When the minister returned to the Reichsfuhrer’s private car, Himmler seemed to read his thoughts.
“You were thinking of your own son, perhaps. A very brave young man. How many times has he been wounded?”
“Three times.”
“He does you great credit, Joachim. Let us pray that Rudolf is never captured by the Russians. Particularly as he is SS. Elsewhere the Beketovka File makes reference to the especially murderous treatment that the Russians have inflicted on SS POWs. They are taken to Wrangel Island. Shall I show you where that is?”
Himmler picked up his Brockhaus atlas and found the relevant map. “Look there,” he said, pointing with a well-manicured fingernail at a speck in a patch of pale-looking blue. “In the East Siberian Sea. There. Do you see? Three and a half thousand kilometers east of Moscow.” Himmler shook his head. “It’s the size of Russia that overwhelms, is it not?” He snapped the atlas shut. “No, I’m afraid we will not see those comrades again.”
“Has the Fuhrer seen this file?” asked von Ribbentrop.
“Good God, no,” said Himmler. “And he never will. If he knew about this file and the conditions in which German soldiers are kept in Russian POW camps, do you think he would ever contemplate making a peace with the Soviets?”
Von Ribbentrop shook his head. “No,” he said. “I suppose not.”
“But I was thinking that if the Americans saw it,” said Himmler. “Then…”
“Then it might help to drive a wedge between them and the Russians.”
“Precisely. Perhaps it might also help to authenticate evidence we have already provided of the Russians being to blame for the Katyn Forest massacre.”
“I assume,” said von Ribbentrop, “that Kaltenbrunner has already informed you of this man Cicero’s intelligence coup?”
“About the Big Three and their forthcoming conference in Teheran? Yes.”
“I’m thinking, Heinrich-before Churchill and Roosevelt see Stalin, they’re going to Cairo, to meet Chiang Kai-shek. That would be a good place for this Beketovka File to fall into their hands.”
“Yes, possibly.”
“It would give them something to think about. Perhaps it might even affect their subsequent relations with Stalin. Frankly, I don’t expect any of this material would surprise Churchill very much. He’s always hated the Bolsheviks. But Roosevelt is a very different saucer of milk. If the American newspapers are to be believed, he seems intent on charming Marshal Stalin.”
“Is such a thing possible?” grinned Himmler. “You’ve met the man. Could he ever be charmed?”
“Charmed? I sincerely doubt that Jesus Christ himself could charm Stalin. But that’s not to say Roosevelt doesn’t think he can succeed where Christ might fail. But then again, he might lose his will to charm if he were made aware of just what sort of monster he’s dealing with.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“But the file would have to come into their hands from the right quarter. And I fear that neither the SS nor the Reich Foreign Ministry could bring the appropriate degree of impartiality to such a sensitive matter.”
“I think I have just the man,” said Himmler. “There’s a Major Max Reichleitner. Of the Abwehr. He was part of the war crimes team that investigated the Katyn massacre. Of late he’s been doing some useful work for me in Turkey.”
“In Turkey?” Von Ribbentrop was tempted to ask what kind of work Major Reichleitner was doing for Himmler and the Abwehr in Turkey. He hadn’t forgotten that Ankara was where the SD’s agent Cicero was also operating. Was this just a coincidence, or was there perhaps something he wasn’t being told?
“Yes. In Turkey.”
Himmler did not elaborate. Major Reichleitner had been carrying the diplomatic correspondence on another secret peace initiative, this one conducted with the Americans by Franz von Papen, the former German chancellor, on behalf of a group of senior officers in the Wehrmacht. Von Papen was the German ambassador in Turkey and, as such, von Ribbentrop’s subordinate. Himmler considered von Ribbentrop useful in a number of ways; but the Reichsminister was acutely sensitive about his position and, as such, was sometimes something of a nuisance. The plain fact of the matter was that Himmler enjoyed reminding the foreign minister of how little he really knew and how much he now relied on the Reichsfuhrer, rather than Hitler, to remain close to the center of power.
“I believe there may be something else we might do to take advantage of this forthcoming conference,” the foreign minister said. “I was thinking that we might attempt to seek further clarification of exactly what Roosevelt meant when he told reporters at Casablanca of his demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender.”
Himmler nodded thoughtfully and puffed at his cigar. The president’s remark had caused as much disquiet in Britain and Russia as it had in Germany, and, according to intelligence reports from the Abwehr, it had generated the fear among certain American generals that unconditional surrender would make the Germans fight all the harder, thereby prolonging the war.
“We might use Teheran,” continued Ribbentrop, “to discover if Roosevelt’s remark was a rhetorical flourish, a negotiating ploy intended to force us to talk, or if he meant us to take it literally.”
“Exactly how might we obtain such a clarification?”
“I was thinking that the Fuhrer might be persuaded to write three letters. Addressed to Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. Stalin is a great admirer of the Fuhrer. A letter from him might prompt Stalin to question why Roosevelt and Churchill don’t want a negotiated peace. Could it be that they would like to see the Red Army annihilated in Europe before committing themselves to an invasion next year? The Russians have never trusted the British. Not since the Hess mission.
“Equally, letters to Roosevelt and Churchill might make something of the brutal treatment of German POWs by the Russians, not to mention those Polish officers murdered at Katyn. The Fuhrer could also mention a number of pragmatic considerations which Roosevelt and Churchill might think could weigh against a European landing.”
“Such as?” asked Himmler.
Von Ribbentrop shook his head, unwilling to show the Reichsfuhrer all his best cards and telling himself that Himmler wasn’t the only one who could withhold information. “I wouldn’t want to go into the details right now,” he said smoothly, now quite convinced that Cicero’s discovery of the Big Three at Teheran might be the beginning of a very real diplomatic initiative, perhaps the most important since he had negotiated the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. Von Ribbentrop smiled to himself at the idea of pulling off another diplomatic coup like that one. These letters to the Big Three from the Fuhrer would be written by himself, of course. He would show those bastards Goring and Goebbels that he was still a force to be reckoned with.
“Yes,” said Himmler, “I might mention the idea to Hitler when I go to the Wolfschanze on Wednesday.”
Von Ribbentrop’s face fell. “I was thinking that I might mention the idea to Hitler myself,” he said. “After all, this is a diplomatic initiative rather than a matter for the Ministry of the Interior.”
The Reichsfuhrer-SS thought for a moment, considered the possibility that Hitler might not like the idea. There was a strong chance that any negotiated peace might require Germany to have a new leader, and while Himmler believed there was no one better than himself to replace the Fuhrer, he did not want Hitler to think that he was planning some sort of coup d’etat.
“Yes,” he said, “I think perhaps you’re right. It should be you who mentions this to the Fuhrer, Joachim. A diplomatic initiative like this one should originate in the Foreign Ministry.”