Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen (5 page)

The Gestapo men drove in two cars. Johannes Post and Inspector Hans Kaehler rode in a black four-seat Mercedes; Oskar Schmidt followed behind in a black six-seat Adler, with fellow officers Franz Schmidt (no relation) and Walter Jacobs. They arrived in Flensburg shortly after noon and stopped for lunch at the Harmonie restaurant. After their meal, they drove to the
Polizeidirektion
, where the four RAF officers were being detained. Prison officials, notified of the Gestapo’s pending arrival, retrieved the airmen from their cell and seated them in the main corridor, ready for transfer.

Post and his comrades arrived at the prison and separated the airmen for questioning, but fifteen minutes of futile interrogation failed to yield anything beyond what was already known. At 3
P.M.
, the prisoners were handcuffed—their wrists shackled behind their backs—and marched to the waiting cars outside. Post and Kaehler took custody of Catanach; Christensen, Espelid, and Fuglesang were bundled into the Adler with the two Schmidts and Walter Jacobs. The vehicles pulled away in a convoy, with the Mercedes leading. In the backseat, Catanach stared out the window as the gothic architecture of Flensburg eventually gave way to open road. The cars traveled via Schleswig-Eckern-förde in the direction of Kiel, the rolling country soon surrendering to a ravaged urban scene.

In the car’s front passenger seat, Post eyed his captive in the rearview mirror. He played morbid tour guide, pointing out Kiel’s once-great monuments and buildings recently devastated by Allied air raids. Catanach nodded and said he was most familiar with the city’s architecture, having flown several combat operations against Kiel before his capture. Post shrugged and lit a cigarette.

“We must get on,” he said. “I have to shoot you.”

Catanach turned his gaze from the window, puzzled. “What did you say?”

“I am going to shoot you,” Post repeated. “Those are my orders.”

It was well known in local Gestapo ranks that Post took great pleasure in telling prisoners they were doomed to die. He enjoyed their
desperate pleas for mercy. Although Post knew Catanach spoke German, he addressed the airman in English.

“Do you mind?” the airman laughed, mistaking Post’s statement for a sick joke. “Another time. I have an appointment in the cooler of Stalag Luft III. I’ve done nothing wrong except go under the wire. You can’t shoot me.”

“Well,” Post said, “those are my orders.”

The car continued to navigate the city’s shattered streets. As the Mercedes turned a corner, Post barked an order to his driver, Artur Denkmann. He had tickets for the theater that night, but with the business now at hand, he was doubtful he would make the performance on time. Post directed Denkmann to an apartment building on the Hansastrasse. He pulled the tickets from the inside pocket of his gray leather overcoat and ordered Kaehler to run them upstairs to his mistress. When Kaehler returned several minutes later, the journey resumed without another word. The Mercedes left Kiel and headed south in the direction of Neumünster, along the Hamburger Chaussee. Roughly nine miles out of Kiel, where the road curved sharply to the right, the car pulled onto the right shoulder and came to a stop. Post ordered Kaehler, sitting next to Catanach, to remove the airman’s shackles, and got out of the vehicle. During the car ride, when conversing with Catanach in English, Post had seemed almost jovial. Now he barked his orders in angry German and told Catanach to get out. The airman did as he was told but showed no sign of concern, apparently still believing Post’s earlier threat to be a morbid joke.

Post ordered Catanach to cross the road, where, directly opposite the Mercedes, a gate opened into a meadow bordered by hedgerow. Kaehler got out of the vehicle and followed them across the carriageway. Post stayed three steps behind Catanach and slid his right hand into his coat pocket as they approached the gate. Entering the meadow, Post marched Catanach to the left, concealing them behind the hedgerow. Catanach kept walking, not bothering to look back. Without uttering a word, Post pulled a Luger 7.65mm pistol from his pocket and fired. Catanach screamed, the slug striking him between the shoulder blades, and fell dead to the ground. As Post pocketed his weapon, he heard the
second car arrive. Engine trouble in Kiel accounted for the Adler’s late arrival. Oskar Schmidt ordered his driver, Wilhelm Struve, to pull in behind the Mercedes and turned to the prisoners on the car’s folding backseat. The journey back to Sagan, he said, would take several more hours. The men would be wise to relieve themselves. He got out and opened the car’s rear left door for the airmen. Post stood watching impatiently at the gate, eager for what was coming.

Christensen, Espelid, and Fuglesang clambered out of the car—their wrists still shackled—with Walter Jacobs and Franz Schmidt behind them. Oskar Schmidt and his two partners marched the airmen across the roadway, toward the gate. It was five o’clock when they entered the meadow, and the men trod carefully in the fading light. Corralled by Post and the other agents behind them, they moved to the left of the gate. They were no more than seven steps from the gate when one of the airmen saw a dark object lying in the grass. The realization that it was James Catanach drew a panicked scream from one of the men. All three airmen jumped backward and tried to scramble as Jacobs and the two Schmidts drew their weapons.

“Shoot them!” Post roared. “Shoot them! Why don’t you shoot them?”

Three gun reports echoed across the meadow in the evening gloom. Two of the airmen fell lifeless alongside Catanach; the third hit the ground in apparent agony and made a feeble attempt to get back up. He struggled, his wrists still chained behind his back, and opened his mouth as though wanting to speak.

“He is still alive!” Post screamed. “I shall shoot him.”

He rushed at Kaehler and snatched the rifle from his hands. He approached the airman and put a bullet in his head. Satisfied the job was done, he ordered Kaehler to accompany him back to Kiel and told the others to guard the scene. Oskar Schmidt watched Post and Kaehler leave before turning his gaze to the bodies in the grass.

“He was not mine,” he said. “Mine died instantly.”

“And so did mine,” said Franz Schmidt.

Post still hoped to make the theater on time. The Mercedes sped north, back up the Hamburger Chaussee toward Kiel. Coffins were
needed to transport the corpses to the local crematorium. Post directed his driver to Tischendorf’s, an undertaker at Karlstrasse 26. It was six o’clock when Post and Kaehler entered the establishment and spoke with Wilhelm Tischendorf, the proprietor. From the leather coats and long boots the men had on, Tischendorf presumed his customers were Gestapo.

“I need you to collect some prisoners who have been shot in the vicinity of the Rotenhahn,” Post said by way of greeting, flashing his identification.

“What prisoners are they?” Tischendorf asked.

“French. Shot whilst trying to escape.”

Post said no more and returned to his waiting car. He left Kaehler to handle the details. Suspicious of Post, Tischendorf asked Kaehler who the prisoners were.

“They’re British airmen,” Kaehler said.

“Are they some of the seventy-six airmen I have read about in the papers?”

Kaehler answered in the affirmative.

“I shall have a car ready to leave in half an hour,” Tischendorf said.

Kaehler went outside and told Post, who nodded his approval. He ordered Kaehler to see the job through to its conclusion before demanding the driver return him to the apartment on the Hansastrasse, where his mistress waited with theater tickets.

The hearse—and two lidless, tin coffins—was ready sooner than expected. Tischendorf directed Kaehler to a parking lot behind the building, where he found two mortician laborers waiting in a burial van. Kaehler got in the front passenger seat and ordered the driver to get moving. The three men drove mostly in silence; Kaehler, giving directions, was the only one who spoke. As the van approached the right-hand bend on the Hamburger Chaussee, near the Rotenhahn, an inn and pub, Kaehler told the driver to slow down. The Adler was still parked on the right-hand side of the road, opposite the meadow’s entrance. Kaehler pointed to the gate, which was open, and ordered the driver to turn left into the field. He did not want passersby on the carriageway to witness the bodies being loaded. The driver, Wilhelm Boll,
although worried the van’s wheels might get stuck in the damp earth, did as instructed. In the meadow, as he cut the van’s engine, Boll saw three men—one armed with a rifle—standing several feet off to his left.

Kaehler climbed out of the van. He ordered Boll and the other laborer, Artur Salau, to retrieve the two coffins from the back of the vehicle. The men did as they were told without comment and placed the caskets alongside the four bodies. Oskar Schmidt, charged with ensuring the victims were properly disposed of, ordered the bodies be stacked two to a coffin. The Gestapo men simply stood and watched as Boll and Salau commenced the morbid task. The bodies, both laborers noticed, were dressed in what appeared to be new civilian suits. Two of the dead men had bullet wounds to the head.

“If the Russians get here, they’ll do the same to us,” muttered one of the Gestapo agents.

Boll and Salau, wanting only to be done with the job, heard the comment but did not respond. They placed the bodies in the coffins and loaded the caskets into the back of the van. Oskar Schmidt ordered the bodies be taken immediately to the crematorium in Kiel. The journey back to the city was made in two cars. Boll and Salau drove the burial van, while the Gestapo agents followed close behind in the Adler. At the crematorium, on-duty engineer Arthur Schafer knew better than to question official Gestapo business. It was six-thirty when the four agents arrived, accompanied by two undertakers hauling four bodies in a pair of cheap coffins. It was Oskar Schmidt who did the talking.

“Here are four corpses to be cremated.”

“Do you have the necessary documents?” asked Schafer.

“Berlin has ordered it.”

Schafer opened the crematorium’s leather-bound register and reached for a pen.

“You will not make any entries.”

Although notified in advance that such a visit was likely, Schafer found the circumstances peculiar. Regulations, he said, dictated that names of the deceased be recorded. Schmidt told Schafer to enter each body in the register only as a Roman numeral I through IV. The bodies
were not to be assigned cremation numbers, nor were any notes to be made of the date.

“The corpses are those of prisoners who were shot whilst on the run,” Schmidt said.

Schafer did as instructed and asked the undertakers to carry the coffins to the furnace. Before consigning the bodies to flame, Schafer gave each one a cursory glance. All four victims were dressed in civilian clothing, wearing woolen underwear, woolen stockings, and woolen pullovers. He didn’t see any visible wounds. The four Gestapo men stayed until the bodies had been destroyed and the ashes relegated to four urns, each labeled with a Roman numeral I through IV. Walter Jacobs took possession of the urns, which were to be sent to Stalag Luft III for burial. By nine o’clock the agents were back at local Gestapo headquarters, their work done. Boll and Salau returned the burial van and checked in with their boss.

“Everything in order?” Tischendorf asked.

“Yes,” Boll replied.

“What kind of bodies were they?”

“They were all shot from the back.”

In another part of town, sitting with his mistress in a darkened theater, Johannes Post enjoyed that evening’s operatic performance. He had made the show on time.

As senior British officer at Stalag Luft III, Group Captain Herbert Massey had approved plans for the mass breakout. It was, after all, the sworn duty of every captured officer to “harass, confuse, and confound the enemy.” Had he not been crippled with a bad leg, perhaps he, too, would have crept under the wire—but merely strolling the compound was enough to cause the old wound to flare. He had permanently damaged his leg in a crash during the First World War but continued to fly. He suffered another grievous injury to the same limb in 1942 when enemy fire downed his Stirling over the Ruhr. He now walked with a cane, but it did little to improve his mobility.

It was Thursday, April 6, two weeks since the escape. Six men had
thus far been returned to the camp and marched directly into “the cooler,” the solitary confinement block. The fate and whereabouts of those still on the run remained a mystery to the men inside the camp. It was hoped, of course, that some would make it back to England, though most of the prisoners knew such optimism had no foundation in reality. German authorities once estimated that only 1 percent of all escape attempts actually proved successful—so why bother? Duty was too simplistic an answer. Perhaps youth had something to do with it. Most of the escapees were not yet in their mid-thirties; a vast number were still in their twenties. Young men, all of them, deprived of women, liquor, and their freedom; beyond the wire, life and the war were passing them by. A first-line defense against boredom, the planning and plotting of escape distracted one’s mind from the banalities and deprivations of imprisonment. For men trained and eager to fight, but frustrated by captivity, escaping was their one means of striking at the enemy from behind the lines.