Secret Armies | Page 3

was given a
German passport by Richter, the Gestapo district chief at
Bischofswerda on what was then the Czechoslovak-German frontier.
"You will proceed to Prague," Richter instructed him, "and lose
yourself in the city. As soon as it is safe, go to Langenau near
Boehmisch-Leipa and report to Frau Anna Suchy.[2] She will give you
further instructions."
Oertel nodded. It was his first important espionage job--assigned to him
after the twenty-five-year-old secret agent had finished his intensive
course in the special Gestapo training school in Zossen (Brandenburg),
one of the many schools established by the Nazi secret service to train
agents for various activities.
After his graduation Oertel had been given minor practical training in
politically disruptive work in anti-fascist organizations across the
Czech border where he had posed as a German emigré. There he had
shown such aptitude that his Gestapo chief at sector headquarters in
Dresden, Herr Geissler, sent him to Czechoslovakia on a special
mission.
Oertel hesitated. "Naturally I'll take all possible precautions
but--accidents may happen."

Richter nodded. "If you are caught and arrested, demand to see the
German Consul immediately," he said. "If you are in a bad predicament,
we'll request your extradition on a criminal charge--burglary with arms,
attempted murder--some non-political crime. We've got a treaty with
Czechoslovakia to extradite Germans accused of criminal acts but--"
The Gestapo chief opened the top drawer of his desk and took a small
capsule from a box. "If you find yourself in an utterly hopeless
situation, swallow this."
He handed the pellet to the nervous young man.
"Cyanide," Richter said. "Tie it up in a knot in your handkerchief. It
will not be taken from you if you are arrested. There is always an
opportunity while being searched to take it."
Oertel tied the pellet in a corner of his handkerchief and placed it in his
breast pocket.
"You are to make two reports," Richter continued. "One for Frau Suchy,
the other for the contact in Prague. She'll get you in touch with him."
Anna Suchy, when Oertel reported to her, gave him specific orders:
"On August 16 [1937], at five o'clock in the afternoon, you will sit on a
bench near the fountain in Karlsplatz in Prague. A man dressed in a
gray suit, gray hat, with a blue handkerchief showing from the breast
pocket of his coat, will ask you for a light for his cigarette. Give him
the light and accept a cigarette from the gentleman. He will give you
detailed instructions on what to do and how to meet the Prague contact
to whom in turn you will report."
At the appointed hour Oertel sat on a bench staring at the fountain,
watching men and women strolling and chatting cheerfully on the way
to meet friends for late afternoon coffee. Occasionally he looked at the
afternoon papers lying on the bench beside him. He felt that he was
being watched but he saw no one in a gray suit with a blue
handkerchief. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, partly
because of the heat, partly because of nervousness. As he held the
handkerchief he could feel the tightly bound capsule.

Precisely at five he noticed a man in a gray suit with a gray hat and a
blue handkerchief in the breast pocket of his coat, strolling toward him.
As the man approached he took out a package of cigarettes, selected
one and searched his pockets for a light. Stopping before Oertel, he
doffed his hat and smilingly asked for a light. Oertel produced his
lighter and the other in turn offered him a cigarette. He sat down on the
bench.
"Report once a week," he said abruptly, puffing at his cigarette and
staring at two children playing in the sunshine which flooded
Karlsplatz. He stretched his feet like a man relaxing after a hard day's
work. "Deliver reports to Frau Suchy personally. One week she will
come to Prague, the next you go to her. Deliver a copy of your report to
the English missionary, Vicar Robert Smith, who lives at 31
Karlsplatz."
Smith, to whom the unidentified man in the gray suit told Oertel to
report, was a minister of the Church of Scotland in Prague, a British
subject with influential connections not only with English-speaking
people but with Czech government officials.[3] Besides his ministerial
work, the Reverend Smith led an amateur orchestra group giving free
concerts for German emigrés. On his clerical recommendation, he got
German "emigré" women into England as house servants for British
government officials and army officers.
The far-flung Gestapo network in Czechoslovakia concentrated much
of its activities along the former German-Czech border. In Prague, even
today when Germany has achieved what she said was all she wanted in
Europe, the network reaches into all branches of the Government,