Nazi Millionaires
Page 11
The equivalent of some $4.5 billion, most of it in British pounds, was eventually shipped from Sachsenhausen to Berlin, and from there laundered all over Europe. Operatives used the forged notes to purchase legitimate objects, such as paintings, cars, furniture, bullion, and so forth. These items were then sold for Reichsmarks or converted into more stable world currencies like Swiss francs, English pounds, or American dollars. These currencies, in turn, were used by the Germans to pay their agents and purchase badly needed items abroad, such as penicillin or plastic explosives. Other counterfeit notes were distributed to German embassies in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland, where they were exchanged for local currencies. While some of these early transactions were successful, in order to have the intended effect of collapsing England’s economy, a massive distribution of the forged notes had to be implemented. Initial efforts to pass counterfeit notes on a large scale, however, proved disastrous. German military administration officials in occupied countries actually discovered attempts to pass large quantities of counterfeit notes and arrested their own Aktion I agents! Because the program was top secret, the arresting agencies had no way of knowing the forgers worked for their own government.11
At some point the mission underlying Aktion I changed—a fact that has generally gone unrecognized by historians and students of the war. The possibilities of acquiring tremendous sums of personal wealth, which could be used in any number of ways, were simply too great to resist. The architects behind this reorganization were Heinrich Himmler and Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant) Gröbel, the Berlin head of Bureau VI. The new network they intended to create would operate in clandestine fashion within the existing structure of Aktion I. “Operation Bernhard,” the name historians have used to describe the original counterfeiting operation, would launder the counterfeit funds on a grand scale, and Himmler, Gröbel, and others would skim the proceeds for personal use. Gröbel knew a man capable of running such a complex and dangerous operation. His name was Friedrich (aka “Fritz”) Schwend. The controversial life Schwend led before his association with Aktion I (soon to be known in smaller circles as Operation Bernhard is fascinating.12
Friedrich Schwend’s early years (and much of his career with the Nazis) is a virtual cipher. In the 1920s, he acted as an international arms dealer, shipping weapons to both China and the USSR. He married the niece of the Minister of Exterior, Baron von Neurath, and through this new family connection finagled a position as the personal administrator of the extremely wealthy Bunge family. In the late 1930s, Schwend was working out of New York City and managing the investments of Bunge & Born, the Argentina-based international wheat magnate. His business dealings also included substantial real estate holdings and banking affairs in Italy. Schwend was very good at what he did, for his pre-war income exceeded $50,000 a year. What he earned under the table from his activities selling Belgian weapons and German fighter planes to the Chinese is unknown.13
Schwend’s activities during the war’s early years are hard to fully decipher and require some educated conjecture. His naturally good luck slid a bit in 1941 when German officials asked Italian police to arrest him in Rome on charges of spying for the Americans. Whether he was actually snooping for the Yanks is doubtful, but the expungement of his files lends some credence to this allegation. He spent five months studying the interior walls of a German jail before he was finally able to purchase his way to freedom and return to Rome. Dr. Wilhelm Höttl may have had something to do with Schwend’s release. His fingerprints seem to be all over Schwend’s introduction to service with the RSHA. Schwend initially joined the Abwehr, or German military intelligence. Based out of Munich, his responsibilities included locating hidden foreign currencies. In July 1942, he was either forced out of the intelligence department or resigned. Schwend offered his services to the Munich head of Bureau VI, but was rebuffed. Later that year a new Munich bureau chief named Josef Dauser was installed. With the backing of Gröbel (who may have recognized Schwend’s financial abilities and experience) or, more likely, the influence of Wilhelm Höttl, Dauser welcomed Schwend into the ranks of the Munich branch of RSHA Bureau VI in 1943.14
However Schwend came to be a part of Bureau VI, it was no accident. Gröbel (and likely Höttl) had decided to use Schwend as the paymaster of the money-laundering end of the counterfeiting scheme. That whole aspect of the forgery operation was so top secret that not even Munich Bureau chief Dauser was informed of its existence. As a cover for his clandestine operations, and in order to enable him to move freely about in Germany and its occupied territories, Schwend’s identity was changed. He was now known as “Major Wendig.” Papers were also drawn up showing him as both a member of the German tank corps and as a legal officer of the Gestapo.15
In September 1943, Schwend rolled up his sleeves and went to work in earnest. His first priority was to set up a large network of agents to launder the fake notes, and find someone in the RSHA who could reliably maintain bookkeeping responsibilities and keep the counterfeit notes within a small coterie of criminals. RSHA’s Bureau II had long been involved in the counterfeiting business (passports, rubber stamps, and the like), but Schwend believed a new officer was needed to run the operation, someone with whom he could work. In the summer of 1944, Schwend decided SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Josef Spacil was the right person to head the bureau.16
Josef Spacil was born in Munich on January 3, 1907. His early years were as unremarkable as his physique. According to Allied records he had brown hair and brown-gray eyes, stood 5 feet 9 inches with a medium build, fair complexion, and a heavy Bavarian accent. The only known photograph of him—a grainy, poorly developed image—displays a mousy-looking oval faced man. Spacil had a wife, although details of his marriage are unknown. After he earned a business diploma in 1925 he labored in obscurity with his pen as a banker in Munich until 1930. The deteriorating economy finally shoved him into the ranks of the unemployed, where he marched for about one year.
Spacil’s early political bent is a mystery, but the months he spent unable to earn a living likely hardened his views and pushed him to the right side of the political spectrum. On March 31, 1931, he joined the Allgemeine (Regular) SS. His first posting was as a guard at the Braunes Haus, the birthplace of the Nazi Party, in his native Munich. A few months later Spacil was offered a job as a stenographer for the Central Financial Administration of the SS. Three years later he transferred to Berlin, where he acted as a liaison officer between the SS in Berlin and the Reich Treasury. In 1936 Spacil returned to the Munich area to take a job as the finance officer at the Dachau concentration camp, which at that time was used to house political prisoners and petty criminals (and was not yet an extermination camp). The dutiful bureaucrat was transferred from the Allgemeine SS to the Waffen (Armed) SS in 1939. He held over the next two years a number of clerical positions within that organization. During the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, Spacil served in southern Russia as a clerk and representative of the SS Main Bureau. By 1944 Spacil had proven himself to be a capable bureaucratic manager. He had also proven capable of participating in war crimes. Documents carrying his signature reveal his involvement in the organized German raping of Kiev, during which he coolly executed decrees demanding stocks of gold, silver, and raw materials. As a Standartenführer (Colonel) he was ordered to leave the front and take command of the RSHA’s Bureau II in Berlin—the result of Friedrich Schwend’s influence and string-pulling. The department administrated the funds allocated for all of Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s bureaus. Spacil’s staff members (who probably jumped for joy when they learned of their new posting) accompanied him from Russia to Berlin, where they and Spacil labored quietly on Schwend’s behalf. “In the summer of 1944, Spacil was let into the conspiracy and operation name of Bernhard,” recollected Spacil’s private secretary Rudolf Guenther.17
Once Spacil joined the conspiracy, Schwend kicked the operation into high gear. Schwend’s transactions were disg
uised to hide what was really going on. For example, if he wanted 1,000,000 forged English pounds, he would send Spacil a coded telegram requesting 1,000 kilograms. “Kilogram” was a code word, and each kilogram was a request for 1,000 British pounds. Spacil’s private secretary, Rudolf Guenther, would pick up the counterfeit notes, debit Schwend’s account for the proper sum, and deliver the currency to Schwend’s special courier. When he received the notes, Schwend would distribute them into his network of agents—but not before raking thirty-three percent off the top for his own pocket.18
One of the great swindlers and double-dealers of the World War II era was an Austrian Jew named George Spitz. It is both ironic and fitting that he came to act as an agent for Schwend and his counterfeiting operation. Spitz was born about 1890 in Vienna. At a young age he traveled to the United States and went into the banking business with his brother in New York City. He did well in America. Before shipping off for Europe (under rather suspicious circumstances) he sold one-half of his interest to his brother for $500,000. Once back on the continent, Spitz’s path crossed with a popular actress named Feran Andra. Before long the smooth-talking Spitz was both her manager and her lover. The pair lived primarily in Vienna and on the French Riviera, where Andra ripened her passion for gambling. Unfortunately, she was not very good at games of chance. Spitz’s fortune was lost on the tables at the Monte Carlo Casino. Once the money was gone so was the actress. Completely broke but still his resourceful self, Spitz ended up in Switzerland as the founder of a bank called Maiser Holdings. Honesty, however, was not one of his long suits. Improper accounting procedures and other irregularities forced him to flee the country in 1936 just ahead of the Swiss police. Once safely over the border, he took up dual residences in Vienna and Berlin.19
Spitz was in Belgium when war broke across Europe in 1939. For reasons still unclear he decided to enter France, where he was arrested by the French Police in Strasbourg for outstanding criminal warrants. He was not released from jail until the Germans overran the country in 1940. Liberated but again penniless, Spitz traveled to southern Germany and moved in with a new mistress, Fraulein Bruckemann, the heiress to a wealthy and prominent Frankfurt family. It did not take long for the fast-talking Spitz to become gainfully employed—by the SS. This time the employment was not voluntary.
Gröbel and Schwend had asked bureau chief Dauser to find a man capable of selling English pounds for foreign currency. Gröbel may have hinted that the currency was forged, but the record is unclear on this point. In reality, Gröbel and Schwend intended to use this new man as a lead agent for Operation Bernhard. Dauser scoured the Munich branch of Bureau VI, but no one working there was deemed suitable for the position. Bertha von Ehrenstein, Dauser’s secretary, either introduced George Spitz to her boss or informed on him. Either way, the paths of Dauser, Schwend, and Spitz converged. A meeting was held between the three during which Spitz was offered work as an undercover agent. Spitz wanted nothing to do with Dauser or Schwend and refused the offer. Afer all, he was a private sector criminal, not a bureaucratic crook. His rejection was unacceptable, and Dauser was not about to accept it. He coolly informed Spitz that he knew he was a Jew, that his papers were not in order, and that if he did not cooperate he and his family would be executed. Blackmailed into action, Spitz relented.20
It will be recalled that the money-laundering aspects of Operation Bernhard were not shared with Josef Dauser. Still, the man was not a complete fool and before long it dawned on him that Schwend and Spitz were working a scam. Schwend, the former Abwehr operative, brought the English notes into Dauser’s Munich office by the suitcase full, where the currency was tied into bundles and stored away for future use. When it was needed, the money was stamped on the floor and “dirtied,” activity sure to raise the eyebrows of thoughtful men. Within a short time Dauser could no longer keep his mouth shut.
“What exactly is going on here?” he inquired of Schwend during one of his frequent visits. “Are all of these notes counterfeit?”
“No,” responded Schwend, “the money is genuine. It has been seized from prisoners.”
Dauser refused to believe this explanation. “There is something wrong with what is going on,” he shot back. “I think this is a private money-making operation, yes?”
Schwend, of course, could not reveal the true nature of his activities. “Himmler and Gröbel are involved,” he responded carefully. “It is official business.” In other words, it would be safer for Dauser if he backed off and kept quiet.
Dauser understood and backed away from pressing the matter. But he did not give up trying to discover what, exactly, was transpiring beneath his own nose. He discreetly continued his inquiry and discovered that another high ranking branch chief of Bureau VI was also involved in Aktion I, and that his agents were dealing with foreign currency exchanges within Schwend’s network. Initially this seemed to satisfy him—it did appear, after all, to be a legitimate enterprise. Aktion I was a sanctioned RSHA operation. The more Dauser worked with Schwend and others, the clearer it became that all was not as it appeared to be. “Gröbel, Schwend, Dr. Höttl and his assistant, SS Captain Froelich, were retaining much of the money for their own pockets,” Dauser told Allied investigators after the war. “Operation Bernhard was a name for a financial affair similar to Aktion I which they kept secret from Berlin.… As far as Berlin was concerned the name of the official currency operation was always Aktion I.”21
We do not know how much information, if any, Schwend shared with George Spitz about Operation Bernhard. Perhaps Spitz believed all of his activities were legitimate operations carried out under the Aktion I program. What we do know is that Spitz turned in several stellar performances as a successful money laundering agent. After the war he made little attempt to hide his activities from Allied interrogators. He openly admitted working for “Wendig” (Schwend) but adamantly denied any knowledge that the money he was passing was fake. As he explained it, he only agreed to work for Schwend in order to avoid harm. At some point he discovered that Schwend’s operation was extensive, and that fifty agents were under his employ. Spitz’s story convinced his Allied captors that he was generally telling the truth.22
In late May of 1944 Schwend sent Spitz and Otto Kastner into Belgium and Holland. Kastner was the driver for Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer. The pair carried with them suitcases full of counterfeit notes to purchase local currency, gold, and valuable art treasures. From the renowned Goudstikker Collection, Spitz procured three expensive rugs for Schwend’s castle in Meran, Italy, antiques, and numerous priceless paintings, including van Mierveld’s Portrait of a Lady and Paulus Moreelse’s Woman and Child. Exactly how Spitz stretched his tentacles into the prestigious Goudstikker Collection is a fascinating story.23
Wealthy collection owner, Jacques Goudstikker, did not enjoy a happy end. In late 1938, he married Austrian soprano Desirée. He had watched for some time the disturbing policies toward Jews bubbling within Germany and Austria. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Goudstikker foresaw that the black tide would eventually sweep across all of Europe; it was time to leave Holland. Passage was booked for his wife and infant on the ship Simón Bolívar. For reasons unknown, when it came time to board he decided not to put his family on the ship. It was a good decision, because the Simón Bolívar was torpedoed and all aboard perished. On May 14, 1940, Goudstikker and his family boarded the SS Bodengraven in the port of Ijmunden, Holland. The ship was attacked by German airplanes as it crossed the English Channel, but none of the Goudstikkers were harmed. A short time later, Goudstikker was walking on deck when he missed his footing and fell through a hatch into the bowels of the ship. He did not survive.24
Although his wife and young child eventually reached America, the fortune they left behind never left Europe. Goudstikker had prudently formed a corporation to take over his houses and thousands of paintings and other priceless objects of art should he fall ill or die. Unfortunately, the person holding the power of attor
ney to operate the corporation died just before Goudstikker. During this confused period, when the ownership and control of the multi-million dollar estate was in flux, an art dealer named Alois Miedl slithered into the picture. The businessman had moved to Holland from Munich in 1932. One of Miedl’s clients was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the head of the German Luftwaffe. Göring was a voracious collector of art. Indeed, his hobby became an all-consuming compulsive endeavor, and Miedl fed Göring’s addiction by sweeping Holland for pieces suitable for his collection. His interest in helping Göring was purely selfish: the Reichsmarschall had discovered that Miedl’s wife was Jewish. Göring, never one to shy away from using his powerful position to advantage, offered to protect Miedl’s wife. In return, the art dealer scoured Holland for priceless paintings, rugs, tapestries, and sculptures on Göring’s behalf. Miedl utilized both his connections within the art world and Göring’s clout to acquire a sizeable slice of the Goudstikker estate for the Reichsmarschall. The estate included one of Holland’s historic castles, Kasteel Nijenrode, which contained hundreds of priceless paintings, many by the world’s famous masters. Göring acquired the objects of art; Miedl took title to the real estate and he and his wife kept their heads.25