Oskar Schindler, page 4
Oskar Schindler operated in a strategically important area for the German military as it planned the takeover of Czechoslovakia and later Poland. Abwehr made its first forays into the Czechoslovak Republic in the late 1920s. Admiral Canaris intensified these contacts in January 1935 through Henlein’s liaison in Berlin, Friedrich Bürger. Canaris would later brag that Abwehr had “discovered” Henlein. This is an exaggeration, but it is true that Abwehr was one of the first German organizations to realize the value of Henlein and the SdP to the Third Reich. The SD and the Gestapo remained suspicious of the SdP leader; in 1936, one SD report called Henlein “a slave of Rome” who was seriously damaging Germany’s efforts to draw closer to the Sudeten Germans.65
Canaris’s liaison with Henlein was Major (Major) Helmut “Muffel” Groscurth, the head of Untergruppe IS (a subgroup of Abwehr I). At this time, Abwehr was divided into three major sections, Abwehr I (secret intelligence service); Abwehr II (cipher and radio monitoring); and Abwehr III (counterintelligence), which was responsible for war sabotage and minorities abroad.66 Abwehr underwent several changes while Oskar Schindler was connected with the organization. In 1935, Hitler’s decision to reinstate universal military service meant, at least from Canaris’s perspective, new dangers to Germany’s military security from abroad. To deal with this threat, Canaris greatly expanded Abwehr III. One of its new subsections was Abwehr IIIF, under Lt. Commander Richard Protze. One of the responsibilities of Protze’s group was to recruit foreigners from across the German border to work for Abwehr. Soon after Canaris took over Ab-wehr, he decided to become more aggressive outside Germany. Each Ab-wehr office (Abwehrstelle) in Germany’s nine (later thirteen) military districts was to set up its own intelligence operations team. Each unit of three to six agents was known as a Private Orchestra (Hauskapelle) overseen by a conductor (Kapellmeister). One of the prime tasks of the Hauskapellen was to recruit agents who could infiltrate foreign spy agencies. They were aided by a special group of informants who were part of a Hotelorganisa-tion. These informants worked in hotels and resorts and watched foreign spies. They also helped identify foreigners who might be willing to work for Canaris’s organization. Abwehr IIIF agents at regional border stations worked with the green-uniformed border police (Grenzpolizei) to try to convince foreigners to work for military counterintelligence.67
Oskar Schindler probably worked for Abwehr IIIF in Opava first under Major Plathe. Gestapo reports in 1940 about a break-in at Schindler’s apartment in Märisch Ostrau in 1939 show that Major Plathe remained Oskar’s command officer through 1940.68 Nothing in the German or Czech secret police files verifies this save for a statement Oskar made to the Czech secret police on July 23, 1938. The inclusion of this in Dr. Sobotka’s official report five days later suggests that he accepted Schindler’s statement as fact. In discussing his initial contacts with a Sude-ten German Abwehr agent, whom Oskar referred to as “Kreuziger,” he said that “Kreuziger” told him “to refuse cooperation with the department [Abwehr] II A, which deals only with political issues, such as propaganda, pamphlets, etc.” This reference was not to the old Abwehr II, which had been responsible for cipher (code) and radio monitoring, but to a brand-new Abwehr II. Earlier that year, Canaris had reorganized Ab-wehr in response to new changes in OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrma-cht; Wehrmacht High Command) under General Wilhelm Keitel. Abwehr now became the Bureau Abwehr (Amtsgruppe A), complete with a Foreign Office, an administrative Central Division, and three branches. Ab-wehr I remained the secret intelligence service, and Abwehr II, now under Groscurth, was responsible for psychological warfare, international agitation, and the cultivation of fifth columns abroad. Abwehr IIA referred to the Central Office in Berlin under Groscurth.69
There are four major accounts and collections about Oskar Schindler’s work for Abwehr. The first was his own testimony to the Czechoslovak secret police after his arrest in Svitavy on July 18, 1938. The second is the interrogation statement of Leo Pruscha, a Sudeten German whom Oskar had recruited to work for Abwehr. The Czechs arrested Pruscha on July 19. The third document on Oskar’s Abwehr activities is the report signed by Dr. Sobotka for the Police Directorate in Brno, where criminal charges were prepared against Schindler and Pruscha. Emilie also gives some important details about Oskar’s Abwehr work in her memoirs, particularly his activities against Poland in 1939. Some minor interrogation reports by the Czech secret police in the summer of 1938 also allude to Schindler’s activities.
I also discovered in Brno a fifty-five-page collection of Gestapo reports on the break-in at Oskar and Emilie’s apartment in 1939. The investigation, which took over a year, provides some interesting insights into Oskar’s Abwehr activities in 1939 and 1940. Finally, a collection of testimony gathered by the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior and the Czechoslovak Governmental Commission for Persecution of Nazi War Criminals after World War II presents important testimonies and information on Schindler. One can piece together a fairly clear picture of Oskar’s work for Abwehr in 1938 and 1939 from these accounts. However, some of the statements, particularly Oskar’s, have to be taken less seriously because he was charged with espionage and faced the death penalty. Certainly he did everything possible to downplay his role as an Abwehr agent. He always minimized his Abwehr activities, particularly after World War II, because he was still under investigation for espionage and war crimes in Czechoslovakia and Poland. The most accurate account is probably that of Leo Pruscha. His testimony about his relationship with Oskar is amazingly honest. He readily admitted to working for Oskar because of his deep sense of Sudeten German nationalism. Pruscha said he worked for the Germans because he was a patriot, though he certainly did not shy away from taking money for his efforts.
Dr. Sobotka’s final report indicates that the Czechoslovak secret police had been watching Oskar for some time and had a dossier on him. It is doubtful that they could have come up with detailed information about many personal aspects of Oskar’s life in just ten days after his arrest. What is remarkable about Dr. Sobotka’s report is how accurately it characterizes Oskar’s motives, needs, and personal characteristics. Czechoslovak police officials were aware of his human weaknesses and strengths well before he arrived in Kraków in the early days of World War II. The act that led to Oskar’s arrest in the summer of 1938 was his effort to get Pruscha, a ticket clerk for the Czechoslovak national railways in Brno, to obtain military and rail information vital to the Wehrmacht’s preparations for an invasion of Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1938.
A year earlier, Czechoslovakia had become the prime topic of discussion among Germany’s military planners. From 1935 to 1937, Czechoslovakia was a favorite target of Hitler’s propaganda machine, which depicted the country as a “tool” of Soviet foreign policy. The Führer now began to explore several options for Czechoslovakia, the boldest being its conquest; Hitler thought conquest would shorten Germany’s borders and provide the Third Reich with a larger German population, particularly after the hated Czechoslovaks had been driven out. Hitler hoped to isolate Czechoslovakia from its European allies, particularly from France and Great Britain, by severing diplomatic relations and emphasizing the “grievances” of the Sudeten Germans.70
The issue was pushed along by the growing radicalization of the Sude-ten German population in Czechoslovakia, particularly after Hitler occupied Austria (the Anschluss, or union) on March 13, 1938. Many Sudeten Germans were certain that Hitler would make them a part of the Third Reich on his birthday, April 20. Henlein’s greatest rival in the SdP, Karl Hermann Frank, who had excellent ties to Himmler and the SS, was certain that Hitler would soon annex the Sudetenland and make it a part of the Third Reich. Many around Frank in the SdP supported this dream.71
By the fall of 1937, with a severely weakened political base, Henlein wrote to Hitler and proposed the German annexation of Bohemia and Moravia.72 Hitler later told the Sudeten Nazi leader that his tactic in Czechoslovakia should be to make demands that “are unacceptable to the Czech government.” He added that he “intended to settle the Sudeten German problem in the not-too-distant future.” Hitler also told Henlein, “From tomorrow you’ll be my Viceroy [Staathalter]. I will not tolerate difficulties being made for you by any department whatsoever within the Reich.” These words meant a lot to Henlein because also present at the three-hour meeting were Karl Hermann Frank, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy Führer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany’s foreign minister, and Werner Lorenz, head of the VoMi.73
Henlein returned to Czechoslovakia and began to pursue a two-fold policy that outwardly promised continued loyalty to the Czechoslovak state while privately supporting German annexation of the Sudetenland. In his famous April 24 speech before the SdP congress in Karlovy Vary (Karls-bad), Henlein laid out eight demands for autonomy within the Czechoslovak Republic. If the Prague government had accepted them all, it would have “been tantamount to union with Germany.” Three days earlier, Hitler met with the new head of the OKW, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Keitel, and discussed his thinking on the Czechoslovak question. He told Keitel that he did not intend to destroy Czechoslovakia unless an extreme crisis occurred. Hitler wanted to avoid a major international confrontation over Czechoslovakia. His plan was to justify Germany’s slow military buildup by intensifying international tensions over the plight of the Sudeten Germans. The crisis would end with a surprise attack by Germany or one triggered by an incident “arranged” within Czechoslovakia.74
Henlein played his new role well. Hitler told him to avoid a settlement of the Sudeten question with the Czechoslovak government and to keep Great Britain neutral during the crisis. On May 20, the OKW gave Hitler an interim directive for Operation Grün (Green), which was based on the idea that political developments within Czechoslovakia might prompt German action. In a meeting with prominent German military leaders on May 28, Hitler said the attack on Czechoslovakia, which he thought would begin on October 1, was a prelude to a later move against Germany’s western neighbors.75 Two days later, OKW presented the Führer with a refined directive for Operation Grün, which began with Hitler’s statement that it was his “unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future. It is the business of the political leadership to await or bring about the suitable moment from a political and military point of view.”76
General Keitel told Admiral Canaris that Abwehr was to help prepare for the invasion of Czechoslovakia “by means of propaganda, subversion, and reconnaissance.” Some thought was also given in OKW to an Abwehr assassination of the German ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Ernst Eisen-lohr, to justify an attack against Czechoslovakia. Abwehr propaganda was meant to “intimidate Czechoslovakia” and weaken “her resistance with threats.” Abwehr was also to use its propaganda outlets to send “instructions to the national minorities to support the armed struggle.” The operational plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia also said that after German units had moved into Czechoslovakia, “co-operation with the Sudeten German frontier population, deserters from the Czechoslovak army and elements of the sabotage service” could greatly enhance German successes.77
Oskar Schindler’s work during the summer of 1938 was linked to Ab-wehr’s need to provide its combat (K) and sabotage (S) teams (K and S-Verbände) with reliable maps and information on Czechoslovak troop movements, military fortifications, and other strategically important data. Abwehr stationed its K and S teams just across the Czechoslovak-German border; they were thus prepared to move once the invasion began. The K and S teams were to reconnoiter landings sites for the Seventh Air[borne] Division in the Freudenthal (Bruntál) region, which was about fifty miles northeast of Svitavy. This was also to be a staging area for the Eighth Army Corps. Oskar Schindler’s intense efforts to recruit Sudeten Germans with knowledge of vital military information was important to Abwehr’s invasion plans.78
Schindler’s Activities as an Abwehr Agent: Summer 1938
At the time of his arrest on July 19, 1938, Leo Pruscha (Czech, Prǔša) was a forty-six-year-old station “manipulantem,” or railway worker, who sold tickets in Brno. His arrest photograph shows a well-dressed middle-aged man in a striped suit and bow tie. His features are very striking with a strong chin and nose. Pruscha was born in Okříšky, a small village about thirty-five miles west of Brno. His family moved to Brno after his father, a railway worker, was killed in an accident in 1897. He was not a strong student, and in 1910 his mother convinced him to drop out because of poor grades. He found a job as a typist at the railway traffic office in Brno. In early 1914, he joined the Austrian army and served in Olomouc and Kraków for three and a half months. After his return from the military, he became a telegraph operator at a small station in Miroslav, southeast of Brno. He met his future wife in Miroslav, and she bore him a daughter in 1915. Pruscha was recalled to active duty after World War I broke out in August 1914 and was wounded twice. He remained in the army until the end of the war in 1918 and married on his return. He returned to his railway job in Miroslav, now part of the new Czechoslovak Republic. Railway officials later transferred him to Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou. They moved him again to Nezamyslice for poor job performance. Pruscha improved enough to earn a transfer to Brno in 1934 or 1935, where he worked in Department V/5, which prepared train schedules. By 1938, he was selling train tickets.79
Pruscha had a base monthly railway salary of 640 crowns ($22.16) and a special clerical bonus of 750 crowns ($25.96). He supported his wife and daughter, who was a law student, on this income. Though Pruscha told his interrogators that he decided to help Abwehr because he was “under the influence of a national fever due to the current political climate,” the Czech secret police thought otherwise. There is no question that Pruscha was a passionate Sudeten German, but he also desperately needed money. The Czech police reported that he had accumulated debts and had a drinking problem. Four months before his arrest, one of his coworkers, Ladislav Novak, said that authorities had found money missing from Pruscha’s cash register. He also had a record of antigovernment activity dating back to 1935, when the police investigated him for violating the antitreason Law for the Protection of the Republic. Pruscha admitted that he once had been a member of the outlawed DNSAP and had only recently joined Henlein’s SdP. His wife and daughter had joined the SdP much earlier. His statements and those of others lead one to conclude that Leo Pruscha was a staunch Sudeten German nationalist with strong Nazi leanings.80
Oskar first met Pruscha in 1931, though Pruscha claimed that he did not meet Oskar until July 1938. At the time of their first meeting, Oskar was again working for MEAS in Brno and admittedly spent a lot of time in coffee shops and taverns. Oskar said that he remembered Pruscha as a drunk and a Sudeten German patriot who had serious financial problems. Oskar got to know Pruscha through a brother-in-law, Ondrej Schulz, whom Oskar had known for some time. Schindler did not meet Pruscha again until the summer of 1938, when Oskar recruited him to obtain vital Czechoslovak railway and troop movement information for Abwehr.81
Oskar told the Czechoslovak secret police in 1938 that his efforts began innocently. On July 1, he decided to visit Gritt Schwarzer in Ziegen-hals, Germany, where she had recently begun to manage the Hotel Juppe-bad. Oskar said that when he arrived at the Czechoslovak border town of Zlaté Hory (Zuckmantel), he decided he would have to cross the frontier illegally because he did not have a passport. He persuaded a local Sudeten German innkeeper, Fölkel, to “show” him a path across the border, then crossed at 10:00 P.M. When he reached Germany, Oskar called Gritt; she arranged for a private car so that he could drive to Ziegenhals. When he arrived at the Juppebad Hotel, Gritt was attending a “joyous” dinner party. While Oskar waited for her, he was drawn into a conversation with a stranger, who later introduced himself as Peter. When Peter learned that Oskar was from the Czechoslovak Republic, he said that lot of Sudeten Germans in the Reich made good money working for the Fatherland.82
A “tipsy” German, Kreuziger, soon joined Oskar and Peter and congratulated Schindler for his interest in working for Abwehr. Oskar and Kreuziger met the next day and talked further about Abwehr. Kreuziger was interested in Oskar’s business connections and his areas of travel. He also wanted to know whether he was in the Czechoslovak military and his rank. Kreuziger was obviously trying to determine Oskar’s full value to Abwehr because Gritt had probably already told Kreuziger about his talents and political reliability. The German agent was particularly interested in contacts that Oskar had with people who might have important economic or military information. Abwehr was being flooded by requests for such information from throughout the Wehrmacht, and its agents were desperate for anything that would enhance military preparations for Operation Green. Kreuziger also warned Oskar not to have anything to do with Abwehr IIA, which was responsible for “political things and propaganda.” If he did, his relationship with Kreuziger’s “orchestra” would be affected.83
