Authors: John McCallum
On top of this there was the gruelling physical side: everything had to be done in a set time, followed by intensive map reading and orienteering day-and-night schemes. This was interspersed
with square-bashing under a guard drill sergeant instructor and weapon training ranging from the revolver to the bazooka. After all that, I had ended up in Hamburg. It was the old story of Fate
kidding you along and then kicking you in the teeth. Then again, the options had been quite clear. A return to the Signals at Catterick, a posting to Scottish Command, or the one I had been offered
at Intelligence Corps. Even now I have to admit that this was still the one that would be my first choice, although it was definitely in the wrong direction.
HQ sent us on our way with a sharp reminder to pay close attention to our map reading. Just before the capitulation one of our sections had gone off and when they arrived at their destination
they found themselves in a town still occupied by the German army.
The 500-mile run up to the north-east was a real slog. All sorts of convoys were on the move, including heavy and light armour, troops and provisions. Our bikes were red-hot trying to keep our
little lot together and eventually we reached the outskirts of Hamburg. Then the picture of the devastation caused by our Air Force began to unfold.
You could see it and you could smell it, but you couldn’t comprehend it. It was like a canvas painted by some manic-depressive artist who had lost control of his theme and ended up
painting a lot of rubbish without being able to stop and carried on and on painting this nightmarish landscape. When we crossed the Elbe bridge into Hamburg the nightmare continued for mile after
mile and the smell got worse. Hundreds of thousands of women and children and old people had either been blown to pieces or burned to death in this area. Before the war the residents here had
regarded the British as their cousins because of their close relationship in the shipping business. They found it incomprehensible that we could even think of bombing them, but unfortunately,
geographically, they were about the nearest German target that was worth bombing.
I still hadn’t got used to all the empty shells of buildings as we passed through the main square where the Rathaus was situated and carried on northwards until we reached the dome of the
Hauptbahnhof and then turned into the first street after this on the left. We stopped at a small hotel which was to be our home until we were demobbed. There were two fairly similar hotels adjacent
to ours, and all three were occupied by security sections. The staff in these establishments had been retained, including cooks, cleaners and chambermaids, so we would eat, sleep and drink here in
comparative comfort.
Early next morning after breakfast, we went down town to the Prien Gebäude on the corner of the Alster, a little lake in the centre of Hamburg, and occupied our new offices
on the top of the building. Here we would do all our interrogations and paper work.
Our next trip was down to the dock area in St Pauli and to our dock offices on the Landungsbrücke. From here we would operate with our fleet of launches and cover the arrival and departure
of all shipping on the river. This was one of the world’s main ports. Our job included checking crews and passengers, and issuing shore-leave passes where authorised. With all this in mind,
it wasn’t surprising that our good captain was soon promoted to the rank of major, which suited him and us much better, and with it came the nice Mercedes he had acquired from somewhere.
Paddy loved the Merc too.
It took time to get used to the black market that operated in the street outside our hotel. Our trucks and motorbikes parked outside made no difference to the people who traded there. We had to
take it in our stride, and in one instance it was quite handy. When I was asked to do a report on the black market, I would go out and arrest someone, bring them in and get the information that I
wanted, then give them a drink and turn them loose. I would carry on like this until I had all the information that I needed.
Meantime people were taking rubble out of the houses and carrying bricks and wood back in; glass was being replaced in the windows. It was like watching a colony of ants. Very quickly things
were beginning to take some sort of shape and order. I noticed from my bedroom window that two girls occupied a bedroom on the ground floor of the house opposite. One was a very pretty blonde and
the other a not-so-pretty brunette, presumably sisters. They certainly showed a healthy interest in what was going on in our rooms, and I made a note to look into the situation when we were a bit
more settled. In the first month we were in Hamburg we were tied down with interrogations and arrestable categories till we couldn’t think clearly. What really amazed me was the number of
people who wanted to denounce someone. It quickly became apparent that the majority of these cases were attempts to settle grudges, and most of them were time-wasters we could do without.
The major called Bob and me into his office one morning to ask if we would do one of the town sections a favour. They had been trying to arrest one of the shipping magnates for some time, but
with no success. Our boss had been having a drink with this section officer and asked if maybe a couple of his boys could have a go at picking up the magnate, to which the section officer readily
agreed, probably thinking we would have no more success than them. When we were told it was Herr Essberger, I was really surprised, as his shipping line was extremely well known and he would most
certainly be very well protected from unwelcome callers. His office building was on the other side of the Alster lake, almost opposite our town office. We were told that his personal office was on
the first floor, and on the days he didn’t stay in the office, he almost invariably made it a morning visit. The other section’s surveillance team claimed that he was never seen
entering or leaving the building, so he had to have another way in. Bob and I opted for the direct approach and hoped for the best.
The next morning, at about ten-thirty, we pulled up in front of the building next to Herr Essberger’s. Bob parked the truck and I slung over my shoulder the sten-gun that I had decided to
bring along for effect. True to form, Bob tucked in the holster cover of his .38 so that the gun butt stuck out. This, along with his black beret, made him look very intimidating. Then we walked
along to the Essberger front door.
When we reached the front steps, the action became fast and decisive. We were through the front door like a couple of greyhounds at White City, and I passed through the receptionist’s
office before she could blink or press any buttons. I pulled the plug on the switchboard. Our next move was to usher the confused young lady out of her office and lock the door, putting the key in
my pocket. The three of us then entered the lift and went up to the first floor where there was no mistaking the door that led to the boss’s office. We signalled the girl to be quiet and
knocked gently on the door. A polite voice asked us to enter.
I didn’t know what to expect but I certainly was surprised at the reception we received. The nice-looking gentleman behind the large desk looked only momentarily surprised at the sight of
such unlikely visitors, but breeding tells, and with a charming smile he asked us in beautiful English how he could help us. I explained to him that we were from Intelligence and that he was now
under arrest because of his rank in the Party. Personally, I thought he looked quite relieved, as though he was glad it was finally over. We got him to empty the contents of his safe and all the
papers on his desk into a couple of boxes and, after returning the key of the office to the young lady, we left quietly. We returned to our office and handed over the boxes and Herr Essberger to
our very surprised major, who thanked us and gave us an approving nod.
The Germans were working like beavers in the rubble of the city, clearing roads, tidying up and digging out the remains of their shattered homes, slowly making places to live
in. Brickies, joiners and plumbers were working all the hours God sent to make the ruined buildings habitable again. Money was useless, although almost anything could be procured on the black
market. The shops were empty and only the strictest supply of rations could be bought on coupons and, as non-fraternisation was in vogue, help from the troops was not yet a possibility. This is
where we were a thorn in the side of the Military Police. We carried a card that authorised us to carry civilians in our vehicles and to consort with them in the line of duty. We often had to
produce this and leave a very disgruntled MP behind, especially when our passenger happened to be a pretty girl. Something else that got up their noses was our permits to carry automatics instead
of the regulation .38s. We were even issued with Mauser semi-automatics in their strange wooden holsters, which could be clipped on the butt, although the only time I ever used this weapon was for
hunting in the forest outside the city.
We eventually conquered the huge pile of routine interrogations which, in turn, led us on to the more interesting work of individual investigations. This required a list of contacts and
informants who had to be carefully vetted, so that as little time as possible would be wasted. I had a great stroke of luck when Eric da Silva, one of our section sergeants, asked me if I would
take one of his contacts off his hands as he just could not get on with the guy. In all fairness to the German, Eric felt that he had a lot to offer. This led me into a friendship which lasted for
many years and was very productive.
Jack Rothschenk was born a Hamburger. He was a little smaller than myself, stockily built, and he spoke fluent English with a broad Brooklyn accent, which he had acquired in the States. He was a
broken-down German version of Edward G. Robinson with the voice to match and, to crown it all, he was a seaman’s union boss. This was, of course, ideal for the type of information we were
looking for and paid off handsomely in the long run. His mode of transport was an old American Studebaker and it suited him and his extrovert personality perfectly. Jack was happily married to both
his wife and his secretary, who was completely indispensable to him and lived in his office most of the time, though her home was in a little town called Glückstadt (‘Happy Town’),
situated near the mouth of the River Elbe.
Benny and I made a racing visit to Glückstadt one day after a phone call from Jack informed us that Deputy Führer Martin Bormann would be smuggled out in a freighter from there. After
our enquiries were complete, we realised that we were a little too late, which was a great pity as it would have put us into the history books. One of our sections did pick up Von Ribbentrop, who
had been the German Foreign Minister, so presumably he was in Hamburg trying to find a way out. This was, of course, why we had so many sections and such a strong presence in the port.
Lunchbreak was my favourite time of the day. We would head for the Sergeants’ Mess, which was in the Ratsweinkeller in the basement of the Town Hall. The town councillors certainly knew
how to live off the ratepayers, as the restaurant and bars below the town hall were opulent. Here we would dine and drink in a manner that had no resemblance to the world outside. These were
definitely the best two hours of the day, and set me up for the rigours of the afternoon’s work.
Most of the evenings turned out to be serious drinking sessions, though this slowly changed as we began to sort out some kind of love life, which after all was inevitable. I still thought about
Traudl but couldn’t come up with a solution. I didn’t dare risk writing in case the letter was intercepted, which would have led to her arrest and possible death. I decided that
patience was required for a while longer. My hormones were not listening again, which was not surprising considering the amount of talent parading around us advertising its availability.
I had craftily solved the problem of how to get at the promiscuous young blonde across the road, who kept giving me the green light from her bedroom window at the front of the house. The section
trucks were parked on the other side of the road, so I asked Benny if he would reverse his vehicle up on to the pavement so that the rear end would be right outside blondie’s bedroom window,
with just enough space for me to climb into the truck. The next step was to tell the young lady of this strategy and arrange a time for our first meeting. This worked out nicely and the meeting
duly took place with me sitting on her window sill and her kneeling on a chair inside her bedroom.
Things progressed from then on and Ingeborg and I had a lot of fun together. I was amazed at how little knowledge I had about sex and how to enjoy it, but my spell in Hamburg was a revelation.
The Reeperbahn is world-renowned, but I recommend a guided tour with someone well-connected with the area, otherwise it could turn out to be most alarming, and has been known to be fatal.
Jack Rothschenk knew the Reeperbahn and the St Pauli area intimately and was well liked and accepted by the Red Light fraternity. Naturally, I got to know a lot of people in this area as it was
adjacent to the Landungsbrücke where our dock offices were. It took me some time to notice that Jack never paid for anything when we were having a night out in St Pauli; there was so much of
the old boy network in operation that I was quite amazed. We could go to places where they served T-bone steaks and eggs, and yet some people had difficulty in obtaining the rations shown on their
books. Hard liquor was almost unobtainable, but this is where I was a godsend, as our rations were quite generous and of very high quality. We received invitations from people who wouldn’t
normally have given us the time of day.
One such person was a friend of Jack’s called Cesar. He was the oldest son of a patrician Hamburg family with a huge business interest in the dock area. Cesar was a graduate of Oxford,
which became apparent when he spoke English; under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have consorted with the likes of Jack or myself but, as they say, war makes strange bedfellows. One of his
main weaknesses was alcohol, and why shouldn’t he befriend a good provider of the hard stuff when it was in extremely short supply? He was great company, and the three of us had some
memorable parties, some in very high-class company.