The Journey of Anna Eichenwald

by Donald Hunt

  Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS, was entrusted with special “tasks” for the preparation of the political administration of Russia. Occupied areas were to be sealed off and no one would be allowed to observe the actions of the SS, which would act independently from the military. Hermann Goering was given the task of securing Russian economic assets for use by German industry. The Russian economy and her natural resources would become the ‘slaves’ of the Nazi Reich.

  Alfred Rosenberg, born in Russia and an early mentor of Hitler, was made Commissioner for Central Control of the East European Region. His many directives included the intention to export virtually all food stuffs in southern Russia to Germany. He saw no obligation to feed the Russian people. This policy was intended to systematically starve millions of Soviets. Rosenberg said, “It was a matter of priorities.”

  In spite of all of the evidence of an imminent attack - the presence of one million Nazi troops in the Balkans, the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, and the occupation of Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary - Stalin and his associates in the Kremlin hoped there would be no attack. Germany was under a British Naval blockade and in need of raw materials. Inexplicably, the Russians were actually supplying Germany with the raw materials they needed for a military build-up. The Kremlin obviously believed the rumors of invasion were just that, rumors.

  The official start date of ‘Barbarossa’ was June 22. An all-day meeting was held on June 14th by the German High Command to go over last minute details. The task ahead was enormous, the largest military operation in history. The front stretched some 1,500 miles from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. During the lunch break, Hitler gave a comprehensive speech stressing that he was forced to attack Russia because her fall would force a British surrender. Once again he stressed the need to deal with the Soviets using “brutal means”.

  On Sunday morning, June 22, the same day Napoleon had crossed the Niemen River in 1812 to capture Moscow, the Nazi Wehrmacht poured across that same river into Russia.

  * * *

  The task of producing a chain reaction with Uranium was proving to be as difficult as Hanz Eichenwald had feared. His value to the Reich depended on the success of a project he did not want to succeed. He was trapped and had to find a way out. Isotope separation could not be achieved by chemical methods or gaseous-diffusion. What the German physicist desperately needed was cyclotron technology. Isolated by the war, this would prove difficult to get.

  The British-American team had more physicists and significantly more resources. Arthur Compton, an American on the team, had drafted a report to the third annual National Academy of Sciences meeting, and it was very brief.

  “A fission bomb of superlative destructive power will result from bringing quickly together a sufficient mass of element U-235. This seems to be as sure as any untried prediction, based upon theory and experiment, can be.”

  At almost the same time, German physicist Werner Heisenberg, a devoted protégé of Bohr’s, was visiting his old mentor and showed him a drawing of the experimental heavy water reactor he was working to build. Bohr was fiercely anti-Nazi and interpreted this information to mean the Germans were making significant progress towards a bomb. Even though this was not the case, Bohr passed along this information to his British and American colleagues. Denmark was Nazi occupied territory, but Bohr had maintained complete academic freedom because he was a world-renowned physicist.

  As 1941 was drawing to a close, Hanz Eichenwald felt his time was running out. His options were limited. While in the KWI, his activities were unrestricted. Outside the KWI, the Gestapo knew his every move. He was convinced that any escape plan must involve deception and that he would need help from a trusted person in the University. Two men came to mind. One was Max Planck, his mentor and friend. A realistic analysis of the situation revealed that Planck might be too old. Someone involved in a plot would have to be tough and bold, willing to take risks. Planck might crack. The only man left was Max von Laue. He was one of the few physicists who had the prestige and courage to stand-up to the Nazis. He had done it before when he helped Lise Meitner leave the country, and more recently, he freed Fritz Houtermans from the Gestapo.

  One evening, Hanz arranged to see von Laue after hours in his lab. All of the lab assistants and graduate students were gone.

  “Max, good to see you,” Hanz said, extending his hand.

  “It’s been a few weeks, how are you? And how is the project coming along?”

  Hanz smiled, “Oh yes! The bomb. It’s a challenge. All we need is maybe another 100 million marks and a giant cyclotron.”

  Both men laughed. Max von Laue was an outstanding physicist and an even greater individual. Just being in his presence decreased Hanz’s level of anxiety.

  Max took Hanz by the arm. “Let’s go back into my office where we will not be disturbed.”

  He was well aware of the circumstances his friend faced. Even before this encounter he had been considering ways to help the Eichenwalds. He would not speak out against the war effort but he felt nothing but contempt for the Nazis. He had many scientific colleagues who were Jewish and friends outside of academics as well. As they entered his office, he closed the door.

  “I have been working on a plan to get you and Marlene out of Germany.”

  Hanz felt as if a huge weight had been removed from his shoulders. “Why am I not surprised! We really need some clear thinking. When your life is at stake, you are too close to the problem. What are your thoughts?”

  Max was the clear thinker. “I have a mountain retreat where I go to write and be alone. Only my wife and I know about it. Not even my secretaries know. If I’m writing a paper or just need to get away, it is ideal. If we can get you there, then to France, the French underground can get you to the English Channel. Then…I don’t know.”

  Hanz picked up the conversation. “I have a friend in England named Chaim Weizmann. He knows Churchill.” Von Laue was astonished.

  “Churchill! You’re not going to do any better than that! I will begin laying some ground work and you start thinking about timing and contacting Weizmann. When will you be ready?”

  “Sometime in the next two months.”

  “Alright,” said von Laue. “I’ll contact you in about three weeks. If the plan is for some reason at risk, I will get you a message with the word fission. You do the same. I have worried for months about your situation. The Germans have sold their national soul to the devil. I believe history will reveal this time as the nadir of our 1,000 years of existence.”

  As Hanz started to leave he gave Max a long gaze but could not speak. Von Laue did.

  “I understand what this means to you. My thanks will be your safety in England.”

  * * *

  In the same month that Max von Laue and Hanz Eichenwald were secretly plotting an escape for the Eichenwalds, Hitler believed Russia was finished. Field Marshal von Brock’s northern Army group had pushed to within 200 miles of Moscow along the same route Napoleon had taken. Farther south, von Loeb’s 21 infantry and six armored divisions were almost to the Dnieper River and Kiev. After months of combat, Hitler gave a radio address to update the country.

  “I declare today, and I declare it without reservation, that the enemy in the East has been struck down and will never rise again.”

  But the conclusions of the German High Command were not only premature, they were wrong. The farther the German troops advanced into Russia, the more determined the Russians became. They were throwing fresh troops into battle almost weekly, and the German Panzer tanks were found to be no match for the Russian T-34. With the swift advances and the lack of suitable air fields, the German infantry was losing its air support. Finally, a theory that heavy Russian losses would result in an overthrow of Stalin proved to be inaccurate. The Russian people might have feared Stalin, but they were convinced that he was superior to the Nazi boot on their throats. The su
ccess of the Russian invasion was now a race against time. The brutal Russian winter was in the air. At this point Hitler made a major tactical error. He could center his effort on Moscow, the prize goal, or Leningrad in the north and the Ukraine in the south. His generals urged him to take Moscow. It was the major transportation and communications center and contained most of Russia’s armament facilities. Hitler decided to focus on the industrial areas and oil fields of the Ukraine. The strength of the Russian Army was positioned to defend Moscow. They expected the attack to come there. Even with this decision, the central Nazi forces were within 40 miles of Moscow when the mid-October rains came, followed quickly by snow. The biting winds froze more than the ground. They penetrated the German troops like a barbed wire fence. The German generals began to re-read accounts of the disastrous winter of 1812 that led to Napoleon’s defeat. The stark reality was that the same winter that had defeated Napoleon was going to defeat them.

  On December 6, 1941, Russian General Georgi Zhukov began a counterattack across a 200 mile front against an enemy bogged down in six-foot snow drifts and minus 35-degree weather. For the first time since the invasion of Poland, the Wehrmacht was in retreat. The bitter reality of the Russian winter was staring the German High Command in the face. The picture they were seeing was the collective, frozen corpses of thousands of German soldiers.

  The following day, Sunday December 7th, was an infamous day in American history and in the history of the world. The Japanese Navy, using carrier based planes, attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. For more than nine months Hitler had been trying to get Japan into the war, but not against the U.S. He wanted the fight with Britain. Japan’s seizure of Singapore and other British bases in the Far East would greatly weaken England. He also felt it was important to steer away from provoking the U.S. into abandoning her position of neutrality. But the Japanese had bigger fish to fry. On November 25, 1941, their carrier task force set sail for Pearl Harbor. Hitler had never mentioned his intention to attack Russia, and the Japanese felt deceived. Now they were taking things into their own hands. Preceding the attack on Pearl, Japan had invaded parts of Manchuria and China. In the process, some 200,000 women and children had been slaughtered. The U.S. response was to freeze Japanese assets in America and embargo oil and iron ore to Japan. The Japanese could survive no more than 18 months without access to Asian Oil and iron. This forced their hand. The commander of the Japanese Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, had studied in the U.S. and had an intimate understanding of the potential strength of the American military. But if war was to come, he intended to “give a fatal blow to the enemy fleet.” In reality, he visualized a conflagration that might become uncontrollable, burning everything in its path.

  At 7:00 am in Hawaii on that Sunday, two U.S. Army privates were manning the mobile radar station on the northern most reach of the island of Oahu. They noticed an unusual disturbance on their screen. They plotted the radar signal at a northeast bearing of 130 miles. They called the information center at Fort Shafter on the other end of the island. The lieutenant who took the call decided it must be a squadron of B-17’s coming from California.

  “Well, don’t worry about it!”

  The following afternoon, Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress. He requested and was granted a declaration of war against Japan, Germany and Italy.

  * * *

  December of 1941 brought almost a sense of relief in London. The nightly bombings from German aircraft had slowed to about one episode a week on average, and since the British air defense radar systems were active and accurate, there were no surprises. The German sorties were mostly harassment efforts. They were not interested in continuing to confront the British fighter squadrons since they had been losing two planes for every one lost by the British.

  The British people had the sense of confidence that comes with having a big brother. America had officially joined the fray. Things did not seem nearly as bleak as they had in the spring when Londoners endured nightly pounding from the Luftwaffe. British citizens were supremely confident in their leader, Winston Churchill. His ‘bull dog’ determination had become contagious.

  Chaim Weizmann was in his office at Cambridge where he served as adjunct professor of biochemistry. He had no lecture responsibilities because of the Christmas holiday. The undergraduate students were on break and his doctoral candidates were off as well. His secretary, Mary Casterbridge, was trying to tie up last minute details before the ten day break between Christmas and the New Year. She knocked softly on his door and entered.

  “Dr. Weizmann, you have a cable-gram from the Swiss Embassy. It is marked urgent and confidential.”

  “Thank you, Mary. Hold any calls for the next hour.”

  He waited to open the sealed envelope until she had closed the door. It read as follows:

  To: Chaim Weizmann, PhD. - Cambridge University – England

  Form: Hanz Eichenwald PhD. - KWI – Berlin

  Explosive situation rapidly reaching ‘critical mass’. Anticipate movement in next few weeks. Can pick-up rendezvous in English Channel be arranged?

  If affirmative…reply enzyme studies going well. If negative… reply enzyme studies failed.

  Hanz

  Switzerland, the only neutral country during the war, provided a reliable way of information transmission as long as it was of a non-military nature. Cables could be sent from their embassy in Berlin to any Swiss embassy in the world. In wartime the only other way of communication was by short-wave radio, which was used by the French and Danish underground.

  Chaim Weizmann buzzed his secretary and asked her to get him a line to the department of the Navy. He was still well known for his work during WWI and had actually been awarded the Queens Medal, the highest award given to a civilian in England. He was a renowned scientist and a Zionist. Since his childhood in Russia he had believed that the Jewish Nation was destined to settle back in the land they had been promised in antiquity. There were many who denied that the Jews were a nation at all. But Weizmann believed that not only were they a nation, but one deprived of their national territory. They had been driven out of Palestine in 70 AD, this was the second Diaspora or scattering of Jews. The first was their exile to Babylon in 605 BC.

  Now his dream of the returning of his people to Palestine seemed more of a reality with the Balfour Declaration of 1919. He had helped resettle hundreds of Jewish intellectuals from occupied Europe. Now he was in a position to help his friend Hanz Eichenwald and wife, Marlene.

  “Dr. Weizmann, I have the Navy Department.”

  Weizmann spoke with an undersecretary to the Admiralty and made an appointment for the following afternoon. He then dialed a secure direct line to Churchill. This number was known to only 10 men in England, including the Lords of the Admiralty, Army and Air Force. Weizmann felt it a high privilege to be included in the group. He never expected to use it. The phone was answered by a Colonel Branch. About one minute after Weizmann identified himself Churchill was on the line. “Chaim, nice to hear from you…how can I help you?”

  Churchill was a warm, iconic man. He also knew Chaim Weizmann would only contact him on business of some urgency. Weizmann briefly explained the situation with Eichenwald. When hearing that the directing physicist of the German nuclear bomb project was trying to defect, Weizmann had his full attention.

  “Chaim, we will pull out all the stops to get your man to England, you can be sure of that.”

  The following day Weizmann met with officials of the British Navy. They had already been briefed by Churchill’s office. A plan was devised to use a submarine to pick-up the Eichenwalds under cover of darkness, four miles off of the coast of France. The British had short-wave communication with the French underground and would set the coordinates. There was a four day window with no moonlight during the third week of January, weather permitting. They would have to be transported in a row b
oat. A motorized boat might draw attention from German shore patrols. The French underground would have the responsibility of getting the Eichenwalds to the rendezvous point.

  Two days after Christmas a cablegram was delivered from the Swiss Embassy to the KWI for Hanz Eichenwald. It read:

  To:Hanz Eichenwald PhD. - KWI – Berlin

  From: Department of Biochemistry - Cambridge University – England

  Enzyme studies going well…expect completion week of January 20th.

  Department Chairman

  Chaim Weizmann was a champion of Judaism. He had worked tirelessly in the resettlement of Jewish academic refugees and was active in recruiting faculty for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He now had the opportunity of delivering a giant in the world of physics. But he was not thinking of the University. This was a deadly game. If it was lost, the Eichenwalds would end up in an incinerator at Auschwitz or some other death camp. Weizmann was in fact a minor player on the team. The major players were those in the occupied territories willing to risk their lives for faceless souls trapped in a capricious world.