Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
of the British Army Personnel Centre in Glasgow, I discovered a great deal about this enigmatic man’s military career. He left few accounts of his adventures; he has no surviving close relatives and any personal letters or documents seem to have been lost. However, I learned that aspects of his time as a German prisoner have been recounted by others, including a number of fellow British officers detained with him as special prisoners. They all came to be integrated into a VIP group, known as the Prominenten, assembled for hostage purposes by the SS during the final months of the war.
The origins and odyssey of this extraordinary group – containing leading statesmen, clergy, aristocracy, aristocrats and generals – then became the focus of my research. A number of books containing reminisces of some survivors were published after the war. These include works in English by Sigismund Payne Best, Peter Churchill, Bertram James, Kurt Schuschnigg, Fey von Hassell, and a biography of Harry Day. I have drawn extensively from these accounts. Other important Prominenten reminisces include Léon Blum’s Le Dernier Mois and Isa Vermehren’s Reise durch den letzen Akt. Payne Best’s book, The Venlo Incident, contains the most extensive description of the events dealt with here, but it is not always an accurate account, as will become evident. Harry Day, along with others in my tale, played a prominent part in what has become known as ‘The Great Escape’: however, as this story has been extensively told, I make only a brief reference to it here. I have, though, drawn from Tim Carroll’s excellent work on the subject in respect of some biographical detail.
The British National Archives contain a number of relevant files and I benefited greatly from the helpfulness and efficiency of the staff in Kew and likewise at the Imperial War Museum in London. Some relevant US and German archive materials were sourced online. Newspaper reports and rare books were accessed at the National Library in Dublin and I am most grateful for the assistance of the staff at that institution. Cuttings from Roscommon newspapers relating to John McGrath were kindly provided by Caitlin Brown of Roscommon County Library. The library service was most helpful in securing the most relevant books from their archives. I am also grateful to Dr Caraline M. Heiss and Jens Kappel of the Pragser Wildsee Hotel in Italy for granting me access to their archive on the Prominenten. Georg Grote of University College Dublin generously shared his knowledge of the history of the South Tyrol.
A number of friends provided assistance and encouragement. My good friend and neighbour Tom McCaughren shared his expertise as a writer. My dear friend Stephen McCarty, who accompanied me to Dachau and the South Tyrol, was a constant source of knowledge about the Second World War and much else besides. Martin McGarry kindly assisted with some German translations. Maurice Earls was a constant source of help, as was his co-editor of Dublin Review of Books, Enda Doherty. Both allowed me to develop my writing skills through contributions to their excellent journal. Margaret Geaney helped with early proofreading. My hill-walking colleagues, whom I regaled with aspects of my story, remained constant in their encouragement, despite, no doubt, going beyond their boredom threshold at times. Particular thanks is due to Conor Graham of Merrion Press for his belief in the manuscript and for his commendable professionalism in guiding the final product towards publication, greatly aided by Fiona Dunne. Last, but far from least, I am eternally grateful to my wife Berni, who provided sound advice and encouragement, and to Ciara and Ronan for their support.
On a technical point, in the text I have used British equivalent ranks instead of burdening the general reader with German military and SS titles. Endnotes provide information on sources. The abbreviations used in respect of the principal archival institutions are listed below:
INA – Irish National Archives
IWM – Imperial War Museum
UKNA – British National Archives, Kew
INTRODUCTION
On 6 May 1945, a posse of international reporters and photographers were transported by American troops deep into the Dolomites in Northern Italy. They were told that they were about to meet a large number of important prisoners of the SS, among them prominent politicians, statesmen, nobility, clergy and military leaders from a number of countries. The destination was a hotel located on the shores of a lake overhung by high cliffs. On arrival, as the occupants of the hotel emerged, the newsmen would have recognised Léon Blum, the former premier of France; Kurt Schuschnigg, former Austrian Chancellor; and Miklós Kállay, the former Prime Minister of Hungary. Another familiar face would have been that of Martin Neimöller, the Lutheran pastor who had been imprisoned on Hitler’s orders. They interviewed a spokesman for the group – an Englishman wearing a monocle – who introduced himself as Captain Sigismund Payne Best, a British Secret Service officer who had been kidnapped by the Germans during the early weeks of the war. Accompanying him was Colonel John McGrath, an Irish-born officer. Other British officers present included survivors of the mass escape from Stalag Luft III in 1943. With them were four Irish NCOs and soldiers. It must have surprised assembled members of the press to find among the group a number of German aristocrats and former Wehrmacht generals.
The group was known as the Prominenten, although not all were famous or well-known. Most had disappeared into concentration camps years earlier, before being assembled as Nazi hostages during the final weeks of the war. There were, in all, eighteen nationalities represented. The German contingent included a large group of civilians – men, women and children, all relatives of those executed for their part in the plot to kill Hitler. News of the sudden discovery of these former SS hostages became a minor sensation internationally, to be as quickly forgotten when Nazi Germany officially surrendered three days later.
The context for their assembly as hostages was the machinations of high-ranking leaders of the SS. As the ‘Thousand Year Reich’ collapsed into rubble and all hopes faded, some of its leading lights competed with each other in their attempts to interest the Western Allies in dialogue. They included Heinrich Himmler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Walter Schellenburg, who each attempted to use hostages in order to save the regime or, as a final resort, themselves. Hostage-taking has a long history in conflict, but seldom before had the practice been applied with such implausible intent. Feelers had been put out by intermediaries signalling the prospect of the release of prominent prisoners as a prelude to peace talks. After being assembled in Dachau Concentration Camp, the Prominenten had been transported to the Alps. Their removal to an Alpine redoubt was designed to prevent their liberation by the advancing Allies, and to allow more time for their use as barter.
This book is in four parts, the first of which relates to the confinement, as special prisoners of war, of the principal characters in our story. Sachsenhausen was where most were initially held, although the Irishmen in the group had previously been billeted in a special camp where the Abwehr (German Army Intelligence) hoped to persuade Irish-born British servicemen to switch sides. The special prisoners were mostly kept in demarcated compounds within their concentration camps, separated from the main prisoner population. They were held as Nacht und Nebel (‘Night and Fog’) prisoners, that is, prisoners whose existence was to be kept secret. Although for most of the time they were treated more favourably than regular concentration camp prisoners, they were always in danger of execution, a fate some did not escape.
The chapters in Part II are set in Dachau, where different groups of special prisoners were assembled in separate compounds. They were a diverse group in terms of nationality, background and political orientation; notable hostages are introduced in these chapters. Among them were a number of high-ranking German officials who had been suspected of plotting against Hitler. Part III tells the story of their journey into the Alps, eventually arriving in the South Tyrol. The final chapter of this section deals with the attempts of the hostages to free themselves from their SS guards, who were believed to have been under orders to murder some or all of them. Part IV details the travails of the group after they found themselves stranded in a frozen hotel high in the Dolomites.
It is a true story involving some exceptional men and women, many of whom displayed great courage and perseverance. It was not always, however, a harmonious collective, for there were conflicts within the group and among them were a few mavericks and villains. These include a number of fascinating individuals whose background story are told in five addenda. Some are revealed to have led extraordinary double lives involving deception and treachery. Addendum III recounts the love story of Count Alexander