“They’ll find out you escaped soon enough. That kind of news travels fast. Especially if that major gets the rap for it. And I’ll make sure he does. There’s just one more thing. When you get to the Ami zone, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to go to an address in Berlin and give someone I know some money. A woman. As a matter of fact, you met her once. You probably don’t remember, but you gave her a lift in your car that same day you saved me from those SA storm troopers.”

“I wouldn’t want to make helping you a habit, Erich. But sure. Why not?”

How much of what Erich Mielke told me was true was neither here nor there. He was certainly right that if I remained at the camp in Johannesgeorgenstadt I would probably die. What Mielke didn’t know when he offered me a way to escape was that I had been about ready to throw in the towel and join K-5 in the hope that much later on, after I had become a good communist, I might find an opportunity to escape.

Almost immediately after my meeting with Mielke, I was, as he’d promised, transferred back to the sorting of the rock. This raised some suspicions that I’d agreed to collaborate with the German communists and I was subjected to some close questioning by General Krause and his adjutant, an SS major named Dunst; however, they seemed to accept my assurances that I remained “loyal to Germany,” whatever that meant. And as the days passed, their earlier suspicions began to diminish. I had no idea when I would be summoned to the office and given my clean uniform and the all-important boots, and as yet more time passed, I began to wonder if Mielke had deceived me or even if he had been arrested himself. Then, one cold spring day, I was ordered to the showers, where I was allowed to wash and then given another uniform. It had been boil-washed and all of the badges and insignia removed, but after my own lousy clothes it felt like it had been tailored at Holter’s. The pleni who gave it to me was a Russian besprisorni—an orphaned boy who’d grown up in the Soviet labor camp system and was regarded by the Blues as a trusted prisoner who needed no supervision. He handed me my boots, which were made of rather fine soft leather, and then kept a lookout for me.