Judgment in Berlin: A Spy Story

by Noel Hynd

  “Ah. Of course. This all makes sense, doesn’t it?” Hunsicker nodded. “Where are the records kept of German persons who were displaced by the aerial bombings in 1945?”

  “Same place.”

  “I see,” said Cochrane. “And please satisfy my curiosity, who precisely keeps the records? Russians or Germans?”

  “Germans,” said Hunsicker. With Russian oversight.”

  “I see,” Cochrane continued. “Well, a good thing that is. We know who is more efficient, don’t we?” He leaned forward as if to share or even betray something in confidence. “The Soviets can be messy barbarians, can’t they? Best to keep them an arm’s length from anything official, right?”

  Without enthusiasm, they agreed. Cochrane gave Hunsicker and the other two men hearty slaps on the arms. “Good afternoon, comrades!” he exuded.

  He left them the remaining smokes in his cigarette pack. He then ambled off as quickly as possible without arousing suspicion, confident that he had had a good day, much better than the unfortunate young woman who had been laid to rest.

  Chapter 50

  Berlin – July 1948

  In the afternoon, Cochrane returned to Tempelhof and went to the office of Major Pickford. “I might have a solid lead on the woman I’m looking for,” Cochrane said.

  “That was fast. You must be good at digging. Or getting lucky,” Pickford said.

  “I try to make my own luck,” Cochrane said. “And I’ve been here for a few weeks. But I can use your help. And maybe some of your assets.”

  “Just tell me what.”

  “I could use maybe a hundred dollars out of the Erlking fund,” he said. “And I could use two men as backups when I go into the Eastern Zone tomorrow evening.”

  “What’s in the Eastern Zone?”

  “The woman I’m looking for. Maybe.”

  “Heh,” snorted Pickford. “Good luck. Better you than me. I can’t let you take any American soldiers, though. There’d be hell to pay if there was trouble and the Soviet police arrested them in civvies. Your ass would be in a sling and so would mine and who the hell knows when we’d ever get our high school kids back.”

  High school kids. The expression had first been used by General Clay to describe the young men newly in the U.S. Army and now under his command in Berlin. They were old enough to serve now but too young to have been in the war. They had a different attitude toward the Germans than some of the gnarled veterans who had fought in Normandy and at The Bulge.

  “I was thinking of taking a couple of Germans,” Cochrane said.

  “You’re crazy, right? Or trying to start World War III.”

  “No.”

  “What about DPs? They’re more expendable if trouble starts.”

  “Germans would be better. I’d do better to take some Germans who know the layout and who speak natively. They’ll fit in easier than DPs or other Americans.”

  “Talk to me, ‘Major Lewis’,” Pickford said.

  “I have in mind a guy named Roth. He works in Tempelhof. You know him?”

  “Not personally. There are so many of them. Hundreds now. Maybe more. Got new ones starting every day. Dozens of them. Where does Roth work?”

  “Cargo loader and unloader. He’s been doing it for six weeks. He’s all bulked up from lifting fifty-pound bags.”

  Pickford laughed. “Yeah. I can see how that would happen. Heinrich Roth? I know the name”.

  “He’s the one. He’s a Berliner now and a former soldier. He tipped me off when there were SMA cops around the other day at Helmut’s café. I trust him to have my back.”

  “If you say so,” Pickford said.

  “Roth has a buddy named Otto Kern. Kern’s a Berliner now, also, from the East not too far from here.”

  “I know Kern. He’s a good young man. A whiz with electrical stuff. He’s got a wife and a kid.”

  “I know about that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  “Don’t get him killed.”

  “So I can talk to them?”

  “I didn’t know you needed my permission,” Major Pickford said.

  “I don’t. I just want you to have a general picture of what I’m doing and if I’m using manpower from Tempelhof. These guys could be absent for a day or two. That part would need your approval.” Cochrane paused. “Plus my guts also tell me you’re the chief intel officer here, not just one of the many. Not every major has a direct line to Washington or Northern Virginia. You’re going to find out what I’m doing anyway. No, listen. Am I right or not?”

  “Broadly,” Major Pickford answered. He ran his finger through his thinning hair. “You’re not going to get these guys in any back-alley crap, are you? I mean it. Those are two good men.”

  “I need good men. There shouldn’t be any trouble. But that’s why I need two good men, armed.” A pause, then, “Plus maybe a couple of Czech guns and a hundred bucks.”

  “Aw, Jesus, Lewis!” Pickford blurted. “‘Shouldn’t be any trouble,’ you say. Then you ask for guns and money. What the hell you gonna do next, invade Poland?”

  “Poland’s been done and you’re an intelligence officer. You’re surprised?”

  “Not in the least,” Pickford said. “I can tell you work for Dulles. Do what you need to. If you need pilots to fly you somewhere, use the civilian recruits, also. Okay?”

  “Roger that,” Cochrane said.

  Cochrane waited. He gave Major Pickford a grin, plus a gesture with his empty hands as if he expected something.

  “Ah, yeah,” Pickford said. “Guns and money. I knew you were waiting for something. I can make that appear for you right here.”

  “Thanks.”

  Major Pickford went to his safe and counted out the cash. Two twenties, three tens. The rest in fives and ones. From the box on the rear shelf, he pulled out two Lugers: swag from the war, and two clips. He handed everything over to Cochrane, who stuffed the money into his wallet and the extra weapons into his coat.

  “Anything else?” Pickford asked.

  “Got an extra vehicle we can use for a drive around the city tomorrow night?”

  “If you’re talking about a U.S. Army Jeep, you can go to hell.”

  “Something nondescript,” Cochrane asked. “Not even an unmarked Jeep. I’m going to the Eastern Zone at night.

  Pickford thought for a moment. “We got some confiscated vehicles from the war,” he said. “Couple of Opels. Some foreign stuff. Pretty beat up. Real bangers. Rambling wrecks.” He paused. “I can make one appear for you,” he said. “Not here in the safe. Hangar Seven. Go over and ask for Sgt. Pearson. He’ll sort you out.” A beat and he added, “There’s a small motor pool there. Unofficial. No paperwork. Nothing on paper. If something disappears it was never there in the first place.”

  “That’s music to my ears,” Cochrane said. “Got any airplanes like that?”

  “Maybe a few. I’d have to check.”

  “Sgt. Pearson? He’s one of your people? Intel division?”

  “You could think that if you wanted to,” Pickford said. “Enough nosing around for one day, Lewis,” Pickford said. “And more than enough answers. Okay?”

  Bill Cochrane thanked Major Pickford and was on his way.

  Chapter 51

  Berlin – July 1948

  That evening, Cochrane found Heinrich Roth in the cargo employees’ locker room before he left after his seven-to-seven shift ended. The German was surprised to see Cochrane. They conversed in German. “Your friend Kern,” Cochrane asked, “Is he still here?”

  “He’s here. We do something wrong?”

  “Nothing wrong at all,” Cochrane said. “In fact, everything is all right. Want to do some extra work? It’ll earn you some extra money. Better pay than throwing around coal and sacks of flour. No harm listening is there?”

  Roth shrugged. Nein.

  “Look, I can give you a few dollars, let’s say five, just for coming and listening,” Cochrane
said. “I’m not going to ask you to do anything illegal. Just make sure I get to the right address and guide me around the city. Sound okay?”

  “So far,” said Roth, who didn’t need much convincing.

  Cochrane had done the math. Five American dollars bought a month’s worth of groceries. Roth disappeared and returned with his friend Kern. It was Cochrane’s guess that the two of them would be receptive to his offer if they outnumbered him two to one.

  They went across the street to a place that was patronized by Germans, not members of the occupying forces: no Americans or British. Cochrane kept his mouth shut as they went to a table so that no one would pick up his accent. He carried with him two sealed brown paper bags.

  He gave each man a five-dollar bill as they sat down in a booth in the rear of the establishment.

  Cochrane made his pitch, speaking in German with only a faint American accent. Cochrane had good days and bad days in the non-native languages he spoke and was having a good day in the language of Schiller. His cover story was that he needed to go to an unfamiliar place. He had heard it was an after-hours club. Loose women, liquor, maybe a stage show. He just needed to go in and talk. No extra curriculars for him and none for his two guides. He needed to feel secure, he said, and needed a couple of former soldiers whom he could trust to cover his back.

  “You both fought to protect your country?” Cochrane asked, phrasing a delicate question as favorably as possible.

  They both answered truthfully that they did, which was what Cochrane wanted to hear.

  When Cochrane pressed for details, without flinching, Kern described the devastating destruction of his Ninth Army against the Soviet Army, how tens of thousands of his peers had died in battle or had been executed and how he had fled for his life as a last resort and was lucky to have survived.

  Cochrane noted the damage to Kern’s left hand, specifically the mangled three fingers. Impassively, Kern told of the day that a round from a Soviet mortar had landed twenty meters from him. He had seen the incoming ammunition, held up his left hand to protect himself while his other hand worked a pistol, and how when he lowered his hand, it was red with the blood of two fingers gone and one hanging off by the skin.

  Cochrane turned to Roth. He wanted to hear about this man’s war experience also. In the time between his decision to have a meal with these men and the actual meeting in the restaurant, Cochrane had used the resources of Major Pickford’s office to read an overview of their service to the Reich. He didn’t care so much what they had done as much as whether they would be truthful about it. Cochrane had no tolerance for a brute or a fiend, but he had respect for an honest warrior who had answered his country’s call. He knew he would need some backup assistance in Berlin, knew he couldn’t use American or British soldiers, didn’t want to get involved with the French, and couldn’t trust the Russians.

  In the back of his mind right now, he knew these men might be the solution. In the forefront of his mind, he was listening to Roth, who explained he had been in a Panzer unit that had been part of Unternehmen Barbarossa, which Cochrane knew in English as Operation Barbarossa, the ill-fated invasion by Nazi Germany of the Soviet Union which had begun in June of 1941 and crashed in failure in 1943, without capturing Moscow. The operation incorporated some of the most barbaric activity of World War II, with unspeakable atrocities on both sides.

  Roth offered no excuses when Cochrane picked for details. He recalled honestly what he could and led Cochrane all the way from his exit from a POW camp to the long walk back to his uncle’s village, avoiding snipers and snitches all the way, and then the subsequent hike to Berlin where he got lucky, heard the Americans were hiring cargo crews and would hire any Germans who were able-bodied and could provide proper papers.

  Cochrane listened and felt a surge of sympathy for these men who might have been his onetime adversaries on the battlefield. He respected the way they discussed their service. Above all, nothing that they had said misrepresented their service even if their accounts might have left out some of the darker deeds of their units.

  “Well,” he said to them at length. “That war is over. Above all, we must avoid another. But we also need to deal with situations at hand.”

  His most immediate mission, Cochrane explained, was to connect with a woman he had known in Germany before the end of the fighting. He mentioned that he had been in banking in Berlin before the war, hence his solid grasp of the language. He phrased things to suggest that the woman was a friend from that era. He didn’t mention that he knew her from an espionage situation from 1943. There was no reason to muddy the waters by revealing he had been in Germany during the war. To do so, to anyone’s thinking, would be to give him away as a professional spy.

  “I’m afraid my friend is working in a deeply suspect place. We all know what many good people have been reduced to, don’t we?” Cochrane said with genuine understanding.

  From their nods, he knew he had struck a chord.

  “Do you know where Weinerstrasse is?” Cochrane asked.

  The men looked at each other. They knew. It was in the vice area.

  “The visit has Major Pickford’s blessing,” he said. “You’re free to go by his office tomorrow to hear it from him yourself. The major spoke to Sergeant Pearson. You’ll be excused from cargo duty tomorrow.”

  Kern sat up straight and listened intently. Cochrane felt as if he was connecting. Roth was more of a cipher. Nonetheless, Cochrane didn’t need to do much more convincing after Roth asked the question that Cochrane had been waiting for since they sat down.

  “What is the pay?” Roth asked.

  “Fifty dollars apiece,” Cochrane said. “Cash in small bills. American currency. I pay well and I pay in advance. You’ll like working for me.”

  Without hesitation, the two Germans agreed to the job.

  Chapter 52

  Philadelphia, Pa. – July 1948

  During a scorching week in July in Philadelphia, the 1948 Democratic National Convention took place at an overheated, humid Convention Hall. It resulted in the nominations of President Harry S. Truman for a full term and Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky for vice president in the 1948 presidential election. There was something new to the political conventions this year. Two of the new television networks, NBC and CBS, were able to televise gavel-to-gavel coverage of both conventions, whether audiences wanted it or not.

  The chairman of the party, Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, presided over the convention and sought to put the diminishing political fortunes of President Truman in the best light. With delegates staggered by big Republican wins in 1946 that had given them control of Congress, Truman seemed to have one chance at re-election in his own right: slim. After having the Democrats control the White House since 1932, Republicans now frequently proposed to “clean the cobwebs from the federal government.”

  Barkley gave the keynote speech and began the counterattack. "I am not an expert on cobwebs,” Barkley said. “But if my memory does not betray me, when the Democratic party was voted into office sixteen years ago, even the spiders were so weak from starvation they could not weave a cobweb in any department of the government in Washington!"

  Southerners who opposed the expansion of civil rights nominated Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, a staunch segregationist, for President. But Harry Truman was easily nominated on the first ballot.

  On July 14, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey and other Northern Democrats prodded the party to adopt a bold civil rights platform and endorse President Truman's pro-civil rights advances as president. They were opposed by conservative party members who were against racial integration and by middle-of-the-roaders who feared losing Southern white voters, a bloc critical to a Democratic victory. But they were joined by Northeastern urban Democrats, who thought the plank would appeal to the growing African American vote in their cities, which had been traditionally Republican since Lincoln.

  In his speech, Humphrey implored his party to march “ou
t of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." The convention adopted the civil rights plank. In response, the entire Mississippi delegation walked out of the convention, accompanied by thirteen members of the Alabama delegation. The disaffected Democrats and other Southerners then formed the States' Rights Democratic Party, which nominated the segregationist governor of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, for president.

  To make matters worse for Truman, another renegade Democrat, Henry Wallace, formerly FDR’s vice president from 1941 to 1945, ran far out into left field on the Progressive Party ticket.

  As the convention closed, it chose its own party chairman, Alben Barkley, to run with Truman for vice president. Anxious to get out of town and back to equally hostile Washington, Truman quickly agreed to have Barkley as his running mate. The office of vice president had been empty since Roosevelt died in April of 1945 and Truman had vacated it. So anyone would certainly be better than no one. To any reasonable observer, the president’s chances for re-election in his own right had dropped a notch: from slim to none.

  Chapter 53

  Berlin – Late July 1948

  During the same week in July, there was a tiny breakthrough that expanded the Big Lift.

  Six Sunderland flying boats that took off from Brighton in England arrived on the Elbe at Finkenwerde. The landings were not easy. The planes had to come in on a low approach and the river was choppy and strewn with wreckage, tanks and rivercraft, from the war. The Sunderlands carried salt. They refueled overnight from fifty-gallon storage drums. The crews slept in a nearby home. The next afternoon they flew to the Havel and unloaded. A flotilla of small boats operated by local men and women took the salt to Berlin.

  The safe and successful transportation of salt, essential to baking and food production and storage, was no small matter. C-47s and C-54s were constructed with wiring and cables in or on the floor of the fuselage. Salt spills destroyed the control lines. The gargantuan Sunderlands – they were eighty-five feet long – were constructed with their wiring and control lines along the tops of their fuselages, making them ideal transports for salt. The Soviets howled in protest, claiming accurately that the current treaty allowed them control of all Berlin waterways.