Oskar Schindler, page 9
Other Abwehr II-Breslau commando squads were to prepare to seize and destroy bridges and railroad tracks inside Poland once the attack began. Some teams wore Polish uniforms as disguises. As plans for Operation Weiss intensified during the summer of 1939, the head of the SD’s foreign intelligence service, SS-Standartenführer Heinz Jost, approached Canaris about a special operation approved by Hitler that would require 150 Polish uniforms as well as Polish military documents and arms for the Germans who would wear them. Jost also wanted Canaris to supply him with 364 men to work with the SD on this top secret operation. Because of the nature of the operation, Jost told Canaris that he could not divulge its function. Canaris concluded that Jost wanted the Polish uniforms for a provocative action against Poland.33
The idea of disguising German forces as Polish soldiers to create an incident that would enable Hitler to justify his invasion of Poland came from Generalleutnant Erich von Manstein, the Chief of Staff of Army Group South, who was responsible for attacking the heavily industrialized area of Upper Silesia just to the northwest of Mährisch Ostrau. Manstein wanted to dress three battalions of German shock troops in Polish uniforms to seize Upper Silesia in the early hours of the invasion. Although Hitler rejected the plan, Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the Security Police and the SD, took Manstein’s ideas and revised the plan.34
Heydrich’s plan, given the code name “Tannenberg,” called for dressing SD operatives in Polish uniforms; they would attack other SD men dressed as German Grenzpolizei on the Polish-German border. The phony Polish troops would then seize the German radio station at Gleiwitz (now Polish Gliwice), about forty miles north of Mährisch Ostrau. The phony Polish soldiers would also attack a nearby German forestry station and a border post. When the Germans in Polish uniforms had finished their attacks, they would bring in dead bodies from concentration camps to ensure that everything looked authentic. The SS gave the dead inmates the code name Konserven (canned goods).35
What did all this have to do with Oskar Schindler? According to Emi-lie Schindler, it was Oskar who obtained and stored the Polish uniforms in their Mährisch Ostrau apartment before they were sent to Heydrich’s operatives for the attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz. Emilie adds that they bought their first Polish uniform from a Polish soldier and then sent it to Berlin, where it was reproduced in large quantities.36 It is possible that a random Polish uniform was obtained this way, but most were obtained from Polish ethnic Germans who had deserted the Polish army and fled to Germany. They gladly turned over their uniforms to the Wehr-macht. This was Oskar’s only involvement in this aspect of the attack on Poland. According to historian Dr. Jaroslav Valenta, a member of the Czech Academy of Sciences, even if Schindler had stored large quantities of Polish uniforms, weapons, and cigarettes in his apartment, it was doubtful he had much to do with the Gleiwitz attack because his operational area was around Polish Těšín near the Slovak border. Because of this, most of his time was spent planning for the German attack on the railway tunnel at Jablunkov Pass.37
Emilie made their work in Mährisch Ostrau seem ordinary, though it really was not. The several break-ins to their apartment were initially thought to be the work of Polish intelligence agents. The first took place on July 12, 1939, when Eugen Sliwa, a petty criminal recently released from a Czech forced labor camp, broke into Schindler’s Parkstraße apartment. The Czech police arrested Sliwa five days later for several break-ins in the area. Though Sliwa seemed to have stolen nothing of importance, Oskar was concerned about involving the Gestapo in the investigation. Instead, at least according to the detailed Gestapo reports, Schindler dealt directly with the Czech police on the robbery. Schindler, like the Gestapo, thought that Sliwa was working for Polish intelligence. Oskar was so upset by the robbery that he questioned Sliwa in jail about his contacts with Polish agents; he also took Sliwa to the Polish border to identify the Polish agent who, Sliwa claimed, had paid him to break into Schindler’s apartment. Sliwa was also taken to Mährisch Ostrau to look for the Polish spy.38
The Gestapo did not hear of the robbery until some time later. The investigating agents were furious because neither Schindler nor the commander of the local Czech uniformed police, Niemetz, had informed them of the burglary. From the perspective of the Gestapo, the “affair Sliwa” had been bungled. A May 8, 1940, Gestapo report from its Mährisch Ostrau office noted that Otto “Zeiler” (Oskar Schindler) was quite well known to them. The Gestapo did not consider him to be a true Abwehr agent. Instead, the report called Schindler a confidant of Major Plathe who commanded Abwehr operations in Gleiwitz. The Gestapo knew Schindler “because of his arbitrary actions and sometimes senseless doings.” The Gestapo did not consider him a German official, merely a confidant. This distinction was going to be important in the Gestapo’s determination about whether to pursue its investigation of Sliwa and Schindler.39
Once local police officials completed their investigation, they sent a report of their findings to the Gestapo in Brno. The Gestapo then summoned “Otto Zeiler” (Oskar Schindler) to discuss the case. Schindler, however, failed to appear and, with the invasion of Poland, “went to Poland with the advancing troops and has not been seen in Mährisch Os-trau again.” Schindler, the May 8, 1940, Gestapo report concluded, was still working for Abwehr in Poland or the Balkans. Sliwa remained in Czech police custody until the spring of 1940, when he was handed over to the German police. According to local Gestapo officials, it was now time for the “affair to be brought to a close.” Schindler’s unwillingness to help the Gestapo in its investigation hindered its ability to determine whether Sliwa’s break-in was an act of counterespionage or a common robbery. The Gestapo had no idea at this time what had been stolen from Schindler’s apartment because Oskar refused to talk with them.40
This report, though, did not end the matter. A second report two days later from Gestapo headquarters in Brno suggested that “Zeiler” be located and that Sliwa, whom a later Gestapo report called an “utterly degenerate, work-shy, irresolute person” (a crime in Nazi Germany), be re-interrogated by the Gestapo.41 After the Gestapo again questioned Sliwa, it sent the matter to the German District Court (deutsches Amtsgericht) for final deliberation. The court ruled that it was difficult to determine whether Schindler’s office was an official Abwehr office or simply a message center office because “Zeiler [Schindler] was only an Abwehr ‘confidant.’” The only way to find out whether “Zeiler’s” office was an office of the Reich would be to contact Major Plathe in Gleiwitz. Until this could be done, Sliwa would remain in German custody. The court noted that the Kripo (Kriminalpolizei; criminal police) had located Schindler, who now resided in Kraków at Lipova No. 4, and suggested that “further action regarding Schindler be initiated from there.”42
This matter passed through judicial channels until it reached the Supreme Judge of the Reich at the People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin. On July 23, 1940, the Supreme Judge’s office requested “what is known about the personality and official duties of engineer Zeiler” from Gestapo officials in Mährisch Ostrau.43 Local court officials responded on August 10 that Sliwa’s break-in was “not of a political nature” and that his claim that he had been recruited by a Polish agent was “merely an excuse.” Sliwa had broken into five homes between June 21 and July 14, 1939, and was now being questioned about each of them. The house on Parkstraße 25–27 “was not occupied by the Gestapo or any other military or civilian service office” but by an Abwehr confidant. As far as the court could tell, “Zeiler” or Schindler, who now lived in Kraków, still worked for Abwehr under Oberstleutnant Plathe. Further investigation indicated that “Schindler alias Zeiler had not stored any important papers in his apartment.” All Sliwa stole were a “few love letters,” five handkerchiefs, a purse containing 170 Czech crowns ($5.80), a lady’s gold wrist watch worth 400 crowns ($13.68), and a piggy bank.44
The Gestapo, though, disagreed with the People’s Court. The Gestapo office in Brno wrote to its suboffice in Mährisch Ostrau on August 23, 1940, that the “facts of the case unquestionably seem to indicate high treason to the detriment of the Reich.” The documents Sliwa stole from “Engineer Zeiler’s” Abwehr office were of “extraordinary importance to the Polish authorities.” The Gestapo in Brno requested that agents in Mährisch Ostrau question Sliwa again and “present him to the investigative attorney for high treason.” However, it was suggested that the agents not question Schindler because he was “outside the country.” They also urged a “speedy settlement” of the Sliwa matter.45
The attorney general of the People’s Court in Mährisch Ostrau disagreed with the Gestapo’s conclusion and noted in his final report that Sliwa, a “completely depraved and unprincipled person,” was telling a lie when he claimed that he had been hired by a Polish agent to break into “Zeiler’s” office. When he was dealing with Czech officials, Sliwa admitted to the thefts because “the punishment will not be very severe due to the Czech mentality.” But when he confesses to a German, he hides behind “the assertion that he was induced to do this” because he knew that “German courts proceed harshly, without ceremony, in such matters.” In other words, Sliwa wanted “to shift the guilt for this whole affair into someone else’s shoes.” The attorney general concluded that there was no high treason here and that only “a case of breaking and entering theft” was involved. It ordered that Sliwa be turned over to local Protectorate authorities.46 On October 22, 1940, the District Court in Mährisch Os-trau sentenced Sliwa to eleven months of hard labor. The Gestapo, though, seemed unwilling to accept this decision, and on November 13 requested the transfer of all of the files on Sliwa and the Polish consulate in Mährisch Ostrau to its headquarters in Brno.47 This might explain why Schindler had so much trouble with the Gestapo during his years in Kraków. Certainly the Gestapo in Kraków knew of his unwillingness to cooperate with Gestapo officials in Mährisch Ostrau. This, in turn, probably led to the increased surveillance of a man some in Gestapo headquarters in Brno thought was associated with a robbery involving high treason. Oskar would be arrested by the Gestapo three times in Kraków and Brünnlitz. A few of the arrests were undoubtedly meant to teach a lesson to the man who had earlier proved so uncooperative.
This was not the only attempt by Polish agents to break into the Schindler apartment. On another occasion, a prowler woke Emilie up when he shined his flashlight into the apartment. She was sleeping in the apartment’s office, a converted bedroom, because she and Oskar had just had a fight about his love affair with Irena Dvorzakowa. While Oskar slept blissfully in their bedroom, Emilie took the Luger to the office window and fired two shots into the air inside the office. She saw a shadow disappear outside, and the shots startled the guard, who was sleeping on duty. Again, the suspicion was that a Polish agent had tried to break into the apartment.48
Our information about Oskar’s activities as an Abwehr agent in Mährisch Ostrau in 1939 comes from various sources: Emilie’s memoirs; the Gestapo reports on the Sliwa robbery; the post-World War II Czechoslovak investigations of Oskar’s activities, which included the testimony of fellow agents; and an Abwehr report on the activities of combat and other Ab-wehr units in the Těšín area in the months before the invasion of Poland. Oskar also briefly discussed his Abwehr activities with Martin Gosch in an interview in Paris in 1964. As will be seen in more detail in a later chapter, immediately after World War II the Czechoslovakian government began intensive investigations of Sudeten Germans and others who had collaborated with the Third Reich to determine who should be punished for their crimes. Oskar Schindler’s name came up frequently in these investigations. The principal testimony against Oskar came from two Sudeten Germans, Alois Polansky, who worked for Abwehr in Oppa (Czech Opava) and the SD in Mährisch Ostrau, and Joseph “Sepp” Aue, who later worked for Oskar in Kraków. The Abwehr report does not mention Schindler specifically, though that was not all that uncommon because some agents were only mentioned by letters or numbers to disguise their identity.
According to these interrogation reports, Polansky was born in Těšín in 1894. He saw action on the Russian and Italian fronts in the Austrian- Hungarian army during World War I. After the war, he managed a garage until 1938 and joined Abwehr in early 1939. He continued to work for Abwehr throughout the war and held positions in Bratislava (German Pressburg) and Mährisch Ostrau. After the war, the Czechoslovaks sentenced Polansky to fifteen years in prison for his collaboration with the Germans. Polansky’s testimony gives us the most complete picture we have of Oskar’s Abwehr work in the months before the outbreak of World War II. As mentioned earlier, Polansky drove Leutnant György to meet with Oskar on three occasions before Hitler took over Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. Oskar, who now used the code name OSI, or Zeiler, would meet with György at the Hotel Palace in Moravská Ostrava. On one occasion, which Polansky identifies as possibly March 12, 1939, he drove the two agents to Visolaje in Slovakia, where Oskar and György met with two Abwehr operatives who spoke Czech and Slovak. Schindler translated for Leutnant György. After half an hour, Leutnant György asked Polansky whether he felt it was safe to drive to Bily Kriz (White Cross) in the nearby Beskydy (Beskid) mountains. Polansky thought it was too dangerous because of the snow. The four Abwehr agents told Polansky to stay behind while they took a sleigh to Bily Kriz. Three hours later, György and Oskar returned alone. Polansky later learned that one of the two strangers was from Žilinia, the Slovak staging area for one of the two teams responsible for taking the Jablunkov Pass.49
After they left Visolaje, Polansky drove Oskar and György to Raškovice, which was equidistant between Moravská Ostrava and the Jablunkov Pass. Once there, they met with a farmer, Julius Fischer, who took them to meet with another agent, Vilém Moschkorsch (Moschkorz), who was from nearby Staříč. Oskar and Moschkorsch went off by themselves to talk for half an hour. After they returned to the car, Polansky drove Moschkorsch to Starříč and then took Oskar back to Moravská Ostrava.50
When they were back in Moravská Ostrava, Polansky drove Oskar to the Podrum wine cellar. Sitting at another table were two Abwehr agents who had been waiting for Oskar. One of the two strangers was Kobierskü, an Abwehr agent who worked closely with Schindler and György. Oskar left Polansky and György alone while he went to talk with Kobierskü and the other agent. When Oskar returned, he told Leutnant György of their conversation and then left the wine bar. Afterwards, Polansky drove György to the Café Palace, where he met Oskar again. The two agents talked for two hours and then were driven back to the Podrum, where they had dinner. Afterwards, Kobierskü and another agent sat at a nearby table, where Oskar soon joined them. After a lengthy conversation with the two Abwehr agents, Oskar returned to give Leutnant György a letter and some documents that Polansky thought were plans of some sort. Polansky later identified the strangers that Oskar met on March 12, 1939, during his two visits to the Podrum as František Unger, an Abwehr operative who also worked with the SD, and Bedřich Schestag, also an Abwehr agent.51
Other agents who worked with Schindler during this period were Waltraud Vorster, Ervin (Evžen) and Ladislav Kobiela, Dr. Walter Titzel, Hildegard Hoheitova, and Josef Urbánek. Kobiela’s real name was Oskar Schmidt. All these local Czechoslovak operatives were on the Czech most-wanted list after World War II. Charges were filed against all these agents and collaborators after the war; Vorster, the only one who could be found, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The Abwehr and postwar Czech reports also mention two other agents who worked with Oskar, a Herr Zimmermann from Česky Těšín who also worked closely with Lts. Lang and György, and František Cienciala (Činčala/Czincala) from Svibiče.52 Yet the most interesting of all the operatives and collaborators that Oskar worked with during his time in Moravská Ostrava/Mährisch Ostrau was Josef “Sepp” Aue. During the war, Aue worked for Oskar in Kraków, where Schindler helped him to obtain a factory. Aue turned on his friend after the war and gave damaging testimony about Oskar’s Abwehr activities to the Czech secret police. On the other hand, Aue had no compunction about trying to reestablish contact with prominent Schindlerjuden after his meetings with Czech authorities.53
Sepp Aue was an illegitimate Jew whose mother, Emilie Goldberg, raised her son as a Roman Catholic in Bruntál, about fifty miles northwest of Moravská Ostrava. Aue was his mother’s maiden name. According to a letter that Aue wrote to Itzhak Stern in 1948, his father was killed in Auschwitz in 1942. Aue’s mother married Karl Lederer, who died in 1937. After World War II, she emigrated to Israel. Aue was able to hide his Jewish background by becoming a staunch Sudeten German nationalist. In late 1938, Aue applied for membership in the Nazi Party. Aue first met Oskar through his contacts as a money trader. After the German takeover of the Sudetenland, Aue made a living exchanging currency from Czech Jews fleeing the Greater Reich. He met Schindler through his principal moneylend-ing contact, Helena Bohdanova, a fur trader in Cieszyn. According to Aue, Oskar, who initially introduced himself only as “Zeiler,” forced Aue to work for him by threatening to charge him with violating German currency laws. Oskar “Zeiler” did show Aue identification that indicated he was a member of Kripo, the German criminal police. “Zeiler” warned Aue that he could be sent to prison for his illegal activities. There was, according to “Zeiler,” an alternative. Sepp Aue could work for him gathering military intelligence along and inside the Polish border. He added that it was Aue’s duty as a good German to work for the Reich.54
