Cohen had ordered two very large medics to immediately subject them to a search of their body orifices for hidden potassium cyanide capsules. Others searched their clothing for same.
After Himmler had escaped the Tribunal by biting on such a capsule, great care had been taken to make sure no other high-level Nazi escaped his fair trial and subsequent hanging by taking his own life.
The pained look on the faces of Burgdorf and von Dietelburg suggested that the medics who had conducted the search had erred on the side of thoroughness rather than personal comfort.
When they had their clothing back on, one of the sergeants produced a coil of quarter-inch rope and tied them up.
“What now, General White?” Cohen said.
“First, get on the radio and tell Captain Super Spook that he got his men. Then we’re all going to Nuremberg to see how Mr. Justice Jackson wants to handle this.”
[SIX]
Office of the Chief U.S. Prosecutor
Palace of Justice
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1400 29 April 1946
The convoy of twenty-one M8 armored cars and one Horch touring sedan aroused considerable interest as it entered the Tribunal Compound and then when it stopped at Mr. Justice Jackson’s building, blocking all traffic in the area.
Jackson came out of the building, and White said, “Take a look in cars four and five, sir.”
Jackson did, and then said, “I feel like Nero welcoming one of my legions home from suppressing the Huns. If I had any, I would drape you in garlands.”
“What do I do with the bastards, sir?” White asked.
“Put them in their cells. Personally put them in their cells, and then come to the office and we’ll spread the good news.”
* * *
—
“Mr. Justice, this is Fulda,” the SIGABA operator said. “We have the President for you, sir. On a secure line. The conversation will be recorded by a White House stenographer. We have been unable to locate Admiral Souers, but we’re working on it.”
“Put us through, please,” Jackson said.
“Hello, Bob,” the President of the United States said. “Sid and I were just talking about you. How’s things going?”
“Sid’s with you? Someone should tell the ASA. They said they couldn’t find him. Anchors aweigh, Admiral.”
“You better have some good news for us,” Souers said. “Things have gone from bad to worse around here.”
“Before we get into that,” Truman said, “who’s there with you, Bob?”
“General White, Super Spook, Colonel Cohen, Ken Brewster, my clerk. And Miss Janice Johansen of the Associated Press.”
“What’s she doing there? . . . No offense, Miss Johansen.”
“Well, we’ve decided on the best way to handle this, but I wanted to check with you first.”
“Handle what, for God’s sake?”
“A couple of minutes ago, General White put von Dietelburg and Burgdorf back in their cells. Personally put them there. I thought I mentioned that.”
“No, Bob, you didn’t. And you damn well know you didn’t!”
“We thought you might be interested.”
“Tell me about it. Every damn detail.”
“Well, Father McKenna and Super Spook got to Heimstadter, one of the second level—”
“Who is Father McKenna?” the President interrupted.
“A Jesuit priest who works out of the Vatican. They—Cardinal von Hassburger—sent him to evaluate the power of Himmler’s new religion. He’s now a convert . . . on our side.”
“And this Jesuit priest did what?”
“He and Super Spook got Heimstadter to tell them of a house a couple of miles away that the Germans built at the time they were working on Castle Wewelsburg. And suggested that if von Dietelburg and Burgdorf weren’t there, the people there would probably know where they were. Cutting to the chase, White and Super Spook went there and bagged both of them.”
“Congratulations all around. I really mean that.”
“And they discovered the decomposed corpses of about two hundred people in a tunnel under the castle.”
“My God!”
“It took the engineers a day, using industrial fans, to get the smell down enough so that people—wearing gas masks—could look around the tunnels. When they did get a look, they discovered the castle has been wired—wired very well—for demolition. The engineers are seeing what they can do about that threat.”
Truman was silent, then said, “What do you want from me, Bob? What can I do for you?”
“Well, this is a pretty big story. Von Dietelburg and Burgdorf back in their cells after being captured near another mass murder of some two hundred innocent people. So, with your permission, we’ll tell the whole story. Janice is willing to go along, and she has pictures of everything—everything but the bodies, which we have taken for proof. And she’ll have it done in a matter of hours. The story could appear on the front page of every newspaper in America. Hell, around the world.”
“Which I think is a lousy idea,” Cronley blurted out.
“What?” the President and Justice Jackson said on top of each other.
General White said, “Button your lip, Cronley!”
“Well, I’m obviously outnumbered, but I had to say it and I’m glad I did.”
“And keep it buttoned,” General White said.
“I think we should hear what Super Spook has to say,” Truman said.
“Jim,” Justice Jackson said, “if you think what we’ve come up with is a lousy idea, why didn’t you say something before?”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“Because, Bob,” the President said after a brief pause, “you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, and I.D. here is a two-star—about to be three-star—general. He would have been wasting his time.”
“And he’s not now wasting his time, Harry? And ours, too?”
“We won’t know that, will we, Bob, until I hear what he doesn’t like about your idea? Okay, Super Spook, you have the floor.”
“Sir, if we make a big show about recapturing von Dietelburg and Burgdorf, instead of impressing the Krauts—”
“Presumably, you’re referring to the German citizenry, Super Spook?”
“Yes, sir.
“Then don’t call them Krauts. We’re trying to convert them to our way of thinking, not rub defeat in their faces.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry. My point is, what the German citizenry is going to think a little proudly is, well, it took them a long time, didn’t it, even with the entire U.S. Constabulary looking for them.”
“Point taken,” Truman said. “I.D., Super Spook has enormous balls, but I can’t imagine him suggesting to you that the reason we didn’t catch these bastards earlier was because your beloved Constabulary wasn’t up to the challenge?”
White’s face lost all color. Despite his anger, he didn’t reply.
“Anything else, Super Spook?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir. We know Odessa is still out there. If the German citizenry is pissed that their guys are back in the bag, and there’s any way Odessa can do it, it might occur to them to blow up Castle Wewelsburg. We know it’s wired for demolition, and that’d let them give us the finger.”
“And how would you handle the press?” the President challenged.
Cronley told him.
Truman fell silent.
“Bob, General,” Truman then said. “We do this Super Spook’s way. If I have to say this—and I guess I do—that’s an order, not a suggestion.”
XVI
[ONE]
Kreis Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0810 30 April 1946
The perimeter of the farmhouse had been secured overnight using a half
dozen M8 light armored cars, on the turret of each a Constabulary trooper manning the .50 caliber Browning heavy machine gun. Another ten troopers, each with a Thompson submachine gun in their arms and a holstered Colt .45 ACP pistol on their hip, stood guard.
Inside the perimeter, near a crumbled exterior wall of the bombed house, was one of the jeep wreckers that had been at the castle. Behind it, on the ground but still tethered to the hook of the winch cable, was a gasoline-powered electrical generator. Electrical extension cords snaked into the house.
In the kitchen, Cronley and Serov stood on opposite sides of the hole in the floor. The extension cords ran down, providing power for the lights that now illuminated the complex of rooms below. The generator, requested at midnight, had been on-site only a little more than an hour.
Major Donald Lomax, of the 14th Engineers, appeared in the opening and looked up at Cronley and Serov.
“Anything in . . . What did you call it, Major?” Cronley said.
“Oh, yeah. Finally. In what looks like a map room or command post that’s another level below the bunk rooms. They’re dragging them this way now.”
“Them?” Cronley said, then turned his head at the sound of the arrival of a vehicle, its gears grinding and brakes squealing.
He looked out a hole in the wall that once held a window and saw a jeep with Father Francis X. McKenna, S.J., at the wheel.
“Let Father McKenna pass,” Cronley called out to the trooper standing outside the window.
A minute later, the priest entered the kitchen. He had a newspaper rolled up and tucked under his arm.
“I didn’t know that Holy Mother Church taught her priests to drive,” Cronley said by way of greeting. “Judging by your shifts, apparently not too well.”
“I learned in Boston, out of necessity.”
“How so?”
“If you get in the backseat and there’s no driver, you don’t get very far.”
Cronley snorted.
“They said at the castle you were here,” McKenna said, handing Cronley the newspaper. “Today’s Stars and Stripes.”
Cronley unrolled it and saw on the front page a three-column photograph above the fold. It showed Major General I. D. White shaking hands with First Lieutenant John H. Freeman III in front of an M8 armored car. Below it was the news report.
ESCAPED NAZIS SURRENDER
Former Top Deputies to Hitler and Himmler, Exhausted and Starved,
Returned to Nuremburg Tribunal Prison
By Janice Johansen
Associated Press Foreign Correspondent
Munich, April 29—
Former SS-Generalmajor Wilhelm Burgdorf and former SS-Brigadeführer Franz von Dietelburg were today, almost three weeks to the day since their escape on April 5th, put back behind prison bars at the Allied War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremburg.
As members of the Nazi General Staff and High Command, Burgdorf, a close confidant to Adolf Hitler, and von Dietelburg, chief deputy to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, have been charged with four counts that include war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are being prosecuted, along with more than two dozen other senior military officers, by the International Military Tribunal in court sessions that began in November 1945.
The pair’s short time on the run ended after they crossed paths with U.S. Constabulary First Lieutenant John H. Freeman III. The twenty-two-year-old was commanding a regular patrol of four M8 armored cars near Paderborn when he saw half a dozen men in civilian clothing staggering across a rural road.
“They appeared to be German citizens,” Lieutenant Freeman said, “and we stopped to check on their welfare. As we performed a routine review of their Kennkarten, the hairs on my neck stood up. Something seemed suspicious.”
Two of the identity documents, he said, appeared to be false. And he detected modifications to several of the others.
“All six men looked to be in ill health,” the lieutenant said. “But Burgdorf and von Dietelburg were by far the worst. They clearly were malnourished, with unkempt hair and beards, and filthy clothes. And their mental state was unstable. When I started asking more and more questions, they broke down emotionally. They complained that no one in the area would help them. Desperate is what they were, even quick to offer information on hidden valuables in exchange for food.”
Freeman said, judging by their condition, that he doubted that they had any valuables. “The probability factor of that was zero to zilch.”
But that, he said, didn’t matter—it was his duty to take them into custody.
Freeman transported the Germans to Castle Wewelsburg, near Paderborn, which he knew had a small Counterintelligence Corps detachment. With the U.S. Constabulary NCO Academy about to open in the castle, the CIC was on-site screening the many German citizens applying for work.
Constabulary Commanding General I. D. White happened to be at the castle inspecting the school’s progress. When he saw the M8 armored cars roll into the courtyard, he went to investigate.
Freeman explained, and then General White ordered that the six men, under armed guard, be given food and drink while the CIC checked their Kennkarten.
General White continued questioning Freeman, during which it came out that both are graduates of Norwich University, the nation’s oldest private military academy.
The CIC quickly confirmed Freeman’s suspicions. The documents were false. And all six Germans were on at least one list of Nazis wanted by both American and German authorities.
Freeman said Burgdorf and von Dietelburg, after admitting that they were the Tribunal Prison escapees, appeared resigned.
“‘It is time we put this all in the past,’” Freeman quoted Burgdorf as saying before transporting them back to Nuremburg.
“I expect no less of a Norwich man,” General White joked, quickly adding that he was recommending Freeman for the Army Commendation Medal. “The lieutenant performed an invaluable service for the International Military Tribunal and its mission to provide those accused of heinous crimes against humanity with a fair trial to clear their names, if so able.”
“Nice work of fiction,” Cronley said, handing the paper back to McKenna. “Lord knows Janice is going to want something in return. But let’s hope this helps.”
“Prayer always helps,” McKenna said, then gestured toward the opening in the kitchen floor. “Finding anything?”
“Only that I’m taking this more and more personally, Father,” Serov said. “Forgive me for not wishing you a good morning.”
“Under the circumstances, Ivan, understood. But why personal?”
“As I’ve said, I devoutly believe it’s God’s mission for me to do everything in my power to stop this heretical religion. It is a main reason that I am now back in my beloved infantry—specifically, serving as adviser to Lieutenant General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko, the Soviet chief prosecutor to the Tribunal.”
“Yes. But personal?”
“Over there,” Serov said, gesturing in the direction of the castle, “about five kilometers distant, was the labor camp that Himmler named Niederhagen Konzentrationslager. The smallest of all the concentration camps, it held at its height four years ago some twelve hundred prisoners, mostly Soviet prisoners of war. Also imprisoned there were a great many Jehovah’s Witness members.
“They shut down Niederhagen KZ in 1943 after more than a thousand died of typhus. We learned through sources that most survivors were transferred to Buchenwald, though an unknown number were imprisoned at Wewelsburg . . .”
“The slave laborers whose bodies we found,” Cronley said, making it a question.
“Absolutely, James. Has to be. The state of decomposition is proof their deaths were too recent to be part of the slaves lost to typhus. It is entirely possible, of course, that they could be counted among those summarily executed.”
“T
he monthly Korherr Reports of the SS would show that,” Cronley said.
“Perhaps. One would think so, considering the detailed recordkeeping of the SS, although Heinrich Himmler and his SS were unafraid of falsifying anything if necessary to cover their tracks.”
Serov looked from Cronley to McKenna.
“Father, if I’m repeating myself, please stop me. Reichsführer-SS Himmler was absolutely ruthless. He feared only one man, Burgdorf, mostly because Burgdorf was unequivocally devoted first to Hitler and, second, to National Socialism. After Claus von Stauffenberg and his conspirators tried, and failed, to assassinate Hitler with the bomb planted at Wolf’s Lair, Der Führer became even more paranoid about those around him. Especially Rommel and Canaris, but also other Wehrmacht and Navy officers, as well as Himmler, Göring, and others in the Nazi hierarchy.
“The exception was one General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf. Hitler trusted his personal adjutant mostly because Burgdorf faithfully eliminated threats to Der Führer. Ones real or perceived. He had, for example, at Hitler’s orders, gone to Irwin Rommel in Stuttgart and seen that the Generalfeldmarschall understood that Der Führer felt he should take a quiet death—a cyanide capsule—for his role in the Wolf’s Lair debacle.
“This all was not lost on Himmler, and certainly not on his adjutant, von Dietelburg. It’s believed that when Hitler sent Burgdorf to sniff around Wewelsburg Castle, von Dietelburg made it known to him that he, too, professed loyalty to Hitler first. Not to Himmler, who von Dietelburg told Burgdorf was planning on escaping Germany through Odessa if it became necessary.”
“And he wasn’t leaving penniless,” Cronley said. “They had more than four million dollars in those two briefcases yesterday, likely part of what Himmler held in his safe. And Lord knows how much else.”
There came noises from the hole at their feet—and then Lomax’s grunting.
A black canvas duffel devoid of any markings came up through the hole and hit the kitchen floor with a muffled thud.
Lomax said, “This is the first of four we found in the part that served as the command post or map room. They were positioned near its entry, stacked as if staged to be transported somewhere else. The other eight rooms all contained single beds and cots, along with washbasins and toilets.”
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 28