Bigwigs Bagged

Into the Allied net swam the second biggest fish yet caught: smooth, grey Franz von Papen, 6 5-year-old ex-Chancellor, longtime instrument of German dagger diplomacy. Only Rudolf Hess, who had flopped up on the bank of his own accord, was a greater prize.

A U.S. patrol picked up Papen in the Ruhr. They found him dining alone in elegant splendor. He wore his accustomed knickerbockers (he is proud of his legs); on a couch rested a Tyrolean hat with a rakish feather. "There are no German soldiers here," he said in impeccable English. " I can't imagine what you want with an old man."

Afterward he said: "I wish this war were over."

"So do eleven million other guys." growled a sergeant.

Later the man who has been called the slipperiest eel in Germany was slipped out of the dying Reich. From Paris he was reportedly headed for internment in the U.S.

"A Good Man." High on the Allies' blacklist stood the name of notorious Wuppertal Police Chief Paul Kinkier, founding member of the Nazi Party. When U.S. soldiers caught up with him last week in an attic hideout at Nissmitz, he chose to die by taking poison in the best Wagnerian manner--but in a hurry and in a nightshirt. Cried his grief-stricken wife over his body: "My husband was a good man. I just couldn't control him." Then she admitted that her good man had shot twelve people.

Other Nazi catches of the week included:

P: Imperious, 95-year-old Field Marshal August von Mackensen, currently a country squire, who forthwith ordered his captors to "save his chickens" from liberated Russians.

P: Nervous, goateed Dr. Manfred Zapp. Nazi propaganda chief expelled from the U.S. in 1941, who fervently disclaimed any connection with Nazi atrocities.

P: Munitions Master Alfred Krupp, taken in his huge Ruhr mansion (see below).

P: Gangling, weak-chinned Prince August Wilhelm ("Auwi") von Hohenzollern. fourth son of the Kaiser, enthusiastic Brownshirt brigadier and Nazi Reichstag deputy, once dubbed "national orator" by Hitler. (His stepmother, Princess Hermine, also passed into U.S. custody at Schloss Rossla in the Harz mountains.)

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