With a brief smile, Chef d’Escadron Paul Fournier sauntered back into the pottery.
Release from Plötzensee
Kelly entered the interview room in the security block at Plötzensee Prison and sat in the chair directly across the table from Horst Manteufel.
He observed the German closely. He looked tired and sad. The blond hair lank and dishevelled, receding at the temples, the powder-blue eyes watery and red-rimmed, the high cheekbones now accentuating the hollow cheeks. Worry and stress had carved deep lines across his brow and parallel to his nose. Manteufel looked fifty. He was, in fact, only in his mid-thirties.
Kelly should have hated this ex-Nazi and everything he stood for. A people trafficker, he was responsible for the escape from Germany of some of Europe’s most wanted war criminals. But he didn’t hate him; he felt sorry for him—a luxury which Kelly knew he could not afford.
Himself something of a loner, Kelly probably knew Manteufel better than anyone in military intelligence. He had studied him, interviewed him, read all of the documentation and personnel files relating to him and, prior to Manteufel’s arrest, had ‘befriended’ him as part of an undercover operation.
He had met Manteufel’s family, witnessed how desperate they were for food and clothing, seen how painfully thin Frau Gudrun Manteufel had become, choosing to feed their two young children rather than herself. He had happened upon her by accident one day when visiting the house and had found her in tears as she tried to repair and adjust a jacket that had long ago become irreparable, a hand-me-down from the elder child to the younger. She had begged Kelly not to tell Horst of her weakness.
Manteufel’s clients were few and becoming fewer. When he did have a payday, he handed every pfennig of the money over to Gudrun, who tried to eke it out for as long as possible.
Yes, Kelly was sorry for Manteufel, but it was more than that. Deep down, he admired him. An ex-paratrooper in the Fallschirmjäger, he had fought in Poland and France and had parachuted into Crete before being posted to North Africa to face the resurgent power of the British Eighth Army, revitalised under Montgomery. Then, finally, humiliation as Stabsfeldwebel of the detachment defending the Führer’s bunker in Berlin, staying firm at his post until the very last minute before retreating from the advancing Russians and melting into the underground.
Running and hiding, he had managed to evade the communists until the Allies had established their bases in the western sectors of Berlin, after which he had found his wife, still occupying their small flat in a side street off Prenzlauer Allee, shocked and terrified, but still alive.
And then, of course, thought Kelly, there was the small matter of Manteufel saving his life.
Kelly had used Manteufel to lead him to Müller, at one time the right-hand man of Reinhard Heydrich. It was to be Kelly’s biggest catch, but things had moved faster than Kelly had anticipated.
Posing as a document specialist in Manteufel’s team, he had found himself in the car park of the Olympic Stadium with Manteufel and three of Müller’s henchmen. Heading towards the stadium for a meeting with Müller, Kelly had realised that this was a one-off chance—there wouldn’t be another opportunity of taking the Gestapo chief—but he was hopelessly outnumbered. A moment of inattention by the three bodyguards had allowed Kelly to have a snatched conversation with Manteufel, during which he passed the German a pistol and a promise of amnesty if he cooperated. In the gunfight that followed, Müller’s bodyguards were disposed of and Müller himself captured.
Kelly was in no doubt that Manteufel had been the difference between success and failure—and probably death—and he was acutely conscious of the fact that he had not yet fulfilled his side of the bargain.
“I need further information, Horst …” he began, but didn’t finish. Manteufel was slowly but deliberately shaking his head.
“There is a problem, Horst?”
“There is a big problem, Colonel. Two of Müller’s ‘friends’ are in this same cell block. If they can get at me out of sight of the guards, I am a dead man, so if you want information you had better get me out of this shithole, and quickly!”
Kelly nodded. “I came to tell you that I have arranged for your release. The paperwork will be ready this afternoon. I’ll pick it up and then return tomorrow morning and take you to a safe place. In the meantime, I will arrange for a guard to be posted by your cell for the remainder of your time here. Do not leave your cell!”
The following morning Kelly was at the gate of the prison at 10.30 a.m. precisely. He was aware of the dreadful reputation of Plötzensee. This had been the main execution centre used by the Nazis against the ‘enemies of the state’. Despite visiting the prison several times recently, he had never gone to see the execution chamber. As he was early, he decided that today he would investigate. It was easy to find: a standalone single-storey building with two double doors, looking for all the world like an old farm shed. Situated just inside the main gate, he had passed it on previous visits to the prison but had never had time to inspect it.
Morbid curiosity, he thought as he crossed the courtyard, when his progress was arrested by a voice calling him.
“Colonel?”
Kelly turned to see a young Military Police corporal approaching at a brisk march. The corporal halted in the precise military manner and threw up a smart salute.
“Colonel Kelly?”
Kelly raised his hat in acknowledgement of the salute, the normal procedure when in civilian clothes, and answered with a smile, “The very same.”
“Corporal Hopkins, sir. I’ve been detailed to escort you to the SS Block.”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t just an SS block; there were others there as well. Nazis who may or may not have been members of the SS, but whom the authorities
