Return to Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  In further war news, the German submarine U-268 had been attacked and sunk of the Atlantic coast of France in the Bay of Biscay by squadron of Royal Air Force bombers. Another German submarine, the U-562, had been sunk northeast of Benghazi, Libya, by a combined assault of an RAF squadron and the British destroyers Hursley and Isis. Cochrane was tempted to smile over the victories at sea but quickly caught himself. He may have been in anti-Nazi company, but not anti-German.

  The announcer in London then added that the Japanese destroyer Ōshio had been torpedoed off Wewak, New Guinea by the American submarine Albacore and sank under tow. Since the German defeat at Stalingrad, the momentum of the war had shifted.

  “I hate wars,” Frieda said in English, opening up. “I don’t care if it’s Germans or Americans or British or Japanese dying. I don’t like any of it.” She turned to Cochrane. “Why do men do it?” Frieda asked. “Why do men kill each other?”

  Cochrane drew a long breath “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer.”

  She switched gears. “Have you heard any news from Munich?” she asked. “About my friends?”

  “The White Rose?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I know that three people were arrested. I don’t know the names.”

  “Are they in a lot of trouble?”

  “I won’t lie to you. Yes, they are. It’s very serious.”

  She sighed. Her eyes became moist and she bit her lip. “I should be there with them,” she said. “I want to go back.”

  Cochrane shook his head. “No,” he said. “There’s only so much any one of us can do.”

  “I should go back to Munich,” she insisted. “I’ll admit my guilt! I want to stand trial with the rest of them!”

  “That’s not going to happen, Frieda. My job is first to keep you safe. Then I’m to get you first to Switzerland and then to America. You might hate me for this right now, but that’s what your father wants. In my opinion, it’s also what will be best for you. I promise.”

  “I don’t want to be kept safe,” she muttered.

  “In this situation,” he said sternly, “you do not get what you want!”

  She sighed. For a long moment she sulked.

  She looked to Frau Schneidhuber who gave her an admonishing glare also.

  “The American gentleman is correct,” the fraulein said. “You will not be returning to Munich any time soon. Those filthy Nazis would murder you.”

  “They’re going to murder my friends, aren’t they?”

  Neither Cochrane nor Frau Schneidhuber would answer.

  Then, “We don’t know yet,” Cochrane said. “That’s the best I can say.”

  “That means ‘yes,’ doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” Cochrane said.

  Frieda sulked a while longer. Then she looked moodily at the wooden box with Arabic writing next to the books on the table. “What’s this?” she asked at length.

  “Dominos,” Cochrane answered.

  “What are dominos?”

  “Open the box,” he said. “It’s a game. A game with numbers. You might like it.”

  She looked at the domino case for a second, then grabbed it. She spilled out four tiles. She looked at them with fascination. “It’s a game?” she asked.

  “It’s a game.”

  “Do you know the rules?” she asked.

  Cochrane nodded. “Of course I do,” he said. “I’ll teach you. Then we’ll play,” he said.

  Grudgingly but with curiosity, she set aside her book. “All right,” she said. “Show me.”

  Cochrane and the girl settled in and played. To no one’s surprise, she picked up the game and its strategies quickly.

  Chapter 46

  Berlin

  February 1943

  Heinrich Koehler did not appear that day, nor was there was any message. Cochrane, feeling grateful, but shut-in, ventured out briefly in the afternoon. He saw nothing that indicated any Gestapo or surveillance activity in the neighborhood. Accordingly, he and Frau Schneidhuber decided that their teenage guest – she was sixteen, it turned out - could come out for some air that afternoon.

  Even though he was officially dead, Cochrane knew that the Gestapo could be looking for him as well as Frieda. One never knew with complete certainty what the other side knew or what random event could give away a spy behind enemy lines. For this reason, he felt it was better if Frau Schneidhuber strolled with Frieda. He would walk ten meters behind them, pretend to be alone, and watch their back, armed with his Czech pistol. The visuals would throw off anyone looking for a foreign man with a teenage girl.

  There was a busy street nearby with many small shops and merchants. Cochrane refreshed his wardrobe with a change of hats, a dark scarf and an extra pair of gloves. All the items were second hand, which was perfect. They wouldn’t stand out as new. At one point they walked into a Konditorei for pastry and coffee.

  Frau Schneidhuber said the pastry shop was attended only by local people. There would be no danger. She had been coming here for years and knew everyone, at least by sight. Unaccompanied strangers would stand out and the locals would avoid them. Cochrane and the girl were acceptable, she said, because they were with her.

  Most of the customers of the Konditorei hated the government, she explained in a low voice, but they feared an invasion by the Red Army. Most of her friends knew the war was lost and hoped there would be an armistice before the Russians could invade. But Hitler still had his true believers and the Gestapo had its rats. So one had to be careful.

  “I hate Hitler,” Frieda said, oud and clear, at this juncture of the conversation.

  Frau Schneidhuber hushed her immediately. Everyone in the café pretended not to have heard.

  Frieda had ice cream. Cochrane bought tea for himself and his hostess, using his German money. While he was anxious to get out of Berlin, he also knew that patience was an asset and he needed to be certain that an escape car and fuel were prepared properly.

  Cochrane watched Frieda devour her ice cream, which she took as a treat. For a few moments the world was normal: a man, a woman and a teenage girl were enjoying one of life’s small pleasures. He wondered if he would have his own daughter one day. Cochrane smiled and said he admired Frieda’s fur cap and pale blue scarf. They spoke German. Frau Schneidhuber’s English was limited.

  “Thank you,” Frieda said. “It’s me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s you’?” Cochrane.

  “I always wear my blue scarf and my silly cap,” she said.

  Cochrane’s smile disappeared. “Did you always wear it in Munich?” he asked.

  “Of course. Everyone knew me as ‘the girl with the blue scarf and funny fur hat.’”

  He thought about it for less than two seconds. He got to his feet. “Wait here,” he told the two women. “Don’t leave until I’m back.”

  Cochrane went to the first sidewalk merchant he could find who sold secondhand clothing. He purchased a deep maroon scarf and a black woolen cloth cap for the girl. The was cap a bulky one that would hide the contours of her face. He also bought a hair comb that she could use to pin up her hair. He was angry with himself for not having thought of this before.

  It would have been foolish to ask Frieda to change her attire in the Konditorei. But he returned and walked the women back to the house where they were staying. Then he unveiled his new purchases and the reasons for their use.

  Frau Schneidhuber supported him. Frieda understood.

  They played dominos again that night. Frieda had developed a liking and a skill for the game. It offset her reading time and encouraged her to talk more. An hour into the games, there was a coded knock on the door: two short raps, a single, then three.

  Frieda sat up. Frau Schneidhuber recognized the knock, too. It was Heinrich Koehler.

  The fraulein went to the window to make sure Koehler was alone. From somewhere she had drawn one of the many pistols she k
ept. She held it downward in her left hand, then pocketed it when she was satisfied that there was no threat.

  She went to the door. She lifted the barrier bar and undid the lock.

  Cochrane held his breath. Something in him feared that Frieda would be taken from him before the assignment was complete. But the contrary was true.

  Koehler had come to say good-bye to his daughter. He said he hoped that their separation would be temporary. Preparations were in place. Cochrane and Frieda would be on the move again the next evening. But there was a serious wrinkle.

  Koehler felt that he was now under extra surveillance. He had slipped his leash to get here this evening, but it was important that Cochrane and Frieda be gone from Berlin.

  “It is imperative,” he said, “that you both get to Switzerland as soon as possible. The timing now might be urgent.”

  Cochrane said he understood. Frieda did too. Cochrane allowed Koehler a few minutes alone with his daughter.

  When Koehler was set to leave, he gave the instructions for the next day to Cochrane.

  There would be a car waiting in a car port at a certain address in the northwest section of the city. It would be ready at four in the afternoon, but Koehler recommended not leaving until sometime in the evening. There was a guest house two hours away which would accommodate them. Arrangements had been made.

  “Who runs the guest house?” Cochrane asked.

  “A friend who likes money,” said Koehler.

  “Black market?” Cochrane asked.

  “Black market but trustworthy. A friend.”

  “All right,” Cochrane said.

  They would find maps and a flashlight in the car, Koehler explained. The light would between the seats and the maps had been stashed under the backseat floormat. One map was a standard road map of the area. The other was hand drawn and would lead them to their “guesthouse” for the first night on the road.

  Additionally, there was an envelope with the maps, Koehler explained. It contained extra Deutsch marks and Swiss francs, pilfered out of some rodent fund in the naval ministry. There were two Lugers in the car also, loaded and ready and with extra ammunition. The guns were in the box of emergency road equipment in the boot. In the Third Reich, Koehler opined, what could be more essential emergency road equipment than pistols?

  “And a key?” Cochrane asked. “For the car?”

  “The key will be on top of the left rear tire,” Koehler said. “If it is not claimed by tomorrow at midnight, the car will be withdrawn.”

  Cochrane understood. He had a window of eight hours to get out of the city with Frieda.

  There followed a confidential conversation between Koehler and Frau Schneidhuber. Then as Koehler readied to leave, Cochrane drew him aside by the door within the small house. They spoke privately and in lowered tones in German.

  “Just tell me one thing so that I know,” Cochrane asked.

  Koehler waited.

  “Why me?” Cochrane asked. “Why did you choose me as the conduit to get Frieda out of Germany?”

  Koehler smiled. “I have many trusted friends. The Gestapo, the SS, they would never suspect that I would employ a man I should hate. They would watch all my friends, but never an old adversary.”

  “Good thinking,” admitted Cochrane.

  “There’s a second reason, also,” Koehler said, allowing a pause. “You remember how you left Germany the first time? You were tough and brutal. An American cowboy, for better or worse. No one was going to stop you from reaching your exit. You killed people who stood in your way. You were hellbent on getting your job done. Against all odds and adversaries you did just that.”

  “Yeah. I suppose that’s what happened.”

  “I admired that,” said Koehler. “And I reasoned you might need to do it again.”

  The two men shook hands. Koehler hugged and kissed his daughter, then departed. Frieda sadly watched him go. Deep down, Cochrane felt that he would never see the German alive again, and while he had every reason to dislike the man, his feelings were more positive than even ambivalent.

  In the evening, they played dominos, all three of them. As the final game concluded, the Tavern Wittgenstein again floated into Cochrane’s thoughts. He decided to mention it and asked if either had ever heard the name.

  “Never heard of it,” said Frau Schneidhuber.

  But Frieda had stopped playing tiles. She stared at Cochrane.

  “It’s closed,” she said. “The owner was murdered. About a month ago.”

  Shocked, “How do you know that?” Cochrane asked.

  “Friends. From the University.”

  “In Munich?” Cochrane asked.

  “White Rose had friends in Berlin,” she said. “At Humboldt. We used to go there. To Tavern Wittgenstein.”

  “Did you know about the murder only through your friends,” he asked, “or also through your father?”

  “I can trust you?” she asked.

  “You can trust me, Frieda.”

  A long pause, then, “Both,” she said.

  She might have let it go at that, but then she added.

  “The tavern is on a corner under a railroad bridge,” she said. “It’s open again under name. It’s Bar Nuremberg now. A lot of soldiers drink there. Nazis. Other people too.”

  It was the ‘other people too,’ that captured Cochrane.

  “Could you show me where it is?” Cochrane asked. “Tomorrow?”

  “That would be easy,” Frieda said. “If we are leaving Berlin, it’s directly on our way. We can stop there.”

  Chapter 47

  Munich

  February 22, 1943

  In Munich, a special legal tribunal convened for the trial of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst, the ex-Luftwaffe aviator. The government flew its favorite jurist, Dr. Roland Freisler, from Berlin to Munich to preside.

  Freisler was known as “Hitler’s Hanging Judge. He was the personification of Nazi law. Earlier in his life, Freisler had earned the Iron Cross both 2nd and 1st Class for heroism during World War One. More recently, he had been an advocate of adapting the racist laws in the southern states of the United States as a model for Nazi legislation targeting Jewish people in Germany. Specifically, Freisler argued for establishing laws against sexual activity or marriage between races. He greatly admired American “Jim Crow” legislation and wished to import it to Germany to use against non-Aryans.

  The court held its session on a Monday. After three days of savage beatings at Wittelsbach Palace, the three defendants had “confessed” their guilt in the authorship and distribution of the White Rose pamphlets.

  Sophie Scholl arrived in court on crutches with a broken leg. She also had a set of bruises and cuts across her once-pretty face. Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst the evidence of beatings also.

  Dr. Freisler declared the court to be in session. He read the evidence against the three defendants. Hans Scholl attempted to take full blame for the three defendants and asked for mercy on behalf of his younger sister and for Probst, the combat veteran who was married with two young children. Dr. Freisler angrily interrupted him after a few minutes and told him to sit down and shut up.

  At the end of the day, Dr. Freisler pronounced the three accused to be guilty. They were sentenced to be executed by guillotine that evening. There was no jury, no process of appeal.

  Hans, Sophie and Christoph accepted the sentence with serene dignity. Guards took the three condemned convicts by truck to nearby Stadelheim prison to await the implementation of their sentence. Execution time was set by Freisler’s court for six p.m. that evening. Word reached the courtroom that other members of White Rose, including Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber had also been arrested. Nationwide searches continued for two dozen others, including Ilse Klein and Frieda Koehler.

  Robert Scholl, the father of Hans and Sophie, had been in the courtroom. He was allowed to see his son and daughter for a few minutes at Stadelheim. He embraced them and said he w
as proud of them for standing up to Nazi injustice. Sophie replied that she was proud to have done what she did.

  “You will go down in history,” Robert Scholl told his two children. “There is a higher justice than this.”

  Six p.m. arrived. A few heartbeats later, the blade of the guillotine fell three times.

  At six fifteen, the government in Berlin announced that Hans and Sophie Scholl and their co-conspirator Christoph Probst were dead. The news of the executions were on German radio, a warning to others who might travel the same dangerous road of treason.

  Bill Cochrane and Frau Schneidhuber made sure the radio was off that evening. There was no telling how Frieda might have behaved f she had known that her friends had been guillotined.

  Chapter 48

  Berlin

  February 1943

  Pleased with the outcome of the trial in Munich, Kriminalkommissar Wesselmann stood impatiently in the falling snow in Berlin. It was late afternoon. Daylight was dying. He watched a team of four Polish women dig at the site where the American spy, William Cochrane, should have been buried.

  The weather had turned sharply colder across Germany and eastern France, in keeping with this being the coldest winter on record for a generation. Parts of the Rhine were freezing. So were many of the smaller rivers and lakes. Now the fresh earth of the gravesite had started to freeze also, slowing the work of the female prisoners with the shovels.

  Another POW, an elderly man who had once been a university professor in Berlin, stood nearby. His ankles were in chains so he couldn’t flee. He was a translator who spoke German and Polish. There were two vehicles parked nearby. One was a private car. The other was a morgue truck. The driver of the truck, a civilian but not a prisoner, sat in the vehicle. The engine was off. The driver huddled against the cold.

  Wesselmann smoked. His anger was increasing. Big shots in the Naval ministry were always pulling stunts on the loyal working grunts of law enforcement such as he. The big shots always thought they could fool “little” uncomplicated patriotic men such as Wesselmann.

  They pulled rank and used their well-connected friends to evade the law, act in poor faith toward the Third Reich, and get away with everything from rape to murder to defeatism. Often they conspired against the Fuehrer. Now Wesselmann was starting to hear troublesome stories about people in the military who were platting to kill Hitler. He also has picked up rumors about the “rat lines” that were developing after the so-called military defeat at Stalingrad. The lines would lead out of the country to the middle east and then to south America, where well connected Germans, Nazis in name only, would take their money and live comfortably no matter who won the war.