Der Tiergarten: A Story of Combat in the Cold War

By Frederick A. Godshall

This story tells about the life and experiences of a young man, our narrator, who grew up in a small-town in America. A biography of this townie (as we will call him) is not intended in this story. He will be treated by the author as a fictional character, Roger Williams, although this young man did experience most events in the story. The parts of the story which are fictional are interwoven with actual events in order to connect events within the sequence of the story and in the order that they occurred. Hopefully, the fictional parts will be indistinguishable from the other.
The young man, his service associates and a few fictional cohorts, were the participants in this most remarkable story about conditions of battle within the course of the Cold War and the allied western nations intelligence services operations that were centered in Berlin, West Germany.
In the small town home of this man, he was separated from U.S. national politics and most world events by distances, community-attitudes and his own immaturity. With education, travel and some happenstance he grew into a person of the world, zur Weit kommen (to the world he comes.)
The first part of this story tells about his youth in small town America while World War II was ending and there was a realization, nationally, that a Cold War was raging. This story shows that small town America was not as far from the Cold War the front-line and world events as the town=s residents might have realized. In retrospect, the world actually came to small.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490706757

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Copyright 2013 Fredric Godshall.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN:

978-1-4907-0676-4 (sc)

ISBN:

978-1-4907-0677-1 (hc)

ISBN:

978-1-4907-0675-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912811

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CONTENTS

Der Tiergarten A story of combat in the Cold War.

Chapter 1 Coming From Small Town America

Chapter 1B The Cold War in the USA

Chapter 1C Out of Small Town

Chapter 2 Marching to a Cold War

Chapter 3 Spies and Cold War Intelligence

Chapter 4 On Assignment

Chapter 5 More of The Presence

Chapter 6 The Trojan Horse

Chapter 7 Some of The Unexpected

Chapter 8 Tracking Spies

Chapter 9 Prelude to Suspicion

Chapter 10 The Tollers an' Tattlers

Chapter 11 Another Week in the Cold

Chapter 12 Out of the Cold

Chapter 13 That Was Interesting

Dedication and Appreciations

This story is dedicated to our son, Eric Calvin Godshall, a student at the University of Idaho when he was lost in an accident. He was a really fine outdoors-man of good character and we miss him. His mother, Janet, has been the foundation for our family and to whom I give love and thanks for help to prepare this story of my military service, Der Tiergarten.

Documents from the U.S. National Archives and many people from U.S. military and intelligence services contributed information to develop this story. My friends Bill Weiskopf, Bill Boney and Bill Morganstern were important contributors. We show that National intelligence gathering has became a corner-stone of defense. Intelligence priorities promoted improved information collection, satellite surveillance and electronic- transmission interception which was used in the past Cold War era.

The Author

Fredric A. Godshall was born and initially educated in a Pennsylvania farm community.

Later, his military service and further education, moved him away from his community and into the world. The author holds academic degrees, a BS in Physics, an MS in Meteorology and PhD. in Civil Engineering from major Universities. He has also published many research papers of the environmental sciences and patented devices for engineering practice.

DER TIERGARTEN

A story of combat in the Cold War.

This story tells about the life and experiences of a young man, our narrator, who grew up in a small town in America. A biography of this townie (as we will call him) is not intended in this story. He will be treated by the author as a fictional character, Roger Williams in this story, although this author did experience most events in the story. The parts of the story which are fictional are interwoven with actual events in order to connect events within the sequence of the story and in that order which they occurred. Hopefully, the fictional parts will be indistinguishable from the other.

The young man, his service associates and a few fictional cohorts, were the participants in this most remarkable story about conditions of battle within the course of the Cold War and the allied western nations intelligence services operations that were centered in Berlin, West Germany.

In the early years of this man's life, he was separated from U.S. national politics and most world events by distances, community-attitudes and his own immaturity. With education, travel and some happenstance he grew into a person of the world, zur Weit kommen (to the world he comes.)

The first part of this story tells about his youth in home town America while World War II was ending and there was a realization, nationally, that a Cold War was raging. This Cold War was hot over many years with military conflicts in limited geographic regions. Although the operations were not word-wide, most nations with free-society non-communist governments were in a fight to save democratic principles of governance and in various ways the military conflicts did affect all nations of the world.

By the end of World War II, all nations were drained of the resources for more War and with little resolve to continue world conflicts over issues of nationality and human dignity. U.S. politics reflected this attitude and there were great differences in citizen opinions with regard to national response to international issues of politics and the recognition of Communism as an enemy to democracy. In many ways U.S. politics seemed to be ignoring the possibility of conflict with Communist nations.

This story shows that people in small town America were not that much different, in regard to national attitudes, as most U.S. citizens. Although our town's people could distance themselves from national and out of town issues, the Cold War front-line and world events, were closer to town than its residents might have realized. In retrospect, the world actually came to town and our townie was swept onto the field of battle of the Cold War. The actual fields that contained the War, were not always defined by geography. They included council-rooms for diplomacy, world courts, and national-population dynamics.

While in service to the United States, the second part of this story, Roger Williams disappeared from the world of his town. This part of the story is concerned with the subtle and tenuous concepts driving the world of combat intelligence within the rubble left by war in the streets of Berlin, East and West Germany. His story tells of his service to the United States (U.S.) in combat in the Cold War.

For the purpose of allaying any concerns, this story will not disclose specific information or compromise information sources of the operations period that has not already been declassified. Although some information in this story, is excerpted from unpublished sources, it is of interest to note that some information related to this story remains classified even into the early 2000s. Many other declassified documents will soon be available to add information to Cold War descriptions. The author warns the reader that the Cold War is very much an ongoing conflict and it is a very real part of the 21st century.

CHAPTER 1

Coming From Small Town America

Roger's home in Freeland, a small Pennsylvania town, was probably typically similar to many others in farm communities of the area. The local dialect, a simple and colloquial use of German served the community in local commerce but the language isolated it from broader interactions out of town. The fact that language and customs were isolating factors for communities was recognized by an original colonizer, William Penn, who established the University of Pennsylvania to be a center of higher learning that could pull diverse people into a commonality for cultural development. Religious beliefs which espoused the avoidance of conflict with other humans (Titus 3:2 - Speak evil of no one ... be peaceable, gentle ...) were factors which led people to abstain from participation in national issues.

Our townie was born into this community in 1934 and given the my name Roger Williams from the family line leading back through those of the Rev. Roger Williams, a seventeenth century theologian who lived in the New England colonies. I would later learn that my own home area played an important role in the history of the United States and the narration of some local history will illustrate the self-reliance and strength of the people.

During the middle 1700s, the Pennsylvania colonial-period, there were calls for man power of the local militia to come from the farms to protect the community when Indian war parties were seen in settled farm areas. Colonists serving for defense were necessity for survival. Although the community's ethnicity served to isolate the town's people from other communities, and despite the difficulty of travel through the Eastern Colonies significant historical events occurred in the area. The town became a participant in out-of-community political issues and military operations.

Within this pre-revolutionary period, British colonies in America were being oppressed by the British crown and there was political action to establish independence from British rule. The first directed recruitment for manpower to serve the colonies in an army, from Freeland and from the nearby area, was in the Augustus Lutheran Church in January 1776.

This church had been built years earlier, in 1704, near a crossroads with a tavern which was locally referred to as the Trappe. This large stone building served parishioners for religious practice led by Rev. Peter Muhlenberg and as a haven for community gatherings.

At the January service day, Rev. Muhlenberg preached an artillery sermon for the church service. Such sermons were customarily preached at times when very important public decisions were to be made, such as to declare war. For this service the Reverend was in the pulpit clothed in a gown usually worn during Sunday worship. Thus, with the church assembly gathered, a prayer for the congregation and America's Continental Congress was offered. This was followed by the sermon which addressed principles of liberty, self-determination, and the ethics of public defense. Considering that the parishioners likely followed Lutheran doctrines and not strictly of Quaker or Mennonite persuasions of conscientious objection, a persuasion for public defense and engagement may not have been so necessary.

However with a drum cadence, the Reverend removed his gown to reveal that he was dressed in a uniform of an army that was being formed to defend the American colonies against reprisals by the British crown for declarations of independence. There is no record about the success of this recruitment for the new Continental Army of the colonies but one can imagine the impact this event had on a farming community congregation that had, over only a few decades before, fled marauding militants of Europe.

A formal declaration of independence was signed by the members of the Continental Congress and issued in July 1776. Soon after British troops attacked and occupied the largest cities along the eastern coast areas in the American colonies. Philadelphia was one of these cities within a few walking days travel from Freeland and Trappe; war had arrived and it was on the edge of town.

Although no one from our Pennsylvania town is known, by name, to have served in the continental army or even in military intelligence for the army but assuredly, at the battle at Germantown, Pennsylvania, military intelligence gathered from Freeland and the local area would have played a vital role for this American military campaign. The attack (holding action) was initiated against British forces, at Germantown, because the British were invading inland areas from Philadelphia and could have moved northward toward the Pennsylvania iron producing regions.

The Continental's campaign included militia and contingents of the Continental Army with the transport of military supplies using pathways crossing the Perkiomen Creek fords in Freeland. There is little doubt that intelligence was gathered by Continental Forces in the battle area before the action at Germantown. The colonials in Freeland were drawn into service for a military, like it or not.

Military intelligence was also known to have been used in other campaigns, as an important weapon, by both the American and British military commands, throughout the Revolutionary War period. This is verified/suggested through the fictional story, The Spy (actually written after the war years, in 1821, by James Fenimore Cooper) tells about the spy Harry Birch and his service for the Continental Army in New York. Military intelligence also served the militia in New England and the service by Nathan Hale and Paul Revere are remembered patriots who served the colonies.

Although the United States has been embroiled in many military actions over the years from the colonial period, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the First World War, these actions did not affect the day-to-day directly and the community is not remembered for it's military services. Perhaps, with regard to these national concerns, the town location became a non-factor but inattention to national affairs and adopted attitudes for a non-combative life were components for continued isolation and thus the community was distanced from armed conflicts by choice.

Within the private life style of many small town communities, the routine of community life consumes it's citizen's attention. It was not that small town folks are uncaring but rather, as our town, the commonality of such communities had none or very few of their own town's people in military service. During World War II, a few from our community did volunteer service at Valley Forge Military Hospital and theses people became aware of the personal hardships of wounded military people recovering in the hospital Also, a few town's men served in military service during this war and all of these special souls returned home to their families. However, memory of these citizen-soldiers has faded for individuals and those of us, who have served in military service, are remembered for the most part as a group; actually a commonalty of present day U.S. society. Overall, the war impact on the community was related to the availability of commercial goods, saving for national support and concern for the American war effort. I gained little appreciation of national events because of my young age and lack of family discussions addressing the war even though an uncle was serving in the U.S. Navy.

This history of the community shows how Roger's home town could be disengaged from public affairs and national politics. Many years later, during 20th century, the culture of the modern town was still tied to the beliefs and life styles of earlier times. Being raised within the local culture, disposed Roger's own beliefs to life patterns that were similar to those of his relatives and town associates.

Town people were not well traveled so community attitudes changed slowly between generations. Relatives lived down the street or in nearby towns and families were often together over most holidays. Lingering memories of the difficult economic times from the depression years, of the 1930s, were an apparent influence on town people's attitudes and they held onto some older life styles of the depression era. Although there were different economic times growing out of the 1940s, town-life remained oriented to local areas and characteristically provincial. Typically, vacations were family outings to a lakeside rented cottage or picnics, berry picking, and gardening.

The only deaths one heard about were of someone's grandmother or grandfather.

Contemporaries were never seriously ill, polio was an illness someone contracted who you didn't know, accidents killed the teens from other towns and the young girl who drowned last summer was from someone else's family. The part of town life that included me was not particularly idyllic it was just carefree within our society's bounds.

Aside from stories of who crashed his car and what expecting couple had gotten married, there was not much of interest. Television became popular but the radio and local newspapers were the usual ways folks got news of worldly events. Business outlooks were bright, there was prosperity and returning military veterans were, by then, pretty much a part of the new economy.

People were tired of war news and anxious to experience some good times. This mood of the local area reflected the times of our nation. With betterment of economic conditions, cultural changes were growing and the national war-time anxiety from the 1940s was slowly fading.

Nationally people needed a retreat into theater and into happy times however imaginative such episodes might have been.

The town's isolation and ideology did not entirely shield it from national concerns.

Although nobody was ready to except the reality of more conflict, in the form of a Cold War, news sources provided information about communist led disruption over-seas, the political influence of communist sympathizers, spies arrested for this or that atrocity and the danger of spies in America. However like most Americans, our family remained distanced and unconcerned about many of these issues. In generality, news stories were only available about the concluding results of investigations and illegal activities since information about many governmental proceedings was not released to the public. As a youngster, Roger had no appreciation of the future that he was headed for with regard to military service.

Within the 1950 -1960s decades, the national pageantry attendant with public declarations of pride for our U.S. flag, for the loyalty of citizens to their country, and demonstrations highlighting patriotism were organized by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The pageantry was timed to monopolize public space on May first, the day which communist sympathizers would use for their own ends. The hoopla of such public pageantry or protests by conscientious objectors against compulsory military service did not occur in our town because few in town had any desire to be known by the general public and there was little attention to social and political issues out of our community. There was no wonder that many national concerns were not particularly within community interests, few people ever had any direct stake in the issues.

However, little by little, various incidents brought our small community to become a bit more connected to national events of the Cold War. The national call for manpower, to support U.S. participation in the U.N. military intervention to contain communist political gains and territorial control in Korea (1950 - 1953) and then in Indochina (1960 - 1976) did reach into town. These situations followed the national political period of planning for military confrontation with Russia in the middle 1940s in Europe. The fears of a World War III were sparked by North Korean aggression and lastly the military actions in Vietnam, a part of the multinational military campaigns in Indochina.

One specific event which touched our town that was directly a part of U.N. military operations in Korea, included a few seniors of the high school who had joined the Marine Corps Reserve as a result of recruiting by the new coach for athletics. As the Korean conflict grew, these recruits were pulled into active duty. Consequently, the community became very angry with this coach. He was blamed for getting our boys into the dangers in Korea. Over time, the community simmered down over the recruiting issues but these events were a wakeup call with a new realization that our little town was connected a lot closer to world events than any one from town had known or had appreciated. Our townie began to understand the possibilities that he too could be pulled into military service now that it had happened to his older friends.

Although the our community preferred not to participate in some national affairs, our town was a part of the U.S. and, as such, town citizens were obligated to pay taxes and to live under requirements of national laws including a national call for man-power, the military draft.

In the 1950s, there were many discriminatory laws to effect draft-age healthy intelligent males; in our small town, the Quakers, Amish and Mennonites (the conscientious objectors), farmers, females, and the teenaged married group were generally exempt from compulsory military service. Unfortunately for all of those young males who were not in those groups, most were needed to fill the local draft quotas. The individuals from our community who were caught by the call, as Roger was, did indeed become part of a bigger world and thereby he became a soldier in the struggles of the Cold war.

This background for this story explains the cultural heritage and to which the community was tied. From this beginning, Roger grew out of our community by education, travel and military service.

CHAPTER 1B

The Cold War in the USA

Roger matured within the peaceable life of his upbringing and his growing maturity was the outgrowth of community history. By a large measure, the U.S. matured during this same period from the end of World war II until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the interest and attitudes of rural America were distanced from the politics of national conflict, they were similar to those of the national public whose attention was directed to newsy highlights of the day. However, there were important concerns to which the nation neglected attention. Individuals tried to raise national attention to dangers from Communism but these efforts and the influences generally descended to the levels of absurd politics rather than the development of national policies and laws to protect America.

The assault on the U.S.A. by Communism actually began decades before the era of this story with the organization of the American Communist Party, in the period 1919-1920. The organization was led Arthur Adams, an intelligence officer for the Russian government, the Soviets (Russia and its communist allied governments of Eastern Europe). The Communist Party participated in politically disruptive activities, union-organization agitation and it lead the directed theft of U.S. industrial technology. Nothing presented in news reports informed the public of the instigators and sources of these assaults. However it has been noted in generalities, the theft of technology failed to provide a direct path to Soviet exploitation of the information; a U.S. industrial-infrastructure is often necessary to utilize the stolen technology. Such were the beginning salvos of conflicts with Russian Communism which were generally unknown by the American Public.

Eventually, in 1920, Adams and Ludwig Martens, another U.S. Communist Party organizer, were deported from the U.S. It is also to be noted that recorded and deciphered Russian diplomatic radio-traffic from the late 1940s, part of the highly secret Verona project achievements, clearly show the American Communist Party aggressively assisted Soviet spies in the U.S. From that time, the American Communist Party could be described primarily as a secretive, underground presence and by such a general characteristic, they became known to the American public. However, few Americans were even remotely aware of the potential consequences of communist subversion in the U.S. and the U.S. lacked the national laws to curtail subversive activities of the Communists. A part of the inputs, driving these communist activities, were political policy and ideologies defined by Vladimir Lenin and his followers, who held the assumptions, communists had an inherent duty to instigate political disruption and to participate with all people in struggles opposing non-communist political regimes. During the post World War I period, communist agitation for overthrow of non-communist legitimate government were disruptive activities in Europe and in China.

My story, of participation in the period of Cold War, begins after WW II and it is generally considered to have ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989.

Within this period, the United States had an important lead in some military actions as a member of the United Nations (U.N.) military forces.

Although U.S. citizen awareness of the Cold War was oriented to the armed military engagements, other particulars of Cold War conflicts including the international security and national power balance changes from technological achievements and competition in commercialism or world finance were not generally encountered or appreciated by the public.

Western industrial superiority was being amortized by expanded activity in industrial espionage by Soviet agents. Although the competition in the Cold War, particularly advancements in technology