November 1944

The Special Operations officer, whose real name was Green-

leigh but who for the purposes of this trip was traveling under

false identity and nationality documents, watched the plain-

clothes German courier cross safely back into his homeland.

Then the Englishman turned away. For better or worse, the

operation was off and running

There was not too much two-way traffic between Germany

and Switzerland at that point in the war. and what there was

was watched carefully by troops of the Sicherheitsdienst. or

SD. the SS Security Police. on the German side. Most Germans

who passed through the frontier post had legitimate business

in the neutral country, at least, business that had been franked

as official by a high authority, although it was common know]-

edge that the majority of it involved the transfer of currency

to numbered accounts. In the depraved world of National So-

cialism, this was not regarded as unusual. If the war went

badly, funds would be required to carry on the struggle at some

future time: they would also be needed to provide members of

the SS with living expenses elsewhere. And there was no doubt

that Sturmbannfuehrer Klaus Bauer was an officer of that elite

organization, even though one set of papers pronounced him

to be a Swedish citizen. That too was legitimate, simply to

avoid awkward questions on the Swiss side of the border. His

real papers were franked by SS-General Kaltenbrunner s de-

partment, the RSHA. or Reich Main Security Office.

Nevertheless. the SD Untersturmfuehrer who readmitted

Bauer to the Reich took his time. scrutinizing each page of the

eany document carefully before finally allowing the Sturm-

baanfuehrer to pass through. Time of entry was noted as 12:22

P.M