Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler Part 14

166 Junkers Ju 290: Baumbach, Broken Swastika; see also The a.s.sociated Press, Travemunde, June 16, 1945 (delayed dispatch).

166 "flight plan": Thomas and Ketley, KG 200.

168 "I must stay with my men": Baumbach, Broken Swastika.

168 "dismantled": On June 19, 1945, the London Daily Express-under the headline "Is. .h.i.tler in Spain?"-described the arrival of a German trimotor aircraft carrying a mysterious pa.s.senger who was "saluted deferentially despite his civilian clothes.... His face m.u.f.fled in a raincoat, the pa.s.senger stepped from the plane to the smart n.a.z.i salute of its crew, then took off in a Spanish plane to an unknown destination. The German plane reportedly was dismantled." See "Claim n.a.z.i Officials Arrive in Spain," Telegraph Herald, June 21, 1945, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XidiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OXYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4599,2831598&dq=hitler-in-spain&hl=en.

169 "recognizable figure": Interrogation of Angelotty-Mackensen. There is no official record of Degrelle's plane stopping at Tnder, but details of the flight remain obscure, and it is plausible that it could have landed there to top up its fuel tanks before the long flight south. There is a photograph of Degrelle in Oslo, standing next to a Heinkel with the identification letters "CN" visible on the fuselage.

169 "flown by Albert Duhinger": http://home.arcor.de/sturmbrigade/Wallonie/Wallonie.htm; see also Revista Espanola de Historia Militar magazine, October 2004.

169 "crash-landed": The a.s.sociated Press, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, May 8, 1945.

169 "Degrelle had spoken": The a.s.sociated Press, Madrid, May 25, 1945.

169 Vidkun Quisling: The a.s.sociated Press, Oslo, August 25, 1945.

169 Pierre Laval: The a.s.sociated Press, Madrid, May 2, 1945.

169 Filippo Anfuso: L'Unita, Communist Party official publication, Rome, May 25, 1945.

170 Gen. Jose Moscardo: The a.s.sociated Press, Moscow, June 16, 1945. Gen. Jose Moscardo Ituarte was the head of Franco's Casa Militar or military household.

170 Robert Ley: Interrogation of Robert Ley, Nuremberg, 1945, Interrogation Records Prepared for War Crimes Proceedings at Nuremberg, 194547, page 101; http://www.footnote.com/doc.u.ment/231909201/.

170 Albert Speer: Interrogation of Albert Speer, Flensburg; USSBS Special Doc.u.ment, May 2223, 1945.

170 Rochus Misch: Interview, Secret History: Hitler of the Andes, Barking Mad Productions for Channel 4 (British public television), 2003. Only two prototypes of the six-engined Junkers Ju 390, designed as part of the so-called America-Bomber project, were ever built. One was test-flown by the Luftwaffe's Long-Range Reconnaissance Squadron 5, but rumors of a test flight that nearly reached the U.S. coast are no longer given any credence.

170 Zhukov and Berzarin quotes: Eddy Gilmore, The a.s.sociated Press, "Reds Believe Hitler Alive," Berlin, June 9, 1945, published in Herald-Journal, June 10, 1945, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DV8sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_soEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4259,3091076&dq=hitler+eddy+gilmore&hl=en.

171 Hitler's alleged cremation: Erich Kempka was interrogated by U.S. agents at Berchtesgaden on June 20 and July 4, 1945; see also The a.s.sociated Press, "With the British Second Army," May 8, 1945. The Soviets were handed or shown no fewer than six "Hitlers" in the days after the fall of Berlin. One of them had worked as a cook in the Fuhrerbunker.

171 the dogs: O'Donnell, Bunker.

171 Hogl's death: Joachimstaler, Last Days of Hitler.

172 Muller's funeral: O'Donnell, Bunker.

172 "Bormann made his own escape": Beevor, Berlin.

172 Tiburtius's account: Interview published in Der Bund, Bern, Switzerland, February 17, 1953, and quoted extensively in Manning, Martin Bormann.

173 Bormann's evasion: Manning, Martin Bormann.

Chapter 16: GRUPPE SEEWOLF.

175 Gruppe Seewolf: Clay Blair, Hitler's U-Boat War, vol. 2: The Hunted, 19411945 (London: Ca.s.sell, 2000).

176 "robot bombs": The a.s.sociated Press, London, July 25, 1944.

176 U-1229: Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, October 29, 2000. "Commander" is our translation of the rank of Korvettenkapitan-see "Treatment of Military Ranks" on page xiv.

176 "corroborated Mantel's story": Report on the Interrogation of German Agents, Gimpel and Colepaugh, Landed on the Coast of Maine from U-1230, dated January 13, 1945. Op-16-Z (SC)A1-2(3)/ EF30 Serial 00170716. Located in the archives of the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Washington, DC, http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/U-1230/.

176 Speer broadcast: James P. Duffy, Target America: Hitler's Plan to Attack the United States (Westport: Praeger, 2004); see also www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/92/a3641492.shtml.

177 "robots from submarine, airplane or surface ship": The a.s.sociated Press, "An East Coast Port," published in Deseret [Utah] News, January 8, 1945.

177 "V-1 scare": New York Times, "Robot Bomb Attacks Here Held 'Probable' by Admiral," January 8, 1945, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C16F93A5C1B7B93CBA9178AD85F418485F9&scp=2&sq=V-1&st=p.

177 "British Admiralty cable": Duffy, Target America.

177 sea-launched V-1: "Hitler's Rocket U-boat Program: History of WW2 rocket submarine," http://www.Uboataces.com. It was not surprising that the United States took the threat seriously; it had managed to reverse engineer the V-1 in just four months, producing the JB-2 Thunderbug. Personnel from the Special Weapons Branch at Wright Field launched a first prototype in October 1944 at Eglin Field, the USAAF base in southwest Florida. The USAAF were enthusiastic about the results achieved by air launches with the B-17 and B-29, but their large production order was cancelled on VJ-Day. Of some thousand JB-2s produced, three hundred were converted for naval use; the improved KUV-1 Loon was first launched from the submarine USS Cusk in January 1946. See Mark Fisher, "American Buzz Bombs: An Incomplete History," http://mcfisher.0catch.com/scratch/v1/v1-0.htm.

179 "U-boat Command's transmissions": The radio traffic from each U-boat can be found in The National Archives, Kew, London, filed under HW 18. For U-880, see HW 18/400; for U-530, see HW 18/406; for U-518, see HW 18/410; and for U-1235, see HW 18/431.The weekly antisubmarine situation reports are in D. Syrett, The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-boat Situations and Trends (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 1998).

179 "well doc.u.mented and correct": Blair, Hitler's U-boat War.

180 "treated with great and repeated brutality": Philip K. Lundeberg, "Operation Teardrop Revisited," in Timothy J. Runyan and Jan M. Copes, To Die Gallantly: The Battle of the Atlantic (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).

180 "no physical evidence of its destruction": Syrett, Battle of the Atlantic; also Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991).

181 Rodger Winn memorandum: Gannon, Operation Drumbeat. Sir Charles Rodger Noel Winn, CB, OBE, QC (190372)-a prewar judge, crippled by childhood polio-made a whole range of probably unparalleled contributions to Allied victory in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, but there is no room here for more than the briefest note on his extraordinary career. While still a civilian, he was rea.s.signed from prisoner interrogation to the Submarine Tracking Room (part of the Operational Intelligence Centre), where he quickly mastered the U-boats' tactics and could frequently predict their actions. Consequently, he was promoted to command the Tracking Room with the temporary rank of commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve-unprecedented for someone without formal naval officer's training.

182 "surrendered to the authorities": Good histories of Operation Teardrop can be found in Blair, Hitler's U-boat War, and Lundeberg, "Operation Teardrop Revisited."

183 "recovered the Enigma machine": http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/10/enigma/enigma12.htm. Francis Harry Hinsley, OBE (191898) was an English crypta.n.a.lyst at Bletchley Park, who among his other contributions helped initiate a program of seizing Enigma machines and doc.u.ments from German weather ships. This facilitated the resumption of the decryption of Kriegsmarine Enigma traffic after the interruption in 194243.

184 "ma.s.sive intelligence-gathering advantage": F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); see also http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk.

184 Berchtesgaden: Arthur H. Mitch.e.l.l, Hitler's Mountain: The Fuhrer, Obersalzberg, and the American Occupation of Berchtesgaden (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007).

184 Oscar Oeser: Arthur G. Bedeia, ed., "Guilty of Enthusiasm," in Management Laureates, vol. 3 (London: JAI Press, 1993); also see online history of St. Andrews University School of Psychology.

184 Colossus: Peter Thorne and John McCutchan, The Path to Colossus ... an historical look at the development of the electronic computer. A presentation to Engineering Heritage Victoria, June 19, 2008, www.consuleng.com.au/The%20Path%20to%20Colossus%20080827%20revcomp.pdf.

185 "Prof. Oeser was amazed at what he found": http://www.ellsbury.com/enigmabombe.htm; see also Lewin, Ultra Goes to War. There are references to this machine being introduced for Abwehr signal traffic in December 1944 that refer to it by the designation Schlusselgerat 41-SG41. (By that date Adm. Canaris was in Gestapo custody, and the Abwehr had pa.s.sed under the control of the SS Reich Main Security Office.) The Abwehr's original Enigma system had been broken at Bletchley Park in December 1941 by Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox, and that used by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in August 1942 by Keith Batey, but Batey's obituary (London Times, September 10, 2010) confirms that neither he nor anyone else was able to reconstruct the working system of this new Siemens & Haske machine.

186 "Bormann's reply": Bar-Zohar, Avengers.

186 "fishing expedition": Whealey, Hitler and Spain.

186 Gustav Winter: Juan Luis Calbarro, "Vida y leyenda de Gustav Winter," Historia magazine, 16, AprilMay 2005.

187 "peninsula of Jandia": "Fuerteventura: geologia, naturaleza y actividad humana." A presentation to Canaries a.s.sociation for Scientific Education, Fuerteventura, December 59, 2007; PDF available online, http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:pjgK76W-XcUJ:www.vierayclavijo.org/html/pdf/cuadernillos/07/0712_fuerteventura.pdf+%22Fuerteventura:+geolog%C3%ADa,+naturaleza+y+actividad+humana%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiaB_KX2fCx0XOM4pKP-cXpXS96Uc-62bJnkDFsj58b06zmhrQdQ264BUDbJ0x2w3LW14C69671ZXNYdyiOL_Q2Nhoq9rPQ9fckQyYWQCH1HCIh5aMlXPD3VhZpNrfOqybAii_9&sig=AHIEtbRrbZszO9TEPoIlRji_uOMXYk-aZA. Quotations from interview with Isabel Winter, Gustav Winter's wife, are taken from this presentation. In 1984, an extremely colorful tale about the accidental discovery of a "U-boat pen" tunneled into the island was published by a German magazine. This fiction has been exploded by the U-boat historian Jak P. Mallmann Showell in his book U-Boats At War: Landings on Hostile Sh.o.r.es (Hersham, UK: Ian Allan, 2000), for which he carried out field research and a comprehensive a.n.a.lysis of U-boat orders, logs, and mission reports relevant to the Canary Islands. There are detailed records of the U-boat supply base run from an "interned" German freighter in Las Palmas harbor on Gran Canaria, but no suggestion that U-boats visited Fuerteventura. This is hardly surprising: Villa Winter was designed for a single purpose, and anything that might draw attention to it before 1945 was deliberately avoided.

187 "dark tales": Elizabeth Nash, "Germans Helped Franco Run Civil War Death Camps," London Independent, February 22, 2002, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germans-helped-franco-run-civil-war-death-camps-661623.html.

187 "near Bordeaux": Interview with Isabel Winter.

187 "built a runway": Enrique Nacher, Gran Canaria. "La Leyenda de Gustav Winter: Espia n.a.z.i en Fuerteventura?" Historia 16, AprilMay 2005, republished at http://hispanismo.org/reino-de-las-canarias/5643-la-leyenda-de-gustav-winter-espia-n.a.z.i-en-fuerteventura.html.

188 "relocations to the Canaries": The a.s.sociated Press, Moscow, February 1, 1944.

188 Walter Winch.e.l.l: "A Reporter's Report to the Nation," syndicated, October 26, 1944. Winch.e.l.l was scathing about Carlton Hayes, who was appointed U.S. amba.s.sador to Spain in 1942. In spring 1944, Hayes was reportedly obstructive to Operation Safehaven, the U.S. operation designed to find and eliminate German industrial and commercial a.s.sets throughout the world. According to Donald P. Steury-a CIA officer in residence at the University of Southern California, writing on the agency's website-Samuel Klaus, the Federal Economic Administration team leader in Spain, indicated that Hayes was unwilling to cooperate and that for several months the emba.s.sy would not allow OSS Madrid to pa.s.s Safehaven material or even background economic reporting to Washington.

188 "Hitler's change of aircraft": "Is. .h.i.tler in Spain?" Daily Express, London, June 19, 1945.

189 experience of the crews: Jak P. Mallmann Showell, U-Boat Commanders and Crews 193545 (Ramsbury, UK: Crowood Press, 1998).

190 "augmented by nonregulation items": http://www.uboataces.com/articles-life-uboat.shtml.

190 "The usually relaxed atmosphere" to the end of Chapter 16: This section of chapter 16 const.i.tutes one of the very few sections in this book that cannot be doc.u.mented but is based on our own extensive researches and those of our U-boat expert, Innes McCartney, and in consultation with our Luftwaffe expert, Tony Holmes. The types of aircraft employed by the Spanish air force and the military air routes to Fuerteventura and the Jandia Peninsula are based on rigorous knowledge down to which Ju 52s were pa.s.sed to the Spanish air force by the Condor Legion, and their respective bases. We have established that the Jandia Peninsula was a secret Abwehr facility that had been planned well before the war and built under severe duress by Franco's Republican political prisoners at great human cost. Such a ma.s.sive investment in an area of barren, hostile terrain begs the question: what other purpose did it have but as a staging post for an elaborate escape plan? The airstrip at the southern tip of the peninsula was capable of taking the Luftwaffe's largest aircraft, such as the Fw-200 Condor or a Ju-290. It is still visible on Google Earth. The whole Jandia Peninsula was a forbidden military zone throughout the war and for years thereafter.

The Allies were seriously concerned that the Canary Islands were being used by the Germans to support U-boat operations. This suspicion was based on the interception of a secret Kriegsmarine doc.u.ment t.i.tled U-Platze, or "U-Places," which became interpreted as "U-Bases" with the presumption that they were U-boat bases. The "U" in fact related to Unterkunft, or "refuge," and there were scores of them dotted around the world, intended to shelter all types of Kriegsmarine vessels-places to undertake repairs or find fresh water. Similarly there were consistent rumors among the Allies that there were U-boat bases along the South American coastline, even as far south as Tierra del Fuego. There is no evidence to support such a proposition, but the list of locations in the U-Platze does mention a tiny island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Nevertheless, the Canary Islands were used by the n.a.z.is to support U-boats; a German tanker was permanently moored at Las Palmas on Gran Canaria to allow U-boats to sneak in at night and refuel clandestinely. Accordingly, Fuerteventura and Jandia in particular were not designed and never acted as a support facility for U-boats or any other activity until April 1945, yet the Villa Winter complex and airstrip had been constructed at vast expense.

As to the actual circ.u.mstances of Hitler's journey by U-boat, they have perforce to be a matter of conjecture and informed speculation based on solid research as to the realities of living over long periods of time in the claustrophobic world of the submariner. In particular, we have drawn on the experiences of the Yanagi, the secret underwater trade between Germany and j.a.pan conducted by German and j.a.panese submarines for the transfer of vital strategic resources, such as tungsten, tin, quinine, coffee, opium, high technology, and VIPs, between 1942 and 1945. These voyages between Europe and j.a.pan were immensely long and, with much time spent underwater, tedious in the extreme. They did, however, show us how U-boats and j.a.panese submarines were modified for the pa.s.sage of VIPs.

191 toilets: U.S. Navy report, "Sanitation aboard Former German Type IXC," March 1946, www.uboatarchive.net/DesignStudiesTypeIXC.htm.

191 food: http://www.uboataces.com/articles-life-uboat.shtml.

191 "arrived off the Argentine coast aboard U-880": Stanley Ross, Overseas News Agency, "U-Boats Base Spy Surge in Latin America," Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 1945.

192 "Koehn was back": The a.s.sociated Press, Montevideo, Uruguay, August 18, 1945.

192 Curtiss Condor II: Peter M. Bowers, Curtiss Aircraft 19071947 (London: Putnam, 1987).

Chapter 17: ARGENTINA-LAND OF SILVER.

194 "when war broke out in 1939": http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-argentina.html.

195 Ha.s.se quote: Michael Sayers and Albert Kahn, The Plot Against the Peace: A Warning to the Nation (New York: Dial Press, 1944).

195 Wilhelm Canaris: Richard Ba.s.sett, Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery (London: Ca.s.sell, 2005).

195 Estancia San Ramon: Patrick Burnside, El Escape de Hitler (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta, 2000).

196 "standing joke": Jorge Camasara, Puerto Seguro: Desembarcos clandestinos en la Patagonia [Safe Haven: Clandestine Landings in Patagonia] (Buenos Aires: Norma Editorial, 2006).

196 "mansion on Fuerenstra.s.se": Sayers and Kahn, Plot Against the Peace.

196 Falange: Allan Chase, Falange: The Axis Secret Army in the Americas (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1943).

197 "obviously Central European": Authors' travels through Patagonia, 200709.

197 n.a.z.i Party membership: The a.s.sociated Press, Berlin, October 17, 1945. See also http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-argentina.html.

197 "to celebrate the Anschluss": U.S. War Department film, MID 2093, Buenos Aires, April 1938.

198 "ready to strike": Report to Argentine Congress by Deputy Raul Damonte Taborda, chair of a congressional committee to investigate n.a.z.i activities, September 1941, cited in Chase, Falange.

198 "Wherever you turn": Chase, Falange.

198 Freude, Peron, Duarte: New York Times, "Argentina Evades Its n.a.z.i Past," March 22, 1997, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E2DD153BF931A15750C0A961958260.

199 "number one n.a.z.i": U.S. Government, Blue Book on Argentina, Consultation among the American Republics with Respect to the Argentine Situation; Memorandum of the United States Government, Washington, DC (New York: Greenberg, 1946).

199 Peron's early career: Multiple sources consulted by researcher Nahuel Coca, Buenos Aires, 2010. Time magazine, "Argentina: Boss of the GOU," November 27, 1944, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,796883,00.html.

199 Peron in Paris: "O Holocausto, Peron e la Argentina," http://www.arlindo-correia.com/140402.html.

199 "direct pay of Berlin": In 1945, the former diplomat Prince Stephan of Schaumburg-Lippe (an SS lieutenant colonel-who thus outranked the German amba.s.sador to Argentina, Edmund von Thermann) would tell the war crimes commission in Berlin of some specific checks among many such payments: check number 463803, dated June 26, 1941, made out to Eva Duarte in the amount of $33,600; and check number 682117, dated June 30, to Col. Juan Domingo Peron in the sum of $200,000. In 1942, "Evita" was able to buy her own apartment at 1567 Calle Posadas in the exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta; see Roberto Vacca, Eva Peron (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1971). Von Thermann, the former German amba.s.sador, would confirm the handing over of such payments. He told war crimes investigators that one of the emba.s.sy's messengers was the personal representative of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler and that one of Thermann's own valets-he was never able to find out which-was the highest-ranking officer in the spy service, in direct communication with Reichsleiter Martin Bormann at the Reich Chancellery. See Silvano Santander, Tecnica de una Traicion [The Technique of Treachery]: Juan D. Peron y Eva Duarte-Agentes del n.a.z.ismo en la Argentina (Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial Antygua 1953); see two notes down, and Von Thermann's testimony detailed in online PDF ent.i.tled "Vier Prinzen zu Schaumburg-Lippe," listing Supplement of January 15, 1946 to the Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 4, Attachment 76: "Partial List of Purchases for Linz Made in Germany," http://edocs.fu-berlin.de/docs/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDOCS_derivate_000000000030/

vierprinzen_letzte_fa.s.sung_copia.pdf;jsessionid=452DFAE5507E3516FFD859EB792902B6?hosts=, hosted by Freie Universitat, Berlin. The "authorized version" of Evita's life has her meeting Juan Peron only in May 1944 during relief work following the San Juan earthquake; the doc.u.ments studied by Santander refute this date.

201 "tirelessly in exile": Ladislas Farago, Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1974). Santander, like other Argentine politicians opposed to the Peron regime, had to go into exile on several occasions. After the war he worked closely with the n.a.z.i hunter Simon Wiesenthal and was hailed as a "staunch and liberal friend of the Jews" (Jewish Telegraph Agency, Buenos Aires, December 3, 1964).

201 Santander's published work: After publication, in Montevideo in 1953, of Santander's book Tecnica de una Traicion, there was a concerted effort to silence him. His work was dismissed by several Argentine historians, and the (U.S.-authenticated) doc.u.ments that he quoted were denounced as "communist fakes"; however, none of the libel suits against him succeeded. In 1956, Santander went back to West Germany to look for further proof of the n.a.z.is' transfer of their wealth to Argentina with Peron's complicity. On December 26 that year, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published a virulent attack on him t.i.tled "The Painstaking Forger." Many of Santander's 1953 accusations in Tecnica de una Traicion have subsequently been proved true by the work of researchers, including the authors of this book, as well as by the testimony of contemporary sources such as Von Thermann and Gerda von Arenstorff.

201 Von Thermann's memorandum: Santander, Tecnica de una Traicion.

201 "Siemens & Haske T43 encryption machine": Based on the reports that the final messages from Berchtesgaden were to agents in South America, discussed in Mitch.e.l.l, Hitler's Mountain.

202 "We always let them win": Santander, Tecnica de una Traicion. Also "Final Interrogation Report of Edmund Freiherr von Thermann," July 11, 1945, NARA, Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, 862.20235/7-1145. Regarding Niebuhr's naval rank, "captain" is our translation of Kapitan zur See-see "Treatment of Military Ranks" on p. xiv.

202 Delfino shipping: Manning, Bormann; also "Axis Espionage and Propaganda in Latin America," NARA, Record Group 319, Records of the Army Staff, Records of the Office of the a.s.sistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Military Intelligence Division. Separate Binder. Quoted in R. L. McGaha, "The Politics of Espionage: n.a.z.i Diplomats and Spies in Argentina, 19331945" (PhD dissertation, Ohio University, 2009): "The F.B.I. suspected that the Delfino company and Sandstede's office were a cover for the movement of German agents, funds, and propaganda materials from Europe to South America.... Sandstede used his cover as a Casa Delfino employee to spy for the n.a.z.is."