The Masquerader

By the time he was 27, tiny (5 ft. 3 in.), Hamburg-born Reinhold Wilhelm Johannes Pabel was a tough little article. He had served two tours with Hitler's armies on the Russian front, had been wounded, and rushed back into combat as a sergeant of Rommel's famed Afrika Korps. He had survived the German retreat from Sicily by swimming a mile to shore after his boat was sunk in the Strait of Messina, and had been badly wounded again and finally captured by U.S. forces near the Volturno River in Italy.

When he was landed at Norfolk, Va. in January 1944, Reinhold Pabel, prisoner of war, was a tight-jawed, scarred little bantam with a calculating eye. But he was a pleasant and contemplative sort of fellow too. He had studied for the priesthood as a youth at the University of Muenster, spoke English and Russian, was the author of a German book entitled Athos, the Holy Mountain. He gradually concluded that he wanted to live in the U.S.

Opportunity Illuminated. Reinhold took his time. At Camp Grant, near Rockford, Ill., he stuffed himself with the astounding food (both cake and grapes at one meal), enrolled for correspondence courses in Russian and Persian, ingratiated himself with his captors, and peddled his medals and handmade souvenirs to accumulate a store of U.S. currency. He dyed a pair of khaki pants blue, and hid them.

He volunteered for work, was moved to a subsidiary camp near a cannery at Washington, Ill. One morning, just after roll call, Reinhold ducked under the wire, sauntered to the shelter of some trees, changed into his escape costume, and walked down the highway in full view of the encampment. Nobody paid him any attention. He thumbed a ride to Peoria with a farmer, who did not appear to notice Reinhold's German accent.

Reinhold had $10.20. He spent $5 for a bus ticket and rode to Chicago. To conserve his money, he spent the first night under a bush in Grant Park. But he decided to live as openly as possible and simply ignore the threat of recapture. He asked a policeman for directions. The cop replied politely. Reinhold invented a new name, Phillip Brick, applied for a Social Security card, and got it with no trouble at all. He went to work as a dishwasher, then as a bookstore clerk.

"I knew the virtues of democracy when I came," he says. "But the opportunity--that was the real illumination." He saved $500 in three months, opened a little book business of his own. It prospered. He got married, became the father of a baby son. But the FBI never stopped looking for Unteroffizier Pabel, the escaped prisoner, and in time the search narrowed.

Disappointment Relieved. Last week, when a group of agents sauntered into Reinhold's bookstore, only six of 2,803 P.W.s of World War II who escaped in the U.S. were still at large. Then there were only five. The FBI men drew pistols. One of them said, "You're Reinhold Pabel, aren't you?" Said Reinhold: "Yes."

A Dallas attorney named Paul Douglas Lindsey heard of his arrest, immediately announced that Pabel had saved his life during the fighting on the Volturno, and offered to help him in any feasible way. Pabel, he said, had found him lying wounded in a ditch, had reassured him, and then--to keep from drawing U.S. artillery fire on the attorney's refuge--led his squad of Germans 100 yards away.

The attorney was not the only one to go to Reinhold's assistance. His neighbors and his friends began telephoning him to offer their help as soon as they heard of his arrest. The president of a local neighborhood association wrote to Washington asking congressional relief for "this unfortunate man." At week's end, Reinhold, free on $1,000 bond, felt that he had some grounds for hoping that the Government would allow him to settle down legally, and become a citizen.

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