The Vanavara Protocol.

The Vanavara Protocol.

A Novel by

D.W.Mace.

Copyright © D.W.Mace.

Smashwords Edition.

ISBN: 978-1-4659-8002-1

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. With the exception of Historical incidents, quotations and personalities, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Transliteration is used throughout the novel for Russian language words and expressions.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.

Sunday, October 1st, 1939.

Introduction.

It is 1937. Once; they whispered... long ago, this land, and the lands to the east were steeped in magic. Once; they said... in the far distant and long-forgotten past; there was a fabulous society of mythical beings who lived in these lands. If there was ever such an age, it is now lost beyond the realms of legend… lost beyond fable. The Age of Mankind has long been at hand, and in this time, there is only fear. For this land is Germany. This place is Berlin.

Since January, 1933, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei... the NSDAP; with Führer Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, and, from 1934… Head of State; has ruled by the rejection of democracy, and the suppression of its opponents and critics.

Within a month of Adolf Hitler being appointed Reichskanzler of Germany on January 30th, 1933... the day which effectively marked the birth of the Third Reich; the Reichstag Parliament building in Berlin mysteriously caught fire on February 27th, 1933, under circumstances still not entirely clear.

This proved to be a valuable excuse for the Nazis to suspend most of the human rights provided for by the 1919 Weimar Constitution, under the emergency edict of the Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat... The Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State; otherwise known as the notorious Reichstagsbrandverordnung... the Reichstag Fire Decree... forced into being on the day after the fire.

Seizing on the burning of the Reichstag as the first act in a supposed communist uprising, the Nazis were able to throw millions of ordinary Germans into a convulsion of fear at the threat of Communist terror. With civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates. With them removed and their seats empty, the Nazis went from being a minor party to the majority. Subsequent elections confirmed this position and thus allowed Hitler to consolidate his power.

These days, the convulsion of fear comes with the screech of brakes, and the slamming of car doors in the street outside in the cold light of a Berlin dawn… or late at night. It comes with the clatter of footsteps on the stairs. It comes with the hammering on the apartment door. It comes with the men in black, ankle-length leather coats, wearing black felt fedoras with the brims pulled well down over their eyes... like detectives in a bad American movie; flashing their oval, silver-coloured discs in the palm of their hand.

This disc is the dreaded Gestapo Warrant disc… the Dienstmarke, On one side is embossed the ubiquitous German eagle... Die Hoheitsabzeichen; clutching in its talons the laurel crown that encircles the swastika; and on the other are the words Geheime Staatspolizei... Secret State Police; and a serial number. On one edge is a small hole by which the bearer of the badge can attach it by a chain to a leather security fob slipped over a concealed button inside his jacket.

There would be no warning… just a pounding on the door, and a few fleeting minutes to settle the affairs of a lifetime, as the men in the long leather coats search the rooms for anything incriminating. Then would come the bundling into the back of the black Mercedes 260D saloon waiting outside, and the drive to headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8… or worse, to the dreaded Gestapo-Gefängnis Columbia-Haus on the edge of Zentralflughafen Tempelhof-Berlin.

This archetypal image seems to have been popularised by the assassination of the former Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher on 30th June, 1934, during the Röhm-Putsch. General von Schleicher and his wife were shot in their Berlin home by three men dressed in black leather trench coats and wearing black fedoras. General von Schleicher had become a sufficient threat as a potential rival to Hitler, and thus, to the destabilisation of the NSDAP; that his killers were widely believed to have been Gestapo agents.

At a press conference held later the same day, Hermann Göring was asked by foreign correspondents to respond to a widespread rumour that General von Schleicher had been murdered in his home. Goring stated that the Gestapo had attempted to arrest Schleicher, but that he had been shot resisting arrest with a weapon in his hand.

Now, anyone dressed thus, these days; is regarded with the utmost fear.

Further to the East, in Soviet Russia, Josef Vissarionovich Stalin has been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee since 1922. Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, he prevailed in a power struggle over Leon Trotsky.

In the 1930's, Stalin initiated the Bolshaya Chistka… The Great Purge; a campaign of political repression, persecution and executions that would reach its peak in 1937. Confiscations of grain and other food by the Soviet authorities under his orders, contributed to what can only be called a genocidal famine between 1932 and 1934, especially in the key agricultural regions of the Soviet Union… the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and North Caucasus, which resulted in millions of deaths. In the spring of 1933 alone, seven million people died of starvation. Many peasants openly resisted collectivization and grain confiscations, but were brutally repressed; most notably, the well-off peasants deemed Kulaks.

Kulaks were former peasants in Russia who owned medium-sized farms. In 1928, Stalin began persecuting them for not supplying enough food for industrial workers. He also advocated the setting up of collective farms. The proposal involved small farmers joining forces to form large-scale units. In this way, it was argued; they would be in a position to afford the latest machinery. Stalin believed this policy would lead to increased production. However, the Kulaks liked farming their own land and were reluctant to form themselves into State Collectives.

Stalin was furious that the Kulaks were putting their own welfare before that of the Soviet Union. Local communist officials were given instructions to confiscate their property. This land was then used to form new collective farms. Any man, woman, or child caught taking even a handful of grain from a collective farm could be, and often was, executed or deported. Those who did not appear to be starving were often suspected of hoarding grain. Thousands of Kulaks were executed and at least five million were deported to Siberia or Central Asia. Of these, approximately twenty-five per cent had perished by the time they reached their destinations. The purging of the army, meanwhile, saw some thirty-five thousand military officers shot or imprisoned.

As Edward Grey, First Viscount Grey of Fallodon is reputed to have remarked to a friend one evening just before the outbreak of the First World War, as he watched the lights being lit on the street below his office:

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

Perhaps, he was not so very far from the truth. Perhaps, he was just a few years too soon in his ominous prediction… for the Darkness is gathering once again.

The previous year; far to the east, in Central Siberia; an Evenki reindeer breeder seeking stone to repair the hut in which he sheltered his stock in winter, came upon the tumbled remains of a building deep in the valley of the Stony Tunguska River. This was the place, where, in 1908, a huge explosion had occurred, flattening thousands of square kilometres of forest… the calamity that has come to be known as The Tunguska Event.

Sifting through the tumble of stones, the reindeer breeder discovered an ancient stone coffer. When he eventually forced the stone lid free, he saw that it contained three great, leather-bound books. Upon opening the first one, he found that they were hand-written upon parchment pages in symbols completely unknown to him. Thinking they might have some value, he carried them off. The nearest township to his settlement was Vanavara, some seventy kilometres to the southeast. The journey would take him at least a month, but there, he might sell them. At length, he passed them to the proprietor of the settlement trading post in exchange for much-needed supplies. The trading post proprietor passed them on to the local Political Officer, who forwarded them on to Moscow. There, they remained; an enigmatic puzzle.

Word of the existence of the three volumes came to the ears of the German Military Attaché in Moscow, who passed the information to Berlin. The Abwehr intelligence-gathering agency was very interested. The Tunguska Event was well documented. They wanted to know if there could feasibly be some weapon capability that would be of advantage to the Reich, surrounding the explosion of 1908. What better way to find out than to suggest that an archaeological expedition is arranged with the Russians? Consequently, wheels were set in motion. There was already, a tentative Germano-Soviet Accord in place, and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler; obsessed as he was, by occult theories and mysticism; was fascinated by the possibilities.

Into this mounting turmoil that stretches across Europe from the banks of the Rhine in the west, to the frozen wastes of Siberia in the east; is thrust a young German female archaeologist, appointed at the highest level in Berlin, to journey deep into the Soviet Union, ostensibly on a research faculty, but with a hidden agenda hatched by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, himself. He has chosen to code-name this agenda: Das Vanavara Protokoll... The Vanavara Protocol.

This Protocol, agreed at Diplomatic level under the tentative Germano-Soviet accord, prescribes strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence concerning the sharing of such research findings as might be established; between the two Governments. Himmler's hidden agenda is for the young German archaeologist to scrutinise covertly, such findings as might exist, for the slightest intimation … in accordance with the criteria specified by the Abwehr intelligence organization… of any data discovered at the site of the explosion which could possibly have a Military significance; and then, by whatever means necessary, secure such findings for the sole advantage of the Reich.

Unbeknown to Berlin, the young Russian archaeologist she is to work with has been similarly assigned a near-identical hidden agenda by Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, The Commissar of the NKVD… otherwise known as The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

The name of the young German archaeologist is Karyn Helle von Seringen. The curious thing is… in the faded memories of the old folks… from the half-forgotten tales of Legend, there is a whispered remembrance of a Warrior maid, who was known throughout these lands as The Golden Child. They say she lay to ruin, the designs of The Darkness to unleash the dreaded Night of The Shadow Rising… whatever that might have been; that would turn all back into Chaos. They say her name was Kathalyn Seregon… which is not so very different from the name of the Fräulein Doktor.

Perhaps this is simple coincidence, perhaps it is not. Could it be that a faint echo of the magic that was believed to have once been in these lands, still lingers here? Could it possibly be that The Golden Child has returned to lay The Darkness by the heels, once, and for all?

Chapter One.

The great, vaulted reading room of the Central Science Library of The Academy of Sciences of Belarusian SSR; formerly known as The Belarusian Academy of Sciences, in Surganava Street, Minsk, was silent, save for the repetitious, hollow ticking of the escapement of the large wall clock high above the mahogany bookshelves that lined the walls. The library was dark; it smelled of old, neglected, leather-bound volumes and cheap furniture polish. An occasional gust of wind rattled the window sashes, but otherwise, it might have been a scene straight out of some ancient, long-forgotten age when Alchemists sought enlightenment in their quest to search for the Philosopher's Stone or some Universal Elixir.

In one corner of the great library, within a pool of soft light cast across the surface of the mahogany reading table by the solitary green- glass shaded desk lamp, a pretty, young, blonde-haired girl sat intently studying an ancient and frustratingly enigmatic volume lying open before her. The volume was leather-bound, and embossed with traces of faded and weathered gold leaf. It was hand-written in some totally obscure language... unlike anything she had ever seen. The script bore a vague resemblance to sixteenth century Old English script, mixed with Gothic German and Hebrew. The letters were composed of long, sweeping flourishes, and tightly rounded characters.

Slowly... painfully slowly, she was beginning to unravel these enigmatic symbols. She had, in the past, successfully deciphered Egyptian, Assyrian; Etruscan, Sumerian... all manner of ancient scripts. She had imagined that this language would probably be an archaic variant of Cyrillic... or its sister language, Glagolitic; both ancient Slavic languages used side-by-side in the early history of writing in Eastern Europe. Both of these languages were defined as Proto-Sinaitic; Old Cyrillic being derived from Greek; and Glagolitic from the Old Church Slavonic language.

She now saw that it was not going to be that straightforward... this was some completely unknown language. She would need to start from scratch... using frequency of letters... common linkings, and such-like. Her fingertips, encased in thin, white, cotton gloves, traced the lines of script. She reached to turn the page. As her fingertips touched the ancient vellum, she suddenly gave a cold, shivery shudder, almost as if, a grey goose had, at that same moment, flown over her grave. Perhaps, it was the icy wind from the east creeping in through the warped window frames… but, it wasn't that kind of shiver. She glanced around the sombre, shadowy library. There was nothing. It was just her imagination.

Occasionally, she picked up a pen and scribbled on the note-pad lying beside the great volume. She had spent several weeks attempting to decipher this fragile, vellum-paged enigma. She had started with the old, tried and trusted, frequency analysis method. This system supposed that in every language, some letters are used on the average, more than others, and the percentages of letters in different languages tends to be constant. The problem with this translation was that the average frequencies of letters were just that: averages. The actual frequencies of letters in any one example of text could vary from that average. The most that could be said was that the most common letters would rise to the top of the frequency list, while the least common would sink to the bottom.

On paper, this sounded straightforward. This was not the case with whatever language this great volume was written in. Solving even a simple code is difficult. Decrypting something like this volume was a little like trying to translate a document written in an alien language… with the task basically amounting to building up a dictionary of the symbol groups and the plain-text words they represented. She wished Sacha were here with her. A fresh pair of eyes might find something she was missing.

The volume was one of three that had been discovered in the Podkamennaya Tunguska river basin. On behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences of the USSR, based in what is now called Leningrad; Leonid Alekseyevich Kulik, the chief curator for the meteorite collection of the museum of the Academy of Sciences, had led several expeditions to that area of Siberia to seek out the validity of eyewitness reports concerning the fall of what was thought to be a great meteorite, somewhere near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in the June of 1908.

The cataclysmic detonations were heard at least nine hundred and fifty kilometres away. Throughout Western Europe, some people saw massive silvery clouds, and brilliant, coloured sunsets on the horizon, whereas others witnessed luminescent skies at night.

Shortly after midnight on 1st July, 1908, Londoners were intrigued to see a pink phosphorescent night sky over the capital. The same ruddy luminescence was reported over Belgium. The skies over Germany were curiously said to be bright green, whilst the heavens over Scotland were of an incredible intense whiteness which tricked the wildlife into believing it was dawn. The skies over Moscow were so bright that photographs were taken in the streets without using a magnesium flash. A captain of a ship on the River Volga reported that he could easily see vessels on the river three kilometres away by the uncanny astral light.

Outside the local region in Siberia, the Tunguska explosion remained nearly unknown for more than a decade. In the interim period, Russia, with a revolution and the Civil War, was in no mood for chasing the truth behind unexplained mysteries.

The first expedition of Kulik, in 1921 failed; due to the harsh conditions of the Siberian wastes thwarting his team's attempt to reach the area of the supposed blast. In 1927, a new expedition, again led by Kulik, almost reached its goal. At first, the locals were reluctant to tell Kulik about the event. They believed the blast was the wrath of Agdy, Old Man of the Thunder... the Evenki Storm God; who had cursed the area by smashing trees and killing animals. What Kulik had eventually found, was staggering in its magnitude. Karyn had the reports spread out on the desk before her.

He wrote that he had found the charred corpses of millions of trees laid out in a radial pattern for about forty kilometres in all directions, pointing away from the blast site in a great butterfly shape... yet the trees near the centre were still standing… although totally stripped of branches; so that they almost resembled telegraph poles. But, what had caused this dreadful destruction? It could only be one thing... a Meteorite strike, or perhaps, a Meteorite airburst. On the second major expedition to Tunguska, in April, 1927; two months after leaving Leningrad, Kulik reached the southern boundary of the region of devastated forest. He wrote in his diary:

I still cannot sort out my chaotic impressions of this excursion. In the north, the distant hills along the River Kushmo are covered with a white shroud of snow half a metre thick. From our observation point, no sign of forest can be seen, for everything has been devastated and burned, and around the edge of this dead area, the young twenty-year-old forest growth has moved forward furiously, seeking sunshine and life. One has an uncanny feeling when one sees fifty to seventy-five centimetre-thick, giant trees snapped across like twigs, and their tops hurled many metres away to the south.

By June, 1927, Kulik had found the epicentre of the destruction. The journey through the forest wasteland had not been without peril. He wrote in his journal:

In the early part of the day when the wind rose, it was very dangerous to walk through the old, dead forest. Twenty-year-old dead giants rotted at the roots were falling down on all sides. Sometimes they fell quite close to us. As we went along we kept our eyes on the tree-tops so that, if they fell, we should have time to jump aside.

During 1928 and 1929, Kulik led new expeditions; even over-wintering at the site. No crater or meteorite fragments were ever located; only some microtektites - small, glassy, spherical particles of molten rock; and thousands of trees all crashed and burned. He estimated about ten thousand square kilometres of Siberian evergreen coniferous forest were devastated in the areas of the rivers Chamba, Zhilushmo, and Kushmo. Something approaching eighty million trees were flattened; and hundreds of reindeer... the livelihood of local herders; had been killed. Exactly where these ancient volumes had been discovered in this area was not told; but how on earth could such fragile artefacts have possibly survived such devastation?

Aleksandr Anatoly Sergeyev hurried across Zakharievskaya Street. As he approached the massive, curved colonnade that spanned between the two wings of the building, bordering the wide courtyard in front of the Academy; he glanced across the broad, main thoroughfare of the city that stretched dead straight for eleven kilometres, linking the Borisov highway with the Warsaw road. Across the broad avenue, he saw the black GAZ four-door saloon parked in the shadowy darkness between the boundaries of the pools of light cast by two adjacent street lamps.

He shivered; it was one of the dreaded Chyornye Voronki, the NKVD Black Ravens… the Government's notorious black cars that were used to arrest suspects, often on false charges of being Enemies of the People. These Political criminals were usually imprisoned, sent into exile, or executed. Surprise arrests were often made in the small hours of the morning. He caught a glimpse of a glowing cigarette tip, and could almost feel the cold eyes watching him from the impenetrable darkness of the car's interior. They were there every night. He should be used to them by now.

They had watched him for three months as he came to escort Karyn back to the Hotel Europe. They watched all foreigners, and especially her. They shadowed her everywhere; not that she chose to wander too far. Most foreigners were forbidden to roam about. She, however, was not. Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen; Graduate Doctor of Archaeology with a chair at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, was untouchable. Much as it might rankle them, those evil NKVD bastards dare not lay so much as a finger upon her. If they were to do anything, then it was certain that their next car ride would be a one-way trip in the back seat of one of their own Black Ravens out to Brod Woods in the forests north of Minsk.

A few kilometres to the north of Minsk; to the left of the Lahoj highway, there was a village called Zialony Luh. Two kilometres north of the village, in the forests to the south of the Zaslauje Road, they shot people... both men and women; who were brought there every day and every night on trucks, or in the sinister Chyornye Voronki. For these victims, it was a one-way trip and the inescapable Nagan, or Tokarev bullet in the back of the head.

On the hills there was an area known locally as Kurapaty… an old stand of conifers, surrounded by broadleaf trees and thickets. Some hundred or so, versts of this coniferous stand had been surrounded by a fence, more than three metres high, made of closely fitting, overlapping, wooden planks, surmounted by barbed wire. Outside the fence were guards and dogs. The people were brought there along the gravelly, cobbled road that ran from the Lahoj highway to Zaslauje. The local villagers called it the Road of Death. The families of those who were shot were usually told that their loved ones had been sentenced to ten years in prison without the right to send letters.

A Directive had come down from Moscow Central, signed by Yezhov himself, specifically stipulating that no one in the Minsk office was to meddle in the affairs of this young German archaeologist with a gift for deciphering ancient languages and glyphs. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov; the Commissar of the NKVD… The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, otherwise known as The Main Directorate for State Security; sat in his office on the third floor of the huge, five-storey, NKVD Headquarters and prison on Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow, issuing such directives, in between sending millions to their deaths during the Great Purge. No one… but no one, with any modicum of common sense, crossed Yezhov. Consequently, the Minsk NKVD dared do nothing, but keep this pretty, young German Professor under surveillance.

Aleksandr hurried up the wide steps, passing between the towering pillars that supported the colonnade, still aware of the cold eyes of the Black Raven's occupants boring into his back. Quickly, he stepped through the central doorway of the Academy and hurried towards the reading room of the Library. He pushed the door open, and gazed at the lone figure studying the pages of the great volume. Her bell of blonde hair glowed pale in the lamplight. He called softly,

Kak dela, Milaya moya?... 'How's it going, My Sweet?'

She looked up, smiling. She loved it when he spoke to her in Russian; it was so... romantic, so poignant; compared with her hard, efficient Mother tongue. She responded with his pet name that he had said he preferred that she used.

'Hello, Sacha, I've worked out all the vowels and about three- quarters of the consonants. From what I've managed to translate so far, it seems to be some sort of Chronicle... almost a folk tale. It's really weird… like reading a Fantasy novel... but it's written in the most elegant, archaic style.'

Aleksandr smiled; she looked tired.

'Well, that's enough for tonight. Time to take you back to the hotel. Our shadows are outside again... as usual. You'd think they'd get fed up with it.'

She laughed,

'Not if they're anything like the Ironheads back home. They love it.'

She carefully closed the volume, slipping the acid-free, paper bookmark in between the parchment leaves, marking the place to where she had progressed in her deciphering. She reached across the reading desk and pressed a bell push. As she removed the cotton gloves and tidied her notepad and pencils, the door opened, and the old library archivist, Sergei Kivikoski shuffled in. He smiled; a crooked old Bolshevik smile.

'Another night in the catacombs done with, then? I guess you'll be off out dancing now... if you can shake off those three NKVD Svolochi…bastards, in that Black Raven across the street.'

Karyn smiled at the old man as she gently lifted the volume from the reading desk to place it in the massive, cast-iron safe in the corner of the reading room.

'Don't worry Sergei; I'm here at the invitation of Papa Stalin, himself. They just sniff around to make sure I'm behaving myself.'

Old Sergei gave her a worried look.

'Don't underestimate them my dear; they're devious. Still; we'll see you tomorrow. Take care, and goodnight.'

As they stepped out into the cold night air and turned down Zakharievskaya Street, Karyn and Sacha heard the clunk of the car doors closing. She glanced back over her shoulder. Yes, there they were… two men in the blue-topped, red-banded Furashky... visor caps, and military Shinely... greatcoats, coming across the street, fifty metres behind them. They heard the grating rattle of the GAZ engine starting. It would be the same old procession all the way down Zakharievskaya Street to where the Hotel Europe was situated on Lenin Square. The two goons would keep pace, with the Black Raven creeping along twenty metres behind them.

This sinister game of Cat and Mouse had started six months earlier in Frankfurt-am-Main. One morning in the early spring of 1937, at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität; the young, East Prussian archaeologist, Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen was summoned to the office of the Direktor. There, in the presence of the Gauleiter of Franconia, Julius Streicher, she was apprised of her Mission.

Streicher; whom they called the Uncrowned Czar of Franconia; Jew-baiter Number One of The Third Reich, and publisher of the vulgar and pornographic, vehemently anti-Semitic, weekly Nazi newspaper: Der Stürmer; a short, stocky, bull-necked muscular man with a Hitler-style moustache, coarse features; almost invisible eyebrows, and a shaven head; sat in the corner of the Direktor's office, resplendent in his excrement-yellow, single-breasted, NSDAP Political Leader uniform. His eyes never left her as he weighed her up to within a hairsbreadth of her Aryanness… and probably, her bed-worthiness. The thought of his eyes, let alone his hands upon her, made her shudder. Thankfully, the interview was soon over. She was instructed to clear her desk and go to her apartment to pack. She was issued with a railway warrant; destination… Berlin. A car was waiting for her.

She came out of the University building onto Mertonstrasse. There was a sleek black Mercedes saloon parked at the kerb. The driver opened the rear door. It really wasn't necessary to have a car. Her apartment was less than a kilometre away on Franz-Rücker Allee to the north-west. Nevertheless, the driver was insistent. Settling her in the plush rear seat, he started the big, six-cylinder engine and moved out onto Grafstrasse, heading north; turning left onto Sophienstrasse, then bearing right, onto Franz-Rücker Allee. Within five minutes, the Mercedes pulled into the kerb where she had indicated. The driver climbed out, and opened the door for her. He spoke:

'Fräulein Doktor, you must catch the express for Berlin from the Hauptbahnhof in forty minutes.'

The two SS-Sturmscharführers stood idly on the western arrival platform of the Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof, smoking their pungent Korfu Rot cigarettes. It was a dirty night, the 24th May, 1937. The few passengers awaiting their late trains glanced nervously at the pair, in their sinister black uniforms with the SS brassard… the blood-red Hakenkreuzarmbinde on their left arms, Frightened eyes glanced at the feared, plain black SD-collar tab; the SD Ärmelraute… the diamond lozenge badge on the left sleeve… edged with silver piping indicating they had Gestapo affiliation; and worse… the even more feared SD-Hauptamt Cuff band below it. They could only be from Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 9, Sitz des SS-Hauptamtes… Reichsführer-SS Himmler's personal Black Angels! Some poor bastard was in real trouble, having these two waiting for them. The bright glare from the overhead platform lamps reflecting back from the great arched, glass roof of the station glittered ominously on their Totenkopf Death's-head cap badges.

As the ominous, black-uniformed Iron-heads surveyed the sparsely occupied platform; those on whom their gaze descended, shivered, and quickly looked away. As sure as hell, these two evil-looking bastards were from Amt für Sicherungsaufgaben… The SS Security branch of the SD-Hauptamt Command Administration. They prowled up and down the platform, the hob-nails in the soles of their shiny black Schaftstiefelen… knee boots, which would become derisively, and universally known as jackboots; clicking ominously on the flagstones. Up and down... up and down. They were waiting for the night express from Frankfurt-am-Main. The big Steinheil station clock minute hand was creeping round to eleven o'clock. The night express was due in at 11.05pm, and the Deutsches Reichsbahn Gesellschaft always ran on time, these days.

As the two SDs strolled back down the platform with creaking jackboots and cold, reptilian eyes; the distant, mournful sound of a locomotive steam-whistle echoed somewhere out in the darkness of the rainy Berlin night.

As they turned to stare out into the blackness; the lamp on the signal gantry, some thirty metres beyond the three huge, end wall arches spanning the incoming tracks on the permanent way side of the station, flicked to green. The two SDs tossed down their cigarettes and ground them into the platform. Out of the darkness came the bright glare of the three head-code lights reflecting back off the silver ribbons of the rain-soaked tracks, as the big, black and red, 4-6-2 Borsig locomotive coasted into the platform, with the coach and locomotive brakes squealing, and clouds of hissing steam billowing from the double cylinders as the engineer vented the cylinder steam chests.

The Two SDs stepped back into the shadows as the express came to a standstill. The huge train-shed arched roof echoed as coach doors were banged open, and the passengers of the Frankfurt-am-Main night express stepped down from the rain-glistening, dark-green liveried coaches onto the Anhalter Bahnhof platform. The SDs watched, as the passengers hurried past them trying to avoid eye contact... such was the uncomfortable feeling those ominous black uniforms gave to even the most innocent travellers. But then; these days... who is truly innocent? The slightest word out of place and you are just as likely to find yourself doing the Gestapo two-step in the sinister Dienstzentrale der Gestapo offices at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8... The notorious Gestapo Hausgefängnis… House prison. Such is the paralysing fear that grips the hearts of even the most patriotic Germans at something as trivial as an unconscious stare from some passing uniformed Nazi on the streets.

On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of the Weimar Republic. He swore the oath:

I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone.

By this time, his mind was already set on the destruction of the Weimar Constitution. He was poised to unleash a relentless, sustained campaign of wanton destruction on his enemies: democracy, freedom, political co-existence; and, above all else, the Jewish population.

Under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, the Chancellor was given the authority to impose dictatorial powers to protect the democratic order from being overthrown. This measure was intended to put a stop to a possible Communist revolution. On February 4th, 1933, Hitler coerced the ageing Paul von Hindenburg, President of the Weimar Republic, into signing a decree that authorized the Minister of the Interior and the police to prohibit public meetings and publications that could endanger public security.

Upon becoming Chancellor; Hitler had appointed Hermann Göring as Minister of the Interior for the State of Prussia, Germany's biggest and most important state; which controlled two-thirds of the country, including the capital city of Berlin, and the big industrial centres. Göring; as Minister of the Interior, naturally had control of the police. The first thing he did was to prohibit regular uniformed police from interfering with Nazi brown-shirts out in the streets. This meant that innocent German citizens had no one to turn to as they were being beaten up by brown-shirted gangs roaming the streets, arresting and sometimes murdering whomever they pleased while the police looked on. These young Nazi thugs... especially the notorious Berlin SA Sturmtruppe 33, took full advantage of the police tolerance to loot shops at will; terrorize Jews, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Judges were intimidated. They were afraid for their lives if they convicted and sentenced a storm trooper even for a proven charge of cold-blooded murder.

Beyond this; Göring purged the Berlin police department of politically unreliable officers, and had fifty thousand storm troopers sworn in as special police auxiliaries known as Hilfspolizei; thus giving the storm troopers actual powers of arrest... and they relished its use. Prisons were soon overflowing with people taken into Protective custody resulting in the need for large, outside prison camps. This was the birth of the concentration camp system.

Having compromised the uniformed divisions, Göring next turned his attention to the plain-clothes police. On April 26th, 1933, a decree was issued creating the Secret Police Office. Göring merged the two units as the Gestapo. He originally wanted to name it the Geheimes Polizeiamt... the Secret Police Office; but discovered the German initials GPA would be too similar to the Soviet GPU, and thus, the name was changed to Secret State Police... the Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt.

The actual term Gestapo was supposedly created by a Berlin postal official who wanted a name that would fit on a regulation-sized, postal rubber stamp. The word Gestapo that he used was derived from seven letters within the full name Geheime Staats Polizei. Unwittingly, the postal official invented what would become one of the most notorious names in history.

Göring promptly began using the Gestapo to silence Hitler's political opponents in Berlin and the surrounding areas, and also to enhance his own personal power. Much to his delight, Göring discovered that the old Prussian State police had kept many secret files on the private lives of top Nazis, which he studied with malicious pleasure. Göring appointed Rudolf Diels as the first Gestapo chief and took full advantage of Diels' knowledge on the most efficient method to operate a political police force. He also encouraged Diels to maintain and expand the Prussian secret files on Nazi leaders. The cunning and ambitious Göring would effectively use that information to help solidify his own position within the Nazi party.

Another ambitious Nazi, Heinrich Himmler; Police president of the second most powerful German state, Bavaria; soon set his sights on the Gestapo. A fierce rivalry then developed between Himmler and Göring, with both men working against each other to curry favour with Hitler as to who would actually run the Gestapo. On April 20th, 1934, Göring and Himmler finally agreed to put aside their differences... largely because of mutual hatred of the SA; and Göring transferred full authority over the Gestapo to Himmler, who was also named chief of all German police forces outside Prussia.

The ever-ambitious Göring had set his sights on something much bigger than just being a policeman. The former World War One flying ace fancied himself as a military leader. He wanted to take charge of a reformed German Air Force. His interest in police matters and the Gestapo had diminished as Hitler's plans for a huge military build-up became apparent. Within a few years, Himmler became Chief of the German police in addition to his duties as SS leader. Heydrich, his second in command, proved to be something of a genius in creating a hugely efficient national intelligence system that kept watch on everyone. No one was exempt from Gestapo surveillance, no matter how high up they were, in the Nazi hierarchy.

In the late summer of 1933, a prison had been installed in the building of the Secret State Police office at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. Its purpose was to hold prisoners the Gestapo wanted to interrogate in the building. Fifty persons could be accommodated at any one time, in the thirty-eight solitary cells and one communal cell. Many political prisoners were held in the prison cells of the Polizei Präsidium, Alexanderplatz, or in the Gestapo remand prison Columbia-Haus, from where they were then transported for the day to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 for interrogation.

On 10th February 1936, the basic law for the Gestapo was promulgated by Göring as Prussian Prime Minister, and the Nazi Reichstag passed Das Gestapo-Gesetz... The Gestapo Law. This law provided that the Secret State Police had the duty to investigate and to combat in the entire territory of the State, all tendencies hostile to the State, and declared that orders in matters of the Secret State Police were not subject to the review of the administrative courts. This meant the Gestapo were now above the law, and there could be no legal appeal regarding anything they chose to do.

The interrogation of inmates in the Gestapo prison can extend over several hours or days, but also over many weeks and months. However, long-term stays in the prison are the exception rather than the rule. For most prisoners, the Gestapo prison is a way-station on their journey through the prisons and concentration camps of the Third Reich.

The Secret State Police headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8... which had originally been the Museum and School of Decorative Arts prior to being taken over by its present residents; led to the Berliners concocting the obvious joke about framing things. Now, however, it has become notorious for the brutal tortures the Gestapo apply whilst trying to extract the desired information. Several prisoners have escaped this terror only by committing suicide. Intensified interrogations, as the tortures are called in the bureaucratic jargon, do not take place in the raised ground-floor prison cells, but in the offices on the floors above. During the initial years, the victims were primarily Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists; members of smaller socialist groups and resistance organisations, and others who refused to be repressed by the regime.

The usual reason for the arrest was that, according to the Gestapo, the person endangered by his attitude, the existence and security of the people and the State. Further grounds included such offences as:

Working against the Greater German Reich with an illegal resistance organization.

Being a Jew.

Being suspected of working for the detriment of the Reich.

Being strongly suspected of aiding desertion.

Because, as a relative of a deserter, he is expected to take advantage of every occasion to harm the German Reich.

Refusal to work.

Sexual intercourse with a Pole.

Religious propaganda.

Working against the Reich.

Loafing on the job.

Defeatist statements.

Leaving the workplace without permission.

Non-conforming everyday behaviour.

Political Passivity.

The most casual remark of a German citizen might bring him to the attention of the Gestapo, where his fate and freedom would be decided without recourse to law. For want of a better term, The Gestapo's function is to discover the enemies of National Socialism, and ideally… arrest them before they have actually done anything wrong. Some arrests are even made under suspicion that a person might commit some crime in the future.

Common citizens have become Denunziantentum... informants to the Gestapo in order to save their own lives. One never knows if their neighbour might be a Gestapo informant. This places neighbour against neighbour, and instils a constant state of distrust and fear. Anyone foolish enough to make some unguarded candid remark; or tell an anti-Nazi joke in mixed company, without resorting to the precautionary tactic now known as Ein Berliner Blick... A Berlin Scan... an over-the-shoulder glance for eavesdroppers; can expect to get a knock on the door in the middle of the night, or a hand on the shoulder whilst walking along the street... even if it is for no other reason than some lousy Gestapo type has decided to turn nasty because your face just happens to displease him. Letters are also sent out demanding an appearance at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, to answer a few questions.

In the dead of night, the Gestapo fall upon their victims using their great power most open to misuse, known as Schutzhaft... the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings on the theory of Protective custody. This power is based upon the Law of 28th February 1933, which suspended the clauses of the Weimar Constitution guaranteeing civil liberties to the German people.

The actions and orders of the Gestapo are not subject to any judicial review. Under the Law of 30th November 1933, the only redress available is by appeal to the next higher authority within the Gestapo itself... which effectively means no appeal whatsoever.

Those in custody are told to sign Form D-11. This is the notorious Schutzhaftbefehl… an Order for Protective Custody. By signing this, they agree to go to prison... ostensibly, for their own self-protection. Those who do refuse to sign it are beaten until they do sign… or the Gestapo officers simply forge their signatures. The protective-custody warrant is presented to the detainees... if at all; only after their arrest. The warrant... no matter how it has been signed; is sent to the concentration camp as the prisoner's dispatch note.

The length of stay depends on the authorities. Normally, when the authorities consider that the offender has accepted the principle of Gleichschaltung... Synchronising, the euphemism used to denote bringing into line with Nazi ideology; and has learned his lesson… even if there had not been one to learn in the first place… and will now behave in an acceptable manner once outside prison; he is released.

Criticizing the Nazis or even making a joke can land one in a concentration camp, never to be seen again. Jokes about Hitler are punishable with death. There is no such thing as a harmless joke in The Third Reich. People have become so conditioned to looking around furtively when whispering such jokes to each other, that the term Der Deutsche Blick... The German glance has been coined to describe just this habit; as has the term: Flüsterwitze... Whisper jokes.

Even schoolteachers, before grading essays, make sure to look over the main Nazi newspapers…Völkischer Beobachter, Der Angriff; Arbeiter Zeitung, and especially Der Stürmer... Julius Streicher's venomous anti-Semitic broadsheet; not to mention Das Schwarze Korps. This official newspaper of the Schutzstaffel is published each Wednesday, and distributed for free. Every SS member is required to read it and inspire others to read it. The paper is hostile to many groups, with numerous articles against the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. Das Schwarze Korps is published in close co-operation with the Sicherheitsdienst… the SD Security Service which imposes substantial editorial control over all the articles.

So, the unfortunate schoolteachers pour over these distasteful rags… fearful, lest they criticize material that their pupils might have plagiarised from any of the articles.

The Gestapo has never actually been an extensive organization. At its peak, it will employ only about forty thousand individuals in the entire Reich, including office personnel and the plain-clothes agents. Their seemingly omnipotent knowledge is due to the fact that each Gestapo agent operates at the centre of a large web of spies and informants. The problem for the average citizen is that no one ever knows for sure just who those informants might be. It could be anyone… the old lady across the street, a co-worker, the milkman; even the schoolboy or girl playing out in the street. One also has to worry about being denounced by jealous neighbours, former lovers and so on. All manner of people are coerced into becoming various kinds of confidential informers.

It is completely proper, fitting and expected, for persons to inform the authorities of anyone even remotely suspected of in some way subverting the government. Neither a suspicion nor an informant is too small. Every street has an informer who reports on any behaviour that might suggest non-Nazi views... even something as trivial as not giving the proper Hitler salute.

The plain-clothes men are careful not to betray their calling by any outward sign. They don't even wear Party badges on their coat lapels, and, when they meet on the street, they usually greet each other by lifting their hands at their sides in a barely perceptible salute. There are, in fact, very strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. In most cases, when asked for identification, an operative is only required to present his warrant disc. This identifies the operative as Gestapo without revealing personal identity; and agents, except when ordered to do so by an authorized official, are not required to show picture identification... something all non-Gestapo people are expected to do. As a result, fear rules the day.

As early as 1928, Der Völkischer Beobachter… the official Nazi Party newspaper which excelled at featuring Jew-baiting articles, had also shown its contempt for ordinary citizens… and especially, Berliners; by publishing the following diatribe:

Berlin is a melting pot of everything that is evil - Prostitutes, Drinking-houses, Cinemas, Marxism; Jews, Strippers, Negroes dancing, and all the vile offshoots of so-called Modern Art."

Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter of Berlin, also despises Berliners. He is quoted to have said that he thinks them rude, cynical, churlish, and that they are not German thoroughbreds. They are nothing more than a mongrel rabble set down in the bleak, sandy Prussian plain, and are only too ready to bite the hand of anyone who tries to stroke them.

Out of the clouds of wreathing steam came a slender figure on tapping high heels. She would be about twenty-five; a tall, blonde, blue-eyed Arisch... Aryan. She wore an expensive grey, two-piece suit and a jaunty little hat complimenting her pale blonde hair, swept back into a severe chignon that emphasised her high Prussian cheekbones. She carried an old, and battered, but expensive leather Würzl suitcase. As she walked down the platform, the two SDs stepped out into the light. The other hurrying travellers glanced sideways at her. Poor cow!... she's had it. But then... the great arched, glass roof of the Anhalter Bahnhof echoed as the two SDs snapped to attention, and crashed their heel-irons together in the regulation manner.

Heads swivelled around as the scurrying travellers gaped over their shoulders. She stood before the two SDs as their right arms shot out in the theatrical Hitlergruss. As she turned, the platform lights glittered on Das kleine Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP… the small, Party Golden Honour Badge that was pinned to her left lapel. She returned the salute by merely raising her forearm and hand from the elbow... just as the Führer did at the Party Rallies. So, she must be important... otherwise, such a slovenly salute would be seen as insulting, if dared to be done by anyone else; and would have brought a swift, and harsh retribution. The two SDs didn't even flicker.

The taller of the two SDs snapped out,

'Heil Hitler! Fräulein Doktor von Seringen? Welcome to Berlin. We have a car waiting.'

One of the SDs took her suitcase, as the other escorted her down the platform towards the ticket barrier. The crush of passengers miraculously parted; and the bustle and clamour diminished. The old ticket collector held out his hand for her ticket, but was brushed aside. He looked at the ominous black uniforms and wondered what he should do. His task was to check tickets and no exceptions; but, this... if he dared to challenge them, they'd have him in Konzentrationslager Dachau quicker than the time it would take to get the drawers off a James-Klein Revue showgirl; for insulting the SS. He chose that prudence was definitely the better part of valour, and waved them through.

In the bustling, great outer atrium of the station, there was suddenly, complete silence, save for the soft hiss of steam from the locomotives, and a faint hum of traffic out on Stresemannstrasse. As the party crossed the echoing marble floor to the sweeping staircases that led up to the main entrance of the Anhalter Bahnhof, the only sounds to break this fearful stillness were the clacking tread of two pairs of glittering, hob-nailed jackboots playing counterpoint to the elegant tip tapping of her high heels.

Chapter Two.

Outside, it was beginning to rain again. The streets glistened under the pallid glare of the streetlamps and the air smelled of coal smoke, mixed with the harsh metallic smell of the vivid blue, flashing sparks showering from the overhead power cables; and the sparking hiss of the wheels of the yellow BVG trams arcing on the rain-soaked tracks as they rattled up and down Stresemannstrasse.

Parked directly in front of the great, pillared entrance portico was a sleek black, Horch saloon with SS licence plates. The taller of the SDs opened the rear door for her, as the other one placed her suitcase in the trunk. They both climbed into the front seats; the driver started the big engine and moved away from the building. As they approached the exit of the station concourse, the green Polizei lamp and Martin-horn were switched on, and the Horch cut out to the right, onto Schönebergerstrasse, then swerved left onto the rain-glistening Stresemannstrasse into the throng of traffic coming off Askanischer Platz… which parted, as if, by magic. With a squeal of tyres, the Horch negotiated the scattering traffic and sped away up towards Potsdamer Platz... the seething hub of the city.

Six of the main City thoroughfares met at Potsdamer Platz... with all the traffic directions being controlled by a solitary Verkehrspolizei Unterwachtmeister sitting in the small cabin of Der Fünfeckige Verkehrsturm… the five-sided, combined police traffic control box and municipal clock tower, rising eight and a half metres above the roadway on its five legs, out of the traffic island opposite Leipziger Platz.

He saw the green Polizei lamp blazing; and heard the raucous, penetrating tones of the Horch Martin-horn, even above the roar of the traffic surrounding his lonely perch. Grabbing at his control panel, he switched the traffic control lights above the windows of his box to red in all directions.

The Horch made no attempt to reduce speed, as the traffic screeched to a halt; merely threading its way through the jumble of vehicles, and accelerating away up Bellevueallee towards its junction with Siegesallee at Skagerakplatz, with the strident tones of the Martin-horn mournfully echoing back from the high, five-storey Gothic Revival buildings.

With another squeal of tyres, the driver cut across the bonnet of the yellow ABOAG-BVG doppeldecker-omnibusse trundling laboriously out of Tiergartenstrasse around the Rolandbrunnen, and accelerated into Siegesallee. As the Horch sped up the boulevard, the green Polizei lamp reflected off the glistening, wetted pavements and flickered eerily on the grouped marble statuary and busts of the royal figures of the Hohenzollern Kings that lined each side of the avenue. This whole composition was widely regarded by the Berlin art critics as grossly immoderate and a pretentious show of Imperial strength. They dubbed it Puppenallee... The Avenue of Puppets; or The Avenue de Kitsch.