The third incident involved Wolfe and two friends, Fredy Stoll,[1] the former German ski-jumping champion and Fritz Haegele, Goering’s valet, who was being employed by the US as caretaker of the ‘Eagles Nest’, Hitler’s famous mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden, where Wolfe and others would often retreat themselves to cook meals on ‘Hitler’s stove.’ The three had been stripping the Nest of certain items – in particular three large bathtubs – when Stoll was arrested by the CIC, who had been tapping Haegele’s phone. They suspected Stoll of looting much more than bathtubs, namely the art treasures and jewels that Goering had stolen from the Jews and hidden away. When they heard Haegele tell Stoll ‘The stuff’s ready’ they swooped believing they had hit the jackpot. The CIC officers were not happy when all that could be found in Stoll’s van was a bathtub and, following a Frank intervention, Stoll was released without charge and allowed to keep Hitler’s bathtub; about which Wolfe comments: ‘I have often soaked in it, and it was sheer luxury.’
In late 1947 Wolfe and Maxine departed Nuremberg under the cover of darkness, in their two cars and a trailer which bore a variety of false number plates and were covered by forged documents, to spend the winter in Davos before moving on, in May 1948, to Paris where Wolfe became a script writer for the radio section of the Marshall Plan.[2] They moved on to London in July, where they were joined by Maxine’s ‘incurable alcoholic and divorced mother Gladys’. Although fifty-four years of age (and in Maxine’s absence) Gladys stripped off and invited Wolfe to put her bra on – an invitation he turned down. He later informed Maxine of what had taken place. The whole episode was to later have disastrous repercussions on the Frank marriage, as Wolfe says: ‘The words Gladys uttered at the time were ominous: “I’ll get you for this you son-of-a-bitch” – she sure as hell did’.
By 1948 Wolfe was a partner in Fellowes & Frank, an import-export company and an adviser to a firm of aircraft brokers. However, business was not good, and Wolfe had become seriously concerned about the way Germany appeared to be hoodwinking the rest of the world with the information it was providing through the media. This led to another great episode in the Wolfe Frank story that was to once again put his life at risk and led to him going under cover on false papers into the occupied East and West sectors of Germany, to gather evidence for what became an acclaimed series of articles for the New York Herald Tribune (NYHT) entitled ‘Hangover After Hitler’. During the covert operation, he single-handedly discovered, unbelievably working in a position of trust for the British Property Control Board[3] under an assumed name, the SS officer who was ‘fourth’ on the Allies most wanted list of war criminals. Wolfe eventually turned the former Nazi general over to the appropriate authorities but not before he had taken his signed ‘Confession’. Of the two copies produced one was handed in as evidence (along with the SS officer) whilst the other signed copy remains in the Wolfe Frank archive along with his memoirs and other documents of importance.
The astonishing story of Frank’s clandestine undercover operation, the articles he wrote, his apprehending of the Nazi general and, for the first time, a translation and reproduction of the entire Confession are to be the subject of a separate book entitled The Undercover Nazi Hunter: Unmasking Evil in Post-war Germany, which is to be published by Frontline Books. (A copy of the NYHT flyer announcing the Hangover After Hitler series can be seen on page 194).
42. EPILOGUE
Any follower of the Wolfe Frank story thus far would be forgiven for thinking that such a man might consider his involvements at Nuremberg, and his post-war undercover assignment and single-handed apprehension of one of the ‘most wanted’ Nazi war criminals, to have been something extraordinary, and that the rest of his life might prove to be something of an anti-climax. Certainly, in today’s world, such service to one’s country would be more appropriately recognized, and the accompanying media coverage would guarantee that those achievements were more publicly acknowledged and rewarded. Together with his striking good looks, his personality, his charisma, his ability and his intelligence, these qualities would make a modern-day Wolfe Frank a PR management company’s dream client – and would, no doubt, lead to him being considered a ‘hot property’ with the potential of having his profile raised to the kind of ‘superstar’ status many less able and less talented ‘personalities’ enjoy today.
However, whilst those events were undoubtedly two of the highlights in a quite extraordinary life, Wolfe viewed them as being no more than transitory events from which, once over, he quickly moved on – without much more than the occasional backward glance. To him they were simply two of the challenges destiny had set him during a lifetime in which he more than fulfilled Rudyard Kipling’s counsel to ‘fill every unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run’.
In fact Wolfe Frank seems to have been the embodiment of the character described in IF – the kind of man Kipling hopes his son will eventually become.
Certainly Wolfe, in spite of his hedonistic, maverick and cavalier tendencies, could, whenever necessary, be relied upon to keep a cool head in difficult and dangerous situations and to carry out whatever was asked of him – to the highest standards and with the greatest integrity and professionalism. He could be a patient, trusting and forgiving, yet determined man, as he demonstrated during and after his period of internment and throughout his successful campaign (and twenty-three applications) to be allowed to join a fighting unit of the British Army. He proved himself to be equally at ease with the lower ranks and the hoi polloi as he was amongst the officers, the nobles, the gentry and actors in whose company he would so often be found. He was also an optimist, a dreamer and a chancer who took risks, financially and romantically, which sometimes left him bereft of money or love – situations from which he always recovered to fight another day – often to his greater advantage. ‘Triumph and Disaster’? – Wolfe Frank really did ‘treat those two imposters just the same’.
Irresistible to women Wolfe was married five times and had countless affairs, casual relationships and one-night stands. It is true to say that throughout his adult life he was never without a love interest; apart from the months he was interned as an ‘enemy alien’, and even then he was preparing for a liaison with a new conquest at the very moment of his arrest and, within ‘five minutes’ of being released (and looking more like a vagrant than the Army captain he was to become), he was once again invited to share the bed of a an admiring stranger.
Many men also held Wolfe in high esteem and sought his company and friendship. They admired his abilities and his free-spirited approach to life, they envied the ease with which he captured the hearts of the fairer sex, they marvelled at his linguistic skills and his eloquence and they thoroughly enjoyed his bonhomie, his bon viveur and his devil-may-care attitude – especially in those situations where so many would err on the side of caution.
In short Wolfe Frank seems to have been a mixture of Casanova, with whom he had much in common, Cary Grant, the Scarlet Pimpernel, James Bond and Oliver Reed; and he had that rare ability to be a man’s man – a worldly-wise, educated gentleman who possesses class and admits his faults – as well as being a ladies’ man.
1
Alfred ‘Fredy’ Stoll was a ski jumper born in Berchtesgaden who became the German champion in 1934. On that occasion he was awarded an engraved cup by Hermann Goering as a special prize for the furthest jump of the day. He was described as being ‘a daredevil without fear, who not only jumps further than anybody else, but, by testimony of a friend, would also make a good race car driver and motorbike racer.’
2
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Programme) was an American initiative. Named after US Secretary of State George Marshall, the Plan gave $13 billion in aid to help rebuild Western European economies after the Second World War.
3
Following the war many German owned properties and estates were seized by the British Property Control Board and handed over to reliable Germans or were held by the Board until the Control Council decided how to dispose of them in the interests of peace.