Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  Lukas looked at Braun. “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to ask them.”

  “Ask them what? If we can join the most elite panzer division? Fat chance.”

  “Hey—you wanted an officer who wasn’t a chickenshit with his head up his ass. You think that guy qualifies?” He pointed to the sidewalk, where a tall SS officer with his face swathed in bandages and the skeleton key insignia on his unit patch stood, apparently waiting for somebody. There was a panzer nearby with command markings. Lukas braked the truck to a stop.

  “Wait—Lukas, are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Lukas turned, the door half open. “Braun, what’s the worst that can happen? He tells me to go fuck myself, then we look for someone else.”

  Braun shook his head. “You’re braver than I am.”

  Lukas smiled. “That’s why I’m the boss.” He opened the door the rest of the way and jumped lightly to the ground. His legs were a little wobbly from the long ride. He looked down at his sadly wrinkled and dirty uniform coat and brushed at it futilely for a minute, then walked up to the officer. His nervousness increased as he got closer. He looked back at Braun in the truck, then kept going. He couldn’t turn back with Braun watching. The officer turned to look his way, and Lukas snapped to attention, his arm shooting out in the proper salute. “Sieg heil!” he said, and then “Excuse me please, sir—”

  The officer looked at him with ill-concealed amusement, and returned the salute in a more casual manner. “Yeah, kid, what is it?”

  “Excuse me please, sir, we come from the Eighteenth Volksgrenadier Division in Fifth Panzer Army—”

  “Yeah? And what are you, their advance guard?”

  “No, sir. You see, the Eighteenth surrendered, and we decided not to surrender with it.”

  “Oh,” said the officer, this time with a bit more interest. “You deserted, then?”

  Lukas was indignant. “No, sir! The first duty of any prisoner of war is to escape and return to his own side!” he snapped out in a formal parade-ground voice.

  The officer laughed. “At ease, son. You said ‘we.’ Those your buddies in the truck?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Lukas, still carefully formal. “About twenty of us.”

  “And you’re the leader?” inquired the officer.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Lukas. “Oberschütze Lukas Vogel, at your service, sir!” He heil-Hitlered again, to which the officer replied with a wave of his hand.

  “Well, Oberschütze Lukas Vogel, I’m SS-Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper.”

  Lukas’ eyes grew wide. “Th-This is a great honor, sir! To-to meet the hero of the Mscha, I-I mean, sir.” He couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he heil-Hitlered yet again.

  Peiper’s response was a wave even more casual, but the officer was smiling. “Relax, son. I don’t bite—fellow Germans, anyway.”

  Lukas was still tongue-tied. Trying to work up the nerve to ask if he could join the LSSAH, he was even more discomfited to see a man in a gray SS uniform sporting the insignia of an SS-Obergruppenführer, accompanied by another officer who appeared to be his aide-de-camp. He’d never even seen a general officer in the flesh, much less had one standing next to him.

  Peiper smiled as he said, “Obergruppenführer Dietrich, may I present Oberschütze … Vogel, was it?”

  Lukas nodded dumbly. He put out his hand once again in a Hitlerian salute, but no words issued from his mouth. He was in the presence of Sepp Dietrich, a personal friend of the führer’s himself, a hero with roots in the earliest days of the Nazi movement. He felt woozy, as if he were going to faint.

  Amused by Lukas’ obvious discomfort, Peiper went on. “He was with the Eighteenth Volksgrenadiers when they decided to join Rommel’s treason. He recruited some other soldiers and led them here.”

  “Well, good work, good work,” said Dietrich heartily. “Glad you made it out safely. Bring some men with you, did you?”

  Finally Lukas managed to squeak out a reply. “Y-Yes, sir. They’re in the truck, sir.”

  “He—ah—liberated the truck as well. Kept it out of the enemy’s hands.”

  “Not exactly, sir—some other men stole the truck, but they were using it to sneak stolen goods and money back into Germany.”

  Dietrich looked at Peiper. “Stolen goods and money?” he asked.

  “First I’ve heard of it,” replied Peiper. “This boy gets more interesting by the minute.”

  Dietrich’s rank was more intimidating than Peiper’s, but Dietrich was a friendlier and more approachable man. He obviously liked talking to enlisted ranks. Lukas remembered vaguely that Dietrich had been a feldwebel in the First World War. Under Dietrich’s gentle prodding, Lukas told the story of how he and his men had taken the truck.

  “You pulled a knife on him, eh? Instead of using your gun?”

  “I wanted to frighten him, sir. It seemed to work—at least, he got right out of the truck.”

  “Very resourceful young lad,” Dietrich said to Peiper.

  “Evidently so,” Peiper replied, his amusement growing with every new revelation.

  “All right, son, let’s see about all this and get it put right,” said Dietrich.

  Lukas could scarcely believe his problems were drawing the personal attention of a senior general, but at Dietrich’s order he called his men out of the truck, lined them up in a rough approximation of a formation, and got them to attention. Dietrich inspected the line with the same gravity and formality as if it were a real command; Peiper went along with it but in a more joking manner. Dietrich kept mumbling, “Good, good, very good. Good boys, good boys,” as he looked over each of Lukas’ charges.

  Then Lukas had his soldiers bring out what was left in the truck. There were typewriters and other office items, several field telephones, an adding machine—all items easily sold into the black market, he could see—and a satchel filled with deutsche marks.

  “Hmm, Peiper, look at this,” Dietrich said.

  Peiper looked at the money with a bit more than casual interest, and then at Lukas. “You could have easily kept this,” he said.

  Lukas was indignant at the implication. “Sir!” he snapped back. “This money is the property of the German government!”

  Again, Peiper laughed. “At ease. I wasn’t questioning your ethics—after all, you told us you had the money. I was just observing that other men might not have been so honest.” This mollified the young soldier somewhat, but his ears were burning red.

  Dietrich hefted the satchel. “I guess they stole the contents of the paymaster’s safe,” he mused.

  “That’s very probable,” replied Peiper. “I’d feel sorry for the soldiers, but they’re all POWs now, so paying them is someone else’s problem. Besides, if the Allies had gotten hold of this, the soldiers wouldn’t have seen a pfennig of it anyway.”

  “Well, what are we going to do, Jochen?” Dietrich asked.

  “Office equipment is always in short supply; it’ll be easy to put it back in service. As a matter of fact, we could probably use it ourselves.”

  “Okay. You’ve got it. Have your men carry it away,” Dietrich said.

  “Then there’s the truck. Anybody can use the truck, but why not let the boys take it wherever they end up going, and then they can give it up.”

  “Good idea. Much too cold for these boys to walk. Much too cold.”

  Peiper nodded, then turned to Lukas. “Any ideas about what you want to do? It’s almost as if you’re reenlisting, in a way.”

  Lukas’ hopes and dreams burst out of him before he could stop himself. “It would be the greatest of honors to serve in the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler under your leadership, sir!” he said, and his face burned red as he said it.

  Peiper thought for a long minute, then shook his head sadly. “Sorry, Oberschütze Vogel. I can use men, but you’re not even … what, fifteen years old yet?”

  “I will be sixteen next month, sir!” he responded with passion.

 
“Went through panzer training?”

  “Er—no, sir …”

  “I can’t. But you could check back in a few years.”

  Dietrich shook his head sadly. “Peiper, I’m disappointed in you. These boys are the cream of German youth, and our nation’s hope for tomorrow.”

  Taken aback at his general’s criticism, Peiper quickly backpedaled. “Well, if it would please you, I would—“

  “No, no. Can’t make a man take someone he doesn’t want. It’s not right. Doesn’t work. No, no. But there’s the Hitlerjugend division, if he wants panzers.”

  “That’s a wonderful suggestion, sir,” said Peiper obsequiously. “The Twelfth SS Panzer Division would be a great place for these boys. They’re obviously the sort of people who belong in the Waffen-SS rather than the Wehrmacht.” Peiper’s one good eye ran lazily down the line of unwashed, sleepy, rumpled teenage boys.

  “How about it, Vogel?” Dietrich asked. “How would you like to be part of the Hitlerjugend division?”

  Lukas didn’t need to think about it. It wasn’t the LSSAH, but it was a Waffen-SS panzer division and a home. “My men and I would be honored, sir!” He saluted again. Dietrich returned the salute with grave solemnity.

  “All right, then. All right. Good, good. I think that’s a fine decision.” He motioned to his ADC. “Write up an order of transfer and sign my name to it. All these boys are joining the Waffen-SS and going into the Hitlerjugend division. And this fine young man here—” Dietrich clapped his hand on Lukas’ shoulder. “He’s a natural leader. I’m making him an SS-Untersturmführer as of this date.”

  Lukas was stunned—a move from private first class to second lieutenant in one jump!—and could barely stammer out his thanks. Dietrich dismissed his stammers with a friendly wave, and asked, “Which of these boys is your second-in-command?” Lukas indicated Hans Braun. “And make this boy a sturmscharführer while you’re at it,” he said to his ADC. Braun, as astonished at making sergeant as Lukas was in making second lieutenant, stammered out his thanks as well.

  In a generous mood, Dietrich then made the grenadiers into SS-Oberschützen, effectively bumping up all the privates to PFC, and the remaining oberschützen into the SS corporal grade of sturmmann.

  Lukas had completely forgotten about the satchel of cash, but Dietrich pulled him aside for a confidential chat on the other side of the truck. “It’s a tough time, a real tough time,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “You’re a brave lad, and I hope you do well. You and your friends are Germany’s future, no matter what happens. So I’m going to give you a private order, son. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” Lukas snapped back, and nearly went into another heil-Hitler until a slight shake of Dietrich’s head made him stop. “Officers are like fathers, and so you’re the father of those boys of yours now. Understand? Some of them will get other fathers as they get assigned, but your first job is to take care of them. Here …” To Lukas’ utter shock, Dietrich unsnapped the satchel, and took several wads of bills and threw them up into the driver’s seat through the open truck window.

  “Sir, you don’t need to—”

  “Never argue with a general, son,” smiled Dietrich. “It’ll take you a few days to get in with the HJ panzers, and I’m not that sure how your truck will hold up. I used to work in a garage, you know, and I understand these things.” He patted the truck side as if it were a horse. “You’ll need some money if you need to get it fixed. You need new insignia and the boys need some new warm clothes. And all of you need to eat. Eat well and eat often. You’re an officer now, and that’s your payroll. Take care of these boys for me, and take care of them well. I want you all to report for duty well fed, well rested, and warm. Do you understand me, Untersturmführer Vogel?”

  This time Lukas did snap to attention and salute, “Jawohl, mein Obergruppenführer!,” Dietrich returned it with equal gravity.

  OKW HEADQUARTERS, BERLIN, 1830 HOURS GMT

  The innocuous little one-story house with a gabled roof, surrounded by woods, had thus far escaped the fury of the Allied bombing campaigns. More and more of the German industrial and military capabilities had been moved underground, and the military command structure was no exception. The house was known as Maybach I, and beneath it could be found an extensive bunker network that served as the German Armed Forces High Command, known as OKW.

  Deep beneath the ground, the boots of Field Marshal Walther Mödel echoed in the halls of OKW headquarters as he walked to his next meeting. Even after dark, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Germany’s supreme military command, was active. The planning and operations teams worked around the clock.

  Mödel opened an office door, and a male secretary looked up. “Heil Himmler, Generalfeldmarschall. The Generalfeldmarschall is in his office; please go right in. He’s expecting you.”

  Mödel nodded to the secretary and opened the door to the inner office.

  “Walther, come in. Have a seat. How is the planning going?” said Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of OKW. Keitel was a gray-haired, mustached man of distinguished features. His prominent eyes gave him an appearance of depth, though in fact he was known primarily as a tireless desk worker whose lack of imagination and personal drive had shackled him to a thankless job that no one else wanted. His nickname, “Laikaitel,” was testament to his role as a lackey, to the well-known fact that it was Jodl who did all the real work.

  Generaloberst Alfred Jodl was technically Keitel’s subordinate, but it was he who had given concrete military shape to many of Adolf Hitler’s strategic decisions. A balding man with a long, sharp nose, Jodl was the one most deeply and personally affected by Hitler’s assassination. He had not been able to develop quite the same rapport with Himmler that he had enjoyed with the first führer, but he still possessed significant power and influence.

  Restoring broken fronts was the military specialty of Walther Mödel, a little man with a pleasantly ugly face who had become known as the “Führer’s Fireman” after stabilizing the Belorussian and Polish sectors during the destruction of Army Group Center. Mödel had been one of the German Reich’s wartime discoveries, a creative and skilled man who climbed the ladder of advancement rapidly as a result of his accomplishments.

  More and more, however, Mödel’s work seemed futile, plugging gaps, restoring disaster into some semblance of order, moving hither and yon in support of the varied missions he was assigned. And now he had to make sense of out of one the most surprising situations he had yet encountered: Rommel’s sudden surrender.

  He looked at Keitel and at Jodl. Old Laikaitel was reliable for the paperwork and administrative functions, but had no vision. Jodl had vision and skill, but was pulled in multiple directions by the needs of the west and the east.

  “I’ve got a first roundup of the situation,” he announced. “Most of Sixth Panzer Army has been recovered. Some minor desertions appear to balance out by people who’ve left the surrendered units to join ones still loyal to the Fatherland. There has been an armed struggle for control in at least two divisions, one in Sixth Panzer Army, one in Fifth. We kept control of Sixth Panzer Army by the narrowest of margins. Guderian was about to surrender along with Rommel, but Jochen Peiper executed him on the führer’s orders.”

  The entire subject of surrender was anathema to Keitel’s conservative Prussian heart. “If he was a coward, then it is right that he died as one, at the hands of a true warrior,” Keitel pronounced.

  Jodl let a small giggle escape. “I heard about that. Seems that Peiper wasn’t content to kill him. He hanged him in his own conference room as a warning to others.” A stern look from Keitel put an end to this indecorous line of conversation.

  Mödel continued with his briefing. “The success to date of the Soviet armistice means that we have substantial reserves within Germany, though most of these have been deployed in the east against the expected Soviet treachery. We have a limited ability to move some of these divisions to the Rhine, but you both know the difficul
ties in such movements: the state of our railroads, the presence of Allied air power. In sum, it will be difficult to put a force on our great river barrier in less than ten days or two weeks. We will have to hope that enough of our loyal forces remain to establish resistance in the Westwall, and throughout the Rhineland. If the American advance to the Rhine can be delayed to more than ten days, we will be able to form a defensive line at the river. If not, I can make no promises.”

  He paused. “I think we all know the difficulty here: how long before Stalin recommences offensive operations in the East. He would have paused at this time anyway to permit resupply; in addition, we threw the dog two juicy bones to distract him. But before long, the dog will grow hungry again, and when that is the case we will return to our former dilemma: a two-front war and gradual destruction of our resupply capabilities.”

  Any hint of defeatism, no matter how realistic or how justified, tended to draw disapproving looks from Keitel. “The original goal we sought in the armistice was to buy us enough time to quiet one front so we could turn all our attention to the other. Stalin is not on the march again yet. With the failure of Fuchs am Rhein, the question becomes, can we slow down the advance in the West before the forces must be rushed East again? In other words, how much time do I have?”

  That was a real question. It was the key question, on which all else needed to be built. The two OKW chiefs looked at each other. Mödel kept his attention on Jodl, for the opinion of the operations chief was the one that would inevitably become the opinion of Keitel as well.

  The pause stretched for several seconds. Finally, Jodl punctured the silence. “Walther, I think your analysis is basically on target. I don’t expect our friends in the East to stay quiet much longer, and although I will hate to do it, when they begin to march once again, I will need to transfer forces back to the Eastern Front as quickly as possible. For you, speed is of the essence. I can’t tell you if you have weeks or months, but I would base my plan on days, if possible. The Westwall must be stabilized, the hole created by Rommel’s treason plugged, and the Allies delivered a sharp counterblow that will return them to the slow campaign of the fall. Patton is no good when slowness and caution is called for. He’s somewhat like Rommel in that way. Give him the opportunity for speed and dash and he is dangerous; without that opportunity he is far less effective. Afterward, you need to plan how you can hold the line with an absolute minimum of forces. I imagine that we’ll be pulling away everything we can.”