Return to Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  One thousand Swiss francs were also sewn into the lining of each duffel bag, the currency being accepted anywhere in the world. There was also a thousand dollars in American currency, aged banknotes of varying denominations. Finally, Cochrane received an envelope filled with Third Reich currency, including coins. As he examined it, he recoiled from the sight of the swastika on the money.

  “That’s a fair bit of money,” said Dulles, alluding to the cash. “I hope you stay out of the casinos as you travel.”

  “I’m not a gambling man,” said Cochrane.

  “Nonsense. If you work for the OSS, you gamble. The stakes are just higher.

  *

  Cochrane spent his final evening at home with Laura having a quiet dinner at a neighborhood bistro on Third Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street. It was named La Fille du Roi. It was run by a French couple who had emigrated to New York in the late 1930’s. The couple proudly flew the French flag outside their eatery, though France had fallen in 1940. They had family in Normandy but hadn’t heard anything from anyone for several weeks. They were scared, they said.

  Neither Laura nor Bill told them that they were scared, too.

  Chapter 14

  Nazi Germany

  1940s

  The rise of National Socialism and the war had been impacting Frieda’s life for as far back as she could remember. Her mother had been murdered due to some political activity and her father was never around due to his “obligations to the Reich.” She had been moved from one school to another and spent summers and holidays with an uncle and aunt who lived in the south near Switzerland. As she entered her teens, though, she grew quieter and disappeared into herself, accompanied by books and a love of music.

  Near where she lived with her uncle in Bavaria, there were open fields and a little country chapel that was nearly abandoned. The chapel had an organ. It was wheezy and dated from the 1890’s but it still worked. The house of worship was on the edge of a potato farm. It dated from the 1700’s and still had a caretaker who also worked on the farm.

  A neighbor gave Frieda a few lessons on how to read music and how to hold her hands at a keyboard. She picked it up fast and taught herself piano. She spent afternoons and evenings playing Lutheran hymns, Chopin etudes and Beethoven sonatas. In a trash can one day she found some sheet music from the 1920’s that was no longer in vogue and dangerous to own. She salvaged it and learned the jazzy and syncopated melodies of New York, Paris and Berlin of the 1920s, the wonderful stuff that German radio couldn’t play anymore.

  In Berlin when she stayed with her father or with her father’s friends, there was a local library. She started reading her way through it. Then came the book burnings. One by one, her favorite authors were not just removed from the library but thrown into pyres ignited by the representatives of the “new Germany” who celebrated the “reanimation of the German spirit” over “decadence and moral perversion.”

  Into the flames went the works of Albert Einstein and Erich Kastner, a local writer of children’s stories whom she loved. Sigmund Freud went into the fires, as did Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. She liked Bertolt Brecht and had seen some of his plays in Munich where they were first performed but now those were banned. There were Americans included: Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Helen Keller and Ernest Hemingway, seen as “a corrupting foreign influence. And there was a special place in Nazi hell for a former German soldier who had been badly wounded in World War One named Erich Maria Remarque. The Nazis hated his seditious work, All Quiet on the Western Front.

  “Unpatriotic,” said Joseph Goebbels of Remarque’s work, based on the author’s own experiences in the trenches.

  Goebbels personally banned the book in 1933 and had it removed from all German libraries. To sell it in a bookstore would be to invite your windows being smashed and your store being torched. There was probably no more unpopular book in Germany. Former soldiers from World War One called it, “literary treason,” though few with that opinion had actually read it.

  Remarque, an erudite man who had served in the German army was no one’s fool. He had fled to Switzerland in the mid-1930s. But even Helvetia was too close for comfort in 1938 when his citizenship was arbitrarily revoked by the Nazi government. One never knew when some Nazi sorehead was going to dispatch assassins. Remarque and his wife fled to the United States and settled in New York in 1939. Almost three thousand other writers and journalists also fled Germany during the years of Hitler’s ascent.

  There were writers and artists of whom the Nazi’s approved.

  One was a man named Hanns Johst who wrote a play called Schlageter, which was an expression of Nazi philosophy, first performed on Hitler's 44th birthday in 1933. In it there was a line, “Whenever I heard the word culture, I take the safety catch off my automatic.”

  The phrase was popular in Germany, widely attributed to many heroic leaders. To Nazi followers, people who read books were to be equated with Jews and should suffer the same consequences.

  Frieda was very much a pragmatist. She was not blind to what was going on in her country and in her country’s name. Far from it, she knew too well the state of the world. It depressed her, as did the stories she heard from her growing circle of friends when she visited the University at Munich.

  The main building of the university was a single red-roofed structure on tree-lined Ludwig Strasse in a quiet section of Munich. The building had low rows of Italianate windows which prevented the edifice from looking like a dormitory. It bordered in Munich’s artistic section, Schwabing, where dissident thought was either ignored, permitted or welcomed.

  By wartime, most of the academic departments at the University of Munich had been taken over by Nazi party ideologues. The best professors had been dismissed. Many who dissented openly were conscripted into the Wehrmacht. They would be sent without proper training to the Russian front so they could “learn about Communists firsthand.” The tone of the wartime university was set by a Nazi speaker at the university, Hanns Schemm, who announced the firings. He had previously presided at a book burning in Munich.

  “From now on,” Schemm told the remaining professors in 1940, “it will be your job not to determine the truth of anything, but rather how it advances the National Socialist movement.”

  Nonetheless, certain departments remained free of Nazi dogma, probably because no one thought they were important.

  *

  One night in October of 1942, there was a brilliant full moon in the sky above Munich. The members of White Rose abandoned the usual Rathskeller and headed for the English Garden, Munich’s oddly named by sprawling park which was near the university. They put out blankets, drank wine they had chilled in the nearby river and ate pretzels and pastries. Alex played a balalaika and Hans played a guitar. The weather was still mild and the war seemed far away.

  “If you’re a student here, how do you avoid the Nazis?” Freida asked.

  “Just avoid them. Some of them wear brown shirts even though they’re students.”

  “No. I mean when you’re taking classes,” she corrected.

  Sophie Scholl taught Frieda and then Ilse how to pick through the system. In doing so, she learned that Ilse had been Frieda’s connection to the university, a friend she had grown up with, two years older, who had first encouraged her to come over and listen to some of the lecturers.

  “You avoid classes like ‘Racial Hygiene,’ ‘The history of Jewish Subversion of the West’ and ‘Folk and Race,’” Sophie said. “The names of the courses are dead giveaways.”

  “Focus on things like chemistry, mathematics, biology and philosophy,” Sophie’s brother Hans added. “Do you want to join us here. That would be great if you did.”

  “I don’t know. That would be next year. I hardly know about next year.” She paused. “I need to talk to my father.”

  The other students had heard references to her father before. They knew not to follow up.

  Afterward, Frieda settled back, zoned out of the conversation a
nd just enjoyed being with her friends. She dropped her guard and pulled a small brown notebook out of the bag she always carried. She opened it and started to look at rows of numbers, add them, and repeat them. It looked to the others like she was playing some sort of numbers game coupled with a memorization exercise.

  Finally, Sophie noticed and tapped Ilse, wondering what Frieda was up to. Ilse laughed and shrugged.

  “What’s that?” Ilse asked Frieda.

  “Something I’m doing for my father,” she said.

  “A bunch of numbers?” Sophie asked.

  Ilse took the notebook from her friends hand. The series and sequences of numbers were incomprehensible to the other students.

  “What is this?” Sophie asked. “A bunch of meaningless numbers?”

  “It’s a code,” said Frieda.

  “For who?”

  “Me,” she said. “Just for me. Only I know the key.”

  “What good is that?” Hans asked.

  “Plenty.”

  Frieda smiled and stashed her notebook in a secure coat pocket.

  Earlier that afternoon, on a walk through Munich, Frieda happened across a Nazi monument called The Eternal Watch. The monument was in Koenig Platz in the center of the city. Munich was considered “The Capital of the Movement.” There were Nazi shrines everywhere. The monument was comprised of several massive stone pillars that loomed over sixteen sarcophagi. The latter contained the remains of the sixteen early Hitler followers who were killed during the 1923 putsch when Hitler was little more than a troublesome local loudmouth. The police had dispatched Hitler’s storm troopers with some well-deserved gunfire. Many had fallen. Sixteen had died, along with four Munich police officers. The Fuehrer, as he was known even then to those who worshipped him, was arrested and tossed into jail, serving nine months of a five year sentence in Landsberg Prison. He used the time to write Mein Kampf and come out of jail more dangerous than ever.

  Now, in Munich in the autumn of 1942, Eternal Watch was Munich’s most formidable monument. Frieda had stood to look at it in horror. It was ringed with motionless but very much alive SS guards in their imposing threatening black uniforms and knee high boots. They were staring right back at her, lecherous, treacherous, ominous, silent and threatening.

  Any passing the monument was required to raise his or her arm in a Nazi salute.

  Frieda hated that salute and refused to ever do it.

  She had turned and run.

  “Would you like to join us at the university?” Hans said, repeating the question asked earlier. The friendly inquiry pulled Frieda out of her vision of Eternal Watch.

  “That would be great if you did,” he said. “We keep to ourselves. We’ll outlast the war. Hitler will fail or be deposed eventually,” he said. “In the meantime, we steer clear of the Nazis as best we can.”

  One glass of wine too many, she smiled indulgently. She leaned back and looked dreamily up to the moon and stars.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “What else would there be other than university?” Ilse asked. “A job?”

  “Maybe I’d like to be like Bertolt Brecht or Erich Maria Remarque,” she said. “You know. I’d like to write books and music and the rest of it.”

  “What’s the rest of it?” Hans asked.

  “Move to the United States,” she said. “I think I know a way.”

  Her friends grinned and teased her good naturedly. Maybe she was dreamier and more unrealistic than they had thought. It didn’t matter. They had accepted her. For the first time in her life, she had a close circle who understood her.

  Frieda turned her head toward Sophie. Sophie had a large envelope containing a sheaf of papers, leaflets that Lilo had printed.

  “What are those?” Frieda asked casually.

  After a slight pause, “Anti-government messages to be posted all over Munich,” Hans said. “We have to do it very carefully and not get caught.”

  “Oh,” Frieda said.

  “Want to help us distribute them?” Sophie asked.

  Frieda thought about it for less than five seconds.

  “Sure,” she answered. “Why not? Give me as many as you can spare.”

  Chapter 15

  New York

  November 1942

  The next morning, Cochrane packed carefully. Laura took a day off from her work at the British Consulate to assist, critically running her eye over everything Bill was taking, trying to pick out anything that looked unnatural or that wouldn’t mesh with his new persona.

  Cuff links with initials were packed away in a drawer. No clothing with name labels. No authentic identification. At certain moments, she choked with emotion and had to leave the room.

  When Bill was packed and ready, she went down to the street with him. He would need to stop by Rockefeller Plaza first for a final visual inspection. A soldier would drive him to the airport.

  Cochrane hailed a taxi. He turned to his wife and they embraced.

  “Just come back alive,” she said.

  “I promise,” he said.

  They held each other as if they never wished to let go.

  “I’ll see you in a few weeks,” he said.

  “You better.”

  “With your new watch.”

  “Just come back alive,” she said. “To hell with the bloody watch.”

  They released each other. She stepped back. Bill Cochrane spoke to the taxi driver and stepped into the yellow cab. He settled into the back seat.

  As the driver pulled away, Bill waved.

  Laura waved back. She watched the cab disappear across East Seventy-Second Street. When the cab left her view, she lowered her hand, turned away, and fought back the tears.

  At 30 Rockefeller Plaza, there was a final orientation with Allen Dulles and his top assistants, which included the inspection of Cochrane’s luggage and travel gear. When it was over, Donovan walked Cochrane to the private elevator.

  “There will be an unmarked army Jeep waiting on Forty-sixth Street to take you to Idlewild,” he said. “The man at the wheel will be a Marine lieutenant in civvies. He’ll be armed. They all are these days. I don’t expect trouble here Stateside, but you never know. There are a couple of American Bund members out on Staten Island who are tipping off German U-Boats as to locations of ships leaving the harbor. Hoover’s people are closing in on them. Can you imagine? Our country opens its doors to these people and they betray us.”

  “I can imagine,” said Cochrane.

  “I guess you can at this point,” Donovan said.

  They stood near the elevator without calling it.

  “Tell Allen that things are falling into place on this end. Tell him Helen Bougrat says hello. Former girlfriend who now works in my office here,” Donovan said. “Translator for some Vichy French stuff we stole.”

  “I’ll convey the wishes. Are you coming down to the street with me?” Cochrane asked.

  “No,” Donovan answered. “Not a good idea for me to be seen with you and vice versa. Plus there’s always the chance some homegrown Nazi nut could get off a potshot.”

  “At you or me?”

  “Yes,” said Donovan with a laugh. “Maybe two potshots.”

  Donovan extended a hand. Cochrane accepted it.

  “The other day when we were first talking about this mission, you likened it to a raid. Get into the enemy territory, grab what you need, and get the hell out as fast as you can. I liked that. A raid. Fast. Keep that in mind.” Donovan finally released Cochrane’s hand.

  “I’ll do that.”

  Cochrane was in the elevator and down to the street.

  He found the Jeep easily. The ride to the airport took an hour. The Marine driver said little, but assisted Cochrane with his luggage at the Pan American Airlines depot. When finished, the driver gave Cochrane a crisp salute, guessing correctly that Cochrane was an officer.

  “Good luck, sir,” he said.

  “Good luck to you, too,” Cochrane said, returning the salute.


  Chapter 16

  Lisbon

  December

  The aircraft out of New York was a Boeing 314 Clipper, a flying boat that took off from Jamaica Bay, a body of water adjoining the airport. The flight was in the air by five PM. It encountered severe turbulence in the mid-Atlantic halfway to its destination and extreme turbulence above the Azores as it neared the Iberian peninsula. During both bouts of rough air, the framework shook violently. At least one time Cochrane, who already hated trans-Atlantic flying, thought the flight was going down.

  But it didn’t.

  It passed the Azores after ten hours, then lowered its altitude and descended through a heavy wet mist at six in the morning local time. It began a decent toward Cabo Ruivo Seaplane Base, in Lisbon, Portugal.

  From the window, breathing easier but exhausted, Cochrane could see the awakening ancient city below, decaying, shabby, decadent and beautiful, its history and ancient architecture frozen in place and time. The glories of empire, which had begun in the “age of Discovery” and lasted six centuries, were in decline. From the air it appeared as if Lisbon was in need of reinvention. But on the final descent to a water landing, Cochrane could see shops opening for the day and morning trams rattling through Lisbon's cobbled streets. Much like the rest of occupied Europe, most people needed to go about their daily routine. Cities thrilled Cochrane, and Lisbon was a wonderful old city with a great history.

  He also knew that Lisbon was the hub of the universe for European refugees fleeing the war. Among those who had successfully emigrated to America were the artists Max Ernst and Marc Chagall and author Arthur Koestler, the author.

  With that thought in Cochrane’s head, the plane hit the water and skidded to a glorious halt. For Bill Cochrane, the first leg of his impossible journey was complete and, he reminded himself, he was still alive.