8:12 P.M. #30 Lützenstrasse, British Sector: West Berlin
Seated at the kitchen table in apartment 40, Professor Emeritus of History Georg Natterman hunched over the Spandau papers like a gnome over a treasure map. His thick reading glasses shone like silver pools in the lamplight as he ran his hand through his thinning hair and silver beard.
“What is it, Opa?” Ilse asked. “Is it dangerous?”
“Patience, child,” the professor mumbled without looking up.
Knowing that further questions were useless until her grandfather was ready to speak, she opened a cupboard and began preparing tea. Perhaps Hans would get back in time to have some, she hoped; he’d been gone too long already. Ilse had told her grandfather as little as possible on the telephone, and by doing so she had failed to communicate the depth of her anxiety. Professor Natterman lived only twelve blocks away, but it had taken him over an hour to arrive. He understood the gravity of the situation now. He hadn’t spoken a word since first seeing the Spandau papers and brusquely questioning Ilse as to how they came into her possession. As she poured the tea, he stood suddenly, pulled off his reading glasses, and locked the nine pages into his ancient briefcase.
“My dear,” he said, “this is simply unbelievable. That this … this document should have come into my hands after all these years. It’s a miracle.” He wiped his spectacles with a handkerchief. “You were quite right to call me. ‘Dangerous’ does not even begin to describe this find.”
“But what is it, Opa? What is it really?”
Natterman shook his head. “In terms of World War Two history, it’s the Rosetta stone.”
Ilse’s eyes widened. “What? Are you saying that the papers are real?”
“Given what I’ve seen so far, I would have to say yes.”
Ilse looked incredulous. “What did you mean, the papers are like the Rosetta stone?”
“I mean,” Natterman sniffed, “that they are likely to change profoundly the way we view the world.” He squinted his eyes, and a road map of lines crinkled his forehead. “How much do you know about Rudolf Hess, Ilse?”
She shrugged. “I’ve read the recent newspaper stories. I looked him up in your book, but you hardly even mentioned his flight.”
The professor glanced over to the countertop, where a copy of his acclaimed Germany: From Bismarck to the Bunker lay open. “I didn’t feel the facts were complete,” he explained, “so I omitted that part of the story altogether.”
“Was I right about the papers? Do they claim that Prisoner Number Seven was not really Hess?”
“Oh, yes, yes indeed. Very little doubt about that now. It looks as though the newspapers have got it right for once. The wrong man in prison for nearly fifty years … very embarrassing for a lot of people.”
Ilse watched her grandfather for any hint of a smile, but she saw none. “You’re joking with me, aren’t you? How could that even be possible?”
“Oh, it’s quite possible. The use of look-alikes was standard procedure during the war, on both sides. Patton had one. Erwin Rommel also. Field Marshal Montgomery used an actor who could even imitate his voice to perfection. That’s the easiest part of this story to accept.”
Ilse looked skeptical. “Maybe during the war,” she conceded. “From a distance. But what about the years in Spandau? What about Hess’s family?”
Natterman smiled impishly. “What about them? Prisoner Number Seven refused to see Hess’s wife and son for the first twenty-eight years of his captivity.” He savored Ilse’s perplexed expression. “The factual discrepancies go on and on. Hess was a fastidious vegetarian, Prisoner Number Seven devoured meat like a tiger. Number Seven failed to recognize Hess’s secretaries at Nuremberg. He twice gave the British wrong birth dates for Hess, and he missed by two years. And on and on ad nauseam.”
Ilse sat quietly, trying to take it all in. Beneath her thoughts, her anxiety for Hans buzzed like a low-grade fever.
“Why don’t I let Number Seven speak for himself?” Natterman suggested. “Would you like to hear my translation?”
Ilse forced herself not to look at the kitchen clock. He’s all right, she told herself. Just wait a little longer. “Yes, please,” she said.
Putting his reading glasses back on, the professor opened his briefcase, cleared his throat, and began to read in the resonant tones of the born teacher:
I, Prisoner Number Seven, write this testament in the language of the Caesars for one reason: I know with certainty that Rudolf Hess could not do so. I learned Latin and Greek at university in Munich from 1920 to 1923, but I learned that Hess did not know Latin at the most exclusive “school” in the world—Reinhard Heydrich’s Institute for Practical Deception—in 1936. At this “institute”—an isolated barracks compound outside Dessau—I also learned every other known fact about Hess: his childhood; military service; Party record; relationship with the Führer; and, most importantly, his personal idiosyncrasies. Ironically, one of the first facts I learned was that Hess had attended university in Munich at the same time I had, though I do not remember meeting him.
I did not serve as a pilot in the First World War, but I joined one of Hermann Göring’s “flying clubs” between the wars. It was during an aerial demonstration in 1935 that the Reichsmarschall first noticed my remarkable resemblance to Deputy-Führer Hess. At the time I did not make much of the encounter—comrades had often remarked on this resemblance—but seven months later I was visited at the factory where I worked by two officers of Heydrich’s SD. They requested me to accompany them on a mission of special importance to the Reich. From Munich I was flown to the “Practical School” building outside Dessau. I never saw my wife and daughter again.
During the first week at the school I was completely isolated from my fellow students. I received my “orientation” from Standartenführer Ritter Graf, headmaster of the Institute. He informed me that I had been selected to fulfill a mission of the highest importance to the Führer. My period of training—which would be lengthy and arduous, he said—was to be carried out in total secrecy. I soon learned that this meant total separation from my family. To alleviate the stress of this separation, Graf showed me proof that my salary from the factory had been doubled, and that the money was being forwarded to my wife.
After one week I met the other students. I cannot express the shock I felt. In one room in one night I saw the faces of not only famous Party Gauleiters and Wehrmacht generals, but also the most celebrated personalities of the Reich. At last I knew what my mission was. Hermann Göring had not forgotten my resemblance to Rudolf Hess; it was Göring who had given my name to Reinhard Heydrich, the SD commander responsible for the program.
There were many students at the Institute. Some completed the program, others did not. The unlucky ones paid for their failure in blood. We were constantly reminded of this “incentive.” One of the most common causes for “dismissal” from the school was the use of one’s real name. Two slip-ups were forgiven. The third guaranteed erschiessen (execution). We were known by our “role” names, or, in situations where these were not practical, by our former ranks—in my case Hauptmann.
I trained in an elite group. There were eight of us: “Hitler” (3 “students” studied him); “Göring”; “Himmler”; “Goebbels”; “Streicher”; and myself—“Hess.” The training for our group lasted one year. During that year I had four personal interviews with Deputy-Führer Hess. The rest of my training was accomplished through study of newsreels and written records. During our training, several of