The Nazi Hunters (44 page)

‘Yes.’

The judge advocate cited Isselhorst’s ‘career’ on the Eastern Front as typifying his cruelty, outlining how he had commanded one of Hitler’s death squads and hunted down Russian partisans. Gehrum’s testimony – that Isselhorst was a man ‘with very cruel ideas’ – could hardly be denied in light of that.

‘Some pretty cruel things were done in Russia, were they not?’ the judge advocate demanded. ‘Except for a Jew I suppose a Russian was the least important person in the eyes of a German?’

‘No . . . I had no opportunity there to commit any acts of cruelty . . . My duties there, with the Einsatzkommando were only of a military nature. There were no partisans or guerrillas or anything of that kind in that area, as it was only a front area.’

In spite of Isselhorst denials – which were, of course, barefaced lies – the judge advocate had scored a point: he’d painted Isselhorst as a man with a long history of involvement in Nazi atrocities.

He turned next to the fact that the Op Loyton men had all been in uniform when captured. Isselhorst tried to argue that he was ignorant of this fact, or that it wasn’t a relevant factor in deciding whether to execute the men. Again, the judge advocate’s anger boiled over.

‘But what is the matter with everybody in the German service?’ he demanded. ‘Do you not realise it would be complete madness to send British soldiers to Germany dressed as civilians?’

‘I was of the opinion . . . that those British personnel were only put into British uniform so as to camouflage their unlawful actions – unlawful against international law . . . The Führer Order speaks quite clearly about these people whether in uniform or not.’

The judge advocate produced a copy of the Commando Order. ‘The main order has at the bottom “signature illegible” but do we gather it was Hitler who issued this order?’ he asked of Isselhorst.

‘Yes.’

‘And he ends with the blood-curdling threat: “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?” ’

‘Yes.’

The judge advocate was building an argument that Isselhorst had engaged in illegal acts – murder – owing to his fear of the Führer’s retribution should he not do so. In other words, he had knowingly committed war crimes out of fear for his own person. Another key point had been scored.

After twenty-two days in session, the hearing wound up with the judge advocate clarifying of which crimes Isselhorst and his cohorts stood accused. None of them had taken part in the direct killings. Rather, they had issued the orders while commanding Operation Waldfest. The shootings were carried out by ‘thugs’ who took men into the woods, shot them in the back of the head, threw them into bomb craters, buried them, and removed all traces of the killings.

On 11 July the court pronounced its verdicts: while there were custodial sentences for two of the accused, Isselhorst and Schneider were both condemned to ‘death by hanging’. One other, Oberg – a senior ranking SS and Gestapo officer serving in France at the time of the Vosges campaign – was also sentenced to death by hanging.

Julius Gehrum was acquitted. Towards the end of the trial his lawyer, Dr Kohrs, had painted a chilling picture of life in the final days of the Reich.

‘In the course of this trial you have already heard of the Führer Order . . . that was posted in every company’s office, in every staff quarters and in every officer’s mess. According to this, no soldier, nor officer either, was permitted to receive knowledge of things that did not have to be made known to him for official reasons.

‘This duty to keep secret even unimportant matters was one of the reasons why National Socialism was so successful in suppressing the majority of people for such a long time. It was dangerous to know too much. It was more dangerous to ask too much. It was still more dangerous to say too much.’

In Hitler’s Germany, knowing, asking or saying too much could prove a life or death issue. But in the summer of 1946 it was Isselhorst’s knowledge that would serve to postpone his execution for the time being. The hearing done, Isselhorst was returned to the custody of his nemesis: Barkworth. He was wanted as a trial witness in three further British cases. And the French were also after him, to stand trial in France for widespread crimes against humanity in the Vosges.

Similarly, Gehrum’s apparent acquittal was only to provide a momentary respite. On 4 August 1946 Barkworth handed him over to the French so they could try him for war crimes. In due course Gehrum would find himself condemned by his own words during Barkworth’s interrogation, in which he’d admitted to ‘the liquidation of certain prisoners’ when in charge of a special execution commando.

He would be sentenced to death by the French in May 1947.

A month or so after the trial of Isselhorst and his cohorts, Bill Barkworth and Dusty Rhodes travelled to Hamelin, a small town in central Germany famous for the children’s tale of the Pied Piper who pipes a plague of rats out of the town. It was late September 1946 and the two Secret Hunters were going to Hamelin prison to witness a hanging.

Barkworth and Rhodes were led along a series of bare, echoing corridors towards the execution room. They took their places amongst the various officials present. A figure was brought out by the hangman and led to the place of his final few minutes of life on this earth.

Oberwachtmeister
Heinrich ‘Stuka’ Neuschwanger kept his head erect as the hangman slipped the noose around his neck. Even now, at the moment of his death, he betrayed not the slightest sign of regret at anything that he had done. ‘Right up to the moment he was hung I don’t think it worried him one little bit,’ remarked Rhodes. ‘I don’t think he had any sorrow or remorse at all in him, that man. He was cruel.’

At least Neuschwanger was afforded the luxury of a quick and clean death. The drop was sufficient to break his neck. That was more than any of his Natzweiler victims had ever been given.

Having seen
Oberwachtmeister
Neuschwanger hang, Barkworth and Rhodes returned to their jeep feeling strangely downcast and silent. There had been no real joy – no sense of catharsis – in witnessing his hanging, in spite of the fact that he had been one of the Nazi war criminals that they had sought most exhaustively. Neither man would ever attend another execution.

‘It was something that one doesn’t want to do more than once,’ recalled Rhodes. ‘When we came out of that prison we were both pleased we’d come out. I believe we were both of the opinion that it’s not nice to see somebody die.’

For the Secret Hunters their mission had never been one of brute revenge. It was always about ensuring that justice was done. By the autumn of 1946 they had a sense that some of the justice that they had so hungered for had been delivered. Neuschwanger was dead. Isselhorst and Schneider were scheduled to hang, as was Werner Rohde, and Karl Buck would face ‘death by shooting’.

Gehrum would eventually follow them to his death, as would Peter Straub, the Natzweiler executioner, after he too faced a further trial. The architects of Waldfest had been hunted down, tried before a court of law and were facing the death penalty.

All except one:
Sturmbannführer
Ernst remained at large.

Chapter Thirty

After the trials, Barkworth and his team might have been forgiven for easing off a little, but not a bit of it. Their Villa Degler operation continued full steam ahead.

By December of 1946 Barkworth had expanded the scope of his work to cover a plethora of new investigations: Kolbshein – war crimes against US servicemen; Natzweiler IV – a Stalag Luft killing of RAF officers; Captain Gunston and 7 ORs (other ranks) – the SAS in Italy; Bennett and Claridge – again, the SAS in Italy; plus a dozen or so more cases.

The focus was no longer Operation Loyton. Colonel Franks’ determination to trace the thirty-two SAS who had gone missing in the Vosges had spawned an investigative phenomenon all of its own. In a 26 December letter to the War Office, summing up the Villa Degler team’s successes and ongoing priorities, Barkworth was clear about the need to expand his force, and of the need to recruit independently.

‘This is considered to have the advantage that men can be hand-picked, a course which is essential in so small a unit where no passengers can be carried.’ He summarized the gargantuan efforts that had produced the results so far achieved at trial. ‘Since 1st January 1946 the vehicles of this team have covered 245,238 miles . . . During the past year 105 persons involved as accused or witnesses were located in camps, and 44 arrested by members of this team.’

Barkworth also wrote of the ongoing challenges in tracking down suspects, and especially the one man that he sought above all others. ‘The difficulties encountered in finding wanted persons have not decreased. It is known, for example, that Ernst of the St. Dié and Saales cases, was released by the Americans . . . He subsequently visited his wife in December 1945 and is now thought to be . . . in the British zone, since he has appeared there twice . . . It is hoped to bring this search to a successful conclusion in the near future.’

By early 1947, London was clear in its acknowledgement of Barkworth’s unrivalled expertise and experience in war crimes matters. In spite of the ‘peculiar nature of the SAS investigations’ – and not to mention the team’s ill-defined status –‘Major Barkworth’s knowledge of the broad picture of the crimes . . . is so extensive and his appreciation of the characters of the various suspects so detailed’, that it should be relied upon wherever possible, stated a letter from the judge advocate general’s office.

Tracking down the Nazi war criminals remained essential for many families seeking closure, those whose sons and daughters were still listed as missing. Some at least of the bereaved were keen to witness in person that justice had been done.

In the spring of 1947, the father of SAS and Op Loyton man Donald Lewis – killed at Le Harcholet – wrote of his son’s death and pending trial: ‘I should be very grateful if you could, in any way at all, assist in my application for permission to be allowed to attend the trial of those who were responsible for his and his comrades’ death.’

For Barkworth and his Villa Degler team the burden of responsibility was far from being lifted. This was especially so in light of the new cases that they were taking on.

In June 1944 a squadron from 1 SAS had been dropped into western France, near the city of Poitiers. Establishing their base of operations in a forest to the south-east of Poitiers, their mission was to harass and disrupt German forces speeding northwards to repel the D-Day landings. Code-named Operation Bulbasket, it ended in disaster as thirty-one men were captured. At the end of the war, they – like those of Op Loyton – were listed simply as ‘missing’.

With the Op Loyton cases largely concluded, Colonel Franks, Galitzine and Barkworth turned their attention to doing a similar job for the Op Bulbasket missing. Barkworth wrote to Franks regarding the killings: ‘Unit responsible for executions . . . identified as Recce. Squadron of the 158th Division, 80th Corps, German Army.’

There followed a list of eight names – the key commanders suspected of wiping out the Bulbasket thirty-one. By February 1947 Barkworth had three of them in custody, and interrogations were under way. In April 1947 the main culprits were tracked down and brought to trial at Wuppertal. Two men – including the general in command of the 80th Corps – were sentenced to death by hanging.

Barkworth would go on to investigate a whole plethora of Commando Order cases. They included the murder of Captain Bill Blyth, a Special Boat Service (SBS) operator who had served with the legendary Anders Lassen. While carrying out ship-borne raids against German forces, Blyth had been taken captive on the eastern Mediterranean island of Alimnia, along with several of his crew. All had been swallowed up into the
Nacht und Nebel
.

Barkworth also turned his attention to the so-called Cockleshell Heroes, more formally known as Operation Frankton – a 1942 mission by a group of commandos using canoes to raid the German-occupied port of Bordeaux. And he would investigate the aftermath of Operation Source, the 1943 raid in which British commandos piloting X-Craft mini submarines attacked the heavy German battleships
Tirpitz
which was lying at anchor in a Norwegian fjord.

But while the Operation Loyton accused – and those of Op Bulbasket – had been dragged before the courts, many of Barkworth’s later manhunts would be terminated prematurely. It would be political expediency and cant that would sink these investigations.

On 29 April 1948, the French sent a copy of Isselhorst’s execution certificate to the British war crimes authorities. Following his British trial Isselhorst had been tried in France and condemned to death two further times. The certificate recorded that a firing squad had assembled at Strasbourg to shoot Isselhorst, as opposed to his being hanged. But dead was still dead.

Isselhorst had been pronounced dead by ‘Médecin-Colonel BOUCHARD’, and his crime recorded as ‘COMPLICITE D’ASSASSINATS’ – complicity in murder. The British recorded the verdict somewhat more prosaically: ‘Erich Isselhorst was executed in STRASBOURG on 23 Feb 48 following confirmation of the Court of Cessation of the sentence of death passed upon him by a French Military Tribunal.’