Secret Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  Nobody wants to look at mutilated cripples, right? There’s nothing very glamorous about those kinds of heroes, right?

  “…Schloss Wachtstein and similar large houses on estates met those criteria, and so did the some of the larger villas of Grünwald.”

  There were at least three hundred “recuperating” patients at Schloss Wachtstein—all of them enlisted men, and most of them horribly mutilated and disfigured.

  What does that mean? Is that another manifestation of “rank hath its privileges”? Crippled enlisted men are sent to spartan accommodations in an old castle in the country, and officers to requisitioned villas in Grünwald?

  Or is it just that there are so many more torn-up enlisted men than officers?

  “How many officers are in…where Claus is?” Peter asked.

  “There are facilities for approximately one hundred,” the Graf replied. “The hospital consists of three villas. Claus has been given a pleasant private room on the second floor of the largest of them. It was the home of a Munich businessman who accumulated a large fortune making candy for children.”

  “A private room? Because he’s senior? Or because he’s so badly shot up?”

  “I don’t know,” the Graf replied, his tone making it clear he did not like either the question or the interruption. “Obviously, both factors were considered.” He paused and went on, more gently. “You are going to have to be ready to face Claus’s injuries, Hansel,” he said. “And when I saw him last, he had lost a good deal of weight.”

  “I have seen wounded men before, Poppa.”

  “The last thing Claus wants is your pity,” the Graf said, paused, and then went on: “There are, as I said, three villas, each on what I suppose is about a hectare of land. They were originally walled off from the street and each other—three-meter-high steel-mesh fences, concealed by shrubbery. A portion of the interior fencing has been removed, so now there is what amounts to a single compound.”

  “I understand,” Peter said.

  “The building where Claus is quartered holds officers who have been blinded, or who have lost a leg,” the Graf went on, “probably because the stairways are wider and shallower than those in the other villas—thus more easily negotiable by someone on crutches, or learning to navigate with the aid of a cane.”

  “And the others?” Peter asked softly.

  “The building next to his—it belongs to Max Stammt, the motion picture producer—houses officers who have lost both legs, or both arms, or who suffer from mental distress, and consequently require greater attention. And the third building was once owned by Peter Ohr.”

  Peter nodded his understanding. Peter Ohr, a well-known actor, was a Jew who had had the good sense—and/or the good luck—to abandon the movie studios of Grünwald for those of Hollywood while there was still time.

  “That is utilized to care for officers considered unlikely to recover.”

  In other words, those waiting to die.

  “Slow down a little, Hansel,” the Graf said. “It’s the second turn to the right after the Strassenbahn stop ahead.”

  Peter made the turn.

  “On the right, in the second block,” the Graf said.

  As he approached the entrance to the compound, Peter could see little of the villas behind the fence but their roofs. At the entrance itself, there was a helmeted soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  He turned off the cobblestone street and stopped.

  The soldier approached the car, saw that Peter was a major, and saluted. Then he saw the Graf, and popped to rigid attention. Like the guards at Schloss Wachtstein, the soldier was in his forties and didn’t look fit for active service.

  Peter rolled the window down. “Generalleutnant Graf von Wachtstein,” he said. That announcement had quickly gotten him past the guards at Schloss Wachtstein. It didn’t work here.

  “Heil Hitler!” the guard said, adding, “May I have your authorization, please, Herr Major?”

  “What authorization? We are here to visit a patient.”

  “I regret, Herr Major, that you must have an authorization to visit the hospital.”

  “Summon your officer,” Peter said. He looked at his father, who shrugged.

  Three minutes later, the gate opened and a Wehrmacht doctor—a major in his late fifties—emerged. He gave the Nazi salute the moment he saw the Graf’s collar tabs, then gave it again as he walked to the passenger side of the car. “Heil Hitler! How may I be of service to the Herr Generalleutnant?”

  “We’re here to see one of your patients, Oberstleutnant von Stauffenberg,” the Graf said.

  “I regret, Herr Generalleutnant, that we were unaware of your coming.”

  “Is there some sort of a problem?” the Graf asked.

  “The hospital has been closed to visitors, Herr Generalleutnant.”

  “Certainly not to a general officer of the OKW,” the Graf said impatiently.

  “I’m sure an exception can be made in your case, Herr Generalleutnant, but I will have to ask you to come with me while I speak with the Munich Area Medical Commandant’s office for permission.”

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” the Graf said.

  The doctor signaled the soldier to open the gate, and then got onto the running board of the Horch.

  Peter drove through the gate, which belonged to the middle of the three villas. The doctor signaled him to drive to the right, toward the villa where Claus had his room. The Major stepped off the running board when Peter stopped the car.

  “If you will come with me, gentlemen,” he said, then turned to the Graf. “I regret the inconvenience, Herr Generalleutnant.”

  The Graf didn’t reply, but the moment they were inside the foyer of the villa, he looked at the Major. “Is Graf von Stauffenberg still in the room at the left corner of the second floor?” he asked, gesturing toward the wide staircase.

  “Yes, Herr Generalleutnant, he is. Has the Herr Generalleutnant been here before?”

  “You go up, Peter, while I deal with the Munich Area Medical Commandant. I’ll see you in a moment.”

  The Major was visibly uncomfortable with that announcement, but in the German Army, as in any other, majors do not challenge general officers.

  Peter went up the stairs and started down the wide corridor to the left. A doctor in a white smock and a nurse were in the corridor, about to enter one of the rooms. The doctor looked at him curiously but said nothing.

  Peter continued down the corridor to the door that was almost certainly the one he wanted and knocked. When there was no answer, he knocked again, and harder. The door was obviously thick, and would mute the rap of his knuckles.

  When again there was no answer, he tried the handle, then pushed the door open.

  When Oberstleutnant Graf Claus von Stauffenberg heard the first faint knock, he was sitting in an upholstered chair, facing the door opening to his balcony. He ignored the knock. He was occupied, and preferred not to be disturbed. He was buttoning his shirt. This simple task was now possible, but very time-consuming.

  His equipment for accomplishing that task was a three-pronged claw—the thumb and the first and second fingers of his left hand.

  The stump where his right hand had been was for all practical purposes useless. Moreover, it was taking an unusually long time to heal. The suppuration had only started to diminish in the last few days, but the bandage still had to be changed at least twice a day, Thus, even trying to use it was painful.

  It was difficult to force the button through the buttonhole with the claw, but he was getting much better at it, probably because he had been able to bring the three remaining fingers back to some measure of flexibility by faithfully exercising them.

  The surgeons had done a splendid job with his now-empty left eye socket. One of the doc
tors believed an artificial eye might be fitted after another operation or two. But the eye—or, properly, the lost eye—didn’t bother him at all except when he washed his face and the empty socket stared at him from the mirror. There was no pain, and he didn’t have as much trouble with lost depth perception as he had feared. The ugliness could of course be concealed beneath his eye patch, which was in any case necessary to keep the still-raw socket from becoming infected.

  There was a second, louder knock, and a moment later Claus von Stauffenberg heard the door quietly creak open. He did not turn to see who it was, primarily because he didn’t care.

  Nina, his wife, the Grafin von Stauffenberg, would not be able to visit until the following Friday. A personal appeal to the Munich Area Medical Commandant—he was a friend of a friend—had gotten her a waiver to the No Visitors Rule, but for only four hours every other Friday.

  The silver lining to the black cloud of No Visitors was that he was no longer subjected to almost daily visits from adolescent girls of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls, who felt it was their patriotic duty to come to Recuperation Hospital No. 15 to stare with pity at the mutilated heroes of the Third Reich.

  That meant that whoever was entering the room was staff, which term included everyone from the surgeon-in-charge to a cleaning woman.

  “Don’t tell me,” a somehow familiar voice said, “he said ‘shut up’ and you thought he said ‘stand up.’”

  He turned in curiosity.

  “How are you, Claus?” Peter asked.

  Von Stauffenberg held up his claw and stump and pointed at his eye patch. “How do I look, Hansel?”

  “Goddamn you, don’t call me that!”

  “If you promise to try not to blaspheme, I’ll try not to call you Hansel, Hansel.”

  Von Stauffenberg lifted himself out of his chair. After a moment’s hesitation, they embraced. It seemed to embarrass them both. After a moment they stepped apart. “How did you get in?” von Stauffenberg asked.

  “My father’s downstairs,” Peter said.

  “You’re supposed to be in Argentina,” von Stauffenberg said.

  “They brought me back,” Peter said. “I think temporarily.”

  Von Stauffenberg pointed at the corners of the room, then at the light fixture.

  My God, he’s warning me they have surveillance microphones in here!

  Peter nodded his understanding.

  “You look well fed,” von Stauffenberg said.

  “The food is magnificent!”

  “And the ladies?”

  “Even tastier,” Peter said.

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “How’s Nina?”

  “Tell me, Peter.”

  “Her name is Alicia,” Peter said. “A really nice girl, Claus.”

  “That’s a change.”

  “How’s Nina?”

  “Fine. Every other Friday, she is permitted to visit.”

  “And the kids?”

  “Growing amazingly.”

  “You get to see them?”

  “Before they instituted the No Visitors Rule, I did,” von Stauffenberg said. “I hope to be given a leave.” He held up the stump. “As soon as this thing stops leaking.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was driving across the desert when an American P-51 strafed me. I woke up in a field hospital, and then I woke up again here in Munich, at the General Hospital.” He paused, and added: “At first—my eyes were covered with bandages—I was afraid I was blind.”

  “You look like a pirate,” Peter said. “One-Eyed Claus, the scourge of the Spanish Main. All you need is a hook for your right arm.”

  “I knew I could count on a comforting word from you, old friend.”

  “Well, at least you’re not in an American POW camp. You—”

  Von Stauffenberg pointed at the ceiling again.

  Peter stopped himself, just in time, from saying, “You heard about von Arnim?” and instead finished, “…and you’re obviously well on the road to recovery.”

  “I’m anxious to get back to active duty,” von Stauffenberg said.

  “I’m sure it won’t be long.”

  “You were telling me about Argentina,” von Stauffenberg said.

  Somewhat uncomfortably (imagining a listener hoping to hear disloyal or defeatist remarks), Peter delivered what was becoming a stock speech about the good food in Argentina, the incredible size of the farms, and the beauty of the women.

  The door opened, and the Graf appeared.

  “Heil Hitler!” von Stauffenberg said. “How good to see you again, Herr Generalleutnant.”

  “Heil Hitler,” the Graf said. “It’s good to see you looking so well, Claus.”

  Neither saluted. An eavesdropping microphone was possible, but it was unlikely that anyone was watching them.

  “I’ve spoken both to the Munich Area Medical Commandant and to Generaloberst Jodl,” the Graf announced. “The bad news is that our leave is over. My presence is required at Wolfsschanze immediately.”

  Peter looked at his father curiously, but said nothing.

  “I will fly to Berlin at 1530,” the Graf went on. “And you, Peter, have been designated to represent the OKW at the interment of Oberst Grüner. Korvettenkapitän Boltitz is on his way to Augsburg to arrange things with Hauptmann Grüner. You are to meet him there today.”

  “And the good news?” Peter asked.

  “The medical commandant has given us his permission to take Claus to luncheon.”

  Curiosity got the best of von Stauffenberg. “Oberst Grüner?” he asked. “Who’s he?”

  “A very fine officer who made the supreme sacrifice for the Fatherland, Claus,” Peter said. “In circumstances I’m not at liberty to divulge.”

  “The prospect of a good lunch is pleasing,” von Stauffenberg said. “I have always loved the venison sauerbraten at the Vier Jahreseitzen.”

  In the car on the way back into Munich, Peter turned to von Stauffenberg in the backseat and asked: “Is there really a microphone in your room, Claus?”

  “I don’t know. I do know I have to be careful. And so should you, Peter.”

  “I have been trying to impress that on him, Claus,” the Graf said, and then asked: “Claus, have you ever heard of Operation Phoenix?”

  “No,” von Stauffenberg said simply. “Should I have?”

  “It’s apparently a closely guarded state secret,” the Graf said. “One I think you should know about.”

  “With all possible respect, Uncle Friedrich, should Peter hear this?”

  “I heard it from Hansel, Claus. It is a state secret to which I have not been made privy. Tell him about it, Hansel, while we show our Claus the tourist sights of Munich.”

  As they made a sedate motor tour of Munich, Peter related all he knew about Operation Phoenix, including the deaths of Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz while they were attempting to smuggle the Operation Phoenix funds ashore, but he did not discuss his role in informing Cletus Frade of the landing.

  “And that’s not all, that’s not even the worst, Claus,” the Graf said. “Tell Claus about the ransoming operation, Hansel.”

  “I’m surprised, but not really surprised,” von Stauffenberg said when Peter had finished. “There are some really criminal types around our Führer, especially in the SS. Their uniforms have not changed their basic character.” Then he had another thought. “Do the Allies know about the ransoming operation?”

  Peter looked at his father for permission to answer. After a moment, the Graf nodded. “The Americans do,” Peter said. “I told them.”

  “Was that wise, Peter?” von St
auffenberg asked.

  “They were about to find out themselves.”

  “So you decided to tell them? Why?”

  “Peter has…an arrangement…with an agent of the American OSS,” the Graf said. “It has proven useful. It may prove even more useful in the future.”

  “The risks of that are enormous,” von Stauffenberg said, obviously thinking out loud. “That’s treason on its face.”

  “And what are we doing, Claus?” the Graf asked.

  “How much have you told Peter about that, Uncle Friedrich?” von Stauffenberg asked.

  “As little as possible,” the Graf said. “But it should be self-evident that our Little Hansel isn’t so little anymore. I’m sure he’s concluded that you’re with us. I don’t think he should know any more than that, and that may be too much. He is one of those suspected of being implicated in the deaths of Oberst Grüner and the SS man.”

  “Were you, Peter?” von Stauffenberg said. But before Peter could reply, he had a second thought: “I don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

  “But you already know, Claus, don’t you?” the Graf said. “What is that English cliché about, ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave’?”

  “‘When first we practice to deceive,’” von Stauffenberg finished.

  “I think that’s everything,” the Graf announced, and looked at his watch. “Take us to the Vier Jahrseitzen, please, Hansel. We can have a nice leisurely luncheon, and then you can take me to the airport, and Claus back to the hospital.”

  “What do I do with the car?” Peter asked.

  “I’d say leave it with Claus, but I don’t think they’d let him use it. But what about leaving it with your friend Hauptmann Grüner at Augsburg? Perhaps Nina—”

  “Hauptmann Grüner?” von Stauffenberg asked.

  “The son of Oberst Grüner,” the Graf explained. “He and Hansel are comrades in arms.”