on to power. He would have felt the same way. But it was quite futile for Canaris to resist a change that everyone-even Himmler-saw as inevitable. It was just a question of time.
“Captain Oster speaks Ukrainian and some Russian,” said von Holten-Pflug. “He used to work for the Wannsee Institute. And he seems to know how to handle the Popovs.”
“I think we have to be careful here,” said Schellenberg. “After the Vlasov affair, the Fuhrer is not at all keen on using so-called subhuman military resources.”
Captured by the Germans in the spring of 1942, Andrei Vlasov was a Soviet general who had been “persuaded” to create an army of Russian POWs to fight for Hitler. Schellenberg had worked hard to achieve the independence of Vlasov’s “Russian Liberation Movement”; but Hitler, infuriated by the very idea of a Slav army fighting for Germany, had ordered Vlasov returned to a POW camp and forbade any mention of the plan again.
“I haven’t given up on Vlasov and his army,” continued Schellenberg, “but at Posen, Himmler made a special mention of his being ostracized, and it would be unwise not to be mindful of that.”
The Zeppelin volunteers were not much different from Vlasov’s RLM; these were also Russian prisoners fighting for the German army, except that they had been organized into guerrilla partisan units and then parachuted deep into Soviet territory.
“I don’t think a team of Zeppelin volunteers is likely to meet with the Reichsfuhrer’s approval any more than a unit from Vlasov’s army.” Schellenberg turned to Captain Janssen. “No, we’d best try to make this an SS operation from top to bottom. Horst, you were in the Ukraine. What’s the name of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS division that’s fighting there?”
“The Galicia Division. Waffen-SS Fourteenth Grenadiers.”
“Who’s the commanding officer?”
“General Walther Schimana. I believe the enlistment of Ukrainian cadres is going on even as we speak.”
“I thought as much. Speak to this General Schimana and see if we can have our Zeps operate from within the Galicia Division. As long as I can refer to our men as Waffen-SS instead of Ukrainians, or Zeps, then I think we can make Himmler happy.
“Go back to Friedenthal,” he told von Holten-Pflug, “and take everything-men, stores, money, the lot-to the Ukraine. You and the other officers can stay at Himmler’s place in Zhitomir. It’s an old officers’ training college, about eighty kilometers north of Hitler’s Wehrwolf HQ, at Vinnica, so you’ll be quite comfortable there. I’ll clear it with Himmler myself. I doubt he’ll be needing it again. And be careful. Tell your men to stay out of the Russian villages, and to leave the women alone. Last time I was there, Himmler’s pilot got himself murdered in the most horrible circumstances by local partisans after he went chasing some local skirt. If your boys want to relax, tell them to play tennis. There’s quite a good court there, as I recall. As soon as your team is operational I want you to come back here and make your report. Use the Wehrmacht’s courier plane to Warsaw, and then by train to Berlin. Got that?”
Schellenberg concluded the meeting and left his office. He had parked his car on Hohenzollerndamm instead of his usual place outside the front door, reasoning that the walk might afford him an opportunity to see if he was being followed. He recognized most of the cars parked outside the offices of Amt VI; but further up the street, toward the taxi file on the corner of Teplitzer Strasse, he saw a black Opel Type 6 limousine with two occupants. It was parked facing north, the same direction as Schellenberg’s gray Audi. But for Arthur Nebe’s warning he would have paid it little or no attention. As soon as he got into his car, Schellenberg picked up the shortwave transmitter and called his office, asking his secretary, Christiane, to check on the license plate he read off in his rearview mirror. Then he turned the car around and drove south toward the Grunewald Forest.
He drove slowly, with one eye on his mirror. He saw the black Opel make a U-turn on Hohenzollerndamm and then come after him at the same leisurely speed. After a few minutes, Christiane came on the radio again.
“I have that Kfz-Schein,” she said. “The car is registered to Department Four, at the Reich Main Security Office, on Prinz Albrechtstrasse.”
So it was the Gestapo who were following him.
Schellenberg thanked her and switched off the radio. He could hardly let them follow him to where he was going-Himmler would never have approved of what he had arranged. But equally, he didn’t want to make it too obvious that he was trying to lose them; so long as the Gestapo were unaware that he had been tipped off about them, he had a small advantage.
He stopped at a tobacconist and bought some cigarettes, which gave him the opportunity to turn around without it looking like he’d spotted the tail. Then he drove north until he reached the Kurfurstendamm, turning east toward the city center.
Near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, he turned south onto Tauenzienstrasse and pulled up outside the Ka-De-We department store on Wittenberg Platz. Berlin’s biggest department store was full of people, and it was a comparatively simple matter for Schellenberg to give the Gestapo the slip. Entering the store by one door, he left by another, picking up a taxi at the stand on Kurfurstenstrasse. The driver took him north, up Potsdamer Strasse toward the Tiergarten, and then dropped him close to the Brandenburg Gate. Schellenberg thought Berlin’s famous monument was looking a little scarred from the bombings. On top of the quadriga roof, the four horses drawing
