If Gutierrez and Conner had learned anything in their quest for Nazi loot it was that the primary players were rarely, if ever, fully forthcoming. Both men suspected Rudolf Meier had not revealed everything he knew or produced everything he had hidden away. The following day the agents returned unexpectedly for another round of questions. The Meiers sang from the same sheet of music, denying having anything else related to Konrad’s visits. A series of sharp questions followed and Rudolf repeated much of what he had already told them. A few minor but interesting and potentially helpful details were thrown into the Konrad stew.
“On his first night here,” remembered Meier, “he told me he had stopped to see some people who have a tavern in the vicinity of Zell am See. The Schutzingers I think is the name.”
“How did he know them?”
“Their daughter had been employed at his office in Fischhorn,” said Meier. “He had the package with the money with these people, and they had tended it well for him—I remember him telling me that. They were sympathetic to him, and he trusted them.”
“How long was he there? Did he leave anything else with them he could not take with him?”
“I don’t know. He mentioned nothing about it. I don’t remember anything else except that he said they helped him contact the German military commander in Zell am See and had gotten a discharge paper in the name of Franz Meier.”
“It is true, isn’t it, that Konrad brought you money often?”
“Yes. Not only the 400,000 Reichsmarks. I saw he had 20,000 or 25,000 more marks with him. He always said to me, ‘Here, take this too, I don’t need it.’ I put it with the rest of the money. He often returned to pick up sums of money.”
“Did you ever ask where he got his money or any of the jewelry?”
“No.”
Meier related once again, this time with more detail, Frau Agnes Konrad’s visit a few days earlier. “She mentioned the gold Konrad had taken to Schladming. Her sister-in-law told her she would lie about it and never give it up. She said the same thing about some of Eva Braun’s jewelry, which was still hidden in Schladming. Her relatives said they would not surrender this, either. Frau Konrad also spoke of preserving two jars of gold. Whether she had it herself or had been told about it, I don’t know.”
“These relatives in Schladming are still holding a lot of items and valuables delivered by Konrad, aren’t they?” asked Gutierrez.
“I don’t know. I remember now that Frau Konrad said, ‘I also heard in Schladming that Franz sent diaries and writings there. The Americans found all that, however.’ But she said further she did not know what exactly had gone to Schladming, and that her relatives there did not want to tell her everything.”
Gutierrez queried him further about Hitler’s diaries. Meier admitted some confusion about the details. “I know Konrad never mentioned diaries to me. He did often speak about ‘writings’ which ‘might be very valuable some day.’ In this regard he mentioned chests and suitcases, some of which were ‘wonderfully packed.’ He also told me a great many papers had been sent to Fischhorn. These he sorted and sent the most important to Schladming.”
“Have you told me everything you know about Konrad?” inquired Gutierrez.
“Yes. I have told you everything,” answered Meier. “I have hidden nothing further from him, and know of nothing else that Konrad himself hid. I don’t believe that he buried or hid anything here at my place.”
This time Gutierrez believed him. But he did not believe Fritz and Minna Konrad—or her brother, Willy Pichler. They had more to share with the CIC, of that Gutierrez was certain. On Halloween day, Gutierrez and Conner drove yet again to Schladming for another visit with them. He summarized the information gleaned since his last visit and demanded they turn over the rest of the stolen gold and written items. Fritz and his wife staunchly denied knowing the whereabouts of anything other than what the American agents had already found weeks earlier.
“Look, I know you are lying. Rudolf Meier told me you are still holding on to other items of value given to you by Franz Konrad,” accused Gutierrez, who described Konrad’s activities in detail, specifically mentioning personal letters and other “writings.”
Fritz was clearly disgusted by the return visit. “If you are here looking for writings, I don’t have any,” he sighed. “You have seen everything which I had. I have no gold here, either.”
“Then how did the film and other items we recovered get here after our first and second visits?” asked Gutierrez sarcastically. “You told us both times you had nothing more to turn over to us.”
“After you were here the first time,” Fritz explained, “we inquired of my brother-in-law what he still had and they gave us the films and the little suitcase.”
The agents grilled the Konrads hard about the trucks his brother had sent and the items off-loaded. The writings and gold particularly interested them. Minna Konrad was angry and argumentative throughout the entire interview. “Do you think that we have the suitcase with the writings? But we really don’t have it, nor did we ever get it!”
“Who said anything about a suitcase?” asked the agent.
“You told us yourselves you were looking for a suitcase with writings! You saw everything we have. We have nothing still hidden!” she shouted back at him.
When asked whether they were still concealing gold and jewelry, Frau Konrad denied the charge vehemently. “We have no more jewelry or gold! We never did have any gold, only the jewelry [watches] we already turned over to you.”
“How did that get here after our first visit?” asked Gutierrez.
“When you were here you said that the films and jewelry were still missing. That evening I went to my mother-in-law and told her that. She gave me the jewelry in the box which I turned over to you.”
“Who did you tell about the gold in jars you still have buried away?” asked Gutierrez.
“I am supposed to have glass jars filled with gold?” Minna Konrad asked incredulously, her voice rising almost to a yell. “This is not true! Inever got anything of the sort. I said to no one that we had anything further hidden or buried! If I still had anything I would turn it over to you immediately, so we would finally have some peace!” she declared emphatically.
Fritz related the same basic story. Both husband and wife steadfastly denied having anything else of interest to the investigators. The agents nosed around the place but found nothing else out of the ordinary. With that, the final CIC interview with Franz Konrad’s brother and his family ended.17
The next day the agents interviewed Franz Konrad’s mother and Willy Pichler. The elder Frau Konrad substantiated the general story line told by her family and denied having anything left of value. It was a lengthy interview from which the agents squeezed little of substance.
“Franz was always in contact with Hitler and Fegelein, and he himself said that he had the letters, but he did not bring them here,” she told Gutierrez. “He said he was taking them elsewhere. He said that Hitler’s letters must disappear from Fischhorn. He said they would never be discovered.”
“Did you ask him where he was taking them?” asked Conner.
“No. At that time that did not interest me.”
“Why did he tell you these things?”
“Well, after all,” she said with some surprise, “I am his mother! He can tell me things like that. I can swear to it that there are no letters here! No one else was present when Franz told this to me.”
Willy Pichler had even less to share with the CIC agents. Except for some minor details his rendition of events of how the merchandise originally ended up in Schladming matched well with everyone else’s version. He pled general ignorance throughout the interview. “Believe me,” he told them, “had I had any idea what was included in the items which Franz sent here, I would never have accepted them.”18
While the agents searched, Franz Konrad sat in his cell, utterly unaware that the Americans had recovered any of his loot from Schladming. Each ti
me he was interrogated he was caught lying. The recovered film, for example, was just one instance of his routine prevarication.
“What happened to all the film of Hitler and Eva Braun you had in your possession,” inquired Gutierrez. “We know you had the film.”
“I burned all the film,” he replied adamantly, confidently. “I know for sure. I know for certain that I burned the film personally. I remember that clearly because I was able with the film to get a good fire going in the furnace.” The film, of course, had been seized from his brother’s home in Schladming. He was lying again.
The agents began to suspect Konrad was a pathological liar. One nugget of truth was squeezed out during these interrogations. When asked about Hitler’s damaged clothes Konrad responded, “I told Spacil about Hitler’s suit because I wanted to have someone to share the secret. I was interested in keeping the relic for the German people. It is possible that decades later I might have been able to sell them in America for a large sum of money.”
The longer Konrad remained in Allied custody, the more precarious his personal situation grew. Weeks and then months passed. News filtered into his cell that the Polish government was demanding he be extradited to Poland for war crimes committed in Warsaw. Damning evidence of his past continued to mount. In March of 1946 four Polish Jews came forward and offered evidence against him to the CIC. “All four were former inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, Poland,” reported one CIC officer. The Jews there called him “Ghetto Konrad,” as a way of distinguishing him, as the chief of the “werteerfassung” (collector of possessions) from another SS officer in Warsaw named Conrad Franz. According to these witnesses Konrad “had ordered the execution of seven men in 1942.” The victims had been members of a work crew “found by Konrad to have stolen some jewelry during their work in the house at Nowolipi Street 4, Warsaw.” The rumor on the street amongst Germans in Warsaw, they testified, was that “Konrad possessed more gold than the Reichsführer SS [Himmler] himself.” One of the four witnesses, Abraham Szulmann, testified that he “was present at the beating and slaying by Konrad of a Jewish boy on Nalewki Street in Warsaw in September 1942.” He also “saw Konrad beat an old Jewish woman to death in front of the house on Leszno 72 in Warsaw, also in September of 1942.” The agent who took the information “turned [it] over to the War Crimes Investigation Team 6836 for appropriate action.”19
Gutierrez and his fellow CIC agents knew their time with Konrad was nearing an end. Pressure was being exerted by the War Crimes Commission, and Polish officials were becoming increasingly vocal about extraditing him to Poland. Still, they were convinced Konrad knew much more than he had divulged. If they turned him over to the Poles it was unlikely he would ever return. A last ditch effort to extract additional information from the Austrian native was organized. The strategy was kicked off in the summer of 1946 when Konrad was transferred on June 5 from the Marcus Orr camp to the prison at Regensburg, Germany. On July 2 Konrad’s old nemesis Robert Gutierrez paid him a visit. The agent has a specific plan in mind. “It was not [to be] an ordinary interrogation,” he later reported, “because that had been done so frequently by me and other people that there must be whole batches of his statements. I tried instead to appeal to his conscience.”
“Konrad,” he began softly, “we both know what will happen to you if the Poles get their hands on you. I can see that you are not extradited if you tell us the whereabouts of the remaining things we are after.”
“I would accept this offer any time I could,” Konrad replied. “I already know that I am to be delivered to Warsaw. I see my chance very well, what you offer me, however, I cannot take it although I would like to, because I do not own anymore or have owned anything except as you have found.” He paused and then continued: “What would keep me just now [from] telling you if I really did own anything more?”
“Isn’t it true you told Josef Spacil you had Hitler’s diaries, suit, and correspondence?”
“Yes, I admit I told him that. I wanted to have another person to know about it. When the conversation took place, these things were already burned.” Konrad was not going to play Gutierrez’s game. His face remained “expressionless” as he wove the same tale he had spun a score of times before.
More questions and word games followed. “I never told Spacil I had Hitler’s diaries,” he added in an attempt to clarify his position. “Only that I had diaries. I don’t know at all that Hitler kept diaries.”
Although unsatisfactory, Gutierrez continued what he described as “word-play in the hope that he would catch himself or that he would makes mistakes, but he held to the description which we know well already, and which he tells with as much assurance as a poem learned by heart.” By the time he finished, Gutierrez reported that, in his opinion, “Konrad can be (1) an entirely fanatical Nazi whom not even imprisonment and an impending death sentence can bring to speak, or (2) he really does not have anything else.”
Feigning anger, Gutierrez ordered Konrad into solitary confinement. For eleven days he sat “incommunicado,” living only on bread and water in a 3′ × 3′ × 7′ cold basement cement box marked “No. 9.” Operating on the theory that misery loves company, Gutierrez placed a German named Karl Albers into the box next to Konrad. Albers, who went by the undercover name “Peter Holtman,” worked for Gutierrez. The scheme worked perfectly. Within a short time the pair struck up a confidential relationship even though they could not see one another. Albers encouraged conversation and Konrad was anxious to talk to someone other than American intelligence agents. The former SS officer told Albers “much about his past life.” He confided to the German about his activities in Poland, and particularly his connection with the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Whether Konrad shared details about valuables or other items he may have hidden away is unclear.20
Albers sympathized with Konrad, telling his new friend that “all was not lost.” Then Albers did something rather odd: he admitted he worked for the CIC. “You might be given a chance to work for the Americans, and I will help you get some assignment [with them],” he told him. Konrad was surprised by the revelation, but he did not think much of the idea. While he and Albers commiserated about the former’s plight, Polish authorities demanded Konrad’s speedy extradition to Poland. He was to be tried there as a war criminal, together with three women who had allegedly committed atrocities at Auschwitz. When he learned of the pending transfer Konrad told Albers that escape was his only chance to avoid a death sentence, and he would attempt it “at the first opportunity.” Albers conceded that, given his Warsaw record, a trip to Poland would be a one-way journey and that escape was probably his only viable, if unlikely, option. According to official reports, “when our agent [Albers] realized that Konrad was determined to escape, he attempted to direct Konrad’s movements in such a way that he could be recaptured if his escape attempt succeeded.” Albers agreed to help him and gave Konrad “an address where he would be able to go into hiding.” The address belonged to one of Albers’ friends, a family named Wilhelm, who lived near Amberg. Albers told Konrad that he was slated for release soon, and that he would join him there should Konrad make good his escape.21
On September 4, 1946, Konrad and the three women were herded out of the prison and loaded into one of three boxcars filled with another seventy-five other alleged war criminals extracted from other prison camps. Almost immediately one of the occupants told Konrad that “he had removed one loose plank from the floor of the car, and that he planned to make an escape.” By the time the train began its long and tortuously slow journey to Poland a hole had been ripped into the floor large enough for a man to pass through. Freedom beckoned anew. Konrad and two others slipped through the opening and onto the steps of the boxcar. The men jumped off the train as it slowed for a crossing north of Regensburg. The three separated immediately. Without money or papers Konrad knew he was unlikely to remain free for long. He had little choice but to contact Albers’ friends. By walking and hitchhiking he made it
to the Wilhelm safe house in Amberg.22
On September 21, 1946, Konrad made his last mistake as a free man: he wrote a letter to Albers and had Wilhelm’s daughter deliver it. Albers immediately reported the contact to CIC officials, who learned that Konrad was living in the Wilhelm house near Amberg under his old alias of “Franz Meier.” CIC agents placed the safe house under surveillance. Their hope was not only that they would apprehend Konrad, but that he would lead them to additional buried valuables or personal contacts. Konrad, however, did not budge. For two days nothing happened. On September 23 Albers paid a visit to the Wilhelm home and “asked whether ‘Franz Meier’ was still there.” When they admitted he was, Albers assured his friends that his presence with them “was perfectly all right.” Another two days passed. The CIC dispatched an American agent to the Wilhelm house who asked “whether they had guests living with them.” Konrad overheard the conversation. As he later explained it, “When I heard that I knew that I was referred to and that I was in for it now. I considered the possibility of taking off for Austria, but decided …to stay.” A few hours later he was arrested without incident and returned to the city jail at Regensburg.23
Konrad was vigorously interrogated over the next two days by Agent Ben Gorby. “Why did you go to the Wilhelm house and just sit there?”
The SS man was not as composed as usual. “I could have tried to get into the Russian zone of Austria where the Americans would not have gotten hold of me. However, since I trusted Holtman [Albers] completely, I set all on one card and proceeded to Amberg.”
“Did you tell our agent all about your activities in Warsaw?” asked Gorby.
“What activities?” asked Konrad.
“You admitted to him your role in the liquidation of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, didn’t you?” Gorby asked casually.
“No! I told him I might be shipped to Warsaw upon the request of the Polish authorities as a witness in the trial of a former SS officer in charge of the Ghetto,” he retorted, “not as a war criminal!” Gorby remained silent. “My conscience regarding Warsaw is clear,” Konrad added without much conviction. “That is why I had not tried to get away into Russian territory in the first place. If, however, you think you have to take me to Warsaw, I will not try to escape a second time.” He was feeling the rough caress of hemp tightening around his neck. Konrad offered to work for the Americans. “I offer you my services again and assure you that you will find in me a determined fighter who wishes to break all the bridges with his past.”
Nazi Millionaires Page 19