Like several of those stationed at 47 regiment, I purchased a used Borgward from the local dealer which was Kurt Wendker Borgward (spelling could be incorrect).
This involved the sale of my relatively new Triumph motorcycle, to a young gunner from the RA, using the proceeds for the down payment on the car. The
purchaser of my bike was underage, but I was unaware that in signing the paperwork (Wechsels) I was signing as guarantor, as they already had another older RA
guy as guarantor.
To cut a long story short I ended up having to pay for a bike that had disappeared, plus the car and eventually negotiated a payment scheme with a local fellow
acting on behalf of Wendker's credit company. This fellow "coincidentally" had a place he worked from very close to the camp (on Flughafenstrasse as I recall). He
agreed to my monthly payment plan, which was ludicrously low, and seemed little interested in how long it would take to pay off the debt, but more interested in
"chatting". I of course was only interested in deferring the payments until I was demobbed and transferred back to England, which would force the creditor to
pursue the original purchaser rather than me.
I suddenly realised that this company was still incurring a lot of bad debts with 47 Regiment personnel despite dreadful experience in repayments. Finally I
realised that the only rational explanation for this company's actions was that they (actually their representative living close to camp) were in the business of
information gathering about our classified activities with the missile regiment. For the last 3 months my interactions with this fellow consisted of trying to appear to
give him lots of information whilst at the same time not conveying anything useful. Of course I was still constrained by my own personal interest in not
antagonizing him and for several years had a guilty feeling about not trying to tell anyone my suspicions (also I had no idea who, if anyone, would take me seriously)
Chris Fagan Sep 2006
Spies ? You must mean 'DICKE' - never knew his real name, or I have forgotten it.
He used to hang around the Bahnhof pub and the Haus am Markt with Franz Nartz
and his cronies; he used to have a lot of money and was always asking things like "Why are the Americans here?" and "That rocketen, does it go far?"
We used to tell him all sorts of garbage.