Where the Bear Dances
by Kjetil Jansen
part 1
Polizeipräsidium Mannheim: From the desk of Polizeikommissar Fritz Tappert: A complete transcription of the entries in the notebook left behind by Mr. Horst Berger and Mr. Stefan Riedewald.
Munich, September 5, 1972. Terrorist attack. Israeli part of Olympic village. 17 dead.
Action: Alert authorities with detailed plan.
Danger: Disbelief. Suspicion of being a scaremonger or a terrorist affiliate.
Conclusion: Probably not viable.
Tenerife North Airport, March 27, 1977. Two airplanes collide on runway. 583 dead.
Before incident, airport dangerously congested. Increased traffic after bomb explosion on nearby Gran Canaria Airport.
Action: Call in a bomb threat against Tenerife North Airport.
Danger: Being ignored as merely an attention-seeker.
Alternative action: Distract or delay one of the pilots, maybe weeks in advance, hoping for a butterfly effect.
Conclusion: Possible.
Zeebrugge, March 6, 1987. Ferry capsizes after failing to close bow door. 193 dead.
Action: Alert the crew. We have twenty minutes before the ferry gains speed and water begins to pour in.
Danger: None foreseeable.
Conclusion: Our best option.
Finally. The unmistakable sound of multiple keys. The night watchman. This section of the building functioned as a passageway between Rosenheimerstrasse and Kellerstrasse, but not during the small hours of the night. Horst stepped forward and produced his Sicherheitsdienst identification papers. Security detail. Keep quiet. The watchman just grunted, locked the doors and went back through the cloakroom.
Horst checked his watch. Muffled sounds from the hall proper as from a blown speaker. Dance night, patrons gone, staff leaving. Soon, very soon, the person he was waiting for. He climbed the stairs to the gallery and found his way to a folding screen. He knew that behind it was a storeroom. Empty cardboard boxes. A single chair, a man biding his time, having heard the beckoning loud clicks of the keys turning.
Door sliding. A diminutive figure. A face in the crowd. Strands of hair looked lost on his pale forehead. He carried a wood toolbox.
“Please step outside, Georg Elser.”
1943 March 13. Smolensk Airport. Bomb on plane disguised as gift package. Placed in cargo, the cold causes malfunction.
Action: Approach the group of German officers behind the plan. Find ways to isolate package or get it into the passenger area. Are any of the officers willing and allowed to be on the plane themselves?
Danger: Getting access. Not being believed. Dictator-state paranoia. Fear of entrapment. Suicide mission by a German officer unheard of but, as we know, not unthinkable.
Conclusion: Might work.
1943. March 21. Berlin Zeughaus, a military museum. Generalmajor Rudolf von Gersdorff hides explosives on his own body while giving target a tour of an exhibition. Target is distant and uninterested and leaves almost instantly. Von Gersdorff manages to defuse the explosives.
Action: Approach the bomber. He used two ten-minute timed pencil fuses, the shortest ones available. Alternative method? Remember, he was willing to die.
Danger: Target brought security.
Conclusion: Might work.
1944 July 20. Rastenburg, East Prussia. Known as Operation Valkyrie.
Action: Make sure the bomb briefcase does not get moved away from the target. Is instigator Claus von Stauffenberg willing to sacrifice himself?
Danger: Instigator is part of military coup. May not be willing. How do we explain the premise for him staying without blowing our cover? In any circumstance, is it wise to blow our cover?
Conclusion: Doubtful.
Overall conclusion: Our viable options are late in the war. Other options: Kill target as a child or a young man. Kill its father. That must be the final resort. But we need to go farther back. To where? To when?
“This is very embarrassing.”
“Is it, Mr. Elser?”
“I seem to have developed a pimple on my leg. I came to this quiet place to have a closer look at it.”
“Right. Take me to the pillar. And bring your toolbox. Don’t assume I am alone.”
The carpenter did not object or hesitate. He walked like a defeated man but not without a certain defiance. A small and lonely figure, but who wouldn’t be in the vast interior of the Munich Bürgerbräukeller. Even its silence had an echo. Well past midnight, the smell of tobacco and beer still lingered, as on a deserted ship.
They went along the gallery. The pillar was as large as a chimney. Elser removed a section of the plaster. There it was: a crawlspace stacked with dynamite. Three months of work, thirty-five nights spent hollowing the pillar, mostly on his knees. No wonder he walked with a certain hesitation. During this time, Germany had invaded Poland.
“Mr. Elser, look at me, please.”
He did, reluctantly. You could almost see his mind racing.
“Why have your preparations gone unnoticed? Any thoughts?”
The carpenter did not answer. Horst placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, we have known all along. I am not here to arrest you or to stop you. I belong to a group of high-ranking officers who want the same as you. Mr. Elser, do I have your attention? Are you listening to me? I have vital information.”
Elser indicated he was listening.
“We have studied the clock mechanism you built in your Türkenstrasse apartment. Very impressive. We are in the early hours of November 6th. The target delivers his speech on the 8th. I gather you have brought the detonator. Is it possible to make your final setting tonight?”
“144 hours.” Elser gulped. “I have a margin of 144 hours.”
Horst made a slow whistling sound. “I know. Even our top technicians had a hard time figuring it out.”
Elser looked at him as if he intended to chastise him for the whistling. Good. He was back on track. After his capture, he had always been willing to talk at length about his preparations and equipment. Artisan pride. Hopefully, Horst had gained his trust.
“Now to the important part: what is left to do is to install the clock and then wire it to the bomb. Am I right?”
“Yes, that is all.”
“And here is the vital information: a major change of plans. The target needs to get back to Berlin early and, due to possible fog, he will go by train. He has rescheduled his speech earlier than planned and shortened it. You need to set your timer for half past eight. You can do that?”
“Yes.”
“Repeat the time, please.”
“Half past eight.”
“Very good. Better get on with it.”
He did.
* * *
In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Horst brought the Daimler to a halt in the shadows of the Olympic Stadium built for the winter games of 1936, three years earlier. It was as imperially creepy in daylight as it had been last evening, when he arrived.
In Magdeburg, 360 miles away, in the summer of 1938, his grandfather, a soldier stationed there, had met his grandmother in the grocery shop where she worked. After the war, they will live in the Soviet-controlled part of a divided Germany. In 1953, a child will be born, their first and only. Harry Berger will be his father.
Horst got out of the car and leaned on its side. The air was crisp, and Bavarian mountains loomed on the horizon. Another wait. He was early for an unlikely appointment. Did he want this meeting to take place or not? He felt a rumble in his stomach. He had seldom been more exalted and yet so alone.
* * *
Elser had finished up at 6:00 a.m.. He accompanied Horst through the exit door by the kitchen to a kiosk near Isartor, the old city gate, his regular morning hangout. Elser was a man of habit, and he treated himself to a cup of coffee.
“Mr. Elser. Georg, a large undertaking. How do you feel?”
The carpenter contemplated his answer. “I will feel something on Monday night. I may stop the war. Stopping the war will make life better for the common man. Maybe I am too late. His successors, I don’t know.”
Horst stared into his own cup to avoid the implied question. His successors, indeed. Could they do even worse? “Don’t worry. If you feel the need to check in on the bomb, please do. No-one will stop you.”
He knew Elser had almost failed on this final stretch. On November 3, he had arrived, clock wrapped in newspapers, to find the hall closed and the street access doors bolted. On November 4, everything was back to normal, but the apparatus was too big to fit into the column. He had to bring it home to tailor it. By now, his nerves and knees must be in tatters. And he did indeed go back to inspect it, and he found everything running smoothly. Perhaps he has second thoughts about me and resets the clock.
Elser finished his cup. The Munich morning bustled with life. Cars, buses, wheelbarrows. Men and women with hats and caps. A newspaper vendor down the street opening, rapid fingers organizing his counter. Horst mulled it over. His last hurdle. Another speech to deliver.
“We are aware you have visited the Swiss border, at Konstanz. A wise choice. I have no influence regarding the crossing guards, but I will offer you a letter of passage signed by Heinrich Himmler, fake of course, explaining that you are a carpenter on a mission for the Reich. You will, if necessary, let it slip that he has hired you to inspect a Swiss cottage he wants to purchase. I am sure they will not dare to trouble him or his office with something so trivial.”
Horst paused while Elser inspected the forgery. “You should take care not to bring anything that might connect you to the Bürgerbräukeller.”
Heading for the border the very same day his bomb was set to go off, Elser had done nothing but bring incriminating evidence: sketches, parts of an ignition device, and even a postcard depicting the interior of the building. All his fastidiousness was gone with the wind. Why? This behavior was often analyzed as accomplishment fatigue. And if his plan was, upon reaching the Swiss side of the border, to claim responsibility and seek asylum, they would have sent him straight back.
Anyway, he was arrested on the German side and the Gestapo, believing he was not acting alone, interrogated and tortured him for months. Eventually Elser ended up in Dachau and, realizing what was coming, the target ordered him shot, twenty days before the Allies liberated the camp.
“I can use this,” Elser said after pocketing the envelope, speaking in a studied, neutral voice.
Horst finished his own coffee, wiped his mouth with a napkin and offered his hand. “You take care now, Georg. Say goodbye to your loved ones: your father back in Königsbronn, your sister in Stuttgart, and may you soon return to the Fatherland. A changed Fatherland.”
Elser did not hesitate to shake Horst’s hand.
* * *
Copyright © 2023 by Kjetil Jansen
