Sons and Soldiers

by Bruce Henderson

  By now, Werner was feeling uneasy at how things were proceeding. The battalion had been constantly on the move, fighting much of the time, and most of the men hadn’t slept or eaten properly for days. Everyone’s nerves were shot, his included. Now the battalion was surrounded by Germans, of unknown strength and capabilities, and Werner urgently needed to get accurate information.

  Werner again demanded that the prisoners answer his questions, but no one said anything. Finally, he told them he would count to ten. If he reached ten, and they continued to refuse, they would be shot.

  He started counting out loud.

  “Eins. Zwei. Drei. Vier. . .”

  When Werner reached nine, the senior noncom spoke up, giving the number of the unit to which they had recently been transferred.

  As it turned out, they were stragglers who hadn’t found their new unit, so they knew nothing about its strength or fighting capability. In other words, their information was useless. The entire scene, Werner realized, had turned into a terrible farce. He was exhausted, frustrated, and had felt pressured to get results in order to save American lives. But how close had he really come to letting one of his prisoners be shot only to force the other two into revealing nothing of importance?

  There was so much killing on both sides, and Werner had seen and done his share. Was there a difference between shooting an enemy soldier charging up a hill or throwing a hand grenade at enemy machine gunners, and killing prisoners of war in order to gain valuable information to save American lives? He believed there was. You killed someone who was trying to kill you or your buddies, but not someone who was unarmed and at your mercy, such as a prisoner of war. As drained as he had been that night, mentally and physically, and as much pressure as he had been under in that farmhouse, he refused to rationalize it later. He never forgave himself or forgot what he might have caused that wintry night of war.

  Werner did not hate the enemy prisoners he interrogated, although some—especially the SS soldiers and their haughty officers—were difficult to take when they flashed their Master Race arrogance. But most of the prisoners he interrogated were conscripts, and some of them had been forced to serve in the German army from conquered territories. Now, as prisoners of war, they were defenseless and scared, much as he had been when he was taken prisoner in Normandy. He knew how it felt.

  He never told any of the thousands of Germans he interrogated that he was a German Jew, although he thought some guessed it. Whenever he was asked why he spoke such good German, his standard reply, “I am an American of German descent,” was correct as well as incomplete.

  Often he was asked by prisoners—usually in whispers—whether they would be tortured or shot. No doubt they had seen, if not taken part in, such acts by their own forces. To this question, he also had a standard response.

  “No,” Werner Angress always said. “After all, we’re not Nazis.”

  10

  RETURN TO DEUTSCHLAND

  After the breakout of Allied forces from Normandy in July 1944, Guy Stern’s team joined with three other IPW teams assigned to the First Army’s cage. For these twenty-four German-speaking interrogators, being assigned to the headquarters of a large army of more than a dozen divisions and some three hundred thousand soldiers meant their job was to concentrate less on gathering tactical intelligence—the location of local defenses and the strength of nearby enemy forces—and more on obtaining big-picture strategic intelligence for the generals to use in planning the next major battle or campaign of the war.

  The cage never stayed in one place for long but moved to wherever headquarters relocated. For security reasons, it was never closer than a mile or so from where First Army commanding general Courtney Hodges met with his staff, but it was also near enough for the interrogators to easily access it day or night. Both during and after the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, and into early 1945, German prisoners of war were locked up in the First Army’s cage by the thousands.

  The setup of the cage had not changed since it went up at Foucarville near the invasion beaches a week after D-Day. It was made of high, barbed-wire fences and had sectioned-off common areas, some the size of city blocks, as well as smaller holding pens. On sites chosen by the provost marshal, army engineers had become adept at disassembling and raising the interlocking pieces of the cage, like traveling circus workers rapidly putting up their big top in what had been an empty field. The prisoners were guarded by a company-sized MP unit, which prevented them from escaping, escorted them back and forth to interrogations, and assisted in their eventual transfer to more permanent POW camps.

  Since Guy’s promotion in Normandy to head Survey, he had been collating and evaluating intelligence in response to specific requests from higher-ups. Guy loved the big-picture lens his new job gave him. Much as he had done in high school as a star reporter for the school paper, whether it was interviewing Thomas Mann or Benny Goodman, he researched his subjects thoroughly, then wrote about them in engaging detail; only now, his work wasn’t for a student body readership but for Allied commanders and war planners. His regular “Special Reports” were distributed to more than forty higher commands, including Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), then based in Versailles. One of Guy’s projects, urgently requested by SHAEF, was to prepare a report on the German railroad system. He had been given a list of questions, and to answer them, he and other interrogators questioned a total of 150 prisoners who had formerly worked for the German railroad. They selected only prisoners who had worked on the railroad as recently as September 1944 to ensure their information was current. Guy’s report—dated January 9, 1945—found that due to Allied air strikes and German retreats, there was a growing shortage of locomotives and rolling stock, and he was able to paint a vivid picture of the German railroad workers. Guy described them as “dutiful but tired men and women, 95 percent of them [Nazi] Party members,” a requirement for getting the job. However, he believed their “devotion to duty may be attributed more to a fear of consequences than their ‘patriotic effort.’” Allied bomb-damage experts were perplexed by how the Germans were able to get the trains running so quickly after their tracks were destroyed by bombs. Guy discovered that the Germans had perfected prefabricated rail sections; when one was destroyed, they simply removed it at night and replaced it with a new section, and by morning the trains were running again. In conclusion, Guy wrote: “At present the German RR system is still in a surprisingly healthy condition. However, it appears as if manpower, material and lubricants are steadily getting worse. This, coupled with Allied air attacks, might in the near future bring about a serious disruption of the German RR system and therewith topple an already shaky overall transportation system.” As a result of Guy’s findings about prefabricated replacement tracks, Allied planners adjusted the schedule of their bombing missions; instead of hitting a railroad line or switching yard only once and assuming it would be out of commission for a long while, the bombers were assigned to go back in a day or two for another strike, and to keep returning.

  The next week, Guy produced another report, “German Preparations for Chemical Warfare,” which the staff of XXI Corps had requested. Germany had introduced poison gas in World War I in 1915, and the subsequent deployment of more than one hundred thousand tons of chemical weapons by both sides during that war had killed thirty thousand soldiers, including two thousand Americans. The terms of the Geneva Conventions prohibited the use of poison gas, but the Germans had already violated other terms of the treaties, so there was a growing concern that they might use it anyway, especially as the war turned against them. In researching this critical report, Guy drew up questions for interrogators to ask prisoners about the possibility of gas warfare. Some prisoners reported receiving training with gas masks, having to pass through a gas chamber and practice firing a rifle and machine gun while wearing one. Guy learned that German soldiers were told that gas would likely be distributed by airplanes, gas hand grenades, mines, artille
ry, and gas-filled metal flasks. He quoted one German company commander as telling his men that they should be very attentive to their chemical warfare training because “all indications point to the future use of gas.” The soldiers were told that if anyone would use gas, it would probably be the Russians. Several divisions had compelled their troops to wear gas masks on the way to the front. But Guy estimated that at least 25 percent of German officers and soldiers did not believe in the probability of gas warfare, and demonstrated this by throwing away their unwieldly gas masks once they reached the front.

  For Guy, the major takeaway of this study was that Germany had been preparing its soldiers to defend themselves from gas attacks, but had not trained them to use chemical warfare against others. The Germans were not, in his opinion, preparing to initiate gas warfare against Allied troops.

  In conclusion, Guy wrote: “The German High Command keeps its soldiers, as well as German civilians, well aware of the possibility of gas warfare. The reaction of both, the civilians and soldiers, is one of great anxiety and foreboding. They believe that Germany would be the loser in every respect in case this kind of warfare is initiated.”

  When the First Army was ordered to retreat westward during the opening days of the Germans’ Ardennes offensive in mid-December, its headquarters, along with the cage, was relocated from Herbesthal in northern Belgium to the town of Huy, thirty miles away. Prisoners awaiting interrogation were placed in the cells of a former Gestapo prison in the Citadel of Huy, on a cliff high above the town, overlooking the Meuse River. The large barbed-wire enclosures went up next to the Citadel. Just as the GIs were moving in, a wave of German V-1 rockets dropped on Huy, likely aiming for the town’s main bridge over the Meuse. But the bombs hit everything except the bridge, setting some houses ablaze and blowing out the windows of others. One V-1 landed just outside the Citadel, sticking nose-first in the mud without exploding.

  The fortresslike Citadel had withstood centuries of wars and occupations, and Guy was safely tucked inside during the attack, busily preparing a new report on the precise routing of German supplies such as fuel, ammunition, and food from the home front to the front lines. He looked up from his work and in sauntered a tall, square-shouldered replacement sergeant named Fred Howard, who would promote some exciting if often radical ideas that would help the First Army’s interrogation teams spread out in new directions.

  He had been born Manfred Ehrlich in Berlin, which he and his Jewish parents—his father owned a shoe store—fled in 1939 due to Nazi persecution. With the assistance of relatives who signed affidavits for them, they settled in New York City. When he entered the U.S. Army in early 1943 and became a U.S. citizen three months later, Manfred exchanged his German name for the all-American “Fred Howard.” The surname owed to his fascination with the movie The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Leslie Howard. After completing basic training, Fred was selected for the ASTP program and attended the City College of New York and Georgetown University before arriving at Camp Ritchie in February 1944. He graduated three months later, and was sent overseas in fall 1944. His first assignment had been to examine a cache of German documents at the former Gestapo headquarters in Paris before his transfer to First Army headquarters.

  When the new man walked in, Guy immediately had a job for him. “Can you draw worth a damn?” he asked. The information Guy had collected for his latest report was solid, but he knew some graphics would help make the network of supply routes and transfer locations more comprehensible. His own artistic abilities were limited to rudimentary stick figures.

  Guy was in luck, because Fred had worked as a designer in New York. His drawings to scale perfectly illustrated Guy’s report, and a new partnership was forged. Over time, the two men realized how well they complemented each other, not just in skills but also in temperament: Fred, the wildly creative one with an abundance of chutzpah; and Guy, more disciplined and intellectual, providing both the anchor and counterpoint to Fred’s free-flowing and at times outlandish ideas.

  When Captain Rust, who in Normandy had put Guy in charge of Survey, decided to initiate a second special section called Targets, he tabbed Fred to head it. The mission was to provide bomber crews with the location of enemy industrial targets. The requests were straightforward enough, such as: “Supply map coordinates for new ball-bearing factory outside Schweinfurt.” But what that meant was that Fred had to acquire accurate targeting information from German soldiers who had grown up in Schweinfurt and who probably had friends and relatives working in the factory. Fred had learned all the interrogation methods taught at Camp Ritchie, but there was nothing routine about this kind of interrogation. Even the slowest-witted German knew that the information would be used to bomb his hometown, and many who had been cooperative and talkative up to that point began to clam up.

  German-born Ritchie Boy Fred Howard served with Guy Stern at First Army headquarters. (Family photograph)

  “How do I break these guys to get targeting information?” Fred asked Guy after another fruitless interrogation.

  Guy started ticking off the four basic techniques of interrogation they had been taught at Camp Ritchie. To the first three, Fred said he’d tried them all. Impressing prisoners with what he knew to get them talking (“superior knowledge”), or offering them a cigarette or candy bar as a reward (“bribery”), or talking about a nonthreatening subject that interested them, like soccer (“find common interests”)—none of them worked, Fred said, when it came to Targets. Then Guy got to number four: “Use of fear.”

  “Fear,” Fred parroted. “Okay, Guy, you’ve been out here doing this longer than I have. What scares these SOBs the most?”

  “That’s easy,” Guy answered. “Sieg oder Sibirien.”

  “Victory or Siberia?”

  “To be taken prisoner by the Soviets is a fate worse than death.” Fred jumped up, excited. “Let’s import a Ruskie!”

  Guy shot down Fred’s idea as impractical. While SHAEF had Soviet liaison officers at its headquarters, he pointed out, there were none assigned to the First Army.

  In no more than a few seconds, Fred had another idea.

  “How about one of us turning into a Russian?” he asked.

  They took the idea to Captain Edgar Kann, formerly their second-ranking officer, who had just taken over the team when Captain Rust was given a new assignment. Kann was also a German Jewish immigrant, and he was younger and more adventurous than his predecessor.

  “Hell, why not try it?” said a grinning Kann, and that’s how they created Commissar Krukov.

  Fred and Guy worked out the details. Guy would play the irascible Russian, even though he didn’t know a word of the language and had to practice a fake Russian accent. His model was the “Mad Russian” character on Eddie Cantor’s radio show, which he had listened to on Sunday evenings at his aunt and uncle’s in St. Louis. Within a few days, everyone around headquarters agreed that Guy could do a decent German impersonation of a demented Russian. Then Guy and Fred set out to assemble a proper wardrobe.

  The MPs were told to confiscate any Russian medals and other Soviet souvenirs they had found while searching German POWs. When a handful of Russian soldiers were liberated from the Wehrmacht, some clothing exchanges were made, trading U.S. uniform blouses and jackets for Russian equivalents. Soon, Guy had a complete, if irregular, Russian uniform festooned with colorful medals and ribbons. They furnished a tent as a mock liaison office, hanging up a sign that said, COMMISSAR KRUKOV, LIAISON OFFICER. The final touch: above where Guy would be seated was a framed photograph of Stalin that was signed to his “good friend, Comrade Krukov.”

  It didn’t take long for them to get their first customer. When the next targeting questionnaire landed at First Army headquarters, one of Fred’s first prisoners refused to answer questions about his hometown’s military factories. After he failed to get the German to open up, Fred put on his most sorrowful expression.

  “I understand your position, but please understand mine. Last mo
nth we received orders that we must turn uncooperative prisoners over to our Russian allies. I don’t like it, but I must ask you to please come with me now.”

  Fred took the prisoner under escort to the tent where Commissar Krukov, in full attire, awaited his cue. Fred announced that he had a prisoner to hand over, and instantly, the Mad Russian had an attack of apoplexy. Their well-rehearsed dialogue was delivered in German.

  GUY: You imbecile, what kind of sorry specimen are you bringing me? That Nazi won’t even survive the transport to our Siberian salt mines!

  FRED: Commissar, I must ask you to calm down and respect my uniform and not shout at me, or I will take this prisoner back to my office.

  GUY: You will not do that! This room is Russian soil!

  Fred walked his shocked prisoner back, telling the German he hated to leave him at the mercy of Commissar Krukov.

  But even after that scare, the prisoner was still reluctant to spill the beans about his hometown factories, knowing full well he would be giving information that would likely result in them being bombed.

  “I feel sorry for you,” Fred said. “You are still so young and probably throwing your life away. But we will have to go back, because I have my orders.”

  All it took was a second visit to the crazed Russian for the prisoner to decide to tell Fred everything he knew about his town’s factories.

  Guy and Fred were impressed with themselves and began to add new wrinkles to their good cop/bad cop routine. For example, Fred would suggest that a defiant prisoner write his “last letter” to his family before he was turned over to the Russians, who “do not recognize such humanitarian gestures.” This role-playing broke most of the difficult prisoners and gave Fred the kind of information he needed. But not every German was taken in by the charade. A few of the smarter and more experienced ones figured out how difficult it would be to transport prisoners across half a war-torn continent to reach the Soviets on the eastern front. But many of the Germans were too afraid to think that through, and for them the threat of being turned over to a crazed Russian and sent to Siberia worked so well that the air corps issued a unit citation to the First Army’s Ritchie Boys for providing such reliable targeting intelligence.