Chapter 24

Berchtesgaden, 1950

 

 

I had returned to the Horner Gashouse once or twice before. That is, before I became less than enamored of airports. Come to think of it, this aversion of mine to airports came about sometime after the burn incident. It was a long time ago.

I thought I might go over to the Obersalzberg this trip back to Siegsdorf. I had not seen Walter Reinicke since we left the night before the bombing. I thought now might be a good time to see him again and have a talk.

The gasthaus was never finished. Lothar completed the extra rooms on the second floor, but he had hardly done anything at all with the space on the ground floor. He was using it as a workshop.

The first time I came back, he told me he had plans to go into business with one of his friends in Salzburg. He said they were going to make plaster of Paris busts of Mozart. They were going to fill them with lead and coat them with bronze, to be used as bookends or doorstops. He said they planned to sell them to tourists in Salzburg in several gifts shops around the city. They also had plans to extend this line, to include some memento of the Obersalzberg. But they hadn’t decided on anything appropriate and in good taste. They had considered a replica of the Berghof and then decided against it.

He was very upbeat about the whole thing, as most new entrepreneurs are. However, I thought it was a mistake. I thought he could realize more money from renting out two more to tourists than he could by using the space for what he had in mind. But he obviously never agreed with me. I would later find out why.

I stayed with the Horners a few days to rest up from the long flight across the ocean, and then I made the planned trip to Berchtesgaden to visit Walter.

I found him hale and hearty, if not a little older. I wanted to talk about a few things more serious than the weather. And for that I needed an interpreter.

Walter understood, and asked me in sign language to take a ride in his car. He had a new Opel, one of the first off the new assembly lines in Stuttgart.

We drove once again through the magnificent countryside, up to the old Hitler compound. I had no idea what to expect. I had heard that the devastated Berghof had been burned by the departing SS, and then later completely destroyed. And I heard that Walter’s Zum Turken had also been handed back to him in ruins, but not nearly as bad.

That it was in ruins was true enough. That it had been handed back, just like that, was in error. It had not been that simple. He had to hire an attorney and fight to get it back.

It seems that when Hitler took the Turken away from him, because it was too close to his Berghof, he did so legally. That is, he acquired a deed sealed and recorded. It was taken under eminent domain, the State needing it for a public building. The designated public building meant it was to be used to house Hitler’s around-the-clock SS bodyguard and several members of the Gestapo. There was a small amount of money passed to satisfy the valuable consideration element of the contract, but only a pittance of what it was worth.

After the War, the new German government objected to giving it back, claiming Walter had signed away any right to ownership. But Walter and his grown daughter fought them for clear title under the German version of unjust enrichment and won.

Walter had taken possession soon after the air raid, and immediately began rebuilding using the gold I’d given him. However, the government closed him down for a couple of years; he started again as soon as his lawsuit was settled. But I was puzzled–where did he get the money for an almost complete rebuild. The gold I gave him was more than enough to see him through a remodel, but not nearly enough for what had to be done after the bombing.

He had a concierge who spoke excellent English. He wanted to use her as an interpreter. However, we abandoned the idea when we both realized it might not be in his best interests if she were privy to what I wanted to talk about. Chitchat about his hotel was one thing. But what I was interested in was something else again.

After showing me around with her in tow, we sought a more disinterested party, one who was legally obligated to keep our affairs confidential.

Reinicke registered me in one of his best rooms, where I left my B-4 army issued bag, and then the two of us went back to town. We looked around and found another interpreter, an attorney in Berchtesgaden.

“Walter, I want you to tell me what happened to Kurt Steinmann.” The attorney translating for us was young. When Walter told him our conversation must be kept confidential, he told us all conversations with him were confidential. Realizing we didn’t want him for any lucrative legal work, he appeared to be quite bored, which was all right with us. The last thing we wanted was for him to take an interest in Reinicke and his old attachments to Steinmann. And we certainly didn’t want him connecting either of us with any hidden Nazi gold. The lawyer may have been bored with what he thought was going to be routine conversation. But he was about to change his mind. He must have been fascinated by what he heard next:

“Steinmann told me he did not want to stay in the underground bunker being used as a hospital,” Walter said. “Regardless of what the doctors were going to tell me to do, Steinmann said I was not to leave him. He was afraid of what might happen. He knew the entire SS contingent was leaving. And he knew they could not take him. And they could not leave him behind.

“He was in extreme pain. He was almost delirious by the time we arrived. He started rambling on about a box he had lost. And he seemed to be in fear of his life if they found out he had lost it.

“Then Steinmann told me something even more curious. He told me if I would get him out of there, after they finished treating him, he would give me a lot of money. Steinmann said he personally had buried part of it, nearby.” And here Walter hesitated to go on. He didn’t want the interpreter to be aware we were talking about SS gold.

At no time did Reinicke mention gold in front of the interpreter. He spoke of money, but not gold. That word was verboten for obvious reasons.

I had known about the gold Steinmann forced Ralph to hold back. He made sure I did, soon after we started talking about the total to be dumped in the lake. He wanted to make sure that Colonel Bernstein knew he had altered the tally under duress.

“Walter, I know all about the money. Ralph told me.” That’s all I had to say. We understood each other, without further piquing the curiosity of the interpreter. As far as the attorney was concerned, we were talking about old buried Nazi Reichmarks, something of absolutely no interest to him.

“The medical people gave him a thorough examination,” Reinicke went on to tell me. “Then they gave him some morphine and put him in a full body cast.

“Steinmann spoke to the officer in charge about being released in my care,” Reinicke said. “He told the doctor I was a relation; to make the story more plausible, I told him I would be compensated for my trouble by members of our family.”

I don’t know whether the physician-in-charge believed him, but under the circumstances what else could he do? But he might not have been so eager to be rid of his new patient, not if he knew what Steinmann had been doing that night, and certainly not if he knew what he had been doing when he was injured.

“I brought him back to my place, the same way I transported him there,” Reinicke continued. “One of the attending physicians said he thought there was more than a good chance for almost full recovery. That is all I needed to hear.

“I remembered what you said about locating my family and immediately leaving Berchetsgaden. I did so, but I could not take Steinmann. He never cared anyway; he was full of morphine. He slept soundly all through the bombing a few hours later.”

“Where did you finally keep him?” I asked.

“In my spare bedroom. My sons made a place for themselves in the garage. My family had no objections to the inconvenience, when I told them there was money involved. Food was no problem either. I had access to more food than did anyone else. I was well off. In fact, I stashed a lot of it in the basement of my hotel right after the bombing. The SS did not care. After the bombing, they opened the compound to the townspeople, encouraging them to take what they wanted. But not from my hotel. My sons saw to that.

“The medical people told me what to do, which was to do nothing at all. They told me to leave his cast on for four months, at least. They cautioned me about taking him to a local doctor for any reason.”

He was SS. Both Walter and I knew Steinmann had the organization’s tattoo on his arm. And Walter knew I was aware that Steinmann would’ve been handed over to the authorities and Walter with him if they had found out. There was no need to tell me any of this through the interpreter.

“How did you explain him to your neighbors?” I asked.

“It was no problem. I had another son who was missing, recall I told you about him. We waited a few weeks and then told our friends and neighbors he was home from the War. We told them he had been wounded, and that he had been brought home one night by some of his friends. They accepted this story; no one alerted the authorities. In those days there were no nosy neighbors. Everybody kept to themselves, and they kept their mouths shut and minded their own business. We were all involved in something illegal: the black-market, buying and selling of gasoline, procuring of illegal food stamps. What was one more wounded son more or less?”

It was illegal to harbor a Wermacht veteran, but nobody cared. Now, if they had known who Steinmann really was, I mean if they had known he was SS, then things would have been different. But they didn’t know. And Walter’s immediate neighbors, who knew Steimann was not his son, thought he was Wermacht and kept his presence quiet.

“How long did he stay in the cast? And how was he when you took it off?”

“We kept it on for the required time. And then one of my sons sawed it off with a carpenter’s saw. It was a big event in all our lives. We wanted him out of our home. We wanted him to recover, which he did. But I must say he could not walk by himself at first. He was weak and stiff and in need of a lot of rehabilitation. This took another two months. But at least he could go to the bathroom by himself. We were very tired of nursing him.”

“How did your sons take to all of this?”

“Very well, indeed. Surprisingly well. Of course, there was going to be a big payoff, when he was able to travel to the Berghof. We had all been waiting for this.

“You know there was something funny,” Walter went on to tell me through the interpreter. “I mean about the money he said was buried. We only found part of what he had led us to believe was there. Somebody had been there before us. According to him, that someone had helped himself. Do you find that interesting? Why did they not take it all? We chalked it up to Steinmann exaggerating about how much he really had. We figured if he had not set the amount high, then my sons were not going to be too interested in taking care of him. We supposed he worried about them doing him in or turning him over to your army.

“But he was honest with us. There was plenty left–more than we ever expected. He gave us some of it, and we were satisfied. Strange thing, though, the money Steinmann gave us was the same as that you gave me the night you left in the two German trucks, remember? And another thing, the money you gave us that night was not nearly enough to rebuild the Turken. But we were indebted to Steinmann for the rest of what we needed.”

I said: “I take it then your sons got along with Steinmann. Did they really like each other, or were they just tolerating him because of the promised money?”

“No,” he said, “they genuinely liked each other. They used to sit with him by the hour and talk, sometimes in hushed whispers. And sometimes in English. I suspected they did not want me to hear. I almost believed I was not supposed to know what they were talking about.”

“Why didn’t you ask them?”

“Because I was afraid of Steinmann. And to tell you the truth, I was afraid of my sons. They had changed. I guess a year on the Russian front would change anybody.”

“Tell me something,” I asked, “did anybody come to see you after we left? I mean, did any of the group that was at your place the night you took Steinmann to the hospital, did any of them come back?”

He thought a minute: “Yes, Rolph Wahlmuller came back twice.”

“Did Eric come to see your sons? Was Steinmann still there then?”

“No. I never saw Eric again. As for my sons, they left a few months after the War, just as soon as Steinmann was well. They would come back from time to time and then leave again. They would stay away for long periods without telling me where they had been.”

“Did either of them appear to you to be different. By that I mean, did either of them look different to you after one of their trips home? This might have been in the fall after the War ended? Think about it, Walter. It’s important.”

“No need to,” he said. “My youngest boy had met with some kind of an accident about that time. Neither of them would tell me what happened. I always suspected they were involved in some way with Steinmann; they had been up to no good. When I saw my son’s ears, I knew I was right.”

I should have been flabbergasted at what he just told me. At least I should have been surprised. Somehow I wasn’t.

“Are you going to ask me what happened to him?”

“No. I already know. But I wish I didn’t.” With this last remark, I stood up and reached for my wallet. I overpaid the attorney in cash. The last thing I wanted was for him to know my name by writing a check.

It was time to leave Germany. It was time to have a serious talk with Ralph Wahl back in New York.

Oh, one other thing: I never told Walter his sons had left for the last time and were never coming home. It was a secret between me and Lucy for now. Somehow, I didn’t think he would have cared very much if he had known.