The Odessa File

by Forsyth, Frederick

  The role Richard Gluecks had played in the crimes of the SS was unique and matched only by the manner in which he managed to effect his own complete disappearance in May 1945. More even than Adolf Eichmann, Gluecks had been one of the most senior master-minds of the holocaust, and yet he had never pulled a trigger.

  Had an uninformed passenger been told who the man sitting next to him was, he might well have wondered why the former head of an economic administration office should be so high on the wanted list.

  Had he asked, he would have learned that of the crimes against humanity committed on the German side between 1933 and 1945 probably ninety-five per cent can accurately be laid at the door of the SS. Of these, probably eighty to ninety per cent can be attributed to two departments within the SS. These were the Reich Security Main Office and the Reich Economic Administration Main Office.

  If the idea of an economic bureau being involved in mass-murder strikes a strange note, one must understand how it was intended that the job should be done. Not only was it intended to exterminate every Jew on the face of Europe, and most of the Slavic races with them, but it was intended that the victims should pay for the privilege. Before the gas chambers opened, the SS had already carried out the biggest robbery in history.

  In the case of the Jews the payment was in three stages. First they were robbed of their businesses, houses, factories, bank accounts, furniture, cars and clothes. They were shipped eastwards to the slave-labour camps and the death camps, assured they were destined for resettlement and mainly believing it, with what they could carry, usually two suitcases. On the camp square these were also taken off them, along with the clothes they wore.

  Out of this luggage of six million people, thousands of millions of dollars’ worth of booty was extracted, for the European Jews of the time habitually travelled with their wealth upon them, particularly those from Poland and the eastern lands. From the camps entire trainloads of gold trinkets, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, silver ingots, louis d’ors, gold dollars and bank-notes of every kind and description were shipped back to the SS headquarters inside Germany. Throughout its history the SS made a profit on its operations. A part of this profit in the form of gold bars stamped with the eagle of the Reich and the twin-lightning symbol of the SS was deposited towards the end of the war in the banks of Switzerland, Leichtenstein, Tangier and Beirut to form the fortune on which the Odessa was later based. Much of this gold still lies beneath the streets of Zürich, guarded by the complacent and self-righteous bankers of that city.

  The second stage of the exploitation lay in the living bodies of the victims. They had calories of energy in them, and these could profitably be used. At this point the Jews came on to the same level as the Russians and the Poles, who had been captured penniless in the first place. Those in all categories unfit for work were exterminated as useless. Those able to work were hired out, either to the SS’s own factories or to German industrial concerns like Krupp, Thyssen, von Opel and others at three marks a day for unskilled workers, four marks for artisans. The phrase ‘per day’ meant as much work as could be abstracted from the living body for as little food during a twenty-four-hour period. Hundreds of thousands died at their place of work in this manner.

  The SS was a state within a state. It had its own factories, workshops, engineering division, construction section, repair and maintenance shops and clothing department. It made for itself almost everything it could ever need, and used the slave labourers, which by Hitler’s decree were the property of the SS, to do the work.

  The third stage of the exploitation lay in the corpses of the dead. These went naked to death, leaving behind waggon-loads of shoes, socks, shaving brushes, spectacles, jackets and trousers. They also left their hair, which was shipped back to the Reich to be turned into felt boots for the winter fighting, and their gold teeth fillings, which were yanked out of the corpses with pliers and later melted down to be deposited as gold bars in Zürich. Attempts were made to use the bones for fertilisers and render the body fats down for soap, but this was found to be uneconomical.

  In charge of the entire economic or profit-making side of the extermination of fourteen million people was the Reich Economic Administration Main Office of the SS, headed by the man in Seat 3-B on the airliner that night.

  Gluecks was one who preferred not to chance his arm, or his lifelong liberty, by returning to Germany after his escape. He had no need to. Handsomely provided for out of the secret funds, he could live out his days comfortably in South America, and still does. His dedication to the Nazi ideal remained unshaken by the events of 1945 and this, coupled with his former eminence, secured him a high and honoured place among the fugitive Nazis of Argentina, whence the Odessa was ruled.

  The plane landed uneventfully and the passengers cleared Customs with no problems. The fluent Spanish of the first-class passenger from Row Three caused no eyebrows to be raised, for he had long since been able to pass for a South American.

  Outside the terminal building he took a cab, and from long habit gave an address a block away from the Zurburan Hotel. Paying off the cab in the centre of Madrid, he took his grip and walked the remaining 200 yards to the hotel.

  His reservation had been made by telex, so he checked in and went up to his room to shower and shave. It was at nine o’clock on the dot that three soft knocks, followed by a pause and two more, sounded at his door. He opened it himself and stood back when he recognised the visitor.

  The new arrival closed the door behind him, snapped to attention and flashed up his right arm, palm downwards in the old salute.

  ‘Sieg Heil,’ said the man.

  General Gluecks gave the younger man an approving nod and raised his own right hand.

  ‘Sieg Heil,’ he said more softly. He waved his visitor to a seat. The man facing him was another German, a former officer of the SS, and presently the chief of the Odessa network inside West Germany. He felt very keenly the honour of being summoned to Madrid for a personal conference with such a senior officer, and suspected it had something to do with the death of President Kennedy thirty-six hours earlier. He was not wrong.

  General Gluecks poured himself a cup of coffee from the breakfast tray beside him and carefully lit a large Corona.

  ‘You have probably guessed the reason for this sudden and somewhat hazardous visit by me to Europe,’ he said. ‘As I dislike remaining on this continent longer than necessary, I will get to the point and be brief.’

  The subordinate from Germany sat forward expectantly.

  ‘Kennedy is now dead, for us a remarkable stroke of good fortune,’ the general went on. ‘There must be no failure to extract the utmost advantage from this event. Do you follow me?’

  ‘Certainly, in principle, Herr General,’ the younger man replied eagerly, ‘but in what specific form?’

  ‘I am referring to the secret arms deal between the rabble of traitors in Bonn and the pigs in Tel Aviv. You know about the arms deal? The tanks, guns and other weaponry even now flowing from Germany to Israel?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And you know also that our organisation is doing everything in its power to assist the Egyptian cause so that they may one day prove completely victorious in the coming struggle?’

  ‘Certainly. We have already organised the recruiting of numerous German scientists to that end.’

  General Gluecks nodded.

  ‘I’ll return to that later. What I was referring to was our policy of keeping our Arab friends as closely informed as possible about the details of this treacherous deal, so that they may make the strongest representations to Bonn through diplomatic channels. These Arab protests have led to the formation of a group in Germany strongly opposed to the arms deal on political grounds, because the deal upsets the Arabs. This group, mainly unwittingly, is playing our game for us, bringing pressure on the fool Erhard even as high as cabinet level to call off the arms deal.’

  ‘Yes. I follow you, Herr General.’

 
‘Good. So far Erhard has not called off the arms shipments, but he has wavered several times. For those who wish to see the German – Israeli arms deal completed, the main argument to date has been that the deal is supported by Kennedy, and what Kennedy wants, Erhard gives him.’

  ‘Yes. That’s true.’

  ‘But Kennedy is now dead.’

  The younger man from Germany sat back, his eyes alight with enthusiasm, as the new state of affairs opened up its perspectives to his mind. The SS general flicked an inch of ash from the cigar into the coffee-cup, and jabbed the glowing tip at his subordinate.

  ‘For the rest of this year, therefore, the main plank of political action within Germany that our friends and supporters must undertake, will be to whip up public opinion on as wide a scale as possible against the arms deal and in favour of Germany’s true and traditional friends, the Arabs.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that can be done.’ The younger man was smiling broadly.

  ‘Certain contacts we have in the government of Cairo will ensure a constant stream of diplomatic protests through their own and other embassies,’ the general continued. ‘Other Arab friends will ensure demonstrations by Arab students and German friends of the Arabs. Your job will be to co-ordinate press publicity through the various pamphlets and magazines we secretly support, advertisements taken in major newspapers and magazines, lobbying of civil servants close to government and politicians who must be persuaded to join the growing weight of opinion against the arms deal.’

  The younger man’s brow furrowed.

  ‘It’s very difficult to promote feelings against Israel in Germany today,’ he murmured.

  ‘There need be no question of that,’ said the other tartly. ‘The angle is simple: for practical reasons Germany must not alienate eighty million Arabs with these foolish supposedly secret arms shipments. Many Germans will listen to that argument, particularly diplomats. Known friends of ours in the Foreign Office can be enlisted. Such a practical viewpoint is wholly permissible. Funds, of course, will be made available. The main thing is, with Kennedy dead and Johnson unlikely to adopt the same internationalist, pro-Jewish outlook, Erhard must be subjected to constant pressure at every level, including his own cabinet, to shelve this arms deal. If we can show the Egyptians that we have caused foreign policy in Bonn to change course, our stock in Cairo must inevitably rise sharply.’

  The man from Germany nodded several times, already seeing his plan of campaign taking shape before him.

  ‘It shall be done,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent,’ replied General Gluecks. The man in front of him looked up.

  ‘Herr General, you mentioned the German scientists now working in Egypt …’

  ‘Ah yes, I said I would return to them later. They represent the second prong in our plan to destroy the Jews once and for all. You know about the rockets of Helwan, of course?’

  ‘Yes, sir. At least, the broad details.’

  ‘But not what they are really for?’

  ‘Well, I assumed of course …’

  ‘That they would be used to throw a few tons of high explosive on to Israel?’ General Gluecks smiled broadly. ‘You could not be more wrong. However, I think the time is ripe to tell you why these rockets and the men who build them are in truth so vitally important.’

  General Gluecks leaned back, gazed at the ceiling and told his subordinate the real story behind the rockets of Helwan.

  In the aftermath of the war, when King Farouk still ruled Egypt, thousands of Nazis and former members of the SS had fled from Europe and found a sure refuge along the sands of the Nile. Among those who came were a number of scientists. Even before the coup d’état that dislodged Farouk, two German scientists had been charged by Farouk with the first studies for the eventual setting-up of a factory to manufacture rockets. This was in 1952, and the two professors were Paul Goerke and Rolf Engel.

  The project went into abeyance for a few years after Gamal Abdel Nasser took power, but after the military defeat of the Egyptian forces, in the 1956 Sinai campaign, the new dictator of Egypt swore an oath. He vowed that one day Israel would be totally destroyed.

  In 1961, when he got Moscow’s final ‘No’ to his requests for heavy rockets, the Goerke/Engel project for an Egyptian rocket factory was re-vitalised with a vengeance, and during this year, working against the clock and without rein on their expenditure of money, the German professors and the Egyptians built and opened Factory 333, at Helwan, north of Cairo.

  To open a factory is one thing; to design and build rockets is another. Long since, the senior supporters of Nasser, mostly with pro-Nazi backgrounds stretching back to the Second World War, had been in close contact with the Odessa representatives in Egypt. From these came the answer to the Egyptians’ main problem – the problem of acquiring the scientists necessary to make the rockets.

  Neither Russia, America, Britain nor France would supply a single man to help. But the Odessa pointed out that the kind of rockets Nasser needed were remarkably similar in size and range to the V.2 rockets that Werner von Braun and his team had once built at Peenemunde to pulverise London. And many of his former team were still available.

  In late 1961 the recruiting of German scientists started. Many of these were employed at the West German Institute for Aerospace Research at Stuttgart. But they were frustrated because the Paris Treaty of 1954 forbade Germany to indulge in research or manufacture in certain realms, notably nuclear physics and rocketry. They were also chronically short of research funds. To many of these scientists the offer of a place in the sun, plenty of research money and the chance to design real rockets, was too tempting.

  The Odessa appointed a chief recruiting officer in Germany, and he in turn employed as his leg-man a former SS-sergeant, Heinz Krug. Together they scoured Germany looking for men prepared to go to Egypt and build Nasser’s rockets for him.

  With the salaries they could offer they were not short of choice recruits. Notable among them were Professor Wolfgang Pilz, who had been repatriated from post-war Germany by the French and had later become the father of the French Véronique rocket, itself the foundation of De Gaulle’s aerospace programme. Professor Pilz left for Egypt in early 1962. Another was Dr Heinz Kleinwachter; Dr Eugen Saenger and his wife Irene, both formerly on the von Braun V.2 team, also went along, as did Doctors Josef Eisig and Kirmayer, all experts in propulsion fuels and techniques.

  The world saw the first results of their labours at a parade through the streets of Cairo on July 23rd, 1962, to mark the eighth anniversary of the fall of Farouk. Two rockets, the El Kahira and the El Zafira, respectively with ranges of 500 and 300 kilometres, were trundled past the screaming crowds. Although these rockets were only the casings, without warheads or fuel, they were destined to be the first of 400 such weapons that would one day be launched against Israel.

  General Gluecks paused, drew on his cigar and returned to the present.

  ‘The problem is, that although we solved the matter of making the casings, the warheads and the fuel, the key of a guided missile lies in the tele-guidance system.’

  He stabbed his cigar in the direction of the West German.

  ‘And that was what we were unable to furnish to the Egyptians,’ he went on.

  ‘By ill-luck, although there were scientists and experts in guidance systems working at Stuttgart and elsewhere, we could not persuade one of them of any value to emigrate to Egypt. All the experts sent out there were specialists in aerodynamics, propulsion and the design of warheads.

  ‘But we had promised Egypt that she would have her rockets and have them she will. President Nasser is determined there will one day be war between Egypt and Israel, and war there will be. He believes his tanks and soldiers alone will win for him. Our information is not so optimistic. They might not, despite their numerical superiority. But just think what our position would be if, when all the Soviet weaponry, bought at a cost of billions of dollars, had failed, it turned out to be the rockets provided by the scientist
s recruited through our network which won the war. Our position would be unassailable. We would have carried out the double coup of ensuring an eternally grateful Middle East, a safe and sure home for our people for all time, and of achieving the final and utter destruction of the Jew-pig State, thus fulfilling the last wish of the dying Fuehrer. It is a mighty challenge, and one in which we must not and will not fail.’

  The subordinate watched his senior officer pacing the room, with awe and some puzzlement.

  ‘Forgive me, Herr General, but will 400 medium warheads really finish off the Jews once and for all? A massive amount of damage, yes, but total destruction?’

  Gluecks spun round and gazed down at the younger man with a triumphant smile.

  ‘But what warheads,’ he exclaimed. ‘You do not think we are going to waste mere high explosive on these swine. We have proposed to President Nasser, and he has accepted with alacrity, that these warheads on the Kahiras and Zafiras be of a different type. Some will contain concentrated cultures of bubonic plague and the others will explode high above the ground, showering the entire territory of Israel with irradiated Strontium 90. Within hours they will all be dying of the pest or of gamma-ray sickness. That is what we have in store for them.’

  The other gazed at him open-mouthed.

  ‘Fantastic,’ he breathed. ‘Now I recall reading something about a trial in Switzerland last summer. Just summaries, so much of the evidence was in camera. Then it’s true. But, General, it’s brilliant.’

  ‘Brilliant, yes, and inevitable, provided we of the Odessa can equip those rockets with the tele-guidance systems necessary to direct them not merely in the right direction but to the exact locations where they must explode. The man who controls the entire research operation aimed at devising a tele-guidance system for those rockets is now working in West Germany. His code-name is Vulkan. You may recall that in Greek mythology Vulkan was the smith who made the thunderbolts of the Gods.’