CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 48

— I WAS ALSO CURIOUS about the officer who accompanied that Hitler — Sandro said, paying attention to every detail he had so far in his hands to put that immense puzzle together — I need the information you have available about him.

— A key to understanding the Bell's secrets is the accompanying general, German engineer and administrator, Hans Kammler, who started out as a civil servant in the Reich air ministry and whose ambition led him to the SS, where he became head of the construction divisions. and works that commanded the concentration camps.

— Albert Speer, Hitler's armaments minister, noted that Kammler was — blond, blue-eyed, shrewd, always properly dressed and well-bred... capable of unexpected decisions at any minute.— It was the SS, not the Luftwaffe (air force), that controlled the Nazi secret weapons program and Kammler, a qualified engineer, soon became seriously involved.

— Kammler was famous for his cunning and cruelty. Twenty thousand slaves died creating the vast gallery complex under the Harz Mountains in Germany, where Kammler oversaw the production of V1 rockets. On a day in March 1945, guards hanged fifty-two people in gallery 41, tying a dozen at a time to a beam being lifted by a crane. Those next in line were required to watch. This cruelty was the hallmark of Kammler.

— His career included the demolition of the ruins left by the bloody repression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the architectural sketch of the Auschwitz camp, including the fabrication of the ovens and gas chambers. On February 28, 1945, Kammler placed a pilot inside a small piloted missile called the Natter. Luftwaffe Lieutenant Lothar Siebert became the first person to be launched vertically on a rocket. After climbing 330 feet, the cockpit — bubble— broke and decapitated the pilot. At 1,600 feet, Natter failed and began to plummet, ending the ill-fated debut of the manned vertical launch.

— Kammler became SS general in charge not only of all missile and aircraft programs, but also of his own research and think tank. He set up his covert operation in the vast Skoda industrial complex in Czechoslovakia—a country the SS regarded as its own private domain. Undoubtedly, secrets were Kammler 's guarantee of security after the end of the war. In mid-April 1945, he disappeared from the map — along with the Bell. Despite being a Nazi leader, lengthy searches of the US National Archives find no mention of him. How could the most powerful individual outside Hitler's inner circle have been so easily forgotten?

SANDRO CLOSED HIS EYES and thought for a moment.

— Any idea? – asked Bernard.

— Briefly what we know about Die Glocke and Kammler ends, it is resolved in what happened today in the Champions League final League, even Hitler, a lot of pieces fit together, now we need to put the pieces together, but before that I need to tell you why I'm going to Berlin.