The Nazi's Wife

by Peter Watson

  “So what was the hierarchy in the office? Frieda Breker was the highest but what happened then?”

  “Delia, as I told you, then Pauline, because the Führermuseum was so close to Hitler’s heart. Then me. But, in a sense, I was more of an outsider than the others, being less of a straight secretary and more of a researcher.”

  “And that, I take it, means Frieda saw most of Dr. von Zell?”

  Margaretta nodded.

  “And then?”

  “Probably Delia, because she was always talking to Bormann’s people.”

  “Did any one girl stay late more than the others? Did any one job require that?”

  Margaretta thought. “We all had to work late quite often. There was a war on, after all. Frieda, of course, was there till all hours.” Something occurred to her. “On the other hand, it was Delia who had to phone Dr. von Zell at home when Bormann came on the line, and when he was with Hitler anything might happen. It was nothing for the two men to stay up talking and planning until three or four in the morning. If Hitler wanted something fast, it was Bormann’s job to fix it. Often that meant us. Bormann, or his office, would call. If Dr. von Zell wasn’t there, Delia took the call. If Delia wasn’t in the office, she was called at home, no matter what time it was. It was her job to know where Dr. von Zell was at all times. So Delia may have had the most continuous relationship with him, if that’s what you’re after.”

  It was. “Thank you very much, Margaretta,” I said briskly, getting to my feet. “That’s been a great help, most illuminating. You will be released soon, I promise. Here, have another cigarette.” And I went out.

  Three cells along was Delia Hotter. She was indeed tall and thin, five ten at least, almost as tall as me. On the other hand, unlike many thin women, she had a sizable bust, a combination I have always found virtually irresistible. As I let myself in, she had her legs crossed and looked remarkably composed, considering the circumstances.

  I thought a less direct approach might be better this time. I picked up the spare chair and swiveled it, so I could sit leaning against its back. I smiled.

  “Just a few questions, Delia. I hope you will be able to help me.”

  “If I can, Lieutenant, if I can.” She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, drawing attention to them. Teasing.

  “Tell me, Delia, did you ever meet Martin Bormann? I believe you handled liaison between his office and Dr. von Zell’s.”

  “Yes, I was the link to Bormann. I met him several times and, although I didn’t really like him, he could on occasion be most charming. He was, don’t forget, very powerful. He had a principal secretary, Amalie, and I got to know her best.”

  “I understand Bormann would call Dr. von Zell at all hours?”

  “Oh yes. He called quite regularly at four in the morning. That was nothing.”

  “How did you know Bormann called at that hour?”

  “Dr. von Zell would tell me the next day. Or, when Amalie couldn’t find the doctor, she would call me. It was my job then to find him.”

  “How often did that happen?”

  She thought. “I would say … once every two, maybe three, weeks.”

  Now came the crux. I tried to make it sound casual. “And if Dr. von Zell couldn’t be found by Bormann, by Amalie, where was he? Usually.”

  Delia gave me a sharp look, a scowl that insinuated, better than any words, what she thought of men who took supper off poor girls, bought their affections with nylons, then kept them up late with intrusive questions. But she had accepted the stockings, had already enjoyed their effect. She was reluctant, but she continued to cooperate.

  “Dr. von Zell’s first love, after his wife, was music. Then came wine. But he had an interest in art, too, and was, in the early years of the war, helping to organize Hitler’s art collection for the Führermuseum, planned for Linz. Initially, the doctor was placed in charge of coins and armor, but as the war started to turn against Germany he found himself in an awkward position. As a Nazi he naturally wanted Germany to win and he took pride in the idea of a collection of uniquely beautiful things. Some Nazis, however, when events began to go sour, took a very”—she hesitated—“well, I suppose the word is sick, attitude to the collections.

  “Dr. von Zell’s particular thorn in his side was a certain Gauleiter Eigruber, who lived in Linz. Eigruber was a fanatical Nazi and took it upon himself to prevent the Allies from ever finding out about the Alt Aussee salt mine, which, as you must know, was where most of the art intended for Linz was hidden. Eigruber had even managed to smuggle some explosives into the mine disguised as packages of paintings and antiques. If the collapse did come, he wanted to blow up the lot, destroying any evidence that the Nazis had commandeered art. Eigruber was the gauleiter in charge of that whole area of Austria, and Dr. von Zell was in charge of the art at Alt Aussee. So, in a sense, the salt mine had two commanding officers who had different policies should the collapse come.

  “Eigruber had his own men in the mine, of course, people who did the smuggling. But the doctor had his people, too, and they knew when Eigruber’s ‘specials,’ as they were called, arrived. The explosives were never touched by the men in the mine, but Dr. von Zell was always alerted as soon as possible. That’s when he would disappear.”

  This was a new side to von Zell and I was fascinated. I pressed a cigarette on Delia and filled my pipe.

  “The doctor would leave our offices sometime between eleven and midnight, when there was no one around to observe him. He would drive himself, alone, to Alt Aussee, which was about eighty kilometers away. Once there, he would search all suspect packages, remove the explosives and replace them with Plasticine. Then he would throw the dynamite, or whatever it was, into one of the many lakes between Alt Aussee and Berchtesgaden. It’s a mountainous road, so it would take him most of the night, especially in wintertime.

  “He was worried that Eigruber, like many fanatics, was a law unto himself. Even after Hitler issued a directive, stipulating that the mine should not be blown up, whatever the circumstances, the doctor still kept an eye on Eigruber. He didn’t trust him. The nighttime sorties continued until the very end, even while the attempt was being made to block up the mine, which was Hitler’s idea. It proved very difficult to make an effective blockade and Dr. von Zell feared that Eigruber might get his way in the end.”

  Delia stood up to stretch her lovely legs, her story finished.

  I was familiar with the Alt Aussee mine, of course, and had often wondered whether the Germans had ever considered destroying it. I never imagined that von Zell was the man who had saved countless works of art. If I wasn’t careful I would begin to like him, which was not the plan at all. A nice Nazi? No—not in 1946.

  I smiled at Delia. She was off guard, surely, after so long a story. And it was now coming up to one o’clock. Time for shock tactics.

  “Were you ever von Zell’s mistress, Delia?”

  But I was the one who got the surprise. Delia burst out laughing and coughing and very nearly choked on her cigarette. It was some time before she could reply.

  “Is that what all this is about? No, Lieutenant, I wasn’t. No, no, no. We all thought about it, of course, especially when we were first recruited for his office. He was an attractive man, tall, dark, and that dueling scar on his cheek was very dashing. He was living miles from his wife. And I think Margaretta once propositioned him late at night; at least, that’s what she told us, silly girl. But none of us did—go to bed with him, I mean. He was very much in love with his wife. She would send him long love letters, according to what Frieda told us, and he would apparently do the same. In fact, although they were older than us, we all came to envy them—they seemed so rock-solid together, so sure of each other despite what was happening all over Europe.” Delia turned to look at me and her look wore more than a hint of defiance. “It was lovely.”

  She sat down again, a smile—no, a smirk—warping her face. She was still amused that I should have harbored such thoughts abo
ut her and von Zell. The tables had been turned in some mysterious way so that I felt I was the one under observation. It was time to move on.

  I got up. “Thank you, Delia, you’ve been more help than you know”—a weak attempt to regain control. “I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you here for a short while longer. Then I will ferry you all back to the apartment.” She just nodded, her smirk refusing to disappear.

  Pauline Kletter had dark hair, which fringed her face, large brown eyes and muscular legs with big calves. She was clad in a blue woolen knit dress, with a navy raincoat on top. She tapped the table impatiently with one hand while the other remained tucked away in her raincoat pocket. She did not look happy.

  “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” I said, sensing she might be more difficult than the previous two. “This won’t take longer than is absolutely necessary.”

  She said nothing but stopped tapping the table.

  Out came my cigarettes; she leaned forward for me to light hers for her. I fiddled with my pipe. All the signals she was sending out were cold ones; she had been waiting in that cell for close to an hour, so I couldn’t really blame her. But that meant a less direct, more conversational approach was called for.

  “Pauline, how would you describe Rudolf von Zell? What sort of man is he?”

  She continued smoking, inhaling the smoke and expelling it through her nostrils. Then she shrugged. “A good man, I think. A good German. He was efficient, tactful, very practical. He had strong feelings, I think, but working with Bormann he learned to sit on them. He gave the impression of being wise.”

  She paused, so I said, “Give me an example of what you mean.”

  She took her hand from her raincoat. It had a handkerchief in it and with this she wiped her nose. She must have had a slight spring cold. “Yes … I think it happened in 1942. There was an idea Bormann had which he managed to sell to Hitler. They were all very much against organized religion in those days and so in many cases they ordered the confiscation of church property—relics, jewelry, books, art. The rule was supposed to run right across Germany, which I suppose it did; but it was especially strong in Austria because there were so many Catholics. Bormann was particularly against the churches and the monasteries in Austria because they had so much art.

  “We started receiving details of paintings, carved sculptures, altar-pieces, manuscripts and other things, like coins, which had been taken from ecclesiastical centers—Kremsmünster, Göttweig, St. Florian, all sorts of places. Not only that, the monks attached to some of the monasteries were ordered out into the world. Their cloisters were closed and they were forced to get ordinary jobs. Humiliating for them. Dr. von Zell was a devout Catholic—I’m not sure whether Bormann or Hitler knew that, for he never paraded his religion, but if they did know, they pretended they didn’t. He, of course, hated what was happening but couldn’t do anything to stop it, not openly anyway. It was Bormann’s idea and had Hitler’s enthusiastic support.

  “Then one day the doctor called me into his office and asked me to close the door. He swore me to secrecy and asked me to find out how many monks had been displaced in Austria, and from which monasteries. That was all. It took about a week, but in the end I found that about two hundred and fifty monks, Benedictines mainly, had been moved. Kremsmünster had been the worst hit; all the monks were gone from there and the monastery was being used as a warehouse for art; later its contents were moved up to the mine at Alt Aussee.

  “A few days later Dr. von Zell went to see Kremsmünster for himself. It was only a hundred and forty kilometers away but he was gone three nights.” The handkerchief came out again.

  “I never found out where he had been, or what he had done, until a couple of years later. Then, out of the blue, a crate of wine was delivered to our office just before Christmas. It was Austrian wine, from the Wachau region the doctor said, and he gave me three bottles as a Christmas gift. He said I had earned them. ‘Earned’ was the word he used, so I asked him what he meant. That was when he called me into his office a second time.

  “The door was closed and we both sat down—quite an event in itself. ‘Pauline, my dear,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t tell you before—it was too dangerous. But now time has elapsed, things are … very different and the war will soon be over.… You remember those monks—the Benedictines—who were forced to leave their monasteries? The ones Bormann didn’t like and who were made to get jobs?’ I nodded. I remembered only too well.

  “‘As you probably know, Pauline, I am a Catholic. Not an especially good one perhaps but I do take it seriously. I also know a few things about wine, Austrian wine included. Now you may know this and you may not … but monks are often very familiar with wine-making too. Dom Perignon is well known, as are the Carthusians who hold the secret formula for Chartreuse. But their influence is much wider than that, my dear, and dates back many centuries.’ He had started to smile as he said this for he could see I was puzzled; what on earth was he talking about? He raised his hand, as if to say, ‘All will become clear in a moment.’

  “‘In this job, in the last few years, Pauline, I have had to learn to be a fixer, an entrepreneur, an impresario of sorts, someone who can put two and two together and make five. Well, that’s what I did this time, except that I didn’t do it for the Party but for the Catholic Church.

  “‘The displaced monks were looking for work, and some of my friends who ran vineyards in Austria were short of labor, since all the young men from the villages were away fighting. I was able to place most of the monks in a few days. It was work they knew, in the fields, not too far from the monasteries they had been forced out of, and, most important, they could stay together, more or less, and carry on with their worship. When the war ends and the young men return to their jobs in the Wachau, then, with luck, the monks will be able to move back to their monasteries.

  “‘Meanwhile, they have sent this case as a “Thank you” for Christmas and, since you helped in the research, part of the gift is yours.’”

  Pauline wiped the fringe off her face and put her other hand in the pocket of her raincoat. She huddled her shoulders together as if the mention of Christmas had made her cold. “That’s the kind of thing I meant, Lieutenant. The doctor made no fuss; he just made up his mind to do something, worked out how and if it could be done, then did it.”

  Not for the first time that night, my pipe had gone out. I had been listening too hard to notice. Vineyards, Austrian vineyards of the Wachau, had cropped up again.

  “One question, Pauline. Did Dr. von Zell mention the names of any vineyards? Or the names of his friends?”

  “That’s two questions, Lieutenant. But it makes no difference. He was too careful to do that. The war was ending, but not yet over.”

  “Were there no labels on the bottles?”

  “No. That would have been risky, too, and in wartime there were more important things to do with paper and ink than print wine labels. The bottles were green with long stems.”

  Terrific. Virtually all German and Austrian wines came in bottles like that. Scraping the barrel now, I said, “And what did the wine taste like?” That might be a clue.

  “Sorry, I didn’t drink it. The war was on, Germany was losing and Christmas presents were hard to come by. I gave mine away. I’m not a great wine drinker anyway.”

  Shit! I said to myself, thinking of Henry de Jaeger’s tongue. A wine label could have saved me a lot of trouble in tracking down von Zell. Still, Pauline had been most helpful in corroborating my vineyard hunch, so I told myself to be grateful.

  I scraped back the chair and got up, repeating my litany. “Thank you, Pauline. Not long now; I just have to talk to Frieda, then you may all go. It’s late, I know.”

  “May I have another cigarette?”

  She was still hunched in the same position, a strange figure, I thought. Less beautiful, physically, than the others but more self-possessed, and that made her, probably, the heartbreaker of the quartet. More attractive to me,
certainly. I lit her cigarette, pulled on it myself, then placed it between her lips. She didn’t move.

  Frieda Breker was wrapped in what looked like a length of purple curtain which was in fact, I later learned, a modish coat. The belt, made of the same material, went around her waist twice. But no shrinking violet was she.

  “I normally come first, Lieutenant. Not last.”

  Oh God. The textbooks on interrogation all said that the later it got, the less resistant captives were supposed to become. But, I suspect, that worked only for men. Women, it seemed, just got more difficult as the night wore on.

  “Yes, Frieda, I know. But look at it from my point of view. All the other girls are strong characters—you must be even more so, to have been Dr. von Zell’s number one. I had to lay the groundwork before facing you.” I wasn’t too good at being unctuous, and Fräulein Breker wouldn’t have held down the job she had had without some ability to cut through bullshit of the kind I had just thrown her. But she seemed to accept it, for all she said was, “And I need a smoke and some coffee, quick.”

  “The coffee will have to wait, I’m afraid. Cigarettes I can do.”

  I gave her the pack, another attempt to recognize her rank, and struggled with my pipe.

  “Frieda, I originally came here to see whether Dr. von Zell had, or still has, a mistress. Someone he might have kept in touch with. I even thought that you, or one of the other girls, might be that mistress.”

  What sounded like a jeep slithered to a halt out in the street, above our heads. Heavily shod feet scraped the floor and skipped up the steps into the station. The military police had come to collect the two drunken soldiers.

  Frieda had unloosened the belt to her coat, as if she needed space to smoke. The brilliant red of her dress, underneath the purple, reminded me of a rhododendron.

  “Lieutenant,” she said heavily, in the manner of a mother trying to impress on a small son that she has seen it all before, “I worked for Dr. von Zell from September 1939, the same month as the war with England started, and, let me tell you, for every week that he spent away from his wife, the doctor received one letter. Every week he wrote one letter back. What is more, I have met Mrs. von Zell. Konstanze is strong and loyal, a Catholic, Lieutenant. She is also very beautiful. We all went to Krimml one day to look at the waterfalls. I remember there was a film crew there, making a movie. The director was an Italian—tall, gray hair. Italian men go gray so much better than anyone else, I think. He noticed Konstanze as we all walked by and he shouted after us. In no time we were surrounded by the crew. The director stared at Konstanze, and then beamed at Dr. von Zell, congratulating him on how beautiful his wife was. He said that he wanted Konstanze in his movie—really. Just like that. He wanted her to stand, as she was, then and there, so he could get her in a particular shot, to break up the flow of the camera movement. We all laughed and Mrs. von Zell was very embarrassed. But the Italian was very persuasive; and in any case the crew which surrounded us wouldn’t move until she had agreed. So into the movie she went. She is that beautiful, Lieutenant. They have a lovely boy, Dieter. They both play the piano and used to send each other music. They would also send books they had read and liked. All this while there was a war on. Does that answer your question?”