Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  An hour later Ballard’s own tank was rolling across the bridge. He sat high in the turret, looking at the deep waters rolling past below. The east bank drew closer, and already he could see his Shermans spreading out, establishing a bridgehead. They had beaten the Nazis in the most important race. It looked to Frank Ballard as though there was nothing standing in their way, nothing at all between here and Berlin.

  KAMPFGRUPPE PEIPER, MOSELLE VALLEY, GERMANY, 1501 HOURS GMT

  Sturmbannführer Werner Potchke brought him the final bad news. “We can’t get forward, Obersturmbannführer. The Americans have cut the road to the bridges. We can see them sending their tanks across already.”

  Jochen Peiper felt his ruined face twisting under the strain of this lost battle. He was close to his goal, close to crossing the Rhine with his kampfgruppe largely intact, in spite of all that the Allies and their pet traitor Rommel could throw at him. At that moment he hated Potschke for bringing him the bad news, hated every man in the kampfgruppe for failing the Reich, hated himself for not somehow triumphing over all odds.

  He had begun this offensive with a task force of five thousand men and eight hundred vehicles, over one hundred of which were tanks. As the spearhead unit, his men had seen the toughest fighting, and with the attack on Dinant as well, his task force had suffered greatly. He now had around fifteen hundred men and twenty-eight tanks, as well as eighty or so additional vehicles. The Reich needed those tanks, and now it wouldn’t get them. What was left of his kampfgruppe would shortly be reduced to infantry.

  From his command position atop his Panther, he looked at the bedraggled remnants of what had been the finest fighting force the Third Reich had ever put in the field. Many of the men wore warm boots, pants, and coats looted from dead and wounded American soldiers. They hadn’t taken clothes from prisoners—they hadn’t taken any prisoners. His men had better things to do.

  At each stop, his headquarters team set up a small command post, which basically consisted of a tent mostly filled with radio equipment, a folding table, and chairs. Because of the bitter cold, they built a blazing fire with scavenged wood; even so, a man dared not go without gloves for long. “What have we got?” Peiper shouted down from his perch.

  “The usual sets of orders,” came the reply. That meant one set of orders from General Dietrich and one set of orders from the fake Rommel government, still claiming command over all of Army Group B’s forces.

  “Throw the Rommel shit into the fire! No, wait. Let me read it. Maybe it will tell me what those hurensohnnen are up to.” He jumped down from the tank.

  There was nothing particularly revealing or insightful in the message originating with Rommel. Peiper wouldn’t mind reading all of Rommel’s message traffic, but his kampfgruppe didn’t have the organic intelligence capability necessary; that was at the division level, and with everyone on the move, good intelligence was hard to produce. He looked at the orders coming from Dietrich carefully. It had occurred to him almost immediately that sending orders purporting to be from the other side would be a good tactic; in the general chaos it seemed no one had had the initiative or focus to send out fake orders, but he wanted to take no chances.

  Because everyone had the same authentication codes, he had to interpret the order in light of common sense, but this order posed no problem. He was directed to move his kampfgruppe across the Rhine, with his equipment if possible, without it if necessary, re-form with his division or else report to higher headquarters. Common sense. There was another order, this one to report to General Dietrich in person as soon as possible. Again, he planned to do that anyway, so fraud and communication sabotage was not an issue.

  His problem was how to do it. The strategic situation looked bleak. He did not have enough military might to force an opposed crossing. He and some of his men might make it across the Rhine by abandoning their vehicles, but even then they would need a covering action.

  His eyes fell on Major Potchke again. “Yes, sir?” Potchke said.

  “Werner, the division has to get across the Rhine,” he said heavily.

  Potchke’s face went wooden. “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “Our kampfgruppe was to blaze the way, but you tell me that we’re stopped here.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Potchke replied.

  “And the Allies are coming.”

  “Yes.”

  “On foot and in small bands most of us can cross the Rhine over the next few days. Vehicles and equipment must be abandoned and rendered useless to the enemy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Peiper paused. “We’re going to need a holding action to give the rest of us some breathing room and a head start.”

  Potchke’s emotionless voice responded, “Yes, sir.”

  “We need twenty-four hours. After that, everyone goes.” Both men knew that was a face-saving lie. There was virtually no chance that Werner Potchke could hold out that long. This was a stand and die order. “Decide what you need and who you need, Werner. All equipment and ammunition is yours. If any of the other division elements reach here, they can reinforce you, but I suspect they will be abandoning vehicles short of here, because the enemy is closing in on all sides.”

  “Yes, sir,” Potchke replied.

  Peiper stood awkwardly for a minute. He had sent men to their deaths many times, but most often when the guns were blazing. In the incongruous snowy peace of this January morning, it seemed out of place. “I have orders from General Dietrich. I have to leave,” he said, and his voice was hollow. He was not afraid of death, but because he was not going to die here and now, he felt ashamed, embarrassed.

  Soon his dwindled command was divided between Task Force Potchke, who would build a defense to draw in and slow down the attacking Americans, and Task Force Diefenthal, under Hauptsturmführer Josef Diefenthal, consisting of soldiers on foot who would make their way to the Rhine and cross as best they could.

  As for Peiper, he had orders, and for the first time in years he would travel alone. He commandeered a motorcycle that belonged to one of his couriers, climbed aboard, and took a moment to refresh his memory of the controls. Satisfied, he gunned the throttle and felt the welcome rush of acceleration. It gave him pleasure to be moving with such speed, such freedom, to leave the chaos and failure of this terrible campaign behind.

  He would find a bridge, somewhere north of Koblenz, and he would cross the river and travel east. Alone, on this fast machine, he would make good time. He would reunite with General Dietrich and take on a new mission. No matter what, he knew that when all others dropped away, he would remain faithful to the cause, to the passion that ruled his life. He had to get across the Rhine.

  ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWSWIRE, 1900 HOURS GMT

  FLASH/BULLETIN

  PARIS BUREAU, JANUARY 19, 1900 GMT

  COPY 01 ALLIES CROSS THE RHINE

  DISTRIBUTION: ALL STATIONS

  PARIS, JANUARY 19, 1945 (AP) BY CHUCK PORTER

  ALLIED FORCES TODAY PENETRATED THE FINAL BARRIER PROTECTING THE

  GERMAN HEARTLAND! AS FORWARD ELEMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES

  THIRD ARMY CROSSED THE RHINE RIVER AT KOBLENZ, GERMANY,

  DEFEATING HEAVY OPPOSITION IN THE FORM OF THE NAZI 12TH SS PANZER

  DIVISION, GENERAL OF THE ARMIES DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER DECLARED

  TODAY “A WATERSHED DAY IN THE LIBERATION OF GERMANY FROM THE

  YOKE OF ITS NAZI MASTERS.”

  IN LONDON, PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL PRAISED THE COURAGE OF “THE BRAVE MEN OF OUR ALLIED ARMED FORCES, WHO, FROM THE BEACHES OF NORMANDY THROUGH THE FORESTS OF THE ARDENNES, AND NOW ACROSS THE RHINE RIVER ITSELF, HAVE WITH INDOMITABLE WILL SET A NEW COURSE FOR HUMAN DESTINY.”

  IN TRIER, GERMANY, CHANCELLOR CARL GOERDELER OF THE PROVISIONAL GERMAN REPUBLIC GAVE THANKS TO THE ALLIES FOR THEIR BRAVE SERVICE IN THE LIBERATION OF HIS PEOPLE FROM THE NAZI TYRANNY, AND CALLED UPON THE GOVERNMENT IN BERLIN TO LAY DOWN ITS ARMS IN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER AND AVOID SPILLING ANY MORE BLOOD IN A LOST CA
USE.

  WHILE SCATTERED FIGHTING CONTINUES IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF KOBLENZ, UNITED STATES THIRD ARMY HEADQUARTERS REPORTS THAT THE OCCUPATION OF KOBLENZ IS SECURE, THE BRIDGES ARE CAPTURED, AND ALLIED FORCES, INCLUDING THE GERMAN REPUBLICAN ARMY UNDER FIELD MARSHAL ERWIN ROMMEL, WILL CROSS OVER BEGINNING TONIGHT AND CONTINUING FOR SEVERAL DAYS.

  OTHER RHINE CROSSINGS ARE EXPECTED TO BE MADE IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, EXPANDING THE NUMBER AND RANGE OF ALLIED FORCES PENETRATING THE GERMAN HEARTLAND.

  MORE

  AP PAR 333548 JF/011145

  EXCERPT FROM WAR’S FINAL FURY,

  BY PROFESSOR JARED GRUENWALD

  The sweep through the Rhineland to a crossing of the great river itself by Patton’s Third Army, coupled with Rommel’s German Republican Army, broke the final defensive barrier on Himmler’s western flank with a brutal and decisive blow. The American armored divisions reached the river so quickly that the SS units simply could not react in time. When CCA of the 19th Armored Division crossed at Koblenz and, a day later, the 4th Armored crossed a few miles south to strike at Wiesbaden, the whole illusion of a defensible front was shattered.

  The remnants of the SS units that survived the campaign were forced to make their own crossings of the wide river, often just ahead of the American units that were spreading out along the east bank. Although the positions north of the Ruhr Valley remained strong, holding the British and the northern half of Bradley’s army group in check, the breakthroughs in the south were too vast, too sweeping, to allow for any containment.

  Eisenhower’s decision to strike out for the political prize of Berlin was audacious, and would fuel many of the events over the next months. It created a direct challenge to the Russians, who were no longer viewed as part of the Great Alliance, and this was a challenge that Stalin could not afford to ignore. Though the Western Allies were in total command of the air, and fully mechanized in all aspects of their land armies, they had barely a quarter as many men as the Red Army could bring to bear from the east. It was not a gamble that the Western governments would make lightly.

  In his typical fashion, however, Patton was not concerned with such strategic details. Nor was he content to allow his units to simply consolidate the initial gains while the rest of the Allied forces came up in support. Sensing the crucial weakness of his enemy, he hurled his forces to the east and north in a broad hook that raced ever closer toward the prize of the German capital. Rommel’s German forces accompanied this advance, which of course would lead to the surprising developments in the Thuringer Wald.

  But even before then, Himmler’s difficulties reached their crisis. With the renewal of the Soviet offensive in the east, Germany was once again trapped between the jaws of two implacable enemies—enemies that were not just focused on destroying Nazis, but were now engaged in a deadly race with each other.

  Besides the now-dashed hope that Rommel’s western offensive would succeed, there were few other opportunities for Germany to exploit. However, there was some cause for hope. In the months of buildup to Operation Fuchs am Rhein, Field Marshals Alfred Jodl and Walther Mödel were busy rebuilding the shattered Eastern Front. Finally freed from the shackles of Adolf Hitler’s irrational demands, such as the infamous “fortress” order, the two field marshals were able to use the interval of peace to create new, fortified lines drawn on the basis of what was defensible—an “Eastwall” of sorts to parallel the Westwall that had successfully delayed the western Allied advance. Of course, the eastern line lacked the extensive fortifications and gun emplacements that characterized the “Siegfried Line” along Germany’s western border. The most significant work had been done in East Prussia, where the approaches to Konigsberg were now guarded by extensive and modern pillboxes, tank traps, and strong points.

  Even so, the initial Soviet advances met with stunning success. The line of the Vistula was crossed in multiple places, and Warsaw was quickly gobbled up by the Red Army. They barely slowed their pace as they raced toward the west, crossing the prewar border between Poland and Germany and preparing to close in on Berlin itself … .

  OPERATION EASTWALL

  1 FEBRUARY–26 FEBRUARY 1945

  The art of leadership … consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention … The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

  —Adolf Hitler

  Mein Kampf (1925)

  1 FEBRUARY 1945

  NEUE REICHSKANZLEI, BERLIN, 1000 HOURS GMT

  The ritualistic display was intended to intimidate him, and on some levels, Günter von Reinhardt admitted to himself, it worked quite well. Marched within a square of goose-stepping SS-Totenkopf guards, he felt as if he were being escorted off to one of the infamous concentration camps—the Totenkopfverbände, or death’s-head units, had that as their primary responsibility. Himmler’s use of death’s-head guards for personal bodyguard and ceremonial escorts was a signal, and not a pleasant one to contemplate.

  Guards flanking the double doors into Himmler’s inner sanctum snapped to attention at their approach, and opened the doors with military precision. Von Reinhardt always admired precision, even under these circumstances.

  The room was dark, blackout curtains drawn tight, the only illumination a lamp on the desk of the Third Reich’s second führer, Heinrich Himmler. Two more guards flanked the führer, their faces shadowed, giving them the look of demons. Only the death’s-head insignia gleamed white on their collars. Von Reinhardt noticed that there were no chairs visible in the room other than the one occupied by Himmler. The man expected him to negotiate standing up. Well, the opening gambit in a negotiation was almost always an emotional one.

  Von Reinhardt turned to one of the guards. “Fetch me a chair,” he commanded. The guard stood stony and silent, as well he should. This wasn’t his initiative.

  After a moment, von Reinhardt turned to the man who had once been his führer. “I’m only recently out of my hospital bed,” he said in as cheerful a tone as he could muster. His voice echoed in the room—it was a space calling for whispers. “I’m afraid I need a chair. Have your guard fetch one.”

  Himmler’s voice had a sibilant, almost snakelike quality to it. “And why should I provide a seat for a traitor standing before me?”

  Von Reinhardt chuckled. “Is this how we are to negotiate? If so, I can go back and make my report without wasting either of our time further.” He turned to go. As he expected, the death’s-head guards barred his way.

  “You won’t be leaving without my say-so,” Himmler snarled.

  “Of course not,” von Reinhardt acknowledged. “But my failure to return will constitute a report all by itself, you know. I’m here because I’m expendable, barely out of the hospital bed Bücher put me in. Holding me, torturing me, or even killing me won’t have any effect—except on me, of course, and I can’t say I find the prospects enthralling. If we’re here to do business, have your guards fetch me a chair, or have them drag me away. It’s your call.”

  Himmler stood up, enraged, and pounded his fist on the table. “You damned insolent traitor! How dare you talk to your führer this way?”

  “It’s premature to decide whether I’m a traitor, Herr Reichsführer. Treason, as the Englishman Sir John Harington put it, never prospers. ‘What’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’” He smiled. This kind of verbal fencing actually relaxed him. He had called Himmler’s play. Now the führer could either negotiate or have him taken away, and the latter didn’t advance Himmler’s interests. He waited, calmly meeting the cold stare through the führer’s round glasses.

  Suddenly, Himmler laughed. It was a thin, high-pitched cackle, very incon-grous for the position he held. “‘None dare call it treason’! Ha-ha-ha! It’s too bad our late führer couldn’t have heard that back in the old days. Of course, maybe he did. Welcome back to Berlin, Oberst von Reinhardt.” He wal
ked around the desk to shake his hand. Suddenly a chair materialized out of the shadows, and a uniformed orderly was on hand to fetch coffee.

  First the threat, and now the gracious hospitality. This negotiation would proceed along traditional lines. There would be time for discussion; then suddenly there would appear to be an unbridgeable impasse, and threats would return. He knew the pattern well. But here in the middle of the snake’s lair he realized something else: The pattern worked, even on the mind of someone coolly logical and well prepared. He took a sip of coffee and tried to smile, hoping the beads of sweat on his back and face were not apparent.

  LONDON, ENGLAND, 1800 HOURS GMT

  “Good evening, Mr. Philby,” the secretary said.

  “Good evening. See you in the A.M.,” Philby replied. He fastened his overcoat, retrieved his umbrella from its stand, picked up his hat and briefcase, and walked down the hall to the elevator with measured stride. He pressed the Down button with the tip of his umbrella, nodded to two men from the documents section who were also leaving promptly at six o’clock, and entered the elevator with them. The elevator stopped on two intervening floors. On the first of the two stops, a female secretary joined them; on the second stop, a British army major entered. On the ground floor, Philby hung back as the lady exited first, followed by the two documents staffers. The major and Philby each gestured at the other, but Philby, having entered on the higher floor, prevailed, and the major exited, leaving Philby as the last off.