Germany 1938

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Germany 1937, the Goering stories

Germany 1937

Schramberg 1938

Germany 1938

Germany and Prague 1938

Germany 1939

Germany 1938

When Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, my good friend Hans Hasselbeck came in with his regiment and was stationed at Heilbronn, which is about twenty miles east of Heidelberg up the Necker Valley. He was an Engineer-Captain in the 51st Artillery regiment. By the spring of 1938 the regiment was housed in the most modern artillery barracks in Germany and I saw quite a lot of Hans. He invited me to drive over one Saturday to go to the Tennis Club dance, which I duly accepted and had a very pleasant time, dossing down in his little flat when it was all over. The next morning he asked me whether I would like to see over the barracks. I thought this was an excellent idea, but rather jibbed at driving him up there to park on the parade ground with my little Ford carrying a maxi-size GB plate on the back and a Union Jack flying proudly from the bonnet. He assured me that it was quite in order, but very diplomatically suggested, whilst talking of these things, that I should not be too punctilious with my "Heil Hitlers" if we met anybody -such was the difference between the army and the party!

It was an extremely interesting visit. He took me into the range room, the smoke room, the mechanised guns, the horse-drawn guns, the stables (yes, they still had horse-drawn guns) ending up in the officers' mess, always called the casino. I was introduced to several officers and getting on famously with them, when the colonel of the regiment came in for a noon noggin. All the officers seemed, no matter what rank, to be between 25 and 35 years of age, but the colonel was an officer of the old school. Nobody could have been more charming and he was obviously extremely popular with his staff. After about five minutes lively conversation, he started ragging me a bit. One thing he asked me was whether my knees were wobbling, standing in the middle of the best regiment in the German army. Not to be outdone, I replied that even the Salvation Army paid more attention to detail than they did, because they had not even a clue who they were. "You have 51 on your shoulders and 71 on your guns."

The guffaw that I expected did not come. Everyone politely said "Aufwiedersehen" or "Adieu" and in ones or twos they had gone, including the colonel, leaving Hans and I alone. I asked Hans whatever had happened, apologising profusely, but all Hans vouchsafed was "Forget it."

I returned to London on leave shortly afterwards in time to join a dinner party my mother was giving for twenty at the Trocadero. Someone asked me how Germany was looking and I told them this story, ending by stating categorically that I still did not know what gaffe I had committed. When the ladies retired before the cabaret, one of the other guests came round the table and sat down next to me. He asked me if the story that I had told was true and if I would repeat it in "another place if necessary." I gave him my mother's telephone number and the following morning he (he was an Admiral) asked me to go to the War Office at ten a.m. the next day, Monday. They gave me a packet of Craven A. and grilled me for an hour, those intelligence gentlemen on the third floor. They phoned Paris, but Paris had not heard of anything like it either.

Eventually, I demanded to know what the blazes I had told them. They were surprised that I did not know - it was the first news that Britain or France had received of the internal expansion of the German army in the ratio of seven to five. That evening a professional was sent over to confirm the information and it was confirmed. That tennis dance was the cause of my very loose attachment to Intelligence.

Germany 1938

In summer of that year I was invited to dinner at the mediaeval castle of Worms, on the west side of the Rhine, as a result of a personal introduction from a friend of my father's, Mr. Percy Kenward who was managing director of the Connaught Rooms, to the owner of the castle, the Baron von Gustedt. He was the tallest Rittmeister in the German army in the First World War, being 6ft. 8ins. I always felt sorry for the poor old horse that had to carry him. That dinner was a really fuedal occasion. There were only about eighteen people present and of the men present, the Baron and I were the only ones in evening dress, the rest being in uniform, officers of the Worms garrison. On arrival the major domo, I would not insult him by calling him the butler, led me to a small table, where there were nine pieces of white cardboard standing like little tents. Each had a man's name written in gothic script on one side and a lady's name on the other. This was one's Tischdame, the lady for whom the gentleman was responsible the whole evening, to fetch her wrap or whatever it might be. I found the one with my name on it and read on it "Hochwohlgeborenes Frau Oberst von Something or other". This translates literally as "High well-born Mrs. Colonel von Something." It was the wife of my old acquaintance from the officers' mess at the Heilbronn barracks. When she arrived, I presented myself to her and the colonel greeted me very warmly with the words, "I am so very sorry about the little contretemps tae last time we met. If you had realised what you had noticed, you would of course, on many counts, not have said it. You are a very observant young man and I am delighted that you are my wife's Tischherr tonight." He was a dear old boy and deserved something much better than my battle-axe of a Tischdame.

After a splendid evening the garrison and ladies left early and the Baron asked me to smoke another cigar with him, as he had not been able to give me as much of his time as he would have liked. As we strolled down from the ramparts towards the Rhine, we talked about London and mutual friends and touched on politics until we reached the old lychgate at the corner of the old cemetry of the Church of Our Lady of Worms. It was no longer a cemetry but a vinyard belonging to the Baron, whose firm was named Valkenberg and who marketed the only true Liebfraumilch wine - the milk of our dear lady. As we stood there watching the sun go down over the Rhine, he put his arm round my shoulders - nearly bringing me to my knees and said, "Thomas, my boy, to think that our mutual friend, Percy, is selling more of my wine tonight that I shall harvest in the year."