This is just another little side quest that I have been wanting to get into for several years. So far without success; therefore, I’m putting it out there in the hopes that the magic of the internet might prompt somebody who knows something to find this post and contact me. It has happened before.
Robert K. Wilcox wrote the book Target Patton, one of several authors who speculated that General George S. Patton’s accident in December 1945 (as a result of which he died about two weeks later) might not have been an accident at all. In fact, among Germans and especially German POWs at the time it was widely accepted that Patton had been murdered for political reasons, especially his anti-Soviet stance.
Others, including popular YouTuber Mark Felton, have rebuffed this theory. When an extraordinary person dies in ordinary circumstances, Felton argued, it is only natural that people should refuse to accept this simple explanation. Well, according to Wilcox, the circumstances were anything but ordinary – however, I don’t know and don’t really care either way. What I do care about is that there is still something to discover.
One of the passengers in the army truck that collided with General Patton’s car was a German civilian employee of the US army, and that is certainly something that I know how to research! Let’s see what Wilcox and his sources have to say about it.
It seems that Robert L. Thompson, about whom information is scarce, had no reason to be on the road that Sunday morning. Farago wrote, „Thompson was ‚in violation of the rules and his own routine. He had no orders to go anywhere … he had taken out the truck as a lark for a joyride with a couple of his buddies after a night of drinking … The three of them were in the cabin, in another infraction of the rules. Only two persons were allowed….'“
The same goes for his two unlawful passengers – if that was the number in his cab – one of whom was identified in a confidential Seventh Army Public Relations Officer (PRO) document as „Frank Krummer, a civilian employe [sic] of the signal company.“ Both Thompson and Krummer, according to the document, worked at the 141st Signal Company of the 1st Armored Division at Gmund, some fifty miles south of Mannheim, near Stuttgart. What were they doing that far north on a shutdown Sunday? According to Farago, Thompson was „in violation of the rules“ in having two passengers in the cab and „out of his own routine. He had no orders to go anywhere this Sunday morning.“
First of all, the place is „Gmünd“, not „Gmund“ – a not unimportant difference. (No, you Anglos out there: „ü“ is not pronounced „u“. That’s why there are two dots above the letter.) Second, the place is „Schwäbisch Gmünd“ by its full name. A town by the name of „Gmund am Tegernsee“ also exists, but is not the one we are looking for.
And what about Frank Krummer, the German civilian reported in the Seventh Army documents to have been in Thompson’s truck? Seventh Army had jurisdiction over the accident. The papers discuss an investigation of the crash that has never been found.
Are we just to dismiss the documents?
I have not been able to locate Krummer or any of his family, which is not surprising given the meager information I have and the fact that Krummer is a fairly common German name. It is also possible that whatever effort I did expend was for naught because, like „Spruce,“ the name might have been mistakenly or purposely misspelled.
Wilcox is certainly correct about that. Given the Gmünd/Gmund mixup and that fact that US Army papers at the time wrote „Schwabisch Gmund“, Mr Krummer’s name just might have been „Krümmer“. It might even have been „Krammer“ and simply been written down „by ear“, resulting in „Krummer“. („a“ in German is pronounced just that – „Aaah“. 🙂 )
Furthermore, his first name likely was „Franz“, not Frank. Frank was not a common first name in Germany at that time, and since his last name begins with a K, it is likely that whoever wrote the report didn’t pay attention. So what we are looking for is somebody named either Franz or Frank, with the surname of Krummer, Krümmer or Krammer, who worked for the 141st Signal Company and probably lived in Schwäbisch Gmünd in December 1945.
The problem is, there is no such person on record. I asked at the town archive of Schwäbisch Gmünd where the old registry is kept. It is possible that he didn’t live in Gmünd and so of course wasn’t registered there.
There are plenty of Franz Krümmers or Krammers at the Bundesarchiv, Ancestry, or the Volksbund, but without more information it’s impossible to say whether our man is one of them. To complicate matters,
What happened to Thompson’s mysterious passengers? Where is Frank Krummer? Who was Frank Krummer? Is that a real name or a cover? Who and where is the third unnamed passenger? Both are mentioned as being in the truck with Thompson in the formerly classified Seventh Army PRO documents, as well as to a lesser degree in Farago’s Last Days. Then they disappear. Were they also taken to London? One of them – it is not clear which – was described in the PRO documents as a „German civilian.“ It appears to be Krummer. What was a German civilian doing in an army truck?
So Wilcox is not even sure that Krummer was said German civilian. It might have been the third, unnamed person in the truck. Perhaps Frank Krummer was actually an American (there were quite a number of US civilians in the employ of the occupation authorities), and both Wilcox and subsequently myself have looked for him in the wrong places.
At any rate, maybe a chance find will help me out here. If you know something about the mysterious Mr Krummer or any other aspect of the whole affair, please let me know!
Clarissa Schnabel 