by Alex Gerlis
He drove away after that, fully expecting to be fired upon or stopped, if not pursued. He’d head west out of Vienna, hoping to find the British and American armies, even though he’d no idea how near they were. In the cellar in Obere Augartenstrasse, he’d spent time memorising a map of Austria from a school atlas and had decided he’d head in the direction of Linz. If he was stopped, his story would be he was transferring a patient there. He was counting on whoever stopped him having more to worry about than an ambulance. So he headed for the northern suburbs of Vienna then dropped south before heading west again, remembering the training he’d received in England.
Think of a journey as a series of simple stages.
Have alternative routes in case you need to change plans.
Memorise your route.
Avoid having a map open and visible in the vehicle: it’ll look suspicious.
Where possible, avoid main roads.
Driving too slowly is even more likely to attract attention than driving too fast.
So driving neither too fast nor too slow, Rolf headed for St Polten, which lay on the main road from Vienna to Salzburg, about 50 miles west of the capital. He decided to ignore the advice and stay on the main road for the first part of the journey as he tried to put as much distance as possible between him and Vienna.
For the first hour he passed dozens of military vehicles hurrying towards the capital, but then the road became quiet and he decided it was time to stop for the night. He turned off the main road and drove through a network of dark country lanes before he found a place to park in a wood, where the ambulance would be well hidden.
He went into the back of the ambulance. Herr Leitner was in a better mood than Rolf had seen him before, so he allowed him to remove his bandages. The man spent a couple of hours sitting in the open, the first time he’d done so for years.
The night sky was lit up by the flashes of artillery fire. It was constant through the night. And all of it was aimed at Vienna.
Chapter 27
Vienna and Mauthausen, April 1945
Sprawled out in the rubble on Obere Augartenstrasse Viktor found he couldn’t move his legs and feared he was paralysed. He raised himself as best he could, slowly realising it was the body of the man he’d stabbed lying across his legs and pinning him to the ground. He reached out to push him away but his right arm was in agony. He managed to wriggle free: the elderly woman who’d carried a bag into the ambulance was in the doorway of the apartment block, frozen with fear.
His instinct was to return to the apartment to dress his wound, but it would be too dangerous to remain in the area. A hospital was out of the question: despite the fighting going on, he’d still have to explain how he’d been shot in the centre of Vienna when the Red Army wasn’t there – yet. He knew he was losing blood, his shirt was soaked, his arm and chest felt wet, and he was feeling faint. There was one place he could go but – even on a good day – it would be at least an hour’s walk. And from the sounds of the battle raging around him, this wasn’t one of Vienna’s good days. He set out anyway, heading for the canal through a city that was part ghost town, part battlefield. One footbridge was open and he managed to cross over into Innere Stadt, the surface of the Danube lit up by low flying artillery shells. But when he got to the other side he didn’t have the energy to continue. He sat down for a few minutes and regained some kind of strength, somehow managing to fashion his black silk scarf into a sling.
He staggered across a road without looking properly, causing a lorry to brake hard. ‘You fool! What the hell are you doing?’ The driver had stopped to shout at him.
‘I’m sorry, I was hit by shrapnel from a commie shell,’ he replied.
‘Do you want to me to drop you near a hospital?’
‘Which way are you heading?’
‘South: I have to deliver these sandbags to Meidling – unless the reds have got there first.’
‘Can you drop me on Wiedner Hauptstrasse?’
‘Get in.’
The driver passed a flask to Viktor. It was a strong, bitter coffee laced with brandy and very quickly it had the desired effect. Viktor was not, obviously, a religious man but he’d often thought that if God existed then coffee and brandy were proof of his existence. The driver was a decent man: when they stopped on Wiedner Hauptstrasse he helped Viktor down from the lorry and he insisted he keep the flask. Five minutes later Viktor was hammering on the door of Irma’s apartment. When she opened the door he just managed to step into the hall before he collapsed.
***
When Generalmajor Mildner told him he was being sent to the front, Strobel put it down to the quick temper for which the Gestapo chief was well known and feared throughout Morzinplatz. He decided not to argue about the woman being sent to Mauthausen, he’d allow Mildner that pointless victory. In any event, he had his own plans. He returned to his office on the third floor, somewhat disconcerted that so few of his staff were still around. Most of them had been sent to help shore up the city’s defences. He supposed there wasn’t much point in finding communists now the city was surrounded by them. But not him, he was far too important to be carrying sandbags or helping old ladies into air-raid shelters.
And apart from anything else, Strobel had himself to think about. He’d sent Frau Strobel back to Carinthia weeks ago, promising to join her there – though he had no intention of doing so. Too many people there would know him and he didn’t fancy his past catching up with him once the war was lost. Around the corner from his very pleasant house in Dobling was one belonging to an old woman and a year ago Strobel had been clever enough to rent out her garage, flashing his Gestapo card and making her promise to tell no one. He’d also been smart enough to get hold of a Mercedes Benz 170V from the garage where cars confiscated from Jews were kept, and he’d ensured he’d kept it in good condition with a full fuel tank. In the boot there was a suitcase and under the seat he’d hidden Swiss Francs, jewellery and other valuables he had plundered over the years. And, perhaps most important of all, hidden in the padded sun-visor was his new identity. He’d even had the foresight to hide a razor in the car so he could remove his beard before starting his new life. All Strobel needed to do was go back to Dobling, collect the car and make good his escape. He’d head west and there was no point in delaying matters. Strobel smiled knowingly at the thought of just how clever he was. He was looking forward to his new life.
He got down to his knees to open his safe, removing the wads of money he kept there. He’d take them with him from the office, along with his pistol, some brandy and cigars. He was still on his knees when Mildner stormed into his office.
‘What the hell are you doing here Strobel?’
Strobel slammed the safe door shut and leapt up, spilling the money all over the carpet as he did so. Mildner looked at the desk and the brandy, pistol and cigars piled on top of it.
‘I thought I told you to get to the front? Come with me… Now!’
An hour later Kriminaldirektor Karl Strobel of the Vienna Gestapo was sitting in the back of an army truck, squeezed into an ill-fitting uniform and clutching a rifle with shaking hands. They were heading south, where the Soviet advance seemed to be at its fiercest. Sending someone of his calibre to fight the Russians was a waste of a fine brain, he kept telling himself. They’d soon realise it was a mistake. He was shaking so much he had to hold his rifle with two hands. The young soldiers opposite, some no more than 14 or 15, were giggling at him and gazing in the direction of his crotch. When he looked down he was appalled to see he’d wet himself.
‘Stop laughing,’ he shouted at them. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Yes,’ said one of them; he was slightly older than the others and had a cigarette clasped between his teeth in a rakish manner. ‘You’re cannon fodder – same as the rest of us.’
***
It was the Thursday afternoon, the 5th April, when they finally came for her. That morning Katharina had been moved from her cell in the lower basem
ent of Gestapo headquarters on Morzinplatz to a large room in the upper basement. She was blindfolded before she went in and her hands had been tied behind her back. As far as she could tell from the movement, the overpowering odour of unwashed bodies and the occasional cough, the room was crammed with people, all like her made to squat on the floor.
They had to call out the name ‘Anna Schuster’ three times. Her five days in captivity had confused her and for a moment she’d forgotten the name she was using. They were held in the corridor for a while then marched upstairs and into the open air, where their blindfolds were removed before they were made to climb into an army lorry. There were about 20 of them, and four or five guards. She noticed another lorry had pulled in as they came out and there were another five waiting in a line behind theirs.
A teenage boy asked if anyone knew where they were going. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ said the woman next to him. ‘It’s somewhere worse than this.’
‘Shut up!’ It was the man next to her, a much older man with a bruised face that failed to conceal a distinguished countenance. ‘Don’t talk like that. They’re moving us because the Russians are coming. Don’t lose hope. It can’t be long now.’
A guard shouted at them to be quiet and the lorry pulled out of Morzinplatz. The canvas at the end of the lorry had been closed so they couldn’t tell where they were going. The old man muttered the name of somewhere but she couldn’t make out what he was saying.
After an hour of driving through what sounded like a war zone they arrived at a suburban station, where the prisoners from all the lorries were gathered before being herded onto a train. An hour later the train pulled out of the station but, after just a few miles, pulled into a siding where it remained overnight. They were all in goods wagons, sealed from the outside, with only room to stand. A couple of the taller men nearer the sides were able to look through the cracks but they could see nothing other than the guards patrolling the tracks and the continuous flash of artillery fire to the east.
At sunrise the train continued its journey. Two hours later they pulled into a station and half an hour after that the doors were pulled open and, to the accompaniment of barking dogs, they were ordered to leave the train and form an orderly line.
According to the signs on the platform, they were in a place called Mauthausen.
From the station they were marched first through the streets of a rural Austrian town, where women and children stood on the pavements to watch them as the guards told them to hurry up. Then they were in open countryside, though not for long. Soon, the quarries came into view and they walked through an unfamiliar landscape, where the earth had been scraped from the land and replaced by gaping holes. Dotted around the quarries were hundreds of small dots, dark against the light stone. As they got closer, they could see they were people in striped uniform, hauling stones up the steep sides.
After a three-mile walk they arrived at the camp and were marched through large wooden doors set in an imposing brick-built entrance with an enormous swastika and eagle above it.
They were made to stand in the open for what felt like another hour as they were sorted into groups. Katharina was in a state of shock: ever since they’d arrived at the camp she’d watched the prisoners returning to it from work or just moving around. They were all dressed in the same rough, striped uniform and all had a pale, skeletal look about them. Katharina found herself standing with half a dozen other women, one of the last groups waiting to be moved.
An SS guard came up to them and, behind him a man in grey prisoner’s uniform with a large inverted green triangle sewn on the breast. The prisoner walked with a pronounced limp and in a slightly bent manner, as if he was carrying something heavy over one shoulder. He had greasy hair and a face full of sores. He leered at his new charges. ‘Move!’
Katharina was the only one of the group not to move quickly enough. Without warning the prisoner produced a bull whip from inside his jacket and lashed out at her, catching her across the top of her head before grabbing hold of her hair and dragging her all the way to the a large, long wooden hut. He still held onto her when they entered the hut, his filthy hands now stroking her face then running across her body, cupping her breasts as he got so close that their noses touched. She could smell alcohol on his breath as he breathed noisily.
‘What’s your name?’ He spoke in a rough northern German accent.
She said nothing. Behind him a woman was urgently nodding at her. Answer him.
‘Anna Schuster.’
‘Speak up!’
‘Anna Schuster.’
‘You’re nice, Anna Schuster.’ He ran the bull whip down the front of her dress and rubbed it between her legs, causing the hem of the dress to rise. ‘I’ll see you later.’
As soon as he’d left, 10 or 12 women darted out from the shadows and descended upon them. What news – what’s happening? We hear the Russians are attacking Vienna, is that true? And the Americans – where are they? Have you brought food? Find a bed, there are plenty free these days…
‘He’s a prisoner, a criminal – you can tell that from the green triangle,’ one of the women confided in her as she led her to a bunk. ‘They transfer them from German prisons to help look after us. They’re known as kapos and they’re worse than the SS, if you can believe that. The rumour is that one was jailed for rape, years ago. If you’re lucky, he may forget about you. Here, take this bunk.’
It was a lower bunk, covered just in a thin, stained mattress with straw sticking out of it and a torn blanket. The woman who’d shown it to Katharina came and sat with her. She told her name was Marie and that she was French, a resistance fighter, she said. Her German was slow and accented, but Katharina could just about understand her. ‘There are people here from all over Europe,’ she said, turning around to check there were no guards. ‘Lots of Jews early on, but now it’s mainly political prisoners and Prisoners of War – and so many nationalities: French, German, Russian, Czech, even Spanish. And you know what…?’ She dropped her voice and edged close to Katharina, taking her hand. ‘Do you know how many people have been murdered here? The rumour is more than 100,000. Can you imagine that, like the population of large town?’
‘Why?’
‘My dear, you don’t know where you are, do you?’
***
Any illusions Strobel had his importance to the Reich were dispelled within minutes of his arrival at the front line in the southern suburbs. A Panzer SS sergeant instructed him and eight other men and boys to go to an abandoned building, from where they should keep a look out for approaching Soviet troops.
‘And keep you heads down when you cross that road.’
Strobel waited until the others started off then politely tapped the sergeant on the arm. ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I’m a senior officer in the Vienna Gestapo.’
The sergeant looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Really? And I’m Stalin’s auntie – now get a move on.’ And with that he kicked Strobel hard on the backside and forced him to follow the others.
Their unit retreated continuously over the next few days: some men were killed and replaced by others. By Sunday, the 7th April, they’d fallen back close to the boundary with Margareten: the Red Army was now near the city centre. Strobel’s strategy for survival was a simple one: when he could, he hid. His experience as a hunter stood him in good stead; he knew when to disappear from the rest of his unit and find a room in an abandoned house to hide in or cross a roof space to a building further away from the Soviets.
For a day or two he wondered whether he could escape and make it to Dobling, but realised that was impossible so he came up with another plan. If he surrendered before he was captured, he reckoned, the Red Army would surely look kindly upon him. He’d tell them he was a Communist and he’d been forced to fight against his will. He’d been interrogating communists for long enough to reckon he could convince the Soviets he was one too.
His opportunity came that Sunda
y afternoon as he was holed up in an abandoned apartment building: Soviet tanks appeared in the street below him and he heard the order to retreat again. Instead he hid under the stairs until he was sure his entire unit had gone then removed a large white handkerchief from his pocket – one he’d been keeping for this occasion. He crawled out of the building, into the street where he found a group of Russian troops looking down at him, broad grins on their faces. He remained awkwardly on his hands and knees while trying to hold the white cloth aloft. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the rest of his unit being marched towards the Red Army soldiers. As they marched past him, each and every member of his unit spat on him as he knelt in the rubble and pointed at him, repeating the same word to the Red Army officer.
‘Gestapo’.
Chapter 28
London, Lower Danube and Upper Danube, April and May 1945
‘It’s May Day,’ announced Sir Roland Pearson. Christopher Porter and Major Edgar had been summoned to his office deep inside Downing Street. A narrow window covered by a dirty net curtain overlooked over an internal courtyard, allowing just a miserable amount of daylight in. This made the room unseasonably gloomy, unlike their host, who appeared – by his standards at least – in a relaxed, even jovial mood. He was in shirtsleeves, his tie loose at the collar and his feet on his desk.
‘Big day for the communists, isn’t it? Don’t they go in for big parades and all that kind of thing, eh Edgar?’
‘They certainly don’t dance around maypoles waving handkerchiefs, Sir Roland,’ replied Edgar. ‘Their May Days tend to have more of a military aspect to them.’
‘And we understand there’ll be a parade in Vienna?’
‘A parade of sorts we think, Sir Roland,’ said Porter. ‘They’ve been in control of the city for over two weeks now, so it’s certainly a chance for them to boast about it: a victory parade, if you like.’
