by Alex Gerlis
I remained at the house in Shepherd’s Bush for four months, by which stage I was reaching the limits of my endurance: I did not know how much longer I could manage locked in that miserable, smelly house. Just a few days after we heard the news about the Hiroshima bomb, in the first week of August, there was a knock at the door while Mr Frost was clearing away the plates. I quickly went upstairs and into the attic, from where I could just make out the sound of the door opening and much talking going on. Five minutes later there was a tap on the trapdoor. Please could I come down?
In the back room Mr and Mrs Frost were standing together facing a tall man with his back to the window. As I entered the room he moved towards me with a limp, shaking my hand warmly. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Lothar.’
He had brought with him a small suitcase containing clothes and toiletries and a new set of identity papers. I was to familiarise myself with my new identity and then leave the house at nine o’clock through a small side gate in the garden. Just along the road that backed onto the house I would see a dark green Morris 8 van, on the opposite side of the road. A driver would be in the van, and if there was a newspaper rolled up on the dashboard then I would know all was safe. I should walk past the van and if no-one was watching I was to climb in through the back doors. There would be some blankets on the floor and I was to lay on them and cover myself. The journey could take as long as three hours. This man was leaving now, but would meet with me ‘in a day or two’ at my next destination.
While I studied my new identity Mrs Frost brought me a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, and the three of us sat in silence in the back room, the lights out but the blackout and curtains open so that we could watch it getting dark. The radio was on but just for music now: since the bomb on Hiroshima the Frosts seemed to have given up and had stopped shouting at the radio and accusing the BBC of telling lies. Since the German surrender they had slipped into a state of mourning.
At nine o’clock Mr Frost went into the kitchen and quietly unlocked the door that led into the garden. I watched him walk gingerly over to the garden gate, unbolt it, and push the door just far enough to see into the street to the side of the house. Apparently satisfied, he returned to the house. It was all clear, he told me. The Morris 8 van was parked where they said it would be. I should leave now.
I walked into the kitchen and the Frosts followed. There was an awkward silence as I wondered what to do next. Should I thank them profusely or just slip away? I turned round and they were both standing right behind me, as if blocking my return into the house. I shook hands with Mr Frost who solemnly kept shaking mine. I then shook Mrs Frost’s hand. She seemed relieved to see me go, to be honest.
I assumed that they were pleased to look after me originally because of their Nazi sympathies, but as time went on I think the enormity of what they were doing, which carried the death penalty after all, became too much of a strain. Four months was a long time, perhaps longer than they had bargained for.
***
Edgar put the letter aside and strolled around his study, checking the door was locked before turning on a reading lamp and returning to Meier’s document. It went into some detail about what happened next: how his new identity didn’t last long and a series of new identities followed, moving around the country until finally settling in Nottingham as Christopher Vale. He found work as an engineer but never married. He’d decided the secrets he carried would be an unfair burden on anyone else.
Soon after moving to Nottingham, in 1956, Captain Canterbury had appeared at his digs. The Englishman explained how he’d been imprisoned for a while after his return to England, but he now had a new identity. His job was to keep in touch with Lothar Meier ‘and the others.’ Canterbury would telephone him: weekly at first but then monthly, and they’d actually meet once or twice a year. For a few years there’d been some half-hearted pretence that their mission still existed, with conversations about how the situation in Europe was turning in their favour, how the Fourth Reich was re-grouping in South America. But Meier had his doubts, and by the mid-1960s it was clear that Captain Canterbury’s job was restricted to keeping an eye on him, ensuring he kept out of trouble and kept his mouth shut.
However in the weeks before Meier wrote his letter, Captain Canterbury’s approach had been more menacing, making all kinds of threats about not saying a word to anyone. This, he wrote, was his reason for writing everything down. He was worried, and felt his life was in danger. After this, the letter appeared to come to an abrupt end but, as Edgar held the final sheet up, the light picked up something on its reverse. It was dense pencil writing, similar to that on the first sheet but so faint that he had to take it over to his desk and play the light of his powerful angle-poise lamp across the page.
March 1970
The reason for Canterbury’s recent threatening tone became apparent today. I am writing these notes late at night just after my return to Nottingham, and I intend to drop this letter off with my solicitor in the morning as a matter of urgency. I don’t even have time to type this as my typewriter is being serviced and I cannot risk waiting any longer. Yesterday – which was a Saturday – I received a telephone call from Captain Canterbury. I was to travel today to Birmingham and meet him at a hotel near the station, where he had reserved a small meeting room on the ground floor.
When I arrived I was shocked to discover I was not alone. Three of my fellow recruits were also present. It was the first time we had seen each other since late 1944. Because so long had elapsed Captain Canterbury introduced us all, and not just by our original names – the German ones by which we had known each other – but also by the English names which we now used. To me this was surprising, but no more so than much to do with this mission. Here are the names of the other three. I hope their English names are correct, I had to memorise them.
Konrad Hartmann (Martin Page)
Christian Schäfer (Tom Hartley)
Arnold Bauer (Tony Norton)
The Captain explained that we four were the only ones of our group in England. He said nothing about any of the others. Recently, he said, there had been a security lapse. He didn’t go into details about it but said it was very serious and could have exposed all of us but, he assured us, it ‘had been dealt with.’
Then he told us someone else would soon be coming into the room. Under no circumstances were we to turn round. We were to say nothing and keep looking ahead. Soon after that, Captain Canterbury left the room. When he returned he was not alone. He stood at the front while the other person remained at the back of the room, us with our backs to him. When he spoke it was in English, in what I would term an upper class accent. He sounded quite young, though I’d be hard pushed to give a much better description than that.
The man said he wanted to see what we looked like in person, so he had observed us as we’d entered the hotel. He wanted us to be in no doubt that we were being watched all the time – he repeated that – and ‘not just for your safety.’ That was how he phrased it, in a very menacing tone. If any of us had thoughts about escaping, moving away or turning ourselves in – anything like that – then we should remember that we had committed war crimes and we should be in no doubt that evidence of those crimes would soon appear if we did anything foolish.
***
Once Edgar had finished reading the letter he sat at his desk making notes and gazing out of the window as he pondered what to do next. For a man who had been on clandestine missions in Nazi Germany, fear was a rare companion in Dorset. But that night, as he locked the letter and his notes in the safe and quietly went around the house to make sure all the windows and doors were locked, Edgar felt fear rising behind his eyes and deep in all his senses.
He would need to involve Paget: how much could he tell him, and how much could he trust him?
And he urgently needed to see Viktor.
Chapter 17
Vienna, Austria
August 1976
‘Is this really the best place for us
to meet?’
‘Don’t you like boats?’
‘You know full well what I mean Viktor. Vienna… is it really safe?’
The large Russian shrugged and pulled his coat tight around him. Despite it being summer he was dressed more for winter, though perhaps not a Russian one. Edgar was dressed more casually: a jacket and shirt, but no tie.
‘Nowhere is safe Edgar. Given the nature of what we’re dealing with, anywhere in the DDR or the Federal Republic is far, far too risky. It’s the same with your country – and with mine, too dangerous for you to enter a Warsaw Pact country so soon after your last visit to one.’
‘But not dangerous for you to leave one?’
‘Hah! You have a point there. It’s a similar situation to the last time we were together in Vienna, eh Edgar? Thirty-one years ago. Who’d have thought the world would be almost as dangerous?’
‘And the last time you were here you sent me on a trip down the Danube.’
‘Actually it was up the Danube and, anyway, these are different circumstances.’ The Russian waved his hand, as if to dismiss those circumstances.
They were on a pleasure cruise, and Edgar’s instructions had been to be on the first trip of the day, one which would be less crowded. Viktor had been very specific about the boat, the time and from where, and what to do once on the boat. ‘Sit on the outside, at the back – away from other people,’ Viktor had instructed him. ‘I’ll join you once the coast is clear, so to speak.’ So Edgar had boarded the boat at Schwedenplatz, as instructed. He sat on the port side, which was alongside the quay and gave him a good view of those boarding. He had been one of the first on board, but saw no sign of Viktor.
They headed up the Danube Canal, passing under the Nord Brücke before joining the Danube river itself, continuing slowly upstream to the accompaniment of a recorded commentary in German, English and French interspersed with a speeded up version of ‘The Blue Danube.’ There was still no sign of Viktor. After an hour or so they pulled in to the town of Klosterneuburg, where half of the boat’s passengers disembarked to begin a coach tour of the Vienna Woods. Only three or four people joined the boat, and again Viktor was not one of them.
The boat turned round and headed downstream, staying on the river itself, passing the entrance to the canal. As it emerged from the shadow of Floridsdorfer Brücke, Edgar felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘May I join you?’
And now Viktor, who naturally had provided no explanation as to where he’d been or why he’d taken so long, was explaining why he’d chosen Vienna for their meeting.
‘It’s odd you know, Edgar.’ The Russian had shuffled closer towards Edgar, enabling him to speak more quietly, despite the noise of the engine. ‘All the trouble before – in ’45 – was whether this city should be neutral after the war. That was the plan, wasn’t it? Then we took control and eventually it became part of the west. Well, now it appears it fancies itself as a neutral city after all. Look over there…’ Viktor was pointing to their left, where cranes towered over an enormous building site. ‘They’re building a United Nations headquarters here. The Austrians are very keen to collect international organisations and provide a home for them in Vienna. It makes them feel important and they hope people will forget what they were up to in the war. For us, it’s been very easy to operate here in recent years. Vienna is becoming the centre of European espionage. We’re expanding our operation at the Embassy and Yevgeny is the new head of the KGB station here. You remember I told you about him? I trained him in Moscow and he asked me to help out when he was appointed deputy head of station in Berlin. So it wasn’t too difficult for me to find a pretext to come down –, he appreciates my help.’
Viktor leaned back, looking very satisfied with his explanation. The Reichsbrücke loomed ahead of them: Vienna’s most famous bridge.
‘That document I gave you Viktor, Krause’s testimony. I trust you’re being careful with it?’
The Russian nodded, looking slightly aggrieved that Edgar had even thought to ask.
‘And what are you doing with it?’
‘Don’t worry, I have plans and of course I’m being careful. Look, we have perhaps an hour to talk Edgar. Now, tell me – you said you had important information?’
Edgar leaned forward, his arms resting on his thighs. Viktor joined him in the same position. ‘I managed to get access to the old MI9 files, which detail all the prisoners of war held by the British. According to these files, four of our five missing SS men were held in the United Kingdom as SS prisoners of war. The only one who I could find nothing on was Mathias Hahn. Against each of those four names was the same phase: “escaped, not recaptured”.’
Edgar paused while the boat’s commentary battled with the wind to point something out on the starboard side. ‘The fact that they escaped is not in itself so unusual, because a number of German prisoners of war did escape from camps in Britain. But virtually all of them were recaptured: they found it impossible to get the right documentation, to find places to hide and to get anywhere near the ports. So for these four to have evaded capture was very significant – unique, as far as I’m aware.’
‘And did the files indicate anything further about them?’
‘Nothing: my assumption was that all of them would have had false British identities and somewhere to go once they’d escaped. They would have disappeared and become untraceable. But I had a hunch, a feeling, that maybe somewhere at some time over the past thirty-one years one of those names might have cropped up somehow. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try. The British police have a department called Special Branch which looks after political matters, among other things. As you can imagine Viktor, they have close links with the intelligence services and I have a very good contact there, a senior officer who looks at matters involving far right groups. I gave him the list of four names to see if he could find anything on any of them.’
The boat was now turning round an island and beginning its journey upstream, back to the centre of Vienna. Edgar paused as this manoeuvre took place, allowing Viktor to absorb the information.
‘My contact told me he had checked all the names on their system. In June this year a man was killed in a car accident in a city called Nottingham. In 1970 – six years ago – this man had given his lawyer a letter which was to be passed on to the police in the event of his dying of anything other than natural causes.
‘The lawyer did indeed pass on the letter and, because it contained allegations of a political nature and concerned Nazis, it ended up in Special Branch files in London. This was how my contact found it.’
‘Which one was he?’
‘Lothar Meier, Viktor. The letter substantially corroborates what we already know. Meier went into some detail about his recruitment, Magdeburg and what happened after that. He explained how he was captured and brought over to this country, how he escaped, found a safe house in London, how he had been moved on after the war, where he’d eventually settled. Captain Canterbury kept in touch with him over the years, but as for their mission – well, as we always knew would be the case, nothing ever came of it. It’s a very long account Viktor. I have a copy of it here for you. I can understand how a busy policeman reading this would dismiss him as a crank. At the end of the letter Meier explains how he was summoned to meet Captain Canterbury in Birmingham in March 1970. There, Canterbury announced there’d recently been a security lapse, but it had been dealt with.’
Viktor nodded, as if he was beginning to understand something complicated. ‘That would be soon after the Krause Report emerged. I imagine someone became aware of it? This is very interesting Edgar …’
‘But not nearly as interesting as what I am about to reveal. Lothar Meier was not alone when he met Canterbury in Birmingham. Three of the others were present: Arnold Bauer, Konrad Hartmann and Christian Schäfer.’
Viktor looked at Edgar in astonishment. ‘All four of them – they must have been mad!’
‘Not only that Viktor, but M
eier – whose English name was Christopher Vale – had written down the English names of the others...’
The Russian shook his head in disbelief. ‘But that is… extraordinary. That’s the only word I can think of. What an extraordinary breach of security, what could they have been thinking of?’
‘There’s more. Before the meeting ended, Canterbury brought another person into the room. This person stood at the back and Canterbury instructed the recruits not to look at him. This man was very menacing. He told them they were all being watched, and if they ever had any thoughts about escaping or anything like that, the evidence of the war crimes they’d committed would be released.’
‘We don’t know who this man is?’
‘No. Vale – Meier – said he was English, well-spoken and sounded youngish.’
‘And the other three – were you were able to track them down?’
The quay at Schwedenplatz was in sight now. The boat slowed down and sounded its horn. Edgar spoke quickly, as if to ensure he finished before it docked. ‘I read the police report on Christopher Vale’s accident. It was what we call a hit and run. Witnesses describe how the car which hit him appeared to accelerate as Vale crossed the road, and sped away after the collision. The car has never been traced. Christian Schäfer – known as Tom Hartley – was a painter and decorator in a town called Huddersfield, in the north of England. One week after Meier’s death he was found dead at a building site where he was working: he had fallen from a ladder. It was not terribly high up, but his neck was broken. He would have died instantly, according to the police report. Arnold Bauer – Tony Norton – went missing from his home in Cheltenham at around the same time as Schäfer died. His body was found by the side of the M5 motorway, not far from where he lived, a week after he disappeared. According to the police report he died from multiple injuries.’
Edgar stopped for a moment. The boat’s engines had gone into a noisy reverse thrust as it edged towards the quay.