SWISS SHADOWPLAY
When one of the Luftwaffe’s night fighters with the very latest secret equipment on board made a forced landing in neutral Switzerland, it precipitated a race between the Germans to retrieve their secrets and the Swiss to steal them. Robin Schäfer describes how both sides doublecrossed the other!
When a Luftwaffe night fighter was forced to land in neutral Switzerland during 1944, it was packed with the Luftwaffe’s latest secrets. As Robin Schäfer explains, the Swiss and the Germans fooled each other in negotiated arrangements intended to keep the secrets hidden.
On 18 May 1944, at exactly 22:00 hours, the sound of three large explosions ripped through the night and flames briefly illuminated the sky above Dübendorf in the Uster district of the Zürich canton, Switzerland. So loud were the sounds of the detonations that they were clearly heard in Pfäffikon, more than 20 km away. The following morning, the local press initiated inquiries which ended without result. Soon afterwards, Territorial Army Command made clear that the phenomenon had not even been remotely related to any military action.
Five days later, mystery increased when, out of the blue, twelve German Messerschmitt fighters landed at the military aerodrome of Dübendorf. Whatever was going on? Questions by the local press were again unanswered in any satisfactory manner. This time though - on 15 June – a question was tabled at the Swiss Parliament by Hans Oprecht, president of the Social Democrat Sp-party of the Swiss National Assembly. Someone had to have an answer. Except that nobody was telling.
But the story of what had happened in the small tranquil town of Dübendorf, often described as the cradle of Swiss military aviation, had begun about three weeks earlier in the German occupied French commune of Hagenau.
COLUMN OF FLAMES
During the night of 27/28 April 1944, Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters of Nachtjagd ge sch wader 5 had taken off from their operational base at Hagenau,
Alsace, to intercept a stream of 322 RAF bombers heading towards Germany with the objective of laying waste to Friedrichshafen. The raiders would go on to do that very efficiently, dropping 1,234 tons of bombs (including 185,000 incendiaries) which devastated the city and destroyed 67% of its urban area.
One of the pilots flying that night was the Kapitän of 6. Staffel, Oberleutnant Wilhelm Johnen, in his Messerschmitt Bf-110 G-4/R8/B2 (C9+EN, Werke Nummer 740055) a brand-new nightfighter, equipped with the latest airborne interception radar, Lichtenstein’fug 220, and the oblique Schräge Musik armament, which had so far not seen operational use.
Johnen was a seasoned Experte with 17 victories to his credit. Using the Lichtenstein radar, Leutnant ‘Brinos’ Kamprath, Johnen’s radio operator, soon identified their first target: a Lancaster bomber (DV192, HW-Z, of 100 Squadron) which became Johnen’s first victory that night. He later remembered:
‘...the enemy was badly hit and the greedy flames were glowing eerily in the darkness, lighting up the red, white and blue roundel. We were now flying close to the enemy, watching what would happen. One of the crew baled out. For a fraction of a second his body gleamed in the light of the flames before he fell into the yawning depths. One after another followed suit, and eight men in all baled out. It was high time, for a moment later the port petrol tank exploded and the machine hurtled to the ground, leaving behind it a long fiery tail. I did an aileron turn and watched the sight of the crashing Lancaster. The comet streaked down to earth and disappeared through the bank of cloud. A few seconds later a column of flames lit up the night’.
Minutes later, a second Lancaster (ND759, TL-R, of 35 Squadron) fell to the guns of Johnen and his crew and ditched into Lake Constance at 02:30 hours.
‘Brinos’ then reported a third contact, another heavy bomber, heading at speed towards the Swiss border. Johnen decided to give chase, a decision which would have far reaching consequences. He outlined what happened next:
‘Searchlights suddenly went on in the distance. The Tommy made for them. Slowly, I closed in until I was within 800 yards. The searchlight battery was not far away, and in its sheaf of beams I recognised the silhouette of the enemy aircraft. Another four-engined Lancaster. The searchlights went off but I could still see the Britisher in the dark and approached until his tail was in my sights.
‘At 100 yards, our tracers crossed. I could hear the bullets rattling on my machine and a little later there was a smell of burning in the cabin. At this point, Mahle (Oberfeldwebel Paul Mahle, the rear gunner) roared: ‘We’re on fire. The port engine’s alight.’
Having broken off their attack and feathered the burning engine, the German crew suddenly found themselves trapped in several dozen searchlight cones - they had crossed into Swiss airspace. Blinded by the bright lights, Johnen lost all orientation. After some wild manouevering, Oberfeldwebel Mahle fired several red flares as a distress signal, whereupon the Swiss briefly switched off the searchlights.
As any attempt to evade the bright lights with his damaged aircraft would have been futile, the only viable option available to Johnen was to land on a Swiss airfield. By now, he was also short of fuel.
WINGED HAMPER OF SECRETS
The moment Johnen landed the night fighter at Flugplatz Dübendorf, he and his crew knew they were facing a problem; their Messerschmitt Bf 110 was crammed with highly advanced military technology including the recently introduced, state-of-the-art and topsecret Lichtenstein FUG 220 airborne interception radar and the equally secret Schräge-musik armament, comprising two upward firing 20mm Oerlikon MGFF cannon. In fact the ‘inventor’ of this armament had been none other than Johnen’s gunner, Oberfeldwebel Paul Mahle, who was also the armourer of II./NJG 5. It was a winged hamper of secrets. But it was not only the top-secret technology that presented a problem.
Even though strictly prohibited, Mahle had taken with him a black folder which contained equally secret documents about German wireless and radar guidance, highly valuable maps and the radio codes for May. It was as if every conceivable secret of Germany’s nocturnal air defence system was packed on board the Messerschmitt!
As soon as Johnen’s Bf-110 rolled to a halt on the airfield, the crew tried in vain to damage the radar equipment
to at least make it unserviceable. There was no time, however, to complete the task and a moment later someone had swung themselves up onto the wing of the German night fighter and started knocking at the plexiglass hood with a revolver. Hastily, the crew began shoving the highly sensitive paperwork into their flight suits while the knocking from outside intensified, becoming more and more threatening.
Opening the canopy, Johnen found himself looking down the revolver barrel of a Swiss officer, Emile Pelster, who greeted him with the words: ‘You’re on Swiss soil, make no attempt to escape or I shall have to use my weapon.’ Climbing out onto the runway, Johnen and his men found themselves facing around a dozen Swiss soldiers, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets.
Tension between the two Germanspeaking groups soon gave way to banter and laughter, the Swiss shouldering their rifles and the group lighting cigarettes distributed by Pelster who had now holstered his revolver. The more relaxed atmosphere, however, didn’t stop Mahle from trying once more to destroy their aircraft.
Explaining that he had forgotten some personal items and - without waiting for Swiss approval – he turned around, pulled himself up onto the wing with the aim of entering the cockpit to trigger the delayed fuse of the Messerschmitt Bf-110s self-destruction device. The Swiss, however, intervened just in time and unceremoniously pulled Mahle back down by his trouser leg.
A PLAN OF ESCAPE
The German crew were not prisoners of war but internees, and as such were made reasonably welcome, as Johnen later remembered:
‘We were driven to the mess in a Mercedes. A reception seemed to be taking place for, despite the late hour, a hostess in a red evening dress received us and saw to it that we had food, clothes and quarters for the night. The food was magnificent, but far too rich for our stomachs which had been ruined by wartime fare’.
The rich food, however, was a wonderful excuse for a joint visit to the lavatory, where Johnen and his men successfully flushed at least some of the secret code book down the lavatory, only to have the remainder snatched from them when their guards became suspicious.
The men were eventually taken for interrogation, and Johnen recalled:
‘The Colonel asked: ‘From which airfield did you take off, and what unit do you belong to?’ ‘Such questions are useless, Colonel,’ I replied. ‘You will receive no information from me or my crew. We want to get back to Germany as quickly as possible. Please be good enough to notify our military attaché.’ The Colonel had presumably expected this reply, for he gave us permission to retire.
‘From this moment onwards, we were not allowed to communicate with each other. The windows of our sleeping cells were barred and a guard stood outside the door. Thoroughly exhausted, I slumped on my bed and was soon fast asleep. Next morning, I needed some time to take in my new surroundings. I did not see my crew all day. The necessary formalities were being carried out and we were taken for further interrogation.
‘The Swiss were polite and correct, but I could not help feeling a trifle anxious. The second day passed in endless waiting. My companions knocked on the walls of their respective cells and I devised a plan of escape, for I had no wish to remain in Switzerland. But on the third day of our internment, we were taken by train, under close guard, to Berne.
‘It was an agreeable surprise when we were given rooms in the Hotel Metropole and the uniformed guards were replaced by a civilian called Fuchs. The German General-consul paid us a visit. We had to get out of our uniforms immediately, for in international
Berne they might have given rise to unpleasant incidents. Thus, three night fighters in tattered Luftwaffe uniforms were taken to a store and emerged half an hour later as dapper civilians. The German Consul paid for our clothes and gave us a considerable sum of pocket money.
‘We then wandered round the city like harmless Swiss citizens. Everything that had long since disappeared in Germany was to be had in full measure in the shops. Cinemas, cabarets, dance halls and baths were open until late at night. Released from the tension of war, and revived by the warm spring air, we enjoyed our liberty to the full.
‘At this juncture, just as we were beginning to feel really well, our polite custodian Fuchs told us that within the next few days we were going to be exchanged for three Britishers.’
A few days after Johnen and his crew had landed in Dübendorf, the Swiss military authorities suddenly realised they had a high value prize. Rapidly, they transported the Messerschmitt Bf 110, with its top secret radar technology and armament set-up, to a secret location for evaluation.
COMMANDO OPERATION
Unwittingly, Johnen had ended up triggering a series of events which could very easily have ended in a military conflict between Germany and Switzerland, and after the Swiss military attaché in Berlin, Major Peter Burckhardt, informed Luftwaffe officials of Johnen’s emergency landing, a flurry of action erupted. It bordered on outright panic.
In his Eastern Front HQ, the ‘Wolfsschanze’, Adolf Hitler allegedly fumed with rage when he was informed of events. In his view, the Luftwaffe crew had defected to Switzerland deliberately. If they had not, then he had to be assured they would not reveal any secret information. According to a Swiss historian, Ernst Wetter, it was only due to the personal intervention of Hermann Göring that the solution suggested by the Reichsführer-ss, Heinrich Himmler, was not carried out. That solution was to simply assassinate Johnen and his crew while in Swiss internment. It was agreed, however, that the Messerschmitt Bf 110 had to be destroyed. Or, preferably, returned to Germany.
A bombing raid was clearly out of the question and what was needed was a precision attack; a commando-operation of the style of the Gran-sasso Raid which resulted in the rescue of the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, held under armed guard in the Hotel Campo at a ski resort high in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. It was only natural, then, that Hitler decided to task Ss-sturmbannführer
Otto Skorzeny to undertake what any other more conventional approaches could not achieve.
Skorzeny, the famous commando leader, was then in charge of schools organised to train operatives in sabotage, espionage and paramilitary techniques and the recently created SS Jagdverband 502 (formerly SS Sonderverband z.b.v. Friedenthal), the premier Waffen-ss special forces unit. Meanwhile, the families of the three German fliers were arrested and taken into custody.
At the beginning of May 1944, Ssbrigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of the German Foreign Intelligence Service, was on leave near Berlin when he was called to attend a conference held in a small inn near Wannsee, chaired by Otto Skorzeny and acting on the direct instruction of Adolf Hitler and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).
At the conference, with several officers of the Luftwaffe and the German Air Attache from Bern present, Skorzeny revealed he was planning to land 30 of his Ss-fallschirmjäger at Dübendorf in a commando operation after Swiss air-defences had been knocked out by
German fighter-bombers. He would then either see that the Messerschmitt was flown back to Germany, or - if that was impossible – destroy it on the ground. It was a drastic solution which, if executed, would have dramatic political and military ramifications. However, in the course of the conference, Schellenberg managed to substitute Skorzeny’s plan with one of his own. Instead, it was a plan of diplomacy.
SCHELLENBERG’S PLAN
Schellenberg, putting his plan into action, contacted Roger Masson, head of the Swiss Army Intelligence Service, and also sent a letter to General Henri Guissan, the Commander in Chief of Swiss Armed Forces, in which he stated:
‘The machine is of the most modern design. The engines, as well as the equipment, contain elements of our most advanced air combat technology. It would be of great harm to the Reich’s conduct of war if details or even actual parts of the machine fell into the hands of Germany’s enemies. In confidence, I ask you for a debate about this, the result of which would ideally be an agreement as to the unconditional and imperative protection of the secrets of the aircraft and its parts.’
In his letter, Schellenberg openly revealed the importance of the aircraft to Germany. And if anything were likely to pique the interest of the Swiss, then perhaps it was this communication which told them very clearly that they had a valuable bargaining chip in their hands.
In the meantime, Guisan personally inspected the top-secret German aircraft and while negotiations continued, all radar and communications equipment was removed and brought to a tunnel deep inside the Buochserhorn mountain in the Swiss Prealps. Here, it was examined, catalogued and evaluated by Swiss technicians and scientists who had all been sworn to absolute secrecy.
Negotiations continued and were conducted through Peter Burckhardt, the Swiss Military Attache in Berlin, and Oberst Karl von Wattenwyl at the Technical Department of the Swiss War Office. Four weeks later, it was finally agreed that the Swiss would destroy the aircraft in front of German witnesses. As another component of the agreement, Leutnant Wilhelm Johnen and his crew were to be released from custody and returned to Germany, acquitted in a court
martial and their families released from prison. So as not to endanger their neutral status, the Swiss were to release three interned Allied pilots at the same time.
Thus it was that on 23 May 1944, Johnen was back on the hunt for British bombers in the night skies over Germany, but now at the controls of a new aircraft and flying with III./NJG 6.
BOTH SIDES DUPED
In return for this arrangement, and with Hermann Göring’s personal authority, the Swiss would be allowed to buy twelve modern Messerschmitt Bf-109 G-6 fighters for the price of 500,000 Swiss Francs each. It was a fantastic deal for the Swiss Air Force which by the spring of 1940 had already purchased 90 Mess er schmitt Bf -109 Dan dE types, even using them against the Luftwaffe during a very dramatic period in May 1940. (More on this story in a future issue. Editor)
In addition, two cheques in the sum of 3 Million Francs each were to be issued to Schellenberg’s ass is tant,Sssturmb ann führer Hans Wilhelm Eggen. These entitled him to draw 800 kilos of gold from the Swiss National Bank to help cement the deal.
Meanwhile, the top secret Lichtenstein radar equipment was hurried back to Dübendorf where it was duly reinstalled into the German aircraft. No one would ever know that it had been removed.
Finally, on the night of 18 May 1944, three explosive charges were fitted to the Messerschmitt and detonated in front of a party of German observers, among them Hauptmann Friedrich-wilhelm Brandt, the Operations Officer of NJG 6. The remains of the aircraft were then collected together, doused with fuel and set alight. To all intents and purposes, the aircraft and its secrets had been destroyed. Except that the Swiss already had the aircraft’s secrets!
In completion of the deal, and on 20 May 1944, the twelve Messerschmitt 109 G-6 fighters were flown from Regensburg to Dübendorf by Luftwaffe pilots in civilian clothing. Here, the aircraft were marked in Swiss colours and duly taken into service by the Swiss Air Force. It seemed that the gamble had paid off; the Germans had been tricked into selling twelve of their most modern fighter aircraft while the Swiss had managed to evaluate the top-secret German equipment without anyone noticing. At least, that was how it seemed. Then, on 4 August, a whole
series of emergency landings due to engine defects started to occur with the new Messerschmitts.
The Germans had indeed delivered a dozen Messerschmitt fighters. But they had knowingly delivered aircraft which had not passed quality control. The resulting examination discovered typical signs of ‘factory sabotage’, a problem common in German late war arms production by forced labour: a bit of sand in an oil tank here, overwound screws there – along with damaged hydraulic pipes and myriad other small defects that all escalated to gradually render the aircraft unserviceable. Some of the engines were even found to have Cyrillic graffiti scratched into them – indicative of the nationality of at least some of the saboteurs.
The problems persisted and accumulated, and the Swiss ‘Gustavs’ were finally grounded on 19 January 1947, ultimately being destroyed in May 1948. Both sides had been duped by the other.
Then, three years later, the Swiss took the matter of their faulty Messerschmitts to court. This legal action culminated in 1953 with a compromise agreement being struck with the Messerschmitt company by the Swiss, the aircraft company agreeing to pay compensation for damages. In the end, perhaps the Swiss had the last laugh?