Nazi Gold

by Douglas Botting

  In Buxell’s memory he did not get into a bed but was put on an operating table to which he was fastened. A few seconds after being injected – it seems he was put on some kind of intravenous drip – he found himself in a semi-conscious state. He was then slapped around the face and regained consciousness, though only to the extent of attaining a trance-like state. He saw a number of people standing around the table. At the foot were two colonels, two secretaries, the doctor and a captain. One of the officers – probably Kulka – started to ask him a number of questions very rapidly. The questions did not seem to make much sense and were apparently not related. ‘When and where were you born?’ ‘Where were you on 20 May 1938?’ ‘What is your opinion of the philosopher Hegel?’ ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party?’ They asked over a hundred questions, and unanswered questions were repeated.

  Then Kulka went off at a tangent. ‘I brought up the subject of a certain Garmisch resident,’ he recalled. ‘To my biggest surprise, the minute I started to mention the name of this man it rang a bell, and he got extremely uncomfortable.’

  Buxell, it seems, then went on to talk about the burial of portions of the Reichsbank treasure in the von Blüchers’ back garden, its recovery by the Americans and its subsequent fate. As it stands Buxell’s story now is somewhat garbled – the effect of the sodium pentothal doubtless compounded by the lapse of time since the event – but the main drift is clear enough. A few days after the Americans had made their recovery from the garden they returned to the house and demanded the receipt back on the pretext that it contained some mistake. According to Buxell’s unconscious rambling it seemed that once they had retrieved the receipt the Americans – a colonel, a major and two GIs – would have a free hand to do what they wanted with the treasure because there would no longer be any material evidence to show that they had taken it or that it had even existed. The receipt was duly handed over to the American colonel, who then tore it up. But then one of the Germans ‘reached into his pocket and produced a photocopy of the original receipt and in a rather sarcastic tone turned to the Colonel and said: “Would the Colonel care to have another copy to tear up, because there’s lots more where this came from”.’ At this point Buxell’s mind wandered off down another track and came to the subject of gold. Kulka later recalled what the Pole had told him.

  ‘The gold bullion,’ Kulka continued, ‘which was in mahogany boxes, was taken to a bowling alley in an inn in the first little town north of Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the way to Munich [possibly Farchant]. There it was put at the back of the bowling alley, at the end of the Kegelbahn, and a false wall built in front of it.’

  Though this is not the last we are to hear about the gold bullion at the back of a bowling alley in Farchant, it is the last we are to hear from Ivar Buxell under the influence of the truth serum. For suddenly Colonel Smith told Lieutenant Kulka, along with a CID agent and a hospital nurse who were also in attendance, to leave the room so that he could be alone with the subject. Fifteen minutes later he called Kulka back. It would be advisable, he told Kulka, to keep very quiet about what they had heard. Then he walked out of the room, leaving Kulka to make Buxell as quiet and comfortable as he could and get him back to his cell.

  On the removal of the injection [Kulka recounted] the Polish individual was directed to wake up. I reassured him and gave him the post-hypnotic suggestion that he was perfectly all right, that he had rested and I would let him sleep for about ten minutes more. Then he would have to get dressed and get back to his cell before anybody knew that he was missing. A few minutes later I helped him to get dressed, got him in the car and took him back to the cell. Of course, any recollection of the interrogation was completely erased. I made him comfortable and asked him to rest and he fell asleep for the whole afternoon and the whole night. When I came back the next day he was extremely grateful that I had made it possible for him to rest and regain his composure. This was the first sleep he had had in God knows how long.

  Unfortunately the incident had some rather unpleasant consequences for this Polish DP. The next day he was interrogated by five or six American officers, including two already known to him – Captain Livingstone of the CIC and Captain Skelton, the Garmisch Public Safety Officer. By confronting him with fact after fact which he had admitted to in the hospital, he finally broke down and made a full confession and related the story verbatim while conscious. This was immediately typed up by the secretary, who was a WAC, and the Polish individual signed it.

  Then [Kulka continued] the colonel released the Polish individual, much against his wishes and pleadings. The Polish man kept begging and begging the colonel to provide security for him. I pleaded with the colonel to provide security for him but he said:

  ‘We have no authority or way of holding him, therefore we have to let him go.’

  He was released and completely disappeared. I have no idea what happened to him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was one of the many unidentified corpses that were found around Garmisch at that time. But I heard a rumour he was turned over to the Russian Repatriation Commission for return to Poland, and of course, at that time most internees were being executed as they crossed the border.

  In fact, Buxell did not perish but lived to tell the tale and became the prosperous vice-president of a large engineering company in Venezuela. He still remembered it all very clearly, even 30 years after the event.

  I disappeared for 18 days [he related]. Even my wife couldn’t find out where I was. The fact was that I was in the hands of the Army and not the Military Administration. The German police did not know what was happening to me. I was forced to keep secret and not tell anybody about where I was during those 18 days. Later on, I do not remember when it was, we were taken to the Military Court in Munich. The US Prosecutor told us not to worry and after the trial we went free. A few months later the American judge paid me a visit, together with his wife, and we spent a couple of hours together in my house. He acted in a very mysterious manner and told me that many things had happened that were unknown to me. He assured me not to be worried, as the whole gold affair was over and all problems had come to a good end.

  One explanation why ‘the whole affair was over’ has been provided by Leo Kulka, though it cannot be substantiated from any other source. Some weeks after Buxell had been injected with the truth serum and talked about gold bullion hidden in a bowling alley, Kulka recalled, a quantity of gold came to light under rather curious circumstances. ‘The non-commissioned officers of the Military Police detachment in Garmisch held a party of some sort in the bowling alley,’ Kulka related. ‘One sergeant got into a rather hefty argument with another. They started breaking and pushing things, the bar was broken up and the sergeant, who by that time was quite inebriated, decided to do some bowling with some funny bowling balls that they had over there, which completely lacked holes to put your thumb into.’ This kind of bowl had to be pitched rather than rolled, but being a little the worse for drink the MP sergeant wildly overpitched the bowl, which went hurling down the alley, bounced and smashed into the wall at the back and disappeared. The Americans tried to retrieve the bowl but found it difficult to do so without dismantling the wooden boards with which the wall was constructed. When they eventually climbed through they found, to their complete surprise, not only the wooden bowl but a stack of wooden boxes and six cardboard boxes, like shoe boxes, as well. To their even greater surprise they found that the wooden boxes contained gold bullion and the cardboard boxes contained concentration camp tooth gold compressed into square bricks which still contained human teeth.

  The gold was loaded on to a truck and deposited with the Military Police. The sergeant was charged with starting a brawl and causing damage to property. The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the gold were largely suppressed. When Lieutenant Kulka demanded to see the gold and where it was stored he received, he says, ‘the royal runaround’:

  The Military Police claimed it had been given to the Military Government because
the Military Government was responsible for all judicial matters. Therefore the Military Police didn’t really have the gold. I saw one box of bullion in the Military Police office. After I started looking for the rest in order to get a count I had to go to the Military Government and that’s where the path started to go in all sorts of different directions. The curious thing was that there was no record anywhere of who had what or how much. The only one, strangely enough, who had a proper count was the innkeeper from whose place the bullion had been removed. He informed me how many boxes he thought he had counted and swore that he had absolutely no knowledge as to how they could possibly have gotten there. He had sworn his innocence to the Military Government and they believed him – or a deal was made – and that was all there was to it.

  So about two weeks passed and I went back to the innkeeper and the inn was closed. There was nobody there any more. Rumours had it that he had been picked up by the Americans. Military Police had no record of him having been picked up and Military Government refused to have anything to do with it. They claimed that they had turned the matter over to the German Criminal Police and that the gold had been transported to Munich to be put in the hands of the then Director of the Police Department for Bavaria, a certain Herr Pitzer. Working for Herr Pitzer and Head of the Criminal Police was a Herr Grassmüller, who was a very good friend of mine. Herr Grassmüller, however, didn’t know what had happened to it either. He had heard about it but he insisted it was a matter that the American Military Government had taken over. Having known Herr Grassmüller for many years I believed him to be a very honourable man of the old school and that he really did not know anything about it.

  No more was ever heard of this particular stash of gold. There is no record of it in the gold inventory of the FED or in the surviving files of OMGB. Curiously, as in the case of several other gold recoveries described in this book, it is to Munich that the trail leads and in Munich that the trail grows cold.

  Lieutenant Kulka’s problems with the gold were as nothing compared with Colonel Smith’s difficulties with the case as a whole. After the investigation was finished all sorts of allegations were made to US Army higher command about the ‘almost incredible power wielded by the American conspirators and their German associates’. Some witnesses approached by Colonel Smith, including Germans, openly defied and obstructed the colonel. Others were just spirited away. Two of the three CCD monitors were alleged to have been reached by the gang and from then on failed to produce satisfactory excerpts of suspects’ telephone conversations. Later, important sections of the files relating to this large-scale wire-tapping operation (code name ‘Operation Comic Strip’) disappeared. ‘I didn’t feel that I had co-operation in the Post at all,’ Colonel Smith admitted subsequently. ‘I didn’t feel comfortable there at any time.’ The Garmisch Post Inspector was up to no good. He was in the remarkable position of having two identification cards, one in his real name, the other in a false name. ‘He made it a point,’ Colonel Smith testified in 1948, ‘to become extremely familiar with one of my two secretaries, posted my telephone number in the Bachelor Quarters in Garmisch as that of his office, and conducted himself in such a manner that I was called three times by the Post Headquarters to ask whether he was my assistant. He apparently tried in every way to create the impression that he was associated with me in conducting the investigation. Although I had no ground except suspicion, I felt it was quite likely he was implicated in some of the improper actions of the Post. I have been told he is presently in Bologna, Italy, together with my former secretary, and that he is no longer on active duty with the American Army.’

  Then exceptional pressure was put on both Colonel Smith and Lieutenant Kulka from above. During the course of the investigation two German girls, who shared house with the Garmisch Military Post Commander, Colonel Francis Dodd, and two of his subordinate officers, were arrested on the technicality of illegal border crossing. They had been caught taking a considerable quantity of jewellery of questionable origin out of Germany on behalf of their boyfriends, the two American colonels, and it was hoped that by prosecuting them to the limit on the border-crossing charge they would break down and turn State evidence, thus assisting in the preparation of well-founded cases against members of the Garmisch ‘gang’. But suddenly Smith was told to lay off the two girls. As he subsequently reported to General Clay, he was directed by Brigadier General Muller, the Military Governor of Bavaria, not to try them on any charge ‘until the receipt of further instruction from him’. Later, at a further inquiry into the Garmisch affair, he enlarged on this intercession by Muller in the case of the two German girls. ‘While they were still under arrest,’ Colonel Smith testified a few months later, ‘I received a personal telephone call from General Muller, Director of Military Government, Bavaria, in which I was asked why these women should be tried. I knew this information could not get to General Muller except through the means of some officer of high rank who was in a position to call General Muller. I have been told Colonel Dodd was a classmate of General Muller. Obviously, Colonel Dodd had interceded with General Muller to obtain special treatment for these two women.’ (In fact, West Point records show that Dodd and Muller were not classmates, but that Muller and Clay were.)

  Then Colonel Smith discovered that the regional headquarters of the CIC in Munich were trying to pull his assistant, CIC Special Agent Lieutenant Leo Kulka, off the case before he had completed the job. ‘Most of the time,’ Kulka recalled, ‘I felt like a mushroom – kept in the dark and covered in manure.’ When Smith went over the regional CIC’s head and appealed to the CIC Command Headquarters in Frankfurt for permission for Kulka to be retained on the IGD investigation in Garmisch, the Munich CIC – fearful of what the Garmisch investigation might reveal about some of their own activities – resorted to dirty tricks to harass Kulka. One morning Kulka telephoned Smith in Garmisch. ‘I am in Munich,’ Kulka told him. ‘I am supposed to be back Monday morning but I cannot get back until Tuesday. I have been asked whether I will accept punishment under the 124th Article of War because I have been seen without the proper insignia on my uniform.’ Colonel Smith had never seen Kulka without his proper insignia. It was outrageous that his assistant should be threatened with a court-martial on such a contrived charge, deliberately designed to interfere with the Inspector General’s investigation, which had begun to implicate members of the Munich CIC itself.

  In spite of the obstructions the investigation progressed and the dossier grew. ‘The amount of information we received was overwhelming,’ Leo Kulka remembered. ‘A multitude of Germans would flock to my office or ask me into their confidence and meet at secret places and divulge a host of information about the wrongdoing of people within the Military Government, the CIC, CID, Police and what have you. It seemed that the Germans felt the Inspector General’s Department gave us a stature above everybody else’s. We were considered to be the élite of the American Gestapo, as it were – a chance for everyone to get even. So I was writing and dictating reports of sergeant so-and-so living with so-and-so and stealing silver and diamonds from some poor family and selling it on the black market or shipping it home . . .’

  Kulka was prepared to go to considerable lengths to obtain his information. In order to pursue his enquiries inside the PW camp for German officers near Garmisch, he was briefed for two weeks by a Gebirgsjäger general and then infiltrated into the camp dressed as a high-ranking German ex-officer. On another occasion Kulka was sent to an American Bachelor Officers’ Quarters in a converted civilian house in Garmisch to investigate a report that a US Army Lieutenant was sharing his quarters with a German baroness, which was strictly against military orders. Unusually, Lieutenant Kulka wore his CIC walking-out uniform for this visit – US Army khaki without insignia of rank – and as a consequence was mistaken for somebody else by the German Hausdume, ‘a nice little old lady’, at the Officers’ Quarters.

  She looked at me [Kulka recalled], and she said, ‘Oh, you must be the young man
who came to pick up the briefcase with the papers for Switzerland.’ I said, ‘I guess so.’ She said, ‘Oh yes, the lieutenant told me that you were coming to pick it up and that you are a young pilot.’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘The Dame came down and handed me a briefcase and a larger attaché case which was sealed with a diplomatic seal. So I took them and hastily left. I took them to my room in the house and opened up the diplomatic case and to my intense surprise found it filled with British pounds in rather large denominations and also some jewellery. The briefcase I found to be filled with about ten folders which contained very neatly written columns of names of people with dates and their rank, their location and sums of money – all the instructions and records of how the money had been transported across the border. I immediately contacted Colonel Smith and he was extremely interested. We went through the paperwork and found a great number of important names, including a number of colonels from headquarters. The one thing they all had in common was that they all belonged to units that had one time or another controlled the border crossing to Switzerland – Military Police, Military Government agencies, and CIC.

  By June it was apparent to Colonel Smith that the Garmisch case was a very big one indeed and made up of many parts which were often interlinked. ‘My investigation led to the pointing of suspicion at a considerable number of people,’ Colonel Smith reported after the end of the investigation. Suspects included a high-ranking American officer in Garmisch, who was ‘unco-operative’ and ‘does business with a certain clique of Germans’. Smith added: ‘. . . As to narcotics, I was forced to the conclusion that there was good reason to suspect some of the military personnel.’ Whether they had been got at or not, the GCD telephone tappers continued to produce transcripts of conversations dealing in black-market furs, diamonds, cocaine, tapestries, cameras, valuable Japanese vases, cars and border passes.