one lethal cyanide “bullet” was still in his baggage and that
somehow, too, he had obtained a firm promise from a third
party to smuggle one of these brass capsules into his cell. These
documents consist principally of three taunting letters, all dated
October , that he wrote, perhaps as a final prank. It is improb-
able that he would have risked leaving these letters lying around
his cell for five days their premature discovery would have
resulted in the immediate search of his locked-away belongings
and the painful frustration of his plan. So it is a reasonable de-
duction that he entrusted the letters to some officer whom they
were also designed to reassure and protect: an American, no
doubt, who would see that they were restored by trusted hand
to the cell at literally the last moment two men who would
between them extricate the cyanide bullet from the baggage
room, and smuggle it in to the prisoner. It is likely that the
American officer was Lieutenant Wheelis (he died in ), and
that the trusted hand was that of Doctor Pflücker (who is also
now dead).
The letters still survive, in an American army safe in Berlin,
and are published here for the first time. The first, cross-folded
to fit into an upper pocket or very small envelope, was clearly
intended to attract ridicule to the pompous little colonel’s secu-
rity measures:
Nuremberg, October ,
To the Commandant
I have always had the poison capsule with me, ever
since my delivery into imprisonment. On delivery
into Mondorf I had three capsules. I left the first in
my clothing so it would be found upon inspection. I
put the second under the clothes rack when un-
dressing and retrieved it when dressing. I concealed it
so well at Mondorf and here in the cell that despite