‘What part of the civil service are you with?’ the scriptwriter asked, having failed to discover this by means of indirect remarks.
‘The Foreign Office,’ said Sir Sydney Ryden.
‘They are helping us with a programme we’ll air next April,’ said the scriptwriter. He confidently assumed that everyone was fascinated by a behind-the-scenes glimpse of television. Sir Sydney sipped his port and hoped the young man would talk to his host and leave him alone. He would have made his escape, except that there was still a small matter of paying his share of the cost of the cigars.
‘… and the Germans had put all their gold down into this salt mine… ’ he suddenly heard the scriptwriter saying. ‘The greater proportion of the entire German gold reserves and God knows what documents and stuff… ’ Sir Sydney’s stomach tightened and the port suddenly became vinegar in his mouth. He turned to the bearded man and nodded.
‘Really. And this was your idea?’ said Sir Sydney encouragingly
‘Some looney historian from one of those dud universities in the Midlands. A professor he was… ’ The bearded man laughed. ‘You should have seen him. I wouldn’t have given him a job as a cleaner. But he had the stuff all right. Unusable, mind you. Scriptwriting for TV is a very specialized technique. The Beeb gave him a few quid and sent him packing. The poor old fool was furious but there was nothing he could do about it. “Sue the BBC,” I told him, “and see where that gets you.” One of my people took over the project and started it rolling so that we can air it on the anniversary of the end of the war. That’s when the Yanks got to the mine and found the loot there.’
Sir Sydney relit his cigar, noting with some satisfaction that the flaming match did not tremble. ‘Tell me how your script begins,’ he said, this being the simplest way to have the story retold while he gave his full attention to it.
By now the scriptwriter was steering the silver cow round the salt and pepper so that it left tracks in the table cloth. ‘It’s not my script,’ he said. ‘I’m what they call a script editor. I phone up any writers I think might be able to handle it. We’ve had a four-page outline. The actual script won’t be ready until next month, as I remember.’
‘It must be an awfully interesting job,’ said Sir Sydney and gallantly sat through another half-hour of finer points of script editing until the subject of the salt mine was quite, quite cold.
The next morning Sir Sydney arranged an urgent meeting with the assistant director at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP is the official department which advises law-enforcement agencies about the legal aspects of serious criminal proceedings. The assistant director promised Sir Sydney that they would support an action against the BBC or any of its employees, and any other person concerned, should they not cooperate with MI6 in its endeavours to suppress the publication of material which was protected by the Official Secrets Act, as clearly this was.
On that same day Sir Sydney Ryden arranged a meeting with the chairman of the BBC board of governors. Without going into any detail, he explained that the revelation of certain aspects of the recovery of the treasure in the salt mine would not be in the public interest.
In the absence of the BBC’s Director General, who was indisposed, the chairman got Sir Sydney Ryden’s permission to bring the head of external services (who was the ranking executive) into the meeting.
Sir Sydney produced a map that one of the MI6 cartographers had prepared overnight. It showed the city of Frankfurt, and the autobahn north which led through Alsfeld and Bad Hersfeld, and the convoy route on the small side road off the autobahn. It showed too the present-day border, with its barbed wire, man traps, minefields, searchlights and machine-gun posts.
‘Director Janecke and Director Thorns of the Reichsbank were the two men who handled all the gold in Nazi Germany,’ said Sir Sydney Ryden. ‘I have here some of the documents which show the shipments made to the Kaiseroda mineshaft at Merkers during those final weeks of the war. You see the signatures.’
The two BBC men looked at the map and the border of East Germany which encompassed the tiny town of Merkers.
‘This is the document from the Reichswirtschaftsministerium which assigned space in certain selected mines for the protection of such treasures as they considered most valuable,’ said Sir Sydney passing it across the desk.
SECRET
List of Money, Gold, Bullion, Found in Salt-Mine Cave,
Merkers (H-6850) Germany, 8 April 1945
Gold Reichsmarks, bags 446
Austrian crowns, bags 271
Turkish pounds, bags 73
Dutch gold, bags 514
Italian gold, bags 62
Austrian coins (miscellaneous), bags 3 (nos. 2, 15, 96)
British coins (miscellaneous), bags 3 (nos. 12, 17, 15)
Gold bars, bullion 8198
American $20 gold pieces, bags 711 (25,000 dollars per bag)
Miscellaneous coins, bags 37
Gold francs, bags 80 (10,000 francs per bag)
Miscellaneous money and coin, bag no. 1
Italian gold coins, bags 5 (20,000 per bag)
British gold pounds, bags 280
Foreign notes, miscellaneous, bags 80
Reichmarks
1000 Mark notes, bags 130 650,000,000 Marks
100 Mark notes, bags 1650 1,650,000,000 Marks
50 Mark notes, bags 600 300,000 Marks
20 Mark notes, bags 500 100,000 Marks
5 Mark notes, boxes 800 60,000 Marks
____________________
2,300,460,000 Marks
Gold bar, 1
Silver bars, 20
Silver plate, boxes 63 and bags 55
Gold, 138 pieces in bags 49
Gold, miscellaneous pieces, bag 1
Gold, French francs, bags 635
Swiss gold, bags 55
Crated gold bullion, boxes 53
Crated gold bullion, long boxes 2
Valuable coins, bags 9
Coins (not marked), bags 5
Turkish gold coins, bag 1
Mixed gold coins, bag 1
American dollars, bag 1 (12,470 dollars)
Austrian gold (marked GA ‘V’), bags 13
Miscellaneous gold of various countries, bags 6
Danish gold coins, bags 32
Platinum bars, bag 1 containing 6 bars
Roubles, bags 4
Silver bars, bags 40
Gold bullion, bags 11
British pounds, bag 1
Documents (metal boxes marked FHQu) 82
The two BBC officials studied the documents and looked at the map. Soon they exchanged significant glances and one of them asked, ‘You’d not want the full list of gold and valuables made public, Sir Sydney?’
The DG gave one of his cheerless smiles. ‘I wouldn’t like to define exactly our priorities.’
This evasive reply was enough to convince them that the Russians had been deprived of their rightful share of the treasure from a mine which became part of the Russian zone. Now, believing that they understood the full implications of Sir Sydney’s mission, they were fully ready to help. The producer of the documentary would be informed that there was litigation threatened by an unspecified complainant. Photocopies of all relevant material made ostensibly for the legal department would actually be sent to Sir Sydney Ryden’s home address within twenty-four hours.
The DG expressed his gratitude and was pleased he had not had to mention his visit to the DPP’s office. It was always better to handle these things at the very top, where the people concerned knew where their duty lay.
By eleven a.m. the following day, Sir Sydney had personally read all the material the BBC delivered to his office.
‘Just a lot of bilge,’ said Sir Sydney. Fatigue muted the relief and delight he might otherwise have shown. ‘A boring little script about the US army finding the bullion in the mine; the documents and archives are scarcely mentioned. Interviews with some high-ranking officers who were nowhere near the mine, and some US army signal corps photographs of the sacks of gold.’ He looked up at Boyd Stuart. ‘I had a sleepless night for nothing, Stuart.’