The Valkyrie Option

by Markus Reichardt

  That evening the teletypers in Speers ministry began working overtime. Weapons production picked up within a week. Hans Kehrl meanwhile was already charging around the metal mines in southern Germany and Czechoslovakia. The weapons factories were going to need a bit more material rather soon. And there were hundreds of former camp guards who could use the exercise. Even though Hans Kehrl had donned the uniform of an SS Brigadefuehrer earlier that year he was not about to let spare hands stand idle, SS or not.

  In the meantime Kehrl’s colleagues were also busy cancelling weapons research contracts to concentrate resources on production. The tank programme, which included experimental designs for 200 ton tanks, 12 types of self-propelled artillery and even amphibious reconnaissance vehicles, was reduced to four lines, the Tiger, the Panther, Panzer IV and the Sturmgeschütz IV assault gun long barrel version. Every other line was cancelled, reduced to spare parts production or converted to building the main line Panzer models. The production of trucks, halftracks, staff cars and motorcycles was pared down from over 64 to less than a dozen models. In an attempt to get back at Kehrl whom they regarded as a member of the SS, the Wehrmacht Supply Office also cancelled the production of all SS uniforms and all office materials for the SS Main Office and the Waffen-SS supply depots with immediate effect. All it did was to hasten the integration of the Waffen SS into the Wehrmacht.

  At the same time Kehrl’s heavy hand descended upon the Luftwaffe’s empire; at the Messerschmidt jet fighter programme he found eight separate task teams investigating the refinement of the Me 262 jet into everything from a twin-seater trainer, to long-range night fighter and reconnaissance plane. And all this before the main design had even been finalized for mass production. Aware how desperately Adolf Galland, the chief of the fighters was for the new plane, the ministry cancelled all further development not related to mass production of the Me 262 fighter version. That included over a dozen plane designs at companies like Arado, Heinkel and Horten for jet engines not yet designed. Messerschmidt himself informed Speer a few days later to expect the first jets in late August rather than October. That week the Luftwaffe, now under new leadership with real fighting experience cancelled orders for most of its ancillary programmes like experimental rocket designs; by the mid-August the number of different planes being developed and built for the Luftwaffe had dropped from over 140 to 6. The same went for the multi-facetted antiaircraft rocket programme of the Army; everything that did not support immediate mass production of the operational V1 was stopped. The V-2 program was put on notice to complete existing units on its assembly line at Nordhausen and then cease. By early August Kehrl’s men had gotten their teeth into the navy. Construction on Kriegsmarine vessels was completely halted except for maintenance and repairs for surface vessels – through grinding teeth the new leaders of Germany’s navy accepted that for the next few years roaming around the world’s oceans would not be that important. After a brief argument, they even accepted the cannibalising of unfinished vessels such as the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, and a damaged cruiser for use as spare parts for the remaining cruisers. Even the U-Boat programme was cut back to maintenance. Boats still unfinished were redirected for spare parts. Any vessel in need of major repairs was cut up for the tank factories over the howls of protest from the admirals. Everywhere the effect was the same, thousands of skilled armaments workers and thousands of tonnes of raw materials were becoming available for the manufacture of the basic weapons systems on a mass scale.

  28th July

  Eastern Lithuania

  Captain Georgi Gubkin felt strange. Like all of his men he had had a bath, shaved and appeared in parade formation in a forest clearing a few miles behind the front lines for the divisional commander to review the unit and pin some decorations on the men. First Battalion was at 70% strength but they carried themselves like conquerors. They had even received their 100 gram rations of vodka called Narkoms (after the Defence decree which introduced the rations) In their approach to Kaunas they had received a bloody nose from a German counterattack that had been supported by some Panther and Tiger tanks. 184th infantry had taken a mauling and lost a serious number of its old T-34s and anti-tank guns to the superior German monsters. But in the end numbers had counted and almost none of the Panzers had returned to their own lines. They had however hurt the Soviet advance badly enough to buy time for the frontline in this sector to stop advancing. Not even the evening attack by the Red Air Force against an entrenched enemy position across the plain had influenced events. The 184th by now lacked the punch and the numbers to push through on their own. Within days everyone was back in trenches. By now the veterans in Gubkin’s unit knew how to dig and they quickly showed their younger colleagues just how deep the Comrade Captain considered adequate.

  Today the young, clean-shaven captain and his men had been pulled out of line to receive some of the medals that had been bestowed on the members of the units during the Bagraton advance. For Georgi too many of the medals were posthumous. He found it curious that too many of his fellow officers considered casualties an inevitable outcome of any attack. Sacrifice of lives rather than tactical ingenuity or even common sense remained the order of the day. But that was war. He had raised it once with his regimental commander, who had shrugged and mumbled something about nobody knowing the true number of dead but did that matter as long as victory was achieved. Gubkin did not have a retort to that. He still did not.

  After the medals had been handed out, the divisional Political commissar read out a series of messages from their Commander, the Front Commander and a summarized article from Pravda which described the massive victory parade which had been held in Red Square at which more than 40 000 German POWs had been marched through the streets of Moscow. Even allowing for the inflationary effect of propaganda, Gubkin and his men realised in that the past few weeks they had been part of a victory of epic proportions.

  Standing to attention in the open field in front of the lines of Red Army soldiers he, for the first time, had time to reflect upon the past weeks. Many men had been lost but they had carried the front westward literally hundreds of kilometres. They had come close to the dazzling speed and victories of the German Blitzkrieg advance of 1941.Overhead a formation of Shtormoviks fighter-bombers screamed towards the front at low altitude. They did not even flinch, airplanes in the sky could no longer be hostile, at least they had not seen any in weeks. It did not matter at that moment. They had done it, there was no question. The war would soon end. Maybe the casualties had been worthwhile.

  After the parade, many of the men headed of towards the soup kitchens and the supply wagons with vodka. Others just quietly pulled out their marhorka tobacco and began rolling cigarettes. There would be some celebrations before they went back to the front. Even if it took them away for only a few hours, the heat of the sun, the green of the grass, the colours of the field flowers were something to be enjoyed. It all seemed so peaceful so almost normal to Georgi. Georgi had been given his ration of officer cigarettes – Kazbeks – but as a non-smoker would trade them later for something else. One could almost forget that one was far away from home and family.

  For an hour he wandered quietly in the woods. Looking at nothing in particular seeking familiar smells and sounds of the forest, things that did not remind him of war… the scent of the green grass pushing through the leaf-covered forest floor, the odd mushroom growing out of the dead stumps. Shortly thereafter he, like all other battalion commanders headed to the divisional command post. But there was no talk of attack; supply lines were tight, German resistance continued to stiffen, Baltic volunteers were appearing in the enemy ranks, stories about the Poles in Soviet ranks fighting to the south and stories about the MVD already rounding up anyone they can in the bit of Poland they controlled were passed around. Georgi was a good soldier who kept his nose clean when it came to politics, but as a frontline veteran he could not but feel disdain for the killer policemen who haunted the rear. For the moment, however, they w
ere far from his life, hunting reactionaries of other nationalities. Some of the soldiers tried to make jokes about it and Georgi had heard that when real communism had been achieved there would no longer be a need for a secret police because the people would have learnt how to arrest themselves. But he knew that if the front stabilized these bloodhounds would come sniffing again. For the moment he was content to let them hunt Poles and Lithuanians who had sided with the fascists.

  28th July

  London Churchill's HQ

  Yes..? what is it .. 'the Prime Minister's tone betrayed exhaustion.

  Sir I think you should read this, it’s a Soviet declaration about a new government they've established in and for Poland. In effect they have announced their intention to control Poland's destiny with the formation of a committee of polish patriots in Lublin. That got Churchill's attention, he skimmed through the two page document ' Get Eden here now!

  ‘He's already on his way sir.’

  Ten minutes later Eden and a polish expert were ushered in, both looking pale. Churchill as usual came straight to the point. Uncle Joe has finally shown his hand. He beckoned to the paper.

  ‘Yes sir it is most distressing...’

  Stop being so oblique Anthony, its more than distressing. It means that Stalin's not merely content with grabbing the parts of Poland that he got from Hitler in 1939 but is now formally asserting his right to run the rest of Poland as well. This National Liberation Committee in ...

  ...Lublin Prime Minister. ..

  ..yes Lublin. Churchill snorted. I bet you they could barely find enough Polish Communists to make it a quorum. These guys are Stalin's tools, that’s for sure. But it’s the message rather than the content that’s important here.

  He beckoned to a map of Eastern Europe which an aide had spread out on the desk. At its center was Poland, a country with many historical border-lines across it. The Prime Minister's fleshy finger traced the international border line. Refresh my memory - these borders were agreed on between Warsaw and her neighbours in 1922 after they sent the Red Army packing at the gates of Warsaw.

  Indeed, and it was Stalin who led those troops and has never forgiven the Poles for that little kick in the teeth.

  So in October 1939, after Stalin helps Hitler and his Hunns crush the Polish forces, they divide the country up among themselves.

  Not quite Sir, you see Hitler took the three western provinces - much of this area was part of Imperial Germany before the Great War. But Hitler pushed his border considerably eastwards, especially in the rich mining region of Silesia. That was about a third of the country. Stalin for his part got the area east of the Curzon Line - pretty much everything east of the River Bug. In terms of sheer area he got a bargain. The area in the middle became a German occupied zone - they call it the General Government. The Polish Exile Government here in London of course insists that the pre-war borders are sacrosanct.

  Churchill grumbled: ‘Uncle Joe never accepted that. You do remember that the bastard from the moment we put out feelers to him back in 1941 insisted on keeping the loot he got through his connivance with Hitler.’

  Eden said nothing. There was nothing to say. At the time Britain had stood alone against the Third Reich then at the zenith of its power. She had been driven out of Greece by yet another Blitzkrieg campaign before suffering a crushing blow at the hands of German paratroopers in Crete. Then Rommel had stormed into North Africa. In the North Atlantic the U-Boats were sinking ever rising numbers of British ships. Hitler's attack on Russia had changed all that. Suddenly Churchill a fierce anti-Communist had found himself drawn into an alliance with Moscow. My enemy's enemy is my friend he had remarked rather philosophically at the time. But the alliance had never been more than one of mutual expediency. Russia once she had survived the initial onslaught on Moscow needed equipment to rebuild her armies and Britain, well Britain had needed an ally.

  Britain had welcomed the Polish exile government to London after the fall of France in 1940. At a time when English military manpower was scarce, the Poles had provided a welcome addition of trained soldiers for fought as pilots in the Battle of Britain, in North Africa, in the Middle East. There were now two Polish Corps among the Allied forces in Italy and Normandy. London short of manpower, owed the Poles. In the Battle of Britain their additional trained pilots had made a major, if not crucial contribution.

  The advisor looked up 'Prime Minister we went to war with Hitler over Poland. Your predecessor’s government guaranteed Poland's sovereignty. '

  Churchill squinted at the man while he puffed on his cigar. "Yes we went to war with Germany over Poland. But back then in 1939 as now we lacked the ability to project any meaningful military power into Eastern Europe in a way that would make a difference. Nothing has changed. Just as we were unable to fly across Europe to save Warsaw from Hitler and his Huns, we are now down to diplomacy in any attempt to protect her interests against Stalin.

  Sir there might be an opportunity here, Eden. All our attempts to get the Polish Government here to accept the need to reach some form of accommodation with Moscow have come to nothing since the Poles steadfastly refuse to accept that Stalin will keep the area east of the Curzon Line. Now Stalin has upped the ante and directly challenged their legitimacy as never before.

  Well things weren't exactly smooth before ever since he used the scandal over discovery of the murdered Polish officers at Katyn as an excuse to break off diplomatic relations with them. No matter what propaganda value it would be for the Germans I cannot help but believe that he had a hand in knocking off half the Polish officer corps when they refused to serve him. At Teheran Stalin once again reasserted his claim to eastern Poland and the Americans did not stand in his way. ‘Yes, yes,’ Churchill never liked lectures other than his own ‘what are you getting at.’

  ‘Well with Stalin now backing a government that claims to speak for Poland maybe we could get our Poles to go to Moscow and come to some arrangement with Stalin's Poles. They have never been good at dealing directly with Stalin. Maybe they can make a deal with his minions. It may be seriously galling but they must surely come to their senses someday. Eden thought that the idea would receive short shrift or require American approval. His readiness to accede to Soviet demands was based less on appeasement but on the recognition that England needed to have a post-war vision or Europe separate from that of America. And Anthony Eden’s post war world was not that different from the pre-war one in which European powers managed European politics. Getting the Poles to talk to each other in a manner that potentially satisfied Stalin offered Great Britain the opportunity to play a major role in the continent’s future again. His fear was that his Prime Minister seemed too focussed on modifying the American post-war vision of a brave new world in a way that would leave space for the Empire. This would put Britain in a permanently subordinate role. Eden, who had little time for what he considered FDR’s cavalier attitude to European borders, was rather surprised at his Prime Minister’s response:

  ‘Perhaps’ Churchill eyed Eden thoughtfully ’well why don't you go and put it to 'our Poles' that they should have a chat with his before he owns all of Poland.'

  * * *

  July 28th

  The Chancellery Berlin

  It was with a certain degree of relief that Adam von Trott reported the Soviet announcement on the Lublin Committee to the cabinet. Few of his colleagues immediately grasped the importance of the event but for Adam things were finally looking up. By showing their hand in Poland the Soviets had brushed aside any pretence of alliance politics. Power politics and military presence would now decide the fate of Eastern Europe. By staking his claim unilaterally, Stalin had opened a crack in the alliance visible to his opponents. London and Washington had formally recognized the Polish Government in exile which was very unlikely to accept any competition from the Soviet puppets in the Lublin Committee. If Berlin could exploit this, there was a chance of driving a wedge between the alliance partners which at least offered the hop
e that the western allies might alter their stance.

  In his instructions he even included the various Kreisauer emissaries. Their efforts so far seemed to have born little fruit as he had expected. Maybe events in Poland would help.

  July 29th

  Warsaw

  After the fall of Poland in 1939, those Polish soldiers and officers not imprisoned or deported by the victors had either gone into exile or underground. With a long history of resistance to foreign occupiers, an underground army was built in occupied Poland whose loyalty was to the exiled Government in London. Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski Commander of the Secret Home Army walked through the hot dusty streets of Warsaw to verify with his own eyes the reports he had received about the collapse in German morale. Coming on top of the coup in Berlin, the collapse of the Wehrmacht's Army Group Centre in Eastern Poland had hit the Germans in the Polish capital with dramatic effect. Hundreds of German civilians besieged the railway station for tickets to Germany. At the Gestapo offices in the former Polish Ministry of Education in Szuch Avenue, clouds of smoke billowed up from the courtyard as officials burned their files. Wearing glasses, his military moustache shaved off and purposely stooping slightly, Bor, in his threadbare suit looked more like an ageing professor than a general with all the Home Army's secrets in his head[55].