Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  “Yeah, honey?” replied the photographer.

  “Please go where you like and photograph what you like, but stay out of Rommel’s way. I won’t be able to help you again. Next time you lose the camera and the film. That’s unofficial, but I mean it.”

  Margaret Bourke-White looked at Sanger for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, sweetie. I gotcha. Hey, just a second!” She lifted up her camera, popped in a big blue flashbulb, and pointed at Sanger. “Look over there, toward that guard tower. Okay?” The flash left him seeing double images for a few seconds. “Good. Thanks a lot.”

  “Thank you, Miss Bourke-White.”

  “The name’s Peg, sweetie.”

  HEADQUARTERS, SECOND GUARDS TANK ARMY, POZNAN, POLAND, 1555 HOURS GMT

  Colonel Krigoff was beside himself with frustration. He could see the walls of the ancient Polish fort, not two miles away from him, and he could hear the chatter of German machine guns snapping away from those very ramparts. And yet, nothing was being done about it. Poznan, like all these other filthy Polish towns, was merely an obstacle on the road to Berlin, and it was maddening to think that it was being allowed to delay the inevitable tide that was the Red Army.

  The solution seemed obvious, even to a combat neophyte such as Krigoff: A thunderous barrage of artillery should blanket the fortress and the surrounding terrain. He had seen on several occasions the lethal, destructive storm of such firepower, and he was distressed and annoyed with the commander of the tank army, General Petrovsky, for failing to employ such a sound tactic. Instead, Petrovsky seemed inclined to let his armored spearheads slip around the rear of the fortress, while his infantry was closing in for a painstaking assault.

  In good conscience, Krigoff could not allow this lapse to pass unchallenged. Though the general was currently busy with his staff officers, all of them studying the situation through binoculars from the upper story of this old manor house, he pressed forward, noting without surprise that the other officers stepped back to allow him the access to the division commander that he required—and that he deserved.

  “General! This delay is unconscionable. Don’t you realize that the First Guards Division is already moving around to the south? Why do you not have your guns concentrate on the objective? Blow it off the face of the earth!”

  “Listen to me, Colonel, and I will explain it one more time,” growled Petrovsky, the bearlike man—unlike his subordinate staff—failing to display fear, or even a decent measure of respect, to the intelligence officer who had already denounced one superior officer to the NKVD. “You cannot see them from here, but I have a thousand men advancing in the very shadow of that fort—a battalion that has been with me through Stalingrad, Kursk, and a host of other battles. Perhaps you’ve heard of some of those fights? We beat the Nazis in each of them!” His tone was acid, but Krigoff, while mentally recording each word, managed to keep his face impassive. The colonel made no reply, nor was one expected.

  “Those men have lived through hell, five times over or more. They are within sight of the end of the war now, and I will not sacrifice them on the altar of haste. Rest assured, this fort will fall, and it will fall in good time—but do not tell me how to capture it!”

  Krigoff stood rigid, his jaw clenched. There were many arguments he could make: Those men, those lives, were nothing compared to the goals of the state! How dare this mere soldier try to elevate them thus, when none other than Chairman Stalin himself had demanded that speed be of the utmost importance in this campaign?

  But the colonel was pragmatic enough to realize that these arguments would carry no weight with this grizzled warrior, that it might even place Alyosha Krigoff himself in some physical danger should he press the matter now. He would accept, not defeat, but the necessity of a tactical withdrawal.

  “Very well, Comrade General,” he declared, with a crisp salute. “I shall return to my duties, and await the harvest of intelligence that our eventual”—he couldn’t resist that one word—“capture of Poznan will inevitably yield.”

  Petrovsky was already ignoring him, binoculars pressed to his eyes as he scrutinized his precious infantry, the soldiers who would have been endangered by the thunderous barrage Krigoff so desperately desired. The colonel of intelligence departed, stiffly marching down the stairs from the overlook. He returned to his trailer, which had been parked in the lee of this shell-blasted manor for more than a day. There was nothing for him to do, not until they took some prisoners, or gained some ground that would yield useful data—the uniform insignia of slain Nazis, for example—to the intelligence staff.

  But Krigoff couldn’t just sit here, not under these circumstances. Finally he got up, left through the small door, and started toward the radio truck.

  Perhaps it was time to send another report to Chairman Stalin.

  24 FEBRUARY 1945

  COMMANDANT’S OFFICE, KONZENTRATIONSLAGER BUCHENWALD, 0840 HOURS GMT

  Wolfgang Müller sometimes bit his fingernails. Over the last three days, he had bitten them down to the quick. In spite of shipments of food and medicine and blankets and warm clothes, the liberated Buchenwald prisoners were still dying at a rate of twenty or more a day. That was lower than a day ago, but still a huge number. It struck him as horribly unfair. They had survived so much, and then died after they had been freed. It seemed oddly ungrateful of them.

  Moving from German shortages to Allied plenty was a big adjustment—when he put together a requisition, he got what he ordered. He had to learn new forms and new procedures, of course, but that was something he could do well. What took more getting used to was the special clout his position gave him. The Desert Fox himself had made it clear that no military priorities would stand in the way of taking care of the prisoners of Buchenwald. And the Americans—including Eisenhower himself—after they toured the camp, or stayed to work, added their own indorsements to the orders.

  Still, his days were long and full of details, and no matter how much he did, he felt it was little enough. He took a sip of coffee—another luxury was real American coffee—and began leafing through the sheaves of paper required for his next requisition.

  A voice interrupted. “Did you know that Goethe himself once used this place as his private retreat?”

  Müller looked up in surprise. A tall, dark-haired man with sharp features stood in the door. He wore a plain but pressed Wehrmacht officer’s uniform with bare patches where the swastika and other Nazi insignia used to go. His face was drawn and tired, and he walked with a cane. “Günter! When did you get here?”

  Von Reinhardt sat down in the visitor’s chair, and leaned his cane against the desk. “Just now, Wolfgang. I have been driving places I should not drive and talking to people I should not know.” He reached over the desk to steal one of Müller’s cigarettes. It, too, was American-issue. “Shortly, I must find our dear field marshal and bring him up to date on all the news. But I see that you have become the new camp commandant.”

  “Don’t even say that as a joke, Günter,” retorted Müller. “This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. We bring in food, but the prisoners can’t keep it down. We had to put armed guards around it to keep prisoners from eating what would make them sick, or even kill them. People are still dying every day in spite of the medicine we bring in.”

  “Didn’t you deal with this when you were at Peenemünde?” asked von Reinhardt. Müller’s work with the V-1 and V-2 rocket programs was the assignment of which he was most proud.

  “You mean, uh, slave labor,” Müller replied. He looked down at his desk. “Yes, it was used in construction of the underground factories. But I didn’t have anything to do with that part.”

  Von Reinhardt nodded. “I understand. But you did know about it.”

  “Yes, I did know,” Müller said. He looked up, his face stricken. “Does that really make me guilty of this? I couldn’t do anything about it; I wasn’t involved in it.”

  “Now, that is a question worthy of the man who spent his summer
s here. Look out the window at that tree. The large one, the oak tree.”

  “I see it.”

  “That’s Goethe’s oak. He was another Wolfgang, just like you. He sat under it—the great man himself—and thought great thoughts. Some of them might apply to this problem.”

  Müller grinned weakly. “And you know these great thoughts, of course?”

  Von Reinhardt grinned in return. “Well, I’ve read a little Goethe in my time. I’m not sure he will be of much comfort, though. ‘We are never deceived, we deceive ourselves,’ he wrote. You—and I, and the Desert Fox, and many of us—have strained not to know about some of the darker elements in our war. We cannot make excuses for that; Goethe tells us it is our own fault.

  “He also observed, ‘National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.’ That one is quite ironic, sitting near the city of Weimar as we are. I suspect Goethe was wrong on that point. In our Germany, high culture seems to exist side by side with the most uncivilized brutality. One does not excuse the other, however. The story of Weimar will forever be entangled with this place, I’m afraid. Perhaps such a juxtaposition is for the best.”

  Von Reinhardt looked out the window at Goethe’s oak. The thick glass reflected his image, a ghost superimposed upon the strong leafless branches. “How about this? ‘We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.’ I am not sure that’s quite fair in the current circumstances, because the sin with which we are now wrestling is peculiar to the German people, and especially the German military, of this time. Though I must add, wreaking horror on one’s fellow human beings is a time-honored profession unbounded by nationhood.”

  “Does he have any advice about what to do?” asked Müller. “You can describe a situation all day long, but what is the right thing to do?”

  Von Reinhardt thought some more, then said, “I think Goethe only repeats wisdom you seem to have already acted upon. ‘There is one elementary truth: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it now.’ That’s abridged, by the way. There was more to the quote.”

  “No doubt,” replied Müller dryly. “And this means?”

  Von Reinhardt gestured at Müller’s desk. “You have committed yourself. Providence is moving, and things you cannot dream will come your way as a result. But, my friend, you have already revealed yourself as a man of action.”

  “So are you,” said Müller, defensively.

  “You’re a good influence on me, then,” replied von Reinhardt. “And, speaking of men of action, where might I find our Desert Fox?”

  Müller paused, took off his glasses and polished them. He shook his head slowly. “You won’t believe it, Günter. He’s working as a laborer, taking the dirtiest and filthiest jobs for himself. He won’t listen to anybody; he won’t do his real job. He makes anyone who wants to talk to him work the same way, and half the time he still won’t talk to them!”

  Von Reinhardt bit his lower lip. “I should not be surprised at this. It is too bad that the field marshal does not have more interest in great literature. It would help him in the current situation.”

  “Uh, Günter—how would that help, exactly?” Müller thought his friend had some strange ideas from time to time.

  “It would, among other things, help him understand that his situation, though painful, is not unique. This provides perspective. You see, he’s lost his honor and is trying to get it back.”

  “I know you’ve said that before. We’ve talked about this. I still think it’s silly. Field Marshal Rommel is an honorable man, and he has acted honorably in every respect.”

  “‘So are they all, all honorable men,’” murmured von Reinhardt, but Müller continued speaking on top of him.

  “And this is really not his fault, except to the extent that it’s all of our faults. Really, though, it’s not that much our fault—it’s the fault of the people who did it.”

  “On the contrary, I think it is all our faults in a core sense. It’s his, and mine, and even yours. The only ones who can claim true innocence in this matter are those who could not have known about it, and those who did know and worked actively against it. All the rest of us are culpable, and we are all dishonored. Coming on top of Rommel’s feelings of dishonor for the surrender, one cannot be surprised that he found an extreme solution. It may yet turn out for the best.”

  “There’s still a war going on, you know,” responded Müller acridly. “And he’s not fighting it.”

  “Perhaps he’s fighting a different war.”

  “That may be so, but the Americans and the British and our German Republican government are all up in arms because Rommel has stopped moving. The entire army is working to clean this situation up! It’s important, but it’s not the only thing going on!” Müller raised his hands in frustration. “Nobody can reason with him!”

  Von Reinhardt tapped his cigarette into Müller’s ashtray. “Tell me everything,” he said.

  “My god, where do I begin?” Müller asked. “Well, let’s see. Rommel discovered the children’s barracks and I found Mutti—”

  “How is he?”

  “Out of danger, but still very sick. He would not have lasted very much longer.” Müller shook his head. “Rommel then sent troops out to both Ettersburg and Weimar, and ordered every citizen to tour the camps. Do you know, some people laughed and joked? Rommel arrested them and put them in one of the barracks. They are now part of the cleanup crew. Only a few joked—especially after the word got out. There was crying, and several people got sick. And …” He hesitated. “The mayor of Ettersburg and his wife committed suicide.”

  “Showing that they were, in the final analysis, honorable,” von Reinhardt interjected.

  “I suppose, but it’s still horrible. There’s enough death and suffering already. And there are reporters and photographers everywhere.”

  “Our friend Mr. Porter?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s here. He actually interviewed me for his story. I’ve never been part of a news story before. And an attractive American woman took my picture. She says it will appear in Life. What is that?”

  “It’s an American magazine with many photographs,” von Reinhardt replied. “Congratulations. You’re not only part of a news story, but part of history as well. One day you’ll be in a book about this camp, possibly with that very photograph included.”

  Müller shivered. “No, thank you. I don’t care to go down in history linked to this place.”

  “But you are, like it or not.”

  “I suppose, but—oh, mein Gott! What a horrible legacy.” He shook his head and continued. “And there have been some criminal trials of the guards and officers … at least of those who managed to escape from the prisoners. I can’t blame the prisoners at all, of course, but there were quite a few camp personnel who … er … cut themselves shaving, if you know what I mean.” He drew a line across his throat with his index finger and made a skrrt sound.

  “Probably that was far too merciful an end for them.”

  “I think that’s right. We hanged a few of the SS guards yesterday, but with ropes. There were scaffolds set up with barbed-wire nooses. I thought we should have used those instead, but we did it by the book. It was still horrible to witness. Frankly, I expect to have nightmares about this place for the rest of my life.”

  “Demonstrating that you, too, have honor,” von Reinhardt added. “I’ll see you again before I leave, all right?”

  “Yes, please. Now I’ve got to get the rest of this procurement documentation finished. Filling out forms is a strange way to be virtuous, is it not?”

  Von Reinhardt laughed. “In today’s wor
ld, I suspect filling out forms may be the biggest weapon both for good and for evil.”

  TRANSPORTATION DEPOT, ARMY GROUP CENTER, EAST OF BERLIN, GERMANY, 1020 HOURS GMT

  “Ah, Lukas, my boy, I see you are finding your way toward the war, again.”

  “Generaloberst Dietrich!” Lukas Vogel snapped to attention, feeling a rush of excitement as he recognized the great man, and even more excitement because the great man recognized him. Dietrich was accompanied by several SS staff officers as he toured the chaotic scene of this great marshaling yard. Tanks were being repaired all around, and trucks rumbled bearing equipment, ammunition, and men to their new assignments. But the young soldier only had eyes for the man who had treated him so honorably in Saint-Vith.

  “That is, yes sir! Standartenführer Peiper has assigned me to a company of panzergrenadiere in the Second SS Panzer Division! We are marching to the Oder—we will stop the Russians there, General, or die trying!”

  Lukas could have gone on—he had so much to say, and Dietrich had always seemed like a good listener—but some growing kernel of military discipline held his tongue. Instead, he looked closely at the general, and was startled and upset to see how old the man looked, a little more than a month after Lukas had first laid eyes upon him. If anything, the young lieutenant’s explanation of his intention only seemed to make the general look even older, and sadder.

  Time had passed in a whirlwind since Lukas had walked into Berlin. A few days ago he had found General Dietrich right where the Brandenburg guards had promised that he would, in the marshaling fields across the Spree River. The general had recognized him, with a little reminder about the truck and the stolen money Lukas had turned over in Saint-Vith, and had been pleased to assign him to the Second SS Panzer Division “Das Reich.” This was another veteran formation, though it was badly in need of reinforcements. Lukas had heard a rumor that there were only twenty tanks in the whole division, and even though he well knew the fighting prowess of the SS panzer men, that seemed like a terribly small number to put up against a horde of Russians. But of course, he was willing to go. When he learned that Jochen Peiper, one of the heroes of Dinant, had been promoted to SS-Standartenführer, or full colonel, and was second-in-command of the division, Lukas had felt as though destiny was guiding him toward a second chance at victory.