Castle Zaubersdorf

Austria has quite a few places that appear on no tourist map, and some of them are truly remarkable.

One of these is the ninth-century castle of Zaubersdorf, in Lower Austria, in the small locality of St. Egyden am Steinfeld.

So what makes it remarkable?

It housed one of the Abwehr's schools, or more precisely the Roland Organisation.

In April 1941 Ukrainian nationalists from Galicia were trained within its walls.

They were taught by officers of the notorious Brandenburg-800 sabotage battalion, which had once taken Lviv without a single shot. The Abwehr leadership had appointed a former Polish army officer, Major Pobihushchy, as the battalion's commander.

There were several Abwehr intelligence and sabotage schools on Austrian territory. The Roland Organisation was one of the best known, remembered for its cruelty towards the Belarusian, Russian and Serbian population.

Otherwise put, the graduates of this school, displaying unheard-of cruelty, burned the village of Khatyn together with its inhabitants, alongside the Nachtigall battalion. Almost nothing is said about this, but on Belarusian soil dozens of such villages were burned by Ukrainian punitive units. Khatyn was simply one of the first. They also burned the village of Molodi, only a few kilometres from Khatyn.

That village was my mother's. She miraculously managed to survive.

To be continued

The Roland battalion was staffed by Galicians (first-wave emigrants and their descendants) living in Austria, mostly from Vienna and Graz.

Unlike the Nachtigall battalion, which recruited peasants, the Roland fighters were fairly educated: they knew languages and had studied at universities.

Later, according to the Abwehr's plan, the Nachtigall and Roland battalions were to form a single unit that would fight against the Red Army.

And so it came to pass... except that they did not fight the Red Army; they performed punitive functions against the civilian population.

This formation was called the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion.

It was the fighters of Nachtigall and Roland who became the core of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia", and later of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Zaubersdorf Castle...

It is listed in no reference book and no guidebook, but I found it.

As it turned out, it is now private property and entry to the castle grounds is forbidden.

I walked around its perimeter, but all there was was one high stone fortress wall. Amazingly, there was not even a crack to peek inside through. The only door I found was locked. There was a gate in the watchtower, but it felt as though nobody had opened it in five hundred years. And it really was old, blackened with time.

There was nothing for it but to ask the locals:

"How can one get inside the castle grounds?"

Everyone looked at me with curiosity, and then answered:

"It's private property, we don't go there."

One woman advised:

"Try knocking on the gate. Maybe they'll open up."

We walked along the fortress wall once more. Not a soul!

Nobody went out and nobody went in. Yet the castle was inhabited. Next to the gate stood two big SUVs, the kind Austrian farmers love to drive around their fields.

My wife, her patience gone by now, began to say:

"Can't you see we won't get in there? They won't let us in."

I wanted a result. I couldn't just leave like that.

I went up to the gate. I knocked. Silence inside. No one answered. Then I pushed the leaf, and it unexpectedly swung open with ease...

To be continued

I opened the gates wider...

Right under my feet I saw ancient cobblestones, at least six hundred years old. A vaulted ceiling, exactly the kind laid in the days of the Templars. Thickly whitewashed walls. Through the heavy layer of plaster the medieval masonry showed through.

A stone corridor led into the castle's inner courtyard, absolutely silent.

The place seemed uninhabited, and only the old household junk lying along the walls showed that it was not:

a leaky bathtub;

bicycles propped on top of planks; some shelving units, other rubbish... The heap looked entirely peaceful and certainly did not remind one that this was once an Abwehr sabotage and intelligence school, founded on the personal order of Vice-Admiral Canaris after a conversation with the Ukrainian nationalist Melnyk.

I went deeper into the courtyard.

Behind me, the Russian, the others trailed unhurriedly after: my wife of Eastern blood, my cousin the German, his English wife. What a vinaigrette we made.

I asked loudly, not in German but with a monstrous Russian accent that must surely have sent any German into a shiver:

"Is anybody here?"

And what if they just up and shoot!

Austria makes the best firearms in the world. Sniper rifles especially. And their famous Glock pistols are in service with many countries. And in general the Austrians have always been excellent hunters. In the mountain regions every house has a rifle, and not just one!

Suddenly two men came around the corner (no rifles in their hands) and asked us in some surprise:

"Who are you looking for? Do you know this is private property and you're not allowed in here?"

"We know, forgive us if we've done something wrong... We would like to see the castle. Is that possible? I'm from Russia. A Russian writer."

To be continued

There were two of them.

One was large, round-faced, with a big greying beard. The second was lean and somewhat shorter.

"Russian?" the bearded one asked again, rather taken aback.

"Yes. We would like to speak with the owner."

"I am the owner. So you've come to look at the castle where Ukrainians were trained to fight on Hitler's side?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Have a look... Only not for long. Ten minutes."

Rather little, though. But nothing could be done.

With a nod, I went off to inspect the courtyard. Tables with white tablecloths had been set out inside. Some event was being prepared; we had clearly arrived at the wrong time.

Two women came up and began laying dishes on the tables. Workers, no doubt. Chickens ran about the courtyard, and a goose let out a piercing cry in a corner. Where the parade ground once was, trees now grow.

Right up against the medieval building stands a modern house.

In the centre of the courtyard rises a comparatively small church. Judging by the absence of frills and other prettiness, it is most likely early Gothic. Possibly eleventh century.

The barracks where the saboteurs lived had been converted into farm outbuildings. The castle could easily have held some 200 people, maybe slightly more. Roughly that many fighters were in the Roland battalion.

I made a circuit of the courtyard and took a few photographs. Nobody forbade it or called me to order. Everyone seemed busy preparing for some family celebration, but I could feel on the back of my neck that I was being watched.

To be continued

Suddenly the owner grew talkative:

"I bought this castle some thirty years ago from the previous owner. The fortress was partly ruined; after all, there had been fighting here between Soviet troops and the retreating Wehrmacht. I restored the castle, patched it up here, painted it over there. So it looks almost as it used to. True, we converted the ground floors into farm buildings, and before that there were barracks there.

The castle is very old, in fact. Ninth century. But little remains of the ninth century... Only the lower part of the structure survives, and the upper floors are already twelfth century.

The Ukrainians who learned soldiering here had already fought near Feldbach, and when Soviet units smashed them, they came back here, where they had served. They probably wanted to hide. Many of them were also hiding in the surrounding area. But the Russian special services rounded them all up and brought them here. To this very castle," he pointed at the fortress walls. "They were shot right here, by these walls," he pointed at the masonry of the cathedral. "There used to be bullet marks, but we plastered over all the traces. You can't see anything now."

To be continued

Strolling around the castle grounds, I couldn't help noticing a huge old vise fixed to an oak block.

"How old is this vise?" I asked the owner's assistant.

"Maybe a hundred and fifty years, maybe more," he answered readily. "It has always stood here. During the war too. They used it to make the cadets insensitive to pain. One puts his hand in it, and another turns the handle. After all, the Ukrainians were preparing to fight on Soviet territory, and all sorts of things could happen there... And also to learn how to use it during interrogations. Want to try? Stick your hand in here," he offered, turning the handle and spreading the mighty steel jaws of the vise.

"A very tempting offer, of course, but some other time," I said modestly.

Then my wife came up to me and, jingling a bunch of keys, said excitedly:

"The owner of the castle says we can stay a while longer. He gave me these keys and allowed us to go into the church."

Evidently my wife had impressed him somehow; with me he had been sterner.

We opened the door.

We entered a Catholic church. A small one, exactly the kind built in deep antiquity. Clean. Tidy.

At the front of the church, a crucifix. The altar where the service is held. Benches where one can listen to a sermon or simply be alone with God. Everything as usual, as in any Catholic church, if you don't know that it was founded in the ninth century.

The thought came to me that on these very benches sat the Ukrainian punitive troops who were trained in this castle.

It does not fit in my head how they could believe in God, pray, and then go off to burn people. Peaceful people, far from the war: old men, children, women...

We came out of the church. The owner met us. Now he seemed to me a good-natured fat man. Exactly like the Marquis of Carabas.

"Come again, I have a lot of interesting things to show you. I'll show you...."

After saying goodbye, we left the castle.