When darkness fell, they were fighting exhaustion and had used up the small amount of rations they’d brought along. Although risking capture was almost unthinkable, Erich knew they would not get very far without food or water. And so, when they stumbled on a small rural gas station and grocery which had closed for the evening, they had no choice but to break inside and gather provisions.
For almost a week, they moved only in darkness, abetted by one additional burglary. It was slow and they had no idea when they would reach the city. However, as the farms became more plentiful, so did available supplies and well water, which kept them alive. Manny seemed particularly terrified by the idea of capture. Erich was getting to the point of no longer caring what happened to him, while the young Hausser seemed to be genuinely excited at the prospect of seeing his relatives.
On the evening of the sixth day of their wandering, they saw a glow beyond the horizon, signaling a large city. The outskirts of Baltimore. Crowded. Dirty. Industrial.
They entered the area through the southeast where steel mills still blazed around the clock and shipyards swelled with dry-docked vessels in for repairs. The war with Japan was very much in doubt, and America still labored to earn victory. Everyone working so hard. So much activity that Erich felt safe walking in the streets. Wearing non-descript khaki and denim, they looked like other workers. No one gave them a second glance.
They became more comfortable, and Hausser became downright bold. “We need money,” he said. “I will get it for us.”
Erich and Manny waited in an alley, while their young cook begged for coins on a street corner.
Within the hour, he had a handful of nickels. “Watch this, Captain,” he said.
Erich and Manny followed him into a tiny corner store selling cigarettes, newspapers, and American soft drinks. Hausser smiled as he spotted what he was looking for in the rear corner of the establishment. But first he moved to a refrigerated chest, lifted its lid and pulled out three bottles of Coca-Cola. The glass felt cool in Erich’s hand, and he realized they had no way to open them. A small boy squeezed past him, retrieved his own bottle, and snapped it open on a small lip attached to the side of the cooler.
Smiling, Manny nodded and they all opened their first bottles of Coke in America. It was a moment Erich never forgot.
As they edged to the back of the store, Hausser directed them to the original object of his quest — a wooden phone booth with a split hinged folding door and a large book attached to a shelf beneath a telephone.
Hausser spent considerable time searching through the listings… until he found what he needed. “It is the Continental House,” he whispered in German. “I found it!”
A phone number. Using one of his begged coins, he successfully telephoned his Uncle Herman at the restaurant. Hausser was so proud of his ability to do this, his smile looked as if it would explode off his face.
After hanging up, Hausser guided them outside into the noisy street, then told them how shocked his uncle had been to receive a call from young Freddie, as they all called him. But the elder Hausser did not hesitate to act.
One half hour later, Herman and his son, Dickie, arrived in a 1938 Plymouth, a beat-up black sedan, covered in road dust. He drove up Hanover Street through a neighborhood he called ‘Sobo’. The uncle was tall with thin blond hair and small, round spectacles. He had been clearly overjoyed to see his young nephew, and if he was suspicious of Manny and Erich, he did not show it. As he drove slowly up the crowded streets, he told Erich with evident honesty he could not have helped them if the war in Europe had not been ended.
Erich nodded, tried to relay in half-English-half-German, his appreciation and understanding. He tried to tell Herman he would have done the same. At that moment, Erich had acknowledged the day would come when they would face questions from the Americans and their answers would have to be good ones.
When they reached the Continental House, Erich was impressed with the size and popularity of the restaurant. Herman ran it with his wife, their two daughters and their husbands as the wait-staff. They had a German chef named Kimmel, a few kitchen helpers, and that was all. Herman had come to America as a small boy with his family, who had been in the meat business as butchers and packers. He started his restaurant after the Depression, originally calling it the German Haus, but he had changed the name after Hitler invaded Poland and occupied France.
Erich and Manny were taken in by Hausser’s family with a promise they would be safe until they could get established. Back then, Baltimore was very much a patch-quilt of tight little neighborhoods demarcated by nationalities. The Haussers lived in Morrell Park — an area which had been heavily German for a hundred years, and because of that, no one paid much attention to the poor English language skills of Erich and Manny.
Nephew Freddie went to work in the family restaurant’s kitchen, where he learned the secrets of the great chefs and how to speak passable English quite quickly. Herman found Manny work as a neighborhood handy-man with older residents who needed odd-jobs and who still spoke a fair amount of German. Finally, he was able to arrange employment for Erich as a helper on an ice-truck. It was backbreaking work, dragging blocks of ice into stores and taverns. And, because he spoke so little English, the pay was very low.
As the months passed, slouching into a humid Baltimore August, Manny and Erich learned to speak the language of the locals. At first, it was difficult, and peppered with colloquial aberrations, but Erich persevered because of the utter necessity of it. He, Manny, and Freddie were becoming a familiar part of the neighborhood, and no one questioned their presence there. As Erich learned more English, he was able to comprehend more of what was happening in his home country. And, as he and Manny had suspected, Europe and Russia were planning to punish Germany in a very large way. Both were grateful to not be there — either to witness or suffer it.
Japan surrendered when it felt the punishing force of an American atomic device. When Erich saw the notices later that month of a terrible weapon that had leveled two Japanese cities, he thought immediately of the device he’d left behind… and only then had any true sense of what kind of weapon it might have been.
Erich would have never imagined ever spending a Christmas in America, and his first was a memorable one. He and Manny had been making friends throughout the neighborhood and the city itself. There was a lot to like about their new country, and they had both decided to become permanent citizens — if they ever wanted better jobs, better housing.
Like so many of his friends, Erich wanted a family. But there was only one way to do this — he would need to rise up from hiding. Herman Hausser suggested waiting at least a year after the end of the war before placing himself at the mercy of the American authorities. Time has a way of smoothing out rough spots, and Erich hoped the American Navy would be tired of the war and have little interest in him or his Executive Officer.
While keeping a low profile until the proper time, he and Manny, along with Freddie Hausser, concocted a history for themselves. A history that would allow them to keep the truth buried — hopefully forever.
By the next summer, they were ready. Thankfully, Erich recalled the story of the U-1020, under the command of a very young captain named Eberlein. In January, 1945, it had disappeared during its mission to scout aerial defenses of major harbor cities along the East Coast of America — part of the preparation for the 5001’s secret mission. When Erich and the others officially turned themselves in, Erich told the federal agents they had been part of an adjunct training crew on that submarine, which had been sunk in the Atlantic, south of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. They had been the only three survivors — washing ashore south of Norfolk.