Chapter III: Part XXIII
Chapter III: The Lion’s Den
Part XXIII
October 14, 1936
Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf opened his eyes to a darkened room. His heart was pounding, and he wasn’t immediately sure why he had awakened. The shrill ring of a telephone on the table next to his bed caught his breath. After several seconds, a second ring. He sat bolt upright, rubbing his eyes. A third ring grated urgently.
He reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Herr Gruppenführer, this is Leutnant Milch at City Police Headquarters. There has been a series of explosions in the city center, of unknown origin. You are needed at once.”
von Helldorf held the receiver silently for several seconds. His head throbbed. “Has there been an air raid?”
The police lieutenant on the other end paused. It sounded like he was asking someone in the background a question. “No, Herr Gruppenführer. We just got off the telephone with Major Veranis at Air Defense on the Tiergarten and nothing unusual has been reported.”
“When will my car be here?”
“Uhm, I believe no more than ten or fifteen minutes, Herr Gruppenführer.”
von Helldorf hung up the receiver. Fumbling in the darkness, he managed to turn on the lamp at his bedside. Putting on his eyeglasses, he clambered out of bed and walked to his closet. He began putting on his dark green uniform -- that of Berlin’s chief of police -- but his fingers were moving sluggishly. With a snap, the top button of his tunic flew off and tinkled on the wooden floor. Bellowing curses, von Helldorf savagely tore off the tunic and hurled it across the room in a ball.
Anger simmering, he stalked off to the bathroom, turned the light on and opened a small bottle of pills next to the sink. Swallowing three without water, he replaced the cap and walked back into his bedroom, running a hand through his slightly receding dark hair. He fancied himself in better sorts almost immediately, and picked the balled tunic from the floor in the corner of the room, beating it several times to get the wrinkles out.
Five minutes later, he stood dressed in front of his full-length mirror. He checked his wristwatch as he slipped on his black gloves. Ten minutes after midnight. He realized, looking at the greatcoated officer glowering back at him, that it was his fortieth birthday.
Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf.
One of the few prominent SA officers to maintain close ties with the highest echelons of the Nazi leadership in the wake of the Night of the Long Knives, von Helldorf had been installed the year before as Polizeipräsident of Berlin, largely by way of having aligned with the SS shortly before the anti-SA purge began. He jockeyed fiercely with the Gestapo for influence in the capital, but by cultivating alliances with men such as Frick and Goebbels had cemented himself as one of the most powerful men in the city. Descending the staircase of his luxurious new home just east of Mahldorf, von Helldorf lit an imported cigarette.
He finished it standing in the cold darkness outside his front door, just as the twin beams of his car’s headlights came into view at the far end of the circular driveway. His driver brought the sleek black Mercedes to a stop, and von Helldorf crossed to it in seconds and climbed into the back seat. The driver didn’t say a single word, and von Helldorf was not in a mood to make conversation as they sped westward at 130 kilometers per hour. Twelve minutes later, they screeched to a stop at the City Police Headquarters on the Alexanderplatz.
A police corporal opened the rear door, and Count von Helldorf climbed out with his jaw set. “What’s going on here?”
Two police captains and a gaggle of junior officers had been standing in front of the building, waiting for him to arrive. At least half of them tried to answer him at once, and von Helldorf swatted away the papers being thrust at him, taking a commanding stride through the building’s double doors and down the central corridor, forcing the others to keep up. The inside of the police headquarters was frantic with activity.
“Handels, tell me everything you know.”
The more competent of the two captains he had in tow started reeling off a list of messages. “Telephone call to fire dispatcher at 23.45, reporting explosion at the Westfeldblock apartments... Telephone call to fire dispatcher at 23.46, reporting ‘multiple explosions’ at or near Westfeldblock apartments... Telephone call to police station in Reinickendorf also at 23.46 reporting fireball in the eastern sky... Teleph --”
“Enough!” von Helldorf spat, raising a gloved hand to silence Handels. “Who can tell me what is going on at this moment?”
“Herr Gruppenführer, this way.” Grossmeier, the captain whom von Helldorf esteemed dimmer than Handels, had begun to ascend the broad staircase to the party’s right.
“What is it?”
“I will show you what is happening at this moment.”
“Tell me in words.”
“Herr Gruppenführer, you must see!”
Losing patience, von Helldorf marched up the stairs after him. “What is it? Tell me what’s going on.”
Grossmeier had backpedaled to the landing, and gestured out one of the large windows. “Look!”
The Police Count made the top of the stairs and whirled to follow Grossmeier’s outstretched finger. His heart shuddered in his chest. In the northwestern sky, a monstrous black plume of smoke rose into the heavens. It was bright orange at its base, where it was illuminated by tongues of red flame visible even from five kilometers away on the Alexanderplatz.
“Report just in from the City Fire Dispatcher,” cried a young lieutenant, entering the landing gallery from a nearby office with papers in hand. “The entire Leopoldplatz -- that is Malplaquetstrasse to Antonstrasse three blocks in each direction -- is up in flames. Fire crews report the southern side of the fire successfully surrounded. Battalions still staging from around the city to fight the north side of the fire.”
“Loss of life?”
“No reports yet, Herr Gruppenführer, but we have alerted Charité, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, and Potsdam Klinik hospitals to stand by for massive casualties.”
“Have you double-checked with RLB Air Defense about hostile aircraft?”
“I do not know.”
“This is Air Defense now,” called an Oberwachtmeister from the adjacent office, poking his head through a doorway. “They say no aircraft activity was observed.”
“Give me the telephone.” von Helldorf strode across the landing gallery and plucked the receiver from the sergeant’s hand. “This is Gruppenführer Graf von Helldorf. Who is this?”
“Luftwaffe Gefreiter Hausmann.”
“Get me Major Veranis.”
“Yes, one moment please.” The line went silent. Thirty seconds passed before a Bavarian accent came on.
“Herr Polizeipräsident, this is Major Veranis.”
“I have nine city blocks up in flames, and you’re telling me that no foreign bombers have been over Berlin airspace?”
“It is impossible. There has not been a single air raid on Berlin in the whole war.”
“I’m not asking you history questions, Major. What planes have been overhead tonight?”
“None. Civil aviation no longer flies at night for that very reason, and no military aircraft have been recorded in the past hour.”
“Is it possible that a flight of bombers was flying too low for you to observe?”
“No it is not. At night we rely on listening, primarily, and no unusual engine noise was reported.”
“How can that be?” von Helldorf heard the wail of emergency sirens passing through the Alexanderplatz. “This is a serious bombing, Major!”
“I’m looking out my window at the plume of smoke right now, Herr Polizeipräsident, and I’m telling you with complete confidence that that was no enemy air raid.”
von Helldorf slammed the receiver back into its cradle. “Grossmeier!”
“Yes?”
“Are there any targets on the Leopoldplatz that might have attracted sabotage of some kind?”
“Not that I know of, Herr Gruppenführer.”
“Leopoldplatz...” said von Helldorf, thinking aloud. “Leopoldplatz... that’s Wedding. A Communist stronghold in years past, but I thought mostly cleaned up by now. There isn’t any anniversary tonight that might suggest Communist terrorism, is there?”
“I don’t know,” Grossmeier said, “but why would they bomb their own neighborhood?”
“True, true.” The scope of the disaster was only beginning to sink in.
von Helldorf returned to the landing gallery, gazing out across the city center. The plume of smoke was unbelievably wide for something so distant. More than half the area was residential -- surely thousands of citizens lived in the structures being consumed by the fire.
“Very well,” said von Helldorf, “Grossmeier is in command until the duty commissar gets here. Contact the government ministries and order them secured until police arrive. Cordon off the entire district of Wedding, and mobilize the Police Reserve to do so. Send police to secure any further principal structures in the city. Contact the Ministry of the Interior and HKK and apprise them of the situation with whatever information we have. I’m going to the fire.”
Just more than an hour after the first reported explosions, a convoy consisting of von Helldorf, three captains, fourteen lieutenants and a hundred city police men arrived at the line set up by the fire-fighting police along the fire’s southern edge.
Stepping out of his staff car, von Helldorf felt the searing heat of the inferno bathe every centimeter of exposed skin. His first breath of hot smoky air nearly brought tears to his eyes.
The fire was of such intensity as to boil the water from some fire hoses before it even touched the ground.
“Count von Helldorf!” Berlin’s Chief of Fire-fighting Police was approaching through the smoky gloom around them. Major Wagner was a veteran and a true professional. von Helldorf knew that he had been on duty the night of the Reichstag Fire three years before, and wondered what was running through the man's mind tonight.
“Major, what can you tell me about your progress?” von Helldorf had to shout over the deafening roar of the flames.
“The fire is contained along this line along its entire width in both directions, and around much of its western and eastern flanks!”
“Have your men any idea of the cause?”
“It shows strong signs of arson. The Gestapo is of precisely the same opinion.” Wagner gestured to a small crowd of black-clad figures behind him that von Helldorf had assumed were part of the Fire Brigade.
“You called the Gestapo?” The fire-fighting police were subordinate to the city’s regular police and Wagner was not in his place in summoning the Secret State Police on his own.
“No, I thought you sent them!”
von Helldorf eyed the men in question, huddled around two of their cars that were parked amongst the fire engines. He felt sure that they were watching him themselves. “I certainly did not send for them!” von Helldorf’s words were drowned out by the thunderous collapse of one of the blazing apartment blocks.
“You say you didn’t send for them?”
“I did not send for them! What are you doing with the casualties?”
“There have only been a few, and these we sent to Charité hospital!”
“What? Only a few casualties?”
“That’s correct! By the time I got here, the Gestapo had been able to evacuate much of the area!”
“Do not let them interfere any further, Major. Keep your men holding the line here. I will go to the north side of the fire to help organize the stop line.”
Buildings burn fiercely on the Leopoldplatz
von Helldorf’s journey north was much slower. The roads had become totally choked with police and fire crews that had been summoned from surrounding areas, as well as panicked civilians attempting to flee the conflagration. Shortly after three, his staff car arrived at the fire line along the Amsterdamerstrasse. Here, the flames were mercifully far less intense, and there seemed to be now little more than vast piles of smoking rubble on this side of the Leopoldplatz neighborhood.
“It was arson,” reported a shadowed Gestapo officer as he opened von Helldorf’s door. “And we know who did it.”
Berlin’s police chief emerged from his car to find at least two dozen Gestapo agents lingering near the rubble as firefighters hosed it down.
“Who are you?”
“Chief Inspector Müller. I am also here to inform you that the Gestapo is currently treating this entire area as the site of a sensitive criminal investigation. We cannot allow your Orpo or normal Kripo into the area, but would be happy of your help in cordoning the area off and keeping away gawkers.”
von Helldorf clenched his fists. “That is yet to be determined. As soon as I can get in touch with the Ministry of the Interior, you will surely be ordered to surrender authority over this scene to me personally.”
“We have all the authority we need. This is a sensitive investigation of an international crime. We must be allowed to use whatever methods we deem necessary to deal with the perpetrators.”
“Perpetrators? You have arrested people already?”
“Yes. If I may trust you not to share this with any of your underlings, we have arrested five men before they could escape the scene of the crime. All of them are Danish citizens. All of them are Danish spies. Now I must insist on your help in cordoning off the area to keep out the curious.”
When Count von Helldorf finally succeeded in reaching Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick just after dawn, he received the same order verbatim.