The Arms Maker of Berlin (37 page)

So Nat pushed the folders aside, positioned his camera on the tripod, and methodically began shooting pictures of every page, one document after another. He didn’t dare stop to read, not yet, although he couldn’t help registering what each set of papers represented—agent reports, planning memos, surveillance logs, a concise dossier on Erich Stuckart and his circle of Nazi friends in Bern, and, in that final memo in German, the one separate from the folders, the transcript of Martin Gollner’s 1943 interrogation of Kurt Bauer. The very one that Gordon had purchased from Gollner in the ruins of postwar Berlin. Pure gold.

When he had photographed everything, he briefly checked a sampling of images for legibility, then ejected the flash drive wafer and inserted a new one. He then repeated the process, making copies upon copies for nearly two hours more.

Finally, with that chore completed, he repacked his equipment and reopened the folder marked “Fleece.” It was thirty-seven pages of black typescript on legal-size paper, stapled in the upper left corner. The lettering was faded but easily legible.

The cover page told him that it was the after-action report of Gordon Wolfe, aka Icarus, as dictated to OSS operative Frederick Loofbourow, or 493, at a time when Gordon still would have been in the hospital, being treated for his wounds. From the little Nat had already glimpsed, he was betting that this, along with Gollner’s interrogation report, constituted the heart of the matter. Or, as Gordon had once boasted,
“Live
ammunition. Pick it up and it might go off in your hands.
Boom!”

Nat poured a fresh glass of water and checked his watch. Still plenty of time.

He began to read.

Live ammunition indeed.

THIRTY-ONE

OPERATION FLEECE

Report of ICARUS (543), as dictated to 493

Prepared February 2, 1945

On Monday, January 8, 1945, the two of us (myself and Swiss national Sabine Keller, of Adelboden) departed after sunset from Schaffhausen accompanied by a guide. We crossed the Swiss border in a forest two miles northeast of Thayingen, opposite the German village of Binningen. Cloudy, no moon.

The guide departed. He had advised us that we would pass three roads before reaching Binningen. It was completely dark and we could proceed only by compass, East 12. After passing the second road we came to a third where we saw a family riding in a farm wagon. We hid behind a stone wall and ran on. We had to cross a brook and decided to jump. We stopped at a barn so I could change into my officer’s uniform. From there we reached the station at Binningen.

I bought tickets to Singen and we were requested to show our papers. The train had neither lights nor windows. The station at Singen is in ruins. In conversation with others we learned that papers are investigated in Singen by the Gestapo, and all its men are members of the SD. They carry pink identification cards, signed by Kaltenbrunner, nothing on the back, and on the left-hand side a photograph of the bearer. We stayed at Singen for two hours, and at 22:00 went to Radolfzell, where we spent the night at the station after the sentry examined our papers.

The narrative went on in this vein for several pages, chock-full of details about how to move around in enemy territory. Nat was entranced as he imagined the young Gordon Wolfe, looking sharp and sinister in his officer’s cap and uniform, inching his way toward Munich with the pretty Sabine at his side. They must have been terrified.

In the early going, their luck held. They hopped their way east along the north shore of Lake Constance, first to Friedrichshafen, then to Lindau. Then they headed north, crossing Bavaria on a train to Buchloe, where they endured further document checks and slept overnight at the station. From there they caught trains to their target destination of Munich, where they sought out their local OSS contact.

His name was Helmdorff, and he managed a factory that was part of the Bauer industrial empire. His services had been arranged by Kurt Bauer, who was referred to throughout the report by his code name of Magneto II. Helmdorff gave Gordon and Sabine lodging in the cellar of an empty building at the factory.

Gordon and Sabine then split up, apparently by prior arrangement. She ventured into the city accompanied by Helmdorff while Gordon initiated contact with Gollner.

Helmdorff instructed me to telephone Gollner from Theresienstrasse 4, where I could get a direct connection with the Gestapo office. He drew me a map, explaining how I could find the telephone booth on the first floor.

I reached Gollner by telephone at 09:30 and asked if I could meet him at his home. He sounded very agitated and cut our conversation short. He asked me to leave my present location at once, and said I could see him at 11:00 at his office.

Before the bombardment of last November, the Gestapo kept their offices in the Wittelsbacher Palais in the Briennerstrasse. Now their HQ are in the Polizei-Kaserne (see attached sketches). Gollner has his room in building Block Nr 1, 3rd floor, 4th room on the eastern side.

I was uneasy with the idea of entering the Gestapo-Kaserne, but as I did not know whether Gollner would see me otherwise, I went. I entered the barracks, showed my military passport and told them I was Major Lehrer and wanted to see Sturmbandfuhrer Gollner. The girl at the reception desk let me straight through.

Gollner seemed rather afraid and shut his door. He told me he was no longer able to accompany me to the border, nor would he be able to cooperate with us due to circumstances that had arisen during the previous two weeks. He said he had informed Bern of this development, and was therefore very astonished by my arrival. He explained that his original instructions had been arranged through Gerhard Schlang and Erich Stuckart, both of Bern, but that Magneto II and his contacts had handled more recent messages. He blamed them for any miscommunication.

Feeling somewhat desperate, I told him that my cover was still sound, and that my papers showed I had been a good soldier in Russia, awarded the Iron Cross, and that since then I had served admirably with the German legation in Bern. He replied that he would try to make alternate plans so that he might still accompany me.

Miss Keller and I stayed again in the cellar of the factory, accompanied by rats and the sound of air raid sirens, due to bombing in the city center. I briefed Helmdorff on my new plans. Miss Keller was not comfortable with the arrangement, but Helmdorff insisted it was quite safe and said I should contact Gollner from the same telephone at the same time the next day.

In the morning a noticeably agitated Helmdorff drove me to Theresienstrasse 4. At 09:30 at the telephone booth, I was approached by three officers in SD uniforms and arrested. I was taken directly to the Polizei-Kaserne, where I was questioned by Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann. He questioned me off and on for six days. Throughout this time I maintained my cover.

Good Lord. The man had endured
six days
of confinement and questioning in the heart of Munich’s Gestapo headquarters. Nat had to put the report down to collect himself. All these years without the slightest idea, nor had Gordon offered a single hint. And what on earth had Sabine done in the meantime, especially since she had been left at the mercy of Bauer’s man, the duplicitous Helmdorff? Nat read on.

During this time I stayed in the so-called “Gestapo-Hausgefangnis” barracks, behind the burned-out Wittelsbacher Palais, in a cell together with five other companions. The food was very bad. The first four days I was in irons, day and night, also during transport from the jail to the barracks for questioning. But everyone was very orderly and I never heard from any of the fellow-prisoners about any bad treatment. Even the prisoners of the concentration camp Dachau who worked in their striped uniforms in front of the jail seemed in reasonably good spirits.

In the course of Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann’s questioning, it became apparent that he was attempting to build a case against Sturmbandfuhrer Gollner. But, curiously, he did not know that I was an American, nor did he seriously question my cover, except to the extent he believed I was in league with Gollner as part of some traitorous operation, supposedly in cooperation with the Allies.

On the fifth day, Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann told me that he was sure that I would be sentenced to death based on other evidence they had compiled, but asked whether as an alternative I thought it would be possible for me to return to my position with the German legation in Switzerland without making the Allies suspicious. This way I could report back on their plans, and find out which Germans in Switzerland were cooperating with them.

Nat shook his head in wonder, not just at all the machinations but at the way Gordon presented everything in such a straightforward fashion—the leg irons, the interrogation, the threat of execution, even the bizarre sight of the prisoners from Dachau.

Gollner was apparently not helpless in these affairs, and on the sixth day, a Friday, he visited me. He brought books, cigarettes, fruit, and sandwiches. He explained in some agitation that my presence had placed him in a difficult spot and said that a previous antagonism with Magneto II was to blame for our situation. He told me that Magneto II had been his source two years ago in exposing a student resistance organization in Berlin in exchange for personal considerations for Magneto II’s family. Three members of the resistance group were executed. Of course, I was surprised by these revelations, and knew that they did not bode well for Miss Keller and me.

Boom
. There it was, at last. The Bauer bombshell. Nat was almost shaking with excitement. No wonder the old arms maker had dispatched two foreign governments and all his minions to track down these folders. And no wonder Berta had been willing to ruin her career. She must have had an inkling of this. All she had lacked was proof.

And what did this mean for Nat? A professional triumph, he supposed. But by now the quest had become so entwined with personal connections that his usual feelings of elation were muted. These were not the remote doings of long-dead strangers. History had put on a new face, and it was unnervingly familiar. He turned the page for more.

Gollner said that he was now secretly promoting Siekmann’s plan to return me to Switzerland as a double agent, saying that this was the only possibility that my life would be spared. But he said this plan would only work if Siekmann released me before Monday, in only three days. This was because a Gestapo courier had been sent by plane on Thursday to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin, to notify him of Siekmann’s plan to send me back to Switzerland. In Berlin, the falsity of my cover would doubtless be discovered. Fortunately all lines of radio and telephone communication from Berlin to Munich had been cut, and it was impossible to send letters without great delay. However, the courier would return by plane on Monday. Gollner said he would attempt to engineer my release on Saturday. I would then have to leave immediately for the border with Miss Keller. Gollner would face difficulty once my cover was blown, but he said this was preferable to my remaining for further questioning, and possibly revealing the full extent of our plan.

Gordon was indeed released on Saturday night, after he fed Siekmann some fake information at Gollner’s suggestion. Siekmann assured him he would not be impeded when he tried to cross the border back into Switzerland. Gordon then headed straight for Helmdorff’s factory to retrieve Sabine.

Helmdorff was very surprised and agitated to see me. Miss Keller said that Helmdorff had been trying to convince her to return to the border without me, and that she had been unable to move around the city because Helmdorff had locked her papers in his office. After speaking with us he said that he had to use the telephone to arrange for another location where we could stay that night.

I secretly followed him to his office, upstairs in an adjoining building. The rooms were empty and dark, but I heard him pick up a telephone. He was not able to reach an operator for several minutes. He then asked to be connected to Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann. As soon as he did so I entered the room and approached him from behind. I was able to pull the phone wire out of the wall before the operator connected the call. We struggled briefly. I wrapped the phone wire around his neck and held it tight until he was no longer breathing. I then found Miss Keller’s papers and returned them to her. We left immediately for the train station.

Nat took a deep breath. Gordon had killed a man with his hands, a Bauer minion who had nearly done them in. He wondered if Gordon had told Sabine. Probably. Death was such common currency in those days, and they were fleeing for their lives.

He read on. More train journeys and document checks as they made their way south. Their only close call was with a nosy sentry in Singen until they met a guide near the border town of Binningen. Gordon changed back into civilian clothes, and the guide began leading them to the frontier crossing. Then all hell broke loose.

We left the road and followed a railway line and reached a small wood. We came to a crossroads with a signpost pointing toward Binningen when suddenly we were shot at by German machine guns. It was dark, but there was no cover. Our guide was armed and he fired toward the muzzle flashes in the trees, but the shooting continued. Our guide was hit and fell backward on the tracks. Miss Keller and I dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch. I pulled our guide by his boots into the ditch with us. He was groaning but did not appear to be conscious. The gun was still in his hands and Miss Keller took it and fired back. Soon the firing from the wood stopped.

We tended our guide’s wounds with a kit that he carried, finding sulfa powder and bandages. There was more gunfire. We then heard the movement of soldiers crossing the tracks in the dark to either side of us, at some distance. By then I had taken the gun from Miss Keller, and I fired in both directions. Their muzzles flashed, as did ours, revealing our position, and while taking return fire I was hit in the right leg by several shots at once. I remained conscious but dropped the gun and was in great pain from that point onward. Miss Keller shouted for the soldiers to stop firing, and we gave ourselves up. Our guide was dead. They left him in the ditch and took us with them.

So here was Gordon’s war wound. In the
Daily Wildcat
expose, the student hacks had practically made fun of his limp, implying he might even be faking it. No doubt the FBI had fed them that version. Shameful.