The Venlo Incident

by Nigel Jones

  Apart from entertaining me during my hours in the cell, Odörfer also introduced something which for many months was to render my hours of exercise much more interesting and agreeable than they had been before; this was skittles. Like most Bavarians he was a great skittle player, and when I told him that I had never played he felt that my education had been neglected and that it was his obvious duty to bring to me some knowledge of this greatest of games. As a start, he cut out with his pen-knife from some small billets of wood, a set of miniature nine-pins and a ball of roughly spherical outline, and we then started playing in my cell. This, however, aroused immediate protests as we made a devil of a noise and the paint at the bottom of the door which we used as a back stop soon showed signs of damage. Odörfer was, however, a very determined man and one of the next days he arrived looking singularly obese, and produced from under his tunic a full-sized skittle ball, saying: “Now we can play out of doors.” I do not know by what barter he had acquired the ball which he said came from the officers’ skittle alley, but it was certainly one that had seen better days, for it was nearly pear shaped and had such bias that one could almost bowl it in circles.

  Out in the garden, we selected some approximately straight pine logs and cut these into lengths suitable for our purpose, and setting them up on the path, we began our game. The path was rough and uneven and with our crooked ball it was a pure matter of chance whether we could bowl anywhere near our skittles and scoring was very low, but we had started something and were soon to find co-operation from the Stevens and Elser corporations. One of Stevens’s guards produced a really good ball and Elser manufactured a wooden base on which the skittles could stand. Not to be outdone, we then raided the wood shed and robbed it of three or four fine long planks. These we embedded in the path using a water level to get them perfectly true and very soon we found ourselves the owners of a first-rate skittle alley. From the end of May 1941 till the autumn of 1942 hardly a day passed without my playing skittles, and from my cell I could hear the balls rolling whenever Stevens or Elser were out. We got away with our constructional work because the warders also liked skittles and they soon began to play their own matches in the evenings after the prisoners had been put to bed. Gradually too they got into the habit of coming out to join in our games, as also did any guards who were off duty, and we soon had most exciting matches.

  At first I was, of course, the rabbit of the party, but as my health and strength gradually improved through regular exercise I began to be able to hold my own and in the end was looked upon as a very promising player. The warders often got so keen on the game that they were disinclined to stop when my hour was up, and gradually I went in later and later, until it came to be recognized that I was entitled to stay out for an hour and a half.

  I forgot to say that already in 1940 some attempt had been made to render the garden more attractive, and flower beds had been laid out on the west side of the main path; there were pansies, foxgloves, and marigolds, and I cannot express what a pleasure it was for me to look at them. In 1941 orders had been given that vegetables must be grown on every available plot of ground, so our garden had been devoted to cabbages except for the beds along the walls where tomatoes were planted. Between the wood shed and the building nothing had been done and the original waste land had been left untouched, but even this had its advantages, for one could build a couch of planks and lie on them in the sun. A couple of biggish piles of bricks had been erected here and to my delight two pairs of water wagtails nested and brought up their families in recesses which I had made by the removal of a few bricks. It was curious how very few birds ever visited us; only the two wagtail families who remained faithful throughout my entire stay, a pair of magpies and some crested larks. One year I occasionally saw a tit picking at the sunflower seeds and in the winter of 1944 after a heavy fall of snow a lot of sparrows turned up.

  I scattered food and did everything I could think of to attract more birds but they seemed to sense that this was no place for creatures as free as they. When one is free one takes so many things for granted, and generally one is not even conscious of the pleasure one derives from the presence of the graceful gifts of nature around one. In prison, everything in me seemed to revolt against the ugliness of my surroundings and I felt a real hunger for beautiful scenes; I derived a pleasure which I had never known before, simply by looking at a flower or by seeing a bird fluttering about. I often wish that I could recapture something of the emotions which filled me then, for in ordinary life one is apt to see too much of ugly things and to neglect the beautiful frame of nature in which they are set whilst then, flowers, birds, and even insects shone out like jewels against the monotonous drabness of their surroundings.

  On the 8th May there was that curious feeling which Germans describe as ‘Dicke Luft’, which may be paraphrased “as the shadow which coming events cast before them”; something abnormal was in the air. When the time came for my exercise, I was told that I would have to wait as the garden was not free. I heard a lot of movement near the entrance and the Heil Hitlering which always attended the arrival of important visitors, and then there was a lot of marching about and the sound of cell doors being opened and closed. I went out for exercise in the afternoon when everything seemed to have quietened down to normal. The only thing of interest was that I was told of a rumour that there was to be war between Germany and Russia, and that there had been big troop movements towards the Eastern Frontier. Next day one of my guards, I forget which, told me that there must have been a big row in the party as some very important prisoners, all men associated with Rudolf Hess, including his adjutant, were in the Bunker, and there was much speculation as to whether Hess had tried to start something like the Roehm business in 1934. Of course we could not find out what was happening, but it was certainly startling to read in the paper on the 13th, that is five days later, that Hess had flown to England and a story that illness, a tumour in his brain, had rendered him no longer accountable for his actions. Something wrong here. Had he flown from Germany after the arrest of his entourage to avoid a similar fate, or had he been sent on a mission and his people interned in the interests of secrecy. I don’t even now know what is the true story, and can only go by the entries in my diary for 9th and 13th May, 1941.

  During the weeks that followed, rumours about a war with Russia multiplied and became more positive, so it was no surprise to anyone when on 21st June the radio blared out the news of the German invasion. Ettlinger came in in high glee to tell me the news: “In six weeks we shall have finished off Russia and then our hands will be free for the final reckoning with England.” Yes, six weeks. That is what Hitler said too. I did not see any signs of elation elsewhere and my Berliner guards told me that the news had been received in fear and depression. No one in Germany had ever really liked the entente with Russia, but war on two fronts, that was worse still—it was too much like the memories of the last war. To every German the idea of the limitless expanse of Russia is something horrifying— fear of the East is, as it were, a national bogey. Even though the Russians had accepted the volte-face in Soviet foreign policy which resulted in the entente between Molotov and Ribbentrop, this had never gone down with the Germans, for most of whom Hitler’s greatest merit was that he had saved the country from communism. From the moment that the nonaggression pact with Russia was signed Hitler lost the support of that section of the population which, without joining his party, had voted for him in 1933, and administered a severe shock to many of his most stalwart followers.

  I do not think that it has been sufficiently realized how much the start of the war in the East shook people’s confidence in the political wisdom of the Führer, for it was an admission that the agreement with Russia had been made on false premises. Hitler had always said that the Communists were not to be trusted; why then had he trusted them, and on the basis of their lying promises involved the country in war with the West? No matter what the news was from the Russian front, nor how spectacular were the
reported successes, I never saw the slightest sign of enthusiasm on the part of any German with whom I came in contact, whilst the old soldiers, those who had fought in Russia in the First World War, expressed their view of the situation by the proverb: “Viele Hunde sind des Hasen Tod” (With enough dogs the hare will be killed)—there were so many Russians that the loss of a few million scarcely mattered.

  I hope that I may be forgiven for this excursion into the field of politics, for my intention is merely to tell the story of my own experiences. It must be understood though, that throughout my imprisonment my real life consisted in active mental participation in every event of the war. All the time I was trying to obtain by deduction some vestiges of truth out of the fog of German propaganda. I can in fact truthfully say that the only thing from which I really suffered was the deprivation of news; news from my wife and news of the war. Although on the whole I was inclined to discount German stories about the havoc caused by their bombing of England, accidents can always happen, and having absolutely no idea where May was I could never quite divest myself of my fears for her safety. Of the general course of the war I knew only what I read in the German papers, and during 1940 and 1941 there was indeed little news from which one could derive any comfort. My only consolation came from the fact that there had been no attempt at invasion and from my certainty that we should never give in. Of course when Russia entered the war I became much more confident, for if Hitler had not succeeded in overcoming us when we stood alone, how much less chance he had of doing so when faced with heavy commitments on the East. What a prisoner needs most is hope. Really, the material hardships mean so little to him and as long as he can feel that his country will emerge victorious he is unlikely himself to lose courage.

  People often ask me questions about my experiences in Germany, generally adding: “If you don’t mind talking about them. I suppose you want to forget all about it.” Prison is an experience that you cannot forget and one which you cannot explain. In life you may be forced to do many things which are distasteful to you, but all have some purpose; as a soldier you have to give blind obedience to orders, you may suffer great dangers and privations, and you will certainly be moved about in a way that often seems purposeless, yet always with you is the feeling that you are engaged in an enterprise which must be carried through and that, however stupid some orders may appear, there must be reason at the back of them. As a prisoner, everything that happens to you is the result of a force with which you are at enmity; you resent every order which your instinct tells you to disobey—the fact that you cannot, fills you with a horrible feeling of impotence and uselessness. You feel fit and energetic, anxious to play your part in life, and find yourself merely a number condemned to live an absolutely sterile existence. When at last liberation comes you enter a world that is strange to you and in which, except amongst those closest to you, there seems to be no place for you—you are supernumerary to the establishment. You have also become slightly queer, for there are many ideas and prejudices common to your friends which you can no longer share—you do not judge others by what they appear to be but imagine what showing they would make as prisoners, deprived of all the make believe and flummery of what we call normal life. I know that I cannot put into words the things that I feel, and all that I can really say is that prison robs you of many things which you believed essential but at the same time gives you a new understanding of your fellow men, a feeling of greater warmth in your relation to them, so that on the whole I think that you gain on balance.

  There were quite a lot of R.A.F. raids on Berlin during the spring and summer of 1941, but from all that I could learn very little damage was done to the city. The defences had been greatly built up and the volume of flak fire was, it seemed to me, far greater than when in 1943 the really big raids started. I could see nothing of what went on, of course, and simply had to lie in my bed and hope for the best. There is something slightly disconcerting in the knowledge that you are chained to a wall and that should anything happen it is most unlikely that you could be freed. Quite a number of bombs were dropped fairly close to the camp, and there were also casualties from dud flak shells which were far from infrequent. On the 4th September there was rather an amusing event. Suddenly I heard the whine of bombs and next moment explosions in the woods just the other side of the prison wall; this was followed by the sound of planes diving and machine-gunning some ground target. It was not until some five or ten minutes later that the alert was sounded and the flak started a barrage.

  Next day the story went round that this had been a Russian raid with German Heinckel planes supplied to the Soviet Government and which had consequently not been recognized as hostile. I don’t know whether there was any truth in the story but it raised quite a scare, especially, when a few days later (on the 7th), there was a really big British raid which seemed to have caused serious damage in Berlin. The idea that they might now have to face bombing from both East and West had a depressing effect, even on Ettlinger who still pretended to believe that the war with Russia would be a walk-over.

  The 27th October was for me a red-letter day for Eccarius came in the morning and brought me my first real letter from May. She was well and living at Chagford in Devon. Although I did not know exactly where Chagford was the postmark on the envelope was Newton Abbot so that I knew that she must be in the Dartmoor district which was probably safe from German bombs. From what she said it was clear that she had been writing regularly. Some of her previous letters I had seen in a Gestapo file. I have never had such a complete change of spirit as this letter brought me; everything seemed bright and easy, and I was really a bit off my head with excitement. I managed to get hold of a sheet of paper and wrote her a long letter which I gave to the commandant next day, who assured me that it would be sent off at once. Then the Gestapo put in some very dirty work. Just a month later, when I was hoping that perhaps May would soon have my letter, it was brought back to me with a message from Gestapo Headquarters that it had not been sent on because it was written in English—both my wife and I might only correspond in German.

  I immediately wrote another letter, this time in German, taking great pains to write nothing which might be considered undesirable. This letter was supposed to have gone off on the 25th November, but on 31st December it was brought back again; it had not been sent because I had put the name of the camp at the top and this was forbidden. An absolutely absurd excuse for it had been reported in the British Press that I was at Sachsenhausen and May’s letter had been addressed to me there. Well, on 5th January, 1942, I wrote a third letter and this she actually received on the 3rd March; the first news she had had from me since the 9th November, 1939. Although she had received assurances that I was alive and well it was not until my letter came that all her fears for my safety were really allayed. I feel it very difficult to forgive the Gestapo, and particularly Schellenberg, who I later heard was responsible for this cowardly example of petty cruelty.

  At the beginning of December Stevens left the camp, as I later heard, for Dachau. I spotted this at first because two of his guards, Deckert and Lenkeit, were wished on to me, and after a day or two the latter told me what had happened. I did not mind having Lenkeit who was a silly old fool and might be useful, but I was determined not to have anything to do with Deckert, who was, I knew, a thorough-going Nazi and a most unreliable customer. He was stupid enough to pretend that he knew nothing about me and that he was a stranger to the Bunker, and when he asked me some questions about myself, something that was strictly forbidden, I seized on the opportunity and reported him at once. He lasted just three days with me after having spied on poor Stevens for nearly two years; he got a bad telling off for his indiscretion and was sent to Buchenwald, where he had to do sentry duty instead of sitting in a comfortable, warm cell.

  The year 1941 came to an end and after two years of prison I had become pretty well accustomed to the life. I had news of May and there were some gleams of light in what I could gather from German w
ar reports. The word ‘Vergeltung’ (retaliation) seemed to be taking the place of ‘Sieg’ (victory), and it was obvious that the Germans were not having it all their own way. It was towards the end of 1941 that I first heard the mention of new secret weapons, and particularly of a rocket carrying three tons of explosive and having a range of nearly 400 kilometers. As time went on stories about such secret weapons became more frequent and precise.

  Although the food was excellent and the quantity more than sufficient, the fact that everything was cut up and prepared for me so that I could eat only with my fingers or a spoon was most annoying. There were some things for which I did not particularly care, and it would have made my diet much more agreeable if I could have accumulated things like butter, jam, and cheese, so that I could use them as and when I wished. I had made myself a couple of knives of beach wood, rather similar in pattern to those used by the Eskimos, and at the end of 1941 Paul König induced a new trusty, who did not yet know the regulations, to bring me my bread unbuttered and cold provisions in bulk as issued. In addition to making my meals much more to my liking this change afforded me valuable evidence that much of the food supplied for me was being stolen. Grothe had told me once that I must not think that I was being kept free of cost, for I should have to pay for my board and lodging at the end of the war; for every day, I was being charged ten marks; five for lodging and five for food. I happened to know that when guards were travelling to and from home they were given 2.50 marks a day in lieu of rations, so I said to Grothe that it was unfair that I should be charged as much as five marks. To this he answered, “Oh, but you are getting double SS rations and of course must also pay double rate.”