Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

Nat took a deep breath. Gordon had killed a man with his hands, a Bauer minion who had nearly done them in. He wondered if Gordon had told Sabine. Probably. Death was such common currency in those days, and they were fleeing for their lives.

He read on. More train journeys and document checks as they made their way south. Their only close call was with a nosy sentry in Singen until they met a guide near the border town of Binningen. Gordon changed back into civilian clothes, and the guide began leading them to the frontier crossing. Then all hell broke loose.

We left the road and followed a railway line and reached a small wood. We came to a crossroads with a signpost pointing toward Binningen when suddenly we were shot at by German machine guns. It was dark, but there was no cover. Our guide was armed and he fired toward the muzzle flashes in the trees, but the shooting continued. Our guide was hit and fell backward on the tracks. Miss Keller and I dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch. I pulled our guide by his boots into the ditch with us. He was groaning but did not appear to be conscious. The gun was still in his hands and Miss Keller took it and fired back. Soon the firing from the wood stopped.

We tended our guide’s wounds with a kit that he carried, finding sulfa powder and bandages. There was more gunfire. We then heard the movement of soldiers crossing the tracks in the dark to either side of us, at some distance. By then I had taken the gun from Miss Keller, and I fired in both directions. Their muzzles flashed, as did ours, revealing our position, and while taking return fire I was hit in the right leg by several shots at once. I remained conscious but dropped the gun and was in great pain from that point onward. Miss Keller shouted for the soldiers to stop firing, and we gave ourselves up. Our guide was dead. They left him in the ditch and took us with them.

So here was Gordon’s war wound. In the Daily Wildcat exposé, the student hacks had practically made fun of his limp, implying he might even be faking it. No doubt the FBI had fed them that version. Shameful.

Gordon learned that the soldiers who ambushed them were part of an SS patrol that had been dispatched to the area that very day, with orders to disrupt further border crossings by Germans. Had Bauer or Helmdorff had anything to do with the deployment, or had Siekmann relayed the order after the courier returned from Berlin? The timing was certainly suspicious.

Two of the SS men carried me to a truck, where I was shoved onto the front seat, bleeding heavily. The guard stood on the running board, looking for enemy airplanes as they drove to a small farmhouse which seemed to have been abandoned. There was almost no furniture. An Untersturmführer was sitting at a small table with an oil lamp along with a radio operator and half a dozen soldiers. He offered me Jamaica rum while a medic attended to my wounds somewhat roughly. The men checked our papers and emptied the contents of our bags. Miss Keller was taken to another room, and we were interrogated separately for the next hour. They said we had no authorization to be in the area. Seeing my military passport and finding my uniform in the bag, they claimed I was a deserter. I became very weak from loss of blood, and they put me in another room, where I fell asleep.

Breakfast consisted of ersatz coffee, dark bread, and blood sausage, but I was too weak to eat much. I had a fever, and the medic put more sulfa powder on my wounds, which were still very painful. At some point I blacked out. When I came to, it was dark outside and I was on the floor. I had regained some strength but was at first disoriented. For a while I thought I had been abandoned until I heard noises from the adjoining room.

I stood with difficulty and made it to the doorway. A candle was burning in the other room, where two soldiers were forcing themselves on Miss Keller. The first wore a shirt and was naked below the waist. The second was bare-chested, with his trousers around his ankles. He was mounting her while the first one watched. Neither noticed me. One of their guns was propped against the doorway, so I took it and fired, hitting the first soldier. The second one stood and tried to reach his weapon, but he tripped on his trousers. I shot him twice in the head before he could get up. Miss Keller dressed and we left the house.

(Note from 493: At this point in his dictation, Icarus became extremely upset, cursing loudly and thrashing in the bed. Fearing he would do damage to the dressings on his wound, I summoned a nurse, who called for further help and then sedated him. I remained throughout the afternoon and evening while he slept. Later that night we concluded our work after he had eaten dinner. The balance of his report follows. Afterward he asked repeatedly about the current whereabouts of Miss Keller. As instructed, I replied that this information remained classified, whereupon he again became disorderly and demanded that I leave the room.)

Outside the house Miss Keller found that the others had gone on patrol and had left the truck unattended. She helped me onto the seat, and we drove until we had nearly reached the spot of our ambush. We got out of the truck and entered the wood. I could move only with difficulty and was in great pain. We must have covered several hundred yards when I again blacked out. The next moment I remember was awakening in the back of another truck in Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. According to Miss Keller we had crossed the frontier at 03:52.

The narrative ended. It was devastating material-callousness and heroism hand in glove. Gordon had killed three men and had witnessed the gang rape of his lover. Viv was right. Part of Gordon had never come home from the war, and now Nat knew why. It had been forever left behind in a cell in Munich and a farmhouse at the border.

There was an appendix of seven pages that Loofbourow had also recorded, in which Gordon documented various details that Sabine and he had observed along the way, complete with sketches. Much of it concerned conditions in and around Munich-which factories were still running, what was available in the markets, the coal supply, observations on troop positions and gun emplacements.

But the most notable item came last, when Gordon weighed in on the reliability-or lack thereof-of Kurt Bauer. It was useful to Nat because it indicated which way the wind must have been blowing at the American legation with regard to the Bauer family. Its harsh tone also showed how desperate Gordon already was for vengeance. In a sense, Gordon was rendering his first judgment as a historian, and its strong opinions foreshadowed the style that would later mark his scholarly prose.

I am well aware that the inclination in this case will be to regard Magneto II’s misdeeds as youthful errors in judgment, if only because of his family’s perceived importance in rebuilding an industrial base for a new democratic Germany, as a bulwark against Soviet influence. But this forgiving attitude should not be allowed to obscure two important truths:

1) Magneto II’s story to us was a dangerous and intentional lie which led to the death of an OSS guide, plus the injury of one OSS operative and the brutal rape of another.

2) Magneto II’s purported role as a resistance figure has been severely compromised by his evident betrayal of his colleagues to the Gestapo. Although personal considerations may have clouded his judgment, and his young age was almost certainly a factor, it should not be forgotten that his actions resulted in the executions of three courageous individuals.

Good for you, Nat thought. Although it seemed clear that his recommendation had ultimately been ignored. No wonder Dulles had wanted these files shipped directly to Donovan in Washington. Already covering up for the new captain of industry in the fight against the Reds. It explained why Gordon had been so enraged when he came across the files, and why he decided to steal them. The only question now was whether his muttered exclamation-“the cocksucking bastard”-had been a reference to Bauer or to Dulles. It must have been infuriating to learn that the boss who had put your life on the line had sided with the man who almost killed you. It also explained why the CIA would still consider these items too hot to handle, as Steve Wallace had said. That told Nat the Agency probably had other documents, still classified, which must have at least offered an inkling of these events.