Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler

by Simon Dunstan

  After a stupendous effort, Colossus was able to break the Tunny cipher and read significant amounts of Sturgeon traffic, but now there was a new sound coming over the radio speakers of the Hut 6 intercept room at Bletchley Park. It was the characteristic noise of yet another new German encryption device, code-named “Thrasher,” and this one seemed to be impervious to penetration by Colossus. The Germans had devised an unbreakable code for their latest machine—the Siemens & Halske T43 Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine. It was all the more vital to capture such equipment in order to maintain the Allies’ superiority in signals intelligence in the years to come.

  A WHOLE RANGE OF SPECIALIST UNITS were by now poised on the borders of Germany, eager to advance and uncover the secrets of the Third Reich. In addition to the nuclear research hunters of the Alsos Mission; the MFA&A heritage protectors and art detectives; the heavily armed “Red Indians” of Ian Fleming’s 30 Assault Unit, which was now named 30 Advance Unit; the scientists and technologists of the T-Forces; the gold-seekers of the Klondike teams; and the TICOM teams hunting for encryption technology, several other organizations had also been activated, each with its own tight focus. To reduce the risk of mutual confusion, the G-2 intelligence division at SHAEF created a Special Sections Subdivision in February 1945 to coordinate the activities of all these specialized teams with the fighting troops as they advanced into Germany.

  With her cities and factories devastated by air attack and still being bombarded by V-2 missiles, Britain was anxious to acquire Germany’s industrial machinery and manufacturing processes to rebuild an economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy. In booming America such considerations were not a factor; instead, the United States wanted German intellectual property and the personnel who had devised the weapons systems that were still impeding an early Allied victory. The role of the new Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section (EPES) was to prioritize the desirable fields of German technology and identify the scientists, engineers, and technicians involved in such projects. The first task was relatively simple. Thanks to Ultra, the Allies knew many details of the technical and operational capabilities of the latest weapons and even their secret German designations. For instance, the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter was code-named “Silver” and the Arado Ar 234—the world’s first dedicated jet bomber—was “Tin.” EPES’s second task was more difficult, since intelligence was lacking as to the specific locations of research laboratories and their staff. All such facilities were now widely dispersed across the Reich to reduce the effects of Allied bombing; many were in Bavaria, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, so as to be at the extreme range of bombers flying from Britain or Italy.

  The advanced German capabilities that justified the creation of EPES were brought into sharp focus after the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen was captured intact by elements of the U.S. 9th Armored Division on March 7, 1945. After a doomed attack by three lumbering Stuka dive-bombers, all of which were shot down by the American antiaircraft defenses, the Germans committed some of Hitler’s Wunderwaffen. On the following day the bridge was attacked by fighter-bomber Me 262s and then by Arado Ar 234s. Thereafter, the German’s sophisticated rocket unit SS Werfer Abteilung 500 launched eleven V-2 ballistic missiles from the Eifel Forest area. The closest struck 300 yards from the target, killing three American soldiers; no damage was done to the bridge, but it was yet another demonstration of Germany’s considerable lead in weapons technology. Subsequently, Gen. Hugh J. Knerr, deputy commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces in Europe, observed:

  Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we been alarmingly backward in many fields of research. If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited.

  This incident led directly to Operation Lusty, which was set up by the U.S. Army Air Forces to capture German aeronautical secrets and equipment, and personnel involved in the design and development of jet- and rocket-powered aircraft. Significantly, in July 1945, two months after the German surrender, the British initiated Operation Surgeon specifically to deny such prizes to the Soviet Union, which many in the West now believed was fast becoming a serious threat to European unity. These schemes came under the overall supervision of Operation Overcast, an initiative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose object was to recruit or persuade German scientists and technicians in selected fields that it was in their best interests and those of their families to seek protection and possible employment by the Western Allied powers. In particular, the Americans were anxious to exploit the expertise of German scientists involved in the development of ballistic missiles and atomic weapons. Some analysts had drawn the sensible conclusion that the future lay in a combination of the two weapons systems so it was all the more important to deny such technology to the Soviets.

  In March 1945, the exploitation of German technology had assumed such importance at SHAEF that the Special Sections Subdivision and the EPES were now reporting directly to Gen. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith. Similarly, at 21st Army Group, all exploitation teams, such as 30 Advance Unit and Target Force, were now responsible to SHAEF through Field Marshal Montgomery’s chief of staff, Gen. Freddie de Guingand. The chain of command was specific, detailed, and coordinated. There was, however, a serious obstacle to the success of Operation Overcast. By special decree, President Roosevelt expressly forbade the employment in America of any German who had been a Nazi Party member or who was associated with any war crimes. Since advancement or even employment in any important field in Nazi Germany was often dependent on party membership, this ruling presented a major stumbling block. Similarly, since slave labor, which was used in the production of virtually all German weapons, constituted a war crime under international law, every weapons project was tainted.

  THE YALTA CONFERENCE between “The Big Three”—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—was held in the Crimean city of Yalta between February 4 and 11, 1945. Code-named Operation Argonaut, its purpose was to discuss the structure of Europe once hostilities with Germany ceased. By now, President Roosevelt was gravely ill, but his policy of conciliation toward Stalin continued unabated. Poland—the original casus belli of World War II—was abandoned to its fate; the Balkans also became a Soviet sphere of influence and final boundaries were drawn up for the imminent linkup of Western Allied and Soviet armies in Germany. The country was to be divided into four zones of occupation administered by the Americans, British, French, and Soviets. Stalin demanded the reiteration of the insistence on unconditional German surrender; he still feared a separate peace between the Western Allies and Germany, whereby they would join forces and mount a grand capitalist crusade against the Soviet Union—a policy recommended by some Allied commanders, such as Gen. George S. Patton.

  President Roosevelt was quick to concur and made yet more concessions to ensure that the Soviet Union would join in the war against Japan. He still did not know whether the atomic bomb would actually work, but he did know that any amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands would be unspeakably costly in casualties, with estimates running as high as 1 million Allied troops. Stalin promised to attack Japan ninety days after the defeat of Germany. Publicly, the Grand Alliance stood firm in its resolve: “It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.” In private, Churchill’s suspicion of Stalin’s intentions was as sharp as ever: “The only bond of the victors is their common hate.”

  ON THE FINAL DAY OF THE YALTA CONFERENCE, the first enriched uranium U-235 arrived at Los Alamos from Oak Ridge—a vital step in the construction of the first atomic bomb. The emphasis of the Alsos Mission was now on preventing the Soviets from acquiring German research material and the scientists involved in the Uranverein or Uranium Club. From papers captured at the University
of Strasbourg, Alsos discovered that there was an industrial facility producing high-purity uranium metal at the Auergesellschaft plant in Oranienburg. This was deep inside the proposed Soviet occupation zone of Germany and well beyond the reach of the Alsos Mission. Gen. Groves advised Gen. Marshall that the plant be attacked to prevent its falling into the hands of the Red Army intact. On March 15, 612 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers dropped 1,506 tons of high explosives and 178 tons of incendiary bombs on Oranienburg; the plant was devastated.

  Following the successful crossing of the Rhine by the Allied armies in March 1945, the Alsos Mission could begin its task of finding the Uranverein scientists and any uranium in Germany. Based on intelligence provided by the Special Sections Subdivision, the Alsos Task Force A was directed to undertake Operation Big. This required them to reach Haigerloch in southwest Germany without delay. Haigerloch was designated to be part of the French zone of occupation—and the Yalta Conference had determined that nothing could be removed from each nation’s areas of responsibility—but SHAEF gave unequivocal orders that Col. Pash’s men were to get there before Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s French First Army. Mounted in trucks and armored cars, Task Force A barreled into Haigerloch and found the B-VIII nuclear reactor in a cave. It was simply too small to ever go critical. The Germans were indeed years behind the Allies, since Fermi had achieved the first ever nuclear reaction in America as far back as December 1942. Close by, in Hechingen, the team found all the German scientists they sought except for Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg, and these two were apprehended within days. Everything and everybody associated with atomic research was safely spirited out of the future French zone.

  In the closing months of the war, the leading Soviet atomic research facility designated Laboratory No. 2 possessed only seven tons of uranium oxide. The F-1 uranium reactor required forty-six tons to continue operation, whereas the plutonium-production Reactor A needed 150 tons. The Soviets were in desperate need of large quantities of uranium ore, and Gen. Groves was determined that they should not find it in Germany.

  On April 12, 1945, Team 5 of 30 Advance Unit, commanded by Lt. James Lambie Jr., U.S. Navy Reserve, was deep inside Germany, investigating a factory at Stassfurt some eighty miles west of Berlin. Among other things, they found multiple barrels—several of them broken—containing an unidentified black substance. This news was immediately passed up the line to SHAEF, and the barrels’ contents were subsequently identified as the missing Belgian uranium ore. But Stassfurt was in the designated Soviet zone of occupation. The second in command of the Alsos Mission, Lt. Col. John Lansdale Jr. (the former head of security for the Manhattan Project), consulted SHAEF with a proposal for organizing a strike force to remove the material. Landsdale noted in his report that the Twelfth Army’s G-2, when shown the plan, “was very perturbed at our proposal and foresaw all kinds of difficulties with the Russians and political repercussions at home.” Realizing the urgency of the situation, Lansdale approached Gen. Omar Bradley, commander of 12th Army Group, for permission to raid the facility against the rules laid down at Yalta. Bradley reportedly responded: “To hell with the Russians.” On April 17, Lansdale and his team headed for Stassfurt and located the plant where the uranium ore was stored—a total of some 1,100 tons. When most of the barrels were found to be too unstable for transport, Lansdale’s men purloined 10,000 heavy-duty bags from a nearby paper mill to use as containers. Within forty-eight hours, the vast bulk of Germany’s hoard of uranium ore was safely in the American zone of occupation and beyond the reach of the Soviets. The Western Allies now controlled most of Germany’s atomic scientists, its only functioning reactor, and virtually all its supplies of heavy water and uranium ore. The Uranium Club had been closed down. Although the Alsos Mission was highly successful in thwarting Soviet nuclear ambitions, Martin Bormann was still one step ahead in his plans to utilize Nazi high technology. Once he was safely ensconced in Argentina during the summer of 1948, his final down payment for continued safe haven under the Perón regime was the highly attractive inducement of the fruits of Nazi nuclear researches and advanced aviation designs that made Argentina the sixth country in the world to produce its own jet aircraft, after Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, the United States and France.

  ON THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1945, the day that Lt. Lambie’s team discovered the uranium at Stassfurt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died some hours later. His successor was Vice President Harry S. Truman. For the past few months Truman had chaired the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, which had been probing massive discrepancies in military funds allocated to the War Department. Within days of becoming the thirty-third president of the United States, Truman was informed about the Manhattan Project; now he knew where the missing funds had gone. In August, President Truman made the painful decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and then a second bomb on Nagasaki. Within days the Japanese empire surrendered and the military invasion of Japan was no longer necessary. Thanks to the Alsos Mission, America for the time being had a monopoly of atomic weapons and was now capable of producing three bombs every month.

  Chapter 12

  BORMANN, DULLES, AND OPERATION CROSSWORD

  ADOLF HITLER LEFT HIS WOLF’S LAIR in East Prussia for the last time on November 20, 1944. During the war he had spent more time in this mosquito-infested pine forest than anywhere else. After a brief stay in Berlin, on December 10, he took up residence at his Eagle’s Nest headquarters in south-central Germany to oversee the Ardennes offensive in person. As ever, Martin Bormann was with him, but the Reichsleiter was extremely unhappy with the accommodations assigned to him and his staff at Bad Nauheim. Above all, there were insufficient secure teleprinters to allow him safe and instant communication with his network of gauleiters, many of whom were now being tested as never before as the fighting fronts approached their regions.

  Despite the worsening war situation, the German telephone system generally remained highly efficient. In January 1945, Gen. Alfred Jodl noted that the Armed Forces Supreme Command generated some 120,000 telephone calls and 33,000 telex messages to German military units every day. Day in and day out, the Führer stood hunched over the situation maps with his magnifying glass, spewing out an avalanche of orders for formations whose present equipment and capabilities he often wildly overestimated. As Albert Speer observed, “The more difficult the situation, all the more did modern technology widen the gap between reality and the fantasy being operated from that table.”

  Martin Bormann was not privy to the endless military conferences at the Adlerhorst, so he had plenty of time to further his schemes. For months past, he had been reducing the access of other Nazi leaders to the Führer, thereby increasing his own influence as the inner circle’s numbers dwindled. By Christmas 1944, only a small remaining group had undeniable access to Hitler. Among these was Hermann Göring, but his star was waning fast; his Luftwaffe remained incapable of stemming the Allied bombing offensive against Germany and now proved unable to support the ground forces in the faltering Ardennes offensive. On December 26, Göring’s stock plummeted further when he suggested that it was time to negotiate an armistice with the Allies, only to receive the full force of one of Hitler’s raging tirades: “I forbid you to take any step in that direction! If, in spite of what I say, you do anything to defy my order, then I will have you shot.” Bormann duly noted Göring’s defeatism.

  On New Year’s Day 1945, Hitler made a radio broadcast to the nation, proclaiming that “Germany will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and rubble of her cities and … despite all setbacks, will go on to win final victory.” On January 4, 1945, virtually the whole senior Nazi hierarchy was present at the Eagle’s Nest, including Göring, Goebbels, von Ribbentrop, and Bormann. Also attending as a guest was Col. Hans-Ulrich Rudel of the Luftwaffe, a favorite of Hitler’s and the most decorated man in the Wehrmacht. Only Heinrich Himmler was absent, due t
o his newfound role as a military commander, directing Operation North Wind in the Rhineland. Bormann had plans for all of them.

  On January 12, some 3 million troops of the Red Army began their long-anticipated offensive along the Vistula riverfront in Poland, behind the largest artillery bombardment of the war thus far. Within twenty-four hours, the German defenses were broken and the Soviets had advanced ten miles. Gen. Guderian telephoned the Führer headquarters pleading for reinforcements. Hitler was only willing to release the Sixth Panzer Army for the Eastern Front. Although this formation had, on paper, an elite corps of SS armor, it had been worn down in the Ardennes. Despite the unfolding defeat on the Vistula, Hitler was disturbed by the discovery that there was no emergency exit from his command bunker at the Eagle’s Nest. And when the Führer was unhappy, Bormann was invariably at hand to rectify the situation. On January 14, the bunker’s architect, Franz Werr, was summoned to Hitler’s presence; he was warned in advance that he could not hoodwink the Führer, since the latter’s interest in architecture made him “the greatest master mason of all time.” Werr explained that there was no need for an emergency exit from the bunker, because in the unlikely event of the main exits being blocked after an air raid, then hundreds of laborers were on hand to clear the rubble. Hitler insisted that another exit be installed immediately, but when Werr returned with a work party two days later, Hitler had left for Berlin.

  BORMANN’S SCHEME TO MARGINALIZE Himmler was bearing fruit. His authority as overlord of the entire SS apparatus was still unchallengeable but, like most men, he had an exploitable weakness. In addition to his other titles, Himmler nursed a fervent wish to hold a high military appointment. Accordingly, in the aftermath of the July 1944 bomb attempt, when Hitler was seething with suspicion of the Wehrmacht officer class, Bormann had suggested to the Führer that Himmler should be made commander of the Ersatzheer or Replacement Army. Thereafter Himmler became, successively, the commander in chief of Army Group Upper Rhine, attempting to stem the advance of the U.S. Seventh and French First armies in Alsace, and then head of Army Group Vistula, which stood in the path of a Soviet advance on Berlin.