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. In Chapter 14, he faces the probability of the hangman. In Chapter 15, he's sentenced to death. In 16, he's sized up by the handman.

Chapter 17 (I): Germany's Capitulation Saves My Life

The truth of what the officer had said was confirmed on the morning appointed for my execution. It did not take place. A few hours later, relayed by all American radio stations, the ceremonial obsequies for Franklin Delano Roosevelt began. I listened to everything and understood nothing. I had to get used to the idea that I was still alive, I had to thank pure chance that I was not already hanged, and adjustment to the new situation came slowly. The congratulations of my warders were almost overwhelming.

They all wanted to shake me by the hand. A sergeant was laughing: “We’d rather have you alive than dead.”

“That goes for me too,” I replied. No one took it amiss that I preferred Roosevelt’s death to my own.

Four weeks postponement! What an eternity it seemed, and at the same time, how short a respite! The war in Europe was approaching its end by leaps and bounds. You could almost work it out on your fingers when the last bomb would be dropped. Capitulation was imminent. But how imminent? Days? Weeks? My counsel was confident. All America was confident. I wanted to be confident too, but one day I ran into my hangman in the yard at Fort Jay, and once more I became anxious and unsettled.

Germany’s capitulation happened, so to speak, with the utmost punctuality, and once more I received congratulations from every side. I waited impatiently for my final pardon, but it did not come. Still, there was no talk about hanging. It seemed as if they had simply forgotten all about me.

Then I was moved. In American style. I was dragged through half America in handcuffs, the handcuffs being required by regulations, for which my escorts apologized at least three times a day. There were some remarkable scenes – people starred at me, schoolboys ran after me, and shoppers in the streets stood to watch me go by.

My journey took me by long-distance express train through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to Missouri. At St. Louis, we had to leave our comfortable train for a six-hour wait.

My escorting officer said, “I want to look up some friends here, and I can’t take you around with me so I’ll put you in the city jail for a few hours.”

“All right,” I said.

“I don’t know what the food’s like there,” he continued, “so I think we’d better eat out.”

We stayed at the station restaurant and never in my life have I eaten in such strange circumstances. There was a private dining room there, but this was occupied by a choral society, so we had to go into the main part of the restaurant.

My handcuffs were now removed, but my guard was not going to miss an opportunity for a piece of real American showmanship and he placed four tall military policemen around the table with their machine guns trained straight on to my plate. They looked very war-like, standing with their arms at the ready while I ate my steak.

The table next to us was occupied by some members of the WACS (American Women’s Army Corps) and they kept looking over at me. They evidently thought that I was an American soldier who was being punished for some military misdeed and kept making rude noises at my guards and sticking their tongues out. One of them, a tall slim blonde, went up to the officer in charge and said, “Don’t make such heavy weather of it boys, or are you afraid of him?”

The officer kept a straight face and the girls went on making fun of him. I ate my ice cream, then they took me to the city jail in a jeep. “You’ll survive a few hours here,” said my escort.

I was taken in charge by a tough looking warder. While the formalities of introductions were taking their course, I had to put my hands on the table as everything was taken out of my pockets and listed. This did not amount to a great deal. Above the desk of the guard on duty I read a sign in large letters which said: “If you don’t like it, tell us. If you do like it, tell your friends.”

I had to laugh out loud.

“There’s no need to put you in a cell,” said the warder, who was much nicer after my guard had withdrawn. “You look like such a good boy. What have you been up to? Are you hungry?”

“No,” I replied.

“You’ll soon get used to eating,” he replied. “None of them are hungry when they first come in, but when they go out – they’re all eating like horses.”

I was put in a cell for a few hours after all, and then I was fetched. My journey continued by car right across Missouri to Kansas. I was then delivered to Leavenworth prison and my escorts took friendly leave of me.

I was put into the Fort at the outset. I was later transferred to the civilian penitentiary but during those first few days, I came in contact with death in the most horrible way.

Five German soldiers were executed. It was all quite senseless. Just because they had declined to petition the American President for pardon….. They had been prisoners of war. Two opposing factions had come into being in their camp, one of which cooperated with the Americans, the other working against them. Certain denunciations had been made and men were continually being betrayed to camp authorities.

The prisoner responsible for these betrayals lost a letter and this led to his being found out. There was a skirmish and in the course of it, he was lynched. In the heat of the moment the camp authorities grabbed five men as scapegoats. Whether they were in any way guilty in fact, no one knew but they were sentenced to death for murder.

The sentence would immediately have been set aside if they had agreed to present a petition for pardon, but one of the five, a fanatical Nazi, declared: “As a German soldier, I refuse to petition an American President.”

The five condemned men remained obdurate to all pleas, threats or arguments and just let themselves be hanged in Fort Leavenworth. I saw them a few hours before their end, their faces pale and distorted with hatred. They were the war’s last fanatics…..

EDITOR NOTE – it would appear that ERICH had been given a dose of mis-information about this case. Research confirms that this was not a case of one faction opposing another, it was a case of one German PoW being used as a snitch by the American military and there is evidence that he was tortured to force him to be an informant. When he was discovered, he was indeed killed by his fellow PoWs – the same as any other nation’s prisoners would do in similar circumstances.

There was a quick kangaroo court and the men were condemned to death. We have not seen any evidence that they had the opportunity to save themselves by making a petition to the President – not at all.

The men were hanged, according to reports, by having a rope placed around their necks and simply being shoved into an open elevator shaft. There was no scientific determination of how long the rope should be and in one report, one man’s head was snapped off due to a long drop.

It appears that the men are buried in ground that is not consecrated and reports indicate that they were placed in their coffins in a FACE DOWN position. There have been sporadic attempts to various groups to have this travesty corrected and to have the bodies taken up and given a Christian burial. So far, there has not been any sustained effort to really get this accomplished, and so they remain…..

The Leavenworth penitentiary houses more than 2,400 prisoners. I was given number 62008. I was now among the men who were to be my constant companions for the next ten years of my life – bank robbers, thieves, murderers and procurers. They had all earned their criminal records and were proud of them. Prisons have their own quite rigid hierarchy. At the top of the tree are the bank robbers, but murderers are outsiders. Petty thieves rank as small fry while burglars and housebreakers are well regarded. As for the procurers, no one can abide them.

Spies occupied no clearly defined place in the criminal hierarchy. They were assessed according to the way in which they conducted themselves in captivity. The same applied to the elite of the American communists who were my fellow prisoners for a while. They and I succeeded in achieving good rank and high prestige.

But I am anticipating. First I entered the quarantine block where I had to stay for four weeks. Quarantine must have been an invention of the devil. Everyone concerned seemed to take a positive delight in my discomfiture. I, for my part, thought it would be a matter of taking certain hygienic measures but it was in fact, a sort of novitiate training to accustom the prisoner to the discipline, the drill and the change over to a new way of life with a number and striped clothing.

The warders wore uniforms. Some of them were men, some were machines, and I was to have some interesting experiences with them, to say the least. I did not at all like the man who received me at the quarantine block. He had a coarse, florid face, shouted louder than was necessary and used insulting and offensive forms of expression to tease and torment me. It was just as well that he did only six hours duty at a time and was then relived. The man who took over from him was more tolerable, but even he was by no means as good natured as he looked.

“Oh, ho,” he said. “So your name’s Gimpel. Funny name. Now what have you been up to? Oh, espionage! Well, you should have left that alone. You’ll realize that. You’ll have plenty of time to think about it.”

The prisoners called him the Pumpkin. All the warders had nick names. All their peculiarities, their habits, their gestures were keenly observed by the prisoners, and many of them were almost completely in the prisoners’ hands. The Pumpkin pursued a middle path. Working in the quarantine block, he had an easier time than his colleagues outside. After all, he was occupied with beginners and he could always fall back on having the regulations tightened up.

There were twenty of us and we were isolated. Our course of instruction was to begin on the following morning, in the lecture room to start with. The Inspector appeared in person. “Smoking is not allowed,” he said. “Anyone found smoking will be sent to the ‘house’.”

The ‘house’. That was solitary confinement with bread and water, and no exercise.

“We want no laughing here. no walking – everything at the double. If a warder speaks to you, you must stand to attention at once and answer ‘YES or ‘NO. if there is any answering back you will be sent to the ‘house’. The same applies for any rudeness or carelessness.”

He went on barking out his lecture. He had given it every month for twenty years. his face was grey and drawn. He had trouble with his stomach and dyspeptic prison overseers are never popular.

“You may go to church if you wish every Sunday. You may have your hair cut once a month. You may take a shower twice a week. If you behave yourself you can go to the cinema once a week but there won’t be any crime films or love films. You already know how criminals carry on and you don’t need love in here. If you work you get paid and you can buy chocolate, biscuits, sweets, shaving soap and cigarettes in the canteen. You can have two packs of cigarettes a week. That’s enough for you.” He ran his eyes over us, then he continued with his lecture.

This doesn’t sound like any fun at all! More of ERICH’s story in KTB #178 next month, and at the end of the story – what really did happen to the beautiful Joan Kennedy?

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)
Chapter 16 (I): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 174)
Chapter 16 (II): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 175)
Chapter 16 (III): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 176)
Chapter 17 (I): Germany's Capitulation Saves My Life (KTB # 177)