CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Thirty minutes later

“Please inform Chief Schneider Graf von der Lippe that Kriminalkommissar Horst Schäfer is calling and it is both important and urgent that I speak to him immediately.”

“He won’t be happy, Lieutenant. I hope for your sake that your communication is both important and urgent. He does not suffer fools.”

“I’ll take the risk. Get him on the line … bitte!” Schäfer said, emphasizing the ‘please.’

“What now, Lieutenant? You are beginning to try my patience.”

“And a good morning to you, sir. I am hoping to solve an important case with your help, which should add to your already sterling record of bringing to justice criminals no matter what their rank or position.”

“You are troweling on the crap too thick now, Schäfer. I repeat: what do you want now?”

“Nothing much. I just want to talk to the main führer of the ODESSA.”

Schäfer delivered the outlandish request totally deadpan.

Schneider sputtered momentarily, then began to laugh uproariously.

“Have you gone completely verrückt [crazy]? You wouldn’t last a minute if you were to knock on the führer’s door. For that matter, what makes you think I know anything about the ODESSA?”

“I am sure that the chief of criminal police for the entire German nation has heard of ODESSA and regards it his business to monitor the information coming in from the intelligence department. I only wish to share a part of that. I need a name and a useful introduction, or you will certainly be right: I won’t get in the door; I might get killed; and nothing will be gained in my investigation of a murder.”

“Will I be quit of you if I do give you what you ask?”

“Probably, unless the lead points to another area of your expertise.”

“Schäfer, I have half a mind to promote you to the Wiesbaden office where I can keep my eye on you.”

Schäfer laughed.

“I have successfully avoided that fate for my entire career. It probably wouldn’t work out all that well.”

“After considerable and deep thought, I’m sure you’re right; so, I withdraw the offer.”

They both laughed.

“I’ll get back to you this afternoon. Stay close to a phone.”

He hung up.

§§§§§§

Schloss Krupp, southeast corner of Lietzenburger and Pfalzburger Strassen, Charlottenburg Section of City West, Berlin, Germany, six hours later

The Krupp limousine picked Kriminalkommissar Schäfer up at Flughafen Schönefeld [Berlin Schönefeld Airport] and drove him in a style to which he was not accustomed to Schloss Krupp, in the very affluent Charlottenburg section of City West, Berlin. Never in his wildest imaginations did blue collar bulle Horst Schäfer see himself being driven by a liveried chauffeur in a stretch car to a castle. Chief Schneider came through in grand fashion, and Schäfer knew that he would owe the chief a marker for the rest of his career. He only hoped that it would prove to be worth it.

Charlottenburg used to be the heart of West Berlin and stretched between the Ku’Damm—jointly shared with Wilmersdorf—and the Charlottenburg Palace in the north. The southern part of the district was one of the wealthiest areas of Berlin with several schlosses, posh villas, and apartments. Although rebuilding was continuing in the less affluent parts of the capital city, Charlottenburg already had mature broad streets and sidewalks, parks, and spacious residential buildings, especially around the southern Kurfürstendamm area where the Krupp castle stood.

He was stopped in front of the huge front door ornamented with the brass logo of the Krupp dynasty—three intersecting rings emblematic of the Radreifen [no-weld railway wheels] patented by Alfred Krupp in 1851. He was thoroughly patted down by two security guards and was glad he had paid heed to Chief Schneider’s admonition not to wear a firearm. Then a man in a tuxedo, whom Schäfer presumed was the butler—but who did not speak—led him what seemed to be nearly half a mile to his destination. The butler directed Schäfer to a stiff-backed chair in a long hall lined on both sides with medieval armored knights and very professionally mounted animals from around the world. The floor was polished walnut that reflected the lights that lined the hall. The walls and ceiling were covered with highly polished, recently dusted, carved oak with scenes of famous battle victories of the Teutonic Knights. The lieutenant from unimportant little Ludwigshafen tapped his fingers impatiently as he waited for a full hour before the master of the house entered the hall from a side door.

Anton Friedrich Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was a reed-thin straight-back patriarch with a full head of precisely trimmed long hair and sculpted beard of snow white. His face was lined with the cares of the world which he bore with the equanimity that only the immensely wealthy can afford. He was dressed in traditional green wool field hunting attire including the dress style field hat, all perfectly tailored for him. His patrician figure was accentuated by his perfectly polished knee-high leather boots and small clinking spurs. Other hunters were obligated to wear red when out in the field, but the Krupps were exempt for such foolishness on their own extensive property, and probably everywhere else, Schäfer surmised.

Krupp did not offer his hand or any pleasantries, and he stood as ramrod stiff as a first sergeant reporting to his colonel in the Prussian army.

“You are the police officer from … where is it?”

“Ludwigshafen.”

“Ah, yes, the IG Farben town. Chief Schneider briefed me about your visit and your request. I agreed reluctantly and with conditions. They are as follows: nothing I tell will ever be traced back to me; my name will never be used in print or in conversation, even in official police records; no suggestion will ever be made to anyone that I have even the slightest acquaintance with the criminal organization known as ODESSA. Do you agree to my conditions?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You will find me to be a most unforgiving man if I learn that you have violated our agreement.”

“Herr Krupp, I am investigating the murder of a former Nazi SS lieutenant colonel by the name of Heinrich Rudolf Gajewski—his original name—also known as Gunther Emil Sondregger, a pseudonym he adopted in the postwar period having erased his past records; or so he believed. He was a complete recluse in his work at BASF and a virtual unknown in the society of the city and his workplace. The only avenue of investigation we have to follow to seek out someone who meant the man harm is that he was known to the ODESSA which arranged for his disappearance on German and Allied records and his reappearance as a new person in Ludwigshafen. We speculate that perhaps the man had knowledge that could incriminate a former Nazi or perhaps some of the SS men involved with ODESSA. We need your help and direction to allow us to meet with men who may know the answers to our questions.”

“Well and succinctly put. I have prepared a list of individuals who may have such knowledge. They will speak with you only when you give them a set of code words—Alpha Wolf. When your investigation is completed, you will forget those words and never utter them again. Understood?”

“Perfectly.”

Krupp handed Schäfer a crisp heavy bond manila envelope then turned on his heels and exited the way he had come in. Immediately after the master of the house closed the door, the butler reappeared as if part of an illusionist’s conjuring trick. Schäfer was all but frogmarched out of the castle and placed in the limousine for his return to the airport.

On the plane he read his department’s intelligence report on the ODESSA as preparation for a thorough study of the men whose names appeared on Krupp’s papers. The report on the history regarding the people involved came from the work of a Jewish survivor of the concentration camps—Simon Wiesenthal. The information regarding the financial intricacies of the efforts to protect the war criminals came from the Kripo intelligence division. The reluctant old SiPo members, Nazi hunters from the allies, and police analysts working on the German and Austrian denazification project provided the final pieces of information Lieutenant Schäfer and his team needed to get on with their work.

ODESSA is the acronym for the German Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, [Organization of Former SS Members]. It was founded in 1944 at the behest of Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, Hitler‘s private secretary, with the express purpose of helping Nazi members to flee Europe and to escape justice. The pioneering meeting took place in the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg on the tenth of August of that late year of the Second World War. Besides a very carefully chosen few SS officers, the men attending the meeting included coal tycoon Emil Kirdorf, owner of a major coal conglomerate; Georg von Schnitzler of IG Farben chemical works; Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the great steel and railroad magnate; Friedrich “Fritz” Thyssen, German industrialist who dared to oppose Hitler and spent time in several concentration camps; and banker Kurt von Schroeder. Their common bond was partly their allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party, but wholly to profit.

The war profiteers and the objective SS officers—including Bormann—in the meeting recognized the impending defeat of Germany and the serious repercussions that any SS member would eventually face. These pragmatic idealogues, opportunists, thieves, and murderers recognized that they had sufficient power to exercise either of two options: first—continue the rapidly deteriorating German position in the war and hope to be able last out long enough for their plethora of secret weapons such as rockets and deadly chemical warfare agents to become fully operational, which could resuscitate Germany’s chances of victory. This was the vain hope to which Hitler clung; or, second, they could begin the process of moving their still huge hordes of money, technology, and dedicated personnel to ensure the continued survival of the Nazi Party and the SS in an elaborate scheme to begin again to build the mythical Fourth Reich.

The men present at the meeting made a brilliant decision: they chose both courses of action. The meeting was not the first time these courses were considered. The movement began to take shape as a potential safety net early in the war. The German leadership nurtured Italian, German-Argentine, German-Brazilian, and other South American dictatorships in a cozy and mutually profitable set of labyrinthine interconnections. In addition, they secretly fostered other extremely valuable cooperative arrangements. As the war wore on towards its inevitable negative conclusion, the SS and German financiers and industrialists developed firm agreements with such diverse groups as the Vatican, multiple high-ranking Roman Catholics in a score of countries, Italian fascists, senior governmental officials in Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and—not inconsequently for the SS—the Allied intelligence services. Two other organizations worked in secret to help the SS members left in Germany—Die Spinne [The Spider] and an organization established by Gudrun Burwitz—the daughter of Heinrich Himmler—called Stille Hilfe [Silent Help].

Those three and several other organizations aided fugitive Nazis, established and maintained secret escape routes and transportation—known as ratlines—subverted Italian, Swiss, Vatican, Middle Eastern, and South American governments, and murdered people who interfered or who were targeted for revenge. Ratlines were a system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These convoluted and expensive escape routes usually led toward semipermanent havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Bolivia. But others led to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. There were two primary routes: the first went from Germany to Spain, then on to Argentina; the second from Germany to Rome to Genoa, then to South America; the two routes developed independently but eventually came together to collaborate.

During the chaos at the end of hostilities, the underground network called “Die Spinne” supplied false papers and passports, safe houses, and contacts that could smuggle war criminals across the unpatrolled or actively involved Swiss borders. Once into Switzerland, the Nazis moved on quickly to Italy, using what came to be called the “Monastery Route.” Roman Catholic priests—especially Franciscans—helped the ODESSA move fugitives from one monastery to the next until they reached Rome—all with the blessing of Pope Pius XII. One Franciscan monastery–Via Sicilia in Rome–became a routine transit station for Nazis, an arrangement made possible by Archbishop Romani [not his real name]. By their own admission, the motive for most of the priests was a notion of Christian charity. Once in Italy, the fugitives were out of danger, and many then dispersed around the globe.

By 1946, there were hundreds—perhaps several thousands—of Nazi war criminals in Spain; and thousands of outwardly former Nazis and fascists. Vatican cooperation in turning over asylum-seekers in those Catholic countries was negligible. Pope Pius XII was active in the efforts to put former Nazis and other fascist war criminals on board ships sailing to the New World. He was instrumental in getting ex-Nazis out of the terrible conditions in Allied POW camps in zonal Germany, and there was a trickle-down hierarchal support system to keep the Vatican or Roman ratlines effective. Similarly, the Vatican emigration ratline operation in the ratlines of Spain was fostered by the Vatican.

Archbishop Carlo Romani of Graz was an outspoken rector of the Pontificio Istituto Teutonico Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome, a seminary for Austrian and German priests. He was often refered to as the “Spiritual Director of the German People resident in Italy.” After the end of the war, he became active in ministering to German-speaking prisoners of war and internees then held in camps throughout Italy and assisting them in ways the Vatican at first denied. However, in 1944 the Vatican Secretariat of State received permission from the pope to appoint a representative to attend to the needs of the German-speaking civil internees in Italy—an assignment enthusiastically filled by the archbishop.

Romani used this position vigorously to aid the escape of wanted Nazi war criminals, including some of the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camp officers. He made no attempt to conceal that activity on his part, never expressed regret or shame. One of the means he employed to conceal the identity of these wanted men was to ensure that they had no identity papers; so, they could be enrolled in camp registers under innocuously false non-Germanic names.

The financial cost of maintaining the ratlines was enormous, and the Vatican assisted Nazi organizations in establishing an efficient system. A growing source of precious metal came from Nazi concentration camps and death camps, where all property was taken from the victims, and included personal effects such as wedding rings, pocket watches, cigarette cases, jewellery, and gold teeth. The Swiss National Bank—the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe before the war—was the logical venue through which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold. During the war, the SNB received $440m in gold from Nazi sources, of which $316m is estimated to have been looted.

By 1945, the Vatican had confiscated 350 million Swiss francs in Nazi gold for what it termed “safekeeping.” Of that massive treasure, 150 million Swiss francs were impounded by British authorities at the Austro-Swiss border, thus confirming the Vatican and Swiss culpability. The balance of the Raubgeld [“stolen gold”] was held in one of several of the Vatican’s numbered Swiss bank accounts. Postwar intelligence reports found that more than 200 million Swiss francs—mostly in the form of gold coins—were eventually transferred to Vatican City or to the Institute for Works of Religion (aka the Vatican Bank), with the assistance of Roman Catholic clergy and the Franciscan Order. In the late 1950s, leading ex-Nazis later publicly thanked the Vatican for its vital assistance.

The financial arrangements for assistance to the escaping Nazis were rigid and formal. In return for providing safe haven and new identities, the involved organizations and nations were provided massive loans from the plunder of the conquered and occupied nations and from the Jews of Germany and the lands of occupation. There was at least an implicit “pay-it-forward” pact with those who were saved that they would reimburse and help to finance future ODESSA projects when they could, and the occasion required them to do so.

It was a win-win arrangement for both the lenders and the borrowers. The SS recognized that Germany’s ill-gotten assets would fall into the hands of the rapidly approaching enemies if they were not transferred and hidden to be retrieved and used in the future. Out of the 1944 meeting in Salzburg, a pact with the devil was made. The party lent huge sums of money to industrialists all over the country and to sympathizing financiers in the former occupied countries.

This enabled them to set up separate and secret postwar organizations abroad, which provided an additional layer of hidden assets to facilitate the saving of the SS members and allowed for the enrichment of the industrialists and the subverted friends and political officers in the targeted countries. As collateral, the industrialists paid back to their Nazi benefactors an ongoing portion of their earnings from abroad. Together the corrupted industrialists and the Nazi hierarchy built well-funded and protected resources abroad, so that a strong German Reich would reemerge after the defeat and would be manned by zealots even more jingoistic that those of the vanquished Third Reich.

As the war drew towards its close, Nazi treasure began to be distributed to 750 corporations around the world, all of which were sympathetic or at least cooperative with the Third Reich. In 1944, George W. Merck was a senior advisor for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his capacity as the American biological weapons industry director. His input related to strategies for employment of that kind of weaponry. He retained his position as president of Merck and Company, Incorporated, and in the spring of that same year, the company received a very large cash contribution from Martin Bormann. That infusion of cash allowed Merck to secure a virtual monopoly over the world’s chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Publically, the money was contributed to provide for Germany’s economic recovery. Quietly, the massive monetary contribution was targeted towards the assurance of the rise of the hoped-for the Neuordnung [New Order]—the Fourth Reich.

The Rockefeller partner company, IG Farben, received huge sums of money from the Nazi war chest to actualize Hitler’s proclaimed vision of a Third Reich and world empire, and subsequently towards the putative Fourth Reich. The project and the money originated from Martin Bormann as head of the Nazi Ministry of Economics. This was outlined with clarity in a document that was accompanied by a letter of transmittal from the Führer to the Bormann-led Ministry of Economics

The head of Perónist government’s Information Bureau coordinated the work of intelligence and immigration officials in Argentina and throughout South America directly from from his office in the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s White House. Incoming SS officers, one named Hörst Dietsel, but better known by his new name, Carlos Aguillara-Dominguez, was recently murdered, Lieutenant Schäfer learned. Such officers were willing conduits and facilitators for the flow of gold and Nazi fugitives. The Argentine connection was powerful, diverse, and ruthless.

In addition to the Argentines, there was a multinational and polyglot cabal of Vichy French, Belgian Rexists, Croatian Ustashi, and Roman Catholic cardinals from several countries, acting with the blessing of the Vatican. According to interviews with some of the people apprehended over the years, they were all motivated by the vision of an international brotherhood of Catholic anti-Communists, and not by greed or vindictiveness. Schäfer read that information with more than a grain of salt and with a healthy dose of world-weary police skepticism.

Carefully husbanding the treasure they sent to Argentina, the SS organizations purchased huge tracts of land in South America and elsewhere. Large, apparently legitimate corporations were established which conducted research begun in Germany to create the master race by careful pseudoscientific eugenic protocols and by developing profitable industries. Sperrgebiete [secure areas] grew up in the welcoming atmosphere and created whole towns, airfields, highways with all the amenities of civilized German life—free of Jews, Negroes, Gypsies, retarded people, or homosexuals. Fascist countries, including Spain under Franco, and Italy under Mussolini–as well as those in South America–became secure and safe havens.

The establishment of the state of Israel after World War II led several Middle Eastern Arab nations to welcome Nazis who shared their hatred of the Jews. The ulterior motive of the Islamic world was that the unreformed Nazis would use their expertise in rocket science to enable the final annihilation of the Jews who—at the time—were gaining the upperhand in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflicts. The Allies—including the United States—were eager to the point of near frenzy to exploit the knowledge and work of Nazi war criminals.

America created a pattern of postwar SS relationships with South American governments and formed false corporations to keep Nazi scientists out of the clutches of the communist governments which were also on a frantic crusade to gather in the bomb makers, rocketiers, and weaponized poison makers to their side.

For all of that massive expenditure and complexity of maneuvering, some war criminals—including Heinrich Rudolf Gajewski, aka Gunther Emil Sondregger—failed to find a way out, and—during the chaos—ODESSA found ways for them to remain in Germany and take on new identities and to manage to get themselves successfully and unobtrusively reentered into postwar German society.

“The question for us Kripos is how did they do that?” Schäfer asked himself. “And who cared? That question has to relate to who killed the man.”

Recipe

Großmutter’s Dumpfnoodles—Serves 8

Ingredients

-Dry—4 cps all-purpose white flour, 2 pkgs dry yeast, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic powder,

1 large Russet potato, 2 lbs ground sausage (your choice as to spiciness).

-Liquid—1 cp lard, 2 cps potato water, 4–5 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

-Sauerkraut: just buy packaged product—will cut time significantly.

Preparation

-1. Mix yeast and potato water (boil the potato until it is soft enough to fall apart) using sufficient amount for proper dough consistency.

-2. Add salt and lard, mix very well.

-3. Add flour. Knead until it sticks to your skin.

-4. Place in warm area of the kitchen or in very low setting of oven, let dough rise to double its size.

-5. Punch dough down, let it rise once more, and punch it down a second time.

-6. Let dough rise a third (and final) time to double the original size.

-7. While dough is rising, fry sausage on medium heat. Add sauerkraut, may pour off excess moisture. Add garlic powder to mix of meat and sauerkraut.

8. After the dough is done, make 2–3 inch balls and roll them out into medium-flat circles.

9. Fill fairly full with sauerkraut and meat mixture; and squeeze the edges of the dough together to make pouches.

10. After the pouches are made, let dough rise again for 30 min.

11. If dough is sticky, use wax paper during preparation.

12. Heat medium high 2 tbsps oil for each high sided, nonsticking frying pan. Test heat by splashing a little water in the pan. It should skitter and make sounds of frying. Then add ¾ cp water.

13. Place fully risen pouches in pan—as many as will fit.

14. Once in the pans, place lid on and fry until there is no water left, About 30 min. Smell the fried dough to be sure cooking is complete.

15. DO NOT take off the lid until it smells fried and no water sloshes.