Eva (52 page)
The secret escape routes operated along similar lines. All had organizational headquarters in various major German cities and branch offices located wherever necessary, and they were financed by the numerous hidden Nazi accounts and funds, as well as with large caches of money and looted valuables within Germany itself, or secretly transferred to neutral foreign countries well in advance of the contemplated escape operations.
Along the escape route was a series of “stops” or “safe houses"—
Anlaufstellen
—spaced every forty or fifty miles, staffed by from one to five loyal members who knew only one other stop on each side of their own. They provided the “travelers” with money, transportation, safety, and new identification papers made out in false names, if needed.
Die Schleusse
(The Lock-Gate) was one of the first major escape routes to be organized. As early as the fall of 1944, selected high Nazi officials had received their false papers—passport, identity
Kennkarte,
birth certificate, marriage license, work permit, and other applicable documents, prepared by the special bureau of the Gestapo, set up for the purpose, or by such operations as
Aktion Birkenbaum
(Operation Birch Tree), which was created to manufacture such false documents for the use of the future escape route travelers. The main routes of
Die Schleusse
were the Northern Route: Hamburg, Kiel, Schleswig, Flensburg, into Denmark and on to South America; and the Southern Route: Austria to Italy and Spain as the gateways to the Middle East and South America.
Die Spinne
(The Spider) was, at war’s end, undoubtedly the main secret underground escape route, its network covering Germany, Austria, and Italy. Known in France as
L’Araignée
and in Spain as
La Araña,
the organization was headed for a while by General Paul Hausser, a co-founder of the Waffen SS. With headquarters in Augsburg or Stuttgart, and a
Verteilerkopf
—a distribution center—at Memmingen,
Die Spinrte
operated the successful
B-B Achse
(B-B Axis), a main north-south route using the Bs from Bremen in northern Germany and Bari, its final destination on the southern tip of Italy on the Adriatic Sea, in its code name. The escapees traveling the
Achse
were, in fact, often aided by some religious orders and by certain Red Cross officials who smuggled the fugitives across the borders disguised as Red Cross couriers taking food parcels to refugee camps or shepherding groups of DPs—displaced persons. Trucks, driven by German drivers, hauling the
Stars and Stripes
were, in fact, often used to transport
Achse
travelers, and Jewish illegal emigrants being smuggled to Palestine by the Jewish refugee organization,
Bricha,
occasionally did share a safe house with fleeing Nazis, such as at the inn at Merano. Apparently discontinued, or sharply curtailed, shortly after the war,
Die Spinne
formed the foundation for the largest and most efficient of the escape routes, ODESSA.
ODESSA—
Organisation der Ehemalige SS Angehörigen
(Organization of Ex-SS Members)—had its headquarters—
Verteilungskopf
(Allocation Center)—in Munich, after being controlled from Augsburg and Stuttgart during its earlier period of operation. It had branches all over Germany and Austria as well as in South America. ODESSA operated two main southern escape routes—from Bremen to Rome, and from Bremen to Genoa—and a northern route through the Flensburg escape hatch into Denmark. Many knowledgeable historians are convinced that Martin Bormann fled Germany via one of these ODESSA escape routes along with such others as Otto Skorzeny, Franz Stangl, and Adolf Eichmann, all of whom did.
Mystery still surrounds the fates of both Eva Braun and Martin Bormann. It is almost as if a carefully orchestrated scheme to mislead and deceive took place.
Did it?
When all the reports are considered, including the statements by Professor Sognnaes; when all is said and done, we know only one thing for sure:
We will never know the truth.
List of Abbreviations
| AMERICAN | |
| AAF | Army Air Force |
| AC of S | Assistant Chief of Staff |
| AIC | Army Interrogation Center |
| AMG | American Military Government |
| APO | Army Post Office |
| AUS | Army of the United States |
| CIC | Counter Intelligence Corps |
| CID | Criminal Investigation Department |
| CO | Commanding Officer |
| Co | Company |
| CP | Command Post |
| DC | Dental Corps |
| EM | Enlisted man (men) |
| ETO | European Theatre of Operations |
| G-2 | Military Intelligence |
| GI | General Issue; Infantry man |
| GSC | General Staff Corps |
| HQ | Headquarters |
| ID | Identification |
| IPW | Interrogator of Prisoners of War |
| MG | Military Government |
| OIC | Officer in Charge |
| R&R | Rest and Rotation; Rest and Recreation |
| SOP | Standard Operating Procedure |
| TDY | Temporary Duty |
| TM | Training Manual |
| T.S. | Tough Shit |
| USO | United Service Organization |
| GERMAN | |
| BMW | Bavarian Motor Works |
| Km | Kilometer |
| KZ (KL) | Concentration Camp |
| SS | Schutz Staffel (Elite Corps) |
| UFA | Berlin Film Atelier |
| BRITISH | |
| SOE | Special Operations Executive |
Bibliography
In addition to the author’s personal records and several works in foreign languages, the following English-language books have furnished authentication and facts for
Eva:
Bar Zohar, Michael.
The Avengers: The Story of the Hunt for Nazi Criminals.
Arthur Baker, Ltd. London, 1968.
Bezymenski, Lev.
The Death of Adolf Hitler.
Harcourt, Brace & World. New York, 1968.
Boldt, Gerhard.
Hitler: The Last Ten Days.
Coward, McCann & Geohegan. New York, 1947.
Bullock, Alan.
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny.
Harper & Row. New York,1962.
Delarue, Jacques.
The Gestapo: A History of Horror.
Macdonald & Co. New York, 1964.
Dollinger, Hans.
The Decline & Fall of Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan.
Bonanza Books, New York, 1962.
Dyer, George, Lt. Col.
XII Corps: Spearhead of Patton’s Third Army.
XII Corps History Association, Washington D. C., 1947.
Farago, Ladislas.
Aftermath.
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1974.
Fest, Joachim.
Hitler.
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York, 1973.
Foley, Charles.
Commando Extraordinary.
G. P. Putnam, New York, 1967.
Goldstone, Robert.
The Life and Death of Nazi Germany.
The Bobbs-Merrill Co. New York, 1967.
Gun, Nerin E.
Eva Braun: Hitler’s Mistress.
Meredith Press, New York, 1968.
Hanfstaengl, Max.
Hitler: The Missing Years.
Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1957.
Heiden, Conrad.
Der Führer: Hitler’s Rise to Power.
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1944.
Hitler, Adolf.
Mein Kampf.
Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, 1943.
Hutton, Clayton.
Official Secret.
Crown Publishers, New York, 1961.
Infield, Glenn B.
Disaster at Bari.
The Macmillan Co. New York, 1971.
_____
Eva and Adolf.
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1974.
_____
Skorzeny: Hitler’s Commado.
St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1981.
Irving, David.
Hitler’s War.
The Viking Press, New York, 1977.
_____ The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe.
Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1973.
_____
The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor.
Macmillan Publishing Co. New York. 1983.
Koch, H. W.
The Hitler Youth.
Ballantine Books, Inc. New York, 1972.
Langer, Walter C.
The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report.
Basic Books, New York and London, 1972.
Modern Military Branch, National Archives.
The Hitler Source Book.
Washington, D. C, Unclassified 1968.
O’Donnell, James P.
The Bunker.
Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, 1978.
Parrish, Thomas, Ed.
Encyclopedia of World War II.
Simon & Schuster. New York, 1978.
Payne, Robert.
The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.
Praeger Publishers. New York, 1973.
Pia, Jack.
Nazi Regalia.
Ballantine Books, Inc. New York, 1971.
Pridham, Geoffrey.
Hitler’s Rise to Power: The Nazi Movement in Bavaria.
Harper & Row. New York, 1973.
Reitsch, Hanna.
Flying Is My Life.
G P. Putnam. New York, 1954.
Ryan, Cornelius.
The Last Battle.
Simon & Schuster. New York, 1966.
Satzger, Alfons.
Wies Church.
Verlag Wallfahrtskuratie, Wies bei Steingaden, New York, (n.d.)
Shirer, William L.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Simon & Schuster. New York, 1959.
Smith, Bradley F.
Adolf Hitler.
Hoover Institution Press. Stanford, 1967.
Speer, Albert.
Inside the Third Reich.
The Macmillan Co., New York, 1970.
Tabori, Paul, Ed.
The Private Life of Adolf Hitler: Notes and Diaries of Eva Braun.
Aldus Publications, London, 1949.
Toland, John.
Adolf Hitler.
Doubleday and Co. New York, 1976.
Trevor-Roper, H.R.
The Last Days of Hitler.
Macmillan Publishing Co. New York, 1947.
Whiting, Charles.
Skorzeny.
Ballantine Books. New York, 1972.
_____
The Hunt for Martin Bormann.
Ballantine Books. New York, 1973.
_____
Hitler’s Werewolves.
Stein and Day, New York, 1972.
Wiesenthal, Simon.
The Murderers Among Us.
McGraw-Hill Book Co. New York, 1967.
Wighton, Charles.
Eichmann, His Career and Crimes.
Odham Press, Ltd., Eastbourne, 1961.
Zink, Harold.
American Military Government in Germany.
The Macmillan Co. New York, 1947.
About the Author
Ib Melchior, as well as being a best-selling author, is also a motion picture writer-director-producer in Hollywood with some twelve feature films and numerous TV shows to his credit.
He was born and educated in Denmark and graduated from the University of Copenhagen, majoring in literature and languages. He then joined a British theatrical company, The English Players, headquartered in Paris, France, as an actor and toured Europe with this troupe, becoming stage manager and co-director of the company. Just prior to the outbreak of World War II in Europe he came to the United States with this company to do a Broadway show.
Then followed a stint in the stage-managing department of Radio City Music Hall and the Center Theater Ice Shows in New York, and when Pearl Harbor was attacked he volunteered his services to the U.S. Armed Forces. He served with the “cloak-and-dagger” OSS for a while and was then transferred to the U.S. Military Intelligence Service. He spent two years in the European Theater of War as a Military Intelligence Investigator attached to the Counter Intelligence Corps. For his work in the ETO he was decorated by the U.S. Army as well as by the King of Denmark, and subsequently awarded the Knight Commander Cross of the Militant Order of St. Brigitte of Sweden.
After the war he became active in television and also began his writing career. He has directed some five-hundred television shows both live and filmed, ranging from the musical
The Perry Como Show
on CBS-TV, on which he served as director for three and a half years, to the dramatic documentary,
The March of Medicine
on NBC-TV. He has also functioned as director or in a production capacity on eight motion picture features in Hollywood, including AIP’s unusual
The Time Travelers,
which he also wrote.
Besides this extensive career as a director, Ib Melchior’s background as an author and writer includes numerous stories and articles published in many national magazines including
Life,
as well as in several European periodicals, some of which have been included in anthologies. He has also written a couple of legitimate plays for the stage, one being
Hour of Vengeance,
a dramatization of the ancient Amleth legend that was the original source for Shakespeare’s
Hamlet.
This play was produced at the Globe Playhouse in Los Angeles, and the Shakespeare Society of America and the Hamlet Society International jointly awarded Melchior the “Hamlet Award,” 1982, for excellence in playwriting.
Melchior has won several national awards for television and documentary film shorts that he wrote, directed, and produced, and he has written several scripts for various TV series including
Men Into Space
and
The Outer Limits.
Among his feature motion pictures are such films as
Ambush Bay,
a film with a World War II background filmed in the Philippines for United Artists, as well as the notable
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
for Paramount and several other films with a science fiction theme. In 1976 he was awarded the Golden Scroll by the Academy of Science Fiction for best writing.
Ib Melchior is the author of the best-selling, critically acclaimed novels based on his own experiences as a CIC agent,
Order of Battle, Sleeper Agent,
and
The Haigerloch Project,
as well as
The Watchdogs of Abaddon, The Marcus Device,
and
The Tombstone Cipher.
His novels are now published in twenty-five countries.
Ib Melchior lives in a two-story, Mediterranean-style home in
the
Hollywood Hills. He is an avid collector of historical documents and military miniatures. He is married to the designer, Cleo Baldon, and has two sons. He is the son of the late Wagnerian tenor, Lauritz Melchior.