Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  Josten tried to get a feel for the meeting. "Sir, you flew with the Director in the World War, did you not?"

  "Yes. After Verdun I was no longer fit for duty in the trenches, so they let me train as a pilot. That's the way they did things in those days—they felt you didn't need to be well to fly. We flew in the Richthofen Geschwader, through the great early days of 1918—and the sad last days, too. I've not seen him since. What unit are you with?"

  "Jagdgeschwader 26; we're stationed on the Channel coast."

  "You know the Director?"

  "We flew together in Spain. He's a man of great vision."

  They were early for their appointment. Traffic had been light on the drive from Berlin, and there had been no delay at the gates of the Focke-Wulf factory. Josten was infuriated that it was Saturday, and everyone was off. Here they were, a full year into the war, and an aircraft factory was closed for weekends like some routine business. He knew that it was in part the labor shortage, but it was also a national attitude. Germany had not yet become serious about the war; perhaps the victory over France had come too easily. The guard on the gate was a symptom, casually waving them through the gates with only a cursory glance at the driver's identity papers.

  Weigand paused to catch his breath, surveying the flat countryside. A few years ago it had been farmland; now there was an aircraft factory and, on the opposite side of the runway, their destination, the Hermann Goering Aerial Weapon Establishment. It was a perfect spot for an airfield, but a study in contrasts. On the Focke-Wulf side, sunlight reflected off the tall windows of the long manufacturing building; below, shadows enfolded the low-set engineering offices arrayed alongside. The buildings were laid out in the new German style, well separated to avoid bomb damage, with plywood shutters to cover the windows if the RAF ever got that far. Even though the factory was shut down for the weekend, it had a purposeful military look, with fire hydrants well spaced and clearly marked and directions to bomb shelters posted every hundred yards.

  In contrast, the Aerial Weapon Establishment area looked like a small city park, well landscaped and with gravel-covered paths curving through the pine forests. After a sharp right turn in the path, the plant lay before them, submerged in a shallow meadow so that it was invisible from the road. It was startling. The two men had both expected to see another aircraft factory, sawtooth roofs of steel and glass buildings, chimneys smoking. Instead, they saw a rambling wooden complex, a gigantic spiderweb of frame hangarlike buildings, all connected to a central administrative office by covered walkways. At the far left was a huge, grass-covered hillock, two hundred meters long and a hundred meters wide, studded with artificial trees.

  They were greeted at the door of the administrative office by a primly dressed woman of fifty, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, a white lace blouse buttoned to the neck.

  "Greetings, gentlemen. I am the Director's personal assistant, Frau Schroeder. He sends his apologies; he is taking a physical therapy treatment and won't be able to see you for a few moments. You know, his injuries ..." Her voice trailed off apologetically.

  Josten found a chair and assumed the approved position, hands on his knees, gloves folded in his hat. He kept his mouth shut. It was one thing to chat with Weigand as they walked along the path, quite another to speak to him in front of a third party.

  Weigand walked around inspecting the walls, covered with photos of most of the Nazi leaders. In the place of honor was a huge, silver-framed photo of the Fuehrer, personally signed, the ultimate gift in the Third Reich. He whistled to himself—his old comrade was obviously well thought of. The trip might be worthwhile after all.

  Frau Schroeder returned with a silver tray laden with real coffee, white rolls, butter, and cherry jam, luxuries even at this level in the Reich. Weigand ate greedily, piling on the butter, licking his fingers. With his mouth full he said, "A handsome portrait of the Fuehrer."

  "Yes, Herr Obergruppenfuehrer, but let me show you some other important photos."

  She led him to the far wall. The knotty-pine paneling was hung with a red suedelike fabric covered with smaller photos of ordinary German working-class people—machinists, secretaries, welders.

  There was pride in her voice. "These are what the Director calls 'the real people,' those he knows do well—secretaries, adjutants, the aides, foremen in the key factories, workmen on the assembly line. The Director remembers them all, and they appreciate it. The Director always says that knowing the right sergeant is sometimes better than knowing the right general."

  There was a crackle of static and a husky, familiar voice came over the speaker. "Frau Schroeder, please tell my guests that I'll just be a few more minutes."

  Inside the inner office, the Director was stretched out on an operating table, the lower half of his body covered by a sheet. A massage by the Buddha-like Dr. Felix Kersten was an incredible experience. His fingers seemed to be driven by tiny vibrators, demonically delivering an electric yet muscle-soothing pulsation. And that was only part of it. The real pleasure came from knowing that Heinrich Himmler thought enough of you to lend the services of his own personal masseur.

  It was legend that in their very first session, Kersten had massaged away Himmler's increasingly troublesome stomach cramps. The Reichsfuehrer had peremptorily taken the doctor from his clientele of wealthy industrialists and royalty, forcing him to stay at home on his farm at Harzwalde, seventy-six kilometers from Berlin. As compensation, Himmler saw to it that the farm was transformed with the resources of the Reich into a magnificent estate.

  Kersten knew that he and his family would live very well as long as he soothed Himmler. Yet to his credit he did more than that. The rumors that Kersten was a benevolent Svengali were true. He could hypnotize Himmler with his hands into an occasional act of mercy—the release of a Jewish prisoner from a concentration camp, or an agreement to permit emigration. The greater Himmler's pain, the greater favors he would grant.

  Kersten said, "A few more minutes, bitte," and moved the sheet so that he could work on the scarred and twisted legs.

  The Director went limp as Kersten's magic fingers lured the pain away. Kersten was a decent fellow, and his ministrations reminded the Director of the massages his wife had given him years ago, after he'd come home from a long flight or a hard day at the factory. Strangely, he rarely thought of her or of his factory in the United States. Any thoughts he had of those times were only of the bastard who had brought him down with a trick over Guernica, the man who had started him on this via dolorosa. He groaned involuntarily.

  It was incredible that his own son-in-law, that Griinschnabel, a greenhorn knowing nothing of combat, could have been able to do it. Hafner had outflown him in Peru, and outsold him in the marketplace. Oddly enough, they had many interests in common, might even have become friends if Bandfield had not been so independent, so arrogant.

  The Guernica dogfight was always in his mind, an obsession. He'd made a mistake he'd never make again—toying with an enemy. He should have killed Bandfield when he had the chance—then the rest of his life would have been different. The man had been at his mercy; he could easily have shot him down. Instead, he had tried to extend the pleasure of the moment. But Bandfield had tricked him, ramming the propeller of his Russian fighter through the rudder of his Messerschmitt.

  Hafner closed his eyes, wincing as he recalled the violence of the wild tailspin that trapped his legs in the cockpit as he struggled to bail out, one of the few times in a danger-filled life that he had been truly frightened. In desperation, just a few hundred feet from the ground, he had pulled his parachute ripcord and let its opening canopy yank him from the cockpit like a cork from a champagne bottle. As he left, the jagged metal of the dying Messerschmitt had knifed great chunks of muscle from his legs and buttocks. The pain had been incredible, yet he had never lost consciousness, not once, until the first operation.

  At the field hospital, the doctors told him with casual brutality that he would not live. After the f
irst operation, they congratulated themselves, deciding that he would live but be completely paralyzed. Now they only said he wouldn't walk again. He would prove them wrong about that, too, no matter how long it took. He would walk again, and he would fly again as well, and to hell with them all!

  Kersten gave him the customary three gentle taps on the back that signaled the end of the session, shook his hand, and left. In the outer office Kersten chatted briefly with Weigand and Josten while Hafner dressed. Then the intercom crackled: "Please ask my visitors to come in."

  Weigand was impressed beyond measure by meeting Kersten. Only a very important man would have both Hitler's silver-framed photo and the services of Himmler's masseur. He self-consciously checked the shine of his boots and straightened his tie before moving through the large mahogany double door.

  They hurried into the immense, pine-paneled office. The polished hardwood floor, glistening with wax, reflected the battery of lights suspended from the high ceiling. Hafner's enormous desk was half paperwork and half machine shop, covered with folders, aircraft models, cannon shells, and odd bits of machinery—gears, valves, and unidentifiable bits of metal. Behind the desk were the Reich battle flag and the flag of the Luftwaffe. On the wall opposite the desk hung an enlargement of a photograph of Hermann Goering, showing him at his desk, the President of the Reichstag. Stuck in the lower left corner of the frame was a smaller, candid photograph of Goering, this time with helmet and goggles on, seated in the cockpit of his Albatros fighter, Hafner standing at the aircraft's side, handing him a map. Both photos were signed.

  The outer wall of the office was half an octagon, each division having large French doors opening to a ramp leading to a separate factory building. At the center of the complex, in the middle of his office, crouched over his desk like a malevolent spider, sat Bruno Hafner.

  "Forgive me for not rising, Kurt. You rascal, you were early."

  "If you're always early, you're never late, Bruno. You used to say that, back in the Great War. You are looking very well; Frau Schroeder says you have shoulders like Max Schmeling."

  Weigand peered at Hafner's face, and in his usual blunt fashion said, "Your airplane burned, I take it?"

  "No, these are scars from the parachute risers." The lines of the parachute had made one quick twist about him as it opened, abrading the flesh on the right side of his face so that his cheekbone stood out sharply above a tight and twisted mouth.

  "Helmut, it's good to see you again. It's been a year, at least."

  Weigand saw immediately that the two were friends, and his opinion of Josten rose sharply.

  As the two older men ran a conventional roll call of remembered names, Josten sat quietly, examining the extraordinary pair of portraits of Hafner on the wall to the left. One, obviously painted from a photo, was Hafner as Josten remembered him in Spain. Hafner, helmet in hand, stood tall, looming over the cockpit of his Messerschmitt fighter. His blond hair was askew, as if the helmet had just been pulled off after a combat sortie, and he was gesturing with his hands in the familiar fighter pilot style. The artist had taken some liberties—Josten didn't remember that Hafner had been as lean and fit in Spain as he was portrayed here. But he had captured the face, the broad forehead, thick eyebrows, wide-set eyes, shown with the fire of combat still burning, and the thing Josten remembered most, the captivating grin, the smile of a boulevardier. There had been an absolute procession of women through Hafner's quarters in Spain—local Spanish ladies, visiting German women, foreign women photographers and journalists—and they all seemed to cherish the experience, judging by their return visits.

  The other portrait was a painfully exacting reproduction of Hafner's current twisted state, crouched behind a desk, his face scarred, his left eyelid drooping, hatred implicit in his stony gaze.

  Hafner noticed him looking at it, and said, "I keep that to remind me that I was not always this way. I don't know whether it's vanity or penance."

  Even Weigand was embarrassed by the conversational turn, and asked, "Well, what exactly are you building here, Bruno? I was expecting a Hermann Goering Works, and all I find is a spiderweb of frame sheds."

  "This is far more important than the Hermann Goering Works, even though it won't make me the money 'der Dicke makes from that. This is a working model of the new German industrial base.

  You're seeing in miniature what German industry must become by 1942. We've got to get started producing on a monumental scale."

  He spun his chair around and glared at them. "Do you know how many changes were made in the Ju 88 before they finally began production?"

  Protocol demanded silence from Josten, and Weigand said, "I have no idea."

  "More than thirty-five thousand!" Hafner launched into a diatribe, a catalog of the mistakes Germany was making in their war effort. Josten felt a cold shudder of apprehension as Hafner ticked off the errors—making too many kinds of aircraft, too many types of engines, too many parts. "Everybody thinks Germany is one big Krupps; it's not, it's just a group of toy factories, almost what they call 'cottage industries.'"

  "That's America talking, Bruno, just like your rogues' gallery of welders and secretaries out there. This is Germany."

  "Yes, it's America talking, and Germany better listen or we will get our arse kicked, just like in 1918."

  Weigand's nose and mustache quivered as he sensed opportunity like a fox sniffing chickens.

  "So what are we to do, Bruno?"

  "This 'spiderweb of frame sheds,' as you call it, is a model for a central German industrial complex. I've gathered some of the best practical engineers in the country, not a pack of; selfish academics wishing to write papers for each other, but people who can do things. And I've filled it with operating machinery and staffed it with experienced factory workers, people from that 'rogues' gallery' on the wall, men and women who know what they are doing, without worrying about the red tape that clogs up Udet's offices."

  Weigand nodded. Udet had made a shambles of the traditionally efficient German bureaucracy. At last count the Inspector General of the Luftwaffe had forty-three major departments reporting directly to him; he couldn't manage even one of them.

  Hafner's scarred face glowed with animation as he grew more excited. "The first step is to rationalize what we are producing now, standardize all of the fasteners, the tools, the jigs; then we decide on what's the best, not just from performance considerations, but from availability. It doesn't make any sense to call for chrome piston rings that will last for a thousand hours in an engine that won't run for two hundred before it's blown up. Put in pig-iron rings and forget it."

  "But why this spiderweb?" Weigand asked in bewilderment. "Why not do it all on one site like the Russians do, like Ford did in Detroit?"

  "First, efficiency; second, dispersal. I want to build five or six complexes modeled on this one, spread all over the east and south of Germany, away from the RAF. They'll be mutually supporting, like a bridge truss; if a ball bearing plant gets bombed out in one complex, we'll be able to supply it from another."

  "And what do you want from me?"

  "I don't want from you, I want for you. We are going to need someone to supply labor on a scale we've never conceived of before."

  "But Bruno, everybody wants labor. You know we are near full employment now. That's why most factories are only running one shift—no workers."

  "Full employment! What a joke! We have damn few women in industry. And we've got six hundred thousand Jews in this country, most of them professionals or in retailing."

  Josten felt his attention focus sharply as he thought of Lyra; this was getting close to home.

  "They would yield at least three hundred thousand good, smart workers. Instead of talking about sending them to Madagascar, we ought to build ghettos around factories and let them put in twelve hours a day helping the Reich they've exploited so long."

  Weigand nodded. "But even three hundred thousand is a drop in the production bucket."

  "You
're right. But there are almost two million French prisoners of war. Should we just feed them, or let them go back to Paris to drink wine? They can work, too. Mussolini has been pressured into sending Italian laborers. And that's not the end of it."

  Weigand knew what was coming. "The East?"

  "Of course, Poland, and when it comes, Russia. The bodies are out there. All we need is someone to press-gang them into service, like the British navy used to do. You are that someone."

  "I do know how to organize such a campaign. But I don't know anything about allocating the workers."

  "That will be my job."

  Weigand gestured to Josten. "And, may I ask what all this has to do with Captain Josten? I'm a little surprised that you would speak so frankly in front of a junior officer."

  "Ah, Weigand, I should have explained. Josten was in my squadron during the war in Spain; I trust his judgment: I'm going to need someone on operational duty to work with me, to be my legs, to tell me the truth about what they are saying in the front lines. Josten is that man."

  "One of your 'right sergeants,' according to Frau Schroeder?"

  "Exactly, except he is a 'right captain' now, arid it won't be long before he's a 'right major.'' I want his help for the other part of this establishment's mission, the visionary half."