A Sailor's Honour

by Chris Marnewick

  The man across the table from Leibbrandt shook his head. They had met more than five years earlier, when Germany had been the host to the Olympic Games and Leibbrandt had been a member of the South African boxing team. Fighting in the semifinals with a broken right hand, and being robbed of the decision by incompetent refereeing, Leibbrandt had so impressed the Führer that Hitler had sent for him for a personal meeting. The man who had escorted him to his meeting with the Führer now watched him from behind his glass.

  Consul-General Karlowa smiled at the sight of the soldier sipping at a soft drink. Leibbrandt was as fanatical about his personal habits as he was about his politics. He was a strict vegetarian and took no alcohol. He slept on a board, believing that a bed would make his body soft. He completed a strict regimen of exercise every day. He shaped his body into a machine ready for any eventuality the war on his enemies might bring his way.

  Karlowa had become a mentor to Leibbrandt, but was unimpressed by his protégé’s demands. ‘I have spoken to the men who are experts at the kind of operation we want to launch to start the recovery of Deutsch-West Afrika for the Reich,’ he said. ‘They say that we need a year of planning and training.’

  Leibbrandt was fluent in German and spoke with hardly an accent. ‘I want to go immediately. All I need is about three thousand men. I’ll take care of Smuts myself and then we’ll take over the police and the army. Within a year we’ll have Oppenheimer’s assets and we’ll throw all the Jews out. We’ll take Deutsch-West and South Africa without having to fire a shot and place the wealth of both countries at the Führer’s disposal for the war against the imperialists and the communists.’

  Karlowa had heard the Leibbrandt plan before and decided to stop the rant. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘We have it all planned for you.’

  He placed his hand over Leibbrandt’s. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘We will teach you the theories of National Socialism and train you as a saboteur, radio operator, parachutist and infantryman.’

  Leibbrandt was disappointed and resolved to accelerate the pace of the operation at every opportunity. He withdrew his hand from under the Consul-General’s.

  ‘It will take a year,’ Karlowa insisted. ‘A year.’

  In that year Leibbrandt received military training of the highest order, which he endured stoically, and political indoctrination, which he passed with ease. His mind was shaped by the best propagandists and theorists behind the Nazi philosophy. Operation Weissdorn was ready.

  Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinz Weber stood to attention before Grand Admiral Dönitz’s desk at U-boat Command in Lorient, France. ‘You sent for me, Herr Admiral.’

  Dönitz closed the folder he had been studying. ‘Yes. Sit down.’

  Commander Weber removed his cap and sat down.

  Admiral Dönitz was not a man of many words. ‘The Führer has a mission for you,’ he said. ‘Operation Weissdorn.’

  ‘The Führer?’

  ‘Yes, the Führer.’ There was a hint of disapproval in the admiral’s voice. Admiral Dönitz studied the man in front of him. ‘You have a good record,’ he said and tapped with his finger on the folder on the desk. ‘Top of your class in practical seamanship as well as U-boat tactics. Second in weaponry and navigation.’

  Commander Weber could see his name, rank and serial number on the folder. It was not for him to speak, so he waited.

  ‘I disapprove,’ Admiral Dönitz said and stood up. ‘This is madness, risking a boat and crew on a stupid mission like this.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Admiral,’ Commander Weber said.

  ‘The Secret Service wants to take a man to the coast of Deutsch-West Afrika for an important mission to South Africa. They are laying a false trail, using a yacht, but the Führer has ordered – over my objections – that the man be taken there by U-boat. And I have chosen you to do it.’

  ‘I shall do as ordered, Admiral,’ Commander Weber said.

  ‘Good, I never expected any less. God help you and your crew, because this is not what you were trained for. Nor what our boats are designed for.’

  ‘Thank you, Admiral.’

  Admiral Dönitz came around the desk and sat down. He opened the folder and took out a brown envelope. ‘Your orders are in here. You have two weeks to prepare. And don’t lose my U-boat.’

  During the long journey south towards the Cape of Good Hope, Commander Weber got to know his passenger very well. He came to share the Secret Service’s opinion of Robey Leibbrandt: impulsive, driven by passion rather than reason, with a pathological hatred of black people, communists and Jews, likely to cause trouble wherever he went.

  The U-boat with its unusual passenger surfaced near Lambert’s Bay on the South-West African coast in mid-June 1941. They had sailed submerged during the day to avoid detection and on the surface at night to make better speed. Commander Weber used the opportunity to train his men for various actions which could be expected if contact were made with an enemy warship, aircraft or merchant ship. By the end of the voyage south, the crew were fit and ready for action. They were at action stations, ready to submerge and leave in the shortest possible time should an aircraft pass overhead.

  In the conning tower, Commander Weber shook hands with his passenger.

  ‘Danke schön, Herr Käpitan,’ Robey Leibbrandt said.

  ‘Go well,’ Commander Weber said. ‘My men will accompany you as far as the shore and unload your equipment from the dinghy. I trust you will understand that I cannot risk the safety of my boat or my crew and will not allow the men to assist you beyond the shore.’

  ‘Ich verstehe, Käpitan,’ Leibbrandt said. His handshake was firm and he followed with the Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler.’

  By the beginning of 1945, all of that was history. Germany was history, surrounded on all sides by the Allied forces. The U-boats had been routed in the Battle of the Atlantic and the remaining ones were in hiding in their special bunkers carved deep into the sides of their bases. Robey Leibbrandt was history too. He’d run a campaign of terror during which he did not hesitate to use a sjambok on anyone who would not join his cause. After carving a swastika into the sandstone of the Soutpansberg while hiding from the police, he was arrested on a suburban road on the outskirts of Pretoria. His death sentence for high treason was history too, since Jan Smuts commuted it to life imprisonment.

  Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinz Weber was soon to become history too, in the most undignified way for a submariner. But first he would have to conduct one final mission, a mission that would take his wife and unborn son to South Africa.

  ‘Come sit down,’ Martin Bormann said and pointed to a chair at his desk. ‘I have an operation for you.’

  Commander Weber sat down slowly.

  ‘U-891,’ Bormann said. ‘She’s being commissioned as we speak, with certain modifications which the particular requirements of this operation necessitate.’

  ‘I would be honoured to serve, sir,’ Commander Weber replied.

  ‘Good,’ Bormann said. He opened a drawer and put a bottle of schnapps on the desk. He poured two small glasses and offered one to Commander Weber. ‘I can tell you that Weissdorn gave you the best possible training for the mission I have in mind. You fit this mission as if you were born for it.’

  ‘Is it something like Weissdorn, sir?’ Commander Weber asked.

  ‘Exactly like Weissdorn,’ Bormann replied. ‘Exactly, from beginning to end.’

  Commander Weber nodded, but didn’t speak.

  ‘The Russians are approaching Berlin as we speak. We need to get out,’ Bormann said. ‘You are to take me to Lüderitzbucht where the SS have made arrangements for me to be taken inland.’

  ‘Using U-891?’

  ‘Yes, and then you return to your base.’

  ‘May I ask what modifications are being made, sir?’ Weber asked. ‘It is a technical issue. I need to know what my boat can do.’

  Bormann laughed. ‘No, it’s nothing technical. All they are doing is to make slight
modifications to the commander’s quarters so that I can travel in some comfort.’

  Bormann seemed quite jovial, but Commander Weber still hesitated before he spoke. ‘I will need a favour, sir,’ he said. ‘I would like to take my wife too, and leave her in Africa. Until I can go back for her.’

  ‘Very well,’ Martin Bormann agreed.

  Primary School 1952 14

  ‘I’m tired, my boy,’ Anna Weber said on the other end of the phone. ‘It’s time for my nap.’

  Johann Weber looked at the photograph on his desk. It had been taken many years earlier, when his mother had still dressed him as if they were living in Bavaria. A timid boy of preschool age, dressed in lederhosen, stood next to his mother, holding her hand. The woman squinted against the light, but there was no doubt that the boy whose hand she gripped was the focus of her love.

  ‘It’s alright, Mutti,’ Weber said. ‘I’ll phone you again tomorrow.’

  ‘I love you, my boy,’ his mother said. After more than fifty years of showing her love in every act and look, his mother now felt the need to tell him that she loved him. As if he didn’t know.

  ‘I know, Mutti,’ he said. ‘I’ve always known.’

  When Weber looked at the photograph again, he found that his eyes had misted over. He found some comfort in the lion’s claw he wore around his neck. When he had first got it, it had been on a leather thong. It now hung on a fine, filigreed silver chain.

  ‘Mutti, why do other people ride in cars and we have to walk?’

  The boy held his mother’s hand very tightly. It was January 1952, his first day of school. Although he’d had a week to get accustomed to his new surroundings and to explore a bit, he still felt a stranger. He knew none of the children disgorged in the school grounds by the dusty cars and one-ton farm trucks.

  Anna Weber squeezed her son’s hand. She was pleased and proud in equal measure. After six years of living on the charity of others, she now had a job, a real job with a salary of £25 a month. And with the job came the head matron’s flat at the school. She could take care of her son on her own for the first time. She felt free, liberated enough to want to sing, but the only tunes which came to mind were from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.

  ‘Why, Mutti?’ the boy insisted.

  ‘Because they are rich and we are poor,’ she said. ‘But not for long, and then we’ll buy our own car.’

  The boy pointed with his free hand. ‘A blue one with a white roof, like that one?’

  ‘Yes, a German car, an Opel.’

  Johann Weber’s passion for cars was born on that day.

  Anna Weber was a handsome, striking woman, not conventionally beautiful. Perhaps it was in her upright structure, in the perfect proportion of hip to breast, or in the way she carried her shoulders or inclined her head when she looked you in the eye. Or perhaps it was in the way she always went down on one knee when she spoke to a child, reducing herself to an equal. Perhaps it was in the way she braided her long blond hair or how the braids snaked behind her when she walked quickly or shook her head.

  But here, amongst these farmers and their fresh-faced wives, she felt out of place with her manicured red fingernails matching her lipstick, her floral dress and nylon stockings belying the fact that she was a hundred and twenty miles from the nearest town with a cinema.

  What she didn’t know was that the men and women who brought their children to school on that opening day were equally uneasy, not knowing what to make of this woman with the child at her side and no husband in sight, this woman who looked as if she had stepped out of a black-and-white film, this beautiful woman who spoke Afrikaans with a German accent. In time they would grow to love her, but the women would not allow their men to visit the school alone.

  The arriving children were herded to their dormitories by the assistant matrons, each to a predetermined bed, the girls to one side near the matron’s flat and the boys to the other side of the classrooms near the laundry. The older children knew the drill and slowly made their way to the concrete quad where the day would start with an assembly with prayers and speeches.

  There was an air of expectancy. Lined up in neat rows facing the headmaster and his meagre team of teachers, they kept looking back.

  Oom Daan van den Heever’s arrival was announced by the roar of a truck that came to a halt in a cloud of dust outside the headmaster’s office. The children turned as one, and when Johann turned to see what the excitement was about, he saw a man in khakis in the open space between the corner of the office and the machine room. Oom Daan was a very large man, six foot six at least, and 240 lb or so. He wore lace-up boots with leather leggings and carried a short whip made of hippo leather.

  ‘Are you ready?’ oom Daan called to the assembly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the boys and girls chanted. ‘Yes, sir!’

  Oom Daan half turned and wacked the side of his boot with the whip, and a lion suddenly appeared from around the corner and rushed towards oom Daan. When the lion, a male with a reddish-brown mane, came near oom Daan, it readied itself for a lunge, but oom Daan cracked his whip against the side of his boot twice in quick succession, and the big cat stopped in its tracks and then meekly came to heel at oom Daan’s side. The children cheered and clapped as oom Daan cracked the whip again. The lion jumped and sat down and stood on its hind legs with its front paws on oom Daan’s shoulders.

  Johann Weber saw nothing as he’d run away to his mother’s flat at the first sight of the animal, too scared even to look around. His mother had to lead him back to the quad. All the children and teachers laughed at him.

  Oom Daan called him over. ‘Come on, boy, he won’t bite you.’

  At that very moment the lion yawned and Johann was sure it could easily bite him in half if he should go near it. He tugged at his mother’s hand to get away, but she held firm.

  ‘Come, boy, you can touch him,’ oom Daan offered and stroked the lion’s mane and tickled it under its chin as if it were a kitten. As if on cue, the lion started purring with a sound like a diesel engine. One of the older boys stepped across and patted the lion’s head. It looked bored.

  But Johann was frightened and began to cry.

  Oom Daan cracked his whip again and gave the lion a command. The animal slunk off and jumped onto the back of oom Daan’s truck. Johann looked through his tears. He was convinced the lion was watching him. It licked its lips and kept its yellow eyes on him.

  ‘Come here, boy,’ oom Daan said to Johann.

  Anna Weber let go of Johann’s hand and pushed him towards oom Daan. The farmer put his hand in his pocket. It emerged as a closed fist. ‘Come here, my boy. I have something for you.’

  Johann stepped forward slowly, keeping one eye on the lion on the back of the truck. Oom Daan’s hair was the same colour as the lion’s mane.

  ‘His name is Bosveld,’ oom Daan said. ‘He is the most famous lion in the whole world.’

  Johann was reluctant to believe that. He had seen only one lion before, but that was in the bioscope in Potgietersrus. The film was about to start and a great lion came on and roared and the titles then rolled down the screen. Surely that lion was more famous than this one, which now sat like a dog on the back of the truck?

  Oom Daan went down on one knee in a gesture Johann had only ever see his mother do and held out his closed fist with the knuckles facing Johann. ‘Hold out your hand,’ oom Daan said. Even on one knee, he towered above the boy.

  Johann put his right hand forward. Oom Daan put his fist above Johann’s hand and enclosed the boy’s shaking hand in his. His hands were large, calloused and coarse, but somehow kind. Johann felt something in his palm. It was warm, and it had a sharp point.

  Oom Daan released his hand and said, ‘Now you never have to be afraid again, ever.’ He rose and guided the boy back towards his classmates.

  Johann opened his hand. It was a lion’s claw, about an inch long, with a tiny hole drilled through its base, and suspended on a thin leather thong.
/>   ‘Where do you come from?’ the gangly Standard three boy demanded during break, prodding Johann in the chest. Johann had heard him referred to as Spokie.

  ‘From a ship,’ he said.

  ‘A ship?’

  It was not a credible answer, as they were hundreds of miles from the sea. Moreover, none of the children had ever seen the ocean, except in pictures, and in most cases, neither had their parents.

  ‘A submarine,’ Johann said, to even greater incredulity.

  ‘Not so. Not so,’ one of the boys chanted.

  ‘Is so. Is so too,’ Johann insisted, but he could sense that no one believed him. He felt surrounded and saw no friendly faces. He tried to divert their attention from his improbable story by pulling the lion’s claw from his pocket and saying, ‘Look what oom Daan gave me,’ but the move was counterproductive.

  ‘Give it to me,’ the Standard three boy said.

  Johann shook his head. ‘No.’

  The Standard three boy looked over his shoulder. When he saw that the coast was clear, he cuffed Johann on the side of the head. When he saw no surrender in Johann’s demeanour, he grabbed him in a bear hug and wrestled him to the ground. They rolled in the dust and several blows had struck Johann before a prefect pulled them apart.

  At the next assembly in the square, Johann and the older boy were directed to go to the headmaster’s office. The headmaster called the boy Piet, but Johann had heard the other children calling him Spokie.

  Operation Population Control

  1955 15

  ‘No names.’

  The words blew away in the southeaster. They were never to use their own or any other member’s names.

  The men who headed up the Third Force held their first formal meeting in the autumn of 1955 at the top of Devil’s Peak, thereby establishing a convention that would be honoured into the twenty-first century. All operational meetings were henceforth to be held in the open air, no matter how hard it might rain or how bad the conditions might be.