Oskar Schindler, page 10
Oskar “Zeiler” Schindler was initially interested in military activities and movements at the Polish railway station at Bohumín. This was an important rail center that Hitler, against the advice of German military leaders and diplomats, had permitted Poland to seize as German troops marched into Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. Aue was not a very good agent. Oskar told Aue to go to the Bohumín area in the spring of 1939 and gather as much information as he could on Polish military installations and important troop movements. Aue became so confused with the maps that he decided to lie to Oskar. According to Aue, he gave Oskar false information when he met with him at the Hotel Palace after he returned to Mährisch Ostrau. Oskar quickly saw through Aue’s lies and concluded that he was not fit for intelligence work. He promised Aue that he would try to find other work for him. For some reason, Oskar liked Sepp Aue and took him to Kraków after the outset of World War II. After the war, Aue returned Oskar’s friendship by testifying against him in Czechoslovakia. Czech authorities considered Aue’s testimony against Oskar so significant that they thought Aue should be turned over to Polish authorities for further investigation. There is no evidence, though, that the Czechs did this. Moreover, Aue was never charged with anti-German activity and continued to live in Ostrava after the war. He later told Itzhak Stern that his experiences after the war were “indescribable.”55
Two other important Sudeten German Abwehr operatives were Karel Gassner and František Turek. According to Robin O’Neil, Gassner was Schindler’s boss in Ostrava. Czech postwar investigative reports indicate that Gassner operated under the pseudonym “Princ.” He was listed first on the Czech “most wanted” list for local Abwehr operatives in the Moravská Ostrava area after the war, followed by Oskar Schindler. Gassner, who was born in 1885 in Plzew (Pilsen), was much older than Oskar and probably lacked his energy and charm, which might explain why some Abwehr operatives considered Schindler the effective head of the unit in Mährisch Ostrau. The Czech secret police report describes Gassner as elderly, grey, and slim with a slight hunchback. This was in striking contrast to his tall, blond second in command, Oskar Schindler.56
According to Josef Aue, Frantisek Turek was Oskar’s right-hand man in Mährisch Ostrau. Turek was a Czech theater painter who had worked for Abwehr in Opava during the First Czech Republic (1918–1938). The Germans valued Turek because he spoke fluent Czech, Polish, and Russian. As an Abwehr agent, Turek was actively engaged in smuggling German arms into Slovakia and Poland. According to Aue, Turek, who also worked with Oskar Schindler in Kraków, bragged one night in Kraków, after a few too many drinks, that he had discovered a Czechoslovak arms depot in Slovakia after the German takeover of the Sudetenland. He reported this to his Abwehr superiors, who rewarded him with 10,000 Czech crowns ($294). He also told Aue that he killed a Polish border guard in the early hours of the German move into Těšín on September 1, 1939. Like Oskar, Frantisek Turek moved to Kraków after the war began, where he became Treuhän-der (trustee) for the Laudon Company, which manufactured crockery.57
Yet more important to Oskar than his Sudeten German contacts were the German Abwehr officers whom he worked with in Mährisch Ostrau and Kraków. According to Czech investigative records after the war, six German officers oversaw Abwehr activities in the Opava-Moravská Ostrava/ Mährisch Ostrau area of the former Czechoslovak Republic before World War II: Major (later Oberstleutnant) Plathe, Hauptmann Kristiany, Leutnant Görgey, Leutnant Decker, and Leutnant Rudolf (or Karel) Lang. After the war, Oskar praised some of these officers, particularly Plathe and Major (later Oberstleutnant) Franz von Korab, for their efforts in securing Oskar’s release from Gestapo detention and helping Oskar protect his Jewish workers. We have to rely on these sources for our information about their efforts because most Abwehr records were destroyed during World War II.58
MajorFranz von Korab commanded Abwehr operations in TZšín and later, Kraków. Over time, Schindler and von Korab became close friends. In his 1951 letter to Fritz Lang, Oskar described von Korab as his “best friend in the Krakower years.” According to Emilie, Major von Korab’s mother was Jewish. For a long time, he was able to keep this a secret until one of his nephews inadvertently slipped and let the authorities know about his uncle’s secret. Major Korab was stripped of his rank and military honors and kicked out of the military. He spent the last year of the war in Prague, where he was killed by Czech partisans because he was a German-speaking civilian. Von Korab’s wife then moved to Vienna, where she lived after the war. Emilie said that Major Korab looked like the classic Aryan Nazi with his blond looks and “Appolonian” stature. She felt that despite his Jewish background, Major Korab “represented better than most, including the Führer himself, the paragons of race and beauty that Nazism was championing.” According to Robin O’Neil, Korab made the initial contacts that enabled Oskar to lease a former Jewish factory in Kraków after the war began. Two months after the war ended, Oskar thanked von Korab and a handful of other German officers for their courageous efforts to help Jews.59
Leutnant Lang worked closely with Oskar in Mährisch Ostrau and with Leutnant György, who often went by the civilian name of Dr. Greiner. Sepp Aue reported that before the German takeover of what remained of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, he frequently saw Schindler give Lang and György “various papers, packages” and other “luggage” or “baggage” (zavazadla), an indication that Oskar supplied the two German agents with a great deal of information about the Czech military. Lang originally worked for Abwehr in Opava; after the conquest of Poland he was transferred to Prague. During the war, he was released from military service because of a serious motorcycle accident injury.60
Indications are that Oskar’s German superiors thought highly of him. According to Alois Polansky, he received numerous awards, including a Horch, an extremely expensive road car designed by August Horch, the founder of Audi, for his work in 1938 and 1939. But according to Eva Marta Kisza, one of Schindler’s mistresses, the two of them were walking down a Berlin street when Oskar spotted a light blue Horch in a showroom window. Emilie said that the luxurious two-seater Horch had been made for the Shah of Iran, but because of the war, it was never delivered. Eva added that the impulsive Oskar fell in love with the car and convinced his Abwehr superiors to give him the money to buy it. During the war he had the Horch painted gray. The car became Oskar’s most prized possession and he used it to escape capture by Soviet troops at the end of World War II.61
Since this all took place during the war, Oskar probably never returned to the business world. More than likely, Schindler never fully left Abwehr. Those who work in intelligence are forever sworn to secrecy. As will be seen later, the fact that Abwehr sent him on a special mission to Turkey in 1940 indicates the great trust that Canaris’s organization put in his skills.62
Yet what were the principal fruits of Oskar Schindler’s espionage efforts in the spring and summer of 1939? According to Dr. Mečislav Borak, Schindler was involved in German plans for the invasion of Poland, particularly the seizure of the Gliwice radio station and the takeover of the Jablunkov Pass railway tunnel and tracks during the early hours of the German attack. However, Professor Jaroslav Valenta of the Historical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences doubts that Schindler played much of a role in the seizure of the radio station at Gli-wice because this was not in his area of operation; moreover, the seizure was controlled by the SS and the SD, though supported by Abwehr. According to Professor Valenta, most historic evidence tends to support this conclusion. Still, direct and indirect evidence does suggest that Oskar played an active role in German efforts to seize the Jablunkov Pass.63
Abwehr, Schindler, and the Invasion of Poland
As Britain, France, and the Soviet Union searched for ways diplomatically and militarily to thwart a German invasion of Poland in the spring and early summer of 1939, the Wehrmacht and Abwehr moved ahead with plans for the invasion of Poland.64 If there was an uncertain factor in this planning, it was the response of the Soviet Union to an invasion of Poland. German military planners had assumed that the Poles would try to hold back German forces long enough for Stalin to respond. This never happened. As Anglo-French-Soviet talks faltered over Stalin’s insistence that he be given the right to act defensively against any country on his western frontier that seemed to be moving into the German camp, low-level nonaggression talks began between Moscow and Berlin. Though they did not bear fruit until August 23 and 24, 1939, the talks between Germany and the Soviet Union removed the immediate prospect of war between these two countries and made Stalin an active participant in the takeover of Poland.65
Once Hitler was certain that an agreement with Stalin was possible, he established the final timetable for the attack on Poland. On August 12, 1939, Canaris put all his espionage units on full alert. Two days later, Hitler met with his Wehrmacht chiefs in his Berghof mountain retreat outside Munich. The following day, Canaris ordered his commando and sabotage units to move into position in Poland. On August 19, two trucks from Abwehr II delivered uniforms to the SD for the 364 Abwehr and SS operatives who were to take part in the phony assaults just inside Poland. Three days later, Hitler met again with a larger body of Wehrmacht commanders, including Canaris. Also in attendance was Hermann Göring, who was about to be named head of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich (Ministerrat für die Reichsverteidigung) and Hitler’s official successor, and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. On Hitler’s instructions, all his top officers wore civilian clothing. At the end of the meeting, which, as usual, the Führer dominated, he told his military leaders that he expected the attack on Poland to begin in four days. His parting words: “I have done my duty. Now do yours.”66
At 4:05 P.M. on August 25, the Wehrmacht High Command under GeneralWilhelm Keitel issued the order to invade Poland. Canaris immediately sent his combat and sabotage teams into action. Two and a half hours later, though, Keitel ordered his units to stand down at 8:30 P.M. because of new political developments. Great Britain, which Hitler had hoped to isolate through an alliance offer, instead signed a mutual assistance treaty with Poland that day. Benito Mussolini, Hitler’s Pact of Steel ally, now informed the Führer that Italy was militarily unprepared to join in a war that would probably include Britain and France. Oberst Edwin Lahousen frantically informed Admiral Canaris that his agents overseeing the attack on the Jablunkov Pass railway tunnel had lost contact with the sabotage team under Leutnant Hans-Albrecht Herzner. The fear now was that Herzner’s squad would provoke the very war that the Führer had just called off. Desperate Abwehr II radio operators in Germany and northern Slovakia did everything possible to contact the missing unit. Oskar Schindler’s Commando VIII unit was the main physical link to Herzner’s squad. On the morning of August 26, Oskar’s team informed Abwehr headquarters that it had heard reports of heavy rifle fire near the Jablunkov Pass and concluded that it was probably Leutnant Herzner’s unit.67
Hours later, Canaris received more information about Leutnant Herzner’s activities. At 3:55 A.M. on August 26, Herzner’s unit was sent to the Eighth Army, which was part of Army Group South; this was the first official dispatch of World War II. It reported that it had taken nearby Mosty u Jablunkova station but had failed to take the Jablunkov tunnel. Herzner’s squad then captured a locomotive and tried to enter the tunnel, but the Poles repelled this effort as well. The Abwehr team, which was now trapped behind Polish lines, was ordered to fight its way to the Slovak border. It met stiff resistance from Polish police forces, who now tried to block the German team’s way out of Poland. By early afternoon, Herzner’s unit remained under heavy Polish fire as it tried to move across the Slovak border in the Raková-Madca region. Just before it entered Slovak territory, General Keitel ordered Herzner to remain in Poland.68
Hitler had never intended to halt his invasion of Poland; instead, he delayed his assault for a few days to convince the British to abandon their guarantees to Poland and pressure Mussolini to reconsider his position about joining Hitler in war. By August 28, Hitler had decided to invade Poland on September 1. 69
On the afternoon of August 31, 1939, the special Abwehr, SS, and SD units that were to initiate the mock attacks were given the code words Grossmutter gestorben (Grandmother is dead). This was the signal for their final moves into Poland. A stunned Admiral Canaris, who received his orders for the initial assaults at 5:30 P.M, broke down and cried. For Canaris, war meant the end of Germany.70 Two and a half hours later, Germans dressed in Polish uniforms fired shots across the Polish border and left the dead prisoners as “evidence” of Polish aggression. Another group under SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks attacked and captured the radio station at Gleiwitz. The phony “Polish” occupiers then announced, in Polish, an attack on Germany. Hitler now had his justification for war.71
The following day, the Völkischer Beobachter informed the German people that Polish rebels had moved into German territory and Adolf Hitler told the Reichstag that the Reich would now respond to fourteen “border incidents” of the previous night. The reality was quite different. Hitler had signed the final directive for the attack on Poland at noon on August 31. Seventeen hours later, five German armies moved into Poland, preceded by several Abwehr commando squads. Over the next few days, Hitler rejected the demands of Britain and France to withdraw as a prelude to negotiations. On September 3, London and Paris declared war on the Third Reich. By the time Soviet forces, after considerable German prodding, began to occupy their portion of eastern Poland, the Wehr-macht had almost completed its conquest of Poland and the destruction of Poland’s once proud military forces. Though some Polish units were able to escape into neutral territory, the Germans were able to defeat those that remained in Poland by October 6.72
Kraków and the Early Months of the German Occupation
Kraków, Poland, would be Oskar Schindler’s home from 1939 to 1944. According to Emilie, he “fell in love with the bustling life and beauty of the city and did not want to leave; he was more faithful to it than to many of his women, certainly more than to me.” Kraków was also one of the first major Polish cities taken by the Wehrmacht in September 1939. Two German armies, Army Group North under General Fedor von Bock and Army Group South under Gerd von Runstedt invaded Poland in the early morning hours of September 1, 1939. Runstedt’s Fourteenth Army, operating out of Slovakia, was responsible for taking southern Poland, particularly the fortified city of Lvov. The Fourteenth Army was also to stop Polish units from moving into the safety of Hungary and Romania. In the first hours of combat, units of the Fourteenth Army took the difficult Jablunkov Pass from its Polish defenders. That evening, the force of the German attack saw the disorganized Polish Kraków Army flee in the face of the German assault. By September 5, the Fourteenth Army was on the outskirts of Kraków, which surrendered the next day. It would be another month before German forces completed the conquest of Poland.73
Five weeks after Kraków surrendered to the Germans, Oskar Schindler made the three-hour trip from Mährish Ostrau to Kraków to explore the possibility of resuming his business career. When he arrived in Kraków, Abwehr officers had their hands full dealing with the fallout from defunct German plans to initiate a revolt in those parts of Poland and the Soviet Union with large Ukrainian populations. On September 19, Canaris had personally asked Oberst Erwin Lahousen, the head of Abwehr II, to set up operations in Kraków to deal with the large influx of Ukrainians fleeing Soviet troops, who had just moved into their occupation zone in Poland. Three and a half weeks earlier, Moscow and Berlin had signed the Nazi- Soviet nonaggression pact and a secret accord that divided Poland almost equally between both countries.74
For several years, Canaris and other Abwehr leaders had played with the idea of stirring up nationalist sentiment among the large Ukrainian minority in Poland and, at the opportune moment, uniting Ukrainians in Poland and the Soviet Union into a pro-Nazi Greater Ukrainian state. The Nazi-Soviet accord dashed hopes that such a state would come into existence. 75 At German prodding, the Soviet Union, which had just concluded an armistice with Japan, ending a four-month war on the Mongolian- Manchurian border, sent the Red Army to occupy its treaty zone in Poland. Vladimir Potemkin, the vice commissar of foreign affairs, told the Polish ambassador to Moscow, Waclaw Grzybowski, that Stalin did so to protect the Ukrainians and Belorussians in Poland.76
Most of Poland’s 4.4 million Ukrainians (1931 census) were now trapped in Stalin’s new Polish territory, and more than 0.5 million lived in German-occupied Poland. During the next year, about 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainians left Soviet Poland for the German zone. Soon after the war began, Abwehr set up a relief organization in Kraków to help the Ukrainian refugees. For the rest of World War II, Kraków would be a center of Ukrainian nationalist activity that was officially encouraged by the Germans. Many of the guards who oversaw Oskar Schindler’s workers in Kraków and Brünnlitz were drawn from this large Ukrainian emi-gré community.77
The German invasion and conquest of Poland was brutal. According to Ian Kreshaw, occupied Poland was to become an “experimental playground” for the SS and the Nazi Party, both of which would play a key role in ruling Poland after it was conquered. Hitler regarded ethnic Poles as that “dreadful [racial] material” who stood in the way of his dreams of a greater Aryan-pure Germany. On August 22, Hitler told his top generals to “act brutally” towards all Poles. The Führer viewed Poland’s Jews “as the most horrible thing imaginable.” Hitler added that the aim of war was physically to annihilate the enemy, in this case the Poles. His special Einsatz squads had “orders mercilessly and pitilessly to send men, women, and children of Polish extraction and language to their death.”78
