After arranging for Red Cross food relief, Berger summoned Vanaman and Spivey to his heavily guarded headquarters. He wanted Vanaman to take a message to Eisenhower conveying his desire to negotiate - by secret radio codes - a separate peace with the Western Allies. This would allow a reinvigorated Wehrmacht to push the Russians back to the Oder. High-ranking army officers would then murder Hitler and Himmler - who were madmen, Berger said - and arrange an 'orderly and correct surrender' of the country to the Western Allies. Berger would do this, he told Spivey and Vanaman, to save his country from the Bolshevik beasts. He also claimed that he wanted to save the lives of Allied POWs, whom Hitler was threatening to kill as payback for Dresden.