Synopsis

in Chapter 2 (KTB #148) ERICH begins his career as a spy, and he lets us know about his love of beautiful women. In Chapter 2 (KTB #159), he was transferred home to Germany and his shipboard romance with Karen ended. In Chapter 3 (KTB #151) he began his training as a spy and learned that a spy who falls in love with an enemy spy - gets shot! In Chapter 4 (KTB #152) ERICH falls for a women who turns out to be a German spy herself, her job was to lure German spies in training to betray themselves - and ERICH is nearly finished as a spy. In Chapter 5 (KTB #153) we read that ERICH was to be in charge of Operation PELIKAN, the effort to blow up the Panama Canal with two Ju 87 STUKA dive bombers brought over on two U-boats. At the last moment, someone tipped off the Americans and the plan was scrapped. In the first part of Chapter 6 (KTB #154) we read of his efforts to recruit a partner for his insertion into the USA. CMAPTER 6 (continued &om KTB #154)

One day a bulging dossier arrived on my desk. Notes, telegrams, newspaper cuttings, reports. It was the 'Pastorius' case, one of the most tragic failures of the German M.I., one of the most dastardly pieces of trickery the war produced.

EDITOR NOTE - He refers to Operation Pastorious in which four agents were landed from U-202 under Hans Linder at Ammaganset, Long Island New York and four more were landed at Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville, Florida from U-584 under Joachim Deeke. This entire plan was full of flaws and the men made it worse during a wild night near the base in France the night before departure. The entire operation should have been scrapped. One of these agents, Georg Dasch, was more Commie than Nazi and he constantly tried to turn the group in to the FBI. Finally the Feds believed him and picked up all eight. Six were executed in the electric chair at Sing-Sing prison, Dasch got 30 years and Ernst Burger was given a life sentence. It was the most fouled-up Intel Op of any side in WW II or probably any other.

I read through the file, page for page. I was anxious to learn all I could from it. The words danced before my eyes. This one file was enough to rob a man of his reason.

The Pastotius plan had been devised by amateurs and carried out by amateurs. And it had cost the lives of six men. When the M.I. had reluctantly taken over the Pastotius plan, I was a trainee. I could still see them before me, the men who went voluntarily to America, among them Herbert Haupt, his gold teeth glittering as he smiled, his eyes clouding over with sadness whenever he spoke of his parents; massive John Kerling, a real dare-devil; handsome Hermann Neubauer who knew his way around so well with women. I saw them before as, laughing, they went aboard the two U-boats which were to take them to America, laden with money, explosives, and the good advice of people who did not know what they were talking about.

A certain Herr Kabbe had devised the plan and become its absentee manager. For he did not accompany the men; he preferred to warm his feet by the fire while they were ploughing across the Atlantic. Their mission was to sabotage the production of aluminum in the U.S.A. Supported by American helpers whose addresses they had with them they were to blow up the factories. They traveled in two U-boats, four men in each.

One group landed on Long Island, near New York, the other group somewhere in Florida. The explosive material bore a German trademark; dollar bills which they had sewn into their belts were partly invalid and considerably short of the proper amounts, these candidates for death having actually been robbed even before they left Germany. All of this was not pure chance, not was it sheer negligence. It was treason.

The two U-boats crossed the Atlantic, The first group to land were surprised by a coast guard as they were burying their explosives, but they did not fully realize what was going on and went home and went to bed. The F.B.I. slept too. Dasch, the leader of the group that landed near New York, betrayed his comrades and became their murderer. He reported the operation to the FBI New York branch. They did not believe him. They did not even make trouble to pass his report on to Washington. Dasch went to Washington and was laughed at there. It was not until he put 80,000 dollars down on the table that they began to take him seriously.

The fate of the men who had come to America to fight for Germany was now sealed. The fate of Herbert Neubauer, Heinrich Heinch, Richard Quirin, Werner Thiel, Herbert Haupt, and Edward Kerling.

They were put under constant watch. Their photographs were in every police station file. They visited relations, friends and helpers in the States. This, of course, they had been strictly forbidden to do but they were only beginners and one could hardly expect them to do otherwise.

And so, unknowing, they dragged their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, and their sisters down into the abyss with them. The F.B.I. kept a record of every visit they made. Anyone who had spoken with them and did not later give evidence against them was for it. That is universal practice.

The men of Operation Pastorius were suddenly arrested.

The hearing was in New York. There were eight death sentences, and a pardon for Dasch, the traitor, and a pardon for Barger who was the only man who could prove that he had not come to America voluntarily but had been coerced. Roosevelt immediately confirmed the death sentences. Six men awaited their end.

I read on. I forced myself to it. Now it came, the horrible, incredible end. I looked at the photographs and read the reports of the last hours of my predecessors. It had all been recorded with American precision - how the end had come, how the men had died, how the executioners drew rubber masks over the distorted faces so that only the eyes and noses protruded, how they were fastened to the chair and how once more the death sentence was read over to them.

You sit in the chair and cannot move. Then the button is pressed. The current is turned on, but every body reacts differently. There is no norm. It depends on the heart, the weight, the individual sensitivity to electricity. With one it may happen quickly, another may take longer. In some cases three shocks are necessary.

I tried to imagine how my predecessors had prepared themselves for death: Kerling would have been defiant and stubborn, Haupt would have broken down completely, Quirin would have been in despair, Theil would have been quite detached. No pardon, no mercy, no words of comfort.

On my desk lay a photograph of the car in which their bodies had been taken away after execution. The bodies of the men who had gone to America before me. Men whom I was to follow, who had died, betrayed, betrayed by their comrade, Georg Dasch.

But he was by no means the only traitor. There were others in Berlin, in a section of M.I. which spied upon the other section. The Americans claimed that they knew about Operation Pastorius even before the U-boats left Germany, that they had got the information from a high German authority and had paid for it with coffee which was sent into Germany via Switzerland.

I wanted to thrust my thoughts away from me. The traitors had not yet been caught. Would I be betrayed too? Would there be the fragrance of coffee somewhere in Germany while the hangman was putting the rope around my neck?

I had two days in which to complete my preparations. My department insisted on taking out a Life Insurance Policy for me

"Well look after that," said Dr. S. "Naturally the affair will be camouflaged. We will go on paying the premium for you. If anything happens to you, your dependents will get 100,000 marks. You have only to say to whom the money should be paid."

"To my father," I replied.

We spent the last evening in Berlin in the FOrstenhof hotel. There were three of us. My girl friend, Margarete, Billy and I. We sat in the lounge and drank wine. Billy was drunk. Now and again he would stand up and say something in English.

"Keep your mouth shut," we told him each time.

As he caused so much trouble we had forbidden him to open his mouth in public. In his suitcase lay the uniform of a German naval lieutenant. For the 46 days of the U-boat voyage, Billy, who could not speak a word of German, was to be promoted naval lieutenant.

"I shall never see you again," said Margarete.

"Nonsense," I replied.

"The whole thing is hopeless. Everyone says so."

"They would do better to keep quiet," I replied.

Margarete indicated Billy. "I don't trust him for an instant," she said. "You wait, hell give you away."

"I don't think so," I replied.

"What's she saying? " asked Billy.

"You keep your mouth shut," I replied.

"Just look at his ape-like arms," continued Margarete, "and his eyes. He can never look you straight in the face. You've certainly got a nice one there. The pride of Amt VI. You've got some surprises in store!"

We went on drinking. We got merry. We got sad. We stayed another hour in the Nirstenhof Just as we were getting up to go, a Nazi district leader in uniform entered the crowded lounge. He was drunk. "Listen folks," he said, "the whole of London is on fire! The new secret weapon is in operation. London is in flames! The world has never seen anything like it before."

He turned round in every direction. "Heil Hitler!" he shouted.

"Shut up," said Billy in German. They were the only German words that he had learned from us.

The resplendent official was hanging on to the back of a chair.

"All together now, three Sieg Heils for our Fuhrer!"

No one made a sound. He thrust his hand and pointed from table to table. "After the war," he said, "well hang the whole lot of you, and I'll bury you all.'

"That's a nice send-off for you," said Margarete to me.

We still had four hours to go. In four hours' time we had to say farewell to our personal happiness. We were conscious of every minute and kept looking at our watches. Margarete was looking especially charming in a tight-fitting coat and skirt. Her face was white and the paleness suited her. We did not want to talk about Elster but somehow we always strayed back to the same subject. You always do think about the very thing that you most want to put out of your mind.

Margarete wanted to come to the U-boat with me, but that was not allowed. Not only because the mission was a top priority secret affair, but because U-boat men are superstitious and say "a long hair in the screw will make the boat sink." Also no flowers were allowed on board. "Flowers turn a boat into a coffin."

Billy and I traveled to Kiel in civilian dress. My companion was beginning to show signs of nervousness. Up to this moment he had borne himself splendidly.

He was delighted with his role as supporting hero and felt specially intrepid after a few drinks. He was given the agent's number 146/2, an appendage, so to speak, of Gimpel. My department trusted him completely; to them the seemed made-to- measure for our requirements.

Our equipment was loaded onto the ship: two kit-bags with extra strong padlocks. They contained 60,000 dollars, diamonds to the value of 100,000 dollars, automatic pistols, radio parts, photographic apparatus and invisible ink. I had systematically practiced stowing my long legs in the U-boat. I was by no means the right proportions for a U-boat sailor and until I got used to it. I ached in every limb. My arrival in Kiel was a minor sensation for the U-boat men. They took me for a real chief engineer.

The U-boat which was to land me in Frenchman Bay was commanded by First-Lieutenant Hilbig.

(ED NOTE - He refers to HANS HILBIG #186-1986).

We got on famously from this first moment. He had instructions to avoid any encounters on route. Only he knew about Operation Elster.

We got a great send-off as was usual with U-boats leaving port.

I narrowly escaped making as awful gaffe when three U-boat commanders presented themselves to me, and besieged me with technical questions.

"What's the position with radar, Sir?' they asked. "Are there still no counter-measures? You know of course how things are with our defense apparatus."

'Yes," I replied, "I know how things are."

I extricated myself as well as I could. I told them that it was precisely for that reason that I was embarking on this voyage -- to gather experience connected with radar research.

"Hilbig's in luck's way," said one of the U-boat commanders.

"He would have to be the one to get the C.E. on board, while we're still doing the hell-or-heaven stretch."

The crew of U-1230 had mustered, officers to the right, other ranks to the left, Colepaugh and I among the officers. Lieutenant Hilbig presented the crew to the Commander of the base.

"Get moving, men," said the Commander. "I know your voyage is no pleasure trip. It isn't the first time you've done it. I wish you a safe return, from the bottom of my heart. I wish you good luck and success. Just remember that everything you do is for the Fatherland, for Greater Germany."

The mothers, the wives and the children of the crew were standing in 'the background. They all looked as if they had been weeping. They were two to three hundred yards away from us and perhaps some stray words of the speech were reaching them on the wind. The Commander came up to us and shook hands. When he looked at me he faltered for a moment and then quickly took his leave.

The crew were allowed another ten minutes to go to their lovedones. As I watched the scenes of parting I felt relieved I was alone.

The last preparations for sailing had been made. I ran over my luggage just once more. Billy stood by my side, silent, bewildered, anxious. I gave him a clap on the back,

"Now we're off, Billy," I said. "Are you scared?"

"Not specially," he replied.

"Now we shall see," I said.

We went on board. An engineer guided me through the boat, explaining the technicalities, but was I not listening, my thoughts were working independently, swinging between Margarete and my American mission.

Billy did not move from my side.

"Here are the Diesel engines. We call them Hein and Fietje."

I nodded. I was longing for a cigarette.

"I'm sorry, that's not allowed," said the engineer, "You may smoke only in the tower because of the danger of explosion. You'll soon get used to it."

A few minutes later we sailed off into our grim adventure.

Spy for Germany

Chapter 7: To America by Submarine (KTB # 156)
Chapter 8: The Landing in America (KTB # 157)
Chapter 9: Tricked by Billy in NYC (KTB # 158)
Chapter 10 (I): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 159)
Chapter 10 (II): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 160)
Chapter 11 (I): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 161)
Chapter 11 (II): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 162)
Chapter 12 (I): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 163)
Chapter 12 (II): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 164)
Chapter 13 (I): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 165)
Chapter 13 (II): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 166)
Chapter 13 (III): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 167)
Chapter 14 (I): In the Shadow of the Hangman (KTB # 168)
Chapter 14 (II): In the Shadow of the Hangman (KTB # 169)
Chapter 15 (I): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 170)
Chapter 15 (II): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 172)
Chapter 15 (III): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 173)