Cioma Schonhaus was number one on the Third Reich’s most wanted list.
A master forger, he had helped hundreds of Jews escape Nazi death camps by crafting fake IDs widely acknowledged to be almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
But, nearly 80 years on – unlike the stories of Oskar Schindler and Anne Frank – his name is almost unknown, beyond Germany and Switzerland, where he eventually settled.
A new book, Two Wheels to Freedom, based on exclusive interviews with Cioma before he died – reveals how he hid in plain sight of the Gestapo, partying alongside soldiers and enjoying a colorful love life, before being forced into a daring escape against all odds.
The bicycle was Cioma’s lifeline: his only chance to get out of Nazi Germany. No one had done this before, and almost everyone Cioma knew – his parents, most of his relatives, and many of his friends – were dead now: black ashes floating from tall chimneys set in ‘camps’ no one talked about, or emaciated bodies thrown into mass graves.
Cioma Schonhaus on a bike with his son Michael in 1955 – clearly cycling 600 miles to freedom hadn’t put him off two-wheeled transport
The 20-year-old had been hiding in plain sight in Berlin, enjoying a string of girlfriends, and dining at swanky restaurants in Hitler’s favorite hotels
Unlike so many other Jews, Cioma chose not to hide – in a shed or a basement, or an attic. Exuberant and charming, he refused to be bottled up, separate from life. For Cioma, surviving meant making himself look like he belonged wherever he was, and acting so confident that no one could guess he was among the hunted.
The 20-year-old had been hiding in plain sight in Berlin for the last year, faking IDs for other Jews, sabotaging weapons in the munitions factory where he worked, enjoying a string of girlfriends, and dining at swanky restaurants in Hitler’s favorite hotels.
But, as, one by one, his closest friends were arrested, he knew he’d be next: the Gestapo had been searching for him for the entire summer of 1943.
Now he had to get out – and he wasn’t sure where to go. He couldn’t go north in the sailboat he’d bought the previous spring: certain rivers could take him to the North Sea though once there towering waves, or German patrol boats, would do him in.
He couldn’t cross into France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland, Austria, or Denmark: all bordering Germany, all conquered by Germany.
Neutral Switzerland was his only choice, and not a good one. Switzerland was sending Jews back to Germany – 27,000, by the end of the war – and Germany was shooting those who got too close to the border.
Fugitives drowned if they tried to swim across Lake Constance, the massive lake separating Germany and Switzerland. And those who got near the border but no further often killed themselves. An elderly couple took cyanide in a train station in Singen, just four miles from the Swiss border, rather than be captured by the Nazis. They were found with their arms around each other, their love intact.
Cioma Schonhaus hid a map and other documents in a pouch he hung around his neck
The only forgery by Cioma that exists, this was ‘issued’ to Heinz Geutzlaff, aka Kurt Hirschfeldt, who survived the war largely thanks to Cioma’s efforts
Tintentod was liquid ink bleach that Cioma used to erase names on IDs – he then filled in the space with the fake name of its new recipient
Undaunted by these horror stories, Cioma bought a bike on the black market for 3,000 Reichmarks. No one had ever tried cycling out of Nazi Germany, but he might as well be the first.
He armed himself with maps, and a copy of ‘From the Kaiserhof to the Chancellery’ by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief. Anyone who found that in Cioma’s backpack would have a hard time suspecting he was one of the most wanted men in Germany.
In the bike’s hollow handlebars, he hid fake ‘leave of absence’ papers in case anyone wondered why this fit young man wasn’t in the army. It was simple, the papers stated. Essential to the war effort, Cioma worked in a munitions factory and was now on a well-deserved vacation.
A small pouch dangling from his neck held his fake ID. It was made out to Hans Bruck, Cioma’s nom de bike ride.
He set out on September 4, 1943, not sure he’d even get beyond the city limits. It was one of the most dangerous, most audacious bike rides of the 20th century. For the next four and a half weeks, the bike would be his best friend. He needed one: you don’t trust strangers with the journey of your life.
The towns Cioma passed through on his journey were the sites of some of the worst anti-Semitic outbursts in German history. Beelitz, about 12 miles south of Berlin, had burned its entire Jewish population alive in 1243 for allegedly desecrating communion wafers.
Seventy miles down the road, Cioma stayed in Wittenberg, home of Martin Luther’s Reformation. Luther was a vicious anti-Semite and Wittenberg boasts a vile, racist 200-year-old bas relief on the side of a church.
Unaware of Wittenberg’s early role in Nazism, Cioma slept soundly in a hotel overlooking the town square that first night. He needed his rest. Fear, excitement – and the flatness of the terrain – meant he’d made much faster progress than expected.
However, ahead of him lay steep, challenging hills, while cobbled roads would would slow him down and tire him out.
And, of course, everywhere he went, he risked someone finding out who, and what, he was.
A few days into his journey, a policeman waved him down. Cioma feared the worst – but he was simply being warned to ride in a bike lane, not on the road itself.
At Halle, he checked into a hotel, freshened up with a shower and a clean shirt, then walked straight into a dining room full of German militia.
Three soldiers who made room for Cioma at their table were curious: why hadn’t he been drafted, they asked him.
He told them he worked in a munitions factory, so had been deferred.
‘Good for you,’ the soldiers grumbled, ‘but sooner or later, the army will catch up with you.’
No, Cioma said. His lungs were in such bad shape that he wasn’t army material.
With that, the four tablemates found something else to talk about and spent the rest of the evening in amiable conversation – though Cioma never completely let his guard down. His life was on the line.
Monday, September 5, was more relaxing – bright and warm – and Cioma got an early start to enjoy it, relieved he was putting those chatty soldiers behind him.
He pedaled past castles high on mountain tops and the Salle River off to one side of the road. The day had gotten hotter, and the cycling was exhausting – so the cool currents of the Salle proved irresistible.
Laying his bike down on the grassy slope of the river, he did what many young Germans did in those days: he went skinny-dipping. But if he’d ever had a rash impulse, this was it. Had the girls who were gardening on the other side of the river been any closer – and if they’d known what lacking a foreskin meant, the police would have been there in no time.
One of first towns Cioma cycled through was Beelitz, where the entire Jewish population had been burned alive in 1243
After leaving the town of Halle, Cioma made the risky move of skinny dipping in the river – it could have been his undoing
At Ohningen, on the banks of Lake Constance, Cioma hoped to throw himself on the mercy of a random family
Luckily for Cioma, the girls were young, his genitals were mostly hidden underwater, and soon he biked away safely, blurring his way past towns and churches, nodding at men and women in villages and small cities. They were, no doubt, pleased to see this young German – the future of their beloved Reich – enjoying the land and its streams and rivers, its strudels, sausages and potato dumplings.
He spent a few days in Stuttgart, with a rare ally – a minister who’d obtained some of his sought-after forgeries back in Berlin. The word in the anti-Nazi underground was that Cioma’s IDs were indistinguishable from the real thing. They were right.
The hills got steeper and longer, and the Black Forest got darker and more mysterious, and Cioma kept biking, watching his pace and guarding his energy.
Outside of Lindau, a town along Lake Constance, a soldier younger than Cioma flagged him down. Cioma pulled his ID from the pouch around his neck and showed it to the kid. With a friendly ‘Carry on,’ Cioma was waved through, suddenly relieved of the tension that had been building since he’d left Berlin. If the Nazis were relying on teenagers to keep their country safe, he thought, they weren’t the supermen they claimed to be.
Rounding the eastern end of Lake Constance, Cioma headed to Feldkirch, an Austrian city where a friend had assured him he could board a train as it slowly pulled out of the station with coal bound for Switzerland.
Planting himself on a hillside overlooking the train, he watched for hours as car after car filled up with coal, then he cursed as the train sped by him, too fast to climb aboard. It would be impossible to get into Switzerland this way – he’d have to come up with an alternative plan.
He turned back toward Lake Constance, and decided his best bet was to throw himself on the mercy of a random family in Ohningen, a town right on the Swiss border: surely they’d help someone as young and innocent-looking as Cioma?
However, the family he chose – the Schmidts – were disinclined to get involved, not when they had German soldiers barracked in their barn next door.
Undeterred, Cioma walked on and soon spotted a Swiss flag fluttering at the bottom of a hill on the Schmidts’ property – on the other side of a small stream.
Rolling his bike down the hill, he pushed it into some bushes and jumped into the stream. A few minutes later, he was in Switzerland, wet but jubilant. The date was October 3, five days after his 21st birthday.
Cioma (far left) was held in a Swiss refugee camp and interrogated by police for several days
Cioma’s Swiss ID from 1944, the year after his audacious escape
Cioma remained in Switzerland for the rest of his life, marrying twice, and fathering four sons. He’s pictured with his first wife Rosmarie-Susann, whom he divorced in 1956
He died in 2015, at the age of 92 – and often told visitors about his bike ride, 600 miles through Nazi Germany to Switzerland
Cioma’s luck and timing held during the last few days of his bike ride. On September 30, German police had issued an alert. Had all of the details been correct – and if the police had moved faster – they might have caught Cioma.
But it was replete with errors: it said he was carrying a postal ID, not an army ID; called him ‘Samson’ though no one had called him that since he was a little boy; and claimed he was traveling under the name of ‘Peter Schonhaus’ not ‘Hans Bruck’.
Worse, the bulletin was issued only three days before Cioma entered Switzerland.
Cioma had his final stroke of luck his last night in Germany. Awakened by a loud knock at 4am, he opened the door of his hotel room to face a cop who demanded to see his papers. Glancing at Cioma’s (fake) ID, the cop shouted ‘Heil, Hitler’ and knocked on the next door, leaving one of the most wanted men in Germany to get a few more hours’ sleep.
Once in Switzerland, police interrogated him for several days, convinced he might be a German spy or a deserter from the army.
Frustrated that he had been through so much, yet was still being treated with suspicion, Cioma handed the police a phone number he’d been given by anti-Nazi Christians in Berlin. The police called Karl Barth, one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Barth had heard about Cioma from friends in Germany and vouched for him.
Cioma remained in Switzerland for the rest of his life, enjoying a career as a graphic artist, marrying twice, fathering four sons, and often telling visitors about his bike ride – 600 miles through deepest, darkest Nazi Germany to Switzerland: the only person to bike his way out of the Third Reich.
He died in 2015, at the age of 92.
Two Wheels to Freedom: The Story of a Young Jew, Wartime Resistance, and a Daring Escape by Arthur J Magida is published by Pegasus Books
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