AFTER-ACTION REPORT

Statement of Manfred Suisanne, From AsA records
Taken at the Geisteskrankenhaus des Veteran, Constanz, November 1, 1940 by Hauptmann Konrad Steidel

STEIDEL: Tell me how you met Gerlach Moller.

SUISANNE: Are you SS?

STEIDEL: Hardly. I work for the Abteilung des speziellen Auftretens. Brandenburger. Abwehr. What you say goes no further, you have my word.

SUISANNE: Well, just as you say. Moller roared up in a commandeered Citroen looking for my Lieutenant. He wore black and his lapels said SS-Sturmbannführer, complete with the adorable little deaths-heads his crowd seem to favor. I saluted and took him to Clausen, my Lieutenant, and busied myself about the tent as they talked.

STEIDEL: When was that?

SUISANNE: Early June. I remember it all very clearly. At this time we were living in horse-drawn carts on the far side of Boulogne; Guderian had stripped us of everything with a motor in his mad rush for Dunkirk. There was no work because the French, to our intense disappointment, didn't blow the bridges. At least we were able to take in the sea air. The entire battalion was feeling rather indolent; we had nothing to assault, much less engineer. Some were relived, some were sad. All had their shirts off on the beach, generally. Thus, I carefully monitored the conversation, sure that my little Lieutenant was about to be sent to Poland for lax discipline, and us along with him. Instead, Moeller seemed extraordinarily friendly.

STEIDEL: What did he want?

SUISANNE: Engineers, he said, good ones. Clausen mumbled something inane about his having come to the right place as he buttoned his trousers. The SS major laughed and said he agreed. Would the Lieutenant be interested in some action, he asked? Something unusual, requiring his particular skills? To my annoyance, Clausen was very interested.

STEIDEL: Go on.

SUISANNE: It seems Moeller, through contacts in the rarified circle of SS intelligence, had come into some knowledge concerning British codebooks in Paris; codebooks that were to be destroyed "the moment the Germans entered Paris". Now this was June 11, Paris had just been declared an open city, and eighty percent of her citizens were packing their bags. Our army would roll onto the Champs Elysees in three days. We would have to move quickly; Moeller had thoughtfully arranged for a pair of trucks borrowed from the French army. There were clean new uniforms in the back. At this point I began to worry. He had obviously picked us, out of all the assault engineers invading France, because we were primarily an Alsatian unit, fluent in French. The grinning SS major wanted us to drive into enemy territory, in enemy uniforms. Even though that enemy was only the incompetent French army, it made us spies, and spies were generally shot on sight, unless someone like Moeller got to them first and shot them later. I tried to signal the Lieutenant, shaking my head, but it was no use. He said he liked the idea, and asked what to pack. As though it were a church picnic!

STEIDEL: Yes, yes. Do go on.

SUISANNE: Four hours later we were tearing down the N-1 motorway, waving goodbye to the panzergrenadiers at the final checkpoint. The trucks were filled with all manner of equipment - rubber rafts, picks and shovels, and enough explosives to bring down the Eiffel tower. Major Moeller had come along and brought company - two mirthless SS goons with MP-40's and a pair of civilians, one German and one English.

STEIDEL: Those would be Fernau and Wescote-Kern, yes?

SUISANNE: Yes, of course, Fernau and Kern. For our part, I had selected a handful of good men - Alsatians, mostly - to do whatever digging and exploding might be required. We all looked fetching in our poorly-made French uniforms. The Lieutenant hummed a little tune. In no time, we were ten kilometers from Paris. As we entered the city, SS-Sturmbannführer Moeller rubbed his hands together and said, "well boys, you'd better put on your rubber boots. We're going into the catacombs, where you'll see every German's dream come true -- two million dead Frenchmen."

STEIDEL: You were going into the catacombs.

SUISANNE: Of course.

(SUISANNE becomes agitated)

STEIDEL: Please continue.

SUISANNE: My mind ran through all the awful things that could possibly happen to us. I tell you plainly - nothing my feverish brain imagined even came close. 24 hours later I had seen the very heart of the catacombs. Lowe and Tolle were dead, the SS men, Moller, Furnau, all destroyed. I admit I am lucky to be alive, yet I tell you plainly that had my own explosives ended my life, I would have welcomed it.

STEIDEL: Did the Englishman survive?

SUISANNE: There was ... a lot of shooting. I brought the roof down.

STEIDEL: What happened down there, Suisanne?

SUISANNE: I'm not going to share the terrible events that transpired in that hell. I shall let the dead lie, and I shall pray each night that demolishing the crypt of Pepin the Short ended the horror for all time.

(SUISANNE was unable to continue at this point)