Stealing the Mystic Lamb (41 page)

Pöchmüller was dismayed, but he had an inclination that this might be Eigruber’s response. He had a backup plan. Along with the mine’s foreman, Otto Högler, and its technical director, Eberhard Mayerhoffer, Pöchmüller planned to line the entrance to the mine with what are known as “palsy charges,” or paralysis charges—bombs intended to prevent entry to the mine without damaging it and its contents irrevocably. Whether the sealing of the mine’s entrance was to keep out the Allies, as von Hummel expected, or to keep out Eigruber and his men was of little concern to Pöchmüller. There were two reasons to block the mine’s entrance.

Because it would have been nearly impossible to lay the palsy charges in secret, Pöchmüller managed to convince Eigruber that a series of strategically placed smaller charges could destroy the mine, causing it to collapse on the art inside. Eigruber agreed to the laying of these other charges, but he expected them to be placed in the mine itself, not only in the entrance shafts. The foreman Högler estimated that it could take nearly two weeks. That was too long to wait, if Eigruber was as eager as he seemed to destroy the artworks.

Gaiswinkler, too, had learned of the marble crates. He, like Pöchmüller, needed to know how much time he had. Was the threatened destruction imminent? Was immediate action needed?

Two brave miners volunteered to infiltrate the mine by night to check the contents of the crates in secrecy. Salt mining had continued throughout the time that Alt Aussee was being used as an art depot, so the comings and goings of miners carrying equipment appeared normal to the SS guards. It is not clear whether it was Gaiswinkler or Pöchmüller who gave the order for the miners to enter under cover of darkness—each later claimed to have done so. One of the two miners was most likely Alois Raudaschl, the leader of the miners working with the Resistance. The miners, whose families had worked the mine for centuries, knew its beehive
of caves and passages inside out. By navigating secret passages, the two miners avoided the SS guards. As quietly as possible they pried open one of the crates that supposedly contained marble.

It was full of hay.

Did marble lie beneath, after all? They pushed aside the hay and found a bomb nestled inside. The detonators, however, were not affixed and were nowhere to be found.

Gaiswinkler and Pöchmüller now knew about the bombs, but the Resistance did not have the manpower to attack the mine, nor was either man confident that the bombs would not be set off if the mine came under attack. Gaiswinkler contacted Michel to warn him of the threat, while Pöchmüller ordered foreman Högler to remove the bombs from the crates, but to keep the crates in place, to avert suspicion that their cargo had been ferreted away.

The next night Michel, the two miners, and an assistant followed the mountain passages into the mine, circumventing the guards at the entrance. Inside, they secretly moved the most valuable of the artworks stored in the mine to a separate location—the subterranean Chapel of Saint Barbara. The chapel, with its raw stone walls, was filled with wooden pews, a holy water font, candles, and even its own painted altarpiece. It was the sturdiest space in the mine, least likely to be damaged by bombs set off in the storage chambers nearby.

The first item transferred to the underground chapel was
The Ghent Altarpiece
, which had been stored in a room referred to as the Mineral Kabinett.

On 28 April Pöchmüller sent the following message to the foreman, Högler: “You are hereby instructed to remove all 8 crates of marble recently stored within the mines in agreement with Bergungsbeauftragter Dr. Seiber and to deposit these in a shed which to you appears suitable as a temporary storage depot. You are further instructed to prepare the agreed palsy as soon as possible. The point in time when the palsy is supposed to take place will only be presented to you by myself personally.” Pöchmüller was risking his life in sending this message. While it reached
Högler without event, on 30 April Eigruber’s assistant, District Inspector Glinz, overheard Högler discussing the arrangement of trucks to cart off the bomb crates with one of the miners. Though Glinz didn’t know of Pöchmüller’s involvement, nor of the palsy charges, the plan to remove the bombs was blown. From that day on, six SS guards were stationed at the entrance to the mine twenty-four hours a day.

By this time, Gaiswinkler had received word that the American Third Army was approaching. But he had no idea when they would arrive and if it might be too late. It is not clear whether Gaiswinkler and Pöchmüller were working together in their mutual goal of preserving the mine’s contents. When each wrote of his efforts after the war, the other was conspicuously excluded, as both men tried to vie for the greatest measure of heroism. Therefore it is unclear whether Gaiswinkler knew of Pöchmüller’s actions at the mine, although it seems likely that he would have, as both men worked with the miners in the Resistance. Whatever the extent of their cooperation, Gaiswinkler thought that time was running out and decided to take what action he could.

He began with a tactical bluff. His team seized the region’s principal radio transmitter, Vienna II, which had been stored in Bad Aussee, in order to broadcast misleading reports that the Yugoslav Partizan Army was approaching over the mountains to the south, out of Slovenia. To reinforce this subterfuge, the Resistance lit fires along the mountainside, to give the impression of a vast encampment.

The Resistance next captured two armored personnel carriers and SS uniforms. Disguised as SS, they managed a daring operation during which they successfully kidnapped three important local Nazi leaders: the heads of the regional Gestapo unit and Franz Blaha, Eigruber’s deputy who had been placed in charge of the destruction of the salt mine.

Blaha reiterated to the Resistance that August Eigruber was determined to destroy the mine. By this time all lines of Nazi communication had been cut by the Allies, so each remaining local officer was acting of his own accord. Neither von Hummel nor Martin Bormann could be
reached to clarify their order and save the mine’s contents. Eigruber’s SS unit was still too strong to overthrow with a direct attack. Something else had to be done.

In a move of stunning courage, the leader of the miners, Alois Raudaschl, volunteered to reach out to the most powerful Nazi official in the area and one of the most powerful of all—SS chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Himmler’s number two, entrenched at the nearby Villa Castiglione. The Austrian Kaltenbrunner, a lawyer by training, had the face of a classic, sinisterly handsome Hollywood villain: scarred and pockmarked skin from childhood acne, offset crystalline eyes, blond hair, and an upturned lip. He held an array of titles: chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), chief of the Gestapo, and SS
Obergruppenführer
, among the unit’s elite leaders. For one year, from 1943, he even held the post of president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), the organization that would become Interpol. Kaltenbrunner’s power increased steadily throughout the war, particularly after the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt made against Hitler. From that point Hitler entrusted Kaltenbrunner with hunting down the conspirators, and Kaltenbrunner enjoyed direct access to the führer. He reached the pinnacle of his power on 18 April 1945, when Himmler made him commander in chief of the remaining German forces in southern Europe—albeit at a time when the end was in sight. Many have considered this elevation to a position of high power at so late a date the equivalent to throwing Kaltenbrunner under an approaching train, but his Nazi bona fides were sterling. If anyone had the power to overturn Eigruber, it was he.

Alois Raudaschl and Kaltenbrunner had a mutual friend who lived near the Villa Castiglione. At 2 PM on 3 May 1945, Raudaschl met with Kaltenbrunner at this friend’s home. He told Kaltenbrunner about Eigruber’s renegade behavior, the secret bombs in the marble crates, and the direct disregard for von Hummel’s orders. Moved by a sense of nationalism and the desire to preserve the irreplaceable cultural icons stored inside
the mine, Kaltenbrunner granted his permission that the bombs be removed, despite Eigruber’s insistence. The miners would try again, this time with Kaltenbrunner’s blessing.

In other accounts it was Gaiswinkler, not Raudaschl, who met with Kaltenbrunner and convinced him to intervene to save the art. And Michel would later claim that the removal was his initiative.

The miners spent four hours removing the bombs and their crates. At midnight, as the bomb removal was nearly complete, another of Eigruber’s henchmen, Tank Staff Sergeant Haider, arrived at the mine. Seeing what was afoot, he threatened that, if the bombs were removed, Eigruber would “come himself to Alt Aussee . . . and hang each and every one of you himself.”

Fearful of the repercussions, Raudaschl contacted Kaltenbrunner, who personally phoned Eigruber at 1:30 AM on 4 May, hours after Sergeant Haider’s threat, ordering Eigruber to allow the bomb removal. Eigruber relented and said that no repercussions would be taken. The SS guards were instructed by Eigruber to allow the miners into the mine, and Haider could only watch.

But Eigruber had other plans. He would not be bossed around, not now, when it was his duty to fulfill the führer’s final command—for Hitler had taken his own life five days earlier. Eigruber planned to send a detachment of soldiers to the mine, where they would destroy the art inside by hand, with flamethrowers, if necessary. The destruction of the world’s art treasures would be Eigruber’s final legacy.

The American Third Army was past Salzburg now, closing fast on Alt Aussee. The SS soldiers who had been guarding the mine’s entrance fled their posts in anticipation of the coming Allies.

Aware of this threat and what the intransigent Eigruber might do, Högler and Pöchmüller followed through with the planned destruction of the mine’s entrance. At dawn on 5 May, as soon as the charges were ready, the miners who had spent the past two weeks laying the palsy charge threw the detonator switch. Six tons of explosives linked to 502 timing switches and 386 detonators sealed 137 tunnels into the Alt Aussee salt
mine, the world’s greatest museum of stolen art. There was nothing now that Eigruber could do to harm what lay locked inside.

Eigruber learned of the explosion and gave his orders for a troop of his men to rush to the mine.

Meanwhile, Gaiswinkler and his men stalked through the dense forest to the mine’s entrance and then set up a defensive perimeter around the area, in anticipation of the arrival of Eigruber’s detachment. Even if they could no longer enter the mine itself, Eigruber could still carry out reprisal executions of the miners and the resistors. And if the Allies were delayed long enough, Eigruber might try to blast his way back into the mine. The resistors and the mine itself had to be defended.

By nightfall, Eigruber’s men still had not arrived. Had they been recalled? Gaiswinkler was worried, as his men waited, rifles at the ready, for some sound beyond the wind in the trees.

T
he sun rose upon Gaiswinkler and the Resistance fighters the next morning, 5 May, with still no sign of Eigruber’s SS squad. Perhaps they were summoning reinforcements? The unexpected inactivity concerned Gaiswinkler more than a frontal assault. They dug into defensive positions at the mine’s entrance and continued to wait. They would protect the mine with their lives until the American army arrived.

The sound of the detonating mine shaft had alerted a patrol from the German Sixth Army, the remnants of which was encamped nearby. The patrol stealthily surveyed the mine and reported to the army’s remaining leader, General Fabianku, that they had seen entrenched Resistance fighters and no SS. Fabianku immediately sent a mobile attack force to retake the mine.

A mêlée took place at the mine’s entrance on 6 May—the same day that, 513 years earlier,
The Ghent Altarpiece
was presented to the public for the first time. During the fight, Gaiswinkler sent two scouts to try to contact the American army to warn them, should the defense of the mine fail.

Gaiswinkler’s actions were unknown to the Third Army until his scouts made contact. The scouts reached the Americans beyond the Pötschen Pass, several hundred kilometers away. Robert Posey and Lincoln Kirstein followed just behind the army’s front line. Kirstein described the advance into Austria: “Austria breathed a different atmosphere. In Germany you saw no flags but white pillowcases. In Austria, as soon as
we crossed the Danube, from every house flew the long red-white-red banner of the resistance movement. The Germans, superficially at least, did not seem to have had much effect on the country.”

Kirstein and Posey had to wait in the town of Alt Aussee, a few kilometers from the mine itself, while the army secured the area. They were frustratingly close to the mine yet had no idea whether its contents had been destroyed. Word from the scouts would not reach the Monuments Men for one more agonizing day of waiting.