The Last U-Boat

The sliver of moon hung so low it looked to be resting on top of the

spruce trees at the far end of the backyard. Its light revealed a black

sedan, headlights off, speeding down the long driveway. The car

screamed toward the house, barely missing the lamppost as it skidded to a

stop. Gravel scattered over the front walk.

A young man in his mid-teens jumped out. He slipped and nearly fell on

the loose stones as he bounded up the steps to the front door.

Gunther Kraus stuck his head into the living room, leaned against the

doorway and shouted, “Mutter!”

He gasped, desperately out of breath. Seated in front of him, three women

were listening to Heinz Wehner’s Das Fräulein Gerda on the radio, as they

sewed Kriegsmarine insignia on a stack of midnight blue uniforms.

“Wo ist meine Mutter? Kennen Sie?” he asked. The rules demanded ev

eryone speak German whenever the Bund was gathered. The women looked

at the boy and nodded toward the next room.

Gunther pushed himself off the door jamb and charged down the hall

again, dodging scattered boxes on the floor. He slid through the doorway

and into the downstairs bedroom.

“Mother!”

A small, attractive woman, with raven hair and an apron over her calf

length, flower-print dress, glowed when she saw her handsome young son.

She stood before him gripping the barrels of two machine guns, one in each

hand. Unfazed, she extended her arms, inviting a hug.

“Gunther. Hello, my boy,” she said, as they embraced. “You were already

gone when I woke this morning.”

“After we were done down at the beach, I left to visit Uncle Karl. He’s

given us a mission. Operation Pastorius is underway.” Gunther’s cheeks

were flush with excitement and his eyes sparkled as he spoke. “I must tell

Hans. Is he home?”

Hanna Kraus laid the machine guns across the bed and smiled at her

teenage son. His father, Wolf, had been briefed on Pastorius while visiting

the Abwehr late in 1934. It was at that meeting that Admiral Canaris, head

of German intelligence, chose the name Pastorius, a reference to Francis

Daniel Pastorius, the first German-American settler in the fledgling United

States. Canaris outlined a wide-ranging strategy of sabotage and terrorism

designed to create emotional, economic, and material damage to the US war

effort, which, the Nazis rightly presumed, would be forthcoming.

“Yes, of course, Hans is here somewhere. Your brother’s always working.

Go find him. Go on! Schnell!” Hanna Kraus’s eyes lingered on the doorway

where her son had been standing.

She spoke aloud to the empty room, “So it begins.”

Gunther and Hans Kraus had spent the morning working together on

several projects around the Bavarian-style country home, isolated and far

from the city, perched near the edge of a cliff overlooking Lake Erie. Wolf

Kraus, their father, built the house and then suddenly passed away following

a heart attack, suffered shortly after its completion in 1939.

During the excavation of the basement, Wolf had ordered the steam

shovel operator to dig well beyond the home’s footprint. He had plans, he

said, to install a giant swimming pool and terrace on the hillside overlook

ing a small stream. In truth, he never planned to build a pool. Instead, once

the excavation was complete, trucks began to arrive nightly. The space soon

filled with giant crates and raw materials like steel and lumber.

When the deliveries stopped, Kraus raised walls and a roof and covered

it all with thick oil cloth, then blue clay and sandy soil. Grass and weeds

soon grew, and the construction site became, once again, an ordinary shady

hillside along the Lake Erie shoreline.

The hidden underground bunker provided the space needed to construct

a weapon that could cripple America’s war-making capability. To make it

happen, the Wehrmacht had advanced Kraus’ vision with money, material,

and a support network that spanned halfway around the world.

Following his death, and owing to the tireless efforts of his wife, sons,

and members of the Lake Erie German Cultural Bund, Wolf Kraus’ mission

was nearly complete.

Earlier in the day, Hans, Gunther, and their cronies had cut down two

massive locust trees along the beach, leaving them to lie along the shoreline

where the creek emptied into the lake. The week before, they’d used those

very trees to anchor heavy pulleys. The pulleys helped the brothers build two

retaining walls of mammoth grooved timbers that now flanked both sides

of the gully. The ends of the timbers rose like a stairway in either direction,

producing an earthwork with the appearance and scale of the monumental

construction burgeoning in the Third Reich.

After felling the trees, Gunther had been gone for several hours. Now,

he continued down the hallway searching for his brother. As he checked in

each doorway, grim faces looked up from their work and then returned to

their tasks.

Gunther respected these friends and workers, and he took great pride

in the efficiency the group had achieved. In the living room, uniforms were

being sewn together. In the den, machine gun magazines were being loaded

with ammunition. In a bedroom, hand tools and notebooks were laid out

and organized. In the kitchen, tins of food rations, water, and chocolate

were being packed into boxes.

He wheeled into the kitchen, opened the basement door next to the

kitchen table, and vaulted down the steps, into the darkness. At the back

wall, he stopped in front of a shelf loaded with preserves, meat, and

vegetables stored in canning jars. Gunther put his hand on a ceramic jug

with a label that read, “Gurken.” As he tipped it, the entire shelf swung

out, creating a broad opening in the wall where no one would have suspected

a doorway.

He stepped into the secret chamber and descended a steep stair

case to the sandy floor of a cavernous sloping room. Overhead, a tidy

hand-painted sign hung from an electrical conduit. It read Der Tiefe 6

Raum, The Deep Room.

There, Gunther stood many feet below the house and already several yards

beyond it. His pulse quickened each time he stepped into its half-light. Just

the thought of what they were about to achieve filled him with excitement.

Whenever Gunther entered The Deep Room, he changed. In his mind, he

imagined himself a daredevil, a lionheart, or the mythical Siegfried.

A half-dozen men, hard at work in sleeveless T-shirts and blue pants, dot

ted the long, narrow space. Their skin and clothing reeked with a mixture

of sweat, grease, ash, and grit. Gunther strutted past the workers imitating

the way he had seen the Führer walking in newsreels.

The room was illuminated by sparks from grinders and the intermittent

flash of welding torches. Gunther’s wide eyes reflected all the sparks and

flashes.

Nearby, a man pulled on chains to raise a heavy cylinder from a wooden

crate with the words Fait au Canada branded into its side. Gunther called

to him, “Klaus, wo ist Hans?”

“Da drüben!” he replied, as he pointed deeper into the darkness.

In the dim, flashing light beyond, metal parts gleamed as the men labored

to assemble the pieces and moved them on to other team members. Gunther

skittered past them all, his head turning left and right as he searched for

Hans. The lack of adequate ventilation concentrated the heady vapors of oil

paint and turpentine, and made Gunther’s eyes water.

Beyond the welding, a single work light shone brightly against a plank

wall holding back the earth. A long, dull gray metal tube formed the left

side of the corridor, the far end of which was swallowed up by the darkness.

Hans was wiping steel castings to remove cosmoline packing grease.

His new Schmeisser MP 40 Maschinenpistole leaned against the wall. He

looked up when he heard Gunther coming toward him, breathing hard, and

running flat-footed on the sandy floor.

“Bruder, was ist los?” Hans asked calmly.

“Hans, listen, Pastorius is a go. Onkel Karl has a mission for us tonight.

I just came from his house.”7

Hans looked over his brother’s shoulder at the men working in The

Deep Room. Gunther turned to see what Hans was looking at. It was an

impressive and inspiring scene. Here, in an underground bunker the size of

a tennis court, these men were making history. They would not need Hans

tonight. Their work was nearly complete.

Hans turned his brother toward him. “Are we to go now, Gunther?”

“Yes, immediately! Onkel Karl is sending us to the steel mill,” said

Gunther.

As Gunther drove toward the approaching city lights, he glanced in the

rear-view mirror to see the face of his older brother. The worker, Klaus, was

in the front passenger seat and Erich Dietrich, an electrician, sat next to

Hans in the back. Hans happened to catch Gunther looking at him.

“Eyes on the road, Gunther. If you go off into a ditch, you know, it won’t

end well,” said Hans.

Gunther didn’t respond, except to focus on his driving.

His full-time commitment to the Bund meant he had no time for friends

his age. What little happiness Gunther felt in his life of isolation came from

being a part of something he believed to be important, and from having his

big brother’s respect. He was proud to carry on his father’s vision and to be

part of the restoration of Germany to its rightful place among nations.

Gunther watched the road, as tree-lined boulevards gave way to dark

ened city streets.

Hans spoke up as they entered the city. “Gunther.”

“Yes?”

“Stay under the speed limit, and don’t go through any stop signs or red

lights. Be very careful.” He used a soft and patient tone reserved for family.

The car crossed the Lake Central Railroad tracks and turned onto a

dirt road alongside the rail line. The tracks climbed an elevated roadbed of

crushed volcanic pumice, so the car could travel the final half mile hidden by

the berm, unseen from the factories on the other side of the tracks.

The slight moon was now a bit higher in the sky, and just bright enough

to allow Gunther to follow the road without using the headlights.

As they approached the Consolidated Steel plant, Hans began to give

orders.

“Gunther, keep going forward slowly. Remember, we must stop as close

to the electrical sub- station as we can. Ahead is the low spot, where no one

can see the car from the factory.

“Men, listen. Watch each other for hand signals, because the noise near

the plant will make it impossible for us to hear each other until we get into

the maintenance building.”

The overgrown weeds in the transformer yard would provide cover as the

men headed for the small brick building on the perimeter, a guardhouse and

break room for maintenance workers. Hans planned to hide there to arm

their explosives. Then, they would plant them under the giant transformers

in the yard.

The blast would cripple the plant for months, and perhaps much longer,

if the molten steel could not be removed from the ovens before it cooled.

Hans reached over the front seat and massaged Gunther’s shoulders.

“We are taking the war to the enemy, Gunther. Remember your training

and we will be in our beds soon, resting well, content with a job well done.”

Hans reached for the door handle. “Let’s go,” he said. “There’s no time

to waste.”Gunther wondered if Hans’s heart was pounding like his own.

They exited the car at once. Gunther opened the trunk, and the four

men stared at two crates of dynamite, a canvas bag with leather handles, a

motorcycle battery, and an alarm clock. When the trunk closed, Gunther

replaced the keys in the ignition.

The most physically demanding part of the mission was climbing the hill

of crushed pumice stone supporting the railroad tracks.

Over the lake, lightning had begun to fill the sky.

From the tracks, the men saw the silhouette of a guard, his back slouched

against the brick maintenance building. Cigarette smoke drifted in the air

around him, catching the factory lights. The guard tossed his cigarette butt 9

into the weeds and put it out by relieving himself. He walked a few feet to

the broad alleyway between the plant’s two main buildings, leaned against

the wall, and lit another cigarette.

Erich opened the zippered tool bag he had carried to the tracks. He with

drew a screwdriver and zipped the bag closed. He motioned with his hand

open, palm toward the ground. “Stay here,” was the clear intent. Hans nod

ded and Erich scrambled off into the darkness.

Less than two minutes later they saw him casually walking along the build

ing’s perimeter with the tool bag in hand, headed directly toward the guard.

The guard stepped forward and Erich kept strolling closer. At arm’s

length, Erich stopped and shrugged his shoulders, motioning in front of

himself and behind as though lost

The guard tossed his cigarette to the dirt and twisted the toe of his right

foot on its remains. He turned and began waving his hand, giving Erich

directions.

In one swift motion, the point of a screwdriver in Erich’s clenched fist

slammed into the back of the man’s head.

The guard’s khaki cap fell backward as his chin jerked up toward the

security light. Even from a distance, the confused look on the dying man’s

face was clear.

His arms convulsed and his legs buckled. Erich pushed his victim for

ward. The weight of the guard’s body drew his skull off the screwdriver, and

forward, falling hard onto the sidewalk.

Erich waved to his companions and bent down to wipe the bloody screw

driver on the dead man’s shirt.

The men stood and collected their equipment, except for Gunther. He

was still lying between the rails, propped up by his elbows, staring at the

corpse a hundred feet away. Hans kicked the sole of his boot.

“Gunther, get up. This is a war. There will be casualties.” Hans headed

down the slope, not looking back. As Gunther realized everyone else had

moved forward, he stood, grabbed the box he had been carrying, and sped

down the hill toward the guard house.

Hans and Erich lifted the body and brought it into the building through

an unlocked door. The approaching storm made it less likely other guards

would come out looking for their missing companion.

They cautiously withdrew the dynamite from its excelsior nests, and bun

dled the sticks in groups of six, binding them with black friction tape. Then,

they took blasting caps from the canvas bag and gently inserted them into

two sticks in each bundle.

The last step was hooking up the battery.

Hans looked up at his brother. “Gunther, the small wrench is not in the

bag.”

“Maybe it fell out when I opened it,” said Erich.

“Ach! I’ll find it,” said Gunther.

“Hurry,” his brother said, and he gently pushed against his backside to

hustle him out of the building.

Gunther climbed back up the steep mound of pumice. Stones spilled out

from underfoot as he did, forcing him to use his hands and knees to stay

upright. The volcanic stone sliced his trousers and hands like small razor

blades.

As he reached the top of the mound, he cautiously stood to catch his

breath. At first, he thought the sensation he felt was exhilaration, but then

intense heat seared his back. He saw the scrub-grass field just beyond the car

in front of him light up bright as day.

Suddenly, he was no longer on his feet, but airborne above the tracks,

helpless to prevent himself from falling toward the car. A split second later,

the sound of the blast shattered his eardrums. His body accelerated forward,

into the side of the vehicle, arms helplessly flailing at his sides. His head

whipped forward and smashed the heavy glass of the driver’s side window.

He fought to stay conscious, aware that if he lost his footing, his neck could

be slashed by the crackling glass beneath his chin.

He reached through the shattered window and pushed down on the bro

ken glass to gain enough leverage to plant his feet beneath him. Then he

crawled back to the top of the rail bed to search for his brother.11

His vision was blurry. One eye didn’t seem to be able to focus at all. But,

he saw enough to know that the building in which his brother and two oth

ers had been working, had been obliterated. The explosion threw the area

into darkness, except for a strange, undulating light cast by small fires in the

nearby weeds. Nothing was moving.

Hans, Klaus, and Erich could not have survived that immense explosion.

The blast pressure had been concentrated within the tiny brick building.

Investigators would not likely find any identifiable remains.

Gunther felt the emptiness of his soul being ripped from him.

The rumble of the factory continued. A light rain fell, and water began

to roll down his face, mixing with his tears. Still, he knew he had to get out

quickly. Ambulances and firetrucks would be coming soon, along with police.

The rain began to fall in earnest. Lightning and thunder filled the air.

Gunther’s hand shook uncontrollably with each flash, as he reached through

the pain for the door handle. Much of the skin on his hand had been stripped

away and his sleeve was shredded and blood-soaked.

He removed what was left of his shirt and used it to soak up some of the

blood streaming from the multitude of lacerations on his crushed face.

An explosion of thunder reverberated off the imposing metal walls of the

steel plant and Gunther shuddered. It instantly made him feel sick in the pit

of his stomach as he closed the car door, turned the key, and stepped on the

starter.