Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

Dasch turned for help to someone he had known in America: his wife’s cousin, Reinhold Barth, who gave him an introduction to Walter Kappe of the Abwehr. After questioning Dasch in detail about his experiences in America, Kappe told him he was “crazy” to want to join the army and unlikely to last two weeks there. 14Instead he proposed helping Dasch find a job in the Nazi Party office that monitored foreign broadcasts. For his radio monitoring work, he would receive a salary of 525 marks a month, a respectable sum by wartime standards. When Dasch said he felt he should be doing “something bigger and better for my country,” Kappe told him to be patient. “In due time, I will call on you.” 15

The monitoring work consisted of listening to foreign radio broadcasts, and transcribing and translating anything that might interest senior Nazi officials. Dasch spent up to eight hours every day, six days a week, with his ears glued to headphones, listening to crackly American news broadcasts coming in over shortwave frequencies from places like New York, Ankara, and Cairo. He paid particular attention to commentators like Cyrus Sulzberger and Martin Agronsky who were believed to reflect the views of the American establishment. A teletype machine connected the monitoring station to the offices of Nazi leaders, allowing them to receive Dasch’s translations virtually simultaneously.

Toward the end of November, after he had been working at the monitoring station for six months, Dasch received another summons from Kappe. The Abwehr lieutenant made him sign an oath of secrecy, and then asked if he would like to “go back to America.” 16He proceeded to give Dasch a sketchy outline of a plan to carry out sabotage attacks against American industry. It was a few days before Pearl Harbor, and the United States was still officially neutral, but Kappe explained that America was helping Germany’s enemies and had thus become an “indirect enemy” of the Third Reich.

“It is time for us to attack them.”

Dasch told Kappe he was ready for anything.

His mother had always urged him to do something “bigger and better” with his life—and now that dream seemed closer than ever to fulfillment. He was going back to America as leader of a special wartime mission for the Fatherland. His boyish delight at his new role was reflected in the password he gave his parents to authenticate any message he succeeded in sending back to them while he was away. For this latest adventure, he would be known to his family by his old childhood nickname: Knöppel.

THE FURLOUGH had a particularly bittersweet quality for Hermann Neubauer, the young soldier wounded on the Russian front. Neubauer had an American wife whom he had met while working at the Chicago World’s Fair in the summer of 1933. When Neubauer decided it was his duty to return to Germany in 1940 to fight for the Fatherland, Alma had been strongly opposed, even though her family was also of German origin. She remained behind in Chicago. He eventually persuaded her to join him, and she arrived in Berlin around Easter, 1941.

Alma spoke scarcely any German and had a hard time adapting to life in Hitler’s Berlin. The living conditions were terrible, at least from an American perspective, and everyone seemed suspicious of the pretty young girl from Chicago. Soon after her arrival, Neubauer was ordered to report to his unit. By midsummer, he was in Russia. The only tangible reminders of their married life were some snapshots of Hermann in uniform in some miserable Russian village and hastily scribbled notes saying he expected to be sent into action soon. A few weeks later, he was back in Germany, in a military hospital in Stuttgart.

And now Neubauer was going back to the United States as a saboteur while his wife, the pampered daughter of a Republican precinct captain who had never wanted to come to Germany in the first place, was staying behind in the Third Reich. What made the situation even worse was that he was not allowed to say where he was going. He told her simply that he expected to be sent back to Russia.

They had spent most of his furlough on a farm outside the former “free town” of Danzig, the Baltic port city that had served as the pretext for Hitler’s blitzkrieg attack on Poland. The farm belonged to one of Hermann’s aunts. It was easier to get food in the countryside than in the cities, and Neubauer said he wanted some peace and quiet before returning to the front. To Alma, her husband seemed depressed and unhappy. He spent much of the holiday complaining about severe headaches and talked with foreboding about the hardships he would have to endure in Russia.

On their last day on the farm, Hermann told Alma to get ready to go to Berlin, where he was to meet some friends before reporting back to his company. He mentioned one of his officers by name, saying, “I must see Herr Kappe in Berlin concerning arrangements for our journey to Russia.” 17

The evening after their arrival in Berlin, Hermann took his wife to a tavern “to meet some friends and fellow soldiers.” The dimly lit dining room was practically deserted, except for a long table in the middle, at which sat a dozen men and three women. The orchestra was playing English and American music, and Alma concluded that the entire tavern had been specially reserved for the group. As soon as she and Hermann approached the table, all the men rose to their feet with a collective clicking sound, and the conversation died down.

The only person she recognized was Eddie Kerling, an old friend of Hermann’s from the States. Eddie and Hermann had shared many adventures, including the failed attempt to cross the Atlantic on the yacht Lekala. When Alma and Hermann were married in January 1940, Eddie had served as best man. Six months later, Hermann and Eddie had returned to Germany together.

Whenever Alma had met him before, Kerling had been smiling and upbeat. But on this occasion, he too seemed downcast. He mentioned how much he wanted to see his wife, Marie, whom he had left behind in America.

Hermann made no attempt to introduce Alma to anyone at the table, other than a mumbled “This is my wife.” The conversation was dominated by a fat, middle-aged man who sat at the middle of the table. This man was evidently the “Herr Kappe” Hermann had mentioned as his reason for coming to Berlin. Kappe in turn lavished most of his attention on a young, well-dressed woman with dyed red hair sitting next to him. Since smart clothes were practically unavailable in wartime Berlin, Alma guessed that the woman was probably a prostitute.

After ordering a couple of rounds of drinks for the rest of the group, Hermann and Alma got up and left. They were accompanied to the door by Kerling, who told Alma that he and Hermann would be leaving very soon for the Russian front.

Back in the hotel, Alma poured out all her frustrations and disappointments, telling Hermann that he should have stayed with her in America. 18She felt as if she was being constantly watched. The police had kept on asking why she didn’t go to work, why she didn’t have a baby, what her family did back in the United States. She was being treated like a criminal.

They said goodbye the following morning. As they hugged and kissed, Hermann seemed more than usually emotional, telling Alma this might be the last time they would ever see each other.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC conspirator, Walter Kappe maintained two different offices in Berlin. His official office was in room 1025 of the headquarters of the German High Command, at Tirpitzüfer 76⁄78, on the Landwehr canal near the Tiergarten in the heart of the imperial city. Abwehr II, the sabotage division of military intelligence, occupied one wing of the handsome four-story classical building, which had been built on the eve of World War I. Sixty years later, the same building would house the ministry of defense of a reunited Germany.