Operation Eagle Flight

Operation Eagle Flight was the plan devised by Adolf Hitler's personal secretary, Martin Bormann, to aid Nazism in its continued struggle beyond the end of World War II even in the event of defeat.

History

Finances

Many senior Nazis were waking up to the fact that Germany was losing the war by 1944. While such developments ultimately led to a fracturing of the Nazi leadership, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary and secretary of the Nazi Party, remained loyal to the Führer and began laying the groundwork for future generations of Nazis to carry on the struggle

As early as August of that year, Bormann called a secret meeting with German business leaders in Strasbourg to gather the necessary financial resources to fund such an ambitious venture. He set up more than 700 front corporations which he used to spirit away money, gold, bonds, copyrights and patents. All of this went undetected by the Allies. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Figurehead

In August 1942, as the Third Reich reached the peak of its power, Hitler and Eva Braun, whose relationship was a secret to all but Bormann, had their blood tested to ensure it met the standard of Nazi purity and compatibility.

By April 1945, as the Red Army and the Soviet Union descended upon Berlin, it became increasingly clear that Hitler had no intension of surviving the war. Although both he and Eva Braun announced their intention to commit suicide, Braun was secretly pregnant with their unborn child. On 30 April, Hitler killed himself. Braun took medication which made her appear in a death-like state. Bormann then removed their bodies from the Führerbunker and had them cremated, but not before Eva regained consciousness and hid. Bormann replaced her body with that of Claire Aldwych. Bormann and Braun then escaped in a plane piloted by Hans Baur which took them from the Tiergarten to Hamburg and they fled Germany on a waiting submarine which brought them to Neuschwabenland, Antarctica.

Some time later, Eva gave birth to Adolf Hitler, Jr., who was raised under the tutelage of Bormann to revere his father. It was intended to Hitler Jr. to act as the figurehead of the Fourth Reich once he had come of age, uniting various Neo-Nazi cells across numerous countries. Physically, he was identical to his late father. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Unravelling

In 2001, Bormann died of old age, leaving behind the infrastructure required of the Fourth Reich. Hitler Jr., now the same age as his father at the time of his death, took charge. While criticising Bormann's caution for delaying their progress unnecessarily, he greatly admired his skill and foresight.

Hitler Jr.'s operations were eventually discovered by Claire Aldwych, who investigated further with the aid of the Sixth Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Once they tracked Hitler Jr. down, he blackmailed them into taking him back in time to meet his father in the Berlin bunker. However, at the meeting, Hitler Jr.'s obsession with the occult infuriated Hitler, who thought the lookalike to be an over-enthusiastic follower.

Hitler shot Hitler Jr. dead just before his suicide. Claire was killed by Bormann and used as Eva Braun's decoy body. With events now playing out in a circle, Operation Eagle Flight essentially ended at the same time it began. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Behind the scenes

• In the historical note for The Shadow in the Glass, Stephen Cole and Justin Richards clarify that Bormann's initiative to raise funds for the continuation of the Reich was a real-life venture. He raised (in 2001 terms) somewhere around a trillion dollars. His escape from Berlin and death of old age was fictionalised, as was the survival of Eva Braun and life of Hitler Jr.
• It is left vague whether Hitler himself was privy to the plan, or if Bormann and Braun enacted it without his knowledge.