Chapter Text
It has always been my custom, in the week when Christmas has turned its back on us but the New Year has not yet arrived, to take stock of the dying year, to consider its highs and lows, and to analyse how the lessons learned from it might be applied in order to influence the course of the future. Taken overall, it must be said that 1945 had not been a good year. Indeed, I had failed spectacularly at the one thing that really mattered. One could argue, of course, that it was Himmler’s timidity that was to blame, since had he acted on my urgings at an earlier stage, a peace could have been brokered that not only kept the Russian bear well behind his own borders, but left a version of the Third Reich intact to enjoy the fruits of its early victories. But I have never been the kind of man who shirks responsibility. I alone in the Reich had seen the future with complete clarity; I alone understood what measures were necessary to ensure that that future never arrived. In that sense, I had held Germany’s destiny in my hands, and I had failed her.
On the positive side, I had the consolation that if I had failed to prevent defeat, I had at least survived it. My duty had called me (together with my wife) to Sweden, where I was staying as a guest of Count Bernadotte of the Red Cross when the capitulation took place, and after a decent interval I presented myself to the British military attaché in Stockholm in order to avoid, as the Count put it, the indignity of being hunted as a wanted man. I was interred and interrogated, first in London and then in Oberursel, but my questioners were civilised men and chiefly wanted to know about Kaltenbrunner, about whom they had broadly correct opinions, even if they occasionally took too lenient a view of his personality and culpability. The accommodations were basic but not barbaric, the prison fare was plain, which agreed with my delicate digestion, and when I wasn’t answering questions about Kaltenbrunner’s criminal activities, I was able to keep myself occupied by beginning work on my memoirs, in order to bestow the fruits of my experience on future generations, so that altogether six months passed, if not entirely pleasantly, then at least without an intolerable degree of suffering.
Then, shortly before Christmas, a rumour began to spread around the interrogation centre that some of us were to be transferred to Russia for more intensive questioning. I tried to block my ears to it, but it seeped through the walls and under doors. It was in the beat of the guards’ footsteps as they walked along the corridors and the tap of wooden spoons against tin bowls at mealtimes. Who? Who? Who? The answer could never be ascertained with any reliability, but I had good reason to be more apprehensive than most. When I placed myself at the disposal of the British, I had modestly explained my role in seeking to bring an end to the war by organising Operation Sunrise Crossword, and, as I had anticipated, my efforts to hinder Stalin from gobbling up most of Europe had made a positive impression on the British, whose solidarity with the USSR had always been shaky at best. I had not expected, however - being a trusting and open-hearted individual, and moreover assuming that intelligence services will hoard information as naturally as a dragon hoards gold - that they would be so foolish as to share these facts with the Russians, and it was with a very great shock that I learned that there was to be a trial, a public trial, with judges from all four conquering nations, and that my testimony against Kaltenbrunner detailing his efforts to foil Operation Sunrise Crossword would be read out in court with my name attached. It was unsurprising, therefore, that I suspected that if the Russians wished to interrogate certain persons in the comfort of their own prisons, Yours Truly would head the list.
I had not spent years filing reports on the Einsatzgruppen Russian treatment of German PoWs without developing an awareness of the limitless extent of man’s inhumanity to man. My health had already suffered badly from the long hours of inactivity, both mental and physical, and I knew full well that for me a stay in a Soviet prison, even a temporary one, would be be a death sentence. I therefore postponed bestowing my acquired wisdom on future generations and instead bent my not inconsiderable mental powers to the task of identifying a solution to the problem. Might I bribe the guards? No, for I had nothing with which to bribe them, having unfortunately neglected to squirrel away a large personal fortune during my years in power. Might I effect a daring escape à la Skorzeny from Dachau? No, because he was sprung by a team of SS commandos whereas the best I could hope for was the intervention of a team of RSHA penpushers whose closest brush with military action had been some highly aggressive filing. Might I refine my testimony about Sunrise Crossword to make myself look less culpable in Soviet eyes? Could I, for instance, point the finger of blame at someone else - Kaltenbrunner sprang to mind - thereby diminishing my own role in outwitting the USSR? This struck me as a scheme with potential, but it would, of course, have led the Americans to look more favourably on that monster Kaltenbrunner, and I was not prepared to help a great criminal escape his just sentence merely to save my own wretched skin. Besides, the Americans would never believe me if I changed my story now.
So wrapped up was I in my analysis that I barely noticed when the guards arrived to take me out for my daily hour of exercise. Nor, as I was marched along the corridor, did I notice the two KGB officers being escorted in the opposite direction. Only when they were almost on top of us did I look up, and at the sight of a chestful of gleaming medals beneath a Colonel’s insignia my heart almost stopped beating. It was not fear, however, but shock. The face above the medals was so familiar that it was only thanks to my years of experience as the head of an internationally feared espionage network that I was able to stop my lips from forming the name that resounded so loudly inside my head. Stirlitz! There was no mistaking that noble profile, those manly eyebrows, those melancholic dark eyes! Here, in the very heart of enemy territory, was a friend in the uniform of the enemy!
Stirlitz, for his part, took one step backwards in amazement, drawing a curious glance from his equally high-ranking companion, before the shutter came down on his face. It was enough, though. He had seen me, he had recognised me, and it had been as great a shock to him as it was to me. Although the guards instantly hustled me away down the corridor, I was as certain as one can be of anything in this uncertain world that I would soon be seeing Stirlitz again.
As I revolved around the courtyard beneath a bitter sky, so I revolved this new situation in my mind. How the devil had Stirlitz managed to pull off such a miraculous transformation? I knew he had an almost unnatural facility with languages, so it was not impossible that he should have passed himself off as a Russian when the Red Army reached Berlin, but to have convinced them that he was a colonel in the KGB? He must have taken the identity from a corpse found lying in the ruins of of the city; but vast though the KGB apparatus was, it would have required phenomenal good luck not to have met up with anyone who knew the real man. But freaks of fortune happen in war, and Stirlitz had always been lucky. Now, though, his luck had run out. Mine, on the other hand, was finally turning. Fate had handed me an ace and even Himmler a fool would have understood that now was the time to play it.
I had barely been returned to my cell, when there was the scrape of bolts being drawn back again and the guard called out “Colonel Isayev to see the prisoner Schellenberg!”
I rose smartly to my feet, as was required at the entrance of an officer. I was not particularly surprised to see that Isayev had come alone. He wouldn’t want any witnesses for what he had to say to me.
“Good afternoon, Schellenberg,” he said, when the door had clanged shut behind the guard. He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t know me, then. I considered this a wise move, given the way his colleague had looked at him out in the corridor.
“Good afternoon... Colonel,” I said. “I must say, I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Not as surprised as I am,” said Stirlitz. “There must have been some, ah, misinformation in the decision-making process. I had no idea you were here. It’s all most unfortunate.”
He paused, looking deeply unhappy. I felt almost sorry for him. Having pulled off the astonishing trick of convincing the Soviets he was one of theirs, the bottom must have fallen out of his world when he ran slap-bang into the one man who could not only reveal his true identity but also make it clear to the Russians how deeply he had been involved in Operation Sunrise Crossword.
“Unfortunate for you, perhaps,” I said. “But not for me. I rather think you can do me a favour.”
Stirlitz looked even more unhappy, if that were possible. “I need to ensure your silence, Schellenberg,” he said. “And as you know, there’s only one foolproof way of doing that.”
At this cold-blooded threat my heart quailed slightly, but I rallied almost immediately.
“That’s not very friendly of you, Colonel,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “If I were you, I’d adopt a tone more suitable for dealing with an old comrade. They won’t have let you in here with a gun, so you can hardly kill me on the spot, and the moment you walk out of this door I shall tell the guards who you really are. It isn’t me who’ll be silenced once the Russians learn the truth, is it, Colonel Isayev? Or should I say - Standartenführer Stirlitz?”
Stirlitz sighed.
“It’s not the Russians I’m worried about. They already know my true identity,” he said.
“Tell that to the marines,” I sneered, unimpressed by this obvious bluff.
“You’d better brace yourself for a shock, Schellenberg. The truth is, my name really is Maxim Isayev. I’m a Russian, not a German, and I was a serving KGB officer throughout my entire SS career. Stirlitz was just a cover identity to enable me to penetrate the ranks of the SD. So you see, there's nothing you can tell the Russians they don't already know.”
I was dimly aware, somewhere far away, of my jaw dropping to the vicinity of my knees. The sheer brilliance of the scheme was, to use a vulgar turn of phrase, gob-smacking. Clearly I had badly under-estimated Stirlitz. To come up with such an inspired cover story in that brief time since he saw me in the corridor, to realise the implications and to devise a legend to check them - I should have used him for far more sensitive missions than Sunrise Crossword.
But I was hardly going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. Not when he had just threatened to have me killed. My jaw closed with a snap.
“Brilliant,” I said. “Simply brilliant. And I suppose you’re going to tell me the Russian resident in Berlin was you all along?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it was me, yes,” said Stirlitz, looking rather taken aback.
“Of course it was. And - don’t tell me, let me guess - you also deliberately sabotaged the atomic bomb programme?”
“Yes, I did, actually - ”
“And it was also you who prevented the Wehrmacht from blowing up Cracow?”
“Yes, I - ”
“Remarkable. Of course, that would mean it was also you who sent Bormann that telegram from Bern? The one informing him that Wolff was negotiating with Dulles? In fact you deliberately sabotaged Sunrise Crossword?”
“Yes! Yes, I did,” said Stirlitz, who by now looked thoroughly deflated.
“Viewed from one perspective,” I mused, “all of these incidents might be taken for the unintentional screw-ups of an incompetent officer. Viewed from another - the true one of course - they reveal themselves to be the achievements of a quite extraordinarily accomplished spy. One hopes he received proper recognition in his home country.”
“As it happens,” said Stirlitz, with an attempt at dignity, “I am a Hero of the Soviet Union.”
“Really?” I said. “Well, isn’t that an extraordinary coincidence? It seems we were both on the same side all along.”
The look of utter bewilderment on Stirlitz’s face is one that I still cherish in the dark watches of the night.
“Both on the same side?” he echoed.
“Of course. Isn’t it obvious? I knew you were a double agent. That’s why I brought you in on Sunrise Crossword in the first place - I needed someone who could effectively sabotage the mission without bringing Himmler’s wrath down on me. Always cover your back, Stirlitz. Isn’t that the first principle of a successful operation?”
“And why would you have wanted to sabotage the mission,” said Stirlitz, spotting a hole in my analysis. “You’d been banging on at Himmler about ending the war ever since 1942.”
“Because Sunrise Crossword wouldn’t have ended the war,” I said. “Himmler’s idea was to negotiate an armistice with the Western allies so that all the Reich’s military resources could be poured into the Eastern front. I won’t pretend the welfare of the USSR was my highest priority - I’m not such a fool as to think anyone would believe that - but I was committed to ending the war, and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.”
Stirlitz was by now wearing the dazed expression of a man who has been hit over the head with a bottle.
“Is that why you kept sending me to Switzerland?” he said.
“Absolutely. I knew you couldn’t communicate with Moscow Centre from Berlin anymore, not once the little pianist was captured, so I created opportunities for you to enter a neutral country.”
“And why did you want Pastor Schlag brought on board?” said Stirlitz. I smiled at him. For the first time in months, I felt alive. It was like old times, Stirlitz and me concocting a legend between us. Walter Schellenberg, head of the SD, had been secretly collaborating with the Russians all along with the help of his loyal subordinate, Standartenführer Stirlitz. It was breath-taking in its audacity, it was brilliant in its absurdity, it was, though I say it myself, sheer genius. It might even buy me forgiveness for Sunrise Crossword.
“To compromise Bormann’s key supporters, of course,” I said. “Never kill one bird with a single stone when you can kill two.”
Stirlitz leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He looked like a man struggling to emerge from a dream. And failing. At last he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And risk everything if you were exposed as the resident?” I said. “It was a close thing as it was. That little pianist was on the verge of giving you away - if I hadn’t helped her to escape...”
Stirlitz’s eyes flew open. “Aha!” he said. “You almost had me. I was almost starting to believe - but Kät escaped off her own bat. She told me herself when I took her to Switzerland.”
I shrugged. “All right, Kät - or whatever you want to call her - escaped by herself. But that’s only a minor detail. The point is…”
“No,” said Stirlitz, “you don’t understand. The point is, this isn’t a game. We aren’t making up a cover story here. I really am Colonel Isayev. I always have been.”
“Well,” I said, “you would say that, wouldn’t you?”
Stirlitz looked as if he would have liked to pound the table in frustration.
“Walter!” he said. “I’m trying to save your life here! What can I tell you that will convince you I really am Isayev? And that you, knowing this, are in the most serious trouble you can imagine?”
“Simple,” I said, without batting an eyelid. As an experienced espionage officer, I could tell from all this ranting that I had reduced Stirlitz to desperation. Now was the time to offer him a way out. “You can say that you’ll use your influence as Isayev to persuade your colleagues not to transfer me to Moscow. That will convince me that you really are him.”
Stirlitz stared at me. “Transfer you to Moscow? What on earth for? You aren’t a war criminal or a genocidal maniac, you were just a head of department. Now if you were Müller, it would be a different story, but no one cares about Amt VI. We already know what was going on there, inside and out. Why would we bother taking you to Moscow? ”
“Revenge,” I said. “For Sunrise Crossword. Once they hear my testimony in court, they’ll realise what a dangerous adversary I am.”
Stirlitz straightened abruptly. His face looked colder all of a sudden. “You’re going to testify about that operation in court?” he said. “In how much detail?”
“However much it takes,” I said, thinking grimly of Kaltenbrunner. “However, I would be willing to guarantee that no mention of Standartenführer Stirlitz would be made - double agent or not - if in return the Standartenführer could guarantee me that I will not be transferred to Russia. You know me, Stirlitz. You know how far you can trust me to keep my word.”
Stirlitz was still looking at me with that wintry expression, but a little twinkle had crept into his eyes, like the first gleam of sunrise on snow.
“About as far as I can throw you,” he said. “But I do know you, Schellenberg. So I’ll make you an offer. I’ll let the Centre know that you, suspecting the truth about my identity, gave me all the support you could, and therefore that there is no need to transfer you to Moscow, if in return you undertake not to breathe a word about that support to the Western allies. In fact, it would be better if they had no idea Standartenführer Stirlitz ever existed. The RSHA files were shredded, after all. If you don’t mention him, no one will. Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal,” I said.
Stirlitz held out his hand. For the last time, I took it in mine. His expression was chilly, but his fingers, as always, were warm. Unlike faces, hands can’t wear masks.
“Goodbye, Brigadeführer,” he said. “Perhaps I’m being a fool, but I’m not really worried about you breaking your word. I know you would never act against the interests of the one person you truly care about.”
Poor Stirlitz! It was typical of him to overestimate how much he meant to me, but in fact on this occasion his feelings had not led him entirely astray. I had no intention of breaking my side of the bargain, not when the consequences to myself were potentially so uncomfortable. No, I would keep our secret till the grave. Or at least for the next ten years or so. It would require some judicious editing of my memoirs, of course, but that was a small price to pay for my continued survival. And if there should be a second edition published some ten years hence or so, well, who knew what that might contain? I, of all people - I who had struggled in vain to stave off the crumbling of a great empire - should know that none of us can see that far into the future.