The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (43 page)

*

The disintegration of Germany continued apace through 1946 until in the severe winter of that year, with food and fuel shortages, many Germans faced slow starvation. A third of all babies born at this time did not survive their first year. The emphasis had switched at CIC from the hunt for unrepentant Nazis and war criminals to keeping tags on the German Communist Party and those sympathetic to the USSR. The Cold War had begun and, as time passed, some in the west feared a hot war with the Soviet Union was inevitable - even imminent.

The Soviets had the foundation of an espionage establishment in place in the west in the form of the Rote Kapelle - Red Orchestra - that had operated inside Germany throughout the war. Within days of the war’s end, the Russian security services, in the form of the NRVD (forerunner to the RGR) and GRU (military intelligence), were recruiting informers and establishing new spy rings. As in the west, many important ex-Nazis with skill and expertise in intelligence rose to prominence in the Russian zone when it became East Germany.

For Michel, intelligence work involving the Soviets proved to be frustrating, like trying to put together a jigsaw in which half the pieces were either missing or from another puzzle altogether. Operations seemed to have no beginning and no end, and it took subterfuge and cunning to follow them for even a part of the course. Investigations would begin, then trail off or be taken over, until it seemed that universal muddle had become official policy.

One example of this involved a Russian NRVD officer who appeared out of the rubble in Munich. He had managed to convince CIC that he could put his hands on a valuable cache of Russian documents purloined from French intelligence. CIC employed him, and he dropped into the Ulm office on his way to the French zone and seemed anxious, not to say boastful, to tell his fellow agents his story.

The man introduced himself as Pupescu, originally from Romania, where he had worked as a NRVD agent before going over to the French. He had worked for Foreign Legion intelligence in Rehl but had grown disgusted by French recruitment of SS men, or so he said, and had made off with valuable documents he intended to hand over to the Americans. His escape, as he told the story, even involved a shoot-out with French intelligence officers.

‘A dramatic tale. It convinced CIC in Munich, who considered him a valuable asset, but I didn’t believe it. To his immense surprise, instead of helping him on his way, I had him arrested and jailed incommunicado. The Russians were pouring their agents into the western intelligence agencies at this time, which was why I never trusted any so-called turncoats who claimed to have changed allegiance.

‘I began to interrogate him. He talked a lot and I got him to write stuff down. But it still didn’t fit.’ Pupescu said he had gone from the NKVD to Romanian intelligence during the war, after convincing them that he had turned against Communism because of what he had seen. He expressed a passion to work against the system. ‘This was not good enough on its own, so he came up with lists of dozens of genuine Communists. He led the authorities to a meeting where there were people with leaflets and incriminating material. They were arrested and he was a hero. But it didn’t mean anything to the Russians to sacrifice hundreds of their own people to get one man into western intelligence.’

Michel suspected that Pupescu was a double agent, copying reports and passing them to the Russian zone. He was also convinced that the valuable ‘cache’ of documents had been doctored and would turn out to be falsified and misleading versions of the originals. After a while, CIC in Munich became concerned about their man and made enquiries. It came as a shock to find out that he had been jailed by another CIC office only a few miles down the road. Lobbying began for Pupescu’s immediate release.

Pupescu remained in jail as Michel procrastinated, clinging to his devalued cover story, until Michel received an irate call from a Seventh Army general. ‘It was very unusual to receive a call like that. These sorts of things usually went strictly through channels. He wanted to know the whereabouts of the man and ordered that he be freed immediately.’

Although very much opposed to the man’s release, Michel now had no option but to follow orders, although he felt these were open to imaginative interpretation. ‘At that time, Pupescu was going through a period of deep depression. He expressed again and again in his writings the certainty that he would be executed as a spy.’

Michel adopted a lugubrious manner and offered the prisoner cold comfort. ‘We don’t want to execute you. In fact I have the order for your release. But you know you won’t live long without American protection - the Soviets will kill you as a traitor. You have outlived your usefulness to both sides.’ He elaborated on the theme that release meant certain death, and Pupescu nodded glumly, unaware that he had an American general as a sponsor and that CIC in Munich was anxious to re-employ him. ‘There’s an option,’ Michel continued. ‘I can release you and put you up some place in secret where you’ll be safe. Instead of being shot by the Soviets as a traitor, you can work for me.’

Pupescu’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

Michel visited Hans Joohs in the barracks and told him to prepare isolated quarters. ‘I said I was bringing somebody who was to be kept separate and to receive special treatment. He was not to eat with the other refugees but have food taken to his rooms. I told Hans that the man was technically free but needed to be under day-and-night surveillance and be restrained if he tried to leave. But that he should feel free and think he was free.’

Michel returned to Ulm jail, ordered the release of Pupescu, and drove him to the barracks. ‘He couldn’t believe it - I had saved his life!’ Michel had changed into civilian clothes before collecting the prisoner in order not to draw attention to himself at the barracks. He took Pupescu to his new quarters and told him that if he gave a complete and honest account of his life in NKVD he would be protected. ‘After that I always went to the barracks in civilian clothes and we would work. We talked for hours. And then I asked him to write everything down. It practically became a book. I thought of it as “Anatomy of a Soviet Spy”. It was a very interesting, alarming and damning document. And I was following orders!’
[192]

When the Soviet spy had written everything down, Michel sent the manuscript to CIC HQ in Frankfurt. ‘There was an explosion up there! They immediately called regional HQ demanding that the man be handed over. And they got in touch with me to ask where he was.’ Michel explained patiently that Pupescu had been released on the express orders of a general. Pupescu had then written his account, albeit under Michel’s supervision, as a free agent on his own accord.

Military police arrived at the barracks and arrested Pupescu on suspicion of being a Soviet agent. ‘I have no idea why the general ordered his release in the first place. That had nothing to do with CIC in Munich. And I don’t know what happened to him afterwards.’ Pupescu became another loose piece of an unfinished jigsaw.

A dinner invitation arrived at the Villa Rauderer from the general in charge of the military forces in the French zone. Michel and Ted Rraus drove together to Biberach where they were lavishly entertained with good wine and excellent food. At first, the general made the dinner seem little more than an opportunity for allies and colleagues to get to know one another, but at the end of the meal he took Michel aside for an intensely personal conversation. ‘The dinner was not just a nice social gesture. He wanted to talk to me about a young woman he cared very much about.’

The woman in question, Tanya, was a
femme fatale
of great beauty, fluent in French, German, Russian and English, who Michel had under investigation on suspicion of spying for the Russians. ‘I had met her and questioned her. She was something. Very lovely and seductive. Very dangerous.’ Born in Monte Carlo of Russian parents, Tanya had worked at the German Embassy in Moscow during the German-Soviet pact where she met her husband, who went on to become a high official in the Gestapo. At the end of the war they were both arrested in Constance, in southern Germany, and her husband was subsequently executed by the French. ‘Somehow she got out with the help of this French general. Later the relationship became known in France, where he had a wife and children, and created a scandal. As a result the authorities refused her a resident’s permit in the French zone, but the general didn’t want to give her up.’

The general enjoyed an agreement with a young American officer working for the military government in Ulm to allow Tanya to live in the American zone. Passes were provided by the officer so she could regularly visit her lover. ‘My enquiries interfered with this arrangement because she could not be granted a resident’s permit while she was under investigation. And I didn’t want her in the American zone because of the questions raised by her background. The French general wanted me to drop the investigation.’

The request was made from one ladies’ man to another, but Michel refused. ‘My investigations suggested that she might be a spy for the Russians and I indicated I had very strong reasons to continue.’ There was also a complication unknown to the French general: the obliging young American officer in Ulm had also become romantically involved with Tanya. ‘The American officer was very much in love with her, and that bothered me a lot. Because he was so very sincere in his feelings, despite her involvement with the French general. Nothing seemed to matter to him. He didn’t care that she might be a Russian spy.’

Besotted, the officer also tried to block the investigation in a clumsy manoeuvre that only served to intensify Michel’s enquiries. In frustration, the French general and the American officer arranged for their shared mistress to slip away to Paris. One of the Ulm CIC agents was about to be transferred to the city, and Michel briefed him about the case. ‘I gave him the address and asked him to watch her because I suspected that she was working for the Soviets. I warned him about her and her ways.’

In due course the agent reported back that he had contacted the woman and everything was under control. ‘He had certainly contacted her, but things were not under control. I found out much later that he had fallen in love with her. As I said, she was something. I suspect she may have ended up in the States.’

One of the SS officers on Michel’s wanted list lived in the British zone, and plans were laid to lure him into a trap. Rudolf Schelkmann, who had been a major in the SD (SS intelligence), was in the habit of visiting a tavern in the American zone and the original plan was to have him arrested there. New information had been received, however, that suggested the major was actively involved in an SS underground organisation.

Just at the moment when the man was about to be picked up, Michel decided to hold off. The arrest of one man in the organisation was insignificant when set against the possibility of infiltrating the whole movement. ‘I could well remember being aware of the danger of German infiltration when I had been active in the Secret Army. Infiltration usually meant doom to a whole underground network. Now it was my turn to infiltrate, and Dr Frundsberg and the Grossorganisation were born.’

A number of trusted German agents were picked to pose as SS officers and designated to areas where underground activity was suspected. They had no contact with anyone in CIC except an assigned ‘shadow’ agent who liaised with Michel.

The agent who first made contact with the underground was Hans Meyer.
[193]
He became a regular at the bar of an inn suspected to be an underground meeting place. At the bar, over a period of weeks, he slowly revealed himself to be an unreconstructed Nazi of the old school. In this he had to be careful. He could not openly proclaim his allegiance, but by dropping occasional nationalistic remarks after a few drinks, and voicing nostalgic indiscretions on the past glories of Adolf Hitler, he established solid fascist credentials. He soon attracted the company of like-minded drinking companions.

His new friends took Meyer into their confidence and told him about a group they knew with which he might be in sympathy. Perhaps he would like to join? Meyer pretended to be less than enthusiastic. ‘Join them? Who were they?’ he asked in a belittling manner. It was out of the question. Meyer bought a round of drinks, and quietly confided that he already belonged to the central underground network set up by Himmler in the last months of the war. The organisation was well-funded, fully equipped and getting ready to take direct action. After more drinks he boasted that he was the liaison officer serving the area.

His companions fell silent and studied one another. This sort of talk was dangerous, and they knew it. Then one of the men nodded to the others and Meyer was invited to join them in a quiet corner of the inn. Away from the bar, they confided that they were former SS officers who were also members of a significant underground group hampered only by its lack of supplies and weaponry. They had not known that a central body with authority from Himmler existed and wanted to arrange a meeting between their leaders.

Again, Meyer was sceptical. His outfit was extremely powerful and headed by a formidable man who had been a senior figure in RSHA - Nazi intelligence. Any contact would have to be handled with great secrecy and at the highest level. He suggested the men make a formal request for an interview on behalf of their group leader, which he could pass on. They agreed, and a meeting was arranged with the local underground’s commander - who turned out to be none other than Rudolf Schelkmann.

Schelkmann told Meyer that he had always suspected a larger group with a master plan existed, and he wanted to be involved. He explained that his continued residence in the British zone put him at risk as he was sought by the authorities. He desperately wanted to move with his wife and child to the American zone, and needed to take his closest associate, SS Unterstürmfuhrer Gerhard Laufer, with him. He wondered if Meyer’s organisation could help. In the meantime, he was eager to meet with its leader under secure conditions.