December 6, 2025 • 33 mins
Today's Adventure:An American OSS agent poses as a wine merchant in Germany to organize the country's anti-Hitler elements into an effective resistance.
Original Radio Broadcast: October 15, 1950
Originating from New York
Starring: Mel Ferrer; Herbert Berghoff; Frances Robinson; Ralph Bell; Raymond Edward Johnson; Will McCure; Ian Martin; Karl Weber
To subscribe to this podcast and, go to https://greatadventures.info/
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Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.
Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
Take the listener survey at http://survey.greatdetectives.net
Give us a call at 208-991-4783
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Original Radio Broadcast: October 15, 1950
Originating from New York
Starring: Mel Ferrer; Herbert Berghoff; Frances Robinson; Ralph Bell; Raymond Edward Johnson; Will McCure; Ian Martin; Karl Weber
To subscribe to this podcast and, go to https://greatadventures.info/
Become one of our ongoing Patreon supporters at https://patreon.greatdetectives.net
Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.
Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
Take the listener survey at http://survey.greatdetectives.net
Give us a call at 208-991-4783
Follow us on Instagram at http://instagram.com/greatdetectives
Follow us on Twitter @radiodetectives
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Great Adventures of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Cloak and Dagger.
But first, I do want to encourage you. If you're
enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
And I also want to let you know today's programs
(00:27):
brought you in part by the financial support of our listeners.
You can support the show on a one time basis
at support dot Great Detectives dot net, or by becoming
one of our ongoing Patreon supporters for his little last
two dollars per months at Patreon dot Great Detectives dot net.
But now, from October fifteenth, nineteen fifty, here is the
(00:48):
line of freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind the
enemy lines knowing that you may never return alive. What
you have just heard is the question asked during the
war of agents of the OSS. Ordinary citizens to this
(01:12):
question answered yes, This is black warfare, s pional international intrigue.
(01:40):
These are the weapons of the OSS. In today's adventure,
Wine of Freedom, the role of Vince Color, an American
OSS agent who made a sales trip inside Hitler Germany
is played by stage and screen star Mel Pereer, currently
to be seen with John Pontaigne and the RKO picture
Born to Be Bad. His story is suggested by actual
(02:01):
incidents recorded in the Washington files of the Office of
Strategic Services, a story that can.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Now be told.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Night had started to fall by the time I found
the house. I stood out in my papers and peered
at it through the shadows. There wasn't anything strange er
ominous about it, with just a white frame house like
the kind you see back in Omaha.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Only this wasn't in Omaha.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
This house was number twenty eight hun Strasse in Osna Brook,
and Osna Brook was in Germany, Hitler's Germany. I drew
a deep breath and went up the front steps, touching
a briefcase in my hand. It was that briefcase that
made me look like a respectable German citizen. I looked
at the brass knocker and let it fall a couple
(02:48):
of times, and.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Then I waited, Yes, what is it that you want.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
She was younger than I expected, and pretty, and of
course she was suspicious.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
He was suspicious of everybody in those days that you
were a German, particularly the kind of German I knew
she was, well thaal Holsmann. Yes, I'd like to talk
to your husband. My husband hell llud big Holsmann. Is
he in?
Speaker 7 (03:28):
What do you want to talk to him about?
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Wine? Oh?
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Wine?
Speaker 5 (03:35):
My name is Keller. I've just come from Filafelt. I'm
a wine salesman. Part of it was true.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
My name was Keller or right Vince Keller, and I
had come from Bilafelt.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
But I wasn't a wine salesman.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
I was an agent of the OSS and what I
had to sell was something stronger than wine. It was
organized resistance to Nazism. I've been at it for about
a year then almost the years inside sat in Colonel
Metcalt's office in London, R.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Keller and told him I wanted to volunteer for the job.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You're sure that there's no trace of American dialect in
your German.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Quite sure, sir.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
My family lived in Germany also my childhood. I was
educated in German schools.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
I see, And.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know what you're letting yourself in for, Keller. If
the Nazis grab you, I know, Colonel.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
But you still want to undertake the mission.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It's important, isn't it, Colonel, if we can step in
the German underground's resistance to Hitler.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
The anti Hitler movement in Germany right now can hardly
be called an underground.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Oh, it's merely a.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Handful of isolated individuals in various cities. There's almost no
contact between them and no organized activity at all.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And that won't do us any good when our troops
start moving across the German border.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So exactly, we need detective allies inside Germany, no matter
how few we are. We want them coordinated and strengthen.
That's the job we'd like you to do.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Littenna, is the job I'll try to do, Colonel, if
the Gestapo doesn't catch up with me. Two weeks later,
I'd parachuted into a grassy field outside Dusseldorf, and the
Gestapo hadn't caught up with me yet.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
After Dusseldorff came Essen, and.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
After Essen Dartmound, and then bela Felt, and Hitler's secret
police was still way behind. It was at Deila Felt
that I heard about Ludwig Holstmann, the underground leader there.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Old Johann Volt slipped me his name.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Show your work in Billefelt dish finished tur Killer.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Where you go now, Osenerbrook, Johan, you'll be hearing from me, though.
I want to put the men there in contact with
the resistance workers here.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We have been in contact occasionally now and then.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Ludwig Holtzmann has paid me a visit horsemanner.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
He's the leader in Osnaburg. He was the last I heard.
It's been several weeks. The dress is number twenty eight
our horn start. Oh, good enough, I'll look him up
when I get there. You left no trouble introducing yourself
to him.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Since you're posing as a wine merchant, simply ask him
if you've ever tried Jean frie Hide.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
Fine, then fri Hyde vine, the wine of freedom. Huh.
He will know then that she can trust you, and you,
of course you can trust him.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
So that's how it happened that on that September evening,
I followed Frau Hortsman into the living room of her
home in Osnabrook.
Speaker 7 (06:53):
Won't you sit down here? My husband should be here soon.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
He isn't home then, No, he's.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Late this evening.
Speaker 8 (07:01):
He's almost always here by dinner time. I don't know
where he could Oh, but wait, yes, I do too.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
It doesn't matter. I can wait.
Speaker 8 (07:10):
No, I'm sure he's stopped in to see a friend
down the street. I'll try to find it, and I
hope you won't. He'll be very eager to talk to you.
He's quite interested in me in wine. Oh yes, he
would not want to keep you waiting. You stay right
(07:31):
here and make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
I'll get you.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Wouldn't it be easier to call your friend's house on
the telephone.
Speaker 8 (07:38):
The telephone, I wish I could hear teller, But we
had a heavy air raid in off Nobrook last night.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
The telephone is out of order.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
It was a hasty egg that she made, almost too hasty.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I sat there in that empty house for a minute
or two where she had said to make myself comfortable,
But somehow I wasn't very.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
So I got up and went over to the telephone.
What do you wish? I was under the impression operator
that this line is out of order.
Speaker 7 (08:12):
Yet take this line is nothing out of day.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
That gave me something to think about while I waited.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
I think better when i'm moving, so I began to
move around the Holtsman house. I peeked in the rooms,
even open drawers, but I didn't find anything. In fact,
I didn't even know what I expected to find. When
the front door opened, I was back in the living
room trying to look comfortable.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
I was right.
Speaker 7 (08:40):
I found him drinking beer with our friends.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Got in the act.
Speaker 9 (08:43):
Hey, hair Horseman, I'm afraid so well, he said, down
her killer.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (08:51):
You are a wine salesman. My wife tells me.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Yes, I am, And she tells me that you are
a very interested in wine. That's true, sort of a connoisseur.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Perhaps you might say so, Yes, like our mutual friend
in Bilafeld who suggested that.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
I call on you. And who was that? Hekella?
Speaker 10 (09:10):
What was his name?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
It must have been a.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Lie for our Holzmann had told about the telephone that
made me hold back. It must have been the way
she stood there, listening so intensely, so eagerly. That was
why I brushed aside his question, And that was why
I said nothing about the wine of Freedom, even when.
Speaker 9 (09:32):
He asked, telling me, he Keela, do you carry a
dry red wine at reasonable crisis?
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yes, we have an excellent burgundy hair Holtzman.
Speaker 9 (09:42):
From where why? From schambertin h chambertin what's he a hair?
Kell uh nineteen twenty seven, nineteen twenty seven, Huh, I
don't think we'd be interested in buying any orbio.
Speaker 10 (10:00):
Oh but hell all that, we'd appreciate it if you'd
go peddle it somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
And I'll wait a minute.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Any authentic wine merchand would know that the great frost
of nineteen twenty seven killed the crops of shop after
you might tell the gestop of that before they send
you how they get.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I caught on then, and I almost laughed. He thought
I was a Guestapo agent. That explained it. Maybe it
had even explained his wife's peculiar behavior.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I had been too busy suspecting them to consider how
deeply they must have been suspecting me. Because your hat
had killer an't your case, Thanks horseman. But before I go,
there's another wine you might enjoy. So what is it, then,
fry Hide vine?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Have you ever tried it?
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Yes? I have it? You like it? Oh?
Speaker 10 (10:54):
I like it very much?
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Perhaps you'd care to hear a little more about it?
Speaker 10 (11:00):
Means you should have mentioned it before I sit down.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
And tell me.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
Tell me all about the whine of freedom.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
After that we were all friends. Nobody suspected anybody anymore.
I told them all I'd accomplished in Belafeld than the
other towns, but I hope to accomplish an Osna Brook.
Their eyes glowed as they heard of the growing strength
of the anti Hitler forces within Germany.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Then we are nasized.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Sometimes you have a lot of friends, Fauhofsmann. My job
to put you in touch with them, and how will
you do that? Well, I'd like to start with a
meeting of your friends here in Osnabrook. How many are there?
Speaker 10 (11:43):
Only a few we actually know personally, maybe success.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Well, that's enough. We think you could get them all
together in a safe place tomorrow night.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
Tomorrow night. Oh, if we would have to work quickly,
it could be done, though, I think so. Yes, Yes,
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Could, but I'd have to start working on it right
away by phone. Whoa, we never used the phol situation
in front of strangers. You even pretend it's out of order.
Speaker 10 (12:10):
Huh.
Speaker 7 (12:12):
You checked up on me after I left Hairket Well.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I was even beginning to wonder if you were a
Gestapo agent yourself.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Oh, you needn't want lay anymore.
Speaker 10 (12:20):
Hair Killer Linda is as reliable as I am. You
can trust her just as you would trust food.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And then he let me alone with her while he
went out to start rounding up his friends. She insisted
I must be hungry, and she led me out into
the kitchen and gave me the dinner she'd cook for
her husband.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
Poor.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
I don't suppose he'll get anything to eat tonight.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
He should have eaten before he left.
Speaker 8 (12:45):
Oh, you do not know him, hair Killers. This underground
work is his life means nothing to him. He goes
without sleep, he never has a moment of pleasure. Nothing
matters to him but fighting enough, not even the woman
he met.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
I guess that's the way a man gets in the
underground After.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
A while, Yes, he gets hard and cold and camps.
Speaker 8 (13:10):
Like Ludwig Holtzmann. Well, never mind, Matt, if you will
excuse me, hair Keller, I want to go upstairs and
get your room ready.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
You'll sleep here to night, of course, but don't go
to a lot of trouble.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Please, don't know it will take. By the moment you'll
finish your dinner, I'll be right down.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
But the strange thing was that she never went up
at least I didn't hear her go up.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
I waited for her footsteps on the stairs, and when
there was no sound, I left the table and pushed
open the door a crack. I saw her then in
the living room, with her back to me, her head
stand over the telephone.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Can't I heard her too.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
No, no, don't ask me, just do what I can.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Don't come here, whatever you do, meet me by the
Bramsen in the po He's here a half hour and
wait for me.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
I'll come as soon as I can.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Our Horstman could do a lot of tricks with the telephone.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I wondered if she could explain away the second one
as easily as she'd explained away the first. I didn't
ask her, though, I'll let her show me up to
my room a half hour later, and I told her
good night.
Speaker 7 (14:15):
Good night. If you need anything, call me. I'm in
the room at the end of the hall.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
You're going to retire now, prostman, Yes, I think I will.
Speaker 7 (14:26):
Very tired. I don't believe i'll.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Wait up for Ludfu.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Thanks again, not at all, good time, good night. I've
been tired myself, but I felt wide awake. Then I
went to bed, though that as I went through the
motions of going to bed with all the proper sound effects.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
I let my shoes drop loudly on the floor.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Then, after I'd quietly put them on again, I opened
the window and clicked the light switch.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
After that, I waited silently by the door.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
She must have taken off her own shoes to tiptoe
down the stairs, because.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
I didn't hear her go. But she shouldn't have let
the front door close quite so hard. I did hear that.
Then I moved fast out of the bedroom and down
the stairs.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And out of the front door, but I closed the quiet.
She must have been thirty yards ahead of me when
I reached the street. I didn't try to close the
distance between us. It was easy enough to follow us.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
The sidewalks were practically deserted. She didn't look back once.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
A woman who was walking as eagerly as determinedly as
then the Holtzman was walking doesn't bother to look back.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
We reached the park in twenty minutes. It was deserted too.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
She stayed on the gravel walk, and I stepped through
the bushes, and then I disclosed another She approached the bandstand,
A figure separated itself from the shadows and came toward her.
Did I was crouching behind the shrub three feet away.
By then I saw out of the figure wore a
Nazi uniform.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Oh what's hip?
Speaker 11 (16:17):
What did you call me?
Speaker 7 (16:20):
Kissed me?
Speaker 5 (16:23):
He kissed her and they were both lost in it,
so lost they didn't even hear the planes start whining
through the night. I heard him, but I didn't move.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
There was something else I had to hear, something that
might prove more fatal than a British bomb.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
What was the meaning of the We better get to
a Shif there's one of the other end of the farm,
we won't be able to fall in the shelter.
Speaker 8 (16:56):
And as his age an American spy's my husband's him.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
It's not your coming out to me.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Don't let up for yourself out.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
The Nazi was right, it was too late to run
that Tommy's are dropping bombs all over town.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Linda followed his advice, and so did I. I flung
myself on the soft ground behind those shrubs and on
a dear life. The last bomb landed in the park.
I raised my head. At last, there was only a
(17:37):
pile of rubble for the man's stand.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
I heard the Nazi calling her name. There was something
in his voice that brought me to my feet. Was
the tone of a man who called when he doesn't
expect an answer.
Speaker 12 (17:48):
Please do you, hear meding, He stayed, anything I can do, soldier.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Okay, there's nothing any want to want? You stayed you sure? Yeah,
got great, short, Come on, I'll get you to a doctor.
I have no time, not for doctors, lata maybe, but
there's something I must do first. I'm not hurt. I
could do it for you, and I had to do it.
Speaker 10 (18:14):
I said, that's information must type.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Immediately he turned away and went lunging off. You don't
like to do such things. But if a man's i' Nazi,
and if he's gonna betray you to the Gestapo, I
raised my gun for all things. You don't like to
(18:40):
do either.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
You don't like to tell a man that his wife
was lying dead in the park by what she was
doing there before she died, not if she was kissing
a Nazi soldier and selling the underground movement down the river.
But I knew it had to be done. I went
back to the big holdtsman's house. He'd already come home
and was waiting for me.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
I have a news. Look, I have news for you, too,
bad news.
Speaker 10 (19:06):
That's my studs.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
It's all arranged, all arranged, the meeting course, the meeting
tomorrow night.
Speaker 10 (19:11):
And they let me clock. There's a bombed out church
from the highway north of the tower.
Speaker 9 (19:15):
There's no danger of being interrupted because the church is
never used anymore.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I hung that up every friend I could. There there
will be seven at the mont, it would possibly eight.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Good work, holdsman, donk donk ken, But.
Speaker 10 (19:30):
What there? Did you want to tell me that?
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Well, it's your wife, my wife, she look, my friend,
there's no way of breaking this to you.
Speaker 10 (19:43):
Gently, never mind, just send me to you. What about
my wife?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
She's dead, husband's he was killed in the raid tonight.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh oh no, it's it is impossible. I'm sorry, houseman.
I believe I I just can't believe it. I can't think.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I know how hard it is for you.
Speaker 9 (20:09):
No, you don't.
Speaker 10 (20:12):
But you couldn't know because you knew what she meant.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Easy holdsman, it's awful.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
Face.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
He faced a lot of hard things in these last
few years, and I guess you'll manage.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
To face this.
Speaker 10 (20:28):
Those were nothing. Linda was everything.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
To nothing mattered.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
She was my whole life with my I sat there
and felt like a heel because his grief left me cold.
I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, and
I didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
There was something wrong somewhere. There was a phony note
in his sorrow that I couldn't put my finger on.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Not that, at least.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Later on that night, after I'd helped him to his room,
after I had gone to bed myself and lay in
the darkness thinking about it, I began.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
To understand how cold and calm like.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Lud It was her voice, Linda Holtzmann's voice that told.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
Me nothing, nothing but fighting the nut, not even a
the woman he met.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
But I did that gibe with the sobbing, grief stricken
husband I've just seen. And after all, why should a man.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Who'd fought the Nazis, who'd lived with death for ten years,
why should he collapse so completely at the news of
one more death, even the death of his wife. Yes,
something was wrong somewhere, something was very definitely wrong. I
thought I knew what it was, and if I was right,
then the Feller's Secret police were breathing down my neck.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
He was still sleeping when I slept out of the
house the next morning.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
I didn't go far, just across the street and two
doors down to number twenty one, A hunstrasser.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Yes, what is it you want?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I'm sorry to disturb you so early. I wonder if
you could help me. I'm a stranger in town. I'm
looking for the Holtzmann residence.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Holtzmann across the street, two doors that way, number twenty eight.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Thank you very much, you're welcome.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Good day.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Excuse me, I think I had the right party. Don't die.
That is her Ludwig Holtzmann's house, isn't it? It was
his house? Oh? Doesn't he live there anymore?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
He?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Ludwig Holtzmann died three weeks ago. And then I knew
I was right. I turned away from the door.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I didn't have any place to go, so I turned
back again, and the man in the doorway was still
standing there, still staring at me thoughtfully.
Speaker 9 (23:04):
Excuse me, why did you want to see Ludli quotsman.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Well, I'm a wine merchant. I didn't know he was dead.
I thought he might be interested in some wine. I see.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Strong wine, very strong, a special kind called called death
fry hide vine.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Ah, you're familiar with it. Yes, I'm familiar with it.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Perhaps I could interest you, Perhaps you're quote, won't you
step in? I followed him into his house, and then
I took a chance. I told him who I was
and why I had come to Ostina Brook, and what
had happened since I arrived.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
I see, then, the real Ludrikosman is dead. He was
killed by the Gestapo head Keller. His own wife betrayed him. Funny,
that's just how her head figured. Fortunately she doesn't know
who the rest of us are, or she would betray
us too.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Not anymore. She was killed in the raid last night,
she walks. That doesn't exactly break your heart, I imagine.
Speaker 9 (24:16):
On the contrary, it saves us the trouble of some
day killing ourselves.
Speaker 10 (24:20):
But you say she introduced another man.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
To you as her husband.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
She must have had orders to report anyone who came
looking for Ludwig. She went out and brought this man
back with her, a tall, thin chap with a black mistake.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Ah yeah, fitzgabl probably one of the most powerful Gestapo
agents in Arsena.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Brook, in his company. I've been keeping lateling.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
That's what I don't understand. Why didn't he turn you
over immediately. What is he waiting for for the meeting tonight?
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Probably meeting he knows I'm planning to talk about the
underground work in neighboring cities.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
I see. He figures you'll pick up a flock of names.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, he'd never asked me for the name directly, but
fear he looks suspicious.
Speaker 9 (24:54):
Ah yeah, but who does he intend to bring to
such a meeting?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Some more Gestapo agents. I imagine he's bringing them over
from Dortmund and.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
He hopes you will give him useful information.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Sure, with a nice setup, they'll sit around and scribble
down everything I say.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Then when they've noted me, they'll bring me up. How
lucky that you came to my door.
Speaker 10 (25:14):
Now you can escape here killer escape.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
No, I don't think so. What do you mean seven
or eight can stopawagents all gathered under one roof. I
thoughtfully inviting, But you can't go to that meeting.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (25:27):
They don't know I know who they are. You will
never get out alive. I'm not so sure. Oh.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I was pretty cocky then, and by the time night
came I'd lost a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
I'd had to put on.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
An act for fits table all day, pretending I still
thought he was littlely coltsman, pretending I.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Trusted him and was sorry for his great loss.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
By eleven o'clock, when he and I slipped up the
moon the path that led to the church, my nerves
were pretty thin. I'd taken a lot of risk since
I'd come to Germany, but I had never walked into
a meeting of Gestapo agents before, every one of whom knew.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
Who I was. There He already, you see, har Kella.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I saw through the clouds of cigar smoke. I saw
the narrow, hungry eyes that turned on me. I saw
the half hidden smiles. I sensed the laughter inside them.
Speaker 9 (26:21):
My friends, my friends, you know why we are meeting
here tonight. You know that here, my sight is a man,
an American. Let's have a courage to come into this
land of terror to help us.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He made quite a production of it day.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
He went on for five minutes, building, and all the
while I could hear that the silent.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Marking has succeeded.
Speaker 9 (26:49):
And so now Kella will tell us the work he
has been doing in other German cities. He will give
us the names of our brothers fighting in the same
cause for which we fight, it will teach us how
to fight more effectively, how to bring closer.
Speaker 10 (27:08):
The day of final.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
Victory, I present the Killer the American.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thanks the Horseman, Brothers and friends. My plans have changed somewhat.
I didn'tend to tell you about the resistance movement in
other cities, but I find that the resistance movement here
in Osnabrook is quite impressive, So I decided to show
you an example of that instead. If you look around
(27:38):
you you'll get a real lesson in how we fight it,
how we bring closer.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
The day of final victory, it took them a minute
to catch on, but not long. Then they turned and
they saw what I was pointing at. They saw the
guns of the underground that were shoved through every bombed
out window. They died, all eight of them.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Well, Colonel Metcalf had told me to help make the
German underground strong and effective.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
He said it had to be organized. It was pretty
well organized that night in Osnabrook and.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Later in Dortmund, Bielefeld Essen Lucil Dog Soon, due in
large part to Lieutenant Vince Kelor of the OSS, the
resistance was well organized throughout Nazi Germany and once again.
(28:41):
The report of another OSS agent closes with the words
mission a conflict. Listen again next week or another true
adventure from the piles of the OSS.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
On K and Dagger.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Heard in Today's Clock and Dagger Adventurers Vince Keller was
Mel Ferrer, star of stage and screen. Hebbel was Herbert Berghoff,
Lenda Francis Robinson. Others were Ralph Bell, Raymond Edward Johnson,
Will Mercurer, Ian Martin.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
And Carl Weathers.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
The script was written by ken Field and music was
under the direction of John guard Found defects by chat
Hill and Jerry McGee. Engineering by George Hols. Today's RSS
adventure was based on the book Clok and Dagger by
Corey Ford and Alistair mcdain. This program was produced by
Lewis D. Collen and Alfred Hollander.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Here is a bulletin from the NBC Newsroom.
Speaker 11 (29:43):
Governor Dewey of New York has endorsed the NBC Republican
presidential candidate as General Eisenhower. During the NBC television program
Meet the Pressed, Dewey declared again that he himself will
not be a candidate. Then Dewey, asticular head of the
gop said that he would urge support Eisenhower if the
General will permit himself to be nominated.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
If dune your NBC station for the later news.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
This is NBC the National Broadcasting Company.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Welcome back. Well, a really exciting story, a lot of
twist along the way. As soon as you thought you
understood what was going on, everything changed and went a
different direction, leading to the twist where Keller in the
end was able to turn the tables on the Gestapo.
(30:41):
Mel Ferrer is such a great bit of casting, really
noted former and director in film as well as a
huge presence on Broadway, didn't do a lot of radio.
A good bit of work by NBAC search A newspapers
(31:04):
shows that the casting god a brief bit of attention
and a little bit of publicity for the program and
what would be it's penultimate episode, Fransis Robinson's appearance in
the episode it's a bit of a puzzle to me.
Longtime fans of The Great Detectives will remember her as Brooksy,
the first Brooksy and Let George do It. Though her
(31:26):
career did start out on the East Coast, she appeared
in the ZIV syndicated series Manhunt with Larry Haynes, but
most of the post war radio programs I can find
information for her shows that her post war radio career.
(31:49):
All the credits I can find are in Hollywood. So
bit curious how that happened. And I shouldn't say this
is probably the worst sounding episode of the series, but
given the state of some of the other series we played,
it's really not that bad. And again, another great story
(32:10):
and I will be sorry to bid farewell to this
one next week. Now it's time to thank our Patreon
supporter of the day, and I want to thank Joanna,
Patreon supporter since June twenty twenty two, currently supporting the
podcast at the secret Agent level of four dollars or
more per month. Thanks so much for your support, Joanna,
and that will do it for today. If you're enjoying
(32:32):
the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
And if you're enjoying the podcast on YouTube, be sure
to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and mark
the notification bell. We'll be back next Saturday with the
final episode of Kloak and Dagger on The Great Adventurers Podcast.
(32:53):
We'll be back on Tuesday with another episode of adventure
Ahead on The Great Detectives podcast. Stay tuned for US
Sunday Encore, and then on Monday we return to our
regular lineup with Danger with Granger. In the meantime, do
send your comments to Box thirteen at Greatdetectives dot net,
(33:15):
follow us on Twitter, Radio Detectives, and check us out
on Instagram, Instagram, dot com slash Great Detectives from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.
Welcome to the Great Adventures of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Cloak and Dagger.
But first, I do want to encourage you. If you're
enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
And I also want to let you know today's programs
(00:27):
brought you in part by the financial support of our listeners.
You can support the show on a one time basis
at support dot Great Detectives dot net, or by becoming
one of our ongoing Patreon supporters for his little last
two dollars per months at Patreon dot Great Detectives dot net.
But now, from October fifteenth, nineteen fifty, here is the
(00:48):
line of freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind the
enemy lines knowing that you may never return alive. What
you have just heard is the question asked during the
war of agents of the OSS. Ordinary citizens to this
(01:12):
question answered yes, This is black warfare, s pional international intrigue.
(01:40):
These are the weapons of the OSS. In today's adventure,
Wine of Freedom, the role of Vince Color, an American
OSS agent who made a sales trip inside Hitler Germany
is played by stage and screen star Mel Pereer, currently
to be seen with John Pontaigne and the RKO picture
Born to Be Bad. His story is suggested by actual
(02:01):
incidents recorded in the Washington files of the Office of
Strategic Services, a story that can.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Now be told.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Night had started to fall by the time I found
the house. I stood out in my papers and peered
at it through the shadows. There wasn't anything strange er
ominous about it, with just a white frame house like
the kind you see back in Omaha.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Only this wasn't in Omaha.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
This house was number twenty eight hun Strasse in Osna Brook,
and Osna Brook was in Germany, Hitler's Germany. I drew
a deep breath and went up the front steps, touching
a briefcase in my hand. It was that briefcase that
made me look like a respectable German citizen. I looked
at the brass knocker and let it fall a couple
(02:48):
of times, and.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Then I waited, Yes, what is it that you want.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
She was younger than I expected, and pretty, and of
course she was suspicious.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
He was suspicious of everybody in those days that you
were a German, particularly the kind of German I knew
she was, well thaal Holsmann. Yes, I'd like to talk
to your husband. My husband hell llud big Holsmann. Is
he in?
Speaker 7 (03:28):
What do you want to talk to him about?
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Wine? Oh?
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Wine?
Speaker 5 (03:35):
My name is Keller. I've just come from Filafelt. I'm
a wine salesman. Part of it was true.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
My name was Keller or right Vince Keller, and I
had come from Bilafelt.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
But I wasn't a wine salesman.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
I was an agent of the OSS and what I
had to sell was something stronger than wine. It was
organized resistance to Nazism. I've been at it for about
a year then almost the years inside sat in Colonel
Metcalt's office in London, R.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Keller and told him I wanted to volunteer for the job.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You're sure that there's no trace of American dialect in
your German.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Quite sure, sir.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
My family lived in Germany also my childhood. I was
educated in German schools.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
I see, And.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know what you're letting yourself in for, Keller. If
the Nazis grab you, I know, Colonel.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
But you still want to undertake the mission.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It's important, isn't it, Colonel, if we can step in
the German underground's resistance to Hitler.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
The anti Hitler movement in Germany right now can hardly
be called an underground.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Oh, it's merely a.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Handful of isolated individuals in various cities. There's almost no
contact between them and no organized activity at all.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And that won't do us any good when our troops
start moving across the German border.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So exactly, we need detective allies inside Germany, no matter
how few we are. We want them coordinated and strengthen.
That's the job we'd like you to do.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Littenna, is the job I'll try to do, Colonel, if
the Gestapo doesn't catch up with me. Two weeks later,
I'd parachuted into a grassy field outside Dusseldorf, and the
Gestapo hadn't caught up with me yet.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
After Dusseldorff came Essen, and.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
After Essen Dartmound, and then bela Felt, and Hitler's secret
police was still way behind. It was at Deila Felt
that I heard about Ludwig Holstmann, the underground leader there.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Old Johann Volt slipped me his name.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Show your work in Billefelt dish finished tur Killer.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Where you go now, Osenerbrook, Johan, you'll be hearing from me, though.
I want to put the men there in contact with
the resistance workers here.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We have been in contact occasionally now and then.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Ludwig Holtzmann has paid me a visit horsemanner.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
He's the leader in Osnaburg. He was the last I heard.
It's been several weeks. The dress is number twenty eight
our horn start. Oh, good enough, I'll look him up
when I get there. You left no trouble introducing yourself
to him.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Since you're posing as a wine merchant, simply ask him
if you've ever tried Jean frie Hide.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
Fine, then fri Hyde vine, the wine of freedom. Huh.
He will know then that she can trust you, and you,
of course you can trust him.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
So that's how it happened that on that September evening,
I followed Frau Hortsman into the living room of her
home in Osnabrook.
Speaker 7 (06:53):
Won't you sit down here? My husband should be here soon.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
He isn't home then, No, he's.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Late this evening.
Speaker 8 (07:01):
He's almost always here by dinner time. I don't know
where he could Oh, but wait, yes, I do too.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
It doesn't matter. I can wait.
Speaker 8 (07:10):
No, I'm sure he's stopped in to see a friend
down the street. I'll try to find it, and I
hope you won't. He'll be very eager to talk to you.
He's quite interested in me in wine. Oh yes, he
would not want to keep you waiting. You stay right
(07:31):
here and make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
I'll get you.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Wouldn't it be easier to call your friend's house on
the telephone.
Speaker 8 (07:38):
The telephone, I wish I could hear teller, But we
had a heavy air raid in off Nobrook last night.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
The telephone is out of order.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
It was a hasty egg that she made, almost too hasty.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I sat there in that empty house for a minute
or two where she had said to make myself comfortable,
But somehow I wasn't very.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
So I got up and went over to the telephone.
What do you wish? I was under the impression operator
that this line is out of order.
Speaker 7 (08:12):
Yet take this line is nothing out of day.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
That gave me something to think about while I waited.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
I think better when i'm moving, so I began to
move around the Holtsman house. I peeked in the rooms,
even open drawers, but I didn't find anything. In fact,
I didn't even know what I expected to find. When
the front door opened, I was back in the living
room trying to look comfortable.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
I was right.
Speaker 7 (08:40):
I found him drinking beer with our friends.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Got in the act.
Speaker 9 (08:43):
Hey, hair Horseman, I'm afraid so well, he said, down
her killer.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (08:51):
You are a wine salesman. My wife tells me.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Yes, I am, And she tells me that you are
a very interested in wine. That's true, sort of a connoisseur.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Perhaps you might say so, Yes, like our mutual friend
in Bilafeld who suggested that.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
I call on you. And who was that? Hekella?
Speaker 10 (09:10):
What was his name?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
It must have been a.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Lie for our Holzmann had told about the telephone that
made me hold back. It must have been the way
she stood there, listening so intensely, so eagerly. That was
why I brushed aside his question, And that was why
I said nothing about the wine of Freedom, even when.
Speaker 9 (09:32):
He asked, telling me, he Keela, do you carry a
dry red wine at reasonable crisis?
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yes, we have an excellent burgundy hair Holtzman.
Speaker 9 (09:42):
From where why? From schambertin h chambertin what's he a hair?
Kell uh nineteen twenty seven, nineteen twenty seven, Huh, I
don't think we'd be interested in buying any orbio.
Speaker 10 (10:00):
Oh but hell all that, we'd appreciate it if you'd
go peddle it somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
And I'll wait a minute.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Any authentic wine merchand would know that the great frost
of nineteen twenty seven killed the crops of shop after
you might tell the gestop of that before they send
you how they get.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I caught on then, and I almost laughed. He thought
I was a Guestapo agent. That explained it. Maybe it
had even explained his wife's peculiar behavior.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I had been too busy suspecting them to consider how
deeply they must have been suspecting me. Because your hat
had killer an't your case, Thanks horseman. But before I go,
there's another wine you might enjoy. So what is it, then,
fry Hide vine?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Have you ever tried it?
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Yes? I have it? You like it? Oh?
Speaker 10 (10:54):
I like it very much?
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Perhaps you'd care to hear a little more about it?
Speaker 10 (11:00):
Means you should have mentioned it before I sit down.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
And tell me.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
Tell me all about the whine of freedom.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
After that we were all friends. Nobody suspected anybody anymore.
I told them all I'd accomplished in Belafeld than the
other towns, but I hope to accomplish an Osna Brook.
Their eyes glowed as they heard of the growing strength
of the anti Hitler forces within Germany.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Then we are nasized.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Sometimes you have a lot of friends, Fauhofsmann. My job
to put you in touch with them, and how will
you do that? Well, I'd like to start with a
meeting of your friends here in Osnabrook. How many are there?
Speaker 10 (11:43):
Only a few we actually know personally, maybe success.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Well, that's enough. We think you could get them all
together in a safe place tomorrow night.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
Tomorrow night. Oh, if we would have to work quickly,
it could be done, though, I think so. Yes, Yes,
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Could, but I'd have to start working on it right
away by phone. Whoa, we never used the phol situation
in front of strangers. You even pretend it's out of order.
Speaker 10 (12:10):
Huh.
Speaker 7 (12:12):
You checked up on me after I left Hairket Well.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I was even beginning to wonder if you were a
Gestapo agent yourself.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Oh, you needn't want lay anymore.
Speaker 10 (12:20):
Hair Killer Linda is as reliable as I am. You
can trust her just as you would trust food.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And then he let me alone with her while he
went out to start rounding up his friends. She insisted
I must be hungry, and she led me out into
the kitchen and gave me the dinner she'd cook for
her husband.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
Poor.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
I don't suppose he'll get anything to eat tonight.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
He should have eaten before he left.
Speaker 8 (12:45):
Oh, you do not know him, hair Killers. This underground
work is his life means nothing to him. He goes
without sleep, he never has a moment of pleasure. Nothing
matters to him but fighting enough, not even the woman
he met.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
I guess that's the way a man gets in the
underground After.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
A while, Yes, he gets hard and cold and camps.
Speaker 8 (13:10):
Like Ludwig Holtzmann. Well, never mind, Matt, if you will
excuse me, hair Keller, I want to go upstairs and
get your room ready.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
You'll sleep here to night, of course, but don't go
to a lot of trouble.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Please, don't know it will take. By the moment you'll
finish your dinner, I'll be right down.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
But the strange thing was that she never went up
at least I didn't hear her go up.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
I waited for her footsteps on the stairs, and when
there was no sound, I left the table and pushed
open the door a crack. I saw her then in
the living room, with her back to me, her head
stand over the telephone.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Can't I heard her too.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
No, no, don't ask me, just do what I can.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Don't come here, whatever you do, meet me by the
Bramsen in the po He's here a half hour and
wait for me.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
I'll come as soon as I can.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Our Horstman could do a lot of tricks with the telephone.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I wondered if she could explain away the second one
as easily as she'd explained away the first. I didn't
ask her, though, I'll let her show me up to
my room a half hour later, and I told her
good night.
Speaker 7 (14:15):
Good night. If you need anything, call me. I'm in
the room at the end of the hall.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
You're going to retire now, prostman, Yes, I think I will.
Speaker 7 (14:26):
Very tired. I don't believe i'll.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Wait up for Ludfu.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Thanks again, not at all, good time, good night. I've
been tired myself, but I felt wide awake. Then I
went to bed, though that as I went through the
motions of going to bed with all the proper sound effects.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
I let my shoes drop loudly on the floor.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Then, after I'd quietly put them on again, I opened
the window and clicked the light switch.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
After that, I waited silently by the door.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
She must have taken off her own shoes to tiptoe
down the stairs, because.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
I didn't hear her go. But she shouldn't have let
the front door close quite so hard. I did hear that.
Then I moved fast out of the bedroom and down
the stairs.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And out of the front door, but I closed the quiet.
She must have been thirty yards ahead of me when
I reached the street. I didn't try to close the
distance between us. It was easy enough to follow us.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
The sidewalks were practically deserted. She didn't look back once.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
A woman who was walking as eagerly as determinedly as
then the Holtzman was walking doesn't bother to look back.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
We reached the park in twenty minutes. It was deserted too.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
She stayed on the gravel walk, and I stepped through
the bushes, and then I disclosed another She approached the bandstand,
A figure separated itself from the shadows and came toward her.
Did I was crouching behind the shrub three feet away.
By then I saw out of the figure wore a
Nazi uniform.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Oh what's hip?
Speaker 11 (16:17):
What did you call me?
Speaker 7 (16:20):
Kissed me?
Speaker 5 (16:23):
He kissed her and they were both lost in it,
so lost they didn't even hear the planes start whining
through the night. I heard him, but I didn't move.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
There was something else I had to hear, something that
might prove more fatal than a British bomb.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
What was the meaning of the We better get to
a Shif there's one of the other end of the farm,
we won't be able to fall in the shelter.
Speaker 8 (16:56):
And as his age an American spy's my husband's him.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
It's not your coming out to me.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Don't let up for yourself out.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
The Nazi was right, it was too late to run
that Tommy's are dropping bombs all over town.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Linda followed his advice, and so did I. I flung
myself on the soft ground behind those shrubs and on
a dear life. The last bomb landed in the park.
I raised my head. At last, there was only a
(17:37):
pile of rubble for the man's stand.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
I heard the Nazi calling her name. There was something
in his voice that brought me to my feet. Was
the tone of a man who called when he doesn't
expect an answer.
Speaker 12 (17:48):
Please do you, hear meding, He stayed, anything I can do, soldier.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Okay, there's nothing any want to want? You stayed you sure? Yeah,
got great, short, Come on, I'll get you to a doctor.
I have no time, not for doctors, lata maybe, but
there's something I must do first. I'm not hurt. I
could do it for you, and I had to do it.
Speaker 10 (18:14):
I said, that's information must type.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Immediately he turned away and went lunging off. You don't
like to do such things. But if a man's i' Nazi,
and if he's gonna betray you to the Gestapo, I
raised my gun for all things. You don't like to
(18:40):
do either.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
You don't like to tell a man that his wife
was lying dead in the park by what she was
doing there before she died, not if she was kissing
a Nazi soldier and selling the underground movement down the river.
But I knew it had to be done. I went
back to the big holdtsman's house. He'd already come home
and was waiting for me.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
I have a news. Look, I have news for you, too,
bad news.
Speaker 10 (19:06):
That's my studs.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
It's all arranged, all arranged, the meeting course, the meeting
tomorrow night.
Speaker 10 (19:11):
And they let me clock. There's a bombed out church
from the highway north of the tower.
Speaker 9 (19:15):
There's no danger of being interrupted because the church is
never used anymore.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I hung that up every friend I could. There there
will be seven at the mont, it would possibly eight.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Good work, holdsman, donk donk ken, But.
Speaker 10 (19:30):
What there? Did you want to tell me that?
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Well, it's your wife, my wife, she look, my friend,
there's no way of breaking this to you.
Speaker 10 (19:43):
Gently, never mind, just send me to you. What about
my wife?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
She's dead, husband's he was killed in the raid tonight.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh oh no, it's it is impossible. I'm sorry, houseman.
I believe I I just can't believe it. I can't think.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I know how hard it is for you.
Speaker 9 (20:09):
No, you don't.
Speaker 10 (20:12):
But you couldn't know because you knew what she meant.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Easy holdsman, it's awful.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
Face.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
He faced a lot of hard things in these last
few years, and I guess you'll manage.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
To face this.
Speaker 10 (20:28):
Those were nothing. Linda was everything.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
To nothing mattered.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
She was my whole life with my I sat there
and felt like a heel because his grief left me cold.
I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, and
I didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
There was something wrong somewhere. There was a phony note
in his sorrow that I couldn't put my finger on.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Not that, at least.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Later on that night, after I'd helped him to his room,
after I had gone to bed myself and lay in
the darkness thinking about it, I began.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
To understand how cold and calm like.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Lud It was her voice, Linda Holtzmann's voice that told.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
Me nothing, nothing but fighting the nut, not even a
the woman he met.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
But I did that gibe with the sobbing, grief stricken
husband I've just seen. And after all, why should a man.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Who'd fought the Nazis, who'd lived with death for ten years,
why should he collapse so completely at the news of
one more death, even the death of his wife. Yes,
something was wrong somewhere, something was very definitely wrong. I
thought I knew what it was, and if I was right,
then the Feller's Secret police were breathing down my neck.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
He was still sleeping when I slept out of the
house the next morning.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
I didn't go far, just across the street and two
doors down to number twenty one, A hunstrasser.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Yes, what is it you want?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I'm sorry to disturb you so early. I wonder if
you could help me. I'm a stranger in town. I'm
looking for the Holtzmann residence.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Holtzmann across the street, two doors that way, number twenty eight.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Thank you very much, you're welcome.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Good day.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Excuse me, I think I had the right party. Don't die.
That is her Ludwig Holtzmann's house, isn't it? It was
his house? Oh? Doesn't he live there anymore?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
He?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Ludwig Holtzmann died three weeks ago. And then I knew
I was right. I turned away from the door.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I didn't have any place to go, so I turned
back again, and the man in the doorway was still
standing there, still staring at me thoughtfully.
Speaker 9 (23:04):
Excuse me, why did you want to see Ludli quotsman.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Well, I'm a wine merchant. I didn't know he was dead.
I thought he might be interested in some wine. I see.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Strong wine, very strong, a special kind called called death
fry hide vine.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Ah, you're familiar with it. Yes, I'm familiar with it.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Perhaps I could interest you, Perhaps you're quote, won't you
step in? I followed him into his house, and then
I took a chance. I told him who I was
and why I had come to Ostina Brook, and what
had happened since I arrived.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
I see, then, the real Ludrikosman is dead. He was
killed by the Gestapo head Keller. His own wife betrayed him. Funny,
that's just how her head figured. Fortunately she doesn't know
who the rest of us are, or she would betray
us too.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Not anymore. She was killed in the raid last night,
she walks. That doesn't exactly break your heart, I imagine.
Speaker 9 (24:16):
On the contrary, it saves us the trouble of some
day killing ourselves.
Speaker 10 (24:20):
But you say she introduced another man.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
To you as her husband.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
She must have had orders to report anyone who came
looking for Ludwig. She went out and brought this man
back with her, a tall, thin chap with a black mistake.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Ah yeah, fitzgabl probably one of the most powerful Gestapo
agents in Arsena.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Brook, in his company. I've been keeping lateling.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
That's what I don't understand. Why didn't he turn you
over immediately. What is he waiting for for the meeting tonight?
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Probably meeting he knows I'm planning to talk about the
underground work in neighboring cities.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
I see. He figures you'll pick up a flock of names.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, he'd never asked me for the name directly, but
fear he looks suspicious.
Speaker 9 (24:54):
Ah yeah, but who does he intend to bring to
such a meeting?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Some more Gestapo agents. I imagine he's bringing them over
from Dortmund and.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
He hopes you will give him useful information.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Sure, with a nice setup, they'll sit around and scribble
down everything I say.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Then when they've noted me, they'll bring me up. How
lucky that you came to my door.
Speaker 10 (25:14):
Now you can escape here killer escape.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
No, I don't think so. What do you mean seven
or eight can stopawagents all gathered under one roof. I
thoughtfully inviting, But you can't go to that meeting.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (25:27):
They don't know I know who they are. You will
never get out alive. I'm not so sure. Oh.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I was pretty cocky then, and by the time night
came I'd lost a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
I'd had to put on.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
An act for fits table all day, pretending I still
thought he was littlely coltsman, pretending I.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Trusted him and was sorry for his great loss.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
By eleven o'clock, when he and I slipped up the
moon the path that led to the church, my nerves
were pretty thin. I'd taken a lot of risk since
I'd come to Germany, but I had never walked into
a meeting of Gestapo agents before, every one of whom knew.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
Who I was. There He already, you see, har Kella.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I saw through the clouds of cigar smoke. I saw
the narrow, hungry eyes that turned on me. I saw
the half hidden smiles. I sensed the laughter inside them.
Speaker 9 (26:21):
My friends, my friends, you know why we are meeting
here tonight. You know that here, my sight is a man,
an American. Let's have a courage to come into this
land of terror to help us.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He made quite a production of it day.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
He went on for five minutes, building, and all the
while I could hear that the silent.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Marking has succeeded.
Speaker 9 (26:49):
And so now Kella will tell us the work he
has been doing in other German cities. He will give
us the names of our brothers fighting in the same
cause for which we fight, it will teach us how
to fight more effectively, how to bring closer.
Speaker 10 (27:08):
The day of final.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
Victory, I present the Killer the American.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thanks the Horseman, Brothers and friends. My plans have changed somewhat.
I didn'tend to tell you about the resistance movement in
other cities, but I find that the resistance movement here
in Osnabrook is quite impressive, So I decided to show
you an example of that instead. If you look around
(27:38):
you you'll get a real lesson in how we fight it,
how we bring closer.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
The day of final victory, it took them a minute
to catch on, but not long. Then they turned and
they saw what I was pointing at. They saw the
guns of the underground that were shoved through every bombed
out window. They died, all eight of them.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Well, Colonel Metcalf had told me to help make the
German underground strong and effective.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
He said it had to be organized. It was pretty
well organized that night in Osnabrook and.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Later in Dortmund, Bielefeld Essen Lucil Dog Soon, due in
large part to Lieutenant Vince Kelor of the OSS, the
resistance was well organized throughout Nazi Germany and once again.
(28:41):
The report of another OSS agent closes with the words
mission a conflict. Listen again next week or another true
adventure from the piles of the OSS.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
On K and Dagger.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Heard in Today's Clock and Dagger Adventurers Vince Keller was
Mel Ferrer, star of stage and screen. Hebbel was Herbert Berghoff,
Lenda Francis Robinson. Others were Ralph Bell, Raymond Edward Johnson,
Will Mercurer, Ian Martin.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
And Carl Weathers.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
The script was written by ken Field and music was
under the direction of John guard Found defects by chat
Hill and Jerry McGee. Engineering by George Hols. Today's RSS
adventure was based on the book Clok and Dagger by
Corey Ford and Alistair mcdain. This program was produced by
Lewis D. Collen and Alfred Hollander.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Here is a bulletin from the NBC Newsroom.
Speaker 11 (29:43):
Governor Dewey of New York has endorsed the NBC Republican
presidential candidate as General Eisenhower. During the NBC television program
Meet the Pressed, Dewey declared again that he himself will
not be a candidate. Then Dewey, asticular head of the
gop said that he would urge support Eisenhower if the
General will permit himself to be nominated.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
If dune your NBC station for the later news.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
This is NBC the National Broadcasting Company.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Welcome back. Well, a really exciting story, a lot of
twist along the way. As soon as you thought you
understood what was going on, everything changed and went a
different direction, leading to the twist where Keller in the
end was able to turn the tables on the Gestapo.
(30:41):
Mel Ferrer is such a great bit of casting, really
noted former and director in film as well as a
huge presence on Broadway, didn't do a lot of radio.
A good bit of work by NBAC search A newspapers
(31:04):
shows that the casting god a brief bit of attention
and a little bit of publicity for the program and
what would be it's penultimate episode, Fransis Robinson's appearance in
the episode it's a bit of a puzzle to me.
Longtime fans of The Great Detectives will remember her as Brooksy,
the first Brooksy and Let George do It. Though her
(31:26):
career did start out on the East Coast, she appeared
in the ZIV syndicated series Manhunt with Larry Haynes, but
most of the post war radio programs I can find
information for her shows that her post war radio career.
(31:49):
All the credits I can find are in Hollywood. So
bit curious how that happened. And I shouldn't say this
is probably the worst sounding episode of the series, but
given the state of some of the other series we played,
it's really not that bad. And again, another great story
(32:10):
and I will be sorry to bid farewell to this
one next week. Now it's time to thank our Patreon
supporter of the day, and I want to thank Joanna,
Patreon supporter since June twenty twenty two, currently supporting the
podcast at the secret Agent level of four dollars or
more per month. Thanks so much for your support, Joanna,
and that will do it for today. If you're enjoying
(32:32):
the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
And if you're enjoying the podcast on YouTube, be sure
to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and mark
the notification bell. We'll be back next Saturday with the
final episode of Kloak and Dagger on The Great Adventurers Podcast.
(32:53):
We'll be back on Tuesday with another episode of adventure
Ahead on The Great Detectives podcast. Stay tuned for US
Sunday Encore, and then on Monday we return to our
regular lineup with Danger with Granger. In the meantime, do
send your comments to Box thirteen at Greatdetectives dot net,
(33:15):
follow us on Twitter, Radio Detectives, and check us out
on Instagram, Instagram, dot com slash Great Detectives from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.
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