***
Himmler glared at von Rundstedt who, as usual, was unimpressed. “Tell me, Field Marshal, will we stop the Allies at the Seine?”
“No, Reichsfuhrer, we will not. We will delay them, but nothing more.”
“Then we have surrendered France for nothing?”
“Hardly,” he answered bluntly.
They were in a small room in the basement of the Chancellery in the heart of Berlin. It was stark and grimy and there were puddles of water on the floor. It was nothing like the opulence that once existed in the upper floors before the Allies started bombing. However, it was safe, although it was presumed that key personnel might have to move to the bunkers that had been built for Hitler behind and beneath the Chancellery.
A few yards away from them rested the ornate and sealed coffin containing the mortal remains of Adolf Hitler. It lay on a stark concrete pedestal and a selected few loyal Nazis were permitted to visit the site, some seeming to worship as it if was a medieval Catholic shrine. Many reached out to touch it, as if they could draw life from a box containing a dead man. Rundstedt wondered if there would be a future market for Hitler relics, just as there had been for splinters of the true cross or vials of the Virgin’s milk in the Middle Ages. The world was full of fools, he thought. How about hairs from Hitler’s mustache or fingernail clippings in a crystal reliquary, he wondered?
The meeting included the members of what Himmler now referred to as his War Committee. Along with von Rundstedt, were Admiral Doenitz, Production Minister Speer, Admiral Canaris representing the intelligence world, the Abwehr, and General Adolf Galland, representing Goering and the Luftwaffe. Himmler thought it was deeply ironic that Rundstedt and Galland had been outspoken critics of Hitler’s strategies, with Canaris and Doenitz less than wholeheartedly supportive. The world had truly changed since Hitler’s death. But was it for the better or worse? Time would tell.
Rundstedt continued. “What we have managed to do is salvage an army in France that otherwise might have been encircled and destroyed. We have pulled our troops out of all French coastal enclaves, and those troops along with those of Rommel’s old command-now under Kesselring-are now stiffening our much shorter and rational defensive lines. But stop the Amis at the Seine? No.”
“And why not?” Himmler asked.
“Because the Seine isn’t that much of a river; therefore, not that much of a barrier. Worse, it twists and turns north of Paris which means it’s almost impossible to create a coherent defensive line. Add to that the fact that our army has been badly mauled and stopping the Americans is quite impossible. Our army’s job is to delay the Allies until we can complete construction of the West Wall and, of course, the final defensive line which will be the valley of the Rhine itself. The steep valleys and the wide, deep, and swiftly flowing Rhine will be an impenetrable moat and there we will stop them.”
Himmler was dismayed but not surprised. Von Rundstedt’s draconian strategy meant abandoning the part of Germany west of the Rhine. Cities such as Aachen, where Charlemagne had ruled the Holy Roman Empire a thousand years earlier, would fall to the Allies, as would Koln and Koblenz. Strasbourg, recently recovered and returned to the Reich would also be lost. The Rhineland, also recently recovered and which included the Saar Basin, would be lost again.
Rundstedt read his mind. “What we give up today, Herr Himmler, we will regain tomorrow. We must accept the fact that we bit off more than we could chew in fighting so many enemies, and must pay now with a difficult case of indigestion.”
Himmler shook his head. He wondered how Goebbels would sell this catastrophe to the German people. “That is a disgusting metaphor. Are you through with your reorganization of the army?”
“At least on paper,” he responded. “Commands and commanders have been named, and armies are in the process of being moved to their proper positions.”
Field Marshal Model was in overall command in France, with Field Marshals Kesselring and Manteuffel commanding army groups under him. Manstein was in overall command against the Soviets with three army groups reporting to him commanded by Guderian, von Kluge, and Vietinghoff. Senger commanded the army remaining in Italy guarding the Alpine passes and smaller army groups still existed in the Balkans, Norway, Denmark, and elsewhere. They would be moved to Germany as soon as possible. Himmler admitted the command choices were good ones but had a question.
“Where the devil is Rommel? Do you think he won’t recover from his wounds? Or do you plan on sending him back to North Africa?” Himmler chuckled at his own joke. Only Speer responded with a nervous grin.
Rundstedt answered. “He has a fractured skull and other injuries, but he will recover. For the time being, it does not make sense to include him in our plans since it might be months before he is able to take to the field and be his old dashing self.”
Himmler nodded and smiled to himself. Rommel and Rundstedt couldn’t stand each other. Perhaps this was the older general’s way of banishing the brilliant but abrasive younger one, somewhat like he had isolated Bormann and Goering. Someday soon he would have to do something more definitive than isolation regarding his enemies.
Rundstedt continued. “On a positive note, Albert Speer reports that the emphasis on production of antitank weapons is beginning to pay off. More and more eighty-eight millimeter guns are coming out, also large quantities of ammunition and vast numbers of Panzerfausts. We may not be able to make as many tanks as we would like, but we will soon have a proverbial forest of antitank weapons, and Speer further says we will be able to lay blankets of land mines to protect our armies.”
“Good.” Himmler silently thanked Rundstedt for not making the point that the army had earlier begged for an increase in the production of those and other weapons. But no, the late Fuhrer had insisted on other priorities, like the V1 and V2 rockets.
Reports indicated that, while literally hundreds of V1 rockets had rained down on England, their impact had been relatively insignificant. Werner Von Braun, the young genius in charge of the rocket program, had reported that the RAF had developed tactics to shoot them down. It was quite a disappointment. The soon to be introduced V2 would solve that little problem; it traveled far too fast to be caught. But would it be enough, Himmler wondered.
Admiral Doenitz added that the U-boats sent from the Mediterranean to the Baltic were not performing up to expectations. “American and British convoys are escorted by powerful naval forces. In too many instances our submarines simply cannot get close enough to launch torpedoes, and, when aggressive captains tried, their boats were sunk.”
The shifting of armies had been largely successful, Rundstedt added. Much had been done under cover of night when the Allies were blind. Speer’s engineers had built temporary sidings in a number of places where trains could be pulled off and hidden during the day.
Like the navy, the Luftwaffe had accomplished little. German planes were being swept from the sky by hordes of American fighters. Galland said that the Luftwaffe’s only hope was the ME262, a jet that was vastly superior to anything the Allies had.
“Unfortunately,” Galland said, “There are far too few of them and we don’t have enough jet fuel to keep them in the air for very long.”
“Which brings me to an uncomfortable point,” Rundstedt said and Himmler noticed that Galland and Doenitz were looking at each other in dismay. “Both the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine have large numbers of personnel doing very little since they have neither planes nor ships. I propose that our few remaining surface ships be stripped of men, guns, armor, and anything else useful and put to work elsewhere.
“The same with the Luftwaffe,” he continued. “We have literally dozens of bases with no planes. At worst, those personnel currently loitering at them can be utilized as infantry, although that would be as a last resort. They will be more useful as antiarmor and antiaircraft defenders. Of course, those Luftwaffe personnel needed for existing planes and the new jets will be retained.”
To Himmler’s s
urprise, there were no objections from Doenitz or Galland. Had he been there, Goering would have had a tantrum at the partial dismantling of his precious and now almost irrelevant Luftwaffe.
Yes, he thought, something must be done about Goering. And Bormann.
***
The morning drizzle had turned to a steady, driving rain. Nazi weather, the men of the 74th called it. The rain meant that the dirt roads had turned to deep mud that even the tracked vehicles found difficult, and the far more numerous wheeled vehicles found impassible. As a result, the regiment was effectively stalled.
Rain also meant that nothing was in the air, including American fighter-bombers and, of course, Morgan’s patched up Piper Cub. Leach was in a hospital and would recover; however, his return to the regiment was problematic at best. Rear echelon duty looked to be in his future. It was almost as good as a wound requiring a medical discharge, the proverbial “million dollar” wound.
PFC Snyder was now Jack’s copilot but only after a very serious discussion. When initially tapped for the job, Snyder had flatly refused, even though disobeying a direct order might mean a court-martial and even jail time.
“At least I’d be alive, sir. With nothing but the highest respects for you as an officer and a pilot, what you have there is a flying coffin for the back seat driver. Think about it, Captain. If it’d been you who was hit, Leach would have been helpless. All he could have done was ride the thing down to the ground, screaming and praying and calling for his mother. No sir, and again with profoundest respects, what that plane requires is a set of dual controls so the back seat guy stands at least some chance of landing that thing. You get those built and I’ll gladly volunteer. If not, no thank you, sir.”
Since it had only been the two of them talking, Snyder was on fairly safe ground with his near insubordination. More important, he’d been right. While Sergeant Major Rolfe and the mechanics were fixing and cleaning the plane, Jack had them rig a set of controls for what Morgan now referred to as his copilot. He also had a pair of. 30 caliber machine guns mounted on the wings with a crude trigger in the cabin.
“You know these things can jam, sir,” Rolfe said. “in which case they’d be useless as tits on a boar.”
Morgan smiled. “You know that and I know that, but I’d just feel better having them and knowing that I might just stand a chance of firing back at somebody shooting at me. I never realized how helpless we were up there until the krauts opened fire and I could do nothing but jerk and twist and run like hell.”
Rolfe laughed. “Sometimes running’s the best possible move, if you ask me.”
The plane was ready and Snyder was ready. It was time to go back up, but the weather wasn’t going to cooperate. Damn.
With nothing much better to do, Jack drove his Jeep around traffic and towards the head of the column. Jeb Carter’s company had point this miserable and slow-moving day.
The column was stalled. Again. Trees had been felled across the road and there were clear indications that the road had been mined. If so, it was likely that the shoulders and the fields on either side were also mined. The Germans had a helluva lot of mines.
Soldiers were hunched over and moving cautiously towards the rude barricade. A couple of men had mine detectors and they swung them slowly over suspected areas like magic wands, while others waited the okay to start clearing the road. The mine detectors could pick up buried metal, but some German mines were made out of plastic, or even wood.
Jeb Carter, now Captain Jeb Carter, was in the turret of his Sherman and standing up with the hatch open. When he saw Jack, he grinned. “Hey, come on up here where real men hang out.”
Several of Carter’s men laughed at the jibe. “Good. Maybe I can get combat pay,” Jack retorted as he climbed onto the tank’s hull. It was slippery and he was wearing a poncho. He prayed he wouldn’t slip and fall into the mud. Carter would never let him hear the end of it.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get rain in your tank?”
Carter laughed. “It’ll help rinse all the crud out of it. Damn thing stinks of piss, oil, and sweat.”
Bang!
One of the men at the roadblock jerked and fell. “Sniper!” someone yelled and the others scattered and one poor soul stepped on a mine. It exploded and Morgan watched in horror as the man’s torso went in one direction and his legs in another.
Bang! Another GI fell, writhing and screaming. One of his buddies grabbed him and dragged him under cover. Jack slid off the tank and into a ditch. Carter had ducked into the turret and closed the hatch. The tank’s engine roared and the tank lurched forward. Carter stopped his tank just before the roadblock. A mine could rip the treads off his vehicle and leave him stranded and helpless.
Levin plopped down in the dirt beside Jack. “Where the hell is Carter going? Does he even know where the sniper is?”
“If the sniper has any brains, he’s halfway to Berlin by now,” Jack said.
Another tank joined Carter’s and the two of them sprayed likely areas with their machine guns. There was no response. An infantry patrol moved forward and disappeared into the rain, which had decided to fall in torrents. After what seemed an eternity, the patrol returned. Two men half-carried, half-dragged a wounded German soldier, while another carried a Mauser rifle with a telescopic sight. A Luger was stuck in a GI’s belt. The German grimaced with pain as he was ungently dumped beside Morgan and Levin.
Carter reversed his tank, stopped beside them, and clambered down.
“The dumb shit didn’t run away in time,” Carter snarled, his face contorted with fury. Men in his company had been among those killed and wounded. The German had been shot in the thigh, but didn’t seem in any life-threatening danger. They searched his pockets and found he was from the 89th Infantry Division, a unit neither had heard was in the area. Jack thought that intelligence would like to talk to this guy.
“The son of a bitch just stood up and surrendered,” one of the soldiers said. “He was even grinning at us.”
The sergeant in charge of the men clearing the roadblock walked up, took the prisoner’s Luger from a suddenly grinning corporal, held it to the prisoner’s forehead and pulled the trigger, splattering the German’s brains on the ground. Morgan and Levin were stunned.
“Those were my guys the fucker killed, Captain,” the sergeant snarled to Carter as if daring him to do something about it. Morgan had heard that a lot of prisoners never made it back to the prison pens. Surrendering in combat was very chancy, especially for someone who’d just killed several Americans. Too bad nobody would get a chance to interrogate this one, although his papers would tell a great deal.
Carter nodded. “Don’t ever do that again, Sergeant. And, oh yeah, give me the fucking Luger. Shooting a prisoner does not qualify you for a souvenir.”
CHAPTER 7
Hermann Goering half dozed in his oversized hospital bed and thought of Carinhall, his magnificent estate northeast of Berlin. Named for his first wife, Carin, it had also been the site of his wedding to his second wife, Emmy. His dreamy drug-induced thoughts included his happily observing the magnificent and historic art works taken from museums and private owners. Most of the latter were, of course, Jews. Much of it had been bought from the previous owners and not stolen, as some alleged, and so what if he paid only a minuscule fraction of the real worth? The owners were permitted to live, weren’t they? At least for a while, he thought and giggled softly, unless they had somehow managed to get out of Nazi Germany, in which case they could live all they wanted.
He managed to realize that he desperately needed to get out of this damned hospital bed and go home to Carinhall. He wanted to know what was happening in Germany, but no one would talk to him even during those brief times when he was lucid. He was alone in the large, even luxurious, room. Even though he knew better, he felt it could be a prison. But who would imprison the heir to Hitler?
His mind was fogged, but he’d been told that Hitler was dead. In that case, he, Hermann Goer
ing, should be leading Germany in her fight against her many enemies. But if he wasn’t leading Germany, who was? Bormann was an obvious choice, since Bormann was an odious snake who’d connived himself into a position of power, but the equally disgusting Himmler was another possibility. If only he could think clearly, he could work this out.
Goering thought the doctors were trying to wean him away from his drug addiction, but they were going about it in a very strange way since he was not suffering from any withdrawal symptoms. He chuckled to himself, making a sound like a gurgle. At least he was finally losing some weight. Perhaps some of his older uniforms would fit him. That would be nice. He’d look well at social events.
A new doctor in a white coat came in and looked at his chart. He was very tall, well over six feet, and he had dueling scars on his cheek. His eyes were cold as ice and Goering suddenly knew that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t a doctor! It was Otto Skorzeny. So why is he in my room? Goering thought, and then smiled. He is going to take me from this wretched place and put me in charge of Germany as Hitler’s rightful heir. So why is he fiddling with the intravenous solution?
Skorzeny looked down on Goering and twisted his face in something resembling a smile. It made him look evil and Goering shivered. He tried to move his arms but they wouldn’t respond. Then his tongue wouldn’t either.
“It won’t be long now Fat Hermann,” Skorzeny said.
It wasn’t. In only a few seconds, eternal darkness enveloped Hermann Goering.
***
The city of Rennes in western France had fallen to the Allies. Located along the Ille and Villaine rivers, Rennes had been a major city since before Roman times and, along with medieval buildings, the city boasted a section of the third century city wall.
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