Page 53

“This is a suicide mission,” said Gerlich, standing next to him.

“Too risky,” Helldorff agreed. “We should abort.”

“Get in positions,” said Bauer. He picked up his old, cracked leather overnight bag and wrapped his arms through the long handles, wearing it like a backpack. He walked slowly through the Konigsplatz toward the trees that lined his side of Arcisstraße.

A pair of guards soon emerged around the corner from the front of the Brown House. One of them told some joke and the other one laughed, expelling frozen breath into the air. They walked along the perimeter, moving in and out of the faint illumination from the streetlamps, a shadowy pair with rifles slung over their shoulders, flashlights dangling in their hands, passing the service entrance and continuing until they disappeared around the corner.

Now.

Bauer split through the foliage and crossed Arcisstraße. He hit the fence in full stride, grabbing on to the top, swinging his left leg over and then his right, but his hand slipped and lost its grip, the top more slippery than he’d expected. Instead of an easy drop, Bauer twisted through the air and landed hard on his right shoulder, his head banging against the hard earth.

The ground felt like it was spinning. Stunned, dazed, a wave of nausea passing through him, ignoring the shooting pain in his shoulder, he raised his head and listened. He was all in now, no turning back, no matter how injured. And he didn’t have long.

Bent low, recalling his days in the infantry, Bauer rushed to the service door. He reached into his pocket for the skeleton key. The simple move brought agonizing pain in his shoulder, the pain shrieking between his ears. But he got out the key, inserted it in the lock, pulled open the heavy door, and closed it behind him.

He was inside the Brown House.

39

FROM HIS POSITION A block away from the Brown House, Fritz Gerlich came alert as he saw the three bursts of a flashlight coming from the Propylaea.

The signal from Helldorff. Bauer had made it inside.

Gerlich staggered forward, barely able to keep his balance, or at least seemingly so. He crossed the street and ran his hands along the Brown House fence, catching the attention of two guards coming around to the front. He started tugging on the locked front gate. “Open up!” he shouted in his best impression of a drunk.

“What business do you have here?” asked one of the guards.

“I want to… join your party!” Gerlich shouted, slurring his words.

“You want to join the National Socialists?”

“Yes!”

“It’s after midnight, comrade. And you look—and smell—like maybe you’ve had a few too many pints.”

Gerlich had spilled several beers on his coat for just that reason. He shook the gate. “Let me in! I want to be a part of the Socialist National—I mean the National—”

“Come back tomorrow! The building is closed and you’re drunk.”

“That, sir, is a defamatory statement! Let me in, I say! Let me in!”

Another pair of guards hustled around from the side of the building. “What’s going on?” one of them called.

“This fellow wants to join the NSDAP! Right now, at half past midnight!”

The guards got a good chuckle out of that. The door to the front entrance opened, and several guards got a look at Gerlich, who was struggling to stand up.

“This is an outrage!” he cried, thrusting his finger in the air. “I demand to join your party at once!”

While the guards’ attention was diverted, Bauer snuck up the back stairs, reaching the top floor. He peeked into the hallway, red and black with a patterned tile floor, Nazi crests and photos of Hitler everywhere. He saw nobody, heard nothing. He jogged on the balls of his feet to minimize footfalls, passing the grand staircase that led from the ground floor to this top floor, lit by an impressive chandelier. Soon he reached the large office in the corner. There was no name or title on the door; it was nothing but a standard stained oak door. He thrust the key inside the lock. It turned. He entered the room.

The lights were off, but the windows overlooking the Konigsplatz offered decent illumination. In one corner, Hitler’s primary desk and work area, though he couldn’t make out details especially well. A small table with a lamp and vase of flowers stood in the middle of the room. The other corner featured a sofa and chairs.

Bauer shrugged off his backpack with considerable effort and pain. He removed his flashlight and shone it around the room until he found the radiator, tucked behind a wooden panel beneath a portrait of Frederick the Great, the Prussian king whom Hitler idolized. He removed a set of tools from his bag and placed them by the wood panel, every step taking longer than he preferred because he was doing everything with his left hand.

Keeping the flashlight low, he walked along the carpet—in Nazi blood-red—toward Hitler’s work desk. Behind it was a bureau with a door in the front that, according to Emil Maurice, contained Hitler’s safe.

Bauer squatted down and opened the front panel door. Inside was a two-foot-high rectangular safe made of iron or steel, with a manufacturer’s crest and a combination lock with rotating dial.