by Alex Gerlis
***
Three hours before the garage owner in Würzburg contacted the Gestapo office, a lady in Berlin rang her local police station and began in a similar manner.
‘It’s probably of little consequence and I was unsure whether to trouble you, but I thought I’d pass on this information in case you were interested.’
The officer who took the call at Dahlem police station was well used to this. These days he seemed to spend half his time taking calls from people eager to inform on neighbours, work colleagues, friends and even family. This one sounded little different and he took down the details. The lady, a Frau Werner, said she lived in Arno-Holz Strasse and although she was minding her own business and was certainly not the kind of person to spy on her neighbours she couldn’t help but notice something unusual the previous morning – yes, Tuesday.
‘There’s an elderly person who lives opposite me: a Frau Hermann. I hardly ever see her these days, she’s virtually housebound. She has a nurse, I understand, who also hardly ever leaves the house. But yesterday, it must have been around noon, I happened to notice a man leave the house and walk over to a car parked just across the road. He then parked immediately outside Frau Hermann’s house. Within two or three minutes, no more than that, I saw the man come out of the house along with Frau Hermann’s nurse and with them was a young girl. They all seemed to be rather nervous, looking around. I’ve never seen a child going in or out of that house before: never. How old do you say? Four or five, I’m not sure. They were in a hurry. Do I think they saw me? No: I don’t want you to think bad of me, sir, but I was kneeling down on the floor, peering through a gap in the net curtains… As it happens, sir, yes I did. Are you ready? It was an Opel – I’m not sure what model, but it was dark green and the registration number was… Do you have a pen ready? UTM 142.’
Up until a couple of weeks previously, the policeman would have annoyed by this call, as it would have meant hours of work just to satisfy the whim of a nosey neighbour. But recently the rules had changed. After one or two unfortunate incidents, the Gestapo had realised criminals and others they were interested in were finding it too easy to move around the Reich by car. As these people drove from one town or district to another, there was no proper system of keeping track of them. So the Gestapo brought in a new one: the details of any cars the Gestapo or other sections of the police were interested in would be passed on to a central control in Berlin.
Suits me fine: more work for them, less for me, thought the officer. He filled in the form and took it upstairs to the Gestapo liaison office in the station. Still, he thought, they will be pleased enough with this one.
It’s not often we get a registration number.
***
Chapter 25: the Black Forest, March 1941
Franz Hermann woke early on Wednesday morning, checked on his mother then walked around the house he had grown up in, preoccupied with thoughts that had played around in his head all night. He needed to move fast.
Once his mother was settled, he left the house through the back gate, from where it was a swift ten-minute walk to his own home. He explained his plans to his wife. Before leaving the house, he telephoned his sister then the office, telling them he would be slightly late as he needed to see a client on his way in.
He rarely used his car these days but the Daimler started at the third attempt and within two minutes he was back at his mother’s house, parked by the back gate he had departed through barely half an hour previously. He told his mother she would be coming to his house for a day or two, then his sister would collect her and she would go and stay with her in Brandenburg for a week or so. Hopefully after that the nurse would return and everything would be back to normal. His mother was confused but there was no time to argue.
Once she was settled at his house, he left for work, but not before stopping once again at his mother’s, where he spent an hour checking again there were no signs anyone had been there for at least a day or two.
He made a point of leaving the house though the front door and boldly walking over to the house opposite, from where the lady carefully observed all the comings and goings in the street. As he approached her door he noticed the net curtains in the front window twitch; a moment later the door opened, a split second before he had knocked.
‘Frau Werner, I thought I’d let you know in case anyone asks that there’ll be no-one at my mother’s house for a few days. In fact, she’s not been there since Sunday – she’s staying with my wife and me. Her nurse has had to return to Bremerhaven suddenly: a death, I’m afraid. Her husband was in the navy, he died in the cause of the Reich.’
The woman was very grateful to be told. She told Franz she had wondered about Frau Hermann because only the previous day she had seen the nurse leave the house with a man… and a young girl. They had been carrying a case and some other things they had put in the boot of a car parked outside the house then driven off.
‘Oh really?’ He was trying his best to sound confused rather than shocked. ‘Could you describe the man?’
With unerring accuracy she described Henri Hesse. Franz Hermann did his best to look none the wiser. ‘As I say, Frau Werner, my mother has been staying with us since Sunday. I’ve no idea about this man; it’s possible he was taking her to Bremerhaven.’
‘And what about the girl?’
‘As far as I’m aware no child has been in the house for a very long time. How old would you say she was?’
‘Perhaps four or five, hard to say. I didn’t get a perfect view, you understand. She was such a slight thing.’
‘And you’re certain they came from my mother’s house? Maybe they were just passers-by.’
She was certain. She just happened to be cleaning the windows at the time – by coincidence.
‘I don’t suppose you saw what car it was, by any chance?’
‘I do, Herr Hermann: it was an Opel, a dark-green one. And not only that: I even wrote down the registration number. But don’t worry; I’ve given all the details to the police.’
***
When they left Würzburg, Henry announced they would head south-west, into the Black Forest.
‘The Black Forest?’
‘Yes, Rosa, the Black Forest.’
‘You’re crazy! Do you still read fairy tales?’
Sophia started to cry in the back seat. She didn’t want to go into a forest. She was afraid of witches. Henry turned round and snapped at the little girl.
‘I told you! There’s no such thing as witches, or goblins. Or fairies, for that matter.’
Sophia’s crying became louder.
‘Don’t shout at her: she’s a little girl. She’s frightened and she’s not the only one.’
‘Trust me Rosa, the Black Forest stretches down to the Swiss border: it almost goes as far as Basle!’
‘I’m aware of that, but do you really think we can just stroll over the border? Maybe the SS or whoever’s guarding it will help carry our cases!’
‘Listen to me, Rosa: our Swiss papers are very good, far superior to the German ones. I’m using my own papers and I managed to get ones that show you’re my wife and she’s our daughter. They’re hidden in the boot. When we get near the border we can use them, but we’ll need to abandon the car first.’
They stuck to the side roads and, at 4.30, emerged from a long lane onto the main road at Heilbronn, before taking the road to Pforzheim and from there into the Black Forest.
***
Edgar and Remington-Barber arrived in Zürich on Wednesday afternoon and were met at the station by Rolf, who took them to another of their safe houses, an apartment above a bar on Predigerplatz. On the way up, he collected a bottle of whisky.
‘I think it’s a bit early for that,’ Edgar said once they were in the small apartment.
‘Not when you hear what I’m about to tell you,’ said the Austrian. ‘I went to see Hedinger this morning, he’d just heard from Reinhart. Apparently Henri did come to Reinhart’s office at the
Reichsbank yesterday morning to collect the documents. Last night Hugo called Reinhart to ask whether Henri had been to his office and they arranged to meet up today, which they did at lunchtime. It seems that rather than heading for Tempelhof, Henri headed for Hugo’s mother’s house in Dahlem.’
In the shocked silence that followed Remington-Barber looked confused, as if he had not heard properly what Rolf had said. Edgar had heard clearly enough and looked furious.
‘No!’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Hugo knows this because he was telephoning his mother’s house all Tuesday afternoon and when there was no reply he went round there after work. His mother was all alone; there was no sign of Rosa or her daughter. This morning he spoke to a neighbour who’d seen Rosa leave the house with a young girl and a man who seems to match Henry’s description. They drove off in a green Opel.’
Edgar leaned over to the whisky bottle and poured himself a measure that in other circumstances would be described as excessive. He drank most of it, repeating ‘Jesus Christ’ several times.
‘How on earth has he managed to get hold of a car?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Basil: the fool probably stole it. Carry on Rolf.’
‘Reinhart is in a terrible state, according to Hedinger. He thinks the Gestapo are about to knock on his door and, of course, Hugo is worried sick too – not least because when he was with Henry on Tuesday morning they bumped into a colleague of his who is not only an active Nazi but also claims he’d met Henry in Bern a year ago.’
Remington-Barber was watching Edgar very carefully, expecting him to explode at any moment, but he remained calm. Edgar drank the whisky remaining in his glass, removed his jacket, loosened his tie and walked over to the window. ‘Thank you Rolf. By the sounds of it, Henry decided that rather than return to Switzerland as instructed, he’d turn his return journey into some kind of rescue mission.’ Edgar was speaking very calmly, as if everything he said had a perfect logic to it.
‘But he’s carrying the Rostock Report, Edgar. It’s meant to be falling into the hands of our Soviet friends!’
Edgar turned from the window. ‘Thank you Basil, I’d realised that.’
***
By March 1941 few people in Germany would have been foolish enough to accuse the Gestapo of inefficiency. When the deputy head of the Gestapo in Würzburg was informed by the garage owner about the ‘odd’ dark-green Opel Super 6, he simply followed procedure. He sent a telex giving the details of the car to his regional headquarters, where in turn the duty officer followed procedure and passed on the details of the car to the new central control room in Berlin. Around three o’clock that Wednesday afternoon an officer at the control room in the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was reviewing the ‘alerts’ received since his lunch break. When he spotted that a dark-green Opel, registration number UTM 142, had been added to the watch list he thought there was something familiar about it, so he checked that morning’s alerts. Sure enough, the Gestapo liaison office at Dahlem police station had passed on details of the same car: a woman who lived in Arno-Holz Strasse had observed a man, woman and young girl leaving a neighbour’s house and getting into the car. They seemed, according to the neighbour, ‘nervous’.
The officer wrote up his notes: the car was seen in Berlin at noon on the Tuesday and just over 24 hours later it was in Würzburg. It would certainly be worth putting this one out for national alert: he should have been less sceptical about this new system, maybe it was working after all. And thank heavens for frightened business owners and nosey neighbours, what would the Gestapo do without them?
At four o’clock that Wednesday afternoon officer Reinhard Goetz left the police station in Pforzheim for a routine patrol, briefed – among other things – to keep an eye out for the dark-green Opel. ‘Berlin is interested and it was last seen in Würzburg,’ he had been told. ‘It was heading south – so you never know. It’s the Gestapo who’re interested, so keep your eyes peeled.’
The traffic policeman headed east on his BMW motorbike and after a while changed direction: south into the Black Forest. At five o’clock he decided he had earned his first cigarette break, so just before the small town of Tiefenbronn he pulled into a clearing in an area where the forest was starting to become dense. He would be able to enjoy his cigarette in peace. But as he turned into the clearing he noticed a car was already there. A dark-green Opel Super 6. He parked his motorbike so it blocked the path back to the road and walked over to check the registration number of the car.
Henry was on his own in the car when Goetz pulled into the clearing, Rosa having taken Sophia into the trees to go to the toilet. He watched as the officer parked his bike and headed towards the car. Henry glanced to his left, but there was no sign of Rosa and Sophia. Watching the policeman all the time, he leaned over to the glove box and removed the bundle of grey cloth from behind the log book. The policeman smiled at him from a distance and Henry smiled back as the policeman moved in a wide arc to the front of the car. Henry held the bundle below the steering wheel and slowly unwrapped it. By now, the officer was in front, peering down at the registration plate. He looked up at Henry and made a motion with his fingers to unwind the window.
Officer Goetz bent down by the window, his face inches from Henry’s.
‘Is this your car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where have you come from today?’
‘Frankfurt.’
‘And where are you going?’
‘We’re just out for a drive – to see the forest.’
‘We?’
‘My wife and daughter – they’ve gone to the toilet down there.’
‘Have you been in Berlin in the past day or so?’
‘Berlin? No, of course not!’
‘Or Würzburg today?’
Henry hesitated for too long. He had no idea how to respond. ‘Maybe… We stopped at a town for petrol. I don’t know what it was called.’
‘Right: get out of the car now, I want to check your papers.’
He noticed the policeman’s right hand moving towards the holster on his hip and knew he had just seconds to act. The policeman stepped back as Henry opened the car door and at that moment both heard the voices of Rosa and Sophia emerging from the trees. As the policeman glanced in their direction Henry pushed the revolver into his stomach and fired. It was a muffled shot and the man staggered back before collapsing to the ground. He was still conscious and trying to remove his own pistol from its holster. Behind him, Henry could hear Rosa and Sophia screaming. He stepped towards the prone body of the policeman. A pool of blood was forming beneath him as he tried to lift his own revolver, but he didn’t have the strength. Henry held his gun no more than a few inches from the man’s head and pulled the trigger. In the ensuing seconds, his world slipped into slow motion.
He was aware of a chunk of the man’s head flying away, of gore splattering around him, of the sound of the shot bouncing off every tree in the forest and what appeared to be thousands of birds swarming in every direction. Then there were Rosa and Sophia standing in front of him, their mouths wide open in silent screams. By now he had sunk to his knees, the gun still in his hand, staring at the body of the third person he had killed.
For a time he could not hear anything other than the ringing of gunfire in his ears. When his hearing began to return Rosa was shouting at him.
‘What on earth have you done? You’ve killed a policeman!’
‘Calm down and get Sophia into the car. We need to sort things out.’
Rosa bundled her daughter into the back of the Opel and came back over to him.
‘He was looking for us. He checked the numberplate then asked whether we’d been in Berlin or in Würzburg today. He told me to get out of the car and I could see he was reaching for his gun. He was distracted when he heard you so I knew I had to do something. We need to move him and his bike – quickly.’
It took the two of them ten minutes to carry the man’s body
as deep into the forest as they could manage, covering it with undergrowth. While Henry wheeled the motorbike far amongst the trees in another direction, Rosa did her best to clean up the ground where the man had been shot.
‘What do we do now?’ They were both standing by the car, breathless and filthy.
‘We need to get away from here as quickly as possible.’
‘Even I could have worked that out. Which direction do we head in? Towards the Swiss border?’
‘No, not now – it’s too late and he’ll be reported missing soon. We don’t want to be stuck in the forest or even near the border when that happens.’
‘So where do we go then?’
‘We’ll go to Stuttgart and ditch the car.’
Rosa sniffed. ‘And what do you propose we do then – check into the best hotel in town?’
‘Something like that – yes.’
***
Chapter 26: Munich and Stuttgart, March and April, 1941
‘Basil, without in any way wishing to appear rude, may I suggest you pause, take a deep breath then start again?’
It was the evening of Friday 28th March, and Edgar and Basil Remington-Barber had been stuck in the apartment above the bar in Zürich since Wednesday. They had heard nothing further about Henry since Hedinger’s report that he had last been seen in Berlin on Tuesday. The circumstantial evidence he had possibly left Berlin with Rosa and her daughter was bad enough; the fact he had the Rostock Report with him rather than it being in Soviet hands was disastrous.
Now Basil had received a phone call from the embassy in Bern: some news.
‘I’m sorry Edgar; the tension does rather get to one at times. They’re in Stuttgart.’
‘Who?’
‘Henry, Rosa and her daughter.’
‘Jesus Christ: I knew it. What on earth does he imagine he’s up to? Is he safe?’