The Nazi Hunters (28 page)

Referencing the reported words of SD officer Max Kessler, Franks surmised: ‘some order at some time has been issued to the effect that SAS Troops should be shot, whether or not they are in uniform. This is, I believe, contrary to the statement made by the German Commanding Officer who is at present a prisoner in our hands, but in his present position
he is hardly likely to say that British Parachutists would be
shot.’

Who exactly that captured German officer was remains unclear. But for months there had been persistent rumours about what amounted to a blanket Nazi ‘execution order’ for any captured SAS men. Those rumours had started with the spring 1944 escape of SAS Lieutenant Quentin Hughes from a German train then steaming across Italy, having learned that the Gestapo planned to execute him as a ‘saboteur’.

Hughes’ report represented the first evidence secured by the SAS that such an execution order might exist. The six murders uncovered by Sykes and Barkworth, plus Max Kessler’s reported testimony, gave credence to Hughes’ claims. And, as luck would have it, absolute proof positive of Hitler’s kill order was about to fall into Allied hands.

On 25 January 1945 four copies of what was to become known as Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’ were delivered to 2 SAS headquarters, under the heading ‘German Order to Kill Captured Allied Commandos and Parachutists’. Two copies of the order were sent direct to Captain Sykes, one of which was to be passed to Major Barkworth.

The soon-to-be-infamous document had been captured by the French intelligence services, who had in turn handed it over to the Paris headquarters of the American OSS, and from there it had made its way into the possession of the SAS. The Commando Order, issued by Adolf Hitler himself, was supposedly a reaction to one of the very first British Special Forces operations.

On 3 October 1942 a tiny raiding party had launched Operation Basalt, a mission commanded by Captain Brian Appleyard and Lieutenant Anders Lassen. Their tiny force had sped across the Channel in a diminutive motor launch known as the ‘Little Pisser’, scaled the cliffs of the Channel Island of Sark, and taken some of the occupying German garrison captive.

But while trying to spirit their prisoners off the island and into the waiting boat, all but one of the Germans had broken free. In the ensuing melee some had been shot. They’d had their hands tied upon being taken captive, which led to screaming headlines in the German-controlled press that German prisoners had been tied up and executed: ‘British Attack and Bind German Troops in Sark. Immediate Reprisals for Disgraceful Episode’.

Upon hearing of the attack, Hitler flew into a towering rage. Two weeks after the Sark raid, his response was ready: the Commando Order. Issued on 18 October 1942, Hitler must have known he was decreeing that war crimes be committed. The efforts to hide the order’s existence from the Allies were extraordinary. It was classified ‘MOST SECRET’, was issued to high-ranking officers only and was to be committed to memory, after which all printed copies were to be destroyed.

Such extreme levels of secrecy seemed to have worked; it had taken more than two years for a copy to fall into Allied hands. Those sent to Franks, Sykes and Barkworth included a commentary from the OSS. ‘The first of the following two orders was issued by Führer Headquarters on 18 October 1942, and reissued, with a supplementary order . . . following the [D-Day] invasion of France.’

The original order, citing the previous British ‘commando’ raids such as that on Sark as justification, stated: ‘In future, Germany will resort to the same methods in regards to these groups of British saboteurs and their accomplices – that is to say, German troops will exterminate them without mercy wherever they find them.

‘Henceforth all enemy troops encountered by German troops during so-called commando operations . . . though they appear to be soldiers in uniform or demolition groups, armed or unarmed, are to be exterminated to the last man, either in combat or pursuit . . . If such men appear to be about to surrender, no quarter should be given to them – on general principle.’

Hitler’s order ends with a chilling warning to any who might have the temerity to oppose it. ‘I will summon before the tribunal of war, all leaders and officers who fail to carry out these instructions – either by failure to inform their men or by their disobedience of this order in action.’

The supplementary order, issued following the Normandy landings, was even more extreme: ‘In spite of the Anglo-American landings in France, the Führer’s order of 18 October 1942, regarding the destruction of saboteurs and terrorists, remains fully valid . . . All members of terrorist and saboteur bands, including (on general principle) all parachutists encountered outside the immediate combat zone, are to be executed.’

German commanders were ordered to: ‘Report daily the numbers of saboteurs thus liquidated . . . The number of executions must appear in the daily communiqué of the Wehrmacht to serve as a warning to potential terrorists.’ The measures to maintain ‘secrecy’ regarding the order were laid out in black and white. ‘The copies going to Regts and Gen Staff are to be destroyed by the latter when its contents have been noted. A certificate of destruction should be returned to this HQ.’

One can imagine Franks, Sykes and Barkworth’s feelings upon reading these captured documents. In light of the Commando Order, the horrific killings that Barkworth and Sykes had uncovered in the valleys of the Vosges made every sense. Doubtless, the other Op Loyton captives would have faced a similar fate, and all seemed lost for the two dozen men still listed as ‘missing, believed PW’. Lesser men might well have let matters lie there, but not these.

The fallout from the revelations of the Commando Order continued. Top secret communiqués flew back and forth between British Airborne Corps – the unit then in command of the SAS – and the War Office, raising extreme concerns about the fate of captured Special Forces operators. The general consensus seemed to be that they were being held for interrogation by the Gestapo, after which they were being killed.

The issues raised were legion, not least of which was how to deploy the SAS in light of the order. ‘It will be appreciated that the whole policy regarding employment of SAS troops is affected by the treatment of any personnel captured. The enemy realizes this and obviously, as part of their propaganda to stop SAS activities, have issued orders that these parachutists are “saboteurs” and will be shot.’

There was also the pressing issue of how much to tell the men on the ground. In the late winter of 1944–45 there were dozens of SAS units serving as the vanguard of forces thrusting into Germany itself. For example, Captain Henry Carey Druce was about to lead a daring SAS mission from the Dutch city of Arnhem to penetrate German lines. It was a tasking that he would complete with ‘devastating effect’ – but what if any of his men were taken captive?

By late February 1945, some form of decision seemed to have been taken on that point. A ‘SECRET & CONFIDENTIAL’ memo issued from high command to SFHQ stated the following regarding French members of the SAS: ‘After consideration of this problem it has been decided not to inform the troops.’ The reasons cited are: ‘(a) They expect to be shot already. (b) It would only provide a good excuse for any delinquents that might wish to retire from the struggle.’

There was a war still to be fought, and it seemed that the SAS troopers were to be kept in the dark about Hitler’s infamous order.

One other aspect of this whole affair was being pursued at the very highest levels: the hunting down of the war criminals who were carrying out Hitler’s kill order. In the spring of 1945 Brigadier ‘Mad’ Mike Calvert took over command of the SAS from McLeod. Calvert stressed how ‘every effort should be made to apprehend these criminals, to seek out the evidence and bring them to trial’.

Brigadier Calvert and Colonel Franks were of a like mind. Under their influence, lobbying took place of the most influential friends of the Regiment within the political establishment to get backing for such action. But Franks – the one senior SAS commander with the most invested in this issue personally – could already sense the way the wind was blowing, as could Calvert.

‘SHAEF and most organizations in Europe have an end of term feeling, and do not want to be bothered with anything that gives extra work,’ Brigadier Calvert wrote to Colonel Franks. ‘As this is accentuated by the fact that the British are not themselves of a nature which seeks revenge, it is difficult to convince . . . people that this is not a case of revenge, but of bringing criminals to trial for very serious offences.’

One other member of this amorphous grouping – Prince Yurka Galitzine – was raising his voice in support of war crimes investigations. He became particularly vocal following the Allies’ 15 April 1945 ‘discovery’ of the concentration camps. Galitzine had been forced to keep quiet five months earlier, when he had documented Natzweiler and tried so hard to raise the alarm. But with newsreel of the horrors of Belsen playing out in British cinemas, the wall of silence had finally been broken.

Galitzine had been thwarted over Natzweiler, but he sensed that now was his time. His own personal experiences made him acutely aware of the war crimes issue, and the need to pursue and prosecute the Nazi war criminals. Yet he was worried how much would actually be done.

‘I had a feeling that even by VE Day the impetus was beginning to . . . slacken,’ Galitzine recalled. ‘The senior people in the War Office – they seemed to be all for a quiet life, and so did the politicians.’

Galitzine’s understanding of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis was extraordinarily perceptive and way ahead of its time. As the war drew to a close, he drafted a proposal for what he called the International Bureau of Information (IBI). It aimed to combat the use of propaganda and brainwashing – which had been used to such effect in Nazi Germany – to enable despots, dictators and mass killers to seize control of entire nations.

‘Few people realize the part propaganda has played in this war,’ Galitzine wrote. ‘It might well be said that Germany declared war on the world in 1933 when Hitler launched his propaganda offensive against civilization, and it is certain that the measure of success he achieved was in the main due to the influencing of public opinion, especially in undermining the unity of his victims by propaganda.’

Unsurprisingly, Galitzine’s IBI didn’t get taken up by the world powers. In the spring of 1945 their priorities lay elsewhere. But he was about to land himself a posting that would place the Nazi war criminals very much more firmly within his grasp. The War Office – under pressure owing to the Belsen and Auschwitz revelations – belatedly established a war crimes investigation team, working out of their Eaton Square office, in London’s exclusive Belgravia district.

Just a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, the War Office’s number 20 Eaton Square facility was set within a grand, white-fronted, Georgian building some six storeys high. There was nothing in particular to set it apart from the neighbouring properties, which were mostly inhabited by the London well-to-do. Officially, Galitzine was now working for the Adjutant-General’s Branch 3 – Violation of the Laws and Usages of War – or ‘AG3-VW’, for short.

At AG3-VW he would truly find his calling.

But when it came to tracing the Op Loyton missing, all trails seemed to have gone cold. Barkworth and Sykes had done all they could on the ground in the Vosges. The bodies – the remains – of six men had been found, and five had been identified. Five families had been written to, the news of their son’s or husband’s deaths providing some degree of closure. But for the majority there was nothing; as Hitler had decreed, their loved ones had been swallowed up into the Night and the Fog.

Requests for news of the missing were coming in thick and fast. A Mr J.R.H. Pinckney wrote to SAS headquarters, requesting news of his missing son, Philip Pinckney. ‘We should be very anxious for any personal items of news or belongings which may be available, or may be found with the Authorities . . . Very little has been said about the work of these SAS Regiments, and perhaps something may be forthcoming to the relatives in due course.’

Colonel Franks promised to do everything in his power to discover what had happened, but desperate requests for information were being received from all quarters. Alsace Maquis leader Colonel Grandval wrote from the Vosges, seeking news on behalf of M. de Bouvier, whose son, Henry, had been a Maquis fighter.

Henry de Bouvier ‘is supposed to have exfiltrated on around the 15th of October, with Captain V.A. Gough, of the Jedburgh Team JACOB,’ wrote the French colonel. However, M. de Bouvier, ‘is without any news of his son, Henry, since the middle of October.’

Since Captain Victor Gough was one of those listed as ‘missing – presumed PW’, there was little that Colonel Franks could tell the worried French father, although he hungered for the truth. It was the same with all of the ‘missing’: friends, relatives, loved ones and former comrades had been left in a terrible limbo, wondering what may have happened.

But all of that was about to change with one letter sent from France.

On 8 May 1945, VE Day, the war in Europe ended. But neither Franks, Barkworth, nor any of their men were much in the mood to celebrate. Their minds were turned to darker matters: the fate of the missing, and catching those who had tortured and murdered them.

Just a week after VE Day, Franks issued instructions to Barkworth: he was to lead a force to investigate ‘the murder of personnel of this Regiment taken prisoner in Eastern France during the months of August, September and October 1944’.