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LOOT UNDERGROUND: THE SALT MINE AT ALT AUSSEE
It was nearly two o’clock by the time we were ready to start. I was now so familiar with the road between Munich and Salzburg that I felt like a commuter. Just outside Salzburg, Lamont began looking for signs that would lead us to a Quartermaster depot. He finally caught sight of one and, after following a devious route which took us several miles off the main road, we found the depot. We were issued two compact and very heavy wooden boxes bound with metal strips. We dumped them on the floor of the command car and drove on into town.
Across the river, we picked up a secondary road which led out of the city in a southeasterly direction. For some miles it wound through hills so densely wooded that we could see but little of the country. Then, emerging from the tunnel of evergreens, we skirted Fuschl See, the first of the lovely Alpine lakes in that region. Somewhere along its shores, we had been told, Ribbentrop had had a castle. It was being used now as a recreation center for American soldiers.
Our road led into more rugged country. We continued to climb and with each curve of the road the scenery became more spectacular. After an hour’s drive we reached St. Gilgen, its neat white houses and picturesque church spire silhouetted against the blue waters of St. Wolfgang See. Then on past the village of Strobl and finally into the crooked streets of Bad Ischl, where the old Emperor Franz Josef had spent so many summers. From Bad Ischl our road ribboned through Laufen and Goisern to St. Agatha.
Beyond St. Agatha lay the Pötschen Pass. The road leading up to it was a series of hairpin turns and dangerous grades. As we ground slowly up the last steep stretch to the summit, I wondered what route George was using for his convoys from the mine. Surely not this one. Large trucks couldn’t climb that interminable grade. I found out later that this was the only road to Alt Aussee.
On the other side of the pass, the road descended gradually into a rolling valley and, in another half hour, we clattered into the narrow main street of Bad Aussee. From there it was only a few miles to Alt Aussee. Midway between the two villages we hoped to find the house of our OSS friends.
We came upon it unexpectedly, around a sharp bend in the road. It was a tall, gabled villa, built in the gingerbread style of fifty years ago. Having pictured a romantic chalet tucked away in the mountains, I was disappointed by this rather commonplace suburban structure, standing behind a stout iron fence with padlocked gates, within a stone’s throw of the main highway.
Jim and Ted received us hospitably and took us to an upper veranda with wicker chairs and a table immaculately set for dinner. We were joined by a wiry young lieutenant colonel, named Harold S. Davitt, who bore a pronounced resemblance to the Duke of Windsor. He was the commanding officer of a battalion of the 11th Armored Division stationed at Alt Aussee, the little village just below the mine. Colonel Davitt’s men constituted the security guard at the mine. He knew and admired our friend George Stout. It was strange and pleasant to be again in an atmosphere of well-ordered domesticity. To us it seemed rather a fine point when one of our hosts rebuked the waitress for serving the wine in the wrong kind of glasses.
During dinner we noticed a man pacing about the garden below. He was Walter Andreas Hofer, who had been Göring’s agent and adviser in art matters. A shrewd and enterprising Berlin dealer before the war, Hofer had succeeded in ingratiating himself with the Reichsmarschall. He, more than any other single individual, had been responsible for shaping Göring’s taste and had played the stellar role in building up his priceless collection of Old Masters.