the problem. Installing Il Duce in the city-state Republic of Salo, on Lake Garda, had been one of the more pointless diplomatic endeavors of his career. If anyone had bothered to ask him, he would have left Mussolini in Abruzzi to face an Allied court-martial.
These Cicero documents were another thing entirely. They were a real chance to put his career back on track, to prove he was indeed, as Hitler had once called him-after the successful negotiation of the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union-“a second Bismarck.” War was inimical to diplomacy, but now that it was clear the war could not be won, the time for diplomacy-von Ribbentrop’s diplomacy-had returned, and he had no intention of allowing the SD with their stupid heroics to ruin Germany’s chances of a negotiated peace.
He would speak to Himmler. Only Himmler had the foresight and vision to understand the tremendous opportunity that was provided by Cicero’s very timely information. Von Ribbentrop closed his briefcase and headed for the street.
By the tall lamppost that flanked the building’s entrance, von Ribbentrop found the two aides who were to accompany him on his train journey: Rudolf Linkus and Paul Schmidt. Linkus relieved him of his briefcase and placed it in the trunk of the enormous black Mercedes that was waiting to drive him to the Anhalter Bahnhof-the railway station. Sniffing the damp night air charged with the smell of cordite from the antiaircraft batteries on nearby Pariser Platz and Leipziger Platz, he climbed into the backseat.
They drove south down Wilhelmstrasse, past Gestapo headquarters and onto Koniggratzerstrasse, turning right into the station, which was full of aged pensioners and women and children taking advantage of Gauleiter Goebbels’s decree permitting them to escape the Allied bombing campaign. The Mercedes drew up at a platform well away from Berlin’s less distinguished travelers, alongside a streamlined, dark green train that was building up a head of steam. Standing on the platform, at five-meter intervals, a troop of SS men stood guard over its twelve coaches and two flak wagons armed with 200-millimeter quadruple antiaircraft guns. This was the special train Heinrich used by the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, and, after the Fuhrerzug, the most important train in Germany.
Von Ribbentrop climbed aboard one of the two coaches reserved for the use of the Reich Foreign Minister and his staff. Already the noise of clattering typewriters and waiters laying out china and cutlery in the dining car that separated von Ribbentrop’s personal coach from that of the Reichsfuhrer-SS made the train seem as noisy as any government office. At exactly eight o’clock the Heinrich headed east, toward what had once been Poland.
At eight-thirty, von Ribbentrop went into his sleeping compartment to change for dinner. His SS general’s uniform was already laid out on the bed, complete with black tunic and cap, cross-belts, black riding breeches, and polished black riding boots. Von Ribbentrop, who had held the honorary rank of SS-Gruppenfuhrer since 1936, enjoyed wearing the uniform, and his friend Himmler seemed to appreciate him wearing it. On this particular occasion, however, the SS uniform was mandatory, and when the minister came out of his compartment, the rest of his Foreign Ministry staff aboard the train were also dressed in their coal black uniforms. Von Ribbentrop found himself smiling, for he liked to see his staff looking smart and performing at a level of efficiency that only the proximity of the Reichsfuhrer-SS seemed able to command, and instinctively he saluted them. They saluted back, and Paul Schmidt, who was an SS colonel, presented his master with a sheet of ministry notepaper on which was typed a summary of the points von Ribbentrop had wanted to make to Himmler during their dinner meeting. These included his suggestion that any Allied air crew captured after a bombing raid be handed over to the local population and lynched; and the issue raised by SD agent Cicero’s photographed documents. To the minister’s irritation, the issue of the deportation of Jews from Norway, Italy, and Hungary was also on the agenda. Von Ribbentrop read this last item once more and then tossed the summary onto the table, his face coloring with irritation. “Who typed this?” he asked.
“Fraulein Mundt,” said Schmidt. “Is there a problem, Herr Reichsminister?”
Von Ribbentrop turned on the heel of his boot and walked into the next carriage, where several stenographers, seeing the minister, left off typing and stood up respectfully. He approached Fraulein Mundt, searched her out tray, and silently removed the carbon copy she had made of Schmidt’s summary before returning to his private carriage. There, he placed the carbon copy on the table and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his SS tunic, he faced Schmidt with sullen displeasure.
“Because you were too damned lazy to do what I asked, you risk all our lives,” he told Schmidt. “By committing the specific details of this Moellhausen matter to paper-to an official document, I might add-you are repeating the very same offense for which he is to be severely reprimanded.”
Eiten Moellhausen was the Foreign Ministry’s consul in Rome, and the previous week he had sent a cable to Berlin alerting the ministry to the SD’s intention to deport 8,000 Italian Jews to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, “for liquidation.” This had caused consternation, for von Ribbentrop had given strict orders that words such as “liquidation” should never appear in Foreign Ministry papers, in case they fell into Allied hands.
“Suppose this train were captured by British commandos,” he shouted. “Your stupid summary would condemn us just as surely as Moellhausen’s cable. I’ve said it before, but it seems I have to say it again. ‘Removal.’ ‘Resettlement.’ ‘Displacement.’ Those are the proper words to use in all Foreign Ministry documents relating to the solution of Europe’s Jewish problem. The next man who forgets this will go the same way as Luther.” Von Ribbentrop picked up the offending summary and carbon copy, thrust them at Schmidt. “Destroy these. And have Fraulein Mundt retype this summary immediately.”
“At once, Herr Reichsminister.”
Von Ribbentrop poured himself a glass of Fachinger water and waited, impatiently, for Schmidt to return with the retyped document. While he was waiting, there was a knock at the other door of the carriage and an aide opened it to admit a small, plain-looking SS-Standartenfuhrer, a man not dissimilar in appearance to that of his master, for this was Dr. Rudolf Brandt, Himmler’s personal assistant and the most industrious of the Reichsfuhrer’s entourage. Brandt clicked his heels and bowed stiffly to von Ribbentrop, who smiled back at him ingratiatingly.
“The Reichsfuhrer’s compliments, Herr General,” said Brandt. “He wonders if you are free to join him in his car.”
Schmidt returned with the new summary sheet, and von Ribbentrop received it without a word, then followed Brandt through the concertina gangway that joined the two coaches.
Himmler’s car was paneled with polished wood. A brass lamp stood on a little desk beside the window. The chairs were upholstered in green leather, which matched the color of the car’s thick velour. There was a gramophone and a radio, too, though Himmler had little time for such distractions. Even so, the Reichsfuhrer was hardly the monkish ascetic he projected to the public. To von Ribbentrop, who knew Himmler well, his reputation for ruthlessness seemed ill deserved; he was capable of being very generous to those who served him well. Indeed, Heinrich Himmler was not a man without charm, and his conversation was lively and more often than not laced with humor. It was true that, like the Fuhrer, he disliked people smoking cigarettes around him, but on occasion he himself enjoyed a good cigar; no more was he a teetotaler, and often drank a glass or two of red wine in the evening. Von Ribbentrop found Himmler with a bottle of Herrenberg-Honigsachel already open on the desk, and a large Cuban cigar burning in a crystal ashtray that lay on top of a Brockhaus atlas and a Morocco-bound copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a book that Himmler was seldom, if ever, without.
Seeing von Ribbentrop, Himmler put down his notorious green pencil and jumped to his feet.
“My dear von Ribbentrop,” he said in his quiet voice, with its light Bavarian twang that sometimes reminded von Ribbentrop of Hitler’s Austrian accent. There were even some who said that Himmler’s accent was consciously modeled on Hitler’s own voice in an attempt to ingratiate himself still further with the Fuhrer. “How nice to see you. I was just working on tomorrow’s speech.”
This was the purpose of their rail journey to Poland: the following day in Posen, the old Polish capital that was now the site of an intelligence school run by Colonel Gehlen for German military forces in Russia, Himmler would address all of the generals, or “troop leaders,” in the SS. Forty-eight hours later, he would give the same speech to all of Europe’s Reichsleiters and Gauleiters.
“And how is that coming along?”
Himmler showed the foreign minister the typewritten text on which he had been working all afternoon, covered as it was with his spidery green handwriting.
“A little long, perhaps,” admitted Himmler, “at three and a half hours.”
Von Ribbentrop groaned silently. Given by anyone else, Goebbels or Goring or even Hitler, he would have risked taking a nap, but Himmler was the kind of man who later asked you questions about his speech, and what in particular you thought had been its strongest points.
