One of the few building jobs I was involved in occurred towards the end of June, with the much-needed repairs to my own apartment. Karl kindly did the bulk of the work, with a little help from myself and a lot of hindrance from Hellie.
In July the British took over control of their sector, and things started to relax a little. Vehicles were beginning to appear on the roads again, which was my incentive to try to do something about ‘Maggi’ the flatbed. Having completed the Luftwaffe heavy vehicle driving course, I had a good basic knowledge of heavy vehicles and their maintenance. The first priority was a battery. The one on ‘Maggi’ was completely dead.
The following morning Karl appeared with his trolley, and buried beneath sacks of sand, shovels and bricks was a brand-new battery sporting a very fetching red star! I emptied the fuel tank and strained the fuel through a muslin cloth, helpfully supplied by Lottie, before stripping the fuel system and cleaning every component. While assembling it I mentioned casually to Karl that, ideally, we should do an oil change. Needless to say, within a short time, two 5-litre cans of oil appeared, together with an oil filter, an air filter and a fuel filter.
After refilling the fuel tank and bleeding the system, we were ready to try it. I prayed it would start—I was going to look very foolish if it didn’t. After a few splutters it burst into life issuing clouds of steam and smoke as the water that had accumulated in the exhaust boiled off. After five minutes it was purring beautifully. ‘Maggi’ was alive again!
With the flatbed on the road again, life became somewhat easier. It was about this time that an illegal market opened along Charlottenburger Chaussee in the British sector. The British authorities made several half-hearted attempts to close it down, but their efforts were doomed to failure as a good many of the customers were Red Army soldiers. The market proved very lucrative for Karl. It was also about this time that Karl had his first ‘transport’ customer since the war ended. He was a relatively young SS major. I have no idea what he did, or whom he did it to, but he seemed very keen to leave Berlin.
Karl supplied him with new documents, and we dressed him in workmen’s clothes. I drove him to one of the farms we used and offloaded him onto the farmer, along with a sizable envelope which I assumed contained cash.
Shortly after this, things started to go wrong. Our forger was picked up by the Soviet authorities and Karl, fearing he would be given up, decided to move himself and Lottie. The last I heard from one of the farmers was that he had started up again in one of the bombed-out cities further south.
With Karl gone, I was left to my own devices. Without transport and materials, the building trade for me was now finished. I could still trade on the black market, but I was severely limited in the number of goods I could carry. On two occasions I was able to do a ‘transport’—fortunately the farmers were still prepared to assist, but only if the transportee met their requirements. This basically meant that the fugitive must be a member of Thule. They were eager to assist their own, but no one else.
It was through this organisation, via one of the farmers, that I came in contact with Müller, and it was of course because of your desire to capture Müller that you contacted me and consequently arrested me.
Helmut’s Revelation
Dan Kelly sat back in his chair and blew out his cheeks.
“That is some story, Horst. I agree with Karl, it is astonishing that you made it that far. You’re a very resourceful man.”
He paused for a while, then added, “Of course, Schumacher is not their real name?”
“No, of course not,” said Horst. “I changed the names to protect the guilty!”
Kelly laughed. “Quite! But I’m not interested in the Schumachers of this world. I’m after bigger fish. I need to know what happened to Müller after he escaped from the military hospital.”
“If Müller was a member of Thule,” mused Horst, “and I suspect he must have been, it’s almost certain that his escape was engineered by that organisation. He would have then been processed down the line in exactly the same way as he would have been if you hadn’t caught him.”
“The way you would have processed him?” said Kelly.
“Exactly, bearing in mind I would have only taken him as far as one of the farms. His route from there would have been in the hands of the farmers directed by their Thule overlords.”
“Tell me what would happen from there onwards.”
“You have to remember that everything I know about the route south is from occasional remarks by Karl or the farmers, or from overheard conversations between them. Based on that, then my understanding is this.
“The fugitive would gradually be moved further south using agricultural transport—tractors, livestock carriers, hay wagons and so on—until they arrived at Jena in Thuringia. The distance is a little over two hundred kilometres, but it could take a week. The contact in Jena was a haulage firm that subcontracted, though not exclusively, to the Carl Zeiss factory, carrying the company’s products, optical equipment and medical instruments all over Germany, and indeed Europe. The fugitive would be hidden in one of the trucks heading for his next collection point.”
“Where were the transportees heading after Jena?” asked Kelly.
“There were two options at that point. Route one was through France and then into Spain. I have no idea which port they used in Spain. Barcelona has the advantage that it’s close to the French border, but a major disadvantage is that a ship from Barcelona would have to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, thus entering British controlled waters. Another possibility might be Coruna—it’s right on the Atlantic, but some way from the border—and there are other ports as well.
“Route two, and I believe this is the favoured option, is to travel down through Austria into Italy, and I’m nearly certain that the port used is Genoa.”
“I need to get on that Austrian route,” said Kelly decisively. “We’ve reconnoitred the Spanish option and pretty well ruled that out. He must have gone to Italy. Perhaps I could pose as one of your transportees, Horst?”
“Absolutely no chance!” responded Horst. “Dan, your German is excellent, but it wouldn’t fool a German, and they wouldn’t touch anyone who spoke English. Not even an Irishman!” he said pointedly. It was as an Irishman that Kelly had fooled Horst into taking him to Müller.
“What about a Croatian? If I posed as an ex-member of the Ustase, trying to get away from Europe. Would they accept that?”
Horst pondered for a moment. “I doubt it. They made it clear to me that they would only accept Thule members, but I wonder. I could make enquiries, but that would mean going into the East again, to one of the farms.”
“You’d be taking one hell of a risk. Let’s park it for now—there are other issues I want to explore.”
Kelly shuffled through his papers. “You told me, when you were in Plötzensee, that you became convinced there was either a treasure actually in the Führerbunker, or that someone in the bunker knew of its location. What made you think that?”
“I heard Fräulein Braun mention it on two occasions. As well as being a guard commander, I had gained a reputation in the bunker as a Handlanger—what the English call a handyman. I was asked one day to look at the cooker, which wasn’t working properly, and while lying on my side on the floor in the kitchen examining the connections, Fräulein Braun and General Müller walked in in mid conversation. I of course immediately sprang up and saluted, which instantly stopped their conversation, but not before I had heard Fräulein Braun say, ‘… and you can get me and the treasure out of Berlin …’
“General Müller gave me one of his famous smiles, which is, I think, the nearest thing you can have to a death sentence. ‘Stabsfeldwebel, what are you doing here?’
“I explained that I was attempting to repair the cooker. ‘If you and Fräulein Braun are looking for coffee, Herr General, there is a pot on the side, but it’s not very warm, I’m afraid.’
“‘It will have to do, Stabsfeldwebel, t
hank you. Please continue with your repair—you are probably doing the most important job in the bunker at this moment. We cannot survive without coffee!’
“After they poured themselves a cup of coffee each, they headed for the door. As they were leaving, I heard Müller say, ‘Don’t worry, everything is arranged.’”
“When was this?” asked Kelly.
“It would have been about mid-April. The next time was a few days later when I was collecting files from the secretaries’ office, another of my many jobs, and there was a group of women in there talking together. This was not unusual, as it was the unofficial meeting place for the women in the bunker when they wanted to chat. Among them was Fräulein Braun talking to Constanze Manziarly, Hitler’s cook and dietician. They often chatted together and seemed very close. I heard Fräulein Braun mention ‘treasure’ and ‘names on the wall’. I didn’t know what this meant until, on a visit to Fräulein Braun’s room to secure a length of electrical conduit that had become loose, I noticed the names and immediately made the connection to the treasure.”
“Let’s consider those names now, Horst, alongside those you wrote down for me of the people who were in the bunker at some time or other in the final couple of weeks. How sure are you of the accuracy of your list?”
“Very sure,” responded Horst. “It was my duty to write the names of everyone who entered in the logbook. I remember them well.”
“Good! We’ll see if we can find any kind of correlation between the two lists. So, if I read out the names on the wall, you can perhaps tell me if anyone by that name was in the bunker, and what their role was.”
“Fire away!” said Horst.
“I’ll read the crossed-out ones as well. Alois?”
There was a pause as Horst considered his list. “No.”
“Bernt?”
“Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven.”
“Oh, it’s okay Horst, I know about this man. He was captured by the British in 1945 and thoroughly interrogated. After he was released, he moved to Munich. He has never shown any interest in the past.”
“Frida?” continued Kelly.
“No, and no Alfrida.”
“Georgina?”
“No!”
“Helmut?”
“A Helmut and a Helmuth. The Helmuth is General Weidling. He was commander of the Berlin Defence Force. My understanding is that after the surrender he was shipped to Moscow.”
“That’s correct,” confirmed Kelly, “and as far as we know, he is still there. What about the other Helmut?”
“Helmut Kunz, he was a dentist,” said Horst.
“Ah, yes, I remember this one,” said Kelly. “Implicated in the murder of the Goebbels children, I believe. He is in prison in Russia. Klaus?”
“No!”
“Someone keeps calling my name.” It was Hellie, standing at the door of the living room carrying his model three-tonner, built for him by one of Horst’s friends, a mechanic in the REME Field Workshop in Spandau.
“Sorry, Hellie, we were talking about another Helmut,” said his father.
“Can I play in here now, Papa?”
“Yes, of course you can, Hellie, you’ve been really good, but Onkel Dan and I have to carry on working, don’t mind us.”
“Sybille?” continued Kelly.
“No!”
“Another crossed out one here: Wilhelm?”
“Wilhelm Zander, Bormann’s secretary. Wasn’t he found with Hitler’s will?”
“Yes, that’s right. He was working as a gardener in West Germany. I think we can rule him out.”
“Willy Johannmeyer, he was Hitler’s adjutant.”
“Yes!” nodded Kelly. “Here we have a likely candidate, we’ll have to keep him in mind. He was captured by the Americans, and I believe he is now engaged in the agricultural engineering business. That said, he’s been a very good boy lately, and he is crossed out. Maybe he’s not our man. Any other Wilhelm?”
“Wilhelm Mohnke, captured by the Soviets I believe,” said Horst.
“Correct,” confirmed Kelly. “Manfred?”
“No!”
“Richard?”
“No!”
“That’s it!” sighed Kelly resignedly. “No more on the list and we’ve failed to make any connection.”
“Sounds like you have a problem, Onkel Dan,” said Hellie.
“Yes, I do, Hellie. I’m trying to work out why a woman would write a list of names on her wall.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” said the boy, “she must be having a baby!”
Part III
Down the Ratline
Hitler Alive?
Dan Kelly and Horst Manteufel stared at each other open-mouthed. They looked at the boy, quietly playing at their feet, then looked back at each other.
“What did you say, Hellie?” asked Kelly incredulously.
“I said she must be having a baby. Mama told me that when she was having Siggy, she always kept a pencil and paper by her bed so she could write down the names she liked. If she wrote one that she didn’t think Papa would like, she crossed it out and wrote down another one.”
The two men gawped at each other again until Horst threw up his arms.
“Dan, we’re imbeciles! It’s been staring us in the face all this time. What were the names crossed out?”
“The first is Alois—”
“Hitler’s father! He would never agree to that name. He hated his father,” cut in Horst.
“The other is Wilhelm,” said Kelly.
“The name of the old Kaiser, again someone Hitler hated vehemently. He blamed the Kaiser, along with the Jews and the generals, for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.”
“I’m struggling to get my head around this, Horst. If Eva Braun died in the bunker on 30 April, then there isn’t a problem, but what if she didn’t? And if she didn’t, what if Hitler didn’t?”
“But what about the evidence?”
“What evidence?” asked Kelly. “Consider, in Britain, we have based our belief that Hitler is dead on a report by Trevor Roper, who claimed he had interviewed the eyewitnesses. It now appears that Roper’s report was based on transcripts of eyewitness statements given to him by the Soviets. Many of the eyewitnesses have since retracted their statements, claiming that they were not accurately reported.
“Britain is the only one of the Allies not actively still searching for Hitler. The CIA most certainly is, concentrating its investigations in Argentina. Dwight Eisenhower has conceded that Hitler may be alive.
“It was the German radio, controlled by Goebbels, that initially told the world that Hitler was dead. The Soviets have since contradicted that. One senior Soviet officer told a British journalist that the bodies found were not fully burned, and that the man was a very poor double for Hitler.
“Marshall Zhukov, the soldier tasked with discovering the whereabouts of Hitler as early as the beginning of June, stated that they had not found Hitler, and he believed he was still alive. Stalin himself confirmed this in July. Then there’s the mystery of the pictures.”
Horst raised his eyes interrogatively.
“The Soviets published pictures of Goebbels’s burnt body as he was found, and again during the autopsy, also of Magda, his wife, and—sick as it may seem—pictures of the dead children, as they were found and again later during the autopsy. Why no photographs of Hitler and Braun’s bodies?
“Let’s consider the eyewitnesses. Let’s start with you! You were in the bunker, Horst, did you see Hitler or Eva Braun’s bodies?”
“Yes, I did,” said Horst nodding.
“You saw Hitler’s features and he was clearly recognisable?”
“No, not exactly. He was being carried up to the emergency exit wrapped in a blanket. Eva Braun was also carried up wrapped in a blanket.”
“So, you couldn’t say with a hundred per cent certainty, that it was Hitler you saw?” asked Kelly.
“Well, no, but who else could it have been?”
&nb
sp; “Let me throw that back to you, Horst. Did Hitler employ any doubles?”
“Of course,” said Horst, “several.”
“What happened to them after the war?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Shaved off their moustaches, parted their hair on the correct side then tried to become invisible, I should think,” said Horst with a shrug.
Kelly nodded and smiled. “Yes, you’re probably right, but I wonder if one of them ended up in a bonfire in the chancellery garden.” He thought for a moment then asked, “Could the double or doubles, if we include Frau Hitler, be brought into the bunker without arousing interest?”
“Yes, they could, but not the way I got out. That involved going through the Vorbunker, which was fine for me. My bunk was there, and I was often seen in that area, but to bring outsiders in that way would have been problematic. The state of the tunnels, for one thing, would have made it difficult, and then you would have to walk the entire length of the Vorbunker in full view of secretaries, typists, guards, cooks and so on. No, it couldn’t be done that way. However, they could come down through the emergency exit into the Führerbunker, as that led directly into the conference room and hence into Hitler’s study. You would be in sight of guards, but with Bormann as escort, that would have been no problem. Hitler himself often went out that way to get some fresh air, and I know Martin Bormann used it on occasion, when he wanted to reconnoitre the area near the chancellery or meet one of the Storks that landed from time to time.”
“Fieseler Storks were still landing nearby at that stage?” asked Kelly in surprise.
“Right up to the end. The Fieseler Stork was an amazing little aircraft. It could land on a ten-mark note, providing it was laid flat. We had a number of visits, most notably from Hanna Reitsch a couple of days before Hitler killed himself, if he did. I went with Bormann to the Tiergarten to meet the plane. She was a wonderful woman and an amazing pilot, and surprised Bormann by giving me a huge hug when I helped her down from the plane. I think she had a soft spot for all Luftwaffe personnel. It was, after all, widely believed that General von Greim, who accompanied her, was her lover. I had to help von Greim back to the bunker as the plane had been fired on as it was coming in and he had sustained a leg wound.”
Shadow Of Evil: Cold War Espionage Thriller (Dragan Kelly Book 2) Page 11
