by Len Levinson
“You must be a fool if you don’t appreciate the strategic importance of Cherbourg to Eisenhower,” Hitler said. “If he wants to mount a vigorous offensive against us, he’ll need more men and equipment, don’t you understand?”
“My intelligence reports indicate they have plenty of men and equipment as it is,” Keitel said emphatically.
“Plenty for what?” asked Hitler. “For fighting a static little beachhead war? Yes, they have plenty for that, but they want to break out of that beachhead and slash their way into the heartland of Germany! For that they will require an overwhelming superiority in men and equipment, can’t you see that?”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer,” Keitel said automatically, although he still wasn’t sure that Hitler was right.
“I am surrounded by fools,” Hitler mumbled.
“What was that, mein Fuehrer?”
“Never mind. Who is in command of the fortress at Cherbourg right now?”
“Lieutenant-General Carl Wilhelm von Schlieben, mein Fuehrer.”
“What kind of a man is this von Schlieben?” Hitler asked.
Keitel scratched his cheek. He sat in one of the chairs facing Hitler’s desk and crossed his legs. He appeared to be deep in thought.
“Well?” Hitler asked impatiently.
Keitel cleared his throat. “I’ve always considered him to be an utter fool.”
“What!” Hitler screamed.
“I’m sorry, Mein Fuehrer, but I’ve never thought very much of von Schlieben.”
The muscle in Hitler’s jaw began twitching. His Alsatian dog, Blondi, who’d been asleep under his desk, awoke and growled irritably. “Who appointed von Schlieben to command the fortress at Cherbourg?” Hitler demanded.
“Rommel,” Keitel replied.
“ROMMEL!”
“Yes, Mein Fuehrer. Rommel.”
“Rommel,” Hitler mumbled, getting up from his desk and pacing back and forth on the rug, his hands behind his back. Rommel had been one of his favorite generals, a brilliant commander and fierce warrior in North Africa where he’d smashed numerically superior British and American forces, but then he lost the crucial battle there, and then he’d lost in Italy, and now he was losing in France. Last time Hitler saw him, Rommel had appeared demoralized and unsure of himself. He’d suggested that Hitler seek a political solution to the war, and Hitler had thrown him out of his office. I should never have made him a field marshal, Hitler thought, and I never should have permitted Goebbels to make him a national hero. Maybe I should have Rommel shot.
But he realized that if he had Rommel shot, he’d have no one better to replace him with. Huge numbers of generals had been killed on all fronts in the war so far, and more were being knocked off every day. Why, only a week ago General Erich Marcks, commander of the LXXXIV Panzer Corps, was hit by a bomb as he was leaving his command post at Saint-Lo. And besides, if Rommel was sacked, the German people wouldn’t stand for it. Rommel had become an immensely popular personality, thanks to Goebbels. Maybe Goebbels ought to be sacked instead.
“May I make a suggestion, mein Fuehrer?” Keitel asked.
“What is it?” Hitler snapped.
“I studied our maps and troop dispositions before I came here,” Keitel said, “and I’m afraid we can’t hold Cherbourg. Therefore I suggest that we abandon the Cherbourg Peninsula and withdraw the five divisions we have there to a defensive position farther east. Then perhaps we can contain the Allied incursion, and when we build up our strength, push them back into the sea.”
Hitler stopped abruptly and subjected Keitel to a withering stare. “Withdraw?” he asked softly.
Keitel stiffened in his chair, because he knew that his Fuehrer was about to explode. “It was only a suggestion,” he said weakly.
“Withdraw?” Hitler asked again.
“It was something that just came to mind on the spur of the moment,” Keitel explained affably.
Hitler raised his fists over his head. “If that’s what came to your mind, you mustn’t have much of a mind!” he screamed. “Withdraw from Cherbourg? Have you gone mad?”
“No, mein Fuehrer.”
Hitler pointed his long bony finger at him. “Cherbourg will be defended to the last man, is that clear?”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer.”
“You will issue those orders to Rommel without delay!”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer.”
“And you will send a personal message from me to General von Schlieben. You will tell him to conduct the battle for Cherbourg just as Gneisenau fought to defend Kolberg!”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“No, mein Fuehrer.”
“Please be so good as to carry out your orders!”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer.” Keitel leapt to his feet, gave the Hitler salute, and ran out of Hitler’s office, being careful to close the door softly behind him, because his Fuehrer hated loud noises.
Hitler returned to his desk, propped up his elbows, and rested his chin on his hands. Straight ahead through the windows he could see the magnificent craggy mountains of the Alps. The walls of his office were wood-paneled, and the draperies were maroon. Covering the walls were various portraits of himself.
How can all this be happening to me? Hitler wondered gloomily. After all I’ve been through, after all the difficult decisions that I’ve made correctly, why is everything going wrong now?
And it was true, for only thirty years ago he was an unknown young artist living in a Vienna flophouse with the dregs of Europe. From that nadir of human existence he had risen against all the odds to become Fuehrer of the Third Reich and conqueror of Europe. There were those who said that he was reason incarnate, and if that were so, why was everything going wrong now? Could it all be some kind of divine test, the last one God would give him before making him ruler of the world?
Yes, Hitler thought in his madness, it must be that. I am losing now only so that I might win a great battle in the future. It became perfectly clear to him that the key to that great future was the defense of Cherbourg. If he could keep that port from the Allies, perhaps he could destroy them on their pathetic little beachhead, and then he could concentrate all his forces on the Russian Front, pushing through to the Kremlin and shooting Stalin like the mad Bolshevik dog that he was.
Hitler smiled as he contemplated the world after he defeated the Allies and the Russians. He’d design huge architectural masterpieces that would stand for tens of thousands of years to commemorate his great deeds. He’d be greater than Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck himself.
He’d be the greatest man who ever lived.
And to achieve all that, he just had to keep the Allies out of Cherbourg.
Chapter Eight
The mud-spattered bullet-riddled Mercedes-Benz limousine slid to a stop in front of a huge chateau in La Roche-Guyon, and a haggard-looking Field Marshal Erwin Rommel opened the back door. He got out of the limousine and stomped through the mud to the front steps of the chateau, which he then climbed. The soldiers in front of the door presented arms and he saluted them back as one of his aides ran ahead and opened the door.
Rommel entered the vestibule of the chateau he had been using as his headquarters. He was returning to it after an exhausting and demoralizing two-day tour of the front, a tour that convinced him that the war was lost, that Germany was finished, and all he could do was slow the Allies down and make them pay the highest price possible for every inch of ground they won. The Allies would achieve victory eventually—he was convinced of that—but he’d make them remember and fear the name of Rommel forever.
Aides rushed to him from all the rooms to salute and welcome him back to La Roche-Guyon. He shook their hands and told them he was happy to see them again, and indeed he was, because he’d had a few close calls at the front. Once a squadron of fighters had broken through the cloud cover and strafed the road he was on, but he’d managed to jump out of the limousine and h
ide in a ditch. It was infuriating that the Allies had complete domination of the skies due to the indolence and stupidity of that fat old drug addict, Reichsmarshal Goering.
Lieutenant Steuben rushed toward him and saluted. “Sir, Field Marshal Keitel is on the phone from Berlin and wishes to speak with you!”
Rommel grunted and walked swiftly toward his office, wondering what that fool Keitel wanted now. As far as Rommel was concerned, Keitel was the foremost ass-kisser in the Reich, and much of the blame for the collapse of the German Army could be laid at the feet of Keitel, who always said yes to Hitler instead of opposing him with sound military arguments, but maybe Keitel didn’t know of any sound military arguments. Maybe he’d been around Hitler too long and his brain had gone soft.
Rommel sat behind his desk and looked at the photograph of his wife and son. They were in Ulm and he hoped they were all right. He picked up the telephone and barked: “What is it?”
There was a pause at the other end, and then an edgy, irritated voice radiated out of the earpiece. “This is Field Marshal Keitel.”
“I know,” Rommel said. “What’s on your mind?”
“I say there, Rommel. This is still the German Army and I’m still your commander. Have you forgotten how to behave to your commander?”
Rommel decided that he’d better continue playing the military game, because Keitel had the ear of Hitler, and if Keitel expressed too many adverse opinions about Rommel, it was not inconceivable that a little SS detachment might show up at La Roche-Guyon one of these days and put Rommel up against a wall. It had happened to others and Rommel had no doubt that it could happen to him too.
“I’m sorry, Herr Field Marshal,” Rommel said. “I’ve just returned from a personal tour of the front and it was quite grueling. I almost lost my life a few times to enemy bombs and strafing attacks.”
“I quite understand the pressures of your command, Herr Field Marshal. But we must all endeavor to maintain military protocol no matter what.”
“You’re right of course.”
“I have a message for you from the Fuehrer. He asked me to call you personally and relay it to you. He considers it to be of the utmost importance to the future conduct of the war.”
Rommel groaned. “I know what it is already.”
“You do?” Keitel asked, startled.
“Of course,” Rommel replied. “He orders me to hold fast on all fronts and to fight till the last man.”
Keitel chuckled. “How cynical you’ve become.”
“Is that the message or isn’t it?”
“That’s the message more or less, but it applies this time to Cherbourg.”
“Cherbourg?” Rommel said. “I’ve written Cherbourg off long ago!”
There was silence on the other end for a few moments. Then Keitel said: “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“We can’t possibly hold it, Keitel! We don’t have the troops, and it doesn’t make sense anyway. We should move all our forces back to a secure line and fight the Allies from there.”
“I’ve already mentioned tactics like that to the Fuehrer, and he wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Maybe it’s time something were done about our Fuehrer,” Rommel hinted darkly.
“I didn’t hear that!” Keitel screamed.
“Calm down,” Rommel said.
“Let’s get back to Cherbourg,” Keitel suggested.
“By all means. Hitler wants me to hold it until the last man, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. You’ve delivered your message. Tell the Fuehrer that I will carry out his orders to the best of my ability? Is that all?”
“No,” said Keitel. “I want to discuss actual tactics with you, because if Cherbourg is not defended to the last man, it will be my neck as well as yours, do you understand?”
“I understand, but I told you I’ll do my best.”
“According to my table of organization, you have five divisions on the Cherbourg Peninsula, isn’t that correct?”
“Four,” replied Rommel.
“I thought there were five.”
“There were five, but now there are four.”
“What happened to the other one?”
“I’ve pulled it back.”
“You’ve pulled it back!”
“Correct.”
“Why did you do that!”
“Because an opening appeared in the American lines, and I saw a chance to save the Seventy-Seventh Division. I ordered it to escape through the gap, and it did so, returning to our lines and capturing along the way two hundred fifty prisoners, eleven military vehicles, and thousands of meters of telephone cable. I thought it was a very adroit maneuver and I’ve already phoned Colonel Bacherer to congratulate him.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Keitel said.
“I’m trying to save our Army,” Rommel replied. “Can’t you understand?”
“Hitler is going to be very angry when he finds out.”
“To hell with him.”
“Rommel,” Keitel said wearily, “You’re giving me a lot of problems.”
“If you think you’ve got problems, you should come over here. I can’t even hold together the semblance of a front line.”
“Let’s get back to Cherbourg, and I don’t want you to interrupt me until I’m finished, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“First of all, you should not have pulled out the Seventy-seventh Division without authorization from me.”
“You mean I have to call you whenever I want to move a paltry division around?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll have to call you twenty-five times a day!”
“I told you not to interrupt me. To continue with what I was saying, let me remind you that Adolf Hitler, our Fuehrer, still is commander-in-chief of the Army, and he still makes the final decisions. If he wants to defend Cherbourg to the last man, all we can do is say Heil Hitler and carry out our orders. Is that clear?”
“Come on, Keitel,” Rommel said chidingly. “We know more about war than he does. It’s true that he’s made a few right guesses, but he’s made a great many mistakes as well, such as the decision to attack Russia before we defeated Great Britain. No, I think officers like you and I must make sensible military decisions with an eye toward defending the Fatherland and keeping the Army as strong as we can. My only regret is that I was unable to remove the other four divisions off the Cherbourg Peninsula and save them also.”
“You’re going to go too far someday, Rommel,” Keitel warned.
“It’s a little too late to worry about nonsense like that.”
“Let’s go back to Cherbourg. My orders to you are to defend it the last man.”
“Why?” asked Rommel.
“Why? Because it’s a vital port, that’s why.”
“Then our only hope is to destroy the port.”
“That’s part of the strategy, and you know it. Presumably efforts are being made to mine the harbor and blow up the docks, is that not so?”
“Yes, but it won’t mean very much.”
“Why won’t it mean very much?”
“Because once the Americans take Cherbourg they’ll clear out the mines and rebuild the docks. I predict that within a month they’ll have the port functioning normally, and then we’ll really be in trouble.”
“That may be so,” Keitel agreed, “but the main thing is to follow the Fuehrer’s orders and fight to the last man.”
“I disagree most respectfully, sir. The main thing is to deny use of the port to the Americans.”
“How can we do that?”
“By utterly destroying it for all time.”
“We don’t have enough demolition charges for that.”
“Oh, yes we do,” Rommel said.
“We do?”
“Yes.”
“Not according to my information.”
“That’s because you’re only considering Army info
rmation. You perhaps are not aware that our U-boat service has used Cherbourg as a refitting station, and that there still are tons of torpedoes stored in the naval facility there. If we used those torpedoes as demolition devices, the port could be utterly destroyed to the point where the Americans would have to build an entirely new harbor, which is almost like building a whole new city, instead of merely sweeping away some minefields and rebuilding some docks.”
Keitel thought for a few moments. “Are you sure that can be done?” he asked eagerly.
“I know it can,” Rommel replied. “I’ve already discussed it with my engineers and they say if divers are used to place large quantities of explosives on the bottom of the harbor deep in the muck, they can blow the whole harbor sky-high.”
“But won’t the water damage the explosives so that they won’t go off?”
“Does water damage torpedoes, Keitel?”
“Hmmm. Well, I suppose it’s a feasible plan. How soon do you think you can get it under way.”
“It’s already underway. I had intended to destroy the port, and then pull all my divisions off the Cherbourg Peninsula in one mad dash through the American lines.”
“No, you’ll have to leave the divisions there, Rommel.”
“It’s a waste of four fine divisions, Keitel.”
“But that’s what the Fuehrer wants.”
“Then that’s what he’ll get.”
“He’ll be very happy to learn about your intended destruction of the port.”
“Well, I hope it works. We don’t have much time, you know. The Americans are moving up the peninsula rather quickly.”
“You’ve got to bring it off, Rommel. I’m sure you know that the Fuehrer hasn’t been too happy with you lately. It’s a way you can restore his confidence in you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’ll see the Fuehrer right away and tell him of your plans. He’s been in a bad mood lately. It might cheer him up.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t mention what I did with the Seventy-seventh Division.”
Chapter Nine
The driver of the jeep, a young Pfc, wrestled with the steering wheel as he tried to dodge the holes. Beside him sat Mahoney, smoking a cigar and hanging onto the windshield frame. He held a carbine between his knees and his full field pack was lying in the space behind the front seats.
