When the Odessa began in the late forties to reinfiltrate West Germany their first chief executive had been one of those who had trained the teenage werwolves of 1945. He took the title. It had the advantage of being anonymous, symbolic and sufficiently melodramatic to satisfy the eternal German lust for play-acting. But there was nothing theatrical about the ruthlessness with which the Odessa dealt with those who crossed their plans.
The Werwolf of late 1963 was the third to hold the title and position. Fanatic and astute, constantly in touch with his superiors in Argentina, the man watched over the interests of all former members of the SS inside West Germany, but particularly those formerly of high rank or those high on the wanted list.
He stared out of his office window and thought back to the image of SS-General Gluecks facing him in a Madrid hotel room thirty-five days earlier; and to the general’s warning about the vital importance of maintaining at all costs the anonymity and security of the radio factory owner now preparing, under the code-name Vulkan, the guidance system for the Egyptian rockets. Alone in Germany, he also knew that in an earlier part of his life Vulkan had been better known under his real name of Eduard Roschmann.
He glanced down the jotting pad on which he had scribbled the number of Miller’s car and pressed a buzzer on his desk. His secretary’s voice came through from the next room.
‘Hilda, what was the name of that private investigator we employed last month on the divorce case?’
‘One moment …’ There was a sound of rustling papers as she looked up the file. ‘It was Memmers, Heinz Memmers.’
‘Give me the telephone number, will you? No, don’t ring him, just give me the number.’
He noted it down beneath the number of Miller’s car, then took his finger off the intercom key.
He rose and crossed the room to a wall-safe set in a block of concrete, a part of the wall of the office. From the safe he took a thick, heavy book and went back to his desk. Flicking through the pages he came to the entry he wanted. There were only two Memmers listed, Heinrich and Walter. He ran his finger along the page opposite Heinrich, usually shortened to Heinz. He noted the date of birth, worked out the age of the man in late 1963 and recalled the face of the private investigator. The ages fitted. He jotted down two other numbers listed against Heinz Memmers, picked up the telephone and asked Hilda for an outside line.
When the dialling tone came through he dialled the number she had given him. The telephone at the other end was picked up after a dozen rings. It was a woman’s voice.
‘Memmers Private Inquiries.’
‘Pass me Herr Memmers personally,’ said the lawyer.
‘May I say who’s calling?’ asked the secretary brightly.
‘No, just put him on the line. And hurry.’
There was a pause. The tone of voice took its effect.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
A minute later a gruff voice said, ‘Memmers.’
‘Is that Herr Heinz Memmers?’
‘Yes, who is that speaking?’
‘Never mind my name. It is not important. Just tell me, does the number 245.718 mean anything to you?’
There was a dead silence down the phone, broken only by a heavy sigh as Memmers digested the fact that his SS number had just been quoted at him. The book now lying open on the Werwolf’s desk was a list of every former member of the SS. Memmers’ voice came back, harsh with suspicion.
‘Should it?’
‘Would it mean anything to you if I said that my own corresponding number had only five figures in it … Kamerad?’
The change was electric. Five figures meant a very senior officer.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Memmers down the line.
‘Good,’ said the Werwolf. ‘There’s a small job I want you to do. Some snooper has been inquiring into one of the Kameraden. I need to find out who he is.’
‘Zu Befehl’ (At your command) came down the phone.
‘Excellent. But between ourselves Kamerad will do. After all, we are all comrades-in-arms.’
Memmers’ voice came back, evidently pleased by the flattery.
‘Yes, Kamerad.’
‘All I have about the man is his car number. A Hamburg registration.’ The Werwolf read it slowly down the telephone.
‘Got that?’
‘Yes, Kamerad.’
‘I’d like you to go to Hamburg personally. I want to know the name and address, profession, family and dependants, social standing … you know, the normal run-down. How long would that take you?’
‘About forty-eight hours,’ said Memmers.
‘Good, I’ll ring you back forty-eight hours from now. One last thing. There is to be no approach made to the subject. If possible it is to be done in such a way that he does not know any inquiry has been made. Is that clear?’
‘Certainly. It’s no problem.’
‘When you have finished, prepare your account and give it to me over the phone when I ring you. I will send you the cash by post.’
Memmers expostulated.
‘There will be no account, Kamerad. Not for a matter concerning the Comradeship.’
‘Very well then. I’ll ring you back in two days.’
The Werwolf put the phone down.
Miller set off from Hamburg the same afternoon, taking the same autobahn he had travelled two weeks earlier past Bremen, Osnabrück and Munster towards Cologne and the Rhineland. This time his destination was Bonn, the small and boring town on the river’s edge that Konrad Adenauer had chosen as the capital of the Federal Republic, because he came from it.
Just south of Bremen his Jaguar crossed Memmers’ Opel speeding north to Hamburg. Oblivious of each other the two men flashed past on their separate missions.
It was dark when he entered the single long main street of Bonn and seeing the white-topped peaked cap of a traffic policeman he drew up beside him.
‘Can you tell me the way to the British Embassy?’ he asked the policeman.
‘It will be closed in an hour,’ said the policeman, a true Rhinelander.
‘Then I’d better get there all the quicker,’ said Miller. ‘Where is it?’
The policeman pointed straight down the road towards the south.
‘Keep straight on down here, follow the tramlines. This street becomes Friedrich Ebert Allee. Just follow the tramlines. As you are about to leave Bonn and enter Bad Godesberg, you’ll see it on your left. It’s lit up and it’s got the British flag flying outside it.’
Miller nodded his thanks and drove on. The British Embassy was where the policeman had said, sandwiched between a building site on the Bonn side and a football pitch on the other, both a sea of mud in the December fog rolling up off the river behind the embassy.
It was a long, low grey concrete building, built back to front, referred to by British newspaper correspondents in Bonn since it was built as ‘The Hoover Factory’. Miller swung off the road and parked in one of the slots provided for visitors.
He walked through the wooden-framed glass doors and found himself in a small foyer with a desk on his left, behind which sat a middle-aged receptionist. Beyond her was a small room inhabited by two blue-serge-suited men who bore the unmistakable stamp of former army sergeants.
‘I would like to speak with the press attaché, please,’ said Miller, using his halting school English. The receptionist looked worried.
‘I don’t know if he’s still here. It is Friday afternoon, you know.’
‘Please try,’ said Miller, and proffered his press card.
The receptionist looked at it and dialled a number on her house telephone. Miller was in luck. The press attaché was just about to leave. He evidently asked for a few minutes to get his hat and coat back off again. Miller was shown into a small waiting room adorned by several Rowland Hilder prints of the Cotswolds in Autumn. On a table lay several back copies of the Tatler and brochures depicting the onward march of British industry. Within seconds, however, he was summoned by one of the ex-
sergeants and led upstairs, along a corridor and shown into a small office.
The press attaché, he was glad to see, was in his mid-thirties and seemed eager to help.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked. Miller decided to go straight into the matter.
‘I am investigating a story for a news magazine,’ he lied. ‘It’s about a former SS captain, one of the worst, a man still sought by our own authorities. I believe he was also on the wanted list of the British authorities when this part of Germany was under British administration. Can you tell me how I can check whether the British ever captured him, and if so what happened to him?’
The young diplomat was perplexed.
‘Good Lord, I’m sure I don’t know. I mean, we handed over all our records and files to your government in 1949. They took over where our chaps left off. I suppose they would have all these things now.’
Miller tried to avoid mentioning that the German authorities had all declined to help.
‘True,’ he said. ‘Very true. However all my inquiries so far indicate he has never been put on trial in the Federal Republic since 1949. That would indicate he had not been caught since 1949. However, the American Document Center in West Berlin reveals a copy of the man’s file was requested from them by the British in 1947. There must have been a reason for that, surely?’
‘Yes, one would indeed suppose so,’ said the attaché. He had evidently taken in the reference to Miller having procured the co-operation of the American authorities in West Berlin, and furrowed his brow in thought.
‘So who on the British side would be the investigating authority during the occupation … I mean, the administration period?’
‘Well, you see, it would have been the Provost Marshal’s office of the army at that time. Apart from Nuremberg, which were the major war-crimes trials, the separate Allies were investigating individually, although obviously we cooperated with each other. Except the Russians. These investigations led to some Zonal War Crimes Trials, do you follow me?’
‘Yes.’
‘The investigations were carried out by the Provost Marshal’s department, that’s the military police, you know, and the trials were prepared by the legal branch. But the files of both were handed over in 1949. Do you see?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Miller, ‘but surely copies must have been kept by the British?’
‘I suppose they were,’ said the diplomat. ‘But they’d be filed away in the archives of the Army by now.’
‘Would it be possible to look at them?’
The attaché appeared shocked.
‘Oh, I very much doubt it. I don’t think so. I suppose bona-fide research scholars might be able to make an application to see them, but it would take a long time. And I don’t think a reporter would be allowed to see them – no offence meant, you understand?’
‘I understand,’ said Miller.
‘The point is,’ resumed the diplomat earnestly, ‘that, well, you’re not exactly official, are you? And one doesn’t wish to upset the German authorities, does one?’
‘Perish the thought.’
The attaché rose.
‘I don’t think there’s really much the Embassy can do to help you.’
‘OK. One last thing. Was there anybody here then who is still here now?’
‘On the Embassy staff? Oh dear me no. No, they’ve all changed many times.’ He escorted Miller to the door. ‘Wait a minute, there’s Cadbury. I think he was here then. He’s been here for ages, I do know that.’
‘Cadbury?’ said Miller.
‘Anthony Cadbury. The foreign correspondent. He’s the sort of senior British press chap here. Married a German girl. I think he was here after the war, just after. You might ask him.’
‘Fine,’ said Miller. ‘I’ll try him. Where do I find him?’
‘Well, it’s Friday now,’ said the attaché. ‘He’ll probably be at his favourite place by the bar in the Cercle Français later on. Do you know it?’
‘No, I’ve never been here before.’
‘Ah, yes, well, it’s a restaurant, run by the French, you know. Jolly good food too. It’s very popular. It’s in Bad Godesberg, just down the road.’
Miller found it, a hundred yards from the bank of the Rhine on a road called Am Schwimmbad. The barman knew Cadbury well, but had not seen him that evening. He told Miller if the doyen of the British foreign correspondents’ corps in Bonn was not in that evening he would almost certainly be there for pre-lunch drinks the following day.
Miller checked into the Dreesen Hotel down the road, a great turn-of-the-century edifice that had formerly been Adolf Hitler’s favourite hotel in Germany, the place he had picked to meet Neville Chamberlain of Britain for their first meeting in 1938. He dined at the Cercle Français and dawdled over his coffee, hoping Cadbury would turn up. But by eleven the elderly Englishman had not put in an appearance, so he went back to the hotel to sleep.
Cadbury walked into the bar of the Cercle Français a few minutes before twelve the following morning, greeted a few acquaintances and seated himself at his favourite corner stool at the bar. When he had taken his first sip of his Ricard, Miller rose from his table by the window and came over.
‘Mr Cadbury?’
The Englishman turned and surveyed him. He had smooth-brushed white hair coming back from what had evidently once been a very handsome face. The skin was still healthy, with a fine tracery of tiny veins on the surface of each cheek. The eyes were bright blue under shaggy grey eyebrows. He surveyed Miller warily.
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Miller. Peter Miller. I am a reporter from Hamburg. May I talk with you a moment, please?’
Anthony Cadbury gestured to the stool beside him.
‘I think we had better talk in German, don’t you?’ he said, dropping into the language. Miller was relieved he could go back to his own language, and it must have showed. Cadbury grinned.
‘What can I do for you?’
Miller glanced at the shrewd eyes and backed a hunch. Starting at the beginning he told Cadbury the story from the moment of Tauber’s death. The London man was a good listener. He did not interrupt once. When Miller had finished he gestured to the barman to fill his own Ricard and another beer for Miller.
‘Spatenbräu, wasn’t it?’ he asked.
Miller nodded and poured the fresh beer to a foaming head on top of the glass.
‘Cheers,’ said Cadbury. ‘Well now you’ve got quite a problem. I must say I admire your nerve.’
‘Nerve?’ said Miller.
‘It’s not quite the most popular story to investigate among your countrymen in their present state of mind,’ said Cadbury, ‘as you will doubtless find out in course of time.’
‘I already have,’ said Miller.
‘Mmm. I thought so,’ said the Englishman, and grinned suddenly. ‘A spot of lunch? The wife’s away for the day.’
Over lunch Miller asked Cadbury if he had been in Germany at the end of the war.
‘Yes, I was a war correspondent. Much younger then, of course. About your age. I came in with Montgomery’s army. Not to Bonn, of course. No one had heard of it then. The headquarters was at Luneberg. Then I just sort of stayed on. Covered the end of the war, signature of the surrender and all that, then the paper asked me to remain.’
‘Did you cover the Zonal War Crimes Trials?’ asked Miller.
Cadbury transferred a mouthful of fillet steak and nodded while he chewed.
‘Yes. All the ones held in the British Zone. We had a specialist come over for the Nuremberg Trials. That was the American Zone, of course. The star criminals in our zone were Josef Kramer and Irma Grese. Heard of them?’
‘No, never.’
‘Well, they were called the Beast and Beastess of Belsen. I invented the titles, actually. They caught on. Did you hear about Belsen?’
‘Only vaguely,’ said Miller. ‘My generation wasn’t told much about all that. Nobody wanted to tell us anything.’
Cad
bury shot him a shrewd glance under his bushy eyebrows.
‘But you want to know now?’
‘We have to know sooner or later. May I ask you something? Do you hate the Germans?’
Cadbury chewed for a few minutes, considering the question seriously.
‘Just after the discovery of Belsen a crowd of journalists attached to the British Army went up for a look. I’ve never been so sickened in my life, and in war you see a few terrible things. But nothing like Belsen. I think at that moment, yes, I hated them all.’
‘And now?’
‘No. Not any longer. Let’s face it, I married a German girl in 1948. I still live here. I wouldn’t if I still felt the way I did in 1945. I’d have gone back to England long ago.’
‘What caused the change?’
‘Time. The passing of time. And the realisation that not all Germans were Josef Kramers. Or, what was his name, Roschmann? Or Roschmanns. Mind you, I still can’t get over a sneaking sense of mistrust for people of my own generation among your nation.’
‘And my generation?’ Miller twirled his wineglass and gazed at the light refracting through the red liquid.
‘They’re better,’ said Cadbury. ‘Let’s face it, you have to be better.’
‘Will you help me with the Roschmann inquiry? Nobody else will.’
‘If I can,’ said Cadbury. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you recall him being put on trial in the British Zone?’
Cadbury shook his head.
‘No. Anyway, you said he was Austrian by birth. Austria was also under four-power occupation at the time. But I’m certain there was no trial against Roschmann in the British Zone of Germany. I’d remember the name if there were.’
‘But why would the British authorities request a photocopy of his career from the Americans in Berlin?’
Cadbury thought for a moment.
‘Roschmann must have come to the attention of the British in some way. At that time nobody knew about Riga. The Russians were at the height of their bloody-mindedness in the late forties. They didn’t give us any information from the east. Yet that was where the overwhelming majority of the worst crimes of mass-murder took place. So we were in the odd position of having about eighty per cent of the crimes against humanity committed east of what is now the Iron Curtain, and the ones responsible for them were about ninety per cent in the three western zones. Hundreds of guilty men slipped through our hands because we knew nothing about what they had done a thousand miles to the east.
The Odessa File Page 13