Storming the Eagle's Nest

by Jim Ring

  OVRA raids, 1;

  popularity of resistance, 1, 2;

  screening for camps, 1;

  tricolour raised, 1, 2;

  USAAF airdrop, 1

  Versailles, Treaty of, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Vichy regime: collapse of, 1, 2; in demilitarized zone, 1;

  L’armée d’armistice, 1;

  Laval’s aims, 1;

  Milice, 1, 2, 3;

  Operation Torch unopposed, 1;

  as Roosevelt’s preferred partner, 1;

  Service d’ordre légionnaire, 1;

  Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO), 1, 2, 3;

  treatment of Jews, 1, 2, 3;

  see also Operation Anton

  Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, 1, 2

  Vienna: anti-Nazi protest, 1, 2; cobbles from Mauthausen, 1;

  fifth columnists in, 1;

  Hitler’s speech, 1;

  O5 cell, 1;

  Red Army takes, 1;

  Red Army’s behaviour in, 1;

  treatment of Jews, 1

  Vietinghoff, Generaloberst Heinrich von, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Villa Chiosi (Lake Geneva), 1

  Vitznau Artillery (Rigi), 1, 2

  Vosges mountains, 1

  V-2 rocket: and Allied intelligence, 1, 2, 3; attacks on London, 1, 2;

  Kolbe’s revelations, 1, 2;

  need for subterranean production, 1;

  operational deployment, 1;

  production at Ebensee and Mittelbau-Dora, 1, 2;

  RAF bombs Peenemünde, 1, 2;

  team moves to Oberammergau, 1;

  test flights, 1

  Waffen-SS: Marzabotto massacre, 1; Mussolini rescue, 1;

  Obersalzberg guards, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  Wolff–Dulles peace deal, 1

  formations: V SS Mountain Corps, 1; 1st SS Panzer Division, 1, 2, 3

  Wagner, Richard 1

  Wahlen, Friedrich, 1, 2

  Waibel, Colonel Max, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Warner, Sir George, 1, 2, 3

  Warsaw, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Washington, DC, 1, 2

  Watzmann, 1, 2

  Wauwilermoos punishment camp (Lucerne), 1, 2, 3

  Weber, Ernst, 1

  Webster, David, 1, 2

  Weinberg, Gerhard, 1

  Weiss, SS-Sturmbannführer Martin Gottfried, 1

  Weizmann, Chaim, 1

  Wengen, 1, 2, 3

  Wenner, SS-Sturmbannführer, 1, 2

  West, Group Captain Freddie, 1, 2

  Weygand, General Maxime, 1

  White Rose movement, 1

  Whymper, Edward, 1, 2

  Wiener-Neustadt, 1, 2, 3

  Wiessee, 1

  Wietersheim, Generalleutnant Wend von, 1

  Wil, 1

  Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Germany and Prussia, 1

  Williams, Cicely, 1, 2

  Wilson, Sir Horace, 1

  Windsor, Duke of, 1, 2

  Winsor, Marguerite, 1

  Winterthur, 1

  Winterton, Lord, 1

  Wolff, SS-Obergruppenführer Karl, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  Wordsworth, William, 1

  Yalta Conference, 1

  Young, Desmond, 1

  Yugoslav partisans: agree withdrawal from Carinthia and Trieste, 1; Allied POWs aim to join, 1;

  Allied support post-Tehran, 1;

  combatant numbers, 1, 2, 3;

  Maclean’s mission, 1;

  Peter II’s support for, 1;

  plan to seize Austrian provinces, 1;

  survive German campaigns, 1, 2;

  Tito appointed leader, 1;

  as Yugoslav Army of National Liberation (JANL), 1

  Yugoslavia: anti-Semitic policies in, 1; as communist republic, 1;

  creation of, 1;

  factional fighting, 1;

  Fall Schwarz, 1, 2, 3;

  German invasion, 1, 2;

  German operations against, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  non-aggression pact with Germany, 1, 2;

  Peter II crowned and deposed, 1, 2;

  SOE assessment of Chetniks and partisans, 1;

  Treaty of Vis, 1

  Zachariae, George, 1

  Zahedi, General Fazlollah, 1

  Zeitzler, Generaloberst Kurt, 1

  Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung, 1

  Zermatt: Allied POWs cross to, 1; blackout in, 1;

  border troops, 1;

  and declaration of war, 1, 2;

  as holiday resort, 1, 2;

  Whymper anniversary, 1

  Zhukov, Marshal Georgy, 1

  Zimmer, SS-Obersturmführer Guido, 1, 2

  Zurich: Abwehr in, 1; British Council leaves, 1;

  Churchill speech at university, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  fascist groups in, 1;

  impossibility of defending, 1, 2;

  MI6 station penetrated, 1;

  Vanden Heuvel in, 1

  Zurich, Lake, 1

  INSPIRATION: Hitler was enchanted by the Alps, settled in Bavaria in 1928, conceived and directed much of the war from the Berghof, his headquarters at Berchtesgaden. Here he is pictured in contemplative mood enjoying Bergfried, the ‘peace of the mountains’.

  SKIING AND THE SWASTIKA: the Nazis began the politicisation of mountain sports no sooner had they come to power. In February 1936, Christl Cranz put herself in the Führer’s good books by winning gold in the winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

  THE HEIGHT OF POWER: the political set pieces that led to the outbreak of war in 1939 were frequently staged by Hitler at the Berghof. British PM Neville Chamberlain, champion of appeasement, arrives in Berchtesgaden for a summit on 15 September 1938.

  BRIEF ENCOUNTER: the Alps were the most convenient trysting-place for Hitler and Mussolini. Here the dictators duet at Kufstein in the Austrian Tyrol, en route to the pivotal meeting with Chamberlain and Daladier at Munich on 29 September 1938.

  PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS: the unique demands of high-altitude warfare saw resorts like Chamonix and Zermatt turned into military training camps; others, in Switzerland – Wengen, Adelboden and Davos – were transformed into internment camps for downed Allied airmen; still others – Megève and St Gervais – became havens for Jewish refugees.

  SWITZERLAND’S CHURCHILL: while Swiss politicians wavered in the face of the Nazi threat to their country, General Henri Guisan stood so firm that his countrymen likened him to the British leader. In August 1940 he visited Davos on a morale-boosting tour of what would have been the front line, should the Wehrmacht have invaded.

  ON HITLER’S DOORSTEP: despite Swiss neutrality, Hitler and Mussolini both made plans to invade continental Europe’s oasis of democracy. The Swiss response was to create an Alpine redoubt in the southern sector of the country, and to maintain troops on the borders at the highest state of alert throughout the war.

  AMERICA’S MAN IN BERNE: Allen Dulles of the OSS vied with his British colleagues for the position of Europe’s chief Allied spymaster.

  WILHELM GUSTLOFF: leader of the Nazi party in Switzerland. He was assassinated in Davos on 4 February 1936 by a prescient Croatian Jew, David Frankfurter.

  ALAIN LE RAY was the first man to escape from the legendary POW camp at Colditz and became the most dashing of the leaders of the French resistance in the Rhône Alps.

  THE GOOD SHEPHERD: Matteus Guidon, the seven-year-old son of a pastor in Samedan in eastern Switzerland, was employed by his father to escort Jewish refugees fleeing to the safety of the country’s interior. He is seen in 1946 on the Fuorcla Pischa, over which he guided the persecuted.

  TWO OF THE JEWISH REFUGEES escorted by Matteus Guidon. One of them, Hilde (above left), lived to enjoy a career in the Israeli army; the other, Michelle, was shot dead by the Germans on the French border.

  CABLE-CAR TO DEATH: two of the Nazis’ most infamous concentration camps were under the knees of the Alps: Dachau in Munich and Mauthausen close to Vienna. Sub-camps included Ebensee, whose survivors are pictured on 7 May 1945, shortly after liberation.


  TO THE VICTORS, THE SPOILS: Göring’s art collection that he intended to rival the Louvre, found its way to the Alps and fell into Allied hands at the war’s end.

  MAY 1945: A column of American tanks screeches through the newly conquered Bavarian skiing resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

  GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: at the heart of Goebbels’s vaunted Alpine redoubt, the victors grandstand for the cameras in the ruins of the Berghof, destroyed by the RAF bombing raid of 25 April 1945.

  About the Author

  Jim Ring’s 1996 debut, Erskine Childers, won the Marsh Prize for biography. It was followed by How the English Made the Alps which was described as ‘fascinating’ by the Daily Telegraph and ‘evocative and entertaining’ by the Financial Times. His collective biography of Britain’s leading Cold War submariners, We Come Unseen, won the Mountbatten Prize and was called ‘a welcome acknowledgement of one of the Cold War’s little-known aspects’ by the Sunday Telegraph.

  By the Same Author

  Advertising on Trial

  Erskine Childers

  How the English Made the Alps

  We Come Unseen

  Riviera

  Copyright

  First published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Jim Ring, 2013

  The right of Jim Ring to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–28240–1