by John Gardner
A note, specially marked, said that Buelow had made an exceptionally good impression on the Board. He gave evidence, and answered questions in a clear, concise manner; while the Service interrogators who had spent almost six weeks with him were of the opinion that he told the complete truth. Buelow is obviously a man of great intelligence.
He began with a résumé of his life since the late 1930s, when he had first joined the Nazi Party. ‘I was a Nazi not out of conviction but from necessity,’ Buelow began. In the 1920s he had returned, with his wife-to-be, Mary Anne Railton – daughter of the late Charles Railton and therefore half sister to Jo-Jo Grenot. Back in Germany, they experienced the horrors shared by many of their contemporaries. ‘My country was financially bankrupt. One American dollar was worth two trillion Reichsmarks, so you can work matters out for yourselves. The Communist Party had a field day. I had returned to my country in the hope of helping to rebuild it. It was a losing battle. Many people like myself wanted some kind of stable democracy, but when Hitler came into power it was obvious the way things would go.’
Either you joined the Party or took great risks if you wished to survive and live in some peace. Eventually Buelow applied for work within the Party – ‘With an English wife, it seemed more prudent to get into a job that would not keep me far from her side. But it was not long before our first separation, for I was posted to Munich.’
Because he spoke English, Buelow found himself in the SD, that arm of the SS which became the Secret State Police, the Criminal Police, the Security Service, and the Secret Service. It was to the Secret Service that Otto Buelow was sent. ‘I worked directly under the orders of Reinhard Heydrich, who, of course, took his orders from Himmler.’
Heydrich’s Nazi Secret Service became a legend, as it was based mainly on British spy novels and the more sound principle of files and details. ‘Heydrich’s files were probably the most dangerous pieces of paper in the Reich,’ Buelow told them. ‘He had something on almost everybody. I believe that is why he was eventually given the prestigious appointment of the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia – that, and the fact that certain people wanted him tucked away from the Führer’s court. You must not forget that Heydrich was a true monster. A paradox. The man who wrote the draft plan for the extinction of the Jews; yet one who without doubt warned Jewish friends to get out of Germany in time – and, I suspect, often provided money and papers for them to make the exit across a frontier and not through one of the gas chambers.’ Buelow, the notes said, became very bitter. It was obvious that Heydrich had nauseated him.
‘I saw him weep at music; heard him play music – beautifully; yet I also saw him condemn hundreds of people to death and chuckle over tidbits of information which could send a man to the gallows, or blackmail. He wanted me to go with him to Prague when he became Protector. I pleaded a need to stay in Berlin – which was where we worked by then. He was very kind to me, the monster. If I had gone with him, I could easily have been in his car on the morning of his assassination.’
Heydrich was killed by a group sent into Czechoslovakia with the reluctant blessings of both SOE and the SIS. There was some talk that the team had originally gone in from England to bring an agent out, and when that failed they received permission to ‘execute’ Heydrich. The SS were merciless to the Czechs after the assassination; at least one whole village – Lidice – was obliterated together with all its inhabitants.
‘When Heydrich died, I was posted to Orléans in the January of 1944, after Mary Anne – after my wife – was killed by British bombers in Berlin. That was a terrible irony. I had taken such steps to protect her, and she died at the hands of her own countrymen. She was killed at a time when they were obviously moving anyone who had worked with Heydrich. As always in great bureaucracies, this takes a long while. They did not get around to moving me until the Christmas of 1943, and then it took only one day. Kaltenbrunner’s adjutant came through the office, in which I worked with two other junior officers, and dropped some papers on my desk. I didn’t look at them straightaway. When I did, I found I had been promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer – Major – and posted, as from 1st January 1944, to the small SD section directly responsible to Colonel Klaubert, head of the SS in Orléans. His reputation was known, even in my small office, in Berlin. The Devil of Orléans. I was sent on leave immediately. It was not the happiest Christmas I have spent.’
On arrival in Orléans, Buelow found that Klaubert was on leave in Berlin. ‘I thought I had the authority to examine all the files,’ he told them. ‘What I found amazed me. Certainly, Klaubert had been ruthless – countless Jews had been sent away; a huge quota of men had gone to do labour service; Resistance groups and individuals appeared to have been wiped off the map. Then I came to this one file on a group known as Tarot. Klaubert’s agents had all the evidence. Everything was there – codes, safe houses, leadership, and the names of all the members. He had all this, yet did nothing about it.’
When Klaubert returned, Buelow asked him about the files. ‘Seldom have I seen a man so angry. He was furious with me. Said I should not have looked at any of the files and dossiers without his permission. I stood my ground and told him I found it odd that a known Resistance group was still allowed to operate in his area. He simply smiled and said, “I have a use for them all. Their time will come.”’
‘And their time did come,’ the SOE man said.
‘Oh, yes. Yes. First we had the operation against the American parachutists. Then Tarot.’
‘Tell us about it.’
Buelow added very little to what they already knew regarding Romarin, except for the advance warning. ‘We were informed of it during the afternoon. It happened that night. I was simply duty officer at headquarters. Klaubert went out with a section of Wehrmacht troops and some of his own people. They came back in triumph.’
‘And the following week you took Tarot?’
‘Klaubert took Tarot. I was never involved. He said he would keep me in reserve.’
‘But you saw them?’
‘Some of them. The men who were shot in the garden of headquarters. I knew other things were going on – there was a dreadful thing with one of the women, in the cells. They took her, the priest, and another man out of the town to execute them.’
‘And you had nothing to do with that?’ the senior lawyer sneered.
‘Of course. Of course I bear guilt, because I was there, with the SD. Some of my men actually took part in the rape. For some reason Klaubert kept me out of the way. But I’m not going to plead that I only obeyed orders, if that’s what you think. Yes, I knew what was happening and it was horrible. Klaubert thought it necessary. I repeat, he also thought I should not be there. I cannot explain why.’
‘Two of the girls were taken from the headquarters in the Rue de Bourgogne by men described as SS officers.’
‘Yes. Klaubert gave the order that these two women were to go for what he termed “special treatment” in Berlin. I did not see them and I don’t know what the “special treatment” was.’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘Yes. He said they could be of use elsewhere.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all he said. When a man like Klaubert tells you something of that kind, you do not ask further questions.’
‘Did you see the officers again?’
‘Oh, yes. They were two of the junior officers on our staff – Buchman and Stoltz. They merely handed the girls over to people who came from Berlin. They said the girls were friendly and had no fear – those were their words, “The girls had no fear.” The men were at the railway station. Trains still went in and out even though the tracks were constantly being repaired because of the bombing. They were in civilian clothes, the men who took the girls away. I heard that.’
‘Mr Buelow.’ The chairman did not use any military rank. ‘After the Tarot group had been dealt with, was there any significant change in Klaubert’s routine?’
‘Not that I recall. Except
for the German-speaking informant.’
‘What was that about?’
‘Until this Resistance group was liquidated, we all knew that Klaubert had his own special informers. He made jokes about it. He was a well-trained policeman really – always kept his informants out of the office. We knew he met them in secret – he met one on the afternoon before the parachutists came. There was a telephone call and he went out. When he returned he had all the information on the parachute landing. At first we thought it was part of some bigger strategic action connected to the landings in Normandy, but he said no, this was local, and to do with the Resistance. But after the group called Tarot was finished, one of the informants came to his office – many times he came.’
‘A local man?’
‘I think not. He spoke German with an odd accent. He spoke French as well, but that was also with an unfamiliar accent.’
‘How often did he come?’
‘Once, maybe twice a week. Klaubert said we should let him go straight to his office when he identified himself with a code word. The word was strange – ‘Dreieck.’ In English this means a geometrical triangle.’
‘Can you describe the man?’
Buelow said he could, and when that was done, the chairman asked for a series of photographs to be passed to the witness.
‘That’s Dreieck – that’s Triangle,’ Buelow said, pointing to one of the photographs with no hesitation.
A marginal note said, The witness was positive. The photograph was that of Nathaniel Dollhiem of the Office of Strategic Services.
Chapter Seventeen
‘I’ll have to tell my people about Dollhiem,’ Arnold said when they broke from reading. They were alone in the makeshift kitchen, boiling water for coffee on a primus stove. Cherub sat in the other room, curled like a spring and looking as though he was meditating on some new form of violence.
‘Your people? Who the hell do you call your people, Arnie?’ Naldo was usually a soft-spoken man, but now his voice rose as he turned, angry and taken by surprise.
‘Strictly speaking I work for CIG – Central Intelligence Group.’
‘And C hired you from them. They’re only a fucking committee, for Christ’s sake! This you don’t report to a committee.’
Arnold looked at him bleakly. For the first time since they had worked on C’s First Folio and Symphony, his eyes were cold and hostile. ‘They’re more than a committee, Nald, and you know it. They’ve got a lot of men and women in the field. The job is to collate information, sure, but the old OSS order remains – case officers, agents in place, all the business of intelligence gathering, and a lot of the old tricks. They’re running operations out there, Nald. Within the year Washington is going to sanction the birth of a very large intelligence service. It’s going to make your SIS look like a Boy Scout troop.’
‘Washington has already turned down Wild Bill Donovan’s plans. Wasn’t that what he wanted – an all-seeing, all-hearing Service that would run a noose around the world – put a girdle round the earth? Wasn’t that why he got sacked?’
‘Partly. Empire building, they called it. Very heavy on the expenses. But he had enemies, you know. My guess is that CIG’s going to whisper in the President’s ear, and before you know it, Donovan’s plans will be laid out and a new Service formed. In fact, I pretty well know that’s what’s going to happen.’
‘Well, it hasn’t happened yet, and not a word of this should go back to your people – as you call them – until we’ve got more evidence. C hired you because of the U.S. involvement. C’ll tell you when to talk. Until that day comes along, you keep silent, right?’
Arnie shrugged, unconvinced.
‘C gives the orders. You may be with the CIG, but at the moment I gather you’re being paid by SIS. I’d be grateful if you’d wait. Wait until we’ve got C’s okay.’
‘As long as we can get his okay fast.’
Back in the other room, with their coffee, they settled down to read the final pages of Buelow’s transcript.
The Board had gone back, retracing the tortures and executions of those caught in the web of Tarot.
Then, out of the blue, the SIS officer asked, ‘What was he like? Klaubert, I mean.’
‘You have the photographs – tall, light hair, good-looking, scar on left temple, eyes – ’
‘No, Mr Buelow. As a man. What was he like as a man?’
‘A little like Heydrich. He could show immense charm, but beneath there was a most disturbing ruthlessness – not simply with prisoners, the Resistance, Jews, people to be sent to work in Germany. He was ruthless also with the men under him. A fairly minor misdemeanour was always treated with the maximum penalty. You could count on it.’
‘He showed no remorse?’
Buelow laughed, the transcript said. ‘He did not know the meaning of the word. Like Heydrich he signed death warrants and then went out and slept with the daughter of the family he had just condemned – I do not mean literally, of course.’
‘Sexual habits?’ one of the junior lawyers asked.
‘You know, I think he had a mistress.’
‘Yes. Hannalore Bauer – is that right?’
‘It was right, yes. She had gone by the time I arrived in Orléans.’
The chairman said they had no record of that.
‘She went a year before the end. I never met her, and there were stories.’
‘What kind of stories?’
‘The truth was difficult to discover. Also dangerous. I did not ask questions.’
‘What kind of stories?’ the chairman repeated.
‘One was unpleasant. Fräulein Bauer was supposed to have followed him from Munich. He set her up in an apartment. It was said that he caught her there with a Frenchman, killed them both, and had the bodies taken care of.’
‘By his men?’
‘It was a story, yes. Another was that she was killed in a daylight raid – an air raid; the Americans. Yet another was that they had a terrible fight and he killed her. The most popular was that he had her arrested and sent to the death camps – to Ravensbriück or Natzweiler. That was the favorite story.’
The chairman said they would check what files they had on Ravensbrück and, for those who did not already know, Natzweiler was the first camp to be discovered – ‘By a Special Air Service team enquiring into the fate of some of their people. We also know that at least four women agents of SOE suffered truly terrible deaths at that awful place.’ He paused, as though reflecting on the fact that four young women had been virtually burned alive in the crematorium at Struthof-Natzweiler. Then, pulling himself together, he asked about Klaubert’s sex life while Buelow was there.
‘He had a woman, but she was kept well away – not like in the days of Fräulein Bauer. Nobody knew who she was, or where they met, but he disappeared sometimes for two days. She was French, we knew that. Some, of course, said she was the daughter of Resistance people who had been sent away. I think he fostered that rumour himself. He had a touch of the dramatic. As I say, like Heydrich he had contradictions. He would play gramophone records of the Mendelssohn violin concerto. As you know, Mendelssohn’s music was banned because he was Jewish. Klaubert was a great contradiction.’
Then they leaped forward to what the SIS man called ‘the last days.’
The leading lawyer took up the questioning. ‘Mr Buelow. This man you called Triangle. For how long did his visitations go on?’
‘Quite a long time. Until about a week before our troops started to withdraw. Yes, about a week before.’
‘And the withdrawal, what about that?’
‘We knew it was all over. The last-ditch offensive had failed. General Patton’s Third Army was making incredible progress. It was like the Blitzkrieg in reverse. Some thought the Rhine would be a difficulty, but once the Allies started to roll, I knew it was the end.’
‘And you pulled out when the Wehrmacht withdrew?’
‘Me in particular?’
‘All of you –
the whole shooting match – that’s a reasonable description of your people.’
‘I stayed, as did two of my personal staff. Others broke and ran for it.’
‘Including Klaubert?’
‘He left first. As soon as he had gone, they all drifted off – no, drifting’s the wrong word. They dashed away.’
‘We have some evidence here that Klaubert just walked out one fine afternoon and did not return. Can you add to that?’
‘I can add a great deal, yes. There had been Resistance fighters making a lot of trouble – troops machine-gunned from balconies, sporadic uprisings. They knew the end was in sight. Two days before the Americans arrived, I was ordered to burn all confidential files.’
‘And you did?’
‘Naturally – it was an order.’
‘Then what?’
‘That same afternoon – there was chaos, you must remember – Klaubert came into my office. He was in civilian clothes – ’
‘And that was unusual?’
‘Very unusual.’ A marginal note said that Buelow smiled. ‘Klaubert was proud of his uniform. Most proud. Anyway, he told me that from now I was in charge. That I must stay at my post. “You will fight to the end,” was what he said.’
‘And you didn’t, Buelow, did you?’ – from the OSS man.
‘No. I disarmed everyone after I saw what Klaubert had done.’
‘And what was that?’
‘He left the headquarters in a grey suit, felt hat, and a thick overcoat – it was a very cold day. He carried a briefcase which looked heavy. I followed him to the corner of the street – at a distance, you must understand – and there was a car.’
‘What kind of car?’
‘A French car. No plates. Dark blue. Klaubert got into the car and it drove away. I think it was the Triangle man at the wheel, and I had the impression there was a woman in the car, but I would not swear to it.’
‘And that was it?’
‘The last I saw of Klaubert, yes. I surrendered, with dignity I hope, to the first American who came near. Already I had ordered white flags to be hung from the windows. The two men who stayed with me stood on either side and we surrendered correctly.’
