The Arms Maker of Berlin

THIRTY-ONE

OPERATION FLEECEReport of ICARUS (543), as dictated to 493Prepared February 2, 1945On Monday, January 8, 1945, the two of us (myself and Swiss national Sabine Keller, of Adelboden) departed after sunset from Schaffhausen accompanied by a guide. We crossed the Swiss border in a forest two miles northeast of Thayingen, opposite the German village of Binningen. Cloudy, no moon.The guide departed. He had advised us that we would pass three roads before reaching Binningen. It was completely dark and we could proceed only by compass, East 12. After passing the second road we came to a third where we saw a family riding in a farm wagon. We hid behind a stone wall and ran on. We had to cross a brook and decided to jump. We stopped at a barn so I could change into my officer’s uniform. From there we reached the station at Binningen.I bought tickets to Singen and we were requested to show our papers. The train had neither lights nor windows. The station at Singen is in ruins. In conversation with others we learned that papers are investigated in Singen by the Gestapo, and all its men are members of the SD. They carry pink identification cards, signed by Kaltenbrunner, nothing on the back, and on the left-hand side a photograph of the bearer. We stayed at Singen for two hours, and at 22:00 went to Radolfzell, where we spent the night at the station after the sentry examined our papers.

The narrative went on in this vein for several pages, chock-full of details about how to move around in enemy territory. Nat was entranced as he imagined the young Gordon Wolfe, looking sharp and sinister in his officer’s cap and uniform, inching his way toward Munich with the pretty Sabine at his side. They must have been terrified.

In the early going, their luck held. They hopped their way east along the north shore of Lake Constance, first to Friedrichshafen, then to Lindau. Then they headed north, crossing Bavaria on a train to Buchloe, where they endured further document checks and slept overnight at the station. From there they caught trains to their target destination of Munich, where they sought out their local OSS contact.

His name was Helmdorff, and he managed a factory that was part of the Bauer industrial empire. His services had been arranged by Kurt Bauer, who was referred to throughout the report by his code name of Magneto II. Helmdorff gave Gordon and Sabine lodging in the cellar of an empty building at the factory.

Gordon and Sabine then split up, apparently by prior arrangement. She ventured into the city accompanied by Helmdorff while Gordon initiated contact with Göllner.Helmdorff instructed me to telephone Göllner from Theresienstrasse 4, where I could get a direct connection with the Gestapo office. He drew me a map, explaining how I could find the telephone booth on the first floor.I reached Göllner by telephone at 09:30 and asked if I could meet him at his home. He sounded very agitated and cut our conversation short. He asked me to leave my present location at once, and said I could see him at 11:00 at his office.Before the bombardment of last November, the Gestapo kept their offices in the Wittelsbacher Palais in the Briennerstrasse. Now their HQ are in the Polizei-Kaserne (see attached sketches). Göllner has his room in building Block Nr 1, 3rd floor, 4th room on the eastern side.I was uneasy with the idea of entering the Gestapo-Kaserne, but as I did not know whether Göllner would see me otherwise, I went. I entered the barracks, showed my military passport and told them I was Major Lehrer and wanted to see Sturmbandführer Göllner. The girl at the reception desk let me straight through.Göllner seemed rather afraid and shut his door. He told me he was no longer able to accompany me to the border, nor would he be able to cooperate with us due to circumstances that had arisen during the previous two weeks. He said he had informed Bern of this development, and was therefore very astonished by my arrival. He explained that his original instructions had been arranged through Gerhard Schlang and Erich Stuckart, both of Bern, but that Magneto II and his contacts had handled more recent messages. He blamed them for any miscommunication.Feeling somewhat desperate, I told him that my cover was still sound, and that my papers showed I had been a good soldier in Russia, awarded the Iron Cross, and that since then I had served admirably with the German legation in Bern. He replied that he would try to make alternate plans so that he might still accompany me.Miss Keller and I stayed again in the cellar of the factory, accompanied by rats and the sound of air raid sirens, due to bombing in the city center. I briefed Helmdorff on my new plans. Miss Keller was not comfortable with the arrangement, but Helmdorff insisted it was quite safe and said I should contact Göllner from the same telephone at the same time the next day.In the morning a noticeably agitated Helmdorff drove me to Theresienstrasse 4. At 09:30 at the telephone booth, I was approached by three officers in SD uniforms and arrested. I was taken directly to the Polizei-Kaserne, where I was questioned by Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann. He questioned me off and on for six days. Throughout this time I maintained my cover.

Good Lord. The man had endured six days of confinement and questioning in the heart of Munich’s Gestapo headquarters. Nat had to put the report down to collect himself. All these years without the slightest idea, nor had Gordon offered a single hint. And what on earth had Sabine done in the meantime, especially since she had been left at the mercy of Bauer’s man, the duplicitous Helmdorff? Nat read on.During this time I stayed in the so-called “Gestapo-Hausgefängnis” barracks, behind the burned-out Wittelsbacher Palais, in a cell together with five other companions. The food was very bad. The first four days I was in irons, day and night, also during transport from the jail to the barracks for questioning. But everyone was very orderly and I never heard from any of the fellow-prisoners about any bad treatment. Even the prisoners of the concentration camp Dachau who worked in their striped uniforms in front of the jail seemed in reasonably good spirits.In the course of Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann’s questioning, it became apparent that he was attempting to build a case against Sturmbandführer Göllner. But, curiously, he did not know that I was an American, nor did he seriously question my cover, except to the extent he believed I was in league with Göllner as part of some traitorous operation, supposedly in cooperation with the Allies.On the fifth day, Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann told me that he was sure that I would be sentenced to death based on other evidence they had compiled, but asked whether as an alternative I thought it would be possible for me to return to my position with the German legation in Switzerland without making the Allies suspicious. This way I could report back on their plans, and find out which Germans in Switzerland were cooperating with them.

Nat shook his head in wonder, not just at all the machinations but at the way Gordon presented everything in such a straightforward fashion—the leg irons, the interrogation, the threat of execution, even the bizarre sight of the prisoners from Dachau.Göllner was apparently not helpless in these affairs, and on the sixth day, a Friday, he visited me. He brought books, cigarettes, fruit, and sandwiches. He explained in some agitation that my presence had placed him in a difficult spot and said that a previous antagonism with Magneto II was to blame for our situation. He told me that Magneto II had been his source two years ago in exposing a student resistance organization in Berlin in exchange for personal considerations for Magneto II’s family. Three members of the resistance group were executed. Of course, I was surprised by these revelations, and knew that they did not bode well for Miss Keller and me.

Boom. There it was, at last. The Bauer bombshell. Nat was almost shaking with excitement. No wonder the old arms maker had dispatched two foreign governments and all his minions to track down these folders. And no wonder Berta had been willing to ruin her career. She must have had an inkling of this. All she had lacked was proof.

And what did this mean for Nat? A professional triumph, he supposed. But by now the quest had become so entwined with personal connections that his usual feelings of elation were muted. These were not the remote doings of long-dead strangers. History had put on a new face, and it was unnervingly familiar. He turned the page for more.Göllner said that he was now secretly promoting Siekmann’s plan to return me to Switzerland as a double agent, saying that this was the only possibility that my life would be spared. But he said this plan would only work if Siekmann released me before Monday, in only three days. This was because a Gestapo courier had been sent by plane on Thursday to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin, to notify him of Siekmann’s plan to send me back to Switzerland. In Berlin, the falsity of my cover would doubtless be discovered. Fortunately all lines of radio and telephone communication from Berlin to Munich had been cut, and it was impossible to send letters without great delay. However, the courier would return by plane on Monday. Göllner said he would attempt to engineer my release on Saturday. I would then have to leave immediately for the border with Miss Keller. Göllner would face difficulty once my cover was blown, but he said this was preferable to my remaining for further questioning, and possibly revealing the full extent of our plan.

Gordon was indeed released on Saturday night, after he fed Siekmann some fake information at Göllner’s suggestion. Siekmann assured him he would not be impeded when he tried to cross the border back into Switzerland. Gordon then headed straight for Helmdorff’s factory to retrieve Sabine.Helmdorff was very surprised and agitated to see me. Miss Keller said that Helmdorff had been trying to convince her to return to the border without me, and that she had been unable to move around the city because Helmdorff had locked her papers in his office. After speaking with us he said that he had to use the telephone to arrange for another location where we could stay that night.I secretly followed him to his office, upstairs in an adjoining building. The rooms were empty and dark, but I heard him pick up a telephone. He was not able to reach an operator for several minutes. He then asked to be connected to Kriminal-Inspektor Siekmann. As soon as he did so I entered the room and approached him from behind. I was able to pull the phone wire out of the wall before the operator connected the call. We struggled briefly. I wrapped the phone wire around his neck and held it tight until he was no longer breathing. I then found Miss Keller’s papers and returned them to her. We left immediately for the train station.

Nat took a deep breath. Gordon had killed a man with his hands, a Bauer minion who had nearly done them in. He wondered if Gordon had told Sabine. Probably. Death was such common currency in those days, and they were fleeing for their lives.

He read on. More train journeys and document checks as they made their way south. Their only close call was with a nosy sentry in Singen until they met a guide near the border town of Binningen. Gordon changed back into civilian clothes, and the guide began leading them to the frontier crossing. Then all hell broke loose.We left the road and followed a railway line and reached a small wood. We came to a crossroads with a signpost pointing toward Binningen when suddenly we were shot at by German machine guns. It was dark, but there was no cover. Our guide was armed and he fired toward the muzzle flashes in the trees, but the shooting continued. Our guide was hit and fell backward on the tracks. Miss Keller and I dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch. I pulled our guide by his boots into the ditch with us. He was groaning but did not appear to be conscious. The gun was still in his hands and Miss Keller took it and fired back. Soon the firing from the wood stopped.We tended our guide’s wounds with a kit that he carried, finding sulfa powder and bandages. There was more gunfire. We then heard the movement of soldiers crossing the tracks in the dark to either side of us, at some distance. By then I had taken the gun from Miss Keller, and I fired in both directions. Their muzzles flashed, as did ours, revealing our position, and while taking return fire I was hit in the right leg by several shots at once. I remained conscious but dropped the gun and was in great pain from that point onward. Miss Keller shouted for the soldiers to stop firing, and we gave ourselves up. Our guide was dead. They left him in the ditch and took us with them.

So here was Gordon’s war wound. In the Daily Wildcat exposé, the student hacks had practically made fun of his limp, implying he might even be faking it. No doubt the FBI had fed them that version. Shameful.

Gordon learned that the soldiers who ambushed them were part of an SS patrol that had been dispatched to the area that very day, with orders to disrupt further border crossings by Germans. Had Bauer or Helmdorff had anything to do with the deployment, or had Siekmann relayed the order after the courier returned from Berlin? The timing was certainly suspicious.Two of the SS men carried me to a truck, where I was shoved onto the front seat, bleeding heavily. The guard stood on the running board, looking for enemy airplanes as they drove to a small farmhouse which seemed to have been abandoned. There was almost no furniture. An Untersturmführer was sitting at a small table with an oil lamp along with a radio operator and half a dozen soldiers. He offered me Jamaica rum while a medic attended to my wounds somewhat roughly. The men checked our papers and emptied the contents of our bags. Miss Keller was taken to another room, and we were interrogated separately for the next hour. They said we had no authorization to be in the area. Seeing my military passport and finding my uniform in the bag, they claimed I was a deserter. I became very weak from loss of blood, and they put me in another room, where I fell asleep.Breakfast consisted of ersatz coffee, dark bread, and blood sausage, but I was too weak to eat much. I had a fever, and the medic put more sulfa powder on my wounds, which were still very painful. At some point I blacked out. When I came to, it was dark outside and I was on the floor. I had regained some strength but was at first disoriented. For a while I thought I had been abandoned until I heard noises from the adjoining room.I stood with difficulty and made it to the doorway. A candle was burning in the other room, where two soldiers were forcing themselves on Miss Keller. The first wore a shirt and was naked below the waist. The second was bare-chested, with his trousers around his ankles. He was mounting her while the first one watched. Neither noticed me. One of their guns was propped against the doorway, so I took it and fired, hitting the first soldier. The second one stood and tried to reach his weapon, but he tripped on his trousers. I shot him twice in the head before he could get up. Miss Keller dressed and we left the house.(Note from 493: At this point in his dictation, Icarus became extremely upset, cursing loudly and thrashing in the bed. Fearing he would do damage to the dressings on his wound, I summoned a nurse, who called for further help and then sedated him. I remained throughout the afternoon and evening while he slept. Later that night we concluded our work after he had eaten dinner. The balance of his report follows. Afterward he asked repeatedly about the current whereabouts of Miss Keller. As instructed, I replied that this information remained classified, whereupon he again became disorderly and demanded that I leave the room.)Outside the house Miss Keller found that the others had gone on patrol and had left the truck unattended. She helped me onto the seat, and we drove until we had nearly reached the spot of our ambush. We got out of the truck and entered the wood. I could move only with difficulty and was in great pain. We must have covered several hundred yards when I again blacked out. The next moment I remember was awakening in the back of another truck in Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. According to Miss Keller we had crossed the frontier at 03:52.

The narrative ended. It was devastating material—callousness and heroism hand in glove. Gordon had killed three men and had witnessed the gang rape of his lover. Viv was right. Part of Gordon had never come home from the war, and now Nat knew why. It had been forever left behind in a cell in Munich and a farmhouse at the border.

There was an appendix of seven pages that Loofbourow had also recorded, in which Gordon documented various details that Sabine and he had observed along the way, complete with sketches. Much of it concerned conditions in and around Munich—which factories were still running, what was available in the markets, the coal supply, observations on troop positions and gun emplacements.

But the most notable item came last, when Gordon weighed in on the reliability—or lack thereof—of Kurt Bauer. It was useful to Nat because it indicated which way the wind must have been blowing at the American legation with regard to the Bauer family. Its harsh tone also showed how desperate Gordon already was for vengeance. In a sense, Gordon was rendering his first judgment as a historian, and its strong opinions foreshadowed the style that would later mark his scholarly prose.I am well aware that the inclination in this case will be to regard Magneto II’s misdeeds as youthful errors in judgment, if only because of his family’s perceived importance in rebuilding an industrial base for a new democratic Germany, as a bulwark against Soviet influence. But this forgiving attitude should not be allowed to obscure two important truths:1) Magneto II’s story to us was a dangerous and intentional lie which led to the death of an OSS guide, plus the injury of one OSS operative and the brutal rape of another.2) Magneto II’s purported role as a resistance figure has been severely compromised by his evident betrayal of his colleagues to the Gestapo. Although personal considerations may have clouded his judgment, and his young age was almost certainly a factor, it should not be forgotten that his actions resulted in the executions of three courageous individuals.

Good for you, Nat thought. Although it seemed clear that his recommendation had ultimately been ignored. No wonder Dulles had wanted these files shipped directly to Donovan in Washington. Already covering up for the new captain of industry in the fight against the Reds. It explained why Gordon had been so enraged when he came across the files, and why he decided to steal them. The only question now was whether his muttered exclamation—“the cocksucking bastard”—had been a reference to Bauer or to Dulles. It must have been infuriating to learn that the boss who had put your life on the line had sided with the man who almost killed you. It also explained why the CIA would still consider these items too hot to handle, as Steve Wallace had said. That told Nat the Agency probably had other documents, still classified, which must have at least offered an inkling of these events.

Next he read Göllner’s interrogation transcript. It was every bit as juicy as promised—more sticks of dynamite to obliterate the Bauer legacy. The rest of the items were mostly supporting documents for the main event. A flurry of memos between Dulles in Bern and Loofbourow in Zurich told him that Gordon had endured two surgeries on his leg after his return from Munich. There was also a Loofbourow memo on Sabine, saying that her father had been sent a lump-sum payment in Swiss francs to cover the expenses of hiding her after the Fleece fiasco, not only to keep her out of the hands of Swiss authorities and local German operatives but also to make her unavailable to Gordon.

Nat then turned to the two sealed envelopes. Being a historian, he opened the oldest first—Gordon’s unmailed letter to Viv. It was dated May 15, 1945, a week after the Germans surrendered. He must have still been recuperating at the Zurich safe house and hadn’t yet discovered that Sabine was “missing.”Dear Viv,I am writing to tell you that I was wounded in my right leg during an operation, but that I am healing nicely and soon expect to be up and about. The doctors promise that I will be almost as good as new. I have been invited to accompany a postwar reconstruction team into Germany, and will be doing so this summer.It has been a strange experience to lay in bed all these months here in Zurich. Hours pass when all that I do is listen to the whine of the tram cars on the tracks, or the passing conversations of people in the streets. They sound much happier than they did a year ago. Laughter seems to be returning to the city now that the war has ended. You can sense a collective lifting of spirits.This gladdens me, because in some small way my work may have played a role in helping to end the war, or, at least, more of a role than I would have played as a gunner on a Flying Fortress. Unfortunately, much of what I did will by necessity have to remain a secret.Yet, in other ways my spirits are sinking. I suppose that my wounds are partly to blame, and also the knowledge that I might never be able to walk again without some degree of pain. But I must confess that my greater pains are emotional, due to a matter that is all too close and personal to us both. I regret to tell you that this matter is almost certain to cause you pain as well.I have met a woman, Viv. And I do not say that lightly, or in the sense of some mere passing affair. It has developed into something quite serious and complex, and the experiences she and I have shared during these past months have at last convinced me that it will be impossible for me to leave her behind.None of this has anything to do with any lacking in my feelings for you. I know that will not be any solace to you, but events here have stirred up feelings more powerful than any I have ever experienced before. My greatest regret is the pain you will feel as a result.Because of this, I expect to be staying in Europe permanently in one capacity or another, even after my duties with the occupation forces have ended. I therefore bid you a regretful but hear felt farewell, in the fervent hope that someday you will find a way to forgive me.If it is any consolation, I am no longer the high-spirited young man you knew before the war, cocksure and happy-go-lucky. I don’t believe that my experiences have made me a worse person, but I am indelibly changed, and perhaps you would not have recognized me or wanted me in any event.With love and affection,Gordon

Oh, my. What was Nat supposed to do with this? He was certainly never going to show it to Viv. He opened the next envelope.Dear Nat,So what do you think? Is this proper recompense for all that I’ve done to you in the past? I like to think so, but I need one last favor. Please share the findings with Sabine, especially the letter to Viv, which, as you can see, was never mailed. The rest is at your discretion. I’m trusting you’ll handle everything in the best interests of all concerned.Fondly,Gordon

A weighty statement, that last one. It made Nat responsible for the legacies of several people—Viv, Sabine and Bernhard, Bauer, perhaps even Holland and all the feds. Granting him that sort of power was the old man’s greatest possible gift, yet also his most burdensome. Nat had better get it right, beginning now.

The first order of business was some careful logistics. Fortunately, he had already given the matter a great deal of thought. He placed the two envelopes back in the steel drawer and locked it shut. The four folders went inside the bag for his laptop. Then he removed his right shoe and sock. He stuffed one of the flash drives, with all its important images, into the sock and put it back on along with the shoe. He stood, opened the door, and called for Herr Schmidt, who arrived promptly.

“I’m taking some of the items with me. The rest of them I’m leaving behind.”

“Very good, sir.” As if Nat had just chosen the perfect wine.

Nat handed over the key and walked out of the bank into the warm sunlight of late afternoon. It felt good to breathe fresh air again after being entombed with all those memories. Glancing in both directions, and detecting no sign of danger, he set out for the Bahnhof.

Two blocks later, Clark Holland stepped from a storefront and blocked his way.

“Greetings from sunny Florida, Nat. Sorry you couldn’t stick around.”

Before Nat could move a muscle, Neil Ford arrived at his right shoulder and a third agent sidled up on the left. Nat lunged at the gap between Holland and Neil, but six hands immediately clamped down.

They had him.

And what that really meant, of course, was that they had everything else, too.