Now that road allowed the big Mercedes staff car to rumble westward at better than a hundred kilometers per hour. In the backseat, SS General Sepp Dietrich kept his mind focused on the possibilities of that road as he watched the forests and pastures of his fatherland roll past. His panzer army was activated now, some fifteen divisions—at least in name—having been mustered around the capital, now awaiting his orders for deployment. This autobahn was just one of many roads that the führer had ordered Dietrich to use, in order to move that army up to the Elbe, where they were expected to stand firm against Eisenhower’s armies.
Soon the outskirts of Magdeburg began to clutter the landscape: Here was a cluster of factory chimneys in a gray, flat valley, there a railroad siding with tracks hastily laid right in the midst of a dense evergreen forest. The bridge over the tracks was still intact, though Dietrich suspected it would be bombed by the time the Allied armies were close enough to give this area the attention demanded by imminent operations. Now, at least, the great highway gave an illusion of perfection, and the installations below looked like toys, model trains and cars down on the solid surface of German soil.
Dietrich had no illusions about the role of his reconstituted, but very much understrength, panzerarmee. Most of his divisions were manned by elderly, unfit, or youthful and untried soldiers. The few veteran units he had were mere shadows of their once mighty shapes, battalion-strength remnants of formerly great divisions. He knew that these formations would fight furiously, but they were woefully understrength—the First SS Panzer Division, for example, had less than thirty tanks.
Even so, these men—and boys; he sighed as he remembered the boys—would fight bravely. Dietrich was not an introspective man, but he could not help thinking about why these German soldiers would battle with such courage. For a long time, since the Munich days, many years before Adolf Hitler had come to power, Dietrich had believed that the Nazis gave his country reason to be proud, reason to be strong, reason to fight and, if necessary, die. Now he was not so certain.
Certainly many in his panzer army would die. While they did so, holding this line of the Elbe River, they would hold up the Americans and the British for some days, maybe even weeks. Would that help Germany win the war? Dietrich snorted at the notion. This war was lost, beyond any doubt. He had realized that when he had first heard of Rommel’s surrender in Belgium. The Americans, the British, the Russians—hell, even the French!—would carve up his homeland in whatever fashion they desired. Who knew—perhaps the Soviets and the Western Allies would go right to war with each other, using the battered corpse of Germany as their battlefield.
So it was all a question of time and place—when and where would his men die? The battle he had been ordered to fight, here west of Berlin, would accomplish one thing. It would allow the Soviet Army to claim Berlin, the great capital of old Prussia, the shattered center of whatever Germany was to become. Dietrich had had a lot of trouble sleeping, during the recent weeks. Late at night, he regularly stared at the ceiling and wondered what kind of nation this war would leave behind. The Nazis were finished, he could see, though they would not go quietly. This mighty war machine was still capable of determined, lethal resistance. These fifteen divisions, ragtag and motley as they were, could hold the line of this deep, fast river for many bloody days.
Was that a thing worth spending the lives of his men and boys to accomplish? The answer was so obvious that Dietrich made his decision without even a measure of guilt.
“We are coming to the advance field headquarters, Herr General,” said his driver, slowing down and pulling onto a roadway that angled down and away from the main highway. The Panzerarmee staff had spread camouflage nets through a small grove of evergreens, masking a large clearing on the ground where a number of trucks were parked. Radio antennae and a few antiaircraft guns bristled from the makeshift compound, and several SS guards snapped to attention as the car rumbled to a halt. One, a tall sturmscharführer, quickly pulled open the door and saluted as Dietrich pulled himself out.
Feeling very weary, the SS general started toward the large command tent, then brightened as he saw a familiar officer emerge.
“Greetings, Herr Gruppenführer,” said Colonel Peiper, his scar still as ghastly as it had been in Saint-Vith. “My division is fueled and armed; we’re waiting only for darkness before we move out.”
“Ah, yes, Colonel. Your tanks are too precious to risk losing any of them on the way to the battlefield.” Dietrich thought of that broad highway he had just traversed, taking the chance to travel by himself during daylight. Certainly any column of German armored vehicles would be irresistable targets to the Allied air forces.
“I quite agree, sir.”
“There is just one change to those orders,” Dietrich said. “You are the first in the panzerarmee to hear of this change, but the orders will be made general in the next hour.”
“Yes, Herr Gruppenführer. And what would that change be?” asked Peiper.
“You will be going east, not west, out of Berlin.” Dietrich was calm; he felt more right about this command than any other he had issued through his career. “I want your division to deploy in Küstrin, astride the Berlin road. You will be the next—perhaps the last—stumbling block in the way of the Russian advance.”
“Of course, my general!” Peiper raised his hand in a salute, though his good eye was clouded by doubt. Finally he voiced his concern. “I was under the impression that we were to be the only force on the Elbe. If you send your panzerarmee east, will that not leave Berlin terribly open to the west, in the face of the American attack?”
“Yes,” said Dietrich, shaking his head, then shrugging his shoulders. “Yes. I’m afraid it will.”
8 MARCH 1945
THIRD ARMY MOBILE HEADQUARTERS, DESSAU, GERMANY, 1440 HOURS GMT
Patton and the Desert Fox stood on the hotel balcony overlooking the valley of the Elbe River, which twisted into the distance to the right and left below them. The steeple of an ancient church jutted incongruously upward from a mass of rubble, dozens of square blocks that had been bombed to oblivion. Beyond, a stretch of green pine trees marked a park that had been miraculously spared during the aerial bombing campaign. There, the snow had melted off the ground, and the evergreens stood out in stark relief against the gray and brown of the surrounding ruin.
Rommel had returned to an officer’s uniform, but one devoid of insignia of any sort, a plain suit and cap in Wehrmacht feldgrau. His blind eye was covered with a black patch. “Still no insignia, Rommel?” Patton asked. Sanger, standing to the side, translated.
The Desert Fox shook his head. “No. Not at the present, at least.”
“Then how the hell do you expect people to know you’re a field marshal?”
Rommel smiled slightly and looked Patton straight in the eyes. “They’ll know when they see people obeying my orders. How do they know you’re a general? Because of that?” He gestured at Patton’s splendor: silver helmet with three stars, jodhpurs, ivory-handled pistols.
Patton laughed in return. “Point taken. I guess not. They know when they see people following my orders.” Rommel nodded in satisfaction.
An orderly came out onto the balcony. “General Patton, sir? I have General Eisenhower on the phone. If you’ll follow me, sir—”
Patton was already moving, and the orderly hastened to lead him through the lobby and into the manager’s office, with Rommel and Sanger following close on his heels. The field marshal and the liaison officer halted outside the office, until the American general waved them in while he took the receiver of the phone. The orderly quickly departed and pulled the door shut behind him.
“George, Ike here.”
Patton grimaced unconsciously, hoping that the gamble he and Rommel were taking would pay off. “Yes, General,” he said, surprising even himself when he referred to SHAEF by rank instead of his ubiquitous nickname.
“Well, you’re going to be a very happy man,” said the Supreme Comma
nder in his matter-of-fact Midwestern tone. “I’ve just spoken to none other than the president himself. He sends his congratulations, by the way, and his best wishes.” There was an agonizing pause. “And, Georgie … ?”
“Hot damn—it’s Berlin, right?” Patton’s voice rose in excitement, and he saw Rommel nod in satisfaction—the field marshal didn’t need a translator to understand the topic of the conversation.
“Yes, George—he thinks that all bets are off, as far as the Russians go. They’re back in this thing whole hog, and this time we’re not treating them as allies. You need to get there ahead of them, and in enough strength not to be pushed out. How soon can you get your vanguard across the Elbe?”
Patton looked out the office window. There were many bridges in this medieval city, and several of them were visible from here. All of them were choked with eastbound traffic, mostly columns of Shermans and American trucks, though one span had been dedicated to the German Republican Army, and was dotted with panzer Mark IVs and a few Panther tanks. On the far bank, the columns were winding through the outskirts of the city, the leading elements already vanishing into the countryside beyond.
Some details, Patton thought with a wicked grin, didn’t need to be shared with the high command.
“Well, Ike, it’ll take some time to get an entire army moving, but I think we can get started pretty quickly,” he promised, crossing his fingers behind his back.
“Good,” said the Supreme Commander. “Then, Godspeed to you, Georgie—the eyes of the world are going to be watching for the winner of this race.”
“Ike, this is the sprint I’ve been waiting for all my life—you can bet your ass we’re going to finish first!” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, whispered to Rommel: “The word is ‘Go.’”
Eisenhower continued speaking. “But listen: We don’t want a shooting war with the Russians—I can’t stress that point strongly enough. I’ve seen the figures—they have ten times as many men as we do, and an even greater advantage in tanks. So this is a race, but it’s not a war—understand? Get to Berlin first, you stay there, and keep them out. But if anything goes wrong, Berlin is theirs, at least for a while, got it? No matter what, you stop when you get to the Russian lines. We’ll let the situation develop from there.”
“Yes, Ike—I understand.” Patton was certain Ike’s figures about Soviet strength were exaggerated—hell, the Supreme Commander probably bought into that same commie propaganda that fooled everyone else—but he was also certain it wasn’t going to be an issue. This was in fact a race, and there was no faster army on earth than his own Third.
“What’s the latest word on where the damned Russkis are right now?”
“They’re pulling up to the Oder along a front that’s a hundred miles or more wide. They’re closer to Berlin than you are—within fifty miles at Küstrin, whereas it looks like you have a good hundred or more to go. But they have that river in front of them, and it looks like the Waffen-SS is going to do us a favor for once, and try to hold them there.”
“All right, Ike—we’re off! And give my compliments back to the president when you see him, will you?”
“Certainly, Georgie. Give ’em hell!”
“You know I will, General.” Patton hung up the receiver. “We got permission to go!” He crowed.
Rommel laughed. “I see that you have the same healthy respect for orders and the chain of command that I do.”
“It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission,” Patton replied, grinning.
The three men made their way through the lobby and back upstairs. When they emerged onto the balcony again, it seemed that the day was brighter and warmer than any since they had crossed into Germany. The sun was shining and there was actually a promise of spring in the air.
Patton gestured to the three huge columns that were still rumbling across the bridges, through the far side of Dessau, and onward toward Berlin. “We have Fourth Armored on the right, Panzer Lehr in the middle, and Nineteenth Armored on the left. Pretty damn good spearhead, if I say so myself.”
“Yes,” Rommel agreed, through Sanger. “They’ll be able to handle anything Himmler’s SS remnants try to do. As to the Russians, how many more divisions ready to cross as soon as the bridges are opened up for more traffic?”
“I have three more—two infantry and another armor—waiting outside the city for the columns to clear out. They can be across by tomorrow, I think, and I want my whole army on the other side of the Elbe by the end of the week. We can set up a bulletproof ring around Berlin—no commie bastard will get within twenty miles of the place! And you have, what, another panzer division and an infantry division ready?”
The Desert Fox nodded. “At least that. As Armeegruppe H makes the transition to the DDR side, that should give us at least another two mobile divisions within the week. Perhaps I should send some of them around to the north, make our front a little more broad?”
“Good idea,” Patton agreed. He looked across the river, toward the three tank-heavy formations at the heart of the drive. “But the key to this thing will be those boys, right there. As Ike said, this is a race—and one we can’t afford to lose.”
BROADCAST HOUSE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 1700 HOURS GMT
“Good evening. This is your führer, speaking to you tonight from Broadcast House in Berlin. I am addressing you this evening about a matter of great importance, to set the record straight about the conduct of your government, your party, and your fatherland.
“You may have heard some shocking allegations regarding concentration camps where the enemies of our nation have been imprisoned. Those allegations are false, misleading, and libelous propaganda aimed at weakening the bonds between People and State. Tonight, I will tell you the truth.” Himmler took a deep breath, drinking primly from a glass of water. He pursed his lips, annoyed to see that his hand was shaking. With great concentration he inhaled through his nostrils, slowly exhaled, and leaned in toward the microphone again.
“Germany has been attacked viciously, both inside and out, by those who wish to see the Aryan race subjugated to the mongrel peoples of the world. In particular, the Elders of Zion, the international cartel of bankers they control, and their agents the Communists, see in our proud people the primary challenge to their goal of world domination.
“We have been forced to defend ourselves and to gain for the people of Germany what history and justice demand—room for our people and freedom from that domination. We have waged war only in self-defense, only to provide us with the freedom that is our birthright, only to give us a chance at survival.” He was feeling more confidence now, and allowed himself the glimmer of a smile. His speechwriter had done a good job—in truth, who needed Goebbels, anyway? The man had always been overrated.
“To that end, we have arrested the enemies of the Third Reich, and imprisoned them—as all nations of the world imprison criminals and traitors. Have we treated them unfairly or harshly? No, no, a thousand times no! They have been placed in prisons where they have been receiving good food each day, a place to sleep, and appropriate care. Even when our own people have been called upon to make sacrifices, we have paid working prisoners in a currency called lagergeld, with which they can purchase the luxuries of life. We have done so because we are a humane people.
“But what of these accusations of barbaric living conditions? Those, dear countrymen, were created by the prisoners themselves! We furnished them clean barracks and they chose to live in squalor. They have fought among themselves, lived like filthy pigs, prostituted themselves to each other, and in spite of all our care and attention, have chosen to reveal themselves as they truly are. Our hands are clean and our conscience is pure.
“With other prisoners, alien to our race and foreign to our people, such as Jews and Gypsies, we have, at great cost, found them room to resettle and build their own lives, free from outside interference. But the Soviet Bolsheviks have attacked them, killed their women and children, and brutalized the survivors.
The Mongol horde returns across the steppes, and with it comes brutality such as the civilized world has never seen.
“The proof of this you will have shortly, for I predict you will hear the Soviets claim in their propaganda that there are death camps in the territories they have captured. Indeed, there are death camps, but they are not German death camps. They are the creation of the Soviets themselves, in their own mission to rid the world of those whom they find inimical to their Slavic temperament.
“Those who set themselves up as our enemies have been motivated by envy—envy of our character, of our purity, of our strength. In spite of all our enemies may do, the Third Reich will never crumble, never falter, never die. As Führer of the Third Reich, I call upon all of you to continue your unwavering support of your fatherland, and resist with all your might, and we will yet prevail!
“Thank you and good night.”
Heinrich Himmler knew full well that he was not the orator that Adolf Hitler had been. Speaking, even on the radio, was exhausting to him, calling on all his reserves of emotional energy. His face beaded with sweat, he moved into the dark control room, where an aide waited with a towel and another glass of water. He wiped his face and quickly drank the water.
“A masterful performance,” the radio engineer said. “It will inspire the people.” Himmler nodded his thanks, too tired even to reply.
He walked down the single flight of steps to his waiting limousine. The SS driver opened the door, saluting smartly at his approach. Himmler slid into the backseat, where his ADC awaited. “You have a visitor at the chancellery, mein Führer,” he said.
Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine) Page 46
