Himmler's war

by Robert Conroy

  Leach tapped him on the shoulder. “Looks like armor in that clump of woods.” A survey of the regiment had turned up several men who’d worked on airplanes and a couple, like Leach, who’d either taken lessons or actually flown one. Jack now had a dozen men led by Sergeant Major Rolfe who, it turned out, had worked on planes in his spare time as a hobby.

  Jack took his Zeiss binoculars, a fine German pair taken from a prisoner, and looked where Leach directed. Yes, indeed, there were several tanks hidden in the woods. He called in the coordinates and pulled away. It was highly unlikely that he’d be hit by his own incoming artillery, but never take a chance.

  A few moments later, the first shells hit near the hidden tanks, and Leach called in corrections.

  Finally, shells hit the woods and shredded it. Trees and branches flew through the air as 105mm shells devastated the target. A few moments later, Jack got word that the barrage was over. He banked the plane and flew low to see the results, and what he saw puzzled him. Where were the burning hulks? What about ammunition exploding? What the hell? All he saw was splintered wood. And then it dawned on him, just as a line of tracers from a hidden machine gun leaped towards him.

  “Shit,” both he and Leach said. It was another German ambush. Morgan put the plane in a series of maneuvers designed to either evade the enemy fire or tear the wings off the plane. Somebody down there was sick and tired of his snooping and had built some dummy tanks to lure him in, and damned if he hadn’t fallen for it. The plane shuddered and rocked. Morgan fought the controls and finally got them to obey him.

  “You okay, Leach?”

  “No,” came the muffled reply. “Jesus, it hurts, Captain.”

  Jack flew low and fast towards American lines, trying to ignore Leach’s moaning. When he was over them, his next task was to find a place to land. The Piper didn’t need much room, or even the flattest ground, but he couldn’t land the thing on a dime or even on a tree-lined narrow French country road that was little more than a path. Her thirty-five-foot wingspan precluded that.

  Finally, he spotted a landing site and put her down. A half dozen curious American soldiers looked at him, wondering why he’d landed in their field.

  “Get me a medic!” he hollered and they were suddenly alert. Hands helped him get Leach, groaning and barely conscious, out of the plane. He’d been shot in the thigh and was bleeding profusely. His face was pale and his eyes were unfocused. A tourniquet was applied and the bleeding slowed to almost nothing. Jack jabbed him with some morphine from a first aid kit and marked the fact on Leach’s forehead. Leach smiled and quickly went into dreamland. A few moments later, a medic arrived and took over. Another few minutes and an ambulance pulled up and took Leach away.

  Jack walked back to the little Piper. She now had another line of holes in her. And there were puddles of coagulating blood inside. “More patches,” Jack muttered grimly.

  Stoddard walked over and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  “Colonel, I screwed up royally. There weren’t any tanks. What I saw were wooden dummies, mock-ups. We wasted a lot of ammunition and nearly got Leach and me killed in the process.”

  Stoddard grimaced. “We learn something about the krauts, and then they try something new. All we can do is continue to learn from it, Morgan. This is going to be a helluva long war.”

  ***

  General Dwight Eisenhower stared glumly at the mass of documents on his desk. He’d crossed the Channel with a small group of several hundred men who would be the core of his headquarters, while several thousand more SHAEF personnel awaited their turn in London. Most were visibly annoyed that they weren’t deemed important enough to go with the vanguard into the liberated portion of France.

  Ike and the others were temporarily situated in the French town of Bayeux, the home of the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry was almost nine hundred years old and commemorated the Norman invasion and conquest of England in 1066. The irony was not lost on Ike. He’d just led a reverse invasion from England to Normandy.

  He hadn’t planned on taking direct command so early, but he felt that his so-called Allies were acting like complete shits. It had seemed logical and politically correct to give early command of the invasion force to British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. However, the arrogant and insulting Monty had delusions of grandeur and wanted to continue as ground commander forever, even though that question had already been decided by FDR and Churchill. The Americans were providing the overwhelming majority of the men and the equipment; therefore, the Americans would command and the hell with Bernard Law Montgomery.

  Worse, Monty suffered from what some Americans referred to as a case of the slows. He was a good enough general, but methodical to a fault. Ike and many American, even some British, generals were convinced that Monty had frittered away too many opportunities to grab the Germans by the throat because he wasn’t quite prepared to move. Hell, Ike thought, Monty would never be fully prepared and he was incapable of being flexible. Everything had to be just right before he’d move.

  Even as he thought it, Ike knew the comment was unfair. Monty was trying to avoid the horrific losses suffered by England in the First World War by avoiding undue risks. England had lost nearly a full generation of her youth and the English people wanted nothing to do with bloodbaths and wars of attrition. America’s losses in that war had been minuscule by comparison. There was the real fear that the British people might force their government to settle for a negotiated peace if the blood price got too high.

  And, when given the opportunity, Monty truly was the master of the well-planned set-piece battle. He’d proven it at El Alamein in North Africa, the battle that had stopped the Nazi advance to Alexandria, saved the Suez Canal, and sent Rommel packing.

  But now the situation called for Monty to move rapidly and decisively, and he simply wasn’t doing it. This meant that Bradley, to Montgomery’s south, had to slow down so as to not expose his flanks to potential German counterattacks. Bradley was meticulous enough himself, but Monty was ten times more so.

  Worse, Montgomery considered himself to be the resident military genius and thought that the Americans were little more than well-intended but inept trainees, and he didn’t mind telling this to anyone who would listen. His British public was charmed while the Americans wanted to strangle him. Ike had thought about firing Monty, but he was a hero to the British people and would have to be tolerated for the sake of the alliance.

  The flamboyant but brilliant Lieutenant General George Patton commanded the Third Army under Bradley and was screaming to anyone who would listen that he should be turned loose to chase the Germans instead of waiting for Montgomery and the rest of Bradley’s army group to do something. Patton’s ego was as great as Montgomery’s and they despised each other. And these, Ike thought grimly, were supposed to be his friends. Once upon a time, he and Patton had indeed been friends, but Ike now realized Patton’s serious flaws as a leader, and their relationship was strained.

  The Germans were retreating slowly and devastating a helpless France as they did. Fortifications were being built for the Nazis by hundreds of thousands of French slave laborers, which created a dilemma for Ike. He could request the Eighth Air Force bomb the works under construction, which would result in tens of thousands of French casualties, or he could let them build and suffer untold American casualties when the attacks began.

  “Beetle,” Ike called. “What’s the word from de Gaulle?”

  Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed head of France, had given reluctant permission for the Americans to bomb strategic sites before the Normandy invasion. As a result, thousands of French civilians working and living near the tracks, bridges, and marshaling yards had been killed or wounded. Even de Gaulle considered it a necessary cost of war. But would he agree to bomb much larger targets, and at another huge cost in French lives?

  Smith entered, glowered, and took a seat. “Le Grand Charles gives his permission, but only if we let the French Second Armo
red strike towards Paris and be the first to liberate it.”

  “Wonderful,” Ike said.

  “According to de Gaulle,” Smith said, “only the French can liberate Paris. And, oh yeah, he wants the Germans out of Paris as soon as possible. Yesterday, if we can do it.”

  “With allies like these, who needs enemies?” Ike muttered, paraphrasing himself. He was becoming convinced that the French didn’t really want to totally defeat Germany. They wanted the Germans out of France and, above all else, they wanted to liberate Paris. After that, their corner of the world would be in order. Paris was their goal. All French efforts and thoughts were focused on Paris and not necessarily on eliminating the Nazis.

  French losses in the First World War had been even greater than Great Britain’s. If pushing Germany into unconditional surrender meant excessive French casualties, who could blame them for wanting to stop?

  Ike lit a cigarette. He smoked too much, but who the hell cared? Mamie might chastise him, but Mamie was back in the States. Kay Summersby, his vivacious thirty-eight-year-old British driver, however, would soon be joining him in France. She was more than a driver, she was his confidante and to hell with those who saw more in it than friendship. Kay would never tell him to stop smoking.

  What really concerned him was the fact that the German withdrawal to the east was working so well for them. The Germans always had good soldiers and even better leaders, and were dragging out their retreat to the Seine. Even with overwhelming superiority in the air and despite the Allies outnumbering the Germans in infantry, armor, artillery, and supplies, the Germans wouldn’t quit and wouldn’t break. Christ, they were good. He reluctantly admitted to himself that the average German soldier and NCO was better than his American or British counterpart. And their equipment was better as well. Their tanks were a damn sight better than the Sherman, America’s best. Thank God they didn’t have all that many of them.

  Worse, the krauts were on the move everywhere. Intelligence reported massive relocations of German infantry and armor as whole armies shifted between his forces and those opposing the Russians. It seemed the Germans were doing a good job adjusting to life after Hitler and that did not bode well.

  Field Marshal Walter Model now had overall command of the forces confronting Ike. He replaced von Rundstedt, who now ran the entire German military from Berlin. Von Manteuffel and Kesselring, the latter recently brought from Italy, were Model’s subordinate army group commanders in France, and both were getting everything they could and then some from their troops. The days of Hitler’s erratic and sometimes stupidly incompetent behavior were over. Hitler, the bitter joke now ran, was no longer on the Allies’ side. At least Rommel was out of the picture. He’d been badly wounded in a strafing incident.

  On the American side, Ike’s army was also divided into two army groups. In the north, the Twenty-first was commanded by Montgomery, while the Twelfth, farther south, was commanded by Bradley. The Sixth, under Devers, was scheduled to land in southern France in a couple of weeks. That invasion, however, now looked redundant. The Germans were doing a masterful job of pulling their troops out of that area of southern France as well. Devers might well land in a military vacuum. At least, Ike thought, it would liberate the much needed port of Marseilles.

  If the Nazis weren’t so goddamned evil, Ike thought, it wouldn’t be difficult at all to admire the way the German Army fought. But they were evil, he reminded himself. And however long it took, the Allies would continue to press them and wear them down. That is, if he could ever get Montgomery off his ass and back into the war.

  ***

  Magda and Margarete Varner had first assumed that they would go west by train towards Hachenburg. However, cold reality changed that. The trains were subject to attacks from American fighter-bombers that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, differentiate between a civilian train and one carrying military supplies. The women grudgingly accepted the fact that any train had the potential for military use and was a legitimate military target. There was also the fact that multitudes of troop and other military trains had taken over the German rail system. Passenger trains carrying useless civilians would have to wait.

  Thus, they went by car. Magda frequently let a delighted Margarete get some experience behind the wheel, which Magda found occasionally traumatic as her daughter tried to break land speed records. Even though they were clearly civilians, they had papers signed by von Rundstedt himself authorizing their move west. The Gestapo’s supporters and informers had been very active stopping those whose apparent flight from Berlin they considered disloyal. After what some still believed was Hitler’s assassination, the Gestapo’s diligence, along with overzealous local administrators, sometimes crossed the line into belligerence and abuse. There’d been summary executions of those who couldn’t satisfy the Gestapo.

  Magda had mixed emotions about these efforts. It was one thing, she thought, for the Gestapo to attack Jews and other enemies of the Reich, but there was no reason to assault German civilians for simply wanting to get away from the Allied bombers. She’d commented to Ernst that Berlin would be a better place with fewer useless civilians and he’d laughingly concurred.

  Along their route, there was ample evidence of bombings. Even though they avoided the badly cratered Autobahn, they found the roads west were damaged in many places. Their vehicle was a large 1939 Maybach sedan. There was enough room for the two women and a half dozen trunks and suitcases carrying the essentials for life on a farm.

  All went reasonably well until they were about ten miles from their destination. They’d been stopped several times by local police and the Gestapo, but, after only a few moments, they’d been allowed to go on their way. Only once was it intimated by a local Hitler Youth acting as a traffic cop that perhaps they were cowards for abandoning Berlin. As befits the wife of a colonel in the OKW, Magda had then given the boy a severe dressing down. Margarete thought his arrogance reminded her of Volkmar Detloff, the boy who’d fondled her and then slandered her.

  The road they were on roughly paralleled the rail lines and they were puzzled to see a crowd of people by a row of boxcars sitting on a siding. Magda thought it might be an accident and stopped the car. She’d had nurse’s training and thought she might be useful. As the two women approached the boxcars, they were assailed by an almost intolerable stench. Civilians from a nearby village, their mouths covered by cloths, were pulling bodies out of the train and laying them into neat macabre rows. Dear God, Magda thought, the poor souls had been strafed by the Yanks, but when? The corpses were clearly in a state of decomposition. But then she realized that the train was undamaged.

  She walked up to a policeman, a local officer and not the SS or Gestapo. Margarete walked behind; her face was pale and her mouth open in an expression of dismay while her eyes took in everything. She’d seen some carnage in Berlin, but here were several hundred bodies, all civilians, including women and small children, and all dressed in rags. Small and pathetic suitcases littered the ground. Some were open and clothing fluttered and blew about in the wind.

  “What has happened?” Magda asked civilly but firmly. She showed her travel papers endorsed by von Rundstedt and the officer was dutifully impressed.

  “They are dead and we are removing the bodies for cremation. The stench has become unbearable and we could not get any guidance regarding what to do with the train once the locomotive was driven away.”

  “How long has it been sitting here?”

  “A week.”

  Magda shook her head and she heard Margarete gasp. “Weren’t some of them alive a week ago?” her daughter asked.

  The policeman nodded briskly. “Yes, we all heard them moaning and crying, but we could do nothing. They were the SS’s problem and we were told to stay away from the Jew trains. The noise stopped a few days ago, thank God, but we still had no orders.” He laughed harshly, “However, we could finally get some sleep.”

  Sadly, Magda recalled Ernst telling her that von Rundstedt had con
vinced Himmler to stop using trains to resettle Jews in Poland because the trains were needed for military purposes. But what sort of fool would have simply taken the locomotive and driven away, abandoning his human cargo? And what sort of fools in the area would have left a train full of Jews to die and rot just a few yards from German homes, simply because no one had given them orders to follow?

  Magda looked at the number of bodies and the number of cars and concluded that the Jews must have been jammed inside. She walked to a boxcar and looked in. The floor was covered with urine, vomit, and feces. She saw what looked like a doll and realized it was an infant who’d been crushed in the press of bodies.

  She gagged, vomiting on the ground beside the death car while Margarete wept. Like all Germans, she understood that Jews were being treated harshly and being forced to emigrate to resettlement camps in Poland and elsewhere, but this told a different story. It strongly hinted that the terrible rumors swirling around the ultimate fate of the Jews were true. They weren’t being sent to new homes. They were being murdered. Even if the horror train hadn’t been stalled, how many would have survived the summer’s heat in boxcars designed for freight and not for human cargo? Not many, she surmised, and concluded that having so many Jews arrive dead solved much of the resettlement problem.

  The policeman stood beside her. “Stinking, filthy people these Jews, aren’t they?”

  Behind her, Margarete was still half sobbing, half gagging. “Does that justify leaving them to die?” Magda snapped.

  The policeman stiffened. “I would think, madam, that the wife of a senior officer in the army would fully understand that Jews are the mortal enemy of the Reich and that they must be removed from here so their cancer cannot spread. And if a few of them die in the process, what is that when so many of our young men are dying fighting the Russians and the Americans? You are a woman and I understand women are instinctively maternal and therefore more foolishly sympathetic than men, so I will not press the point. I suggest you and the girl leave here now before I have to make a report.”