Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  Himmler took control of the conversation. “Yes, it’s bad, and yes, it’s unbelievable. But it happened. Your friend Rommel has surrendered Armeegruppe B to the Allies. Fortunately, not all units in Armeegruppe B are in agreement. I’ve already heard from your old friend Peiper in the Leibstandarte. He’s going to make sure that Sixth Panzer Army, at least, doesn’t surrender.”

  “But what about Guderian? Surely he won’t surrender.”

  “That’s right. He may try, but if he does, he won’t live long enough to pull out a white flag.”

  Dietrich was shocked. “But—Guderian? How can you even doubt him?”

  “Because that snake Rommel has his hooks into him. Those two may be rivals, but they think alike in lots of ways. Rommel’s surrender isn’t a surrender of a defeated and destroyed force, it’s a strategic move to undermine my government. We know quite well that he was in league with the murderers of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he was their choice to become chancellor, if you can believe it! Chancellor! After all that the Third Reich did for that man, after all the kindness and personal attention showered upon him by our late führer, he was willing to be part of the conspiracy of assassins!”

  Dietrich was silent, not only because of the shocking accusations, but also because he was aware personally that they were not altogether false. He had also been swayed by Rommel’s charisma and intelligence, and had told Rommel that he was willing to place himself under the Desert Fox’s orders, before Rommel had been wounded the previous summer. With a potential military coup averted, the conspirators resorted to assassination. A cowardly act, the assassination. Even Dietrich realized that something drastic had to be done in response to Germany’s grave situation, but an act of assassination was not the right thing. Even now, he could hardly believe that Adolf Hitler was really dead.

  Himmler continued, his passion rising as he talked. “I gave personal orders to Peiper to ensure that command of Sixth Panzer Army remained utterly loyal. Sepp, I want you to take back command and at once, not only of Sixth Panzer Army but also whatever elements of Fifth you can reach. I’m appointing Mödel as Commander-in-Chief West.”

  “Jawohl, mein Führer!” Dietrich was overwhelmed by the assignment, but he had been feeling overwhelmed by his assignments for a good many years now. He would do his best, as he always did, and hoped it would be good enough.

  Himmler opened a folder on his desk. “Here is the order of battle for all forces in Operation Fuchs am Rhein. I want to review them to determine which we’ll be able to keep and which we must assume will surrender.”

  Dietrich looked at the long list. Fortunately, he knew many of the officers personally, and could make recommendations based on that knowledge. He looked at Himmler, a man he used to refer to as “the Reichsheini,” and thought: He is all we have left.

  He bent to the study of the list, moving his lips as he sounded out the words. “If Sixth Panzer Army command does not itself surrender, I am confident that the subordinate units will not surrender unless their military position appears hopeless. Right now, they are not threatened, and have a clear route back toward the Fatherland. I think we need to fortify the Rhine crossings, especially those held only by the Volkssturm currently.”

  “Good thinking. Now, how about Fifth Panzer Army? Can any of those units be saved?”

  He squinted at the list, mumbled to himself, and ran a finger down the column. “Hmm—Fifth Panzer Army has almost no SS units in it,” he observed.

  “Indeed. Quite suspicious of our Desert Fox, don’t you think? Perhaps this is evidence that he knew all along of his own intent to surrender.” Himmler scowled at the treachery. “What about Seventh Army?”

  “Brandenberger?” General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger commanded Seventh Army, which had been responsible merely for protecting the left flank of the advance. “He’s a reliable man, but his army is between Fifth Panzer Army and the Americans to the south—Patton’s men, I think. That doesn’t look too good.”

  Himmler glowered at the news. The new führer, Dietrich observed, didn’t have the military skills or vision of Adolf Hitler, but he did have a sense of political intrigue and loyalty games, appropriate to the head of the secret police. “We’ll call him at once to see what can be arranged. There is one more thing, Sepp.”

  “Jawohl, mein Führer?”

  “I want to see if we can neutralize more of this threat. How about a counterattack on Armeegruppe B headquarters?”

  “You mean, attack Rommel?”

  “Certainly. He’s proven himself a traitor, the penalty for treason is death, and if his command is terminated, perhaps more of Fifth Panzer Army will see the light of reason and return to their sworn duties.”

  That thought made Dietrich pause. An attack against Rommel himself was nearly inconceivable. Dietrich regarded the Desert Fox’s military genius as nearly magical and certainly incomprehensible. To attack him … “I will, of course, follow the führer’s orders.”

  “Very good,” replied Himmler. “Kampfgruppe Peiper’s original mission, if I recall the battle plans, was to be first across the Meuse in the Sixth Army area of operations, correct?”

  Dietrich had to concentrate for a moment before replying, “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “And he is a ferocious fighter, yes?”

  “That he is.” Dietrich nodded in agreement. “Ferocious” was a good word to describe Jochen Peiper. When there was a difficult objective to be reduced, Peiper had been his first choice on several occasions. He was a fury when unleashed. “If anyone can face up to Rommel, it would be Kampfgruppe Peiper.”

  “And it’s your old division that will get the honor,” Himmler said with an insinuating grin.

  The old soldier straightened up. “If the honor goes to anyone, it should go to Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. It’s only appropriate.”

  “And I agree fully,” replied the führer. “I’ve given the order already. I don’t mean to tread on your prerogatives, but you’ve just now been given the command. And so, Sepp, I want you to get to Sixth Panzer Army as soon as you possibly can to straighten out at least part of this unholy mess. I have a meeting shortly with OKW, and I intend to find out which other potential traitors I have in my ranks.” The cold look in Himmler’s eye made the battle-hardened veteran feel a slight chill. What he felt, the Wehrmacht high command would shortly feel also.

  “Very well, mein Führer. I will keep in contact with you and report as soon as I have any news.”

  “The hopes of the Third Reich travel with you,” Himmler said in final dismissal. Dietrich saluted and left the room.

  KREMLIN, MOSCOW, USSR, 1955 HOURS GMT

  Major Alexis Petrovich Krigoff felt a tingling of nervousness in his belly—not quite fear, but instead a clear understanding of the stakes involved in this imminent meeting with the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He had been summoned back to the Kremlin a few hours ago, with no indication of why he was to be here, and he knew that this could be either very good or very bad.

  Only yesterday Krigoff had been a young lieutenant laboring anonymously in the bureaucracy of Red Army headquarters. A chance to carry a message to Chairman Stalin, combined with Krigoff’s quick-thinking interpretation and the audacious spin he had placed on that message, had resulted in a promotion, jumping over two grades. Then, today, after he had already returned to his plain room in the officers’ barracks near the Kremlin, had come the messenger with the invitation: Stalin wanted to see him again, tonight. Krigoff understood all too well that a single misstep could have placed him in the bowels of Lubyanka Square—as the headquarters of the NKVD, the Soviet security agency, was commonly referred to. But that was life at the apex of the Soviet Union—and a small price to pay for being at the glorious center of power.

  The square-faced woman, a captain who had lost a foot at Stalingrad and now served as Stalin’s appointment secretary, studied him dispassionately as he handed her the handwritten note.

  “You may go into the
anteroom, Comrade Major,” she said briskly. “The chairman will see you shortly.”

  He entered the large chamber, with two bright hammer-and-sickle banners hanging from opposite walls, but he was too nervous to take a seat on any of the cushioned chairs placed around the fringes of the room. The tall windows were screened with blackout curtains, so he could not take the view—which in any event would have been minimal in this city darkened by war and winter’s night—so he merely strolled around, forcing his steps to slow. Pausing before a bust of the chairman, he admired the manly mustache, could even imagine the genial twinkle in those stony eyes.

  The door behind him opened and he twitched nervously, then drew a breath and turned slowly. Emerging from the inner office was not the sturdy, masculine figure he had expected to see, but rather a woman in trousers and a plain jacket. Her raven hair was cut short, and the most dramatic feature about her appearance was the patch that covered her left eye. The visible eye was a very deep blue. Her face was free of cosmetics, but her skin was milky and soft. Her lips were full. The trousers and military-cut jacket made it difficult to tell what her figure was like, but she was tall and slim.

  “Comrade Major,” she said politely. “I am to tell you that the chairman will summon you within a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, Comrade,” he said, with a discreet nod of his head. He smiled his most charming smile.

  She took a step toward the outer door, then stopped and turned to approach the marble bust. “It is a good likeness,” she suggested. “Though mere stone cannot capture his vitality, his spirit.”

  Krigoff nodded again. “I was thinking much the same thing,” he said, but his eyes were on the woman. He was intrigued by this person, who wore civilian clothes but spoke with fond familiarity about their great national leader. “Have you met the chairman often?” he asked.

  She shook her head, a shy smile curving her full lips. “Just today,” she said. She hesitated a moment, then held out her hand to show him the small silver medal. “I am honored to say that he awarded me with the People’s Medallion.”

  Krigoff was impressed; the award was one of the highest nonmilitary medals in the Soviet hierarchy. “Congratulations,” he said sincerely. “You must have performed valiant service in the name of Mother Russia.” He took her open hand in his and lifted the medal up to get a better look at it. “What was the nature of your heroism, if I may ask?”

  She shook her head dismissively, another gesture that he found appealing, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “It was a small thing, only—nothing compared to the sacrifices made by the men and women who wear the uniform of the Red Army.”

  Krigoff, who had never been within twenty miles of a front line, waved away the compliment even as he felt a flush of pride. “No, please, I would like to know,” he said encouragingly.

  Her hand went to the patch over her eye, a self-conscious motion, as she drew a breath. “I was merely a camera operator—assigned to a documentary project. We were filming a movie called One Day of War. Many of my colleagues were killed as we tried to capture the heroism of the soldiers. I was wounded, but survived … . I accepted this medal on behalf of those who lost their lives.”

  “The work of the film industry has been a great comfort and encouragement to our people during the Great Patriotic War,” Krigoff said in a sincere voice. “I have been privileged to see many of these great works. I am sorry to admit, though I have heard of One Day of War I have yet to see it. But I shall make it a point of doing so, especially because I will think of its camera operator.”

  “You are too kind, Major,” she said with that shy smile.

  Krigoff smiled in a self-deprecating manner. “There is a place in Gorky Park,” he noted. “A bluff above the River Moskva, from where one can see the towers of the Kremlin and so much of this great city. I go there often, to reflect upon the greatness of our people, and the immensity of the task before us. The next time I am there, I shall share a moment of reflection for those of you who have risked your lives to uplift the spirits of our great people.”

  “Comrade Major, I would be honored if you did.” She straightened as if a soldier coming to attention.

  “Please,” he said. “My name is Krigoff, Alexis Petrovich. Alyosha to friends, Comrade … ?”

  “Mine is Koninin,” she replied. “Paulina Arkadyevna.”

  Krigoff was eager to say something else, to continue this conversation, when the inner door of the waiting room was pulled open and he looked up to see the genial, avuncular face of the chairman himself. Immediately the woman was forgotten.

  “Ah, Alexis Petrovich,” said Stalin, ignoring Paulina. “Please, come in!”

  Krigoff hastened to obey, and moments later he was shaking the chairman’s strong hand, then stammering his acceptance to the glass of vodka that Stalin offered him, having poured two as soon as he had led his visitor into the spacious inner office.

  “To the confusion of our enemies!” toasted the leader of the Soviet Union, his voice underlain by an easy chuckle.

  Krigoff drank, and as the clear liquid ignited its fire over his tongue and down his throat he found that he was breathing a little easier. Stalin extended the bottle and the major reflexively held up his glass for a refill, noting that the chairman had not yet touched his own glass.

  “That was good insight you showed yesterday, when you perceived how Rommel’s surrender would play into the hands of my own policies,” remarked the chairman, idly waving his hand toward a seat. Alyosha sat across from the great desk, and watched as Stalin took a sip from his vodka and then took his own chair, setting the bottle on the wooden surface between them. Another sip of the vodka sent tongues of fire through Krigoff’s belly, and he allowed the compliment to warm him further.

  “I have a question for you,” said Stalin, reaching across with the bottle to refill the glass that was, again, nearly empty. “Please, take your time—finish your drink!—and then give me your best reply.”

  Alarms were going off in Krigoff’s subconscious, and he nervously quaffed the clear liquid, which barely even burned his throat anymore. An important question from Stalin would most certainly require a careful answer. The warmth was spreading through his belly, and into the fringes of his mind, and he squinted, focusing on what the great man was saying to him.

  “What do you think the Nazi government will do now, in reaction to Rommel’s treachery?” asked Stalin.

  Krigoff had no idea, but he knew he couldn’t admit this. Frantically he grasped at thoughts, whatever he knew of Nazis, and fascism, and Himmler. Somehow these threads wove themselves together, until there seemed to be only one logical answer.

  “They will keep fighting, Comrade Chairman—at least, those Nazis in the SS and the other fanatical elements. Their strength will be weakened by the defection of Rommel’s troops, but not broken entirely.”

  Stalin looked at him, his eyes twinkling merrily. Mutely he accepted another drink, as the chairman at last topped off his own glass, which was only half empty.

  “I believe you are correct, Comrade Major. You display the kind of quick-thinking courage that I like to see in my officers, and most especially in my commissars. I commend you.”

  “Th-Thank you, Comrade Chairman!” stammered Krigoff, flushing with pleasure.

  “You will hear from me, or perhaps from Comrade Bulganin, regarding an assignment,” said Stalin, who was now walking the major to the door—though Krigoff couldn’t exactly remember standing up. “A man of your talents has clear uses to Mother Russia, and those uses will not be put to waste.” A strong hand came down on his shoulder, and the officer felt a squeezing pressure that seemed genuinely affectionate. “Good night, Alexis Petrovich—and thank you.”

  “Thank you, Comrade Chairman!” declared the major. As he made his way out of the anteroom, and through the wide halls of the Kremlin, it seemed as though his feet were some distance off the floor, and his head might be in danger of rising to the lofty ceilings.
/>   ARMEEGRUPPE B HEADQUARTERS, DINANT, 1959 HOURS GMT

  Chuck Porter, Paris Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, ex-prisoner of war, and currently finishing a special role as Rommel’s personal translator, was an Underwood-typewriter man, and the German-made Olympia Schreibmaschine he’d been able to scrounge felt different, awkward. The umlaut key didn’t have a space advance, for instance. And while it was nice to type a real umlaut rather than backspace and put quote marks over the vowel, it wasn’t as if he could teletype an umlaut when sending the story over the wire.

  He was just superstitious enough to want the very best typewriter to help him write what he knew was a sure Pulitzer story, the most important story of the war, the story of Rommel’s surrender—a story in which he’d actually played a part.

  He had just finished reopening the AP Paris bureau, closed upon the German occupation of Paris, when he had driven north into Belgium to cover U.S. forces there. He’d started to staff up the office but didn’t have everyone he needed in place, so he used that as an excuse to get out of the office and do some reporting himself.

  Captured during the opening days of the Fuchs am Rhein offensive, Porter was singled out by Oberst von Reinhardt for his reporter status and knowledge of the German language and transferred to Armeegruppe B headquarters. Upon the collapse of the final bridge at Dinant, he was a witness to Rommel’s portentous decision to surrender his army group to the Allies. In fact, he personally had made the telephone call to Nineteenth Armored Division HQ to put Rommel in touch with General Henry Wakefield, and shortly thereafter, with Patton himself. Reporters were supposed to cover news, not make it, but in this case it just worked out differently.

  Porter rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter and began pecking away, marshaling his thoughts as he strove to turn them into the right words for this incredible story. A neat sheaf of pages sat beside the typewriter—several different story pieces all ready for transmission, just as soon as he could arrange to get to a teletype.