Newssleuths Get Their Man

West Germany was stunned in April when convicted Nazi War Criminal Hans Walter Zech-Nenntwich, 47, walked through five bribed-open doors in a Braunschweig prison and escaped.

Germans last week were again astonished by the manner in which he was recaptured. The former SS captain was tracked down not by the police, but by two newsmen from Hamburg's illustrated magazine Stern (Star)--Reporter Hubertus Muench, 40, and Photographer Dieter Heggemann, 39.

Cherchez la Femme. Though the two have worked as a team for less than a year, sleuthing seems to come naturally to them, and with reason. Before joining Stern in 1963, rotund, nervous Muench was one of Germany's most popular writers of whodunits; rugged, imperturbable Heggemann has a natural flair for adventure, once crossed the Alps in a balloon. Stern Editor Henri Nannen (TIME, Jan. 25, 1960) put the pair on the case as soon as he learned of Zech-Nenntwich's escape.

While the police vainly searched for the fugitive, Muench and Heggemann decided to cherchez la femme--the fugitive's girl friend, beautiful Margit Steinheuer, 25, who had also disappeared. Two nights of pub crawling turned up a brokenhearted young Greek student who had been one of Margit's special friends. Taunted by Muench that he had perhaps been merely a passing fancy, the Greek whipped out a postcard of the Acropolis postmarked only a few days before in Athens. It bore no signature but only the message: "Now I can understand why you are homesick for your lovely country."

Muench and Heggemann jetted to Athens and after an intense hunt found an Athens dry cleaner who remembered sitting behind a man resembling Zech-Nenntwich on a TWA flight to Egypt. The newsmen found the fugitive in the 22nd Cairo hotel they visited. Total time for the search: eight days. Their story made headlines around the world, but Zech-Nenntwich rejected their advice to return to Germany and serve out his sentence.

Check the Villa. Last month, however, came a tip from Egypt that Zech-Nenntwich had flown to Brussels. Rushing there, Muench flashed the fugitive's picture to taxi drivers at the airport until one cabby remembered taking the German to the border town of Eupen. In Eupen, Muench found another driver who had taken a "German businessman" across the border on a rush trip to Remagen--the town where Zech-Nenntwich owns a villa. Muench and Heggemann boldly rang the villa's doorbell and demanded to see Zech-Nenntwich. In a four-day talk marathon, the pair finally persuaded him to surrender to the police, then sped to Hamburg to turn out a 14-page exclusive spread that was certain to help Stern (circulation:

1,700,000) maintain its position as Germany's largest weekly magazine.

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