Synopsis

In Chapter 1 (KTB #148) ERICH begins his career as a spy, and he lets us know of his love of beautiful women. In Chapter 2 (KTB #149), 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 he learned that a spy who falls in love with an enemy spy – gets shot! In Chapter 4 (KTB #152) we read where ERICH himself falls for a woman who turned out to be a German spy herself and her job was to lure German spies in training to betray themselves – and ERICH is nearly washed out of spy training. In Chapter 5 (KTB #153) we learned that ERICH was to be in charge of Operation PELIKAN, the plan to blow up the Panama Canal with two Ju 87 STUKA dive bombers brought over on two U-boats. At the last moment, it was thought by the German agency, that someone had tipped off the Americans to this plot, so the plan was scrapped. In Chapter 6 (KTB #154 and KTB #155) we read how ERICH and the Abwehr tried to find him a partner for his mission into the USA with the intended purpose of sabotaging the Manhattan Project – the atomic bomb project in the United States. In Chapter 7 (KTB #156) we read about the Atlantic crossing to the USA where ERICH and Billy were to be put ashore to assault the ‘Manhattan Project’. In Chapter 8 (KTB #157), the two agents landed on the coast of Maine, ready to begin their sabotage of the atomic bomb project. In Chapter 9 (KTB #158) ERICH gets the shock of learning that Billy has taken all the money and the diamonds, and deserted not only the mission, but ERICH as well. In the first part of Chapter 10 (KTB #159) ERICH is trying desperately to find Billy – and get his $60,000 and diamonds back. In the balance of Chapter 10, we see how ERICH outwitted Billy and got his suitcases, filled with money and spy equipment back – at Billy’s expense but in the meantime to nobody’s surprise, ERICH has found another woman. In chapter 11, ERICH is doing well with this new woman, an old contact is going to tell him about the Manhattan Project - but his time is running out and Billy is about to betray him to the F.B.I. In Chapter 12, ERICH was happily spending Christmas with Joan, but his tour of duty as a spy – and his life, were almost over. He was arrested by the F.B.I. and headed for the gallows. In Chapter 13, he's grilled by the F.B.I.

Chapter 14 (I): In the Shadow of the Hangman

In my prison cell in Fort Jay, New York State, to which I had been moved after the F.B.I. interrogations had been brought to a close, I became acquainted with the dull, crushing monotony of prison life and the feeling of inward rebellion against it. My cell was a sort of wire cage through the mesh of which it was just possible to push a cigarette. It was kept immaculately clean and big enough to enable me to walk six steps forward and six steps backwards. It was lit by a 200 watt lamp which burned throughout the day and night. A camp bed provided a minimum degree of comfort for sleeping.

I had now become a captive of the American Army. My fellow prisoners in Fort Jay, whom I saw only rarely, were American soldiers serving sentences for insubordination, cowardice and similar military delinquencies. The guards were men of the military police. The warders wore military uniforms and had military rank. One of them, Corporal Kelly, used to push cigarettes through the cage for me and would stand guard so that I should not be caught enjoying my forbidden smoke.

“My brother,” he explained, “is a prisoner of war in Germany, and I only hope he’s got a warder who can carry on like a human being.”

I hoped so too. I had got out of the way of recoiling at the harshness of war, but was very much affected whenever in the midst of it all I came across a man who thought and acted in a human way.

I was the pride of Fort Jay and was visited every day by high-ranking service officers. Three or four times a day the door would be opened, the sentry would call “Attention!” and I would grasp my trousers (my belt having been taken away just as my show laces had been removed as a suicide precaution), and stagger towards the staff officers.

They were, without exception, friendly and chivalrous towards me. They enquired searchingly as to how I was treated, whether the quality of the food was to my satisfaction and if I had any requests. They were unfailingly granted so far as lay within their power.

It took me some time to get accustomed to this treatment. I simply could not understand why they should treat an enemy so fairly. The treatment meted out to me was quite different from which fell to the lot of my Judas friend, Billy Colepaugh. I had already noticed with the F.B.I. that they were particularly nice to me whenever Billy was around. It went something like this:

“Is there anything you want, Mr. Gimpel?” from the warder.

“No, thank you.”

“Have you any complaints?”

“No complaints, either.”

“Unfortunately I may not bring you whisky, but perhaps we can offer you some other form of refreshment?”

“Bring me a Coca-Cola.”

Once a colonel visited me. “How far do you walk each day?” he asked. I looked at him uncomprehendingly. “They do allow you exercise, don’t they, Mr. Gimpel?”

“I do all my walking in my cell.” I replied.

His face colored up, and he had the officer of the guard called. “Every prisoner has the right to fresh air!” he barked at him, “Can you explain why you haven’t allowed Mr. Gimpel to leave his cell?”

“How can I sir?” answered the Captain. “I have strict instructions not to allow him any contact with the other prisoners.”

“Then just lock up the others for the required length of time.” Said the colonel. He offered me a cigarette, lit it for me and added: “It won’t do these fellows any harm.”

After that, every day at dusk I was allowed to take a turn in the enormous courtyard of Fort Jay. The guards watched me at my exercise. Once they clapped as I passed them, and the cook asked me if the food he prepared was to my liking. I was, as I have said, the pride of Fort Jay. Another prisoner was the former trumpet soloist of Benny Goodman’s orchestra. He performed every evening to the delight of guards and prisoners and instead of the Last Post, he played “Goodnight Baby.” He had been sentenced on account of some military misdeed, and was soon to be released. His warders granted his every wish. They all enjoyed his music.

I had been about three weeks in Fort Jay when things took a serious turn. I was told that Major Charles E. Reagin and Major John E. Haigney had come to see me. I was taken to the visitors’ room. Both men were middle-aged, slim and very personable. They were extremely nice to me and introduced themselves with such perfect courtesy that we might have been meeting at the Waldorf Astoria for a business conference.

“If you are agreeable,” they began, “we are prepared to take on your defense.”

“I am most grateful to you, “ I replied. “Of course I am agreeable,”

“We are familiar with your evidence,” said Reagin. “From the legal points of view, your case is quite clear.”

“Yes,” I said.

We sat down and cigarettes were handed round. “We will conduct your defense with every means at our disposal, that we can promise you. We can also assure you that the court will in no way limit your defense. As a matter of fact, the court has just recently assembled. President Roosevelt directed the matter personally.”

“And what do you think my chances are?” I asked.

The major looked me calmly in the eye. “Legally speaking,” he replied, “they’re nil. You must know that as well as I do. I think it would be foolish to have any illusions on that score.”

I nodded.

“However, in spite of that I do not regard your case as hopeless,” continued Reagin.. “If Germany capitulates, that will probably save your life, but if the war goes on, you’ll be hanged. It’s really a race between your life & the end of the war. It can’t go on much longer. The Russians are at the Oder and our troops are in the Ruhr.”

“You’ve certainly brought me some good news,” I said.

“We must drag out the proceedings as long as we possibly can,” Reagin went on. “And I’ll tell you this – we’ll use every trick we can think up; we’ll make things as difficult for the prosecution as we possibly can. In the first place we’ll delay the start of the case. We’ve not yet completed our study of the documents. That will dispose of a week. And now listen carefully to what I have to say.”

The major got to his feet and paced up and down the room. He had a fresh, healthy complexion. On his left breast he wore a row of medal ribbons. He spoke with emphasis but without raising his voice, and underlined his words with economical, unobtrusive gestures.

“They will call you into the witness box. They will ask you if you are guilty or not guilty. If you say you are guilty you are as good as dead already. Don’t worry about the depositions you have already made to the F.B.I. That counts for nothing in a court of law. Just stand up there and think and do what you like – as far as I am concerned you can scratch your backside if you want to – but whatever else you do, say as loudly as you can – NOT GUILTY!”

The two majors shook hands with me and departed. Both had a fine reputation in the Army. They were the best counsel I could have had and they went all out for me in such a way that it was hard to imagine that they belonged to a people against whom I had been sent to spy.

“It was bad luck,” Major Haigney had said to me at our first meeting, “that you were caught, but you’re fortunate in that you will appear before an American court. Just think what it would have been like if you had been on the other side and had fallen into the hands of the Reich Security, for instance.”

The distractions which the warders did their best to provide for me, the chivalrous treatment and the businesslike conversations with my counsel could not close my eyes to the one ghastly certainty that my days were numbered.

Any court martial in the world would sentence me to death. That was beyond all possible doubt, and there could be no appeal against this judgment. It was unalterable. I could present a plea for pardon to the American President but it would only be a waste of paper.

When you have perhaps only three or four more weeks of life in front of you, the tendency is to thrust aside all thought of the final hour. But at the end of each day the thought that you’re one day nearer the grave comes home with added force. You can think of death in a manly way when you’ve not been sentenced to death, but heroics die a natural death of their own in the shadow of the scaffold. Before you meet your own death, the phrase “Death for the Fatherland!” dies. Those who preached it did not, alas, die that way.

The anxiety, the fear, the horror, came ever closer and I became their prey. I counted the meshes in my wire cage – once I got to ten thousand – but while I tried to divert myself by some mechanical means, fear clawed at my back, dried up my mouth and caused the sweat to stream from my pores. Sometimes I tore up and down like a madman, racking my brains night and day for some possibility of escape from prison or some legal loopholes to escape the hangman.

During this period, in the course of which my mind and my nerves were approaching breaking point, I received another visit from some senior American officers. A colonel and two majors had me called to the Interrogation Room. The colonel was tall and broad-shouldered and looked like an overfed physical training instructor. One of his companions was short and frail looking and had a pale, pointed face with a somewhat fanatical expression. The other wore an ash blond moustache on a completely expressionless face. I always took a good look at every visitor I had as I was glad of any break in the monotony, however meaningless.

“How do you do?” said the colonel. “Do sit down. Can I offer you a cigarette?”

“Thank you.”

He pushed a whole pack of Camels across the table to me. “We’ve come straight from Washington,” he began. “It was a long journey, but let’s hope it will prove worth while for you.”

I listened carefully.

“You know what lies in front of you?”

“I’m being reminded of it half a dozen times every day.” I replied.

He stood up and walked round the table. He had a long cigar between his fat fingers and puffed quick little clouds of blue smoke into the air. “We are from the O.S.S.,” he said, “the Office of Strategic Service. You know, of course, what that is.”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’ve already met some of your agents somewhere.”

The O.S.S. was the military espionage organization of the United States. The German M.I. had sparred with it with varying degrees of skill.

“We have a proposition to put to you…..you don’t have to make up your mind at once, but in any case, listen carefully.”

He remained standing. “Who do you think is going to win the war?” he asked. I remained silent.

“Come, come,” he said jovially. “Let’s leave hopes and fears on one side for the moment. You’ve got a good head – use it! Have you really any doubt that we are going to win the war?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said. “Germany hasn’t a chance now.”

“That may be so.”

“It is so.”

The thin major with the fanatical expression now took a hand in the conversation. “I’ll be delighted to give you the details,: he said. “Yesterday there was a particularly heavy air attack on Berlin. Field Marshall Model has shot himself in the Ruhr. Eleven Gauleiters have deserted. If you like, I’ll give you the names. The German people, or at any rate those who have taken no part in the war crimes, want only one thing – peace. Every day by which the war is shortened means less bloodshed. And it’s mostly German blood that’s being shed now.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“I’m glad you’re amicable to reason,” said the major. “I think we’re going to get along well together.”

“What actually do you want with me?”

“You are going to be hanged,” said the colonel.

“Thanks to your readiness to give information, that fact is already abundantly clear to me.”

There was a pause, and I looked from one officer to the other. The massive colonel appeared to be quite indifferent. The major with the fanatical expression was staring out of the window. The third officer was carefully studying his well kept fingernails. There was plenty of time, time for everyone, except me. For me, time had run out – or hadn’t it?

“You could work for us,” said the colonel. I remained silent.

“You can, for example, sit at your Morse keyboard and make a few transmissions to Germany which interest us.”

“So you want me to turn into a double crosser?”

“Put it that way if you must,” replied the colonel.

“It would be treason.”

“No,” interrupted the colonel. “I believe in present circumstances it would be the greatest service you could do your country.”

“You would be preventing more bloodshed,” said one major.

“And you would save your own head,” put in the other. “I imagine that is an argument you won’t want to dismiss out of hand.”

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)