Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen (9 page)

The rain fell dark and slow the following morning, September 27, as McKenna—his collar turned up against the cold—made his way door to door. His inquiries went nowhere that first day, and he returned to his barrack soaked through and foul tempered. At most houses, no one had answered the door. Those who were home said apologetically they were no longer housing refugees. A stiff drink and a smoke in the mess hall that evening put his mood right but did nothing to make the prospect of hitting the streets again any more appealing. When Smit pulled up a chair and reached for the bottle, McKenna hoped to hear some good news, but he felt his optimism fade when he saw the other man’s grim expression. Between them, they easily conquered the bottle’s contents and a pack of cigarettes before calling it a night.

The image, initially a blur, slowly came into focus. A field spread out before him beneath a gunmetal sky. Two figures materialized in the
distance, one walking in front of the other. Watching them approach, McKenna realized the man in front was a young RAF officer, his uniform tailored to look like a suit. Behind him, a pistol in hand, stomped a member of the Gestapo dressed in a gray SS uniform. The two men stopped in front of McKenna and seemed unaware of his presence. Unable to move or cry out, he watched in horror as the Gestapo man raised the gun to the back of the airman’s head and pulled the trigger. The young man’s body convulsed and fell forward, the pistol’s report echoing across the field like thunder.

McKenna jerked upright in bed. He stared into a dark corner of the room and listened to the rain beat a steady cadence against the window. The dream, which had plagued him for several weeks, lingered in his mind’s eye. He lay his head back on the pillow, relieved when the afterimage at last began to fade.

The rain, much to McKenna’s extreme annoyance, continued into the morning. He prepped for the pending ordeal with several mugs of strong coffee in the mess. The second day of canvassing, September 28, seemed to be a depressing repeat of the first. One by one, he crossed names and addresses off his list, success having thus far steered clear of his efforts. It was near day’s end when he knocked on the door of a small terraced house at Berlinstrasse 18a, and heard someone inside work a lock. The door opened a crack, and a young woman peered out. In German, McKenna fumbled his way through an introduction and asked if she was housing anyone from Breslau. The woman nodded and, in German and rough English, said she had living with her a man named Klaus Lonsky. He was out, but McKenna was welcome to wait for him if he so wished. Desperate to be out of the rain, McKenna accepted the invitation.

A little while later, sitting in the woman’s living room, McKenna heard the front door open and close. When Lonsky entered the room, McKenna rose to greet him. He was younger than McKenna had expected, probably in his late twenties, but his movements were slow and his expression battle-weary. McKenna, wondering if his tongue
would ever prove adept at German, began explaining the purpose of his visit. Lonsky cut him off and said he understood English.

McKenna allowed himself a quick smile.

“I’m investigating the murder of fifty Allied airmen who escaped from Stalag Luft III in March of last year,” McKenna said. “One person of considerable interest is this man. Do you know him?”

McKenna retrieved the picture of Absalon from an inside pocket. Lonsky glanced only briefly at the photograph and nodded. He took a seat, his movements stiff, and explained that before the war he had attended school at the University of Breslau. He joined the
Wehrmacht
in 1939 and served in an artillery unit and tank regiment before being wounded in April 1943. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Military Police and was assigned to a patrol unit. His policing duties, he said, often brought him into contact with the Criminal Police.

“In this way, I got to know Dr. Gunther Absalon,” Lonsky said. “He was in charge of the thirteenth section of the Criminal Police. I talked with Dr. Absalon on a number of occasions and learned he came from the Rhine district.”

McKenna asked Lonsky what, if anything, he knew of the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III.

“Whilst I was in the Military Police, my own troop headquarters were at Sagan,” Lonsky volunteered. “I know there was a prisoner-of-war camp there, and on occasions we used to hear that a number of prisoners had escaped. I remember a big number escaping, I think about eighty-one, about March 1944. My unit was advised of the escape, and I believe the whole garrison in Sagan was ordered to take part in the search for the escaped prisoners of war. I heard that a number of them were recaptured, but what happened to them I do not know. I believe some were recaptured in the Görlitz and Breslau areas, but I have never heard what happened to them.”

“What instructions did you receive regarding the arrest of prisoners of war?” McKenna asked.

“We were to take them to the nearest Oflag or Stalag and hand them over.”

“Did you know anyone associated with the Breslau Gestapo?”

“There was a Dr. Scharpwinkel,” Lonsky said, prompting McKenna to lean forward in his chair. “I never met him and do not know his rank. I have seen his signature on papers, but I do not know his Christian name. I do not know where he came from, but he was probably a Silesian.”

“And you fought at Breslau?”

Lonsky nodded.

“I remained in the Military Police until September 1944, when I was dismissed for not being a member of the Nazi Party. I believe at that time the authorities decided control of the home country should be taken over by the SS, and that a check was made respecting persons who did or did not belong to the Nazis. After leaving the Military Police, I obtained a post on the staff, which had been set up to prepare for the defense of Breslau.”

When the battle commenced on January 20, 1945, Lonsky was assistant to the garrison commander’s senior staff officer. He served in that capacity until wounded by a shell one month into the fighting. Bombed out of several hospitals, he was captured by advancing U.S. forces on March 27.

“And what about Scharpwinkel?” asked McKenna. “He was at Breslau, too, yes?”

“I had a good knowledge of the various fighting units that were engaged there and clearly remember a unit called
Einheit
[Unit] Scharpwinkel, which was made up of the Gestapo and Criminal Police of the Breslau district,” Lonsky said, adding the unit—at its maximum strength—numbered 150 men. “It was engaged in the North-East of the fortress. I remember one particular incident with regard to the unit. The Russians had forced a spearhead in the direction of Deutschlissa, and headquarters directed that the spearhead must be wiped out. The commander in that sector replied that his men were exhausted and advised that the newcomers, the Gestapo—members of Unit Scharpwinkel—be engaged for this operation as they were fresh and would prove to be fanatical fighters.”

“What happened?”

“Approval was given for them to engage,” Lonsky said, “but they
failed to wipe out the Russian spearhead. It is probable that they suffered severe losses.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” asked McKenna.

Lonsky gave an apologetic shrug.

“Do you know what happened to Scharpwinkel?”

“Since the capitulation of Germany, I have only met one person who I knew in Breslau,” Lonsky said. “His name is Zembrodt. He was a lieutenant in an infantry regiment. In discussing the defense of Breslau, he told me that he and his wife had been taken prisoners by the Russians. He also mentioned something about Dr. Scharpwinkel being in a hospital in Breslau and the Russians coming to take him away.”

“Where can I find this Zembrodt?”

“I met him in Rinteln recently,” Lonsky said, “and he told me he lives in Barntrup.”

McKenna knew the place by name, it being roughly twenty miles from Rinteln.

“What about Absalon?”

“I saw Dr. Absalon on occasions after I left the Military Police, as he used to come to the building where we had our staff offices and which had a restaurant underneath,” Lonsky said. “He came there for a drink, as his police office was nearby—but I do not remember seeing him after Christmas 1944.”

McKenna thanked Lonsky for his time and stepped once more into the rain.

Since the German capitulation, a man named Mercier had been aimlessly wandering the country. He considered himself lucky, having survived the slaughter at Breslau. He had slipped out of the city on May 6, mere days before the Russians completely overran the German defenses. Not sure where to go, he made his way down to the Oder River, where an armed Russian patrol robbed him of the few meager items still in his possession. Threatening to ship him off to a labor camp in Siberia, they marched him at gunpoint to a Red Army command
post in the nearby town of Tarnow and held him for several days. During questioning, he identified himself as a French laborer forced to take up arms for the Nazis. “Where are your papers?” his captors asked. Mercier shrugged. All he had, he said, were the ragged clothes that hung from his gaunt frame. A Russian commander, taking the Frenchman at his word, issued the man new travel papers in the name of Mercier and let him go. So, from the town of Tarnow, he set off with only one goal in mind: to find his wife, whom he had not seen in more than a year.

He often walked alone but occasionally joined one of the many straggling processions of refugees that shuffled alongside the roads. The country he knew was gone. Food was scarce and shelter hard to come by. The glorious Reich, once resplendent in victory, giddy with conquest, now lay prostrate in ruins. He ventured through one flattened town after another, laying his head where he could. From a black marketeer, he purchased a ration card to help acquire food. He traveled west toward Görlitz, the great west-east exchange point for Polish and German refugees. At the local Polish Consulate, he presented his Red Army travel papers and secured a permit allowing him to cross the River Neisse into the west. His subsequent wanderings took him by rail into Prague then back into Germany through Lübeck and Hanover. All the while, he hoped to be reunited with his wife of twenty years—but like so many others, she had simply disappeared amid the chaos of war. He gradually made his way to Hamburg, where he found room and board at the Swedish Mission Hostel. To make money, he thought he might have a go at establishing himself in the wine trade as a salesman. He had often enjoyed a nice vintage before the war and was not ignorant on the subject. Whether he found his wife or not, he had to somehow make a living.

Several days later, a telephone rang in the Hamburg office of the RAF Security Police. A Sergeant Taylor took the call. The man on the other end of the line spoke in a low voice. At the Swedish Mission Hostel, the caller said, police would find a onetime
Obersturmbannführer
(the equivalent to a lieutenant colonel) in the SS lodging under the name Ernest Mercier. Before Taylor could ask any questions, the
line went dead. He made his way to the hostel, navigating the wreckage-strewn streets, and checked with the clerk behind the desk. A look at the guest ledger revealed that Mercier had vacated his room several days prior but had left a forwarding address for any stray correspondence: a boardinghouse at Gurlittstrasse 23. The proprietress at the boardinghouse told Taylor that Mercier was out but expected back later that evening. Taylor gave the landlady his phone number and told her to call him the moment Mercier returned.