“First of all, it is a question of shipping, Herr Cranz. Our Kriegsmarine is unfortunately not able to protect our shipping. Which means we have to ship in neutral bottoms. Spanish, French, and Portuguese, primarily. Sometimes Swedish. And recently, we have had to make sure that merchandise owned by Germany is not aboard a, say, French ship.”
“Why?”
“Because the Americans announced they were going to stop and inspect neutral vessels on the high seas to make sure they were not carrying contraband, by which they meant anything owned by Germans.”
“And they’re doing that?”
“The threat was enough to make the Swedes and the French, et cetera, refuse to take aboard German-owned merchandise. It has been necessary for us to arrange for Spanish or Portuguese, et cetera, firms to purchase, for example, frozen beef, which is then shipped to Spain or Portugal on neutral bottoms. Once ashore in Spain, it can then legally be sold to Germany and sent by rail.
“So one of the things I do, Herr Cranz, is guarantee the sight drafts of, say, the Spanish Beef Importing Company of Madrid—”
“What’s a ‘sight draft’?”
“Something like a check. Payable ‘on sight.’ The Argentine beef producers want their money before they will allow their beef to be loaded aboard ship. So I see to that. Berlin advises me how much the Spanish Beef Importing Company—which we control, of course—is allowed to bid for the beef, and then I—the Hamburg-Argentine Bank—guarantees their sight draft for payment.”
“Berlin advises you? What’s that all about?”
“Because the Americans also bid for the beef, driving the price as high as they can to inconvenience us. It’s sort of a game we play.”
“A
“At the weekly sale, the American beef packers here, Swift and Armour, enter a bid for so many tons of beef. So does the Spanish Beef Importing Company. Say the Americans enter a bid of fifty dollars per hundredweight. We—the Spaniards—counter with a bid of fifty-five dollars. They raise their bid to sixty dollars, we raise ours to sixty-five, et cetera.”
“The bidding is in American dollars?” Cranz asked incredulously.
Frogger nodded.
“Where do we get American dollars?”
“In Switzerland, primarily. Some in Sweden. Even some in France. We have to pay a premium for them, of course.”
“Of course,” Cranz said bitterly.
“As I was saying, the bidding goes back and forth until one side stops. Recently, frozen beef has been closing at about one hundred five dollars a hundredweight. ”
“Why does one side stop bidding?”
“We stop when it reaches the maximum Berlin has stated.”
“And the Americans?”
“Whenever they want us to have the beef at an outrageous price. They don’t really want the beef.”
“Then why do they bid on it?”
“To either keep us from getting it or to make us pay very dearly for it.”
“And they never take the beef? Win the auction?”
“Oh, yes, Herr Cranz. They take it frequently. Whenever we don’t top their bid.”
“And if they don’t want it, what do they do with it?”
“They—that is to say, Swift and Armour—corn it and tin it.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
“The meat is treated with brine and then tinned. I’m sure you’ve seen the tins, Herr Cranz.” He gestured with his hands. “One end of the tins is larger than the other.”
“I’ve seen them,” Cranz said. “Let me see if I have this straight. If the Americans win the auction of frozen beef sides, they thaw the sides and then convert the entire side—steaks, roasts, everything—into tinned corned beef?”
“Precisely, Herr Cranz.”
“Doesn’t that make the tinned beef prohibitively expensive?”
“What I believe happens, Herr Cranz, is that the Americans—there is a man at the American embassy, a man named Delojo, who is actually a lieutenant commander in the American Navy and who is the American OSS chief in Argentina—”
“The OSS gets involved in these beef auctions?”
“And in the auctions for leather and wool, everything we want and they don’t want us to have. What he does in the case of the beef is compensate Swift and Armour for the difference between what the beef is worth and what they have paid for it. In other words, if the frozen sides are worth—”
“I get the picture,” Cranz interrupted. “And what do they do with all this tinned beef?”
“They ship it to the United States in neutral bottoms, some Argentine, and then transship the majority of it to England in their convoys.”
“How do you know all this?”
“From my experience, of course. I know about the American OSS man from the late Oberst Grüner. He kept a pretty close eye on the OSS, as you can imagine.”
“And the same sort of thing, you say, goes on with wool and leather?”
“And all foodstuffs,” Frogger said. “The details of the transactions are somewhat different, you will understand, but you will see that you will be kept rather busy.”
Cranz looked at his watch.
“Why don’t we see about lunch?” he asked. “We can continue this conversation while we eat. Is there somewhere close?”
“The ABC is near. At Lavalle 545.”
“And what is the ABC?”
“Probably the best German restaurant in Buenos Aires, Herr Cranz.”
