Victory and Honor hb-6
Page 25
“Jesus, that’s enormous,” Clete said as their landing roll brought them close to the terminal building.
“It’s supposed to be one of the twenty largest buildings in the world,” von Wachtstein said, and then added, “The last time I saw it, I came in here dead-stick, with oil all over the windscreen of my Focke-Wulf. When I finally touched down, my left gear collapsed.”
“I know the feeling, Hansel. You operated out of here?”
“No. So far as I know, we never used it for military operations. When they pulled me out of the Focke-Wulf, a guy asked me if I didn’t know I was not supposed to land here.”
Frade saw that there were only three aircraft under the arc of the huge building, all of them Piper Cub L-4s and all with the Second Armored Division insignia painted on the fuselage. The engine of one was running, and as von Wachtstein brought the Constellation to a stop and shut it down, that L-4 began to taxi toward the runway.
“There’s Mattingly,” von Wachtstein said, pointing.
Colonel Robert Mattingly was standing in front of the welcoming party—three other officers and half a dozen soldiers—all of them wearing the triangle patch of the Second Armored Division. Behind them was a small fleet of three-quarter-ton trucks and jeeps.
A strange-looking vehicle appeared from behind the trucks and jeeps and drove up to the rear of the Connie’s fuselage.
Von Wachtstein unstrapped himself and then—not without effort—put his head through the small window and looked out.
He pulled his head back in and reported, “It’s a hydraulic stairs. I wonder where they found that?”
He took another look, then announced, “Mattingly looks like he’s going to come up the stairs.”
Clete unstrapped himself, walked through the passenger compartment, and opened the door.
Mattingly loudly announced in Spanish: “Good morning, Captain. I am Colonel Oscar Hammerstein, the civil affairs officer of the United States Second Armored Division. May I address your passengers, please?”
“Yes, of course,” Frade said, equally loudly.
The name Oscar Hammerstein rang a bell, but Frade couldn’t put a face or anything else to it.
Mattingly came onto the Connie, moved past Clete, stood in the center of the aisle, and loudly said, “If I may have your attention, gentlemen?”
When he had it, he went on: “I am Colonel Oscar Hammerstein, the civil affairs officer of the United States Second Armored Division. I have the privilege of being your escort during your short visit to Berlin.
“On behalf of General White and the officers and the troopers of Hell on Wheels, permit me to welcome you to Berlin.
“You will now please disembark. You will be taken to the Argentine Embassy under the protection of the Second Armored Division. Your luggage and the supplies will shortly follow. The aircraft crew will remain here at Tempelhof. There is absolutely nothing to fear from the Russians, as we have every reason to believe, despite what you may have heard, that they will respect your diplomatic status.
“I’m sure your diplomatic personnel here will be able to answer any questions you might have before they leave for home, probably about oh-nine-hundred hours—that’s nine A.M.—tomorrow.
“I look forward to getting to know those of you who will be staying.
“And now, please begin to debark. Be careful! That ladder was a little unsteady as I came up here. Thank you for your kind attention. Once again, welcome to Berlin!”
Mattingly then quickly made his way up the aisle to the cockpit. Gonzalo Delgano quickly followed him, and on his heels came Vega and Peralta. Frade got there last, and closed the door to the passenger compartment behind them.
“There’s a hotel here,” Mattingly began, “and—”
There came a knock at the door.
Clete opened it.
Rodolfo Nulder stood there.
“If you don’t mind,” Nulder said, more than a little arrogantly, “I’ve got some questions for Colonel Hammerstein. Several, as a matter of fact.”
Mattingly said: “And you are, señor?”
“Rodolfo Nulder. I am, so to speak, the person in charge.”
“No, Señor Nulder. I am the person in charge, and I just told you to debark. Please do so.”
“I protest!”
“Duly noted. Now either stop delaying the movement or sit down and make yourself comfortable. You can spend the night on this aircraft.”
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Colonel Hammerstein!”
“It’s Hammersmith, Felix Hammersmith. I suggest you submit any complaints you might have in writing to SHAEF, after we—if we—get you safely out of Berlin. Which is it to be, Señor Nulder—are you going or staying?”
Nulder looked around the cabin. “You all were witnesses to this!” he said, primarily to Delgano, then turned and walked quickly down the aisle to the line of passengers at the door.
Delgano pulled the door closed and said, “Well, at least they’ll have something to talk about at the embassy tonight.”
“What I really think will happen at the embassy tonight is that your people who were here are going to give a detailed report of the rape of Berlin. Believe me, that will take everybody’s mind off Colonel Hammerstein, or Hammersmith, whatever name I used.”
“What happens to us now?” Delgado said.
Mattingly looked at Siggie Stein.
“I realized about thirty seconds ago, Siggie, that I should have asked this question yesterday. It is alleged by Mr. Dulles that you are one of the rare people who know how to make a Collins 7.2 work. True?”
“I know the 7.2 pretty well, Colonel.”
“Good. We brought one on the C-54. It is now in Admiral Canaris’s house in Zehlendorf. Just as soon as the diplomats have driven away and everybody can change into their officer equivalent civilian employee uniforms, we’ll go there and you can set it up.
“I suspect everybody from Ike down at SHAEF is wondering how things went this morning, and I don’t want to make that report in the clear—the Russians might be listening—over General White’s somewhat limited radio network.”
“Everybody goes?” Delgano asked.
“Good question, Colonel,” Mattingly said. “As I was saying a moment ago, there is a hotel here in the terminal building. Not very damaged. Adequate. It has a mess, which we have also put into operation. They don’t serve Argentine beef, of course, but the mess is adequate, too. What I would like to do is put the crew in it overnight, except for one of your officers, your choice, who I suggest should come with us to keep everybody in the loop.”
“Mario,” Delgano said. “You go. I’ll stay here with the others. I’d like to keep an eye on the airplane.”
“Sí, mi coronel,” Peralta said.
“Colonel Delgano,” Mattingly said, “as you climb down that wobbling ladder, you may notice two half-tracks, each mounting four .50-caliber Browning machine guns. They will help you keep an eye on the Ciudad de Rosario.”
[TWO]
357 Roonstrasse, Zehlendorf Berlin, Germany 1335 20 May 1945
The convoy—a M-8 armored car, three jeeps, two three-quarter-ton trucks, and a trailing M-8—had been wending its way slowly through rubble when it suddenly came into a residential area that appeared just about unscathed.
Here and there, some of the large villas and apartment houses showed signs of damage, but most of the buildings were intact.
“Welcome to Zehlendorf,” Mattingly announced.
He was driving the first jeep, with Frade sitting beside him and Boltitz and von Wachtstein in the backseat.
“Why is this . . .” Clete wondered aloud.
“. . . not bombed into rubble?” Mattingly picked up. “I suppose for the same reason the I.G. Farben building still stands in Frankfurt. Somebody decided we were going to need it and told the Eighth Air Force to leave it alone.”
On a side street, they came to a very nice two-story house—as opposed to the preponderance of
large, even huge, villas in the area—and stopped. An American flag was hanging limply from a flagpole over the door, and a jeep with two GIs and a pedestal-mounted .50-caliber Browning in it was sitting at the curb.
On the right side of the house, a gaunt man in his sixties was pushing a lawn mower over the small patch of grass that separated Admiral Canaris’s house from its much more impressive neighbor.
“That’s surreal,” Frade said, pointing at him. “That’s absolutely surreal!”
As everybody looked, the old man pushed the lawn mower out of sight around the rear of the house.
Tiny Dunwiddie came out the front door of the house and, sounding more like a master sergeant than an officer-equivalent civilian employee, bellowed the suggestion to his men that getting their asses out of goddamned armored cars and helping unload the three-quarter-ton trucks might be a wise thing to do.
Enrico Rodríguez, who had ridden in the third jeep, smiled approvingly as more than a half dozen Second Armored Division troopers erupted from the M-8s and began to carry cartons and crates from the trucks into the house.
“Come on, Siggie,” Boltitz said. “I’ll show you where to set up the 7.2 before Mattingly starts screaming like that at you.”
Stein looked at him, then said, “That’s right. You worked for Canaris, didn’t you? You’ve been here before?”
“Yes, I’ve been here before. The last time just before I became the naval attaché in Buenos Aires.”
When Clete, trailed by Enrico, went in the house, he smelled coffee and followed his nose into the kitchen. There Clete found another elderly German man, this one setting out cups and saucers to go with the coffee.
They nodded at each other.
When Dunwiddie walked into the kitchen a minute or so later, Frade saw him take a quick, if thorough, look at Enrico, and then smile at him.
Jesus, how do these guys recognize each other on sight?
“Master Sergeant Dunwiddie, Sergeant Major Rodríguez, retired,” Clete said.
Dunwiddie offered his hand.
“You always carry a riot gun, Sergeant Major?”
“Only when I think I may have to shoot somebody,” Enrico replied.
“Welcome to Berlin.”
“I have been here before, when my colonel was at the Kriegsschule,” Enrico said.
“No shit? Small world, isn’t it, Sergeant Major?”
“My name is Enrico.”
“Tiny,” Dunwiddie said, offering his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Enrico.”
“I hate to interrupt the mutual admiration society,” Clete said, “but who are these guys? This one and the one cutting the grass?”
Dunwiddie looked a little uncomfortable.
“Colonel, they knocked on the door just about as soon as I got here. They said they used to work here and would do anything that needed to be done in exchange for food.”
“So you put them to work?”
“I never minded shooting the bastards, but watching them starve to death is something else.”
“Just so they don’t turn out to be some of those Nazis Morgenthau is looking for,” Clete joked.
That possibility was immediately put to rest when Boltitz, also following his nose, walked into the kitchen and saw the man setting out coffee cups.
“Gott in Himmel!” Boltitz said. “Max!”
The man setting out the coffee cups popped to rigid attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän.”
“Why do I think they know each other, Dunwiddie?” Frade asked. “Herr Kapitän, are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
“Max was the admiral’s chief bosun’s mate when he commanded the cruiser Schlesien,” Boltitz said.
“And the other one?” Frade asked.
“What other one?”
“The one pushing the lawn mower,” Clete said, and pointed out the window.
Boltitz looked, then opened the kitchen door. He barked, “Egon!”
The elderly, poorly dressed old man in the backyard walked quickly—almost ran—to the kitchen door, popped to attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän!” as if he was having trouble using his voice.
“Stand at ease, the both of you,” Boltitz ordered. “This is Egon. He was Admiral Canaris’s chief of the boat when the admiral commanded U-201 in the First World War.”
“And what are they doing here?” Frade asked.
Boltitz looked at them and asked, “Well?”
“Herr Kapitän,” Egon said, “we have been keeping an eye on the house for Frau Admiral Canaris since the SS took the admiral away.”
“And the Frau Admiral?” Boltitz asked softly.
“The last word we have is that she is with friends in Westertede,” Max answered. “The Nazis took their house in Westertede, too. You have heard what they did to the admiral?”
Boltitz nodded. “How come they didn’t take you, too?” he asked.
“Every good chief petty officer knows when to be stupid, Herr Kapitän,” Egon said. “We told the SS we had heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing. After we had told them that fifty times, they put us in the Volkssturm.”
“The what?” Frade asked as Dunwiddie opened his mouth to ask the same question.
“As the Russians approached Berlin, every German male from sixteen years old who was not already in uniform was pressed into the Volkssturm,” Max said.
“There were boys as young as twelve,” Egon said. “And men even older than Max and me.”
“And?” Boltitz asked. “When the Soviets came?”
“We deserted,” Egon said. “We took three of the younger boys with us, and hid in the ruins of my apartment building until we heard the Americans had come. Then we came here to look after the house for the Frau Admiral.”
“And where are you living now?” Boltitz asked.
“In a ruin off Onkel-Tom Strasse.”
“What happened to the boys?” Frade asked.
“One of them managed to get home. His mother was still alive. The two other boys are waiting for us to return. Herr Dunwiddie said he would give us some rations. . . .”
“How did you learn what happened to the admiral?” Boltitz asked.
“Herr Kapitän,” Max said. “Egon and I served the admiral for most of our lives. We know how to find things out.”
“We—the U.S. Army—have buried Admiral Canaris with the honors appropriate to a senior officer,” Mattingly announced from behind Frade.
Frade was a little startled; he hadn’t heard him walk up.
“That is good to hear, Herr Oberst,” Max said. “The admiral did not deserve what the SS did to him.”
“I missed the first part of this,” Mattingly said, and looked at the elderly Germans. “How is it that you’re in the kitchen making coffee and you’re cutting the grass in the garden?”
Dunwiddie answered: “They came to me, Colonel, and said they used to work here.” He pointed to each and added, “Max and Egon offered to make themselves useful if we fed them.”
Karl put in: “They did more than simply work for Admiral Canaris. They served under him.”
As he finished giving the details of that, von Wachtstein and Peralta walked into the kitchen.
“I knew I smelled coffee,” Peralta said.
“This is Captain Peralta,” Boltitz said. “He is an Argentine pilot.”
Egon and Max acknowledged Peralta with a nod.
“And this is the Graf von Wachtstein,” Boltitz said.
Max and Egon snapped to attention.
“Herr Graf,” they said in unison.
“You have heard what happened to Generalleutnant von Wachtstein, presumably,” Mattingly said.
They nodded.
“I heard you say before that both of you know ‘how to find things out,’” Mattingly said.
Neither Max nor Egon said anything, but both nodded and looked at him curiously.
“Would you be willing to find some things out for us?” Mattingly went on.
Both looked
uncomfortable.
“Would you be willing to help us,” Mattingly pursued, “by suggesting to whom Boltitz should talk to find out about the submarines that are supposed to be taking high-ranking Nazis to South America?”
“You remember General Gehlen, of course, Max? Egon?” Boltitz said.
“The last time we saw your father, Herr Graf,” Egon said softly, “was in this house. There was a small dinner. Your father, Fregattenkapitän von und zu Wachting, and Oberst Gehlen of Abwehr Ost. The gentlemen were joined after dinner by SS-Brigadeführer Ritter von Deitzberg, Himmler’s adjutant. With the exception of von Deitzberg, all distinguished German officers. Fregattenkapitän von und zu Wachting was tortured and then hung by the SS and then left to rot beside the admiral. I don’t know where Oberst Gehlen met his fate. I can only hope it was quicker. . . .”
“General Gehlen,” von Wachtstein said, “I am happy to tell you, is alive and well. We had dinner with him last night. SS-Brigadeführer von Deitzberg was sent to hell by one of General Gehlen’s officers, Oberstleutnant Niedermeyer . . .”
“The admiral liked Oberstleutnant Niedermeyer,” Max said.
“. . . who blew von Deitzberg’s brains all over the men’s room of the Hotel Edelweiss in Barlioche, Argentina. The police found his body in the urinal.”
Boltitz began: “Graf von Wachtstein and I, and General Gehlen, are now working with Colonel Mattingly—”
“Herr Kapitän,” Egon interrupted him. “If you and I could somehow get to Bremen and talk to some of our old U-boot comrades, I think we could learn from them anything they know.”
“Bingo!” Clete said.
“Thank you, Egon,” Boltitz said.
Clete added, “Now, can I have some of that coffee before it gets cold?”
“I’d forgotten why I came down here,” Mattingly said, “but now remember. Stein needs electrical power to get the Collins up and running. What’s the status of the generator, Tiny?”
“Generators, plural, two of them, are on the way. I guess my guys waited to pick up what was going to fall off the Constellation.”
“What’s going to fall off the Constellation?” Frade and Peralta asked together.