“On New Year’s Eve I also took some gold away from the Park Hotel,” continued Haas. “I opened the boxes and looked inside. They were full of gold.” How much he took and where he transported it did not enter the conversation. But he did tell Grötzl that he had hauled away gold several times from the inn. Wasting time trading cigarettes or cocoa was a thing of the past. “From this time on,” remembered Grötzl, “Haas carried on only trade in gold.”4
A few days later, during another visit to the Haas flat, “a white-haired Russian woman” who was staying with a local doctor appeared and gave Haas several solid gold coins. Haas later told Grötzl he “sold these coins to a Jew at Goisern.” It was apparently his first foray into actually selling gold. The intermediary who had introduced Haas to the Jewish buyer was none other than Hans Herbert, the same man who had stolen some of Eichmann’s gold bars from the Park Hotel. “Grötzl, this is a business in which I can earn something, and I don’t care about anything else!” exclaimed an excited Haas.
The same old Russian woman returned a week later with two gold rings and more good news for Haas: another Russian living in Bad Aussee “also has gold he wishes to sell.” Any doubts Grötzl may have harbored of plentiful stocks of hidden gold in the Altaussee region of Austria vanished. Even poor displaced Russians had access to gold coins and rings. The metal brought in a comfortable living for Haas. For each gram of 14-carat gold Haas received thirty-five shillings, forty-five shillings for 18-carat gold, and sixty-five shillings for “mint gold,” or 24-carat metal.5
Soon after Haas fired up his illegal livelihood, he struck up a friendship with Josef “Sepp” Kronberger, an unemployed former soldier living in a flat in Altaussee. The man appeared one day while Grötzl was visiting Haas. Kronberger eyed Grötzl with deep suspicion before turning his attention to Haas. The pair engaged in “low conversations” for a few minutes before Kronberger left the flat. Haas turned to Grötzl and smiled.
“These are good bargains,” Haas said confidently as he reached into his pocket and withdrew several gold coins. “If Koller only knew! But he is much too silly to find out!” (Koller was a local policeman.)
From that day forward, Kronberger and Haas kept frequent company. In the aftermath of another visit, Haas fished out additional gold and fondled the yellow metal rounds in his hands as Grötzl looked on. “If Koller would see this,” Haas giggled,“he would go mad!”
Puzzled, Grötzl asked, “Why?”
Haas laughed aloud. “Because he believed I lent him a hand in clearing up the gold-affair! He [can] go to hell!”6
As Haas’s illicit activities increased, so did his need for transportation. In May of 1947 he began borrowing Grötzl’s motorcycle for regular trips to Goisern. According to Grötzl, every time Haas “returned from such rides he brought with him considerable quantities of food, such as bacon, eggs, butter… and the Haas family had some feasts.” Grötzl was often invited to partake in the delicacies. His host, however, shared few specifics with his dining partner when asked how he had obtained the food. “I have been with the Jews at Goisern selling gold,” was all he would utter. A few weeks later Haas bought a green fiat complete with permits and disappeared for two weeks.
By now it was obvious that Haas and his friends were serious players in black market gold, and the price of the metal was beginning to escalate. The time had arrived to become pro-active. Grötzl was ordered by the Altaussee police, who were monitoring his efforts, to penetrate into the network. On May 31 he approached Kronberger who, like Haas, eventually grew to trust him completely. “I want to buy some gold,” he explained. “I want to get a motor-car. How much do you charge for it?”
“The cost is 800 shillings per coin,” replied Kronberger. “You should have told me a couple days ago. I had 2.2 kilograms [five and one-half pounds] but this is now in Graz. I will have more gold in two days. Find me then.”
Two days later Grötzl sought out Kronberger. “I have it [the gold],” Kronberger told him. Come to my house at 7:00 p.m. tonight.” The informant arrived on schedule but broke the news that he did not have enough money to buy all he needed. At this Kronberger grew visibly agitated. “I cannot lay up this much gold for so long! Tomorrow it goes to Linz.” He drew out a small black leather purse, pushed a button and popped open the lid. Inside were two gold coins, or “samples,” as Kronberger called them. One was French, the other Italian. “These are the kind you would have gotten,” he explained, implying that there were several varieties floating around the local market. “And now the price has gone up to 1,000 shillings. The price of gold is climbing fast, and I can no longer afford to sell it for less.”
“Where do you get this gold?” asked Grötzl.
Kronberger replied without hesitation. “From a Russian named Paul. He owns a considerable amount of it, but he is very cautious about selling it. I will get some for you when you have enough money.”
Whether the pair ever did business is unclear because Kronberger is never mentioned again in the official records, either by Grötzl or any Intelligence agent. There is a possibility that Kronberger became suspicious of Grötzl and refused to do business with him.7
Just as Grötzl had become friends with Haas and Kronberger, so too did he curry favor with Hans Herbert, the man who had helped shepherd Haas into the gold trade. Based upon Haas’s comments and personal observation, Grötzl was confident Herbert was sitting on the mother lode. They were sitting together at Herbert’s house one day when Herbert nonchalantly told Grötzl that he bought the place from a Hungarian and paid cash for it. “Now,” he said angrily, “I have to hire a lawyer because that rogue [Inspector Anton] Auerboech seized my [deed]!” Deed or not Herbert was still living in the house, and inside was a fortune in gold. The German pulled out a small box—“similar to a pencil case,” remembered Grötzl—containing several thin bars of gold packed in cotton-wool. “These bars were about 20 cm. [8"] long and had a diameter of about 1 cm. [.25"].” Emboldened by his wealth Herbert did little to hide his affluence. In addition to buying his house outright, he frequented the Caffee Vesko, where he routinely bought drinks for everyone and “contributed 2,000 shillings to the band’s kitty.” Herbert, as far as the CIC was concerned, “disposed of rather large amounts of cash, which he certainly must have gotten by ill means… [He] is also not engaged in regular employment and is living in a grand style.”8
Eventually Herbert disclosed to Grötzl what he had done with the boxes of gold he had snatched away from Eichmann’s gang at the Park Hotel. “I hid it in the Pension Alpenland in Altaussee. I am going to get it soon. It is worth several [hundred] thousand shillings!” he exclaimed. “I never have to work again!” This conversation was prompted by the splintered friendship that had once existed between Hans Herbert and Reinhard Haas. The latter had tried to rob the former of his gold. Herbert had foolishly told Haas (just as he was about to unwisely tell Grötzl) that his fortune, or much of it, was hidden away in his former room at the Pension Alpenland. Exactly how Herbert discovered Haas’s perfidy is not known, but he was furious when word reached him that his “friend” and accomplice in crime had tried to rip him off. “Haas,” he hissed, visibly angry and shaking his head, “is a great scoundrel. But he will never find my gold!” Looking like the cat that ate the canary, Herbert explained that his treasure “was hidden too well to be found.”9
Haas, meanwhile, confirmed the story when Grötzl called by his flat. After Herbert had told him of the gold’s location, he had visited the small boarding house to search for the cache. The outwardly simple task, he told Grötzl, proved harder and more complicated than he thought it would be. Inside the boarding inn was a young “foreign major” living in Herbert’s old room. “I asked him to help me search for the gold and that I would give him half of it,” he explained to Grötzl, “but we could not find it!” Although he could not locate Herbert’s primary cache, he did manage to acquire another, rather grand, source of gold. “Look at this!” he told his friend as he brought
out a brown case and opened it. Inside was what Grötzl later described as “a square block of gold.” As we know today, much of the SS gold molded into bars or “squares” had once filled the teeth of human beings. Haas beamed. “It belongs to me!” Whether he sold it or disposed of it in another manner is unknown. “I never asked him more about it because he never tells me the truth,” Grötzl penned in his statement.10
Walter Grötzl’s undercover effort was not quite worth its weight in gold, but it did substantially further the investigation. American and Austrian agents were now in possession of tangible names, dates, and addresses, and had an eyewitness informant who could account for much of the illegality. Two days after he filed his June 8, 1947, statement Grötzl was “questioned anew” by CIC agents. He had more to tell them, and this time a pair of names familiar to the CIC were the subject of conversation.
A few days ago, began Grötzl, an acquaintance named Stefan Kumeritsch told him that he “maintained good connections with Mrs. [Iris] Scheidler.” The smooth-talking frau also apparently maintained “good connections”—if Kumeritsch’s information was accurate. Kumeritsch confided to one of Grötzl’s contacts, “Mrs. Wallicek,” that “he had seen gold at Mrs. Scheidler’s.” Ever since the wife of Arthur Scheidler had let slip that a former SS officer had come to her door in 1945 demanding money on behalf of another high-ranking SS officer, CIC agents had suspected she was housing stolen gold and currency, or knew where it was hidden. Certainly prominent ex-SS and SD officers believed that was the case. According to the same witness, Iris’s friend Elfriede Höttl, “also possesses such gold.” Given all that had transpired thus far, nothing surprised the investigators. Grötzl’s own spying seemed to confirm that something was amiss at the Scheidler residence. The informant had been keeping a close eye on Frau Scheidler’s flat. “Three local lads frequently came to Mrs. Scheidler’s and are in constant contact with her,” he reported. They were always the same three. “I don’t know the nature of these connections,” he admitted.11
Something surely was afoot. While her husband was languishing in the camp at Nuremberg, Iris Scheidler was kicking up her heels and living the good life. (This was the same woman who was ready to abscond with an American colonel soon after the end of the war.) According to one informant, she often danced and drank her way into the wee hours of night at the Kaffeehaus Fischer. She ordered and paid for expensive rounds of drinks—over and over—and yet had no visible means of support and her husband was in jail. At least two of the three “local lads,” as Grötzl called them, comprised her customary retinue at the nightspot. On or about May 31, 1947, remembered one female informant, two of the lads dropped by her table for an anxious exchange of whispering. One of them angrily demanded the keys to her car, left in a huff, and returned an hour later. “I observed the whole matter very furtively,” related the informant, “and gathered from the state of things that it must have been about something quite mysterious.”12
It was indeed all rather “mysterious,” and the mystery continues to this day. Few records have surfaced to indicate what further efforts were made to track down these leads. On July 24, 1947, Hans Herbert was arrested and subjected to an intense interrogation. He signed “a lengthy statement,” and was released. The statement has not been located. If it was indeed lengthy it was also devoid of value. “The only information of any significance to be found in the statement is Herbert’s avowal that in 1945 he overheard an SS sergeant, Walter Ries, of Kremamulenster, remark to a truck driver, ‘Come quickly, we still have to take care of the gold,’” concluded a summary report.13
The inability of the Austrian and American investigators to turn up a substantial cache of hidden loot caused Agent Dierick and other CIC men to reach the conclusion (at least officially), that the fault rested in Hofrat Reith’s weaknesses as an investigator. “It is believed that Reith is an experienced investigator, with years of police experience behind him,” began Dierick’s summary on this point. “However, Reith has had little experience in actual investigative work.” The distinction between “experience and mere official tenure of office” was stressed. Dierick was not finished. “It has been proven several times that Reith’s credulity is no way checked by the exercise of good judgment. Reith pants after the most fantastic rumors and gossip and accepts as truth all he hears about concealed valuables.” My investigation, concluded Dierick, “has established the unreliability of Reith’s informants…[and] also the unreliability of Reith himself.” Dierick may have gotten it right. Reith may not have been the world’s most experienced detective. And many of his leads may have been dead ends offered by unscrupulous people bent on tricking the authorities.14
But two indisputable facts loom large and tip the scale back into the balanced position. Dierick himself confirmed the first. “There is no doubt that large quantities of gold were transported to Altaussee by retreating SS forces shortly before the surrender of the German Army,” he wrote in a summation intended to crucify the credibility of both Reith and his partner, Anton Auerboech. Dierick continues:
Indeed, the subject of buried gold has been a favorite conversational topic at Altaussee for the past two years. But due to the time lapse since the gold was concealed, because of the multitude of rumors which have sprouted since the end of the war and have grown to fantastic proportions, and because of the exceedingly poor investigative methods of Reith, it is felt that the possibilities of discovering the hidden gold in cooperation with Reith and the Austrian police, are too slight to warrant the continuance of this case.
Dierick’s statement is indeed interesting. The CIC agent seems to want it both ways. Were there really vast quantities of gold hidden in the region? Yes, he admits, in abundance, but the rumors are so plentiful that sorting through them all and determining which are credible is now impossible because two years have passed. Dierick is blaming Reith for not being able to do what Dierick now claims can’t be done—even though he admits that stolen treasures were secreted in the region. The second important point is that much of the information collected by Reith (and the Americans) came from highly placed former SS officers and/or their wives. Each was in a position to know about the “large quantities of gold” that everyone admits were hauled into the Altaussee area by SS officers—but not hauled out again.15
It is reasonable to conclude that some of the leads generated by Reith and Auerboech were nothing but gross caricatures of the truth or outright lies. Still, caches of gold and currency continued to be found in this region of Austria over the next five decades. Therefore, it is equally plausible to assume (especially given the sources) that some of Reith’s leads were indeed authentic. Dierick had to know this.
Unfortunately, the termination of “official” American involvement made it impossible to ever separate the lies from the truth. And, exactly when this involvement ended is unclear, since many of the documents relating to this period have vanished. Whether Dierick or other agents continued their investigation in a less official capacity is unknown.
Chapter 17
“There is no doubt [Schellenberg] has at least skirted the truth on many matters involving his own skin.”
— Agent Emanual E. Minskoff
The Bloody Red Cross? Walter Schellenberg’s “External Assets”
Did intelligence officer Walter Schellenberg conceal a fortune in gold, jewels, and currency outside Germany during the war? Recent declassified documents strongly suggest he did indeed do so. Unfortunately, the asset trail developed by American investigators leads directly to the doorstep of one of Sweden’s prominent and beloved historical personalities.
We know Walter Schellenberg as the head of RSHA Bureau VI, the SS counter-intelligence operation. Except for a biographical sketch in an earlier chapter, the young Gruppenführer’s connections to this study have been infrequent and cloaked in shadow. He was not a major war criminal on par with Heinrich Himmler or Ernst Kaltenbrunner, but his crimes hover just one rung lower on the same ladder upon which these ne
farious individuals stood. Schellenberg never pulled a trigger or ordered executions (that we know of), but it follows that anyone who worked closely with Reinhard Heydrich during his murderous reign in Czechoslovakia and hoped to succeed him as the head of RSHA was complicit in, and knowledgeable about, the Final Solution. His captors certainly believed as much. Following one of the 200 interrogations he endured an American agent wrote, “There is no doubt [Schellenberg] has at least skirted the truth on many matters involving his own skin.” One “matter” deeply interested his jailers: the amount of wealth he had managed to conceal before Germany’s collapse.1
Schellenberg was extradited from Sweden into Allied custody in June 1945. For much of the next two years the British and Americans questioned him closely and opened a special investigation into whether he had transferred assets out of Germany. Investigators quickly reached the conclusion that he had done so; the only question was how much he had squirreled away, and where it was hidden. Otto Ohlendorf, the former Einsatzgruppen leader and head of RSHA Bureau III, told Allied agents that “sufficient funds were put at Schellenberg’s disposal so that he could live in appropriate style.” More than that he would not reveal. As a counter-intelligence chief, Schellenberg possessed a Swiss passport and traveled to that neutral country many times during the war. Repeated interrogations focusing on these excursions proved largely fruitless in terms of information gleaned. “He had excellent contacts for hiding assets abroad if he chose to do so,” concluded Agent Emanual E. Minskoff. Schellenberg adamantly denied he had taken anything to Switzerland. The trips, he explained, were “purely political.”2
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