Chapter II: Part II
Chapter II: The Gambit of the West
Part II
February 8, 1936
The morning had been a rainy one, but thirty thousand people had flooded the Konradshöhe neighborhood which would be the scene of the public execution of the anti-Hitler conspirators. The Führer had directed that the executions be carried out in front of the house which had headquartered the Reinickendorf Circle conspiracy. The vast majority of those in attendance would not even have a view of the executions themselves, but packed themselves together nonetheless -- feeding on the feverish energy of the crowd.
Six stakes had been driven into the ground in front of the stately old house, one for each of the condemned: Lössner, Arcadeldt, Kastner, Tapp, Neumann and the Baroness von Leysen. The Führer had specified that the conspirators be shot -- seemingly judging hanging, beheading and impalement all too gruesome for the foreign journalists whom he had invited.
The large house in Konradshöhe that was the scene of the February 8th executions.
Victor Reinert and a heavily-disguised fellow Abwehr agent stood at the front of the crowd, warily watching the house’s front door. The executions were scheduled for nine in the morning exactly, and it was eight fifty-six. Reinert had slept little in recent weeks, exhaustively preparing the operation to save the life of Walther Neumann, fully aware that exposure at any time could cost him his life.
It was treason. Canaris had appealed to Hitler on Neumann’s behalf, and was flatly denied. If the plan was ever uncovered, there would be no chance to claim ignorance. Reinert swallowed. As an intelligence man, he knew whom the odds favored. “Any secret,” the Abwehr chief had once told him, “will be discovered sooner or later. Spies merely expedite this process, and counterspies merely delay it.”
Reinert and his team had pored over dozens of possible methods to hoodwink the executioners and the thousands of onlookers, but each had eventually proven unworkable. Initially, Reinert had hoped to switch the bullets of the men firing at Neumann for harmless blanks, but soon learned that a single firing squad would dispatch each person in turn. In the Abwehr’s basement, he had experimented with theatrical blood in hopes of finding a way to smuggle it onto Neumann’s person, but this too was ruled out when the Abwehr learned that a medical examiner would examine the bodies
in situ, leaving no opportunity for post-execution tampering. All the other options -- armor, drugs, distractions, bribes and poison, to name a few -- proved unfeasible for one reason or another. Reinert’s final idea had been the riskiest of all.
The front doors opened. Twelve SS men descended the front steps and took up positions directly in front of Reinert. They were followed by a man in Party uniform whom Reinert recognized to be “Pipi” Glaubretz, one of the Old Guard Nazi thugs from the Munich days, and Hitler’s onetime herald. The paunchy Glaubretz stood at attention in the doorway and bellowed the litany of crimes that the condemned had been convicted of. Reinert was not listening.
When Glaubretz had finished his recitation, he stepped down and hurried through the crowd to the side of Rudolf Hess, who was perhaps the only one of the higher-ups to still maintain a friendship with him. The Führer himself would not be in attendance.
More SS men followed, leading the manacled prisoners. They were not hooded. Lössner appeared first, walking slowly and calmly to the first of the stakes, allowing himself to be tied to it without a struggle. He was followed by the violinist, Heinrich Tapp, sporting a broken nose and lacerated face. The two Belgians eyed their guards defiantly but like the others allowed themselves to be bound to the stakes. Soon, a woman’s screams echoed from within the house, and von Leysen came into view. Even at seventy-six, the Baroness kicked and struggled so badly that her guards had to physically carry her to the stake.
A sixth person emerged, but he was unrecognizable. Where Walther Neumann had once been proud and handsome, the man now dragged to the stake had been savagely beaten, his face swollen to garish proportions. Reinert could see that he had been cleaned up considerably, but blood still caked the sides of his bruised face. Hitler would not be pleased. Watching the reactions of the party officials and SS officer in charge, Reinert allowed himself a smile.
A priest was already moving down the line administering Last Rites, doing his best to shield the condemned from the flashbulbs that were now going off every second or so. The British and American journalists would stop at nothing to get dramatic photographs, Reinert mused. One attempted to cross the police cordon holding the crowd at bay, but was seized immediately by security officers.
Glaubretz had been sent back up to the doorway. “Before being executed, the condemned will now offer last words, by permission of the Führer!”
Reinert stared.
Hitler is making himself out to be quite the chivalrous gentleman lately.
Lössner was given the first opportunity to speak. As he began, Reinert immediately realized that he had been drugged, probably to prevent him from launching into a coherent condemnation of the Führer, as well as to buttress the claim that the conspiracy was composed of lunatics and fanatics.
Most interesting that they have done this.
Lössner seemed to slur his words, and spoke with the lilting quality of a man deranged. “M-may God have! Mercy! M-m-m-mercy. Mercy on, mercy on, mercy on.” Lössner’s voice fell to a whisper. Reinert could see how hard he was fighting the chemicals that clouded his mind. “God have mercy on Germany!”
The SS officer ordered the firing squad to aim. “Fire!”
Albert Lössner slumped, dead.
A shock went through the crowd. Those far away were merely startled by the noise. Those who witnessed the execution itself were horrified at the sudden pathos of what had unfolded. Reinert sensed that even some of the hardened Nazis were now ashamed by how gleefully they had watched the man’s last moments.
Heinrich Tapp was sobbing. Reinert saw the priest clasp him by the shoulders one last time before withdrawing. He was too distraught to say anything. As the firing squad took aim, he wailed above the officer’s orders. “I beg forgiveness, friends. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
His cries died in his throat as he slumped forward.
Arcadeldt was next. His matted hair hung down over his eyes. “Long live Belgium!”
He too went limp under a hail of bullets. Kastner followed him in death after shouting a similar sentiment.
The crowd was clearly uneasy now.
This is not Bedlam or Newgate or an American lynching. Germans have never been used to seeing this sort of thing.
Baroness von Leysen was heckling the SS firing squad. “Look at you! Playing soldier with the pop-guns your little Corporal gave you. If one of you is man enough to shoot at a bound old woman, let him do it!”
The men hesitated, looking to their officer for guidance.
“At least untie me so it can be a fair fight, you cowards! Or are you afraid even to do that?”
Glaubretz was angrily pointing at the bewildered Hauptsturmführer and using his other hand to mime a pistol shot.
“The true Germany would never allow such men as you as it’s soldiers! Go home to your mothers!”
The officer drew his sidearm reluctantly.
“You! Over-thug! Don’t wave that thing around carelessly. You’ll hurt yourself.”
The firing squad had recovered its courage and now joined its officer in aiming at the defiant Baroness von Leysen. The Hauptsturmführer’s pistol discharged, hitting her in the shoulder. She convulsed, but was soon fighting at her restraints again.
“It takes more than that to kill a Prussian baroness, my boys!”
The rest of the men fired their weapons. This time it was enough, and Anna Freifrau von Leysen lay still at last.
Finally, the man whom Glaubretz had labeled “The Judas of Honest Germans” in his opening diatribe was given an opportunity to speak. The Abwehr agent at Reinert’s side seemed to tremble.
Reinert clenched his fists.
The plan must succeed in seconds.
Out of the battered mouth there came a soft moan, unheard by most of the crowd. He was trying to form words, but they were slurred hopelessly.
It must work. It must work.
“I…” He seemed to be fighting for coherence, just as Lössner had done. “I am not…”
Let there be no delay.
Glaubretz was getting impatient. Again he gestured irritably to the officer in command of the firing squad. He nodded, and ordered weapons at the ready.
In the crowd, Heinrich Himmler was whispering something to a Standartenführer next to him. He pointed at the man tied to the stake and then to a group of nearby soldiers.
Hurry! Hurry!
With a clatter, twelve rifle-stocks hit the pavement. “Aim!”
As the Hauptsturmführer lifted his arm to give the order to fire, the agent next to Reinert began to run forward, shouting for them to stop. Reinert was on his guard, though, and grabbed him from behind, just as twelve bullets smashed their target’s head and chest.
Reinert felt a lurch in his stomach. Glaubretz had resumed his position and was launching into a closing harangue.
Reinert and his sobbing colleague slipped, numb, through the crowd. They walked in silence to the small park in Neustadt that they had once frequented before the war. Reinert tearfully embraced the other man before looking him in the eyes. “I need you to understand what I have done for you, Walther. Do not waste the second life you have today.”