The Test of Courage: Michel Thomas by Robbins Christopher

Author:Robbins, Christopher [Robbins, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: DirecteBooks Limited
Published: 2012-01-22T21:00:00+00:00

VII - Aftermath

In the months following the defeat of Nazi Germany, five SS officers were blindfolded and driven in two separate cars into the countryside outside of Ulm, on the road to Stuttgart. It was a cold, wet night and each man felt the fear rise in him as the cars passed through an elaborate arrangement of roadblocks and security checks. The men were members of a post-war underground network representing some four thousand SS officers and men, and SD intelligence agents dedicated to the resurrection of the Nazi state. They were on their way to meet the unknown commander of a much larger and powerful umbrella group, the Grossorganisation.

The cars turned off the road on to an unpaved track and came to a halt deep among dripping woods. The blindfolded men heard a final exchange of passwords and the rattle of weapons. The roar of heavy vehicles sounded in the background as they were led along a muddy path, made slippery by trodden autumn leaves, to a building in an isolated clearing. They waited shivering in the cold rain to be summoned into the HO of the Grossorganisation. Numerous people seemed to come and go, until at last, long after midnight, the SS men were led into the building through deep puddles of icy water.

Even inside, the blindfolds remained. The men were forbidden to speak and were kept waiting in an unheated corridor. Despite the late hour, the HQ remained furiously active as people brushed past in response to snapped commands. Doors opened and closed, heels clicked and aides scurried.

After what seemed an age, the SS men were marched down a long corridor and through a doorway. The blindfolds were removed. The sight that confronted them made every moment of the long, cold wait worthwhile. They found themselves in the vast hall of a hunting lodge where a log fire blazed. Mounted on the walls were the heads of wild boar and stag, with the portraits of leading Nazi figures hung between them, and in pride of place was a large painting of Adolf Hitler himself.

All around was an impressive display of weaponry: pistols, flame throwers, machine guns, assorted grenades, and ammunition of every calibre. Sabotage kits - the pride of the SS intelligence units - were stacked in one corner. There was also a small mountain of coffee and cigarettes - both almost impossible to obtain in post-war Germany - and an open safe filled with bundles of paper money. The lodge was clearly the heart of a powerful organisation, an unapologetic and defiant throwback to the heady days of the Third Reich. The audacity of the display was balm to bruised Nazi souls. For defeated men suffering the added humiliation of foreign occupation, the very existence of the Grossorganisation’s HQ was psychologically uplifting.

Seated behind a large desk that bore a bronze bust of Hitler was an impressive man, framed between two swastika-shaped candlesticks, immaculately dressed in civilian clothes except for a military-style brown shirt. He had the manner of a high-ranking party functionary familiar with power and unquestioning obedience.

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