Death at Nuremberg

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Why the hell would Wallace do that?” Cronley pursued.

  “Colonel Wallace, when I raised that question to him, told me it was none of my business,” Cohen replied, and then went on: “Toward the end of April 1945, Kaltenbrunner moved his headquarters from Berlin to the Villa Kerry in Altaussee, a small Dorf in the Salzkammergut region of Austria. To which Dorf I will now turn my lecture, aware that I may be accused of going off at a tangent.”

  “Colonel, I’m all ears,” Cronley said. “And Ziegler better be.”

  “Altaussee, which had a prewar population of less than two thousand souls, is on the shores of Lake Altaussee. It has the biggest salt deposits of Austria, which have been continuously mined since the middle of the twelfth century. Since 1147, if memory serves.”

  And I’d bet that it does, Colonel.

  And give odds.

  “There are miles of tunnels in the mines, so beginning in August 1943, art treasures from Austrian churches, monasteries, and museums were sent to the mines for safekeeping. Then in February 1944 the Sonderauftrag Linz—”

  “The what?” Cronley asked.

  “It translates to Special Commission Linz, and what it was was the people who were accumulating artworks—sometimes by buying them, but most often by theft—for the planned Führermuseum in Linz. In February 1944, as I was saying before being interrupted, they began to store these artworks in the salt mines. By the end of the war—by the time Dr. Kaltenbrunner moved to Altaussee—there were about six thousand five hundred paintings, as well as many statues, furniture, weapons, coins, and libraries, including most of the Führerbibliothek—Führer’s library—in the mines.

  “And about this time, a number of high-ranking SS officers—Franz Stangl, commandant of the Sobibór and Treblinka extermination camps; Anton Burger, commandant of Theresienstadt concentration camp; Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of the Final Solution—people like that—went to Altaussee and placed themselves under the protection of the local Gauleiter, August Eigruber, who was a dedicated Nazi.

  “When Hitler ordered the scorched-earth-destroy-everything policy, Eigruber somehow got his hands on eight one-thousand-pound bombs and put them in the salt mines. If he had succeeded in setting them off, all the art—Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges, Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, Vermeer’s The Astronomer and The Art of Painting, all six thousand five hundred works of art—would have been destroyed.”

  “But they weren’t. Our experts—what did they call them, ‘the Monuments Men’?—got there in time to save them. Or didn’t they?” Cronley asked.

  “When the Monuments Men got there, they discovered that the bombs had been disarmed. At the orders of Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner.”

  “Kaltenbrunner?” Cronley asked, visibly surprised.

  “There are two common theories about that,” Cohen replied. “One is that he isn’t as bad a human being as most believe him to be. That, in other words, he couldn’t stand idly by and watch Gauleiter Eigruber destroy works of art at the orders of a madman. The second theory is that he didn’t give much of a damn about the artwork, but saved it thinking it might do him some good when he was put on trial.”

  “And which makes most sense to you, Colonel?” Ziegler asked.

  “Neither. I have my own theory, to which I will get in due time. In early May 1945, if I have this right, on May eighth, Kaltenbrunner heard that we were getting close to Altaussee, and left Villa Kerry, leaving behind about a hundred and twenty pounds of gold, and headed south. I think—don’t know—that he wanted to make his way to Italy, where—I think, don’t know—he wanted to make contact with Wilhelm Waneck, whom we know Skorzeny had ordered to establish escape routes.

  “He didn’t make it. On May twelfth, he and his mistress were arrested by an American patrol. He was turned over to the OSS, who held him until the cells were habitable here. Then he was brought here.”

  “Two more questions, if it’s okay, Colonel,” Cronley asked.

  Cohen gestured for him to continue.

  “The OSS had him, held on to him? When I was in the CIC, the CIC was responsible for big-shot Nazis like Kaltenbrunner.”

  “I formed the opinion at the time that Colonel Wallace had little faith in the CIC,” Cohen said. “An opinion I’m afraid he still holds. Next question?”

  “You said you had your own opinions as to why Kaltenbrunner stopped the destruction of all the art.”

  Cohen paused before answering.

  “Answering that will cause you to ask other questions, which will take much longer to answer than either of us has time for right now. I will give you a simple answer now, with the understanding that you won’t ask questions until there is time to answer them fully. Agreed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t think Kaltenbrunner cared for the art as art, but rather as artifacts necessary to the new religion he and Heinrich Himmler were setting up. I think he’s a latter-day apostle gathered around the holy grail.”

  “‘New religion’?” Cronley parroted. “You can’t stop there!”

  “Give my best regards to Justice Jackson,” Cohen said, and stood up. “And I accept your kind invitation to have a drink with you in the bar of the press billet at 1730.”

  He then marched out of the room.

  “What the hell was he saying?” Ziegler said. “Kaltenbrunner is a new apostle? What the hell does that mean?”

  “If we’re lucky we might find out in the bar of the press billet at 1730.” He paused and then added, “What worries me, Augie, is that I don’t think he’s pulling our leg.”

  [FOUR]

  The Office of the Chief U.S. Prosecutor

  The Palace of Justice Compound

  Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1035 21 February 1946

  When Cronley and Ziegler walked into Justice Jackson’s office, Kenneth Brewster, Jackson’s law clerk, politely said, “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  “Good morning,” they replied in chorus.

  “There is an officer waiting to see you, Mr. Cronley,” Brewster said.

  “Who is he?”

  “He didn’t give his name. A large, very large Negro captain.”

  Tiny? Here?

  Why?

  Bearing bad news from Wallace, that’s why!

  The question then becomes “What bad news?”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the gentlemen’s restroom.”

  Two doors opened simultaneously. Justice Jackson stood in the door frame of one of them and Captain Chauncey L. Dunwiddie exited the gentlemen’s restroom through the other.

  “Good morning,” Jackson said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Justice,” Cronley replied.

  “Am I interrupting anything here?” Jackson asked.

  “Mr. Justice, this is Captain Dunwiddie of DCI,” Cronley said. “I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

  “Sir, I am reporting for duty, together with two Americans and eight Poles.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cronley said.

  “Sir, I didn’t know where to find you, so I came here,” Tiny said.

  “Where’s everybody else?”

  “Parked behind this building, sir, in two ambulances, two jeeps, and a Ford staff car.”

  “And the Americans are?”

  “Miss Miller, sir, and Mr. Hessinger.”

  Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?

  “And the purpose of your visit, Captain?” Cronley asked.

  “Sir, we have been transferred to Detachment ‘A.’”

  And what the hell is that all about?

  “Tell you what,” Justice Jackson said, “why don’t you and the captain come into my office? We can have a cup of coffee while the captain tells us what’s going on. To judge from Mr. Cronley’s normally
inscrutable face, he is more than a little curious.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Cronley said.

  And what do I do now?

  His mouth went on automatic: “Augie, round these people up and take them to the Press Club. Leave the Horch. I’ll come out there as soon as I can.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ziegler said.

  Mr. Justice Jackson put out his hand to Dunwiddie. “My name is Jackson, Captain. Welcome to the Palace of Justice.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Jackson waved them into his office, and then into chairs. He then raised his voice. “Ken, would you get us some coffee, please?”

  —

  “You said you’ve been transferred to Detachment ‘A’?” Justice Jackson began his interrogation immediately after Brewster had served the coffee and been waved into a chair.

  Dunwiddie looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Sir, Colonel Wallace, chief, DCI-Europe, apparently felt that Mr. Cronley did not have enough personnel to carry out his mission here.”

  “I used to be a lawyer, Captain,” Jackson said. “Now I’m a prosecutor. Most of the time I can tell when a response to a question, while it may be true, is not the whole truth.”

  Cronley’s mouth went on automatic. “Tell him, Tiny. He’s one of the good guys.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” Jackson said.

  Ken Brewster flashed Cronley an icy glare.

  Dunwiddie looked even more uncomfortable.

  “Out with it, Tiny,” Cronley ordered.

  Dunwiddie visibly organized his thoughts.

  “DCI-Europe, at President Truman’s order, is about to be tripled, quadrupled, in size,” he began. “Most of the new hires, and most of the military personnel now transferred here, are ex-OSS recruited by El Jefe.”

  “Who is?” Brewster asked.

  Well, Jackson told his law clerk to stay.

  I guess that means he can ask questions because Jackson wants him clued in on everything.

  And that’s his call.

  I can only hope Brewster doesn’t run at the mouth when he’s having a drink with his friends.

  On the other hand, if he has a running mouth, I don’t think he’d be working for Jackson.

  “They call Oscar Schultz, who is Admiral Souers’s Number Two, El Jefe—the Chief—because he was a chief petty officer,” Cronley explained.

  “An ex–enlisted man is Number Two in the Directorate of Central Intelligence?” Brewster asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, he is. And before that, he was the OSS deputy chief of station for the Southern Cone,” Cronley said.

  “You were telling us, Captain, why you were transferred here,” Jackson said.

  “Well, for one thing, sir,” Dunwiddie said, “I was deputy chief of DCI-Europe under Cronley. The first three officers El Jefe sent to DCI were two majors and a lieutenant colonel. I think Colonel Wallace wanted the lieutenant colonel to be his deputy. So he transferred me here.”

  “Why do I still think that’s not the whole story?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Tiny, out with it!” Cronley said, not very pleasantly.

  “On the way down here, Hessinger and I talked about it.”

  “So what did Freddy have to say?” Cronley demanded impatiently.

  “Freddy said he thinks Wallace would really not only relieve you, but get you out of the DCI completely. He’s afraid to do that for a lot of reasons . . .”

  “Such as?” Brewster asked.

  “Cronley was appointed chief of DCI-Europe by the President. He’s close to El Jefe, and to Cletus Frade . . .”

  “Who is?” Brewster asked.

  “He was the Southern Cone—Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay—OSS chief of station,” Cronley said. “Now the same for DCI.”

  “Where he handled—handles—the Argentine end of Operation Ost,” Dunwiddie said. “So, Freddy theorizes—”

  “And who is Freddy?” Brewster asked.

  “A younger version of Colonel Cohen,” Cronley said. “Now, for Christ’s sake, let Tiny finish.”

  “Freddy thinks that Wallace thinks you’re really incompetent, a disaster—which would reflect on him—about to happen. That would get you out of DCI. His problem then is to have clean hands, so that when people come to your aid—including General Gehlen and probably General Greene—he can say, ‘Don’t blame me. When I suspected he was about to get in trouble in Nuremberg, I sent my deputy down there, my administrative chief, more Poles than he asked for, everything I could think of to keep him out of trouble.’

  “Which also caused vacancies in what is now his DCI-Europe headquarters, which he can now fill with his old pals from the OSS,” Jackson said thoughtfully. “Very clever.”

  “What does Colonel Wallace have against you, Mr. Cronley?” Brewster asked. “If you don’t mind the question.”

  “I suspect he dislikes Cronley for the same reasons you do, Ken,” Jackson answered for him. “Cronley is much farther up the totem pole of power than someone of his years, in your opinion, should be. Worse, he’s usually very good at what he does. I think you should start to consider that both President Truman and Admiral Souers have put him where he is and are quite satisfied with his performance.”

  Jesus H. Christ!

  Brewster looked as if he had been slapped in the face.

  “And so, Ken, from the little I’ve seen of him in action, so am I, with a few minor exceptions, quite satisfied with his performance.”

  “And I guess you’re going to tell me about the exceptions. Right?” Cronley said, and then, having heard what had come out of his automatic mouth, quickly and very awkwardly added, “Mr. Justice, sir?”

  “What you should keep in mind, Jim, is that you’re not very good at playing politics. You are, in fact, a babe in the woods in that regard. On the other hand, I’ve spent a great deal of time in Washington and painfully have learned the rules of the game. I’ve been giving your assignment here some thought. Would you be interested in hearing what I’ve been thinking?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You will not be able to conceal your purpose here from Chief Judge Biddle by saying you’re my public relations man. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has heard who you really are and is mulling it over. The first thing I suspect he’s thinking is that the President sent you here to keep an eye on him, that I am complicit in that spying, and he’s deciding how he’s going to deal with it. And Chief Justice Biddle is a master of politics at the highest level.

  “So, before he unsheathes his sword and swings it at your knees, we have to do something to prevent that. Would you be interested in hearing what my suggestions are?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  “The first thing I think you should do is fess up. You’re DCI and you’re here to protect the senior members of the American contingent at the Tribunal, which would of course mean both Chief Judge Biddle and myself.”

  “How would I do that? Go see him and tell him that the President has sent me to provide security for him, too? I’d hate to lie . . .”

  “And I don’t think that will be necessary. Would you like to hear what my suggestions are in that regard?”

  “You tell me what to do, Mr. Justice, and I’ll do it.”

  “Actually, it would be me doing something. Would you trust me to act on your behalf?”

  “I’d be really grateful if you would, sir.”

  “Ken, get General Whatsisname, the Nuremberg Military Post commander, on the phone.”

  “General Kegley, sir,” Brewster said, as he walked to the telephone on Jackson’s desk. “Major General George Kegley Junior.”

  He then dialed a number.

  “Chief Prosecutor Jackson for General Kegley, please,” Brewster said into the phone, paused, and then added, “One moment, please, General, for Mr.
Justice Jackson.”

  Jackson took the phone.

  “Good morning, General . . .

  “Very well, thank you. Yourself? . . .

  “Well, aren’t we all getting a little long in the tooth? . . .

  “The reason I’m calling, General, is that I have a little problem. This is out of school, you understand. What’s happened is that President Truman has decided that Judge Biddle and I need the DCI to keep us safe—

  “The Directorate of Central Intelligence. What used to be the OSS. It’s run by Admiral Souers, an old friend. Anyway, when the President speaks, as you can imagine, things happen rapidly. Mr. Cronley, the DCI man in charge, arrived the day before yesterday, and today all of his people arrived . . .

  “Neither Judge Biddle nor I got a heads-up. Did you? . . .

  “I didn’t think so. The problem is they need a place to stay. A secure place, preferably in, or very near to, the Tribunal, and they need it right now. There’s about twenty people in all . . .

  “Well, what I was thinking, General, was that I would send one of Mr. Cronley’s people over to see you and tell you what they need, and then prevail upon you to have a discreet word with the Post housing officer . . .

  “That’s very good of you, General. Thank you very much—

  “When? Right now, if that would be convenient . . .

  “I very much appreciate your understanding, General. My regards to Mrs. Kegley.”

  Jackson hung up the phone.

  “Within the next three hours,” he said, “every senior officer in Nuremberg will be told, in the strictest confidence, that President Truman has sent the DCI to protect Judge Biddle and myself from the evil minions of the Kremlin. And after General Kegley has a word with the Post housing officer, you and your noble warriors will have a place to rest your weary heads.”

  “Thank you,” Cronley said. “Thank you very much.”

  “How could I do less, Super Spook, for a man who’s trying to keep me alive? I presume you are going to send Captain Dunwiddie to see General Kegley?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ken, would you take Captain Dinwiddie to see the general?”