Discovering the Rommel Murder

by Charles F. Marshall

In addition to the health hazard problem, there were difficulties with discipline in many camps. The people ruined the light wires, tore out telephones, broke windows as fast as they were replaced, set fires, and at times raped, robbed, and murdered. Given passes to leave the camp they would visit the nearest towns and pillage. At some camps they formed armed gangs and resorted to outright banditry. They endeared themselves to neither victor nor vanquished. In contrast, the displaced French, Belgian, and Dutch forced laborers were repatriated without problem just as fast as transportation could be found.

  May 23: To Army Headquarters in Augsburg, Germany, with sergeants Ernest Rothschild and Joe Lowensberg. Beautiful ride. Passed the castle of Mad Ludwig, king of Bavaria, high on a hill, but had no time to stop and look it over.

  At Army Headquarters I received orders to report to Salzburg in Austria and screen 16,000 PWs preparatory to their being discharged. Another officer and several noncom interrogators would join me there and be a part of my staff. After we located the prisoner of war cage, we found that the highestranking German officer had the prisoners well organized in anticipation of our arrival, and this speeded our work. With the help of Germans as runners and clerks, we screened 1,800 men by nightfall.

  The procedure was simple and fast. The men lined up on the grounds outside the building housing our offices. On entering the building, they were ordered to remove their shirts and raise their arms to be inspected for the SS blood-type tattoo, found on the inside upper arm, if I recall correctly. If the tattoo was present, the SS man was detained or, if he had enough rank, was placed under automatic arrest. After the inspection for the incriminating tattoo, German doctors, earlier singled out, gave the men a superficial physical examination and weeded out the obviously sick. Next the men filled out a deceptively simple-looking questionnaire, called a Fragebogen in German, which required of the respondent a wide variety of information, including a list of all his memberships in National Socialist and military organizations, his associations, and employment and salary history back to the pre-Hitler period. The information quickly revealed overt Nazis, sympathizers, and individuals who had benefited materially from the Nazi regime.

  At the interviewer's desk the man presented his Fragebogen and Soldbuch, which were quickly examined and the man briefly interviewed to determine whether he was subject to automatic arrest or had technical skills of intelligence interest. If the man fell into neither category he was eligible for discharge. In that event he filled out another form on which he was required to give his name, the names of his close relatives, and his place of residence. This form and his Soldbuch he then handed to a German clerk in exchange for a discharge form. If his destination was in our army area, he was given half a loaf of black bread and a pound of lard, his ration for the trip, and he could wait for a truck to take him home. If he lived outside our area, he went to one of several small temporary camps to await transportation.

  As Germany slowly began its return to normalcy, the Fragebogen became a source of humor in skits in German shows. At one such show I attended, the only American officer present, an actor directed his humor at the Fragebogen and, suddenly and fearfully, all eyes in the small auditorium were turned to me, expecting, no doubt, that I would jump up, halt the proceedings and put the actors under arrest. When I made no such move, the audience became aware that it had just had a taste of free speech, something that had gone out when the Nazis came in.

  May 26: Screened another 2,500 by 2 P.M. Considerable automatic arrestees.

  The purpose of our work was to disband the German Army and simultaneously sift out those men wanted by the Allies for various criminal offenses. Upon undergoing the screening test, PWs were released back into the civilian world except for those who were automatically placed under arrest. These ranged from the top Nazi leadership down to the local leaders, from the top Gestapo agents to leaders of the Hitler Youth, the Peasants' League, and the Labor Front. Other categories included General Staff officers, concentration camp guards, SS officers and senior noncommissioned officers, and all female members of the SS. To assist us in the search, Washington provided us with a thick ledger with the names, descriptions, and other pertinent information of people wanted for war crimes. This had been compiled by a special agency from data earlier forwarded by all intelligence sources.

  When the screening team had a borderline case, and this was frequent, the man was passed on to me. Playing God was never my idea of a good job, but the buck stopped with me and caused me much anguish. A stroke of the pen set the man free; another stroke might result in his eventual execution. And so it went from early morning until evening. And many an evening after supper I spent poring over papers I brought home, racking my brains for the proper solution. Not a day went by that I didn't wish for Solomonic wisdom.

  The frenetic pace of the war and its accompanying bone weariness were something to which I was glad to bid adieu. My job had settled into one of supervising the screening of German PWs and assorted PWs of other nationalities, discharging most of the Germans back into civilian life and starting most of the non-Germans on the way back to their native countries, all the while searching out the arrestables. And arrestables there were, so many some days that my hand ached from the pile of arrest reports that required my signature. Once, trying to solve the problem of the aching hand, I had a rubber stamp made with my signature, rank, and serial number, feeling I had outsmarted the system, only to have Army Headquarters fire them back to me as "not in conformity with policy."

  In screening a batch of 2,500 men, a good number of the Dachau concentration guards were culled out. Units of our 45th Infantry Division had liberated the infamous camp. Says my diary, "I signed their arrest reports with pleasure." This was followed the next day by 160 arrestables in various categories, among them two generals from Vlassov's army.

  Sometimes when we had processed the last PWs, there was an interval of a day or two or more before the next batch arrived. This afforded me time to return to Corps Headquarters for swimming and socializing. It also allowed us time for trips to places of interest. Of greatest curiosity, of course, was Hitler's badly destroyed home at Berchtesgaden on top of Obersalzburg, a 6,400-foot mountain. In the three weeks since the end of the war the chalet had become the prime souvenir hunting ground for the American servicemen. By the time we got to it, it had been thoroughly ransacked. The best I could do was to come away with a piece of marble from the grand stairway leading to the second floor. The chunk still sits on one of my bookcases.

  May 28: An SS colonel tried to prove to me he was not SS.

  Screened among others a whole company of kids, fifteen- to eighteen .near-olds, who were getting double rations from the Army because then were still growing.

  A mount of badly sickand crippled i.s tremendous. The scrapings of the German manpower barrel. One discharged soldier had no right eve, not even a glass one. The socket was complete/), visible.

  It was nothing less then heart wrenching to see the high number of crippled in the lines, many of whom were young boys. I had no rancor in my heart for these men, although I had come to hate the system they had been fated to defend. To one who had been raised to believe all men are creatures of God, these lines of soldiers were an intensely poignant sight. Observing them, a spectacle to be indelibly etched in the mind, one had to ponder human resilience in the face of crippling, illness, starvation, and the absence of almost all creature comforts. Yet these men were anxious to get home to start life anew. I marvelled at the tenacity of the human spirit.

  The task of organizing a PW camp fell to the American commander of a battalion stationed in the area. He was responsible for searching, guarding, and feeding the PWs. Invariably he spoke no German, had no experience in this field, and was thankful for my help.

  The simplest and most efficient way to organize the camp, I would tell him, was to call in the highest-ranking German officer and have him do it. The German officer, appointed commandant, would establish a cadre of junior officer
s who would seek out the cooks and establish a mess, ferret out the doctors and set up a dispensary, find mechanics to service our vehicles, and otherwise organize matters for efficient operation.

  I would send an order to the Buergermeister of the local town to furnish us with several hundred books from the town library to be used as the camp library. He would be told to supply us with whatever number of typewriters were needed, as well as paper, carbon, cooking utensils, tools, and so forth.

  Each morning, for a half hour or so, the American commander of the guarding battalion, the German camp commander, and I would meet. The German would receive his new orders and be asked about his problems. These would usually be requests for supplies of one kind or another. The dispensary, forexample, might need certain drugs. I would requisition them from the local hospital. Sometimes, when we were stymied, the German might suggest a solution, or the problem might be passed on to the Buergermeister.

  June 15: Processed over 4,500 today, a new record.

  A pity to see the number of crippled Germans we're discharging, especially eighteen-year-old boys with one arm or one leg, and even some with no arms, and others with no legs.

  June 16: Batch of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old kids came in, many appearing to be only twelve. Others were badly lame. A major had a wooden leg. I saw only two strong healthy looking kids in an hour's watching 600 go by.

  Screened 6,500 today, including 400 [German equivalents of] WACs. Noticed the guards find the shortage of brassieres in Germany adds interest to girl watching.

  Whereas the soldiers were invariably docile, hostility was often seen in the eyes and set jaws of the Kriegshelferinnen, the German equivalent of the American WACs.

  After our work in Salzburg was completed, we moved on to a large camp in Heidenheim, where we were scheduled to process 335,000 prisoners, and my staff was enlarged for the job by the addition of fifteen to twenty additional interrogating officers and noncoms.

  With the warm weather-it was now mid-June-a distinct whiff of the odor emanating from the scruffy PWs as they filed by was often enough to cause me nausea. I was reminded of the remark of a GI who was bathing in an icy stream in France. "Must be pretty cold, soldier," I said, sympathetically.

  "Yes, sir," was the reply. "But man's best friend ain't a dog, sir. It's a bath."

  In my movements about the camp, the prisoners constantly saluted me. Although it was forbidden for American officers to return the salute, I often did so as a Pavlovian reflex. When higher-ranking officers saluted me I took it as a mark of their acknowledgment of defeat.

  The houses we requisitioned for living quarters near our work were generally large, roomy ones, and although it violated security rules, I could never bring myself to throw families out of their homes. My practice was to take the space we needed and confine the family to the other rooms.

  From the owner of our house in Heidenheim I learned that Field Marshal Rommel had been born here and that his brother still lived in the town. I made a mental note to look him up when I found the time. There was so much that I wanted to know about this German general.

  In retrospect, looking back almost half a century later, the power of the interrogating staff was awesome. We were judge and jury. What we decided about a prisoner determined whether he would be immediately discharged, sent back to his native country if he was not a German, tried as a warcriminal, or held for further and more detailed interrogation. Russians, Poles, Czechs, and other nationals who had fought in the German Army would be sent back to their native countries and were expected to be tried as traitors.

  One morning I had a small, handsome Russian boy of fifteen standing before me. His story in a nutshell was that his father had been killed in the Russian Army when he, the son, was twelve, and his mother had died at about the same time. Out of food and hungry, he had gone to some German soldiers occupying the area. They took him on as a stable boy, gave him a uniform, and fed him. He stayed with them and was ultimately captured with them. Now, if he was released, he told me, he would go to the farm of the major under whom he had worked, the major having promised to employ him after the war.

  According to the rules under which we operated, he should have been returned to Russia. There he would almost certainly have been killed for treason. So I changed his papers to read, where it asked nationality, "German," and discharged him.

  Another morning an engineer captain brought in sixty German railroad engineers and a young woman clerk to be screened. I put the woman to one side and rushed the engineers through the screening process. Then I called the woman, who was neat, pretty, and fluent in German. Her papers showed her to be an Estonian. Told that she would be sent back to Estonia, she erupted in hysterics, screaming that she might as well kill herself then and there. Asked why the tragic outlook, she said her father had been a prominent man in Estonia, affluent, owner of considerable real estate and a large leather factory. When Russia and Germany warred for control of the country, she was drafted into the German Army as an interpreter because of her knowledge of Russian. Her father, mother, and baby daughter had drowned when the ship on which they were fleeing to Germany was sunk. The whole family, she insisted, had been on the Communist list of those to be liquidated.

  Fifteen-year-old Russian boy in German uniform. Usually boys of this age turning up in prisoner-ofwar camps were German nationals. Photo by author.

  Finding no flaws in her story and knowing the low value the Communists placed on human life, I found her tale credible. I could not easily forget what General Vlassov's truce emissary had told me about the fate awaiting the 100,000 Russians fighting on the German side if we did not accept their surrender. I also recalled a story a friend had told me when he was acting as liaison with Russian headquarters. He had complained to his counterpart about the disrespectful treatment he had received at the hands of a Russian guard. The officer drew his pistol, asked my friend to point out the guard, and was going to shoot him, stopped only by the American's repeated insistence that the act did not warrant such drastic punishment.

  I adjusted the young Estonian woman's discharge papers to allow her stay in Germany.

  Dotting the postwar landscape in the American occupation zone were four major types of camps. The displaced persons camps were primarily for foreign workers who had been muscled into the German labor force and now awaited return to their homelands. The prisoner of war camps, officially known as "disarmed enemy forces enclosures," were the camps through which the German Army was first moved in the process of being disarmed, screened, and disbanded. The third type was the internment camp, which held men who had gone through the screening process in the PW camps and had been winnowed out for various reasons, requiring further detailed interrogation. Some were clearly war criminals and were transferred to the fourth group of camps, the war crimes installations.

  The internment camps, in addition to holding military-affiliated people, also held civilians who fit into a dozen or so assorted categories. With the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) operating full force and the interrogators in the PW camps culling out large numbers of arrestables, the total number of such people soon reached more than 100,000.

  Part of the purpose of these camps was to keep suspected Nazi leaders away from the political scene while the AMG (American Military Government) was cleaning out the political offices of Nazis and replacing them with non-Nazis and anti-Nazis.

  The theory was fine, but the problem of who and what was a Nazi dogged the civil affairs division (G-5) from the first day to the last. As early as a month after VE day the G-5 had said, "The question who is a Nazi is often a dark riddle and the question what is a Nazi is also not easy to answer." Back in America, whence came extremist assertions and shrill denunciations, the layman knew the answer: "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck." It was not that simple. Americans have a fondness for black-and-white distinctions, all or nothing. True, black is black and white is white, but the difficulty entered w
hen the interrogator had to determine from myriad shades of gray which should be called white and which black.

  In the higher reaches of the army there was early on much doubt about the practicality of the de-Nazification process, but the controversy simmered more or less quietly. The most outspoken of the generals was Patton, who, talking to reporters, said, "The Nazi thing is just like a Democrat-Republican election fight." When his words appeared in the newspapers across the United States, the furor that resulted forced Eisenhower to relieve the general of his post as commander of the Third Army.

  The comment was an oversimplification. Anyone familiar with the situation could hardly agree, but to justly sort out the good guys from the bad guys required talents the good Lord had given to few of us. As the AMG people quickly learned, during the Hitler era great numbers of competent, efficient, and decent Germans had paid lip service to the Party in order to continue in their work and careers. Certified anti-Nazis often vouched for the character of these nominal Nazis. Most of us directly involved in the deNazification process did much agonizing over our power to set a man free or to send him on a course of imprisonment-with just the stroke of a pen. Too often we felt we were impinging on God's job.

  Another policy that was a thorn in the side of the high brass was the policy of nonfraternization, doomed to noncompliance from the moment the orders were issued. Consorting between one's own troops and enemy civilians has been a command problem since the first armies were formed. Odysseus experienced it in the Trojan wars. The Chinese are said to have nullified successive invasions by practicing it. The policy had failed in the First World War and was to be a bust in the Second, however much President Roosevelt wished otherwise. It violated basic natural instincts, and from its onset the troops found ways to ignore or sabotage the order.