Death and Honor

[ONE]

Office of the Commercial Attaché Embassy of the German Reich Avenida Córdoba Buenos Aires, Argentina 0915 14 July 1943

Commercial Attaché Karl Cranz had come to work in a very pleasant frame of mind. There was only one problem to deal with that he could see, and it wasn’t at all a major one. There was no question in his mind that the foreign ministry would, as a result of his cable yesterday, cancel Commercial Attaché Wilhelm Frogger’s orders to return to Berlin. That caused the small problem of having two commercial attachés in the embassy.

Cranz had decided that could easily be solved by changing his own title to deputy commercial attaché. It didn’t matter, really, what official title one carried, so long as everyone understood who had the authority.

Reminding Frogger that he was, in fact, Obersturmbannführer Cranz and in Argentina on an important and highly secret mission would keep Frogger in his place, leaving Frogger free to continue his auction bidding war with the Americans over the tinned corned beef.

What was amusing in all this was that he really wasn’t Obersturmbannführer Cranz at all, but actually Standartenführer Cranz, although he had to keep that under his hat until von Deitzberg was on the Condor on his way home.

When he was free to let everyone know his real rank, that would put a number of potential problems in order. As Standartenführer Cranz he would be both the senior service officer in the embassy and the senior SS officer in this part of South America.

That would make him senior to the just-promoted Fregattenkapitän Boltitz, the new naval attaché. Not that he anticipated any trouble with Karl Boltitz or his new number two, Military Attaché for Air Major Peter von Wachtstein. He had just about decided that whoever the traitor in the embassy was, it wasn’t von Wachtstein. If indeed there was a traitor. It seemed more and more likely that what had happened at Samborombón Bay was entirely an Argentine reaction to the elimination of Oberst Frade.

He would also put Raschner straight about why he had not been recalled to Berlin. Raschner obviously thought he still would be working for von Deitzberg, and in that capacity keeping an eye on Commercial Attaché Cranz. Immediately after advising Raschner of his actual rank, Cranz would make it clear to him that the reason Raschner remained in Buenos Aires was that Standartenführer Cranz had asked Himmler for his services and, accordingly, Raschner no longer worked for von Deitzberg.

Raschner—he was not a fool—would immediately recognize on which side of his bread was the butter and was probably going to be very useful.

And just as soon as von Deitzberg left for Berlin, Cranz would have von Wachtstein fly him to Montevideo, where he would assert his authority over both Councilor Konrad Forster and Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck in the embassy there.

Councilor Forster was actually Hauptsturmführer Forster of the Sicherheitsdienst. His primary function in the embassy—known only to Ambassador Schulker—was counterintelligence. Cranz would firmly tell Forster that Forster was now under his orders, and that Cranz was to be immediately furnished with any information he developed.

Forster was not privy to anything concerned with the confidential special fund, and Cranz had no intention of telling him.

But if von Tresmarck did something stupid—something that might call attention to anything, which included the fund—Cranz told Forster that he wanted to hear about it right away.

Von Tresmarck would also be told that he now was directly responsible to Cranz, and bluntly reminded that he had one foot on the slippery slope to a pink triangle on a gray Sachsenhausen inmate’s uniform.

Cranz saw no potential problems with any of this, and was delighted with what he saw as his future here in Buenos Aires. Neither was he worried that anything would happen in Germany to see him recalled. That couldn’t be done without the acquiescence of everyone involved with Operation Phoenix—and that group included Martin Bormann. Karl Cranz was much closer to Hitler’s right-hand man than anyone thought, and Bormann wanted Cranz in Buenos Aires. Bormann knew more about the confidential special fund than anyone thought, because Cranz had gone to him and told him.

Bormann’s reactions had not been what Cranz had expected. The Reichsleiter had not gone to Himmler with the information that von Deitzberg was conducting what Himmler probably would have considered a treasonous fraud against the Third Reich. Nor had he asked to be included in the distribution of the fund’s munificence.

“What I want you to do about that, Karl,” he’d said, using Cranz’s Christian name for the first time, “is play along with them. Sometimes, something sordid like that can be transformed into something useful. And don’t worry. If it comes out, I’ll tell the Führer you were acting on my orders.”

Cranz had asked Bormann what to do about taking money from the special confidential fund, saying that it would look suspicious if he didn’t. Bormann had said, somewhat cryptically, “Don’t do anything that would cause suspicion,” and Cranz had decided that that was permission to keep taking the money.

The money was one of the reasons Cranz also was pleased about what life in Buenos Aires promised to be, especially after Ilse and the children joined him. Frogger had told him that there was a generous Foreign Service allowance for renting an apartment, adding that he didn’t use all of his and pocketed the difference, which was permitted.

Cranz had immediately decided to do the opposite, to augment the rental allowance with money from the special confidential fund. When Ilse and the children joined him, they’d find a very nice apartment—perhaps even a chalet in one of the suburbs—waiting for them.

He’d also used some special confidential funds the night before. He’d sort of tricked Boltitz into taking him to his tailor by asking him what he planned to do about new uniforms to go with his new rank. When Boltitz had replied that he’d have to go—and soon—to von Wachtstein’s tailor to have the extra golden stripe added to the sleeve, Cranz had said, “I’ll go with you, Karl. I need some suits, and I might as well take advantage of not having to worry about a clothing ration.”

He’d ordered half a dozen suits, shirts, and neckties. Not that it mattered, but they were really inexpensive. And when they walked back onto the street, he’d seen a lingerie store with what looked like silk stockings in the window.

Silk stockings were hard to come by in Berlin, even in the special stores for senior officers. The opposite was apparently true in Buenos Aires. The store had shelf upon shelf of them, and at quite reasonable prices.

He bought a dozen pair of the best quality the store offered. He would get Captain von und zu Aschenburg, the Condor pilot, to take them to Ilse. He would put a note in the box, suggesting that Ilse give a pair or two of them to her friend Gerda. She would probably do so anyway, but it was best to make sure. Gerda, the daughter of Walter Buch, chairman of the party’s court for the determination of NSDAP legal matters and internal discipline, was married to Martin Bormann.

Von und zu Aschenburg, too, was going to be useful. Once he got in the habit of taking small packages from South America to Berlin, those packages in the future could contain Swiss francs, English pounds, and American dollars for von Deitzberg.

One of the problems with the special confidential fund was that the payments made to gain the freedom of the Jews in the concentration camps were transacted in Uruguay. That required converting the funds to currency usable in Germany. Reichsmarks were hard to come by in Argentina and Uruguay without going through either the Buenos Aires branches of the Deutsche Bank or the Dresdnerbank—which of course being German kept detailed records, which of course was not a good thing. Thus, von Tresmarck had to send the cash in the diplomatic pouch, and that raised the risk of Hauptsturmführer Forster—who was both zealous and until now under no one’s authority— finding out what von Tresmarck’s little packages contained.

Cranz had arrived in what arguably was his office at five minutes to nine. His good feeling lasted until he glanced at his watch and saw that it now was quarter past nine.

One would have thought that Frogger would have come in a bit early, not a bit late.

He said and did nothing even then, instead glancing through the Argentinisches Tageblatt, the German-language newspaper. Somebody—he couldn’t remember who—had told him that the Argentines, who regarded the Tageblatt as a “guest newspaper,” would not permit it to publish much of anything at all except announcements of church meetings, births, weddings, deaths, and the like unless the items first had been published in an Argentine newspaper—and then only if the translation was approved by the Argentine government and the paper ran both the German translation and the original story in Spanish, either side by side or one after the other.

Reading it now, Cranz thought that were it not for the notices of the deaths of Argo-Germans in Africa and Russia, and pleas to contribute to Winterhilfe— which asked Germans abroad to aid Germans impoverished by the war—one would never know a war was on.

He quickly tired of reading news of the Buenos Aires German community’s church suppers and such.

He looked at his watch again.

Nine twenty-five.

Where the hell is he?

He couldn’t remember the name of Frogger’s secretary, so he couldn’t call for her. Instead, he got up from Frogger’s desk and walked to the outer office.

“Señora,” he asked politely, “you don’t happen to know where El Señor Frogger is, do you?”

She smiled, then said she was sorry, she had no idea.

“What time does he usually come to work?”

“He’s usually here, señor, when I come in.”

“And when do you usually come in, señora?”

“El Señor Frogger likes to have me at my desk at eight, señor.”

“He didn’t send a message that he would be late?”

“No, señor.”

“Would you please try to get him, or La Señora Frogger, on the telephone for me, please?”

Three minutes later, she reported that there was no answer at El Señor Frogger’s home number or at the Café Flora, where he and La Señora Frogger sometimes went for breakfast.

Cranz smiled and thanked her, gave the situation a moment’s thought, then went looking for First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz.

Cranz had already formed several opinions about Gradny-Sawz, none of them very flattering. He had decided Gradny-Sawz was shrewd but not very bright; that it had been a mistake by Bormann to name him to try to enlist Colonel Perón—that Cranz probably would have to take that task onto himself—and that while Gradny-Sawz probably was not the traitor, neither was he trustworthy.

But Gradny-Sawz was first secretary of the embassy, and thus Frogger’s immediate superior, and Cranz didn’t want to go to the ambassador about something petty like Frogger not showing up for work on time.

When Cranz got to Gradny-Sawz’s office, von Deitzberg was in there with Gradny-Sawz and looked at Cranz with annoyance.

“Will this wait, Cranz?” von Deitzberg snapped.

“Frogger hasn’t come in, and I was going to ask the first secretary if he perhaps knew anything about it.”

“Did you call him at home?” von Deitzberg asked.

“There’s no answer,” Cranz said.

“Let me check with Fräulein Hässell,” Gradny-Sawz said, and dialed a number.

Fräulein Hässell had no idea why Herr Frogger had not come to work.

Nor did Ambassador von Lutzenberger, who suggested it might be a good idea to send Untersturmführer Schneider around to their apartment to make sure that nothing was wrong.

“You go with him, Cranz,” von Deitzberg ordered, “and take Raschner with you.”

The Frogger apartment was on the fourth floor of a turn-of-the-century apartment building on Calle Talcahuano. A park separated it from the Colón Opera House.

When there was no answer to the in-house telephone, the concierge said the Froggers must have gone out before he came on duty at nine, then gave the men a good deal of trouble when they said they wanted to have a look in the apartment.

Cranz was perhaps disloyally amused at Raschner’s coldly angry reaction to that.

He’s going to have to remember that this is not Germany and that a Gestapo badge is absolutely meaningless here.

Cranz’s charm, diplomatic passport, and a small cash gift overcame the concierge’s reluctance to let them into the apartment. The concierge was visibly relieved when Schneider produced a key.

The Froggers were not in the apartment. The beds were made, and there was no sign that they had had their breakfast there. There was nothing suspicious about that. They were Germans. When Germans got out of bed, they made the bed. When they had breakfast, they cleaned the table and the plates and silver and the kitchen.

Yet there also was not any lingering smell from someone having cooked a breakfast meal.

“Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Raschner called softly from a table in the sitting room.

Cranz walked to him.

“What looks like a photo frame has recently been removed from here,” Raschner said, pointing to barely discernible disturbances in a very light coating of dust.

Cranz raised his eyebrows in question.

“I noticed the absence of photographs of the sons,” Raschner said. “There are no photos anywhere. Then it seemed to me that there were photo frames missing from the arrangement on the mantel”—he gestured with his finger toward the mantelpiece—“and then I found this.”

Cranz nodded.

“May I proceed, Herr Obersturmbannführer?”

“Proceed to what, Sturmbannführer?”

“While I see if I can find a photo album anywhere, I will send Schneider to the garage to see if their auto is there.”

“You’re suggesting what, Sturmbannführer?”

“Let me see if we can find the car and a photo album before I suggest anything, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

“Please call me ‘Herr Cranz,’ Sturmbannführer.”

“May I proceed, Herr Cranz?”

“Go ahead.”