The Venlo Incident

by Nigel Jones

  After we had waited about like this for an hour or so the chief of our escort gave us the order to get out, and we were hustled through bright sunlight into the twilight of a whitewashed basement. All that I could see as I walked from the van—I was dazzled by the sudden change from our tenebrous van—was that we were entering a yellow-painted house of some five or six stories high. We were all lined up in a sort of cellar passage, our luggage was carried in by a couple of prisoners in camp uniform, and then a very stout, rather jolly looking man in the uniform of an SS-Oberführer came in accompanied by a Hauptsturmführer. The leader of our escort reported “Sieben Gefangene zur Stelle, Kommandant” (seven prisoners present, Commandant!) and the Oberführer then asked us in turn for our names. First Mrs. Haider was taken away, as I heard later, to another building, and then the Heberleins were ushered into a cell just behind where they had been standing. The commandant went in with them and we could hear Mrs. Heberlein protesting that the cell was far too small for two people, and the commandant apologizing and saying that unfortunately he had no alternative accommodation to offer. Then Falconer and Kokorin were taken to two nearby cells in the same row, Falconer cleverly abstracting my tobacco pouch from my pocket as he passed; then it was my turn.

  I shouted, “Payne Best”—as a secret prisoner, one loses no opportunity of telling the world who one is—the commandant said “What?” looked again at a list which he was holding and said, “For us your name is Wolf.” My answer was, “Yes, but I am such a very good wolf that people always call me Best.” A feeble joke, I know, but it served to keep my spirits up. The commandant smiled and then personally showed me into a large whitewashed cell on the opposite side of the cellar, in a passage separated from the first by the central gangway through which we had entered.

  After my miserable cell in Berlin and the discomforts of the journey this cell seemed large, bright and cheerful—I was very soon to learn how little this was the case. On this morning though both electric light and heating were on and it looked to me positively inviting, and I felt that I was in clover; it was more than twice the size of my Sachsenhausen cell. It was obviously occupied, for a large table was covered with books, framed photographs, papers, and toilet articles. I wondered whether I was to share it with someone and found the idea pleasing. Soon though, one of the trusties came in and began carrying out various things, and a tall man dressed in a dark suit but without a tie came in and began clearing up the things on the table; he was Dr. Pünder, a Secretary of State in the pre-Nazi governments and until recently Mayor of Münster. Whilst I was alone in the cell for a few minutes a tall, oldish man dressed in German hunting clothes slipped in cautiously, and asked my name and whether I had come from Berlin. Being new to the place and not wishing to start off with trouble through speaking to other prisoners I was rather short with him and asked by what right he questioned me; he mumbled something and slipped out of the cell again. He, too, I was to know quite well in the future; he was Werner Count von Alvensleben, a well-known figure in the sporting world. Two trusties came in carrying a bed—Pünder had apparently slept on a plank bunk hinged to the wall—but although I was given a bed, it consisted of a very thin mattress resting on hard planks. One of the trusties, a good-looking lad of about eighteen, said to me, “If you want anything out of your luggage, tell me, and I will try to get it for you.” To this I answered, “Of course I want all my luggage brought into my cell; I have always had it with me.” “You will find that everything is different here. They will never let you have it.”

  The only warder I had so far seen here was a rather pleasant-looking young fellow, Unterscharführer Sippach, a Saxon from Gera. When the men had finished tidying up my cell an older and bad-tempered-looking Oberscharführer came in and, without paying the slightest attention to me, looked round the place and started fingering the things which I had brought with me. I asked him whether I could have some coffee and something to eat, to which he answered that there was none; he then went out, slamming and bolting the door after him. I was so dead tired that I lay down on my bed and went to sleep almost at once. I was awakened by the Oberscharführer, Dittmann, was his name, unbolting the door of my cell. When he entered I at once asked him to have my luggage brought in to which, as to all my requests, his only answer was: “Gibts nicht” (nothing doing). At this I lost my temper and began to give him one of my famous Ausschnauzers, to which he retaliated in almost better voice so that we were soon in the middle of a first-class slanging match; he got so angry that he started fiddling with the pistol in his holster.

  Sippach must have heard the row for he came along, edged Dittmann from the room and tried to pacify me, agreeing to everything that I asked for. Although the junior in rank, he told me that he was the head man in the building, and that if ever I wanted anything to ask him and not his colleague who was very nervous. He explained that this was really a place of detention for SS men, and that they had never before had any V.I.P.s, and Dittmann did not know how to behave. He was not really a bad fellow, but the constant air raids had got on his nerves and he could not control his temper. This may have been so, but I always found Dittmann a most unpleasant fellow; he was a cowardly bully and a swine who did everything he could to render the lives of those in his power as miserable as possible. We fought almost every time that we met and although he often threatened me with his pistol he was far too great a coward to be dangerous, and I always treated him like dirt.

  In August 1944 the American Air Force made a daylight raid in which they very cleverly bombed all the buildings round the periphery of Buchenwald without damaging the camp itself at all. They were, at the time, probably ignorant of the fact that during the daytime there were seldom many prisoners in the camp, but that large numbers were employed at the Deutsche Ausrustungswerke and other buildings just outside the camp walls. The raid certainly destroyed the Kommandantur and the living quarters of the SS troops employed at the camp, but besides this resulted in the death of a very large number of prisoners, amongst whom were many V.I.P.s imprisoned in the Bunker. Amongst these were Breitscheid, the former leader of the Social Democratic Party, and Princess Mafalda of Italy, the wife of Prince Philip of Hesse. At the time the Germans announced that the Communist leader Thaelmann had also been killed in this raid, but from all that I could learn, this was not true, and actually he had been shot five weeks earlier at Flossenberg or Sachsenhausen.

  The only buildings near the camp which had escaped destruction were five tenement houses used as married quarters for the camp officials, which were about half a mile away. These had since been evacuated by the original inhabitants and they now housed the Kommandantur and provided barracks for the troops. The building in which we were imprisoned was one of these houses of which the cellar had been reconstructed, half as prison and half as ammunition store. Very jolly indeed when you consider that one heard nothing from the warders except their certainty that soon or later we should be bombed again and none of us would escape alive. The two warders were absolutely panic-struck every time that the alert sounded and, after locking and bolting us in our cells, immediately fled to the cover of slit trenches in the fields nearby.

  The first day did not on the whole pass too badly. I had got all my belongings in the cell and after tidying up a bit spent most of the time on my bed. There was a fairly good soup at midday, and in the evening a third of a two-pound loaf of bread, butter, and jam. There were two air raids in the evening during which all the lights in the camp were turned out at the main. Some bombs fell so close that I had hurriedly to remove all breakables from the table. In spite of the assurances of the warders I did not myself think that it was in the least likely that we should be bombed, and so these raids were merely an inconvenience which I could bear with equanimity, whilst it was really rather amusing to think of all the warders and guards lying shivering on their tummies in trenches outside. Not that I was warm, for I have never in my life been in a colder place than that cell. It was three-quarters underground and t
he only light came from a small window close to the ceiling which opened into a sort of brick chimney, so that only a mere glimmer came through. It was very damp, water ran down the wall in several places and daily I had to brush the beginnings of mildew from my clothes. There was no heating except that towards the end of my stay it was turned on twice for an hour; it was said that the coal stocks of the camp were exhausted.

  Worst of all, after the first day there was practically no food; a thickish slice of bread per day and about two pints of tepid water in which some cabbage or a few carrots had been boiled. Sippach told me that the day after our arrival Obergruppenführer Pohle, the Director of Concentration Camps, had visited Buchenwald and had requisitioned all stocks of food and fuel for the use of the refugees who, for weeks past had been pouring into Thuringia from the east in advance of the Russian invasion. Fresh supplies should have been brought to the camp from the south and west, but by that time road and rail transport had been so completely disorganized by allied air raids that we were to all intents and purposes cut off from the rest of Germany. A few days after our arrival one of the warders from the Berlin prison came to bring some dispatches and orders to the commandant. He came to my cell to see me as he had a message from Kaindl to say that he was sending my old guards to me as he knew that I should be unhappy without them. This young man, one of the two who had travelled with us from Berlin, gave me a graphic account of the disorganization of communications. He said that it was no longer possible to phone or telegraph from Berlin and that letters, even if they arrived at all, took weeks to reach their destination. The railway was practically out of action as daily it was cut in several places whilst travel by road was only possible by night.

  The day after my arrival at Buchenwald started off with another set-to with Dittmann, whom I found meddling with some of my things when I came back from washing. He claimed that he had the right to see what prisoners brought into the cells and wanted to take my typewriter and my table knife away. For a time it really looked as though he would get violent but he suddenly turned round, flounced out of the cell, and banged the door to with much ostentatious noise of bolting. About five minutes later he came back and told me that the Court-Martial Officer would come to see me in the afternoon and that he would report me to him. I said that, on the contrary, it was I who would report him, whereupon after some more argument we agreed that we would let bygones be bygones, and neither of us report the other, after which he became quite friendly and took me to the orderly room, where there was a light plug, so that I could shave. Shortly afterwards the Court-Martial Officer, Lieutenant Gunther, turned up. He was friendly and polite but said ‘no’ to everything that I asked him. I could neither write nor receive letters as there were no facilities for dealing with them, nor was exercise out of doors possible, since the building was not in the camp and it would be impossible to guard prisoners properly; all that he could offer was that each prisoner could walk in the passage for half an hour daily. After he had gone I wrote a letter to the commandant making a strong complaint about the conditions of my imprisonment and requesting him to forward my letter to the Gestapo at Berlin.

  Whilst I was at Buchenwald I wrote several similar letters to him but they had little or no effect; he never came to see me and the only tangible result was that he generally sent me some tobacco or cigarettes. When I look back on this time I am really surprised that I did not get into serious trouble for I was certainly a most exigent, troublesome prisoner. I had got so used to being top dog at Sachsenhausen that I expected the warders here, who knew nothing about me, to toe the line just as Eccarius had done; anyhow, my policy paid, for before long we were all doing pretty well what we liked, and the most that the warders could hope for was that we would behave ourselves and stay in our cells when any officer visited the building.

  There were seventeen of us prisoners and if the warders had obeyed orders and let each of us out separately for half an hour’s exercise they would have had no peace but would have been kept on the qui vive from morning to night. Since they much preferred to spend their hours of duty resting in the warm orderly room they soon began to let us out in bunches of half a dozen or more. At first each single person or each couple, in cases where cells were occupied by two people, were supposed to confine their promenade to separate passages, but very soon we all got together and talked with each other freely. By shifting the hour when I went out from day to day, I was gradually able to meet and talk to all my fellow prisoners. In the morning, too, all cell doors were unlocked at the same time, generally between 6 and 8 a.m., and we men forgathered in the lavatory while the trusties cleaned out the cells and made our beds.

  It may make my story simpler to follow if I now give the names of my fellow prisoners, for most of them play a part in what I have still to tell. Our cellar consisted of three passages; a broad central one, which led to the entrance, and two others separated from it by stone walls but to which access was given by arched openings. On my passage there were four large cells, Nos. 9 to 12 inclusive, and on the other passage cells Nos. 1 to 8, of which although smaller than those on my side, many were occupied by two people. Next to cell No. 9 was the guard room where the warders slept and spent their day. See plan.

  My fellow prisoners were:

  Cell No. 1. General von Rabenau and Pastor Bonnhöfer.

  „ 2. Dr. Pünder and Commander Franz Liedig.

  „ 3. Mr. and Mrs. Heberlein.

  „ 4. Count von Alvensleben and Colonel von Petersdorff.

  „ 5. General von Falkenhausen.

  „ 6. Squadron-Leader Hugh Falconer.

  „ 7. Wassilli Kokorin.

  „ 8. Dr. Josef Müller and Captain Gehre.

  „ 9. Miss Heidi.

  „ 10. Dr. Sigmund Rascher.

  „ 11. Myself.

  „ 12. Dr. Hoeppner.

  When we first arrived the place of Dr. Rascher was occupied by the chief medical officer of the camp, Dr. Hoven. I could never find out of what crime he had been guilty, but he was a very privileged prisoner who spent most of his day sitting with the warders in their room. Before the war he had had a clinic at Freiburg in Breisgau, which was apparently frequented by many well-known English people. Hoven was at some pains to curry favour with me, but he struck me as a shifty, cruel creature, and I was neither sorry nor surprised when, after the war, he was condemned to death and hanged by sentence of an allied court.

  With the exception of the Heberlein’s, Falconer, Kokorin, and myself, none of the prisoners possessed anything but the clothes in which they stood—they were provided weekly with clean underwear from the prison laundry. They had neither ties nor braces, and for those who had not been so lucky as to acquire a piece of string, hands in the pockets was the rule. I was far and away the best equipped, and so it was not long before almost everyone wore some article of clothing from my stock. I had also some books, a good atlas, two pocket chess sets, and patience cards, all of which I lent out to various people. Tobacco was the greatest problem. When I arrived I had about a pound and a half of Machorka with me, but this I distributed within a week and then we struck hard times. I had quite a lot of dried peppermint, and when things were at their worst we made cigarettes of this. The flavour was not at all bad, but the cigarettes had no pep at all and after one had smoked one, one wanted another immediately. One of the trusties was a Ukrainian and I became good friends with him. He was often sent on errands to the camp by the warders, and there he knew some Rumanians who still had tobacco which they had received in parcels from home. They charged black market prices for it, but luckily I had a couple of hundred marks left and so could buy enough to keep the wolf from the door. I shared everything that I got with the others, and although we were on very short rations, I don’t think that there were more than two days when we were unable to get anything at all. I am sorry to harp so much on the subject of tobacco, but for me, the world is a sorry place when I cannot smoke to my heart’s content. Actually, I believe that the conditions of p
rison life create an enhanced craving for tobacco, for nerves get on edge and there is nothing else with which to soothe them.

  After the first two or three days my relations with the warders had so much improved that I managed to get out of my cell quite a lot, either sitting in the orderly room warming myself or, if any were about, talking to my fellow prisoners. Indeed, I got so far that when Sippach was on duty he would leave my cell door unbolted if no visitors of higher rank were expected. Sippach was a badly scared man, not so much frightened of bombs as of what might happen to him if the camp were overrun by the Allies. I don’t know what he had done, but he seemed to be in the bad books of the Russian prisoners, and he told me himself that they would tear him limb from limb if they ever got hold of him. He had been attacked before for he had a nasty scar on his throat which he said had been caused when a Russian prisoner went for him with a knife. When, towards the end of my stay at Buchenwald, the Americans had advanced within a few miles of the camp he told me that he was leaving as soon as we had gone, and later I heard that he had done so.

  When I first made contact with the other prisoners what struck me most forcedly was the intense distrust of most of the Germans of each other; almost every one of them warned me to be careful of some other as he was a Gestapo spy. I paid no heed to these warnings and just took people as I found them; later on we all became good friends and none ever showed the least inclination toward treachery. This atmosphere of suspicion was typical of Nazi Germany, though it seemed to me strange that these people, imprisoned by the Gestapo, had so little inclination to form a common front and pull together. Both then and later, most of the German prisoners I met displayed an apathetic, I might say, fatalistic resignation and, as I suppose they had done all their lives, obeyed every order given to them without sign of unwillingness. I believe, that but for these two elements of mutual distrust and subservience to authority, it would have been possible to organize a mass escape in the company of our warders. These men were so badly scared that it would have required very little to convince them that their only hope of safety lay in helping us to liberty, and in accompanying us to the American lines; I tried hard to induce them to go off one night with Falconer, Kokorin, and myself, but we were after all foreigners, and I could never overcome their last instinctive distrust of us which only the whole-hearted co-operation of the distinguished Germans of our party could have perhaps done.