This was the second such conference of senior airmen to discuss the new strategy. The other had been held a few days earlier.
The assembled airmen were told by an excited Göring how almost the entire Luftwaffe’s fighter arm was being brought together for an offensive in the west. The aircraft were to be the strike component for a blitzkrieg that would create air superiority for three German armies assembled on the western borders of the Reich.
Waving his arms Göring told them he was assembling 3,700 aircraft and pilots into eighteen fighter groups in readiness for the attack. Most would act as fighter-bombers. There were also various bomber squadrons being readied. Although there was much excitement and, for a while, even Wenck was caught up in the infectious optimism, a few officers were obviously not keen on the move, though they kept their criticism and doubts muted.
That evening, Wenck and one other officer had a drink with the Luftwaffe’s General of Fighters, the ace Adolf Galland. The young general spoke in no uncertain terms when he said he thought the air offensive was a mistake.
“We are all certifiable. We need to protect our reserves and keep them to defend the Reich until we can strengthen our forces and build more of our terror weapons and jet aircraft. This campaign leaves us too weak, especially in the east.” Even though he kept his voice relatively low there was no hiding the intensity and vehemence of his feelings.
Wenck was not sure what to think, although he had no doubt that in the end Germany would be defeated. There were just too many countries and too many armies ranged against the Reich. Whatever the result, he still wanted to escape.
The next morning, he requested an audience with his old friend. Wenck had carefully thought out what he was going to say to the Reichsmarschall but, before he could begin his spiel Göring asked what he thought of the planned offensive. Wenck said it looked good on paper and then remarked how the strategy did not seem to include much in the way of planning for an offensive by the bomber arm.
Göring’s answer was both petulant and vehement. “Bombers, bombers, that’s all I hear these days. I have lost count of the number of times I have appealed to the Führer to let us concentrate on our fighter arm so we can effectively handle those cursed raids by the allied bombers, and you know what I get?” His voice rose and he half yelled. “I get gratuitous advice on how we should fight terror with terror and mount our own raids on British cities. Of course the Führer gets egged on by that scum, Bormann, and the chicken farmer, Himmler!” He spat out the words.
Red-faced, he reached over to a small brown bottle on his desk, unscrewed the cap and shook out a small white tablet. This he put in his mouth and began to chew. There was silence for a few seconds and then he went on. “They are all fools. Not the Führer, of course,” he added hurriedly. “But those fawning ingrates. We have new fighters, jets. We have this new Messerschmitt, the 262, which is almost 200 kilometres faster than any allied fighter and they want me to turn it into a bomber? Pah.” He again paused for breath.
Wenck saw his chance. “Herr Reichsmarschall, I have an idea that might not only find favour with the Führer but also help in the planned offensive without using too many resources.” He hurried on as Göring’s eyes quickened with interest. “At present the Americans are mounting raids on the Reich with impunity. Yes we are shooting them down, but they come over Germany in the certain knowledge that their homeland is safe from attack. Why do we not mount an attack on America? New York to be precise?”
Göring cocked his head and said caustically, “With what?”
“Reichsmarschall, as you no doubt remember, my son Peter undertook a dummy run to New York early this year with Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 flying the big Junkers 390. There is one still left and I am prepared to stake my reputation that it could be used to raid New York successfully.”
Göring was sceptical. He had no doubt the Junkers could reach New York, but what could one aircraft achieve?
“Helmuth, they are raiding us almost without respite with hundreds, even thousands of bombers. Almost every night and we are still fighting. Our factories are still producing. Therefore, what is the use of one, or even half-a-dozen aircraft over America? We went all through this before we decided to abandon our plans.” He shrugged his shoulders and reached over to the bottle and put another pill into his mouth.
Seizing his opportunity, Wenck went on the attack. “With respect, Hermann,” he said using Göring’s Christian name for the first time. “You don’t understand Americans like I do. I have lived among them. They are a passionate, undisciplined race. Full of inferior races, Jews, blacks, Spaniards. They would panic. The press would scream for the country to be protected. The American government would be forced to bring back hundreds of their fighters to defend the mainland.” He paused, noting Göring’s growing interest and then pressed on. “Think what a propaganda victory it would be. What would the Führer say?”
The last sentence was a master stroke.
Göring slapped the table hard and grinned with enthusiasm. He pledged his support and agreed to Wenck’s request for secrecy.
Wenck explained how he wanted the Junkers stationed near his headquarters in southern Norway where it would be relatively free from attack. They would move it to another airfield closer to the Atlantic just before the planned offensive. He also asked to be given written orders granting him, or the bearer, the right to requisition vital equipment. At first Göring hesitated at this request, but after some more discussion, he gave way.
Finally, Wenck received permission for his son to be transferred to his command.
Together they drafted the order giving him the authority to requisition the Junkers and any other material he might need. When it was finished, Göring had a secretary type it up on official paper. As they waited for the document to be printed Göring took a third pill, remarking almost apologetically how he was a sick man and all his old war wounds were playing up. The document was brought back and the Reichsmarschall signed it with a flourish.
Now that he had what he wanted, Wenck was able to pay closer attention to the Luftwaffe’s commanding officer and what he saw alarmed him. Göring was grossly overweight. There was nothing new in this, but now his colour was pale and his skin blotchy. His eyes at times seemed vacant and his breathing short and a little laboured. What medicines he was taking Wenck could only guess at, but whatever they were, three in scarcely an hour could not be good. Although Göring obviously wanted him to stay and talk longer, all Wenck wanted to do was escape.
He excused himself, saying that obviously the Reichsmarschall had important things to attend to and that he would inform him of the progress of their little plan. An hour later he flew to Hamburg for an important meeting.
Before journeying back to Germany, he had made some discreet enquiries about Friedrich and Emil Grauwitz. As his father, and of senior rank, he was able to find out some information about the former, but of the latter almost nothing. Rather than raise some unnecessary suspicion about his questions, he took the matter no further. He had a contact in Hamburg, a former diplomat and member of the Abwehr, who might be able to shed some light on Gruppenführer Emil Grauwitz and Friedrich.
Chapter Nine
17 November 1944
The weather had closed right in again at Bardufoss and there was no flying. For this respite Wenck was exceedingly grateful. More than ever he had lost his taste for flying over the Arctic Ocean.
On arriving back at his command he had learned of the loss of yet another crew to inclement weather. The Junkers bomber had gone out on a reconnaissance mission and simply disappeared. There was no radio signal, nothing. The plane and its crew simply vanished into the grey blackness of the Barents Sea.
There was one good point, however. The missing aircraft had been flown by the obnoxious party man Hans Burgdorf.
“It’s a pity that in order to get rid of that shit Burgdorf we had to lose the others,” said Leo Swabisch, filling him in on what had happened with the squadron whi
le he had been away. It was Swabisch who brought him the telex. He said matter-of-factly as he handed it over, “Strange message boss?”
Wenck glanced at the paper and said off-handedly, “Yes, I’ll tell you about it sometime.” He walked away and remarked casually over his shoulder. “I’ll be away for a couple of hours. I’m going to Tromso.”
Borrowing one of the airfield’s smaller communications trucks, he drove to the local naval base and went to its communications section. He was well-known there and when he requested the use of a phone, exclaiming with a wicked grin how he wanted to ring a married lady in Bergen, they gave him the instrument without comment and left him alone.
The telex message had been short. It said simply: ‘contact E’ and was signed RB.
He chuckled to himself as he asked the operator to connect the number he had written down in his pocket diary.
E was short for Else, the elderly German woman his father had known for years and whom he had lodged with when he returned from Finland. The letters RB stood for Rupert Bear, the children’s character so beloved by English youth, to whom young Peter had been introduced as a lad of seven by his mother. Before leaving Oslo his father had told him that in order to keep their activities secret any sensitive information would be sent to him with the signature RB and, if necessary, vital messages could be relayed through Else.
There was no delay in the connection. A female voice asked him what RB meant and when he gave the correct answer, said quickly, “RB says that he has made very good progress. Tomorrow morning you will receive orders transferring you to another base. You are to comply, but tell nobody anything. You are to pretend ignorance, understand?”
He answered in the affirmative and the woman hung up without further comment.
Back at the base Swabisch made several oblique comments about the message, but Wenck refused to be drawn.
At eight-thirty the next morning his orders arrived telling him to report to an airfield near Kragero in the Skagerrak. They were signed by the commander of the Luftwaffe’s Norwegian bomber fleet, not his father. Perplexed, he nevertheless began to put in train the handover of his command.
Swabisch was most upset and asked if there was any way he could be included in whatever secret mission Wenck was to be engaged in. He was convinced his friend had been chosen for something especially secretive and heroic. Wenck asked him not to mention anything about the previous day’s message and promised that if it could be arranged, he would see what he could do.
Shortly after noon he flew one of the older Heinkels to Trondheim where he connected with a military transport flying to Oslo. From there he went by train to Kragero.
The station commander, a major of about forty-five years of age, was eager to help. He volunteered that he had been ordered to give any assistance required, but obviously knew nothing about what was happening. Like a good officer he did as he was told. Wenck was directed to his quarters and handed two envelopes, one sealed with wax. The former contained news of his promotion forthwith to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The latter, a handwritten note from his father, informed him that there was an FW 190 for his personal use at the Kragero base and he should fly immediately to another airfield at Halden on the other side of Oslo Fjord.
He found it pleasant to be flying a single-seater again and although his experience on fighters of this type was less than fifty hours, he found no difficulty in piloting it the hundred-odd kilometres to Halden.
His father was waiting and without further ado ushered him into a deserted office. Major General Wenck kept the door open and placed his chair so he could see down the deserted corridor. Opening a thermos flask, he poured some coffee into a mug and handed the black, aromatic liquid to Peter. After a perfunctory question as to his son’s health, he got straight to the point.
“Well, Peter, I have a lot to tell you, some good, some bad, although I am happy to say that as far as you and I are concerned, it is mainly good.”
He spoke of his meeting with Göring and the gaining of the vital document authorising the acquisition of the Junkers 390, Peter’s transfer and whatever help he needed in organising the supposed raid on New York. He also revealed that he had located the big bomber, but had no idea as to its condition.
“I have also thought out a very detailed and complex plan to make it much harder for anybody to know what we are up to, and believe me, Peter, we have every reason to be careful. Your brother is a bastard and his boss, by all accounts, is the devil’s first cousin.”
He outlined his trip to Hamburg and his conversations with an old diplomatic contact. “Conrad Meunier served in the Diplomatic Corps with me and at one time we were both stationed in America together. You even met him on several occasions. Do you remember? Eh? No? Oh well. He also spent some time in Latin America, particularly the Caribbean, but I’ll get into the importance of this later. Anyway, he was also a member of the Abwehr, like so many of us diplomats were,” he said with a smile. “He was pretty close to Canaris at one stage, but found all the intrigue too much. Also, since he was not a party member, many doors were not open to him. To cut a long story short, he resigned from both the Diplomatic Corps and the Abwehr just after Stalingrad. His resignation was not questioned. His son was killed at Stalingrad, his wife was very ill and anyway, he was over sixty. Since he resigned so long ago and since he had every excuse to resign, he has been left alone and was not one of those questioned after the aborted attempt on our beloved Fuhrer,” he said with irony.
He paused for a moment and took another mouthful of coffee.
“At any rate, Meunier has kept up his contacts and is a fount of information. He was able to give me some important background information on the shadowy Herr Brigadeführer Emil Grauwitz.” He shook his head and said quietly, “Now there’s a one.”
He paused again, glanced down the still deserted corridor and went on. “Grauwitz is with the Waffen SS. He’s a Sonderführer, you know, on the administrative side. He’s actually in the Gerichtsdienste, their legal service, and is one of their top lawyers. Very secretive and very powerful. You know, hobnobs with Himmler and the like. He apparently had much to do with the setting up of the concentration camps and is involved with the forced transportation of Jews from Italy and Hungary.”
He lowered his voice. He looked near tears. “Jesus, Peter, Meunier told me he had seen evidence showing how in many of the camps we’re quite literally killing thousands of Jews and other prisoners. It’s the same information I heard before. Meunier claims it is a set policy. He does not know anything specific about Friedrich, but is pretty certain that as an accountant he must be involved with the financial side of the running of the camps, especially if he’s tied up with Grauwitz.”
There was a silence as Peter Wenck stared at his father. “I do not want to believe all this. Father, he does not seem the type.”
“Who does my boy, who does? I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but Meunier believes Friedrich must be involved in the actual transfer of money from the camps to the Reichsbank. It makes sense. Otherwise, why would Grauwitz need him? Remember, Grauwitz is with the legal section, not the financial section.”
They talked further and his father explained why he had taken such elaborate precautions.
“If Grauwitz wants Friedrich to fly the money out of Germany, he will need an aircraft. Well, let them organise their own transport. I don’t want Friedrich to know just yet about Göring’s document and what we’ve done and, more importantly, I don’t want Grauwitz to know anything at all. I want to be more than two steps ahead of that scum at all times.” He gave a little chuckle. “Peter my boy, if we are careful, we might just get away with it and make ourselves very rich in the process.”
“Ja, and we might also get ourselves shot,” said his son soberly.
They continued to plot. Even though much was starting to fall into place there were still several large holes in their overall plan. Peter wanted to know how the money would be transferred to the air
craft, who would be expected to join them and what their ultimate destination would be.
His father explained that at this early stage the details of the Berlin end would have to be left up to Schonewille. Despite this, their ultimate destination was still something they could plan for.
“Where do you think we should go to, Peter?”
His son shrugged and shook his head. “Friedrich said Grauwitz had mentioned Spain as a first stop and from there he believed the ultimate destination would be South America, Argentina probably.”
“Makes sense. It’s also what I thought. We’ve always had good contacts in that country and there is a sizeable German population. Before the war we used them as intelligence gathering sources,” said his father.
“I tell you what, Father. Friedrich suggested that we choose another destination because South America is too obvious and this is beginning to be my feeling also.”
“I agree,” nodded his father. “I am beginning to think your brother might be on the same thought pattern as myself and, maybe you?” He raised his eyebrows in a quizzical gesture.
Peter Wenck nodded his head and smiled. “America?”
“Ja … well almost,” answered the general. He gave a conspiratorial smile. For a moment he paused and then choosing his words carefully, went on. “I told you Meunier served in the Caribbean and this could be important in whatever decision we make on where we should ultimately end up. He’s been making a few very discreet inquiries, via Switzerland, to see if his contacts are still about or are even contactable. We both think the Caribbean should be our ultimate destination. There are several reasons why, but we both have some more work to do before we are in a position to make a definite decision,” he said, holding up his hand for silence as his son started to speak. “Look, you’ll just have to leave this end to me. At any rate I’ll need your input before we can make a final decision. First, we have to do something about the aircraft.”
The Reichsbank Robbery Page 11
