Thomas wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Yes," said he. "It was a good dodge. Perhaps a bit of a strain on the nerves."
Debras shrugged his shoulders. "Our whole lives are that, Lieven. I hope that you are not laboring under any illusions, by the way, as to your future. I hope you realize for what purpose I had you brought here from Fresnes."
"I'm afraid I do," Thomas answered resignedly. "I take it you mean that I shall now have to start working for you again, Colonel."
"That's it, yes."
"Just one more question. Who told you, when you came to Paris, that I had been arrested?"
"Ferroud, the banker."
Good old Ferroud, thought Thomas. Many thanks! Aloud he asked: "What are your plans for me, Colonel?"
The friend of Josephine Baker gave Thomas a shrewd, affable glance. "Do you speak Italian? Or not?"
"Yes."
"You may remember that when the Germans invaded France in 1940 the Italians also, at the last moment, as soon
as they could be assured it was quite safe, poked in their noses and declared war on us. One of the most mischievous scoundrels who then terrorized the South of France was General Luigi Contanelli. After the liberation he got into mufti just in time . . ."
"Like most of the other Axis generals . .."
"... and went to ground. So far as we know, he's somewhere near Naples."
Forty-eight hours later Thomas Lieven was in Naples.
Some eleven days later, in the village of Caivano, northeast of Naples, he arrested General Contanelli, who was at that time, in obedience to necessity rather than virtue, trying himself out as shepherd.
After returning with his illustrious prisoner to Paris, Thomas explained to Colonel Debras during an evening hour of agreeable relaxation in an agreeable bar: "It was really all quite simple. The American counter-intelligence corps helped me a lot. They were charming young fellows. Nor can I complain about the Italian authorities. They had no time at all for generals. But it also seems, unfortunately, that they have no time for the Americans either. Circumstances must be blamed for that." He went on to describe his adventures in Italy.
While he was still searching for the shepherd general, he returned on one occasion to the headquarters of the counter-intelligence corps to make some further inquiries and witnessed an extraordinary scene there.
The American secret agents were dashing about in a state of hysterical fury, all shouting at once. They gave orders only to cancel them in the same breath, made frantic telephone calls and wrote out warrants for arrest on conveyor belts, so to speak.
Thomas soon discovered what had happened. Three days previously another big American freighter had cast anchor in the port. It was the Victory, with a cargo of provisions for the American fighting forces in Italy. But since Sunday the Victory had been missing. No one knew where she had gone. Both the Italian and the American authorities concerned passed the blame from one to another of their own offices.
What on earth had happened to the Victory? She couldn't have simply vanished into thin air! Thomas Lieven's curiosity was aroused. He went down to the harbor, visited various taverns and seamen's dives and at last came to one known as Luigi's.
Luigi looked like the actor Orson Welles, ran a dirty little
eating house and in addition exercised the trades of receiver of stolen property, forger and gang boss.
Luigi took to Thomas, that smartly dressed civilian with the knowing, ironic smile, at their very first meeting. This fraternal feeling grew even warmer when Luigi learned that Thomas was a German.
It sounds incredible. But the mystery which had baffled the counter-intelligence corps was solved by Thomas in a few hours. He even met at Luigi's the very men who had engineered the disappearance of the Victory.
The sequence of events had been as follows. On the previous Sunday the freighter's crew had been given shore leave. Only one man remained aboard to watch. Luigi's friend arranged for a sham fight on the jetty between three pretty girls right in front of the gangway. One of the girls uttered a piercing scream for help. The watchman dashed gallantly to her assistance. Dark-skinned Neapolitans joined in the fray, which became fast and furious.
Meanwhile Luigi's friends, disguised as seamen, rowed alongside the Victory, to port, and took possession of her. Working fast, they slipped her moorings, weighed anchor and steamed her out of the harbor, around a projecting tongue of land and on to Pozzuoli.
Here they cast anchor again and loaded the cargo on to waiting trucks. Aboard the ship they had found tinned food, frozen poultry, sugar, rice, flour, all kinds of alcoholic liquor, a ton or so of cigarettes, and some thousands of tins of pate de foie gras.
The pirates had deliberately chosen Pozzuoli as their unloading point. Extensive shipyards were avilable there. Demolition gangs were paid overtime to break up the stolen vessel immediately.
Even its separate components were sold to buyers who had already gathered on the spot. They stood around the ship and stated their requirements. They got anything they wanted, from engines and crankshafts to steel plates and bulkheads. It was as though industrious butchers were cutting steak after steak from the carcass of an ox.
In Naples at this period some use could be found for everything. Consequently, not even a rivet was left of the Victory. In fact it is to be feared that Luigi's friends were even in a position to make something of the rats they discovered aboard.
Such was the story with which Thomas entertained Colonel Debras on a certain pleasant evening in a pleasant bar in Paris. Debras then became serious. He said: "You are a German, Lieven. We need you now in Germany. No one knows better than yourself how to distinguish between the true big villains and the harmless little fellow travellers. You could prevent innocent people from being punished in the steps now being taken. Would that sort of work suit you?"
"Yes," said Thomas Lieven.
"But in Germany it will be absolutely necessary for you to wear a uniform."
"No!"
"Sorry, but that's indispensable. We shall also have to give you a French name and military rank. I suggest that of captain."
"But, good Lord, what sort of a uniform shall I have to wear, then?"
"Please yourself, Lieven. Order what you like."
Accordingly, Thomas went to the best military tailor in Paris and ordered what he liked. He chose dove-gray air force trousers and a jacket to match, with large pockets, a long pleat down the back and a narrow waistband. It had a strap over the shoulder, a chip, and three chevrons on the sleeve.
This uniform, invented by Thomas, was so generally approved that a month later, it was laid down officially for all members of the War Crimes Investigation Service.
Thomas returned as Captain Rene Clairmont, with the advancing Allied troops, to his native land. The end of the war found him at Baden-Baden, where he set up his office in the former Gestapo headquarters in the Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse.
Seventeen men worked at No. 1 Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse. They lived in the villa opposite. Their work was hard and far from enjoyable. Some of them, moreover, did not get on too well together, for political or other reasons. Thomas Lieven, for example, immediately fell out with Lieutenant Pierre Valentine, a good-looking young fellow, with ice-cold eyes and thin lips, who might equally well have been taken, from his appearance, for an SS man.
Valentine fairly reveled in the reckless issue of warrants for arrest and confiscation. The more prudent officers of the French War Crimes Investigation Service kept as closely as their prudent American and British colleagues to the Military
380
Government's wanted-persons lists. But Valentine used his power arbitrarily and unscrupulously.
Thomas Lieven protested against this stupid generalization. Valentine retorted negligently: "My views are based on figures. In our section alone, during the past month, we registered over six thousand denunciations of Germans by Germans. That's what they're like. When they invade weaker nations they consider themselves a ma
ster race. When they get hit on the nose themselves they play Beethoven and denounce one another. Am I to respect people like that?"
Lieutenant Valentine, repulsive character as he might be, was quite right there. After the war, an appalling wave of informing activities. Meanness and baseness of every kind, flooded Germany from end to end.
On August 2, 1945, Thomas had an experience that made him shudder. A haggard, white-haired man, looking half starved and wearing old, ragged clothing, entered the office, removed his hat and said: "Good morning, sir. My name is Werner Hellbricht. You are looking for me. I was district peasants' leader in—" He named the Black Forest village in which he lived. "I have been in hiding up to now. But I have decided to give myself up."
Thomas stared at him. "Why?"
"Because I have discovered that frightful crimes have been committed in my country. I am ready to do penance, work on the roads, break stones, anything you like. I sincerely regret having served so criminal a government. I believed in it. I was wrong. I ought to have believed less and thought more."
Thomas rose. "Herr Hellbricht, it is one o'clock. Before we continue this conversation I'd like to ask you a question. Will you have lunch with me?"
"Lunch? With you? But I have just told you I was a Nazi!"
"I ignore that for the time being, as you so honestly confessed it."
"Then I have a request to make in my turn. Come with me to my farm. I've something to show you there, in a glade behind the house," said the former district peasants' leader.
[4]
Frau Hellbricht had prepared for the midday meal a pitifully thin soup flavored with sorrel, chervil, dandelions and many other common herbs. She looked as pale and drawn as her husband. The farmhouse was much dilapidated, with broken
windows, the locks on the doors shot to pieces, the stables empty and the rooms stripped bare by the foreign slave laborers.
"You can hardly blame them for it," said Hellbricht with a wry smile. "We plundered them first, during the war, in then-own countries..."
The wife of the former district peasants' leader, standing at the stove in the barely furnished kitchen, said: "After the soup there will be mashed potatoes and dried fruit, as rationed. I'm sorry we have nothing else."
Thomas went out into the yard and opened the boot of his car. He returned with half a pound of butter, a tin of cream, another of meat extract and another of corned beef.
"Now let me get at that kitchen table of yours, Frau Hellbricht," he said. He immediately set to work at it, strengthening the thin soup with meat extract, opening the tin of corned beef and spreading out its contents. Then he found a basin with some skimmed milk curds in it.
"Put that through a sieve, please, Frau Hellbricht," said he. "With our united efforts we shall soon have a first-rate lunch ready."
"Oh dear," murmured Frau Hellbricht, beginning to cry. "Corned beef! I used to dream of it. But I never saw any of it."
"And there are people even today," said Hellbricht, "who look on contemptuously while others starve. They are the very people who are responsible for our plight. Captain, I am not an informer. But I feel it my duty to report that in the glade behind the house an enormous dump of provisions had been buried under the moss."
"Who buried it? And when?"
"It was in the autumn of 1944. The adjutant of Darr6, the president of the National Farmers' Union, came to see me. He brought with him Dr. Zimmermann, head of the Karlsruhe Gestapo. They said they were to bury supplies of food for ... for the Fuhrer's own staff ... for the highest in the land ..."
The faded, careworn and melancholy Frau Hellbricht added, as she sieved the skimmed milk: "That was why we wanted you to come here. The food must be dug up. So many are starving ... We at least still have our own roof over our heads. Well get by somehow. But what about those who have been bombed out and the refugees and the children?"
MENU
Herb Soup
(Bewitched Corned (Beef
Curds (Dessert
BADEN-BADEN, 2 AUGUST 1945
This meal can be eaten even today. At that time it put Thomas Lieven on the track of Nazi bosses.
Herb Soup
Clean and chop fine a portion of herbs such as sorrel, nettle tops, chives, parsley, chervil, dill, celery leaves and leeks. Then take a small portion and mix it into a light butter and flour roux, add water or stock, bring to a boil and season with pepper, salt and a little muscat. Simmer. Add the rest of the herbs just before serving. Egg yolk and cream can be added, or a poached egg dropped into it for each person. The soup is served with croutons.
Bewitched Corned Beef
Take plenty of onion rings and braise them in butter till glazed. Add the chopped contents of one tin of corned beef. Leave to braise a little longer but do not brown. Add some potato pur6e, not too thick, mix all together, season well with salt and pepper and leave over a low flame till well cooked and hot.
Curds Dessert
Put some curds through a sieve, mix to taste with fine sugar, add double cream and whip to a medium thick consistency. Add a few sultanas and some drops of lemon juice. Pour into a dish, garnish with whipped cream and chill.
Starting on that August 2, 1945, two very different trains of events were set in motion. First an enormous dump of provisions was dug up in secret, consisting of several thousand tins of food containing suet, meat, jam, synthetic honey, coffee, tea, aviation chocolate, grape sugar, flour, vegetables and
fruit. These treasures were handed over to charitable organizations for distribution to invalids, the aged and children.
Then all traces of the excavation were removed from the glade as quickly as possible and the moss was replaced. Thereafter the woods behind the Hellbrichts' farm were pa-troled day and night by picked members of the War Crimes Investigation Service.
At dusk on August 11, while Thomas was on duty, a man came creeping into the glade, keeping a keen lookout on all sides. He started at every sound. He had an empty rucksack hanging from his belt and a small spade in his hand. Thomas recognized the man's cruel, pallid features from the photograph on the warrant for his arrest.
The man started digging, faster and faster, more and more anxiously. He did not notice until it was too late that three men had suddenly come to stand behind him. Then he swung around, got to his feet with an effort and staggered back, panic in his face.
"Zimmermann of the Gestapo," said Thomas, who had suddenly drawn a revolver, "you are under arrest."
One after another of the Nazi bosses who knew of the buried dump of provisions came to dig them up.
Thomas Lieven had told his men: "Anyone who starts digging in this glade is a Nazi boss and is to be instantly arrested."
Seventeen high-ranking Nazis were captured in this simple way between August and October 1945.
Thomas contrived to have the former district peasants' leader Hellbricht classified as a fellow traveler and let off with a fine. He was allowed to keep his farm.
J5]
Although Thomas Lieven was sent for, complimented and thanked by General Konig, the French Military Governor, on December 3, 1945, he received the following letter on the seventh.
384
WAR MINISTRY OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
Paris 5th December 1945
Captain Ren6 Clairmont
Army Serial Number S 324,213
War Crimes Investigation Service
Baden-Baden
Ref. CSHr.Zt. 324/1945
In connection with the preliminary investigation of evidence relative to the court-martial of Lieutenant Pierre Valentine and others the Deuxifeme Bureau was requested to forward your personal file.
It appears from this file, to which further material has been added by a leading official of the Deuxieme Bureau, that you served as an agent of German Intelligence, Paris, during the war. You will appreciate that anyone with your record cannot in any circumstances be tolerated as a member of the French War Crimes Investigation Service. Colonel Maurice Debras,
who originally transferred you to this organization, ceased to be a member of it four months ago.
You are hereby requested to vacate your offices in Baden-Baden by 12 noon on the 15th December 1945 and submit to your superior officer all documents, files, stamps and records in your possession, together with your Army papers and passes. You are forthwith to relinquish your duties on suspension. Further instructions will follow by next post.
The signature was illegible. Below it was typed the word: "Brigadier General."
Thomas Lieven sat at his desk humming gently to himself. He read the letter again, went on humming and thought: Well, well. So there we go again. My life does nothing but repeat itself with paralyzing monotony. I play a crooked trick and everyone loves me. I'm snowed under with decorations, money and kisses. Fm the darling of all the belligerents. Then I do a decent action and—wham! There I am in the mud again.
"A leading official of the Deuxi&me Bureau" has apparently added something to my personal file for the benefit of the gentlemen at the War Ministry. A leading official, eh? So
Colonel Jules Sim6on must be still alive and still hating me as much as ever . . .
An hour later the man who still called himself Captain Clairmont handed over his office and all his records to the head of his department. By noon on December 7, 1945, Captain Clairmont had vanished. Vanished without a trace.
[6]
On February 22, 1946, two gentlemen inquired at the porter's office in the Paris luxury hotel called the Crillon in the Place de la Concorde for a certain M. Hauser.
The beaming smile of the porter seemed to indicate that M. Hauser was a favorite resident.
The porter called up M. Hauser's room. 'Two gentlemen wish to speak to you, sir. Their names are M. Fabre and M. le Baron Kutusov."
"Ask them to come up, please."
A page conducted the gentlemen up to the second floor. Bastian Fabre's fiery bush of hair stood up even more fiercely than ever from his skull. His companion, bearer of the name of a famous Russian general, seemed about forty-five years old. He was broad-shouldered and very soberly dressed.
In the drawing room of Suite 213 the two visitors were warmly received by M. Hauser, who wore a suit cut by a first-rate tailor.
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 41