It was Armistice Day. Just outside Vienna, in the Russian occupation zone, a U.S. Army jeep turned into a side road. Between the dark, heavy-set U.S. soldier at the wheel and the slight, fair-haired soldier on the right cowered an Austrian civilian named Oswald Eder. "Where are you taking me?" he cried. The smaller soldier jammed a gun into his ribs and snarled: "Shut up!" The jeep stopped, and at gunpoint, his escorts forced Eder into the waiting arms of seven Russian agents who set upon him with fists and revolver butts.
Kidnaping and beating are nothing unusual in occupied Vienna,...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
