The Hidden Nazi by Dean Reuter

Author:Dean Reuter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regnery History
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

After the war, Dornberger claimed that some time on or shortly after April 27 Himmler had him arrested and Kammler sprung him—after which he and Kammler drove to Garmisch,17 in southernmost Germany, on the border near Innsbruck. This trek of Dornberger and Kammler syncs with the known surrender location of Dornberger: Garmisch Partenkirchen, May 2, 1945.18 It is also consistent with Himmler ordering Kammler’s assassination. It gives us yet another marker on Kammler’s whereabouts, but is also another difficult-to-explain Kammler challenge of Himmler’s authority.

Kammler would have learned of Hitler’s death directly or through a series of May 1 radio announcements on BBC, Hamburg radio, Czech radio, and others. Kammler adjutant Heinz Schürmann places Kammler in Ebensee, Austria, an hour east of Salzburg, on May 3–5, 1945. Ebensee was a Kammler-built underground factory for the V-2 and Me 262. We had also confirmed—remember Keith’s air force document—that Ebensee was where the even longer-range Amerika Rocket was being constructed.

Before Kammler left Ebensee, he cryptically whispered to Schürmann, “if they say I am dead, Little Hans is dead, but Hans will not be for a long time!”19 We take this odd statement as a reference to an old German folk song and children’s story about a boy called Little Hans, who ventures into the world on his own but ultimately returns to the safety of his family. Kammler then ordered everyone but Schürmann on to Prague. He ordered Schürmann to remain behind to complete the handover of the Ebensee facility to the Americans, whose forward reconnaissance units were by then already operating in the area. The Ebensee factory, with its information on the Amerika Rocket, would alone be a fine prize for the arriving troops. Ebensee is also the site where researchers have recently found evidence of nuclear research. Again, note Kammler’s continuing defiance of the standing Nero Decree that all German assets be destroyed.20 Kammler was again serving the Americans, openly flouting the authority of Himmler and Hitler, and delivering the goods.

Kurt Preuk, one of Kammler’s drivers, reports that from Ebensee Kammler traveled back to Tyrol to meet Jutta and the family at Gries am Brenner Pass, which fits with information received from the family—though Preuk may have been the source of the family’s information, too. This is evidence that the whole Kammler family intended to escape to the south along the monastery route—which, as we shall see, became the Ratline, a secret escape route that survived the war. But the Kammler family had been misdirected; the area had already been overrun by the Allied advance, making Kammler’s rendezvous with his family impossible.

The Nazis controlled the southern half of Germany, much of Yugoslavia, western Czechoslovakia, and parts of Austria, but the German realm was constantly shrinking. Now with the Russians approaching from the northeast, the Americans closing from the west, and partisans roiling within the city, Prague was up for grabs. The Americans were between Kammler and Prague, perhaps necessitating a rare Kammler plane trip in order to reach the city. Indeed, one account has Kammler arriving in Prague by plane.

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