It was at that point in the meeting that their conversation took a strange twist. Exactly what transpired is subject to some debate, since later accounts provided by both officers to Allied interrogators differ on several fronts. According to Spacil, Konrad confided to him that he had “the uniform” the Führer was wearing when he was killed in Berlin, as well as other important items.19
The news naturally intrigued Spacil, who had already heard that Hitler was no more. “He is dead? You are sure?” he inquired.
“Yes. He was killed by an attack on the Chancellory bunker by Russian dive-bombers. He was fatally wounded by fragments which entered his whole right side, particularly the right thigh. The uniform was tattered by shell fragments, and bloodstained.” Spacil was incredulous. Although rumors were flying thick and fast about Hitler’s fate, he had yet to hear anything so concrete from such a seemingly reliable officer.
“I also have the Führer’s diary,” continued Konrad, “the correspondence between Hitler and Eva Braun, and several boxes of secret papers.”
“What are you going to do with all these things?” Spacil supposedly asked Konrad.
“I have orders to hide the diary and the suit, and to destroy the letters and other papers, which I have already done. I had a zinc box made for the uniform, and one for the diaries, which were written on very thin paper.” Konrad also told Spacil that he had many of the gifts given by Hitler to Eva Braun, which he also “destroyed.” Konrad did not elaborate on the exact nature of these gifts.
According to Spacil, he did his best to convince Konrad to disclose the location of the zinc boxes. “No, I cannot tell you,” Konrad replied. “I have orders not to tell anyone. Only the two of us know this,” he cautioned. “It is not to travel any further.”20
Konrad later admitted that a conversation with Spacil had indeed taken place, and that Spacil had provided him with money. However, he strongly disputed Spacil’s version of the substance of the discussion. “I know nothing about any diaries,” he told American investigators after his capture later that spring, although he admitted burning a suit of clothes that had supposedly belonged to Hitler, as well as some correspondence between the German leader and Eva Braun.21
Flush with currency, Franz Konrad returned to his temporary headquarters at Fischhorn castle. What he thought about on the drive back will never be known. Perhaps he pondered on his earlier crimes in Poland and elsewhere. Certainly he considered it likely the Allies would be interested in getting their hands on him. His time, too, was almost at an end. Once at the fortress, Konrad used 5,000 of the Reichsmarks Spacil had provided to satisfy back pay due Fischhorn personnel and several SS officers, including Hermann Fegelein’s brother, Waldemar. The younger Fegelein, age 33, was recovering from a wound suffered during the fighting for Budapest. He had led a regiment of the 8th SS Cavalry Division during the siege, where the Russians managed to encircle the 35,000 German defenders. Waldemar was one of approximately 700 who managed to break free and escape. Konrad also gave SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Erwin Haufler, another of General Fegelein’s staffers, 5,000 Swiss francs, several gold coins, a few diamond rings and gold watches, and 100,000 Reichsmarks. Haufler later averred that he found Konrad’s attempt to dump the wealth into his lap worrisome. “I do not want these things for myself,” he claims to have told Konrad, “and I don’t wish to enrich myself this way.” According to Haufler, he knew that eventually he would be held to account for the loot, and that he frankly told Konrad as much. Given his wartime activities and proclivities, Haufler’s explanation rings wholly untrue. It is difficult to picture any SS officer with his connections and vitae turning down gold and jewels ever—regardless of their origin.
As they were splitting the booty, Konrad rambled on about using the money to establish a farm in Peru. Haufler listened in impatient silence while he packed his share into a laundry bag. Later that day he delivered the treasure to his wife in nearby Hoegmoos for safekeeping.22
The fifth of May also marked the first day the Heiliger Account, or at least a portion of it, was entombed. Its concealment took several days, the assistance of many individuals, and the cloak of darkness to accomplish. While Spacil was meeting with Konrad, his subordinate Major Schuster oversaw the operation. Lieutenant Menzel had driven his large truck of valuables to Pulzel’s sawmill. The vehicle was enclosed with a metal body, like a moving van, and had a five-ton hauling capacity. A smaller truck, covered with canvas with a three-ton capacity, accompanied him. Who drove that truck is not known. “Apparently only the larger vehicle contained treasure,” Schuster later recalled, “for the smaller [truck] was simply parked and left untouched.” Schuster also remembered looking inside the back of Menzer’s vehicle and finding “it was filled to capacity.” The rear of the load, or at least that portion visible to Schuster, was jammed with “canvas sacks” containing currency.23
Once the grounds of the sawmill were covered in darkness Schuster and his crew got to work. Wimmer, Reisinger, and Menzel worked together to unload the contents of the truck, which was packed tight into three passenger cars—a Fiat, BMW, and Mercedes. Only one car was used at a time. The cargo consisted of jute bags about two feet tall, small and medium sized heavy iron or tin chests, a bed mattress stuffed with English notes, and other valuables. Once the first auto was full, Wimmer and Reisinger drove off into the darkness and buried the loot. The men repeated the routine the following evening, May 6, and again after dark on May 7.24
The dawn of May 6, 1945, brought with it for Spacil some sense of relief in the knowledge that at least a portion of the Heiliger Account was now hidden away. What he did not know was that May 6 was also the last full day of the war without a signed surrender document harking to the final capitulation. Just hours earlier Admiral Dönitz had tried to negotiate a surrender with General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Rheims, Germany. One of his goals was to capitulate to the Americans rather than to the Russians. Eisenhower rebuffed Dönitz’s efforts. Anything other than a simultaneous unconditional surrender on all fronts was unacceptable. General Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s military advisor, would find the negotiating on May 6 just as difficult. When Eisenhower rejected similar pleas, Jodl bowed to the inevitable and agreed to sign an unconditional surrender the following afternoon.
Spacil was in Taxenbach when SS Brigadeführer (Brigadier General) Erich Naumann dropped by unexpectedly to pay him a visit. Naumann was more than just a brigadier general: he was a mass murderer. Naumann had operated Einsatzgruppen B in Russia from 1941 to 1943, one of the notorious killing squads that had proudly slaughtered tens of thousands of men, women and children. In late 1944, Naumann was named head of the SD for Nuremberg. Like Kaltenbrunner and so many others, Naumann knew his days were numbered unless he could make good an escape. He called at Taxenbach because “he was looking for the Chief (Kaltenbrunner),” recorded Spacil. When Spacil told him he did not know Kaltenbrunner’s whereabouts, but he was headquartered in Altaussee, “Naumann decided to try to reach him personally [there], and promised to report back.”25
After Naumann left Taxenbach, Spacil drove to Pulzel’s sawmill to check on the status of the disposal of the Heiliger fortune. He arrived as darkness was falling and just in time to meet up with Schuster and his skeleton crew as they were preparing to dispose of the second carload. Schuster later claimed he overheard a discussion between Spacil, Wimmer and Reisinger “about the possibility of sinking something in a pond.” He did not know if the subject of their discussion was part of the treasure or an entire car full of loot. What the three eventually decided upon, if anything, Schuster could not (or would not) say.26
Spacil did not have to wait long to see the former Einsatzgruppen leader. Naumann returned early the following morning, May 7. He was “in bad humor,” remembered Spacil, and there was good reason why: Kaltenbrunner would not see him. The only person he had been able to speak with was Kaltenbrunner’s adjutant, who said that he had “no information over future operations.” As far as Kaltenbrunner
was concerned, Naumann belatedly realized, it was every man for himself. In an attempt to drum up some news of what was happening, Spacil and Naumann jumped into a car and drove together to Radstadt. They discovered little reliable information. “There were only rumors that a capitulation was to take effect on 8 May 45 at 0001,” Spacil wrote, “and that the border line for the capitulation zone was to lie west of Radstadt. The only concrete news of value was that Otto Skorzeny and his “special train” were a handful of miles away in the direction of Schladming. In order to “get further facts” the pair drove the eight miles to see if they could get a conference with the officer.27
The meeting with Skorzeny took place in a railroad car pulled onto a small siding. It was about three in the afternoon on May 7. Skorzeny, explained Spacil, “knew nothing further because his adjutant [Radl] was not yet back from Army Hq. with the latest reports.” Once again we know little of what was specifically discussed. The issue of an approaching capitulation likely dominated the agenda. It is doubtful any loot changed hands given the circumstances surrounding the conference. The meeting lasted but one hour. Spacil described its anti-climactic ending with a short journal entry: “at 1600 Skorzeny took his leave and left for parts unknown.” The SS combat officer departed for the village of Annaberg. Before he left, Skorzeny had removed his SS officer’s uniform and changed into a German army sergeant’s garb.28
Spacil and Naumann left as well. About 6:00 p.m. that evening they “found army columns were fleeing westward from the vicinity of Liezen.” When asked what going on, one of the soldiers told them that the enemy had entered Liezen a few hours earlier. There would be little mercy shown to any German soldier unlucky enough to fall into Russian hands, and all of them knew it. Now, putting as much distance between that place and the Russians was a high priority for every soldier. “In order to check the report,” Spacil explained, “[I drove] back to Schladming without Naumann.” Nothing but disorder greeted him. “I determined nothing. All I saw was retreating columns. No one knew what was true and what was not, and everyone was trying to cross the supposed surrender line, which was said to lie west of Radstadt.” Just before midnight Spacil and Naumann met again for the last time. Spacil explained that the situation was fluid and no one knew what was happening. The pair split up, never to meet again.29
While Spacil and Naumann had been watching despondent columns of soldiers trudging westward to escape the flood of advancing Russians, Major Schuster in Taxenbach was overseeing the final burial of his portion of the treasure. After Spacil had left the previous evening the second carload had been hidden away without incident. Now, as darkness fell again over Austria on May 7, the final carload of gold and currency was prepared for burial. When Captain Apfelbeck arrived at the sawmill earlier in the day, he found the Mercedes (the last of the three treasure cars) parked in the mill yard. Unsure of what was to transpire, and perhaps irritated that he had to participate in the concealment, he asked Schuster, “Now, what am I to do with all this stuff?” According to Schuster, the mill owner’s 18-year-old son (whose name is unknown) climbed into the Mercedes “and drove it up a steep slope behind the buildings to the sawmill located on the slope.” Apfelbeck believed the car was driven behind the outbuildings “to protect it from the curious glances of those in the vicinity.” The Mercedes remained there for about four hours until Pulzel’s son climbed back inside and drove it down the hill “and on the road toward Taxenbach.”30
At 10:00 p.m. that night Reisinger “picked me up with another car, and we went up the hill near Rauris,” Apfelbeck told his Allied interrogators. “Upon arriving, I saw Wimmer and another man, a forester, who probably was a friend of Reisinger.” In all likelihood the “forester” was Pulzel’s son. Armed with picks and shovels, “Reisinger and the forester went into the woods … to dig a hole; I remained at the car with Wimmer. After some time the other three began carrying the valuables away, while I stayed at the car.” The men were overseeing the burial of a king’s ransom. “As I remember, there were three or four heavy jute sacks, one heavy iron chest … two small light sacks containing currency, and a very large bed-tick of blue checkered ticking filled with white English pound notes.” The mattress was stuffed with money. When Apfelbeck’s cohorts lifted it from the car, the mattress burst open, showering the ground with its contents. “The notes were gathered up and carried to the hole,” Apfelbeck told his Allied captors. “Thereafter I went to the cache, so I could describe the location to Spacil. When we arrived back at the sawmill, Spacil was there and I reported to him.”31
Spacil did not arrive at the sawmill until about 3:00 a.m. on the morning of May 8. The news he had for his men was not good, or as he succinctly put it, “I told Schuster and Apfelbeck about the surrender.” Schuster paints a more detailed reconstruction of the meeting. Spacil told us “that the Americans were in the vicinity, that the German armies had surrendered, and that he … intended to disguise himself as a non-com in the Wehrmacht.” Spacil apparently advised Schuster and Apfelbeck to do the same, but both men refused. Spacil then mumbled something about a vehicle that “went into the water.” He did not elaborate about the cryptic statement and, if we are to believe Schuster, he did not ask any further questions.32
While Schuster, Wimmer, Reisinger, and Apfelbeck had been concealing the treasure-laden Mercedes on May 7, Lieutenant Menzel and his two-truck convoy was heading east for Graz, Austria, in the southeast corner of the country. The region, Spacil believed, was the last area still in German hands. Menzel’s orders were to take his truck and trailer to Graz; his assignment was to turn the load over to the RSHA staff there, or else to destroy it.” Schuster’s account provides additional information. The trucks left “in an easterly direction,” and from what he gathered from discussing the matter with Apfelbeck and others, “one or more other trucks were to join the convoy.” These additional vehicles, apparently waiting “in the town of Lent,” were “loaded with ammunition and weapons.” Kurt Schiebel added that Menzel’s destination was “Corps Hausser,” one of the few viable German military organizations still believed operating in that area. Menzel, he claimed, “among other items … was carrying several million RM [Reichsmarks] to pay off the personnel.” The truck was carrying more than a few million in German currency. Menzel’s trailer, wrote Spacil, was loaded with counterfeit notes produced at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, “the property of Bureau VI.” Packed in one hundred chests or crates, the forged British pounds were comprised “of notes of from one to fifty pounds denomination.” They had been turned over to Spacil “because those responsible for them were at a loss as to what to do with them.”33
After he met with Schuster and Apfelbeck early on the morning of May 8, Spacil drove on to the SS horse farm at Fischhorn castle. There, he met up again with Franz Konrad and shared once again the news of the German surrender. “Konrad already had the information, and showed me the written order,” remembered Spacil. “At that point the war ended for me.” The bureaucrat without a bureau to operate drove back to Zell am See a few hours later. “An American sentry and a German sentry with a white arm band were already standing in the street,” he recalled with some amazement. When he inquired about what was happening, the German told him the GI “had been put there to protect him from French” soldiers who were also in the vicinity. Marching past was a long column of soldiery. On the flanks marched American guards. Blending into the mass of thousands was his only hope of escaping his prominent SS past. If Spacil could trick the Americans into giving him a discharge as an enlisted German soldier, he would probably avoid arrest.
Spacil parked his car in a meadow with other vehicles abandoned by the German army and quietly eased his way into the procession. He attached himself to the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division. The captives were heading for the Fürstenfeldbrück POW camp. After a few hushed questions he located the unit’s commander, Captain Gerhardt Schlemmer. Could he join his company? Spacil asked. “My name is Sergeant Aue.” In fact, Aue was Spacil’
s stepfather’s name. When Schlemmer hesitated, the SS officer did his best to impress upon him the urgency of the matter by explaining that he was the treasurer of the SS Security Main Office, in charge of all payments to the Gestapo, the Sicherheitsdienst (SA) and other agencies. Whether this news influenced Schlemmer or not is unknown, but he agreed to let Spacil remain with his outfit.34
And so it came to pass that “Sergeant Aue,” the man who had operated RSHA’s Bureau II for so long, whose extravagant wartime existence had been dependent on the death and deportation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, walked without power or privilege with thousands of other German soldiers into what he hoped would be an anonymous captivity. Only time would tell whether his sojourn in American hands would be temporary or long-lived.
Chapter 8
“I was once the administrative head for southern Russia, and I know a little something about the Hungarian state treasure, and about the burning of Jews.”
— SS Oberführer Josef Spacil
Betrayal: The Discovery of Josef Spacil
In the early morning hours of May 1, 1945, twenty-five Americans riding in fifteen jeeps crossed into Austria through the Brenner Pass. The men were part of the 430th Counter Intelligence Corps, or CIC. Austria has long enjoyed a deserved reputation as a mecca for spies and conspirators; certainly few countries offered a more enchanting backdrop for espionage operations. The agents, a new breed of spies and investigators, opened CIC offices in Salzburg, Linz, Vienna, and Braunau am Inn, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. Their uniforms bore US insignias only. No rank or other means of verifying identity were visible. Along with a list of sixteen directives relating to counter intelligence operations, the agents were ordered to seek out and arrest not only high-ranking Nazis, but anyone who had been affiliated in any way with Heinrich Himmler’s murderous SS.
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