by Alex Gerlis
‘Dying – what do you mean she was dying? That’s impossible,’ said Rolf.
‘Hang on,’ said Edgar. ‘What was the name she told you to remember?’
Yulia shrugged as if she couldn’t understand all the fuss. ‘It wasn’t anything like Anna Schuster, that’s for sure. It began with a K – like Katya but different, if you know what I mean.’
‘Katharina?’ shouted Rolf, tears streaming down his face, his hands gripping the Russian woman by the elbows.
‘Yes – that’s it, Katharina something. But she’ll be dead by now.’ She was shouting as she said this, because Rolf had run into the hut, followed by Edgar and Abelev.
They hurried from bed to bed, shouting Katharina’s name and staring at the patients. All were emaciated and many appeared to be more dead than alive; it was hard to distinguish whether they were men or women. Rolf was rushing ahead, lifting patients up to get a clearer view of their face and shouting Katharina’s name. Edgar caught up with him towards the back of the hut.
‘Rolf, you must prepare yourself for the worse. That Russian woman said she was dying a few days ago. The chances are she’s gone now. Please Rolf, this is…’
They were standing by a bunk – Rolf with his back to it, Edgar facing him. And on the bottom of it lay the still body of a woman curled up into the foetal position, her back to them.
Rolf was weeping inconsolably. ‘I loved her more than anything, Edgar. You don’t understand. What is it Edgar? Why the hell are you smiling?’
Edgar had been watching as the body on the bottom bunk had unfurled itself and – almost as though it was being born – had straightened out and slowly turned around.
By the time Rolf turned and sank to his knees, Katharina was whispering his name. Tears caused her eyes to sparkle in the gloom.
Epilogue
Rolf Eder and Katharina Hoch were reunited at Mauthausen on Sunday 7th May, the day before the war in Europe officially ended. They returned to Zürich where Katharina received medical treatment. The couple assumed new identities and married later that year. They lived in Switzerland for the remainder of their lives.
Edgar continued to work for British Intelligence until 1950. In the General Election of the following year he was returned as a Member of Parliament, a position he held until retiring in the late 1960s. A few years after that he had one further and quite unexpected encounter with Viktor.
Viktor was recalled to Moscow at the end of May 1945. When he arrived in Moscow he discovered Ilia Brodsky had been summarily tried and executed as a traitor, and he assumed the same fate awaited him. But it didn’t. He carried on working for Soviet intelligence for the remainder of his life.
Author’s note
Vienna Spies is a work of fiction and therefore any similarities between the characters in the book and real people should be regarded as purely coincidental. There are a couple of exceptions to this – most notably Franz Josef Huber, who was head of the Vienna Gestapo until late 1944, and his successor Rudolf Mildner. Apart from remarkably brief periods of detention after the war by the Allies, both of these men went unpunished. The leadership of the KPO (the Austrian Communist Party) was exiled in Moscow during the war and their leader was the Johann Koplenig, who appears in Chapter 8.
I have endeavoured to be as accurate as possible in regards to actual events in the period covered and their historical context. In particular the Moscow Declaration of 1943 (including the Declaration on Austria) is genuine. Likewise, the details of the Red Army’s advance from the east and the British and Americans from the west are as accurate as possible. I have tried to be similarly accurate in terms of locations, organisations and geography.
Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany on 13th March 1938, an event known as the Anschluss. This was endorsed with a 99.73% ‘yes’ vote in a plebiscite on 10th April 1938. The plebiscite was held throughout Germany and not just the Austrian part of it.
Austria thus became part of the German Reich and ceased to exist as an independent country. The area previously known as Austria was called Ostmark until 1942, after which it became the seven Danube and Alpine Gaus (or regions) of the German Reich. These regions do not exactly correspond with the regions of pre- and post-war Austria and included parts of other countries and regions (such as Bohemia, Moravia and Yugoslavia). Some small areas of pre-1938 Austria were moved into Swabia and Upper Bavaria. For the purpose of clarity, I refer to Austria throughout the book. I have also used some of the German names of regions, such as the Upper Danube and the Lower Danube.
I refer frequently to the districts of Vienna, of which there are 23. The Nazis expanded the city limits of Vienna and in doing so added new districts and introduced new district numbers. However, I decided to use the district numbers that were in use before the Anschluss and again since 1945. This is partially for the sake of clarity and also because I understand that, even during the war, the Viennese tended to use the old district numbers.
Mauthausen (along with its sub camps) was the main concentration camp in Austria and the last major one to be liberated in Europe. In the period 1938-1945, an estimated 200,000 prisoners were held there, of whom around 100,000 were murdered. Most of the 50,000 Austrian Jews murdered in the Holocaust died in other camps, but some 15,000 perished at Mauthausen. Many Austrian political prisoners and members of the resistance were held there, included thousands who were murdered in the final few days of the war (including those in the infirmary). The camp also held a significant number of Spanish Republican prisoners and French resistance fighters, as well as Red Army prisoners of war.
Vienna was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on 13th April 1945. After the war, Austria was occupied by the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and France – very much like Berlin. It had its own coalition government but it was not until 1955 that it became a fully independent state again. Much has been written about Austria’s complicity in the Third Reich and its citizens’ enthusiasm for it. It’s only been relatively recently that there’s been something of an acceptance that perhaps Austria was not quite the victim of Nazism it painted itself to be after the war and was in fact far more complicit in the Nazi regime.
However, there was resistance to the Nazis in Austria – though certainly not on the scale seen in the countries of Occupied Europe. In this respect, I am indebted the impressive work of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance based in Vienna. It is well worth a visit to its museum and also its website: www.doew.at/english
I do not usually detail the books I use for reference, not least because the list would run into many dozens. However, I make an exception here and recommend The Austrian Resistance 1938-1945 (Edition Steinbauer, Vienna 2014). This book details what resistance there was in Austria, not least from the KPO and elements of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Innitzer (Chapter 5) was the primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria and did indeed incur the wrath of the Nazis with his famous ‘Our Fuhrer is Christ – Christ is our Fuhrer’ sermon in 1938. Though the character Sister Ursula is not based directly on her, there was a Franciscan nun called Sister Maria Restitua Kafka who was executed by the Nazis in Vienna in March 1943 for her anti-Nazi activities. She also was a nurse and was betrayed by a doctor at the hospital where she worked. Some 55 years after her execution she was beatified by the Vatican. It should also be said that the role of the Vatican was complicated in regards to its opposition to the Nazis. Many individual priests did work against them though. It’s also well documented that the British Diplomatic Mission to the Vatican was actively involved in espionage.
Many people have helped me with different aspects of the research that went into Vienna Spies. I am most grateful to all of them and most especially to the refugees from Nazi Vienna who shared their painful experiences with me along with their first-hand knowledge of the city.
Once again, my thanks and love to my wife Sonia and our daughters Amy (and her partner Phil) and Nicole, our grandson Theo and my mother.
I r
emain indebted to my agent Gordon Wise of Curtis Brown for his encouragement, support and expertise. I also extend my sincere thanks and admiration to Rufus Purdy of my publishers, Studio 28. His enthusiasm for Vienna Spies and skill in helping to get it into its final state is much appreciated.
Alex Gerlis
London, January 2017
Also available
The Swiss Spy
Alex Gerlis’s thrilling second novel
‘On the 20-minute drive to Lutry, the Alps rose high to his left, the lake sweeping below him to the right. That summed it up, he thought: caught between two powerful forces. Not unlike serving two masters.’
It’s not unusual for spies to have secrets, but Henry Hunter has more than most and after he’s stopped by British Intelligence at Croydon airport on the eve of the Second World War, he finds he has even more. From Switzerland he embarks on a series of increasingly perilous missions into Nazi Germany, all the time having to cope with different identities and two competing masters. In March 1941 in Berlin, haunted by a dark episode from his past, he makes a fateful decision, resulting in a dramatic journey to the Swiss frontier with a shocking outcome. The Swiss Spy is set against the true-life backdrop of the top-secret Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union. The story paints an authentic picture of life inside wartime Europe: the menacing atmosphere, the ever-present danger and the constant intrigue of the world of espionage.
Read an excerpt now:
Chapter 1: Croydon Airport, London, August 1939
A shade after 1.30 on the afternoon of Monday 14th August, 20 people emerged from the terminal building at Croydon Airport and were shepherded across a runway still damp from heavy overnight rain.
They were a somewhat disparate group, as international travellers tend to be. Some were British, some foreign; a few women, mostly men; the majority smartly dressed. One of the passengers was a man of average height and mildly chubby build. A closer look would show bright-green eyes that darted around, eager to take everything in and a nose that was bent slightly to the left. He had a mouth that seemed fixed at the beginnings of a smile, and the overall effect was of a younger face on an older body. Despite the heavy August sun, the man was wearing a long raincoat and a trilby hat pushed back on his head. In each hand he carried a large briefcase; one black, one light tan. Perhaps because of the burden of a coat and two cases, or possibly due to his natural disposition, he walked apart from the group. At one point he absent-mindedly veered towards a KLM airliner before a man in uniform directed him back towards the others.
A minute or so later the group assembled at the steps of a Swissair plane, alongside a board indicating its destination: ‘Service 1075: Basle.’ A queue formed as the passengers waited for tickets and passports to be checked.
When the man with the two briefcases presented his papers, the police officer responsible for checking looked through them with extra care before nodding in the direction of a tall man who had appeared behind the passenger. He was also wearing a trilby, although his had such a wide brim it wasn’t possible to make out any features of his face.
The tall man stepped forward and impatiently snatched the passport from the police officer. He glanced at it briefly, as if he knew what to expect, then turned to the passenger.
‘Would you come with me please, Herr Hesse?’ It was more of an instruction than an invitation.
‘What’s the problem? Can’t we sort whatever it is out here?’
‘There may not be a problem sir, but it’d be best if you came with me. It will be much easier to talk inside.’
‘But what if I miss my flight? It leaves in 20 minutes.’
The taller man said nothing but gestured towards a black Austin 7 that pulled up alongside them. By now the last passenger had boarded and the steps were being wheeled away from the aircraft. The short journey back to the terminal was conducted in silence. They entered the terminal through a side door and went up to an office on the second floor.
Herr Hesse followed the tall man into the small office, which was dominated by a large window overlooking the apron and the runway beyond it. The man took a seat behind the desk in front of the window and gestured to Hesse to sit on the other side .
‘Sit down? But I’m going to miss my flight! What on earth is this all about? All my papers are in order. I insist on an explanation.’
The man pointed at the chair and Hesse reluctantly sat down, his head shaking as he did so. He removed his trilby and Hesse found himself staring at one of the most unremarkable faces he’d ever seen. It had the tanned complexion of someone who spent plenty of time outdoors and dark eyes with a penetrating stare, but otherwise there was nothing about it that was memorable. Hesse could have stared at it for hours and still had difficulty picking it out of a crowd. The man could have been anything from late-thirties to mid-fifties, and when he spoke it was in grammar-school tones, with perhaps the very slightest trace of a northern accent.
‘My name is Edgar. Do you smoke?’
Hesse shook his head. Edgar took his time selecting a cigarette from the silver case he’d removed from his inside pocket and lighting it. He inspected the lit end of the cigarette, turning it carefully in his hand, admiring the glow and watching the patterns made by the wisps of smoke as they hung above the desk and drifted towards the ceiling. He appeared to be in no hurry. Behind him the Swissair plane was being pulled by a tractor in the direction of the runway. A silver Imperial Airways plane was descending sharply from the south, the sun bouncing off its wings.
Edgar sat in silence, looking carefully at the man in front of him before getting up to look out of the window for a full minute, timing it on his wristwatch. During that time he avoided thinking about the other man, keeping any picture or memory out of his mind. When the minute was up, he turned around and sat down. Without looking up, he wrote in his notebook:
Complexion: pale, almost unhealthy-looking, pasty.
Eyes: bright-green.
Hair: dark and thick, needs cutting.
Nose at a slight angle (left).
Smiles.
Build: slightly overweight.
Nervous, but sure of himself.
A colleague had taught him this technique. Too many of our first impressions of someone are casual ones, so much so that they bear little relation to how someone actually looks, he had told him. As a consequence we tend to end up describing someone in such general terms that important features tend to be disregarded. Look at them for one minute, forget about them for one minute and then write down half a dozen things about them.
A man who at first glance was distinctly ordinary-looking, who in other circumstances Edgar might pass in the street without noticing, now had characteristics that made him easier to recall.
You’ll do.
‘There are a number of things that puzzle me about you, Herr Hesse. Are you happy with me calling you Herr Hesse, by the way?’ As Captain Edgar spoke he was looking at the man’s Swiss passport, as if reading from it.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Hesse spoke with an impeccable English accent that had a hint of upper-class drawl.
‘Well,’ said Edgar, tapping the desk with the passport as he did so. ‘That’s one of a number of things about you that puzzles me. You’re travelling under this Swiss passport in the name of Henri Hesse. But do you not also have a British passport in the name of Henry Hunter?’
The man hesitated before nodding. Edgar noticed he was perspiring.
‘I’m sure you’d be more comfortable if you removed your hat and coat.’
There was another pause while Hesse got up to hang his hat and coat on the back of the door.
‘So you accept you’re also known as Henry Hunter?’
The man nodded again.
‘Passport?’
‘You have it there.’
‘If I were in your position Herr Hesse, I think I’d adopt a more co-operative manner altogether. I mean your British passport: the one in the name of Henry Hunter.’
&n
bsp; ‘What about it?’
‘I should like to see it.’
Henry Hunter hesitated.
‘For the avoidance of doubt, Herr Hesse, I should tell you I have the right to search every item in your possession: the British passport please?’
Henry lifted the tan briefcase on to his lap, angled it towards him and opened it just wide enough for one hand to reach in. He retrieved a thick manila envelope, from which he removed the passport and handed it to Edgar who spent a few minutes studying it.
‘Henry Richard Hunter: born Surrey, 6th November, 1909; making you 29.’
‘Correct.’
Edgar held up the Swiss passport in his left hand and the British passport in his right, and moved them up and down, as if trying to work out which were the heavier.
‘Bit odd, isn’t it? Two passports: different names, same person?’
‘Possibly, but I very legitimately have two nationalities. I cannot see…’
‘We can come to that in a moment. The first thing then that puzzles me about you is you have a perfectly valid British passport in the name of Henry Hunter, which you used to enter this country on the 1st August. But, two weeks later, you’re trying to leave the country using an equally valid passport, but this time it’s a Swiss one in a different name.’
There was a long silence. Through the window both men could see Swissair flight 1075 edge on to the runway. Edgar walked over to the window and gazed out at the aircraft before turning back to face Henry, raising his eyebrows as he did so.
‘Any explanation?’
Henry shrugged. Edgar returned to the desk and reopened his notebook. He took a fountain pen from his pocket.
‘We can return to the business of flights in a moment. Let’s look again at your different names. What can you tell me about that?’
