The Odessa File

by Forsyth, Frederick

  Within two years Klaus Winzer had been taught by his charges everything they knew, and that was enough to make him a forger extraordinary. Towards the end of 1944 the project in Block 19 was also being used to prepare forged identity cards for the SS officers to use after the collapse of Germany.

  In the early spring of 1945 the private little world, happy in its way when contrasted with the devastation then overtaking Germany, was brought to an end.

  The whole operation, commanded by a certain SS-Captain Bernhard Krueger, was ordered to leave Sachsenhausen and transfer itself into the remote mountains of Austria and continue the good work. They motored south and set up the forgery again in the deserted brewery of Redl-Zipf in Upper Austria. A few days before the end of the war a brokenhearted Klaus Winzer stood weeping on the edge of a lake as millions of pounds and billions of dollars in his beautiful forged currency were dumped in the lake.

  He went back to Wiesbaden and home. To his astonishment, having never lacked for a meal in the SS, he found the German civilians almost starving in that summer of 1945. The Americans now occupied Wiesbaden, and although they had plenty to eat, the Germans were nibbling at crusts. His father, by now a life-long anti-Nazi, had come down in the world. Where once his shop had been stocked with hams, a single string of sausages hung from the rows of gleaming hooks.

  Klaus’ mother explained to him that all food had to be bought on ration cards, issued by the Americans. In amazement Klaus looked at the ration cards, noted they were locally printed on fairly cheap paper, took a handful and retired to his room for a few days. When he emerged it was to hand over to his astonished mother sheets of American ration cards, enough to feed them all for six months.

  ‘But they’re forged,’ gasped his mother.

  Klaus explained patiently what by then he sincerely believed: they were not forged, just printed on a different machine. His father backed Klaus.

  ‘Are you saying, foolish woman, that our son’s ration cards are inferior to the Yankee ration cards?’

  The argument was unanswerable, the more so when they sat down to a four-course meal that night.

  A month later Klaus Winzer met Otto Klops, flashy, self-assured, the king of the black market at Wiesbaden, and they were in business. Winzer turned out endless quantities of ration cards, petrol coupons, zonal border passes, driving licences, US military passes, PX cards; Klops used them to buy food, petrol, truck tyres, nylon stockings, soap, cosmetics, and clothing, using a part of the booty to enable him and the Winzers to live well, selling the rest at black-market prices. Within thirty months, by the summer of 1948, Klaus Winzer was a rich man. In his bank account reposed five million Reichsmarks.

  To his horrified mother he explained his simple philosophy. ‘A document is not either genuine or forged, it is either efficient or inefficient. If a pass is supposed to get you past a checkpoint, and it gets you past the checkpoint, it is a good document.’

  In October 1948 came the second dirty trick played on Klaus Winzer. The authorities reformed the currency, substituting the new Deutsch-mark for the old Reichsmark. But instead of giving one for one, they simply abolished the Reichsmark and gave everyone the flat sum of 1000 new marks. He was ruined. Once again his fortune was mere useless paper.

  The populace, no longer needing the black marketeers as goods came on the open market, denounced Klops, and Winzer had to flee. Taking one of his own zonal passes, he drove to the headquarters of the British Zone at Hanover and applied for a job in the passport office of the British Military Government.

  His references from the US authorities at Wiesbaden, signed by a full colonel of the USAF, were excellent; they should be, he had written them himself. The British major who interviewed him for the job put down his cup of tea and told the applicant:

  ‘I do hope you realise the importance of people having proper documentation on them at all times.’

  With complete sincerity Winzer assured the major that he did indeed. Two months later came his lucky break. He was alone in a beer-hall, sipping a beer, when a man got into conversation with him. The man’s name was Herbert Molders. He confided to Winzer he was being sought by the British for war crimes and needed to get out of Germany. But only the British could supply passports to Germans, and he dared not apply. Winzer murmured that it might be arranged, but would cost money.

  To his amazement, Molders produced a genuine diamond necklace. He explained that he had been in a concentration camp, and one of the Jewish inmates had tried to buy his freedom with the family jewellery. Molders had taken the jewellery, ensured the Jew was in the first party to the gas chambers and against orders had kept the booty.

  A week later, armed with a photograph of Molders, Winzer prepared the passport. He did not even forge it. He did not need to.

  The system at the passport office was simple. In Section One, applicants turned up with all their documentation and filled out a form. Then they went away, leaving their documents for study. Section Two examined the birth certificates, ID cards, driving licences, etc., for possible forgery, checked the war criminals wanted list, and if the application was approved passed the documents, accompanied by a signed approval from head of department to Section Three. Section Three, on receipt of the note of approval from Section Two, took a blank passport from the safe where they were stored, filled it out, stuck in the applicant’s photograph and gave the passport to the applicant who presented himself a week later.

  Winzer got himself transferred to Section Three. Quite simply, he filled out an application form for Molders in a new name, then wrote out an ‘Application Approved’ slip from the head of Section Two and forged that British officer’s signature.

  He walked through into Section Two and picked up the nineteen application forms and approval slips waiting for collection, slipped the Molders application form and approval slip among them and took the sheaf to Major Johnstone. Johnstone checked that there were twenty approval slips, went to his safe, took out twenty blank passports and handed them to Winzer. Winzer duly filled them out, gave them the official stamp and handed nineteen to the waiting nineteen happy applicants. The twentieth went into his pocket. Into the filing-cabinet went twenty application forms to match the twenty issued passports.

  That evening he handed Molders his new passport and took the diamond necklace. He had found his new métier.

  In May 1949 West Germany was founded, and the passport office was handed over to the State Government of Lower Saxony, capital city Hanover. Winzer stayed on. He did not have any more clients. He did not need them. Each week, armed with a full-face portrait of some nonentity bought from a studio photographer, Winzer carefully filled out a passport application form, attached the photograph to the form, forged an approval slip with the signature of the head of Section Two (by now a German) and went to see the head of Section Three with a sheaf of application forms and approval slips. So long as the numbers tallied, he got a bunch of blank passports in return. All but one went to the genuine applicants. The last blank passport went into his pocket. Apart from that all he needed was the official stamp. To steal it would have been suspicious. He took it for one night, and by morning had a casting of the stamp of the Passport Office of the State Government of Lower Saxony.

  In sixty weeks he had sixty blank passports. He resigned his job, blushingly acknowledged the praise of his superiors for his careful, meticulous work as a clerk in their employ, left Hanover, sold the diamond necklace in Antwerp and started a nice little printing business in Osnabrück, at a time when gold and dollars could buy anything well below market price.

  He would never have got involved with the Odessa if Molders had kept his mouth shut. But once arrived in Madrid and among friends, Molders boasted of his contact who could provide genuine West German passports in a false name to anyone who asked.

  In late 1950 a ‘friend’ came to see Winzer, who had just started work as a printer in Osnabrück. There was nothing Winzer could do but agree. From then on, whenever an Odessa ma
n was in trouble, Winzer supplied the new passport.

  The system was perfectly safe. All Winzer needed was a photograph of the man and his age. He had kept a copy of the personal details written into each of the application forms by then reposing in the archive in Hanover. He would take a blank passport, and fill in the personal details already written on one of those application forms from 1949. The name was usually a common one, the place of birth usually by then far behind the Iron Curtain where no one could check, the date of birth would almost correspond to the real age of the SS applicant, and then he would stamp it with the stamp of Lower Saxony. The recipient would sign his new passport in his own handwriting with his new name when he received it.

  Renewals were easy. After five years the wanted SS man would simply apply for renewal at the state capital of any state other than Lower Saxony. The clerk in Bavaria, for example, would check with Hanover: ‘Did you issue a passport Number So-and-So in 1950 to one Walter Schumann, place of birth such and date of birth such?’ In Hanover another clerk would check the records in the files and reply, ‘Yes.’ The Bavarian clerk, reassured by his Hanoverian colleague that the original passport was genuine, would issue a new one, stamped by Bavaria.

  So long as the face on the application form in Hanover was not compared with the face in the passport presented in Munich there could be no problem. But comparison of faces never took place. Clerks rely on forms correctly filled in, correctly approved and passport numbers, not faces.

  Only after 1955, more than five years from the original issuing of the Hanover passport, would immediate renewal be necessary by the holder of a Winzer passport. Once the passport was obtained, the wanted SS man could acquire a fresh driving licence, social security card, bank account, credit card, in short an entire new identity.

  By the spring of 1964 Winzer had supplied forty-two passports out of his stock of sixty originals.

  But the cunning little man had taken one precaution. It occurred to him that one day the Odessa might wish to dispose of his services, and of him. So he kept a record. He never knew the real names of his clients; to make out a false passport in a new name it was not necessary. The point was immaterial. He took a copy of every photograph sent to him, pasted the original in the passport he was sending back and kept the copy. Each photograph was pasted on to a sheet of cartridge paper. Beside it was typed the new name, the address (addresses are required on German passports) and the new passport number.

  These sheets were kept in a file. The file was his life insurance. There was one in his house, and a copy with a lawyer in Zürich. If he were ever threatened for his life by the Odessa, he would tell them about the file, and warn them that if anything happened to him the lawyer in Zürich would send the copy to the German authorities.

  The West Germans, armed with a photograph, would soon compare it with their ‘Rogues Gallery’ of wanted Nazis. The passport number alone, checked quickly with each of the sixteen state capitals, would reveal the domicile of the holder. Exposure would take no more than a week. It was a fool-proof scheme to ensure Klaus Winzer stayed alive and in good health.

  This then was the man who sat quietly munching his toast and jam, sipping his coffee and glancing through the front page of the Osnabrück Zeitung over breakfast at half past eight that Friday morning when the phone rang. The voice at the other end was first peremptory, then reassuring.

  ‘There is no question of your being in any trouble with us at all,’ the Werwolf assured him. ‘It’s just this damn reporter. We have a tip that he’s coming to see you. It’s perfectly all right. We have one of our men coming up behind him and the whole affair will be taken care of within the day. But you must get out of there within ten minutes. Now here’s what I want you to do …’

  Thirty minutes later a very flustered Klaus Winzer had a small bag packed, cast an undecided glance in the direction of the safe where the file was kept, came to the conclusion he would not need it and explained to a startled housemaid, Barbara, that he would not be going to the printing works that morning. On the contrary, he had decided to take a brief holiday in the Austrian Alps. A breath of fresh air, nothing like it to tone up the system.

  Barbara stood on the doorstep open-mouthed as Winzer’s Kadett shot backwards down the drive, swung out into the residential road in front of his house and drove off. Ten minutes after nine o’clock he had reached the clover-leaf four miles west of the town where the road climbed up to join the autobahn. As the Kadett shot up the incline to the motorway on one side a black Jaguar was coming down the other side heading into Osnabrück.

  Miller found a filling-station at the Saar Platz at the western entrance to the town. He pulled up by the pumps and climbed wearily out. His muscles ached and his neck felt as if it were locked solid. The wine he had drunk the evening before gave his mouth a taste like parrot-droppings.

  ‘Fill her up. Super,’ he told the attendant. ‘Have you got a pay phone?’

  ‘In the corner,’ said the boy.

  On the way over Miller noticed a coffee automat and took a steaming cup into the phone booth with him. He flicked through the phone book for Osnabrück town. There were several Winzers, but only one Klaus. The name was repeated twice. Against the first entry was the word ‘Printer’ and a number. The second Klaus Winzer had the abbreviation ‘res.’ for residence against it. It was 9.20. Working hours. He rang the printing works.

  The man who answered was evidently the foreman.

  ‘I’m sorry, he’s not in yet,’ said the voice. ‘Usually he’s here at nine sharp. He’ll no doubt be along directly. Call back in half an hour.’

  Miller thanked him and considered dialling the house. Better not. If he was at home, Miller wanted him personally. He noted the address and left the booth.

  ‘Where’s Westerberg?’ he asked the pump attendant as he paid for the petrol, noting that he had only 50 marks left of his savings. The boy nodded across to the north side of the road.

  ‘That’s it. The posh suburb. Where all the well-off blokes live.’

  Miller bought a town plan as well and traced the street he wanted. It was barely ten minutes away.

  The house was obviously prosperous, and the whole area spoke of well-to-do professional people living in comfortable surroundings. He left the Jaguar at the end of the drive and walked to the front door.

  The maid who answered it was in her late teens and very pretty. She smiled brightly at him.

  ‘Good morning. I’ve come to see Herr Winzer,’ he told her.

  ‘Oooh, he’s left, sir. You just missed him by about twenty minutes.’

  Miller recovered. Doubtless Winzer was on his way to the printing works and had been held up.

  ‘Oh, what a pity. I’d hoped to catch him before he went to work,’ he said.

  ‘He hasn’t gone to work, sir. Not this morning. He’s gone off on holiday,’ replied the girl helpfully.

  Miller fought down a rising feeling of panic.

  ‘Holiday? That’s odd at this time of year. Besides,’ he invented quickly, ‘we had an appointment this morning. He asked me to come here specially.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said the girl evidently distressed. ‘And he went off so sudden. He got this phone call in the library, then upstairs he goes. Tells me, “Barbara” – that’s my name, see? – “Barbara, I’m off on holiday in Austria. Just for a week,” he says. Well, I’d never heard of him planning no holiday. Tells me to ring the works and say he’s not coming in for a week, then off he goes. Not like Herr Winzer at all. Such a quiet gentleman.’

  Inside Miller the hope began to die.

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Nothing. Just said he was going to the Austrian Alps.’

  ‘No forwarding address? No way of getting in touch with him?’

  ‘No, that’s what’s so strange. I mean, what about the printing works? I just rang them before you came. Very surprised they were, with all those orders to be completed.’

&nbs
p; Miller calculated fast. Winzer had a half-hour start on him. Driving at 80 mph he would have covered forty miles. Miller could keep up a hundred, overtaking at twenty miles an hour. That would mean two hours before he saw the tail of Winzer’s car. Too long. He could be anywhere in two hours. Besides, there was no proof he was heading south to Austria.

  ‘Then could I speak to Frau Winzer please?’ he asked.

  Barbara giggled and looked at him archly.

  ‘There ain’t no Frau Winzer,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know Herr Winzer at all?’

  ‘No. I never met him.’

  ‘Well, he’s not the marrying kind, really. I mean very nice, but not really interested in women, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So he lives here alone, then?’

  ‘Well, except for me. I mean, I live in. Mind you, it’s quite safe. From that point of view.’ She giggled.

  ‘I see. Thank you,’ said Miller, and turned to go.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said the girl, and watched him go down the drive and climb into the Jaguar, which had already caught her attention. What with Herr Winzer being away, she wondered if she might be able to ask a nice young man home for the night before her employer got back. She watched the Jaguar drive away with a roar of exhaust, sighed for what might have been and closed the door.

  Miller felt the weariness creeping over him, accentuated by the last and, so far as he was concerned, final disappointment. He surmised Bayer had wriggled free from his bonds and used the hotel telephone in Stuttgart to ring Winzer and warn him. He had got so close, fifteen minutes from his target, and almost made it. Now he felt only the need for sleep.

  He drove past the medieval wall of the old city, followed the map to the Theodor Heuss Platz, parked the Jaguar in front of the station and checked into the Hohenzollern Hotel across the square.

  He was lucky, they had a room available at once, so he went upstairs, undressed and lay on the bed. There was something nagging in the back of his mind, some point he had not covered, some tiny detail of inquiry he had left unasked. It was still unsolved when he fell asleep at half past ten.