Agent in Berlin, page 13
He hardly slept that night. At eight o’clock Rudi work up, announcing he had a terrible headache. ‘That schnapps must have been strong, Werner – but it is good!’
Werner said he really ought to leave.
‘I’d normally persuade you to stay, but look at the table there – I have so much work to do! I’m going to make a strong coffee and get on with it.’
He asked Werner if he’d see him soon and the British spy said he very much hoped so. It had been such an enjoyable visit!
* * *
‘Are you sure this isn’t too good to be true, Werner?’
‘I seem to recall that you once told me, Barnaby, that just because something appears to be too good to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t.’
‘I suspect something may have been lost in translation there, Werner.’
It was a Monday, 27 February – just over a week after Werner had met Arno – and now he was in Cologne, in the office of a lawyer who was one of Werner’s sources. He was trustworthy and it was a safe place to meet: Barney could take the train from Brussels and return the same day. Barney’s back was to the window with the enormous Gothic expanse of the cathedral behind him.
‘Tadashi Kimura is indeed the second secretary at the Japanese embassy on Graf Spree Strasse, I was able to check that out,’ said Werner. ‘He is also listed as being a resident at the apartment on Brücken Allee. I also looked into Arno Marcus – that was more difficult, to be honest, I felt I was exposing myself more enquiring about a Jewish fugitive, but I did find an old telephone directory that showed a family called Marcus living in Wilmersdorf, in the same street he told me they lived. I also checked at Charité Medical School and there was a student there called A Marcus who had to leave in 1936 along with the other Jewish students.’
‘I think one accepts they’re genuine, Werner. I also asked our chap who liaises with the Royal Navy and they’re seeing whether they have any record of him, but he did say that up until a few years ago the links between our navy and the Japanese one were indeed very close. If we assume this is a genuine approach and we’re not being set up then this would seem to be a perfect opportunity to recruit Tadashi.’
‘Without him knowing, Barnaby?’
‘I think this is going to be one of those occasions, Werner, where you can afford to be explicit with him. He’s desperate for Arno to escape from Berlin. You should promise not to only get Arno out of Berlin but also ensure he gets to England and is looked after there – and in return we want Tadashi to supply us with intelligence. You said he was pro-British anyway, didn’t you?’
‘He said something along the lines of admiring and respecting Britain, whether that—’
‘How tricky will it be to get Arno out of Berlin?’
‘Depends where to, Barnaby.’
‘France would be my suggestion: the Germans are very strict about their Swiss and Dutch borders these days. Get him into France and I’ll take over from there. Go back and talk to them. But we’ll want something from him first, some intelligence to know he’s genuine.’
Werner said fair enough, he’d get on with it and he was thinking he’d definitely need to find some kind of fake identity for Arno and what with the cost of smuggling him out of Germany…
‘How much? In pounds, shillings and pence, please, Werner.’
‘The equivalent to twenty-five pounds, I would say, perhaps even thirty pounds.’
‘As much as that?’
‘I think you’ll find it’s good value for money.’
‘Let’s hope so – and in your message you said something about having a surprise for me?’
Werner removed his jacket and with a penknife unpicked the material lining the inside pocket. A moment later he removed a small envelope and when he opened it he took out a cardboard sleeve and ceremoniously pushed it towards Barnaby, telling him to be very careful with it.
‘What is it, Werner?’
‘Your surprise, Barnaby.’
‘Please, Werner, I’m not—’
‘Two strips of film, Barnaby. I suggest you get them developed as soon as you’re back in London. I think you’ll find them most interesting!’
* * *
The following day – the last one of February – was a Tuesday and Werner waited across the road from the apartment block on Brücken Allee until he saw Tadashi approach it at a shade after seven in the evening. He hurried across the road and caught up with him as he opened the side door to the block.
Tadashi appeared calm and beckoned for Werner to follow him upstairs. Five minutes later the three of them were sitting in the lounge as they had done some ten days before.
‘Tell me, Werner, are you able to help Arno?’
It was Werner’s turn to hesitate and he was silent for a while as he pondered the best approach. He’d have preferred to speak with Tadashi alone, but he hadn’t been able to think of a way of doing this other than approaching him on the street, which didn’t feel right.
‘Can I ask you a question first, Tadashi?’
‘Of course.’
‘At the club, when we first met… how come you confided in me? I don’t understand why you approached me.’
‘I’ve already told you, we’re desperate and I didn’t know where else to go – because I stand out, I have to be careful. These clubs – because they’re illicit – somehow, they feel the kind of places where I could find someone who may be able to help. You came across as a… sympathetic kind of person, even though I knew nothing about you.’
Werner glanced at Arno. He still viewed Werner suspiciously but now more than anything else he looked nervous, even frightened. His right foot was tapping on the floor and he twisted his signet ring round his finger.
‘I can help you: I can get Arno out of Berlin and away from Germany. My plan would be to smuggle you into France and from there I know people who can get you to England – that’s where you wanted to go?’
‘More than anywhere else, yes… but in England – would I also be a fugitive there?’
‘No, you’d be treated as a legitimate refugee and be given proper papers. You should even be able to resume your medical studies.’
Arno’s head dropped and his shoulders heaved. During the now familiar silence Werner could just make out the sound of the young man sobbing.
‘You would really do all this, Werner?’
‘Yes – but I would want something in return, Tadashi.’
‘Don’t worry, Werner, I have money, that wouldn’t be a problem.’
‘I don’t want money, Tadashi. I want information from you, from the embassy – information that the British government would be interested in. The people I know who would get Arno from France to England and who’ll look after him there, they would do all this in return for information – once they know it’s genuine.’
‘Secret information?’
Werner nodded and the silence that followed was charged with tension. Arno – his eyes filled with tears – looked anxiously at Tadashi who for the first time since Werner had met him seemed unsettled.
‘You want me to pass secrets to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘For the British – do you understand what you’re asking me to do?’
‘I do, Tadashi, and in return I’ll get Arno to safety. Isn’t that a price worth paying?’
‘But if I get caught I—’
‘But you won’t get caught, Tadashi. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it for three years now. You pass on copies of a couple of documents to me and a few days later Arno will be in England.’
‘What kind of documents, Werner?’
‘Your job, Tadashi, what areas do you cover?’
‘Mostly relations with the German Foreign Ministry, because of my ability to speak German I mainly work on agreements between the Japanese government and the German government.’
‘So you have copies of agreements between the governments?’
‘Of course.’
‘And how easy is it to obtain copies of these?’
‘It is possible, but it could take time. If I’m very careful I could copy a document one evening when I work late and bring it home and then another one the next night, but I can only do this when I’m certain no one else is around – I share my office with two other second secretaries and if I’m caught… Is there really no other way, Werner?’
‘When you leave – are you searched?’
‘Sometimes – I’d also need to choose a night when security is lighter.’
During the long silence Werner barely breathed as he waited for Tadashi to give his answer, but when he looked at Arno and noticed him smile for the first time, he knew the young man had already sensed what the answer would be.
‘I don’t have any choice, do I, Werner?’
Chapter 13
Gelsenkirchen and Berlin
March 1939
Even Jack Miller had to acknowledge that by March 1939 travelling around Germany had become so much easier. He was sick and tired of being told that Hitler had built wonderful new roads and under him the trains were running on time but he had to admit that travel had improved, although he wished that also applied to the trams in Berlin.
Getting to Gelsenkirchen in the heart of the Ruhr was a case in point. When he’d first started going there – his first trip must have been in late 1936 or possibly early 1937 – it took the best part of two days travelling via Münster and Dortmund.
Now it was much easier: Berlin to Münster and then a reliable connection to Dortmund where he stayed at a small guest house on Kessel Strasse, not far from the station. The place was very clean and his room had its own bathroom: it was run by a war widow and her daughter, Irma, an extraordinarily beautiful girl in her early twenties who could barely look at him when he first visited but on his second visit slipped into his room when her mother left for Evening Mass and returned when her mother went for Morning Prayers.
When he arrived in Dortmund, he’d make a telephone call from the station before walking to the city centre where he’d wait inside the entrance of a small shopping arcade opposite the main hospital on Beurnhaus Strasse and watch as a tall doctor left the hospital. If the doctor turned left the meeting was off and he’d hurry to the guest house. Turn right and Jack would walk through the arcade and eventually meet up with the doctor in the back room of an ironmongery on Johannes Strasse.
The doctor was a precise man, not so much unfriendly but someone with no small talk. Jack called him by the code name ‘Arthur’ and knew little about him, other than that he was a surgeon and his first name was perhaps Wilhelm.
Not much news since your last visit, though my contacts at the marshalling yard have produced this list of train movements, please note the incidence of wagons arriving under armed escort… My source at the police station is still promising that list of Nazi Party members, I hope to have it next time… I have the plans here from the Dortmunder steel engine assembly plant in the east of the city, which I think will be useful… and the Willmann boiler factory in the same area, I hope to make a contact there too.
He’d hand everything over and then inevitably remark that life was becoming more dangerous by the day and he may reach a point where this – he’d gesture at Jack and around the room as if to show what he meant by ‘this’ – may be their last meeting. Jack would say he quite understood and give the doctor an envelope, which he’d refuse at first but then accept when Jack insisted: To cover your expenses.
The following morning – after Morning Prayers, of course – Jack would walk back to the station accompanied by Irma who’d tell her mother she needed to post a letter. They’d have a largely silent coffee in a cafe by the station before Jack caught the train to Gelsenkirchen.
He always had the same sense of a city that had come from nowhere: there seemed to be something very sudden about the place, like towns he sometimes came across in the United States. It was no surprise really: fifty years before, Gelsenkirchen had a population of less than ten thousand. Now it was one of the largest cities in Germany with over 330,000 inhabitants – all thanks to the discovery of coal and the explosion of industries that came in its wake.
This was why Gelsenkirchen was so important. It wasn’t just that the city produced so much coal, it was what they did with it that was of so much interest. There was the Gelsenberg factory at Nordstern for converting coal to synthetic oil, and also the Scholven factory, which produced aviation fuel from coal. Operations like this were springing up all over the area: each time the train from Dortmund approached Gelsenkirchen Jack Miller would spot something new and make a mental note to check it out and within minutes of arriving in the city he had an opportunity to do so.
Lotte was the best of them: unlike so many of the others she was uncomplicated, not given to moods or inclined to share any worries with him. She was smart, efficient and highly motivated; an audit clerk who’d risen to be a finance manager at the factory turning coal into aviation fuel and as such she had access to every detail one could wish for on the company’s operation. And she had contacts too at similar plants in the city. Jack was never quite sure of how she got them but intelligence was of the highest quality.
He’d find Lotte in the station cafeteria where to any observer they’d appear to be two strangers sharing a table. When they were as sure as they could be it was safe, she’d explain what she was handing over. She’d be very concise and when she’d finished, she’d nod and he’d lean under the table where she’d pass an envelope to him, which he’d slip into his bag, and then they’d each smoke a cigarette and leave, their farewell being as cursory as one would expect from two people who’d apparently only met minutes earlier.
And then Jack Miller would go to work.
* * *
His presence in Gelsenkirchen could not have been more legitimate.
By March 1939 Jack was a well-established freelance journalist, based in Berlin but travelling all over Germany for the stories he was covering. He wrote some travel pieces – the American papers seemed to like those – but he mostly concentrated on sport and especially football: a dozen newspapers in Britain were keen for anything he sent them.
Gelsenkirchen was the home of Germany’s top football team, FC Schalke 04. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they’d taken over football in Germany and organised the country into sixteen regional leagues, or Gauligen, to correspond with the Gau or the new administrative regions they’d brought in.
FC Schalke 04 were in Gauliga Westfalen and from the league’s inception in 1934 had won every year, which meant they qualified for the German Championship Finals, a knock-out tournament for the sixteen teams that had won their own Gauliga.
Schalke dominated this tournament too: they’d been national champions in 1934, 1935 and 1937 and runners-up in 1936, losing 3–4 to Hannover 96 in an exciting final in front of one hundred thousand spectators in Berlin. They were already set to win this year’s Gauliga Westfalen and everyone agreed they were favourites to win the national finals once more.
And all this gave Jack Miller a perfect excuse to visit Gelsenkirchen: why would a football journalist not visit the home of the country’s top football team?
From the station he’d make his way to Schalke’s ground, the Glückauf-Kampfbahn. Today’s game was an important one – a local derby against VfL Bochum who were second to Schalke in the Gauliga and an interesting team in their own right. They’d only been formed the previous year when the authorities had forced the three teams in Bochum to merge. It had been a controversial move and one that Miller hoped to work into his match report: the team the Nazis created. The British newspapers would like that.
They seemed to like most of what he sent them.
* * *
He returned to Berlin the day after the match. It was a long day: first train out of the city and as soon as he arrived back in his apartment, he wrote up his story. By late evening he was in a reflective mood and as was often the case these days he thought how funny it was the way his life had turned out.
It had all turned really on his own obstinance: that last Saturday of the Olympic Games in August 1936 and his insistence that he’d take Albert Haas for a drink at the Kaiserhof to thank him for all the help he’d given with the coverage of the Olympic football tournament.
Haas had been characteristically modest and said it was really not necessary: Herr Miller had been very kind and most generous and he was happy to pass on his knowledge of football and, yes, of course it was a shame he’d not been able to attend any of the matches, but that was Germany these days… it was the least of his problems.
But Jack insisted and so Haas met him outside the hotel on Wilhelmstrasse and seemed slightly hesitant when Miller said to come in and then when they entered the bar all the trouble had started, with the barman and his manager both insisting they wouldn’t serve a Jew.
He was ashamed he didn’t make more of it, but Albert Haas had seemed so worried that Jack realised continuing the argument wasn’t going to do him any good. Then the very pleasant English gentleman had intervened and the long and the short of it was they had an extremely good dinner with three bottles of excellent and very expensive Bordeaux followed by some superb vintage Port and he felt he’d wreaked some kind of revenge on the hotel.
Once he recovered from his hangover, he did feel bad about poor Albert Haas but then two days later he heard from him. Could they meet, as soon as possible?
He feared he was in trouble for what had happened the other evening, but not at all: Albert wanted to share some wonderful news and couldn’t wait to thank him enough. Did Jack recall he’d told him how hard it was for his family to get an exit visa and papers to allow them to settle in Britain?
