“This is called a Knight’s Cross,” Ritter continued. “Want to hold it?” He held the decoration out for the little boy, and Antoine extended both hands, cupped together and trembling as if the medal were so fragile it might disintegrate at his slightest touch. He turned the silver-edged, iron cross over in his hands as his sister stared on, captivated.
“What’s it for?” He asked eventually.
“You’re given it when people think you’ve done something brave,” the pilot replied, trying not to sound as overtly proud of the award as he truly felt: a Knight’s Cross wasn’t something handed out to just anyone, even if by chance that someone carried the same surname as the Ritterkreuz itself.
“What did you do?”
“Antoine, a little while ago a friend of mine was in a plane crash and was badly hurt. I landed my plane to pick him up and brought him back safely home again.”
The detail of the story was not quite so simple. While still a captain and fighting in Poland during the early stages of the war, Ritter had seen his commanding officer and good friend shot down behind enemy lines. The stricken Zerstörer had crash-landed in a large field, quite close to a troop of Polish cavalry, but Ritter could see that his CO was still at that stage alive and able to drag himself from the wreckage. Without a second thought, Ritter had turned his own aircraft back and expended what little ammunition he had left on the enemy horsemen, driving them off before landing under withering machine gun fire and picking up his injured commander.
His own aircraft was raked by fire several times and damaged while taking off, Ritter himself wounded during the action, but he managed to get them both back to base and make a passable wheels-up landing. Upon discharge from a field hospital two months later he found a promotion to major and the Knight’s Cross awaiting him.
“Antoine! Michelle!” The faint cry broke the spell of the moment and the boy dropping the medal back into Ritter’s hands as his mother’s voice drifted across the fields from the farmhouse. “Oû êtes-vous, mes petits?”
“We have to go,” Michelle muttered, a little unhappy at the prospect of leaving their new-found friend so soon. “Mama needs help with the firewood.”
“What about your father?” Ritter asked, sixth sense making him sorry he’d asked the instant the question had slipped out.
“He’s dead,” the girl blurted suddenly, the statement emotionless and dry as if it held no meaning. “The Nazis killed him.” Ritter was taken aback by the answer and the tone of it, and also by the unexpected waves of guilt that washed over him.
“I – I’m sorry…” he stammered lamely.
“Michelle! Antoine! Oû êtes-vous maintenant?” The call was much more insistent now.
“Au revoir, m’sieur,” Michelle said quickly, taking her brother by the hand and turning.
“…Goodbye…” Ritter began, but the children were already gone, running headlong away across the fields with their kite, its tail and line dragging out behind them across the grass.
Their mother met them close to the far edge of the field, on the same side as the farmhouse, and although she sent them scampering on toward the buildings behind her she didn’t immediately turn and follow. For a moment she stood and regarded Ritter with a curious gaze. Although there was the better part of a hundred metres between them, the pilot was somehow convinced there was no malice or mistrust in her expression…just curiosity.
He raised his hand by way of a silent greeting, self-consciously particular in that moment to not make any gesture that might be misconstrued as a ‘Heil Hitler’. There was a moment’s pause before she acknowledged it with a simple nod and what seemed to be the impression of a smile, something that in a small way assuaged Ritter’s sudden and unexpected feelings of guilt over his being an invader in her country.
She was young, probably no more than thirty, and seemed – at that distance at least – to be quite pretty despite the poor standard of peasants’ clothing she wore. He thought of his own wife momentarily as the woman turned finally to follow her children, considering with no pleasure at all how Maria might feel were it her husband who were dead or posted as missing in action.
As he sat back down on the grass once more, he drew from his breast pocket a small booklet bound in black leather – his personal diary – along with an almost-new ball-point pen. As in many professional armed forces during wartime, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht strictly forbade the keeping of diaries for security reasons. As with many professional soldiers in those same armed forces, Ritter kept one all the same. ZG26 was just reaching the end of a solid, gruelling month of combat operations, and it had been some time since Ritter had found a moment to think a little and write something…
Saturday
June 29, 1940
This will be the first entry I’ve made this week. Finally, the unit is being stood down from full combat operations. We’ll run the occasional routine patrol as Fliegerkorps instructs and carry out training and testing flights as necessary, but we’ll no longer be required for operations at gruppe or geschwader strength. This will be a welcome relief as we’re all tired after the fighting here and could do with some rest and a chance to maintain and overhaul our aircraft. In any case, the simple fact is that there’s no more real fighting to be done for the moment anyway. Not enough, at least, to require all the zerstörergeschwadern.
Paris is an open city now and I can’t blame the Frogs for doing that. I visited there eighteen months ago with Maria and it’s a truly beautiful place. It’d be insane for the French to make us fight for it in a war they can’t possibly win. The Tommis are almost finished too, I think. A few ragtag units remain here and there, but they’re slowly being mopped up and sent off to the stalags. They fought as well as could be expected considering the superiority of our leadership, our numbers and our firepower.
I wonder now, as many of us do, whether the Führer will really set his sights on our English ‘cousins’. Already, the rumours are spreading of the impending destruction of the RAF, something Herr Göring (and we) must first do if we’re to invade.
Should the Wehrmacht land in Great Britain, there can be no doubt the English will be beaten. They can’t have anything left after Dunkerque. The reports of the numbers of prisoners taken exceed three hundred thousand men...perhaps more than the stalag system can cope with at present when added to the prisoners we’ve already taken during the campaigns in Poland, France and the Low Countries.
I don’t know when Churchill’s so-called ‘Battle of Britain’ will begin in earnest, but there’s no doubt the Wehrmacht will be triumphant. Beside the loss of manpower, Britain had lost what the Abwehr tells us must amount to practically all her tanks, vehicles and guns…all captured on French beaches. Although they’d deny it now, there were many Wehrmacht generals who didn’t believe Germany was capable of conquering France. The Führer has proven them wrong.
He sighed sadly and ceased writing momentarily as he thought of what Michelle had said, returning the Knight’s Cross to its resting place about his neck and reseating his cap. Suddenly, even though he knew it would seem unpatriotic to an unexpected reader, he continued to write with a renewed vigour.
Today I met the children who live in the farmhouse across the fields. Their father is dead – I quote – “the Nazis killed him.” As I think of this I’m reminded of things that perhaps I should record in these pages. These are things that should be remembered for others, should men like myself fall in combat...or by other means.
There are rumours spreading of ‘massacres’ by some of the more fanatical units of the SS. I’ve not witnessed anything of these myself, but I’ve spoken to army officers at a number of messes, particularly recently, who claim they have. One told of a group of British prisoners murdered near Wormhoudt in Belgium, a month ago.
I’m an oberstleutnant of the Luftwaffe. I’m the commanding officer of a geschwader. At the fliegerschülen we were taught that there were certain laws and ideals that were inviolate. As an officer o
f the Wehrmacht it’s essential to obey the orders of a superior to the utmost: this is the essence of military discipline. Of equal importance however is honour. If the orders given are just then the two concepts shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
As much as any German soldier, I’m product of Versailles and our humiliation at the hands of that enemy alliance and their ‘stab in the back’. It’s not my place to question the orders of my superiors. Still, could there be something awry here, for are there not ‘codes’ of war that must be followed?
I love and respect our Führer as greatly as any man in the service of The Reich. This one, great man has brought us out of the despondency of Weimar and into a new age of prosperity. Grossdeutschland will become a nation envied by its peers. Yet I don’t understand what the Führer means by this idea of lebensraum. What is the value of this ‘living space’ for these ‘Aryan’ peoples? What is its value if these rumours are true?
Ritter closed the booklet and glanced up as a Junkers tri-motor transport spluttered past overhead, turning on to a landing approach. He silently pondered the words that he’d written, the ramifications and complexity of it all a little more than he could come to terms with through simple military logic and thinking. These rumours – and others – were things that didn’t bear thinking of…
Could these things be true…?
2.
A Gathering of Eagles
Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ
Amiens, Northern France
Saturday
June 29, 1940
A mansion that had been a home for French royalty during the 18th century lay among the trees and sweeping lawns of a country estate a few kilometres west of the town of Amiens. Following the Revolution it had lain empty and in disrepair for some years to be subsequently acquired by a wealthy developer and landowner during the 1850s and restored to its original splendour. A young industrialist purchased it as a home for his new family following the Great Depression, only to be sent fleeing across the Channel eight years later as the Wehrmacht steamrolled across the French countryside, smashing all before it.
In this fashion, the mansion came under the control of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, which deemed it a perfect place for the establishment of a headquarters for their campaigns in the west. Although technically it was close enough – at roughly 80 kilometres or so from the French coast – to still be under threat of enemy air attack by the RAF, the truth of the matter was that Luftwaffe air superiority over mainland Europe was such there was really no creditable danger whatsoever.
The property on which the huge, two-storey home was situated covered dozens of hectares of rolling fields and forest untouched by the rigours of war, although a series of large tank battles had occurred the month before at nearby Arras. The main building itself was a massive affair of stone and brick with towering marble pillars and expansive bay windows on both floors. Flowing red banners adorned with the ubiquitous swastika hung from the tall pillars bracketing the main entrance, while a multitude of ‘Christmas tree’ arrays of communications antennae rose from the rooftops. The building was still being fitted out for operations, and construction workers and equipment were in abundance as modifications and additions were made daily.
Outbuildings that had once housed a legion of servants now provided reasonable comfort to a company of panzer grenadiers while a pair of medium panzers and a trio of armoured cars stood guard both at the front and rear of the house in the unlikely event of an attack. Similarly, a battery of 88mm flak guns was positioned in the fields about the house and outbuildings, each cluster of weapons complemented by a Wirbelwind self-propelled AA gun mounting a quartet of powerful 23mm cannon. Half a kilometre away, the large, bulky shape of a specially-fitted Arado T-1A Gigant transport aircraft lay dormant in the middle of a long, level field at the front of the house awaiting any errand.
The main briefing and conference area had once been a ballroom, and its ornate chandeliers and beautifully polished floors stood mute witness to its former glory. Swastikas were paraded about in various forms, as were Nazi eagle statuettes and a large portrait of The Führer against the rear wall. Seating for a dozen in the centre of the room surrounded a large, rectangular table, and a second smaller, ovoid table held a variety of maps and reports at the far end of the room opposite a pair of large double doors that were its only entrance, accompanied by a large projector screen mounted to the nearest wall.
Sitting alone at that table was Kurt Reuters, Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. A professional career soldier, he’d served the various armed forces of Germany for sixty of his eighty-two years. Fit and strong for his age, he was a tall man who wore his grey hair cropped short, usually beneath an officer’s peaked cap that at that moment rested on the table beside him. He’d served that particular German Army – the Wehrmacht – for six years and had been the Commander-in-Chief of the OKW (ultimately under the command of the Führer, of course) for the last two.
It’d been his invasion plans that had taken the German war machine sweeping through Poland. It’d also been his plans that had so quickly and devastatingly blasted aside the Allied forces in France and the Low Countries and had neutralised Norway as a potential threat (not to mention the ‘incidental’ benefit of captured Norwegian air and naval bases and securing vital Scandinavian raw materials). Just four weeks earlier, General Lord Gort had surrendered the remains of the British Expeditionary Force on the beaches at Dunkirk, to all intents and purposes signalling the end of the Battle of France (although some pockets of local resistance had fought on for a week or more). So pleased was the Führer that he’d created a special new rank for this able and talented man – the rank of Reichsmarschall.
As such, Reuters’ position was now officially higher than that of any other member of the German Armed Forces. As far as actual command went, Adolf Hitler had also placed the tactical command of the front-line combat units of the Waffen-SS under his control, although administratively they were still attached to the Schutzstaffeln and therefore under the oversight of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. As OdW (Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht) Reuters was answerable only to Adolf Hitler himself and was the relative equal (although never in their eyes) of Deputy Führer Hess and Martin Bormann, the Nazi Party Secretary.
The reports he poured over that evening were to do with armaments production, forwarded personally to him at his request by Armaments Minister Albert Speer. It wasn’t technically an area the Reichsmarschall had jurisdiction over but the pair had developed a close working relationship over the last few years. Speer – originally Hitler’s architect – had replaced Fritz Todt as Minister for Armaments at Reuters’ specific request and the man had proven himself an unorthodox ‘natural’ at the post. Armaments were something in which Reuters was keenly interested: the historical lessons of the failures in Germany’s production base – learned in hindsight – were clear and vitally important in the man’s mind.
Germany was a nation that had never fully geared up for war until it was far too late. Chaotic lack of standardisation and a lack of unity in general between the army, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and Waffen-SS, along with the attendant political infighting, power squabbles and back-biting, had contributed significantly to Germany losing a world war. As a direct result of that, his homeland had suffered devastation and deprivation at the hands of brutal and uncaring enemies and there was no way Reuters would allow that to happen again. He and his personal staff had worked for years to ensure the technical and numerical superiority of the Wehrmacht, and with the power at Reuters’ command he was able to make sure many potential problems were nipped in the bud before they could take root and flourish.
This time, he thought darkly as he considered the issue, the fate of Grossdeutschland will be very different!
There was a knock at the door, followed quickly by the entry of his personal assistant and close personal friend, Generalleutnant Albert Schiller. Possessed of a keen eye, sharp wit and a fine, analytical mind, the fort
y-five year old had worked by Reuters’ side for more than twenty years.
“Good evening, Albert…” Reuters acknowledged genially, looking up with a smile as the other man approached “…just back from Berlin?”
“Touched down about an hour ago,” Schiller replied with a faint smirk. “Decided to pick up something to eat at the mess before I came to see you – didn’t want my glorious leader to think I was wasting away…”
“As long as you’re bitching about something, I’ll know you’re fine,” Reuters countered with a grin, taking the humour in the manner it was meant. “That bloody goulash and black bread again?” He winced honestly as his friend nodded in grim confirmation. “I think it’s about time we had a word to the catering corps about getting some decent chefs in here!” It was always the little things, Reuters added silently as Schiller nodded again, this time fervently, and drew up a high-backed wooden chair to sit opposite his commander, …always the little things that took the longest to organise.
“How’s production going?” Schiller inquired, noting the reports Reuters was studying. “…Speer getting everything up to speed?”
“Well enough, under the circumstances,” Reuters answered with a shrug that was mostly non-committal. “…Far better than Todt ever managed, to be certain, but when can a soldier ever be happy about how many weapons his factories give him?” He gave an ironic smile as he considered the massive changes moving to a full war footing had wrought upon German industry. “At least we’re seeing some real war production in the factories for a change…enough to see us starting to run short on some raw materials like nickel and tungsten now, although we’ve enough of a stockpile to see us through our plans in the West.” He paused and sighed softly, more concern showing on his face now as he considered exactly how short they actually were on some of those strategic materials, adding, mostly to himself… “It’d better be enough…!” He roused himself once more and coaxed a more optimistic expression back to his features. “…The first of our Panther divisions should be fully equipped and trained up by the middle of next month – the 3rd SS will have that honour in deference to keeping the esteemed Reichsführer happy - and sturmgewehr production is twenty percent above predictions, which is excellent. There should be enough new rifles and machine pistols to equip the whole theatre by the end of July – so long as they can get enough of the new bloody rifle ammunition out, we’ll be fine…”
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 4
