Berlin Red by Sam Eastland

kept the V-2 programme alive.
    Hitler, on the other hand, seemed to love the labyrinthine complexity of the diagrams. With the schematics laid out in front of him, he would sweep his hands almost lovingly across the skeletal lines of the rocket, demanding explanations for the smallest details, which Hagemann was happy to provide.
    The extraordinary cost of the V-2 programme, not to mention the delays caused by Allied bombing and the failure of so many experiments, had earned Hagemann many opponents. As he had been reminded many times by sceptical members of the General Staff, for the cost of every V-2 rocket, the German armaments industry could produce over five hundred Panzerfausts, the single-shot anti-tank weapons so simple and effective that they were now being issued to teams of teenage boys recruited from the Hitler Youth, whose orders were to pedal after Russian tanks on bicycles and engage the 20-ton machines in single combat.
    Without Hitler’s approval, the whole endeavour would probably have been shelved years ago, but just as easily as he had kept the programme running, he could also destroy it, with nothing more than a stroke of his pen.
    Clutching the leather document tube against his chest, it seemed to Hagemann just then that even his magical drawings might not save him now.
    Looking down through patchy clouds from an altitude of 10,000 feet, the landscape, just coming into bloom, appeared so peaceful to the general that his mind kept slipping out of gear, convincing him that there was no war, that there had never been a war, and that it was all just a figment of his own imagination.
    But as they descended over the outskirts of Berlin, that calm hallucination fell apart. Ragged scars of saturation bombing lay upon the once-orderly suburbs of Heinersdorf and Pankow. The closer they came to the centre, the worse the damage appeared.Whole sections of the city, laid out like a map beneath him, were completely unrecognisable now. The cargo plane touched down at Gatow airfield. As the plane rolled to a stop, Hagemann’s gaze was drawn to the carcasses of ruined aircraft which had been bulldozed to the side of the runway.
    A car was there to meet him. The last time he had come here, several months before, he had been met by Hitler’s adjutant, Major Otto Günsche, as well as the Führer’s own chauffeur, Erich Kempka, who had entertained him on the drive to the Chancellery with stories of his days as a motorcycle mechanic before the war.
    This time, however, his escorts were two grim-faced members of General Rattenhuber’s Security Service, who were in charge of protecting the bunker.
    At the sight of them, Hagemann felt his heart clench. He wondered if he was already under arrest.
    Neither of the men spoke to him on the drive to the Chancellery building. They sat in the front. He sat in the back.
    So this is how a life unravels, thought Hagemann.
    This brief moment of self-pity evaporated when he saw what was left of the Chancellery. Barely a single window remained intact and the stone work, particularly on the first floor, was so stubbled with shrapnel damage that it gave the impression of being unfinished, as if the masons had abandoned their work before the final touches on the building had ever been completed.
    The car came to a halt. The man who had been sitting by the driver climbed out and opened the door for the general.
    Hagemann climbed out. ‘Where should I go?’ he asked.
    The man gestured up the staircase to the main entrance.
    ‘People are still working in there?’ gasped Hagemann. ‘But the place is in ruins!’
    ‘Once you are inside, Herr General,’ said the man, ‘someone will show you the way.’
    He took care climbing up the stairs, so as not to trip upon the broken steps. Once inside, he was directed to the entrance of the Führerbunker. Although he had known of the existence of the underground fortress, he had never been down into it. On every other visit, the entranceway had been