The monastery was a fine Gothic building with pink brick walls and two high pagoda-like bell towers that dominated the snow-covered landscape for miles around. But it was only when you drove through the main gate that you perceived the true size of the place and, as a corollary, the wealth and power of the Roman Catholic Church. That there should be such a huge Catholic monastery in such a small and out-of-the-way place like Kempten made me aware of just what resources and manpower were at the command of the Vatican and, by extension, the Comradeship. And I wondered what was in it for the Church, providing a ratline for old Nazis and escaping war criminals like myself.

The truck stopped and I got out. I was in an inner court that was as big as a military parade ground. Timmermann led me into a doorway, through a basilica the size of an aircraft hangar, with an altar that only a Holy Roman Emperor might have thought modest. I thought it looked as gaudy as a Polish Christmas cake. Someone was playing the organ and a choir of local boys was singing sweetly. But for an overpowering smell of beer that filled the air, the atmosphere seemed predictably holy. I followed Timmermann into a small office, where we were met by a monk. He had the look of someone who enjoyed a glass of beer. Father Bandolini was a big man with a large stomach and the hands of a good butcher. His hair was short and silver-colored, which seemed to match the gray in his eyes. He had a face as strong as anything I had seen carved on a totem pole. He met us with bread, cheese, cold meats, pickles, a glass of the beer brewed in the monastery, and some warm words of welcome. Shooing me closer to the fire, he asked if our journey had been difficult.

“No problems at all, Father,” said Timmermann, who soon excused himself as he wanted to get back to Griesheim that night.

“Father Lajolo tells me that you’re a doctor,” said Father Bandolini, after Timmermann had left. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” I said, dreading the possibility that I might be asked to perform some medical procedure that would reveal me as a fraud. “But I haven’t practiced medicine since before the war.”

“But you are a Roman Catholic,” he said.

“Of course,” I said, thinking it best that I seemed to agree with the creed of the people who were helping me. “Although not a very good one.”

Father Bandolini shrugged. “Whatever that is,” he said.

I shrugged back. “Somehow I always imagined that monks were probably good Catholics,” I said.

“It’s easy to be a good Catholic when you live in a monastery,” he said. “That’s why most of us do it. There’s not much temptation in a place like this.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The beer is excellent.”