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

by Read, Simon

  A stone slab now marks the spot to tunnel Harry’s entrance.

  The wooden posts at the top of the picture show where the wall to Hut 104 once stood.

  The Gestapo took things further on March 4—twenty days before the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III—and issued Aktion Kugel (Operation Bullet), which decreed that recaptured POWs be taken to Mauthausen concentration camp and executed. Prisoners were to be kept in chains for the duration of the journey, and no official record was to be made of their arrival at the camp. Upon reaching their destination, they would be stripped and sent to the “washrooms” in the cellar of the prison building near the crematorium, where they would die by gas or bullet. As with Stufe Römisch III, British and American prisoners were to be handled on an individual basis but held by the Gestapo until a decision could be made. The men at Sagan had been unaware of these ominous developments.

  Hitler, presently ranting, ordered that all the Stalag Luft III fugitives be executed upon recapture. The proclamation brought the bickering between his deputies to an end. An example, he said, must be made, an action both punitive and deterrent in its effect. The idea offended no one, but the thought of covering up seventy-six murders posed a considerable challenge. Word of such an atrocity, Göring explained, might leak to the foreign press and result in fierce Allied reprisals. Himmler agreed, prompting Hitler to order that “more than half the escapees” be shot. Random numbers were suggested until Himmler proposed that fifty be executed—a suggestion that met with unanimous approval. Hitler ordered his SS chief to put the plan in motion and assigned to it the highest level of secrecy. The following day—Monday, March 27—Himmler addressed the matter with his second-in-command at the German Central Security Office,* Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner. He dictated the content of a secret Teletype, which was transmitted to Gestapo headquarters throughout the country later that same day:

  The frequent mass escapes of officer prisoners constitute a real danger to the security of the State. I am disappointed by the inefficient security measures in various prisoner of war camps. The Führer has ordered that as a deterrent, more than half of the escaped officers will be shot. The recaptured officers will be handed over to Department 4 [the Gestapo] for interrogation. After interrogation, the officers will be transferred to their original camps and will be shot on the way. The reason for the shooting will be given as “shot whilst trying to escape” or “shot whilst resisting” so that nothing can be proved at a future date. Prominent persons will be exempted. Their names will be reported to me and my decision will be awaited whether the same course of action will be taken.

  The order charged the Kripo with apprehending the Sagan fugitives and selecting who, upon recapture, would be handed over to the Gestapo. Kaltenbrunner delegated the logistics to his two immediate subordinates, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller and General Arthur Nebe, national head of the Kripo.

  The same day the Sagan order went out, Nebe summoned SS Obersturmbannführer Max Wielen, head of the Kripo in Breslau and the man who sounded the national alarm after the escape, to his Berlin office. Wielen arrived by car at eight-thirty that evening and was ushered in to see his superior. Nebe occupied a ground-floor office at Central Security headquarters. Damage to the building from Allied bombs had forced Nebe to move offices several times in the past year. While the artwork he hung on the walls changed from one office to another, the furnishings—chairs in red leather and a slightly battered settee—remained the same.

  “You look tired,” Nebe said, as Wielen entered and observed the familiar furniture. “I’ll order some sandwiches and coffee to buck you up.”

  Wielen, surprised to find his chief in a generous mood, took a seat. Nebe picked up a phone and requested the refreshments be brought to his office. When finished, he tapped a typewritten communiqué on his desk. Hitler, he explained, “was very angry” and had ordered more than half the Sagan fugitives be shot. He slid the official order across the desk and allowed Wielen a moment to review it. Nebe made it clear to his subordinate that nothing could be done against a Führer Order. Wielen understood the implication and listened without protest to his assignment. Because most of the escapees had already been captured in the Breslau area, the majority of shootings would take place in Wielen’s jurisdiction. Naturally concerned for his own skin, Wielen said he wanted no official responsibility in the killings. Nebe—who, according to Wielen, “looked extremely tired and was obviously suffering from very severe emotional strain”—said the Gestapo would be assuming full liability. Wielen’s task was to hand over any condemned prisoners in his custody to Dr. Wilhelm Scharpwinkel, Gestapo chief in Breslau, who would assemble the necessary execution squads.

  Wielen returned to Breslau on the night train and scheduled a meeting with Scharpwinkel early the next morning. The local Gestapo headquarters sat directly opposite the regional Kripo building. Wielen cared little for Scharpwinkel and the Gestapo in general—not out of any moral indigation, but for the Gestapo’s penchant to view the Criminal Police as an inferior organization. He kept the meeting brief and relayed the order from Berlin. Scharpwinkel seemed pleased with his new responsibility.

  “Yes,” he said. “I shall do this personally.”

  By Wednesday, March 29, five days after the breakout, thirty-five escapees languished behind bars, four to a cramped cell, in the town jail at Görlitz. Those who remained on the run hoped to make destinations in Czechoslovakia, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden. Luck, however, worked against them. They were seized at checkpoints, betrayed by informants, or simply thwarted by freezing temperatures. Before long, all but three of the Sagan fugitives were back in captivity. That same week, a stack of index cards from the Central Registry of Prisoners of War began appearing on Nebe’s desk. Each individual card contained the name, date of birth, rank, and other personal details of a Sagan escapee. He summoned his assistant, Hans Merten, a forty-two-year-old lawyer, to his office and pointed to the cards.

  “You have heard about the Führer Order?” Nebe asked. “Then you know what to do. Müller, Kaltenbrunner, and I are lunching together. I will take them a list of men to be shot when I see them at lunchtime.” Nebe shoveled some cards across the desk. “Have a look to see whether they have wives or children.”

  Merten did as instructed and returned the sorted cards to Nebe, who shuffled the deck and began flipping through them one by one, pausing momentarily to read the short biographical sketch of each man.

  “He is so young,” Nebe muttered, staring at one card. “No!”

  He placed the card upside down on his desktop and picked up another.

  “He is for it!” he said, slapping the card down.

  This process continued for some time, until Nebe had two separate piles of cards on his desk, one larger than the other. He stared momentarily at both stacks, swapped one card for another, and at last seemed satisfied with his work. He handed the larger stack to Merten.

  “Now, quickly,” he ordered, “the list!”

  Merten took the cards to Nebe’s secretary and read her the list of names. He deliberately misstated the location where some prisoners were being held, in the vain hope that orders of execution would be misdirected. The “mistake,” however, was noticed before the orders were sent down the wire. Nebe promptly dismissed Merten and sent him off to teach criminology at a school in Fürstenberg. It was, all things considered, a merciful decision—but Nebe’s magnanimity did not extend beyond his office. He had a list of fifty names and an order to obey.

  The killings began on Wednesday, March 29.

  *Otherwise known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).

  ONE

  “THOSE ARE MY ORDERS”

  “I have to acquaint you with a top secret matter.”

  Kiel Gestapo chief Friedrich (Fritz) Schmidt sat behind his desk with a single sheet of paper in front of him. It was Wednesday, March 29.

  “It is an order from the Führer. Four prisoners, who are with the Kripo at Flensburg, will be shot at a place determ
ined by me. They are enemy agents who were condemned to death and tried to escape to Denmark. You, Major Post, will go to Flensburg and interrogate the prisoners. It is not expected they will make any statement. You will leave Flensburg by car and shoot them at a pre-arranged spot. Oskar Schmidt will see that the cremation is carried out and all formalities complied with. For the firing, service pistols will be used. If, contrary to expectations, an escape should be made, service rifles will be used, as pistols will not be sufficient.”

  Thirty-eight-year-old Johannes Post was an ardent Nazi, fanatical in his loyalty to Hitler and intimidating to all who knew him. Although only five and a half feet tall, he boasted a solid physique—what some considered corpulent, and others thought imposing. His eyes—an arctic blue beneath a thick main of blond hair always brushed backward—rarely betrayed any emotion. Whatever moral convictions he possessed were solely defined by Nazi policy. He had, since the outbreak of the war and for the glory of the Reich, killed many he deemed inferior. Married with three young children, he spent little time with his family, preferring instead the company of his mistress.

  Next to Post stood forty-three-year-old Oskar Schmidt * and three other Gestapo officers. They received their instructions without protest, though some would later claim feeling ill at ease with their assignment. No such reservations burdened Post. He knew the condemned were British airmen, and he considered death by bullet too merciful. He listened attentively as Fritz Schmidt detailed what needed to be done. The shootings would take place in a meadow along a rural stretch of road about eight miles south of Kiel in the direction of Neumünster. The prisoners were to be escorted a good distance from the road so as to prevent any passing motorist from witnessing the murders. No official record of the slayings would be kept. Post was placed in charge of the overall operation.

  “Anyone not complying with this order will have to reckon with immediate sentence of death and punitive measures against his family,” Fritz Schmidt said. “The same applies to anyone talking about the matter with outsiders.”

  Schmidt walked around his desk and shook each man’s hand, binding him to secrecy. The meeting, having lasted no more than ten minutes, was over.

  At that moment, unaware of the dark machinations at work, Australian Squadron Leader James Catanach sat in a cell in the police prison in Flensburg. Freedom had seemed so close just three days prior. For two years he had sat in Stalag Luft III, having arrived there after being shot down over Norway. The twenty-two year old spoke fluent German and believed, the night of the escape, that he harbored a fair chance of ultimately making it to neutral Sweden. Before the breakout, he partnered with pilot officer Arnold Christensen of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. In the hours following the escape, the two men managed to make their way to the Sagan railway station and catch the 3:15 A.M. express to Berlin.

  On the same train, also hoping to make Sweden, were fellow escapees Hallada Espelid and Nils Fuglesang, Norwegians with the Royal Air Force. They reached the capital shortly before 7:30 A.M., their journey having passed without incident. In the gray light of that cold winter morning, the men were perhaps satisfied to witness at ground level the devastation wrought by Allied bombers. The city was one of shattered architecture and gaunt, hollow expressions. They spent the night in Berlin, avoiding detection, and purchased train tickets the next day—March 26—to Flensburg on the Danish border. It was here, in this ancient city on the Baltic coast, that their bid for freedom came to an end. Catanach and Christensen were taken into police custody while walking along the Holm, a pedestrian thoroughfare in an area of the city that had thus far escaped bombardment. The two arresting officers were specifically on duty that night as a result of the Sagan breakout. In another part of town, Espelid and Fuglesang were apprehended at a police checkpoint on the Marienhölzungsweg. What aroused police suspicions and led to the arrests has been lost to history, the records having been destroyed by Allied bombs.

  Once in custody, the men were taken to the local Kripo headquarters and briefly interrogated. Confessing to being officers of the Royal Air Force and fugitives from Stalag Luft III, they refused to surrender details regarding the escape’s planning and execution. They gave only their names and ranks, military identification numbers, and the route they had traveled while on the run. Their information was noted and forwarded to the Central Security Office in Berlin, where it followed a bureaucratic paper trail to Kaltenbrunner’s desk. From Kripo headquarters, the men were transferred to the city’s police prison and put in a cell. Three days had now passed since their recapture; three days with no official word on what fate awaited them. They assumed the Germans would return them to a prison camp, as was normal protocol. The question was, were they destined once again for Sagan or a different compound altogether? On that Wednesday afternoon, an answer seemed close at hand.

  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 airma
n’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.