by Leo Kessler
OTTO'S BLITZKRIEG
By Leo Kessler
OTTO STAHL – BOOK 2
This Edition Edited and Published by Benchmark Publishing
Bootham, York, England
www.benjaminlindley.co.uk
First Published Worldwide in 2017
Copyright © Charles Whiting 1982, 2017
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‘If the British told and enjoyed and embroidered some versions of the truth, they did so because that helped them to stay in the war. Like the veterans of Dunkirk itself, they did the best they could with the weapons they had, and they survived to fight again. That was enough. The truth cannot hurt them now.’
Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth, N. Harman
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The reception of the first part of Otto Stahl’s memoirs has been very gratifying for me as an author. For Herr Stahl himself it has been rather lucrative too; but then he is a businessman and for him (as he puts it) ‘the rouble can’t roll quick enough’.
Readers of all ages have written to me, expressing their interest in one way or other. There have been the usual schoolboys wanting to ‘do’ Otto’s life for their ‘O’ levels; several maiden ladies, obviously with hope still blossoming in their virginal bodies, desiring signed photographs of ‘dear Mr Stahl’; and eager fans preparing to ‘play war games with Hauptmann Stahl’. Hauptmann Stahl’s reply to that particular offer is unprintable.
Of course there have been crank letters too. ‘Don’t you dare come to Wigan, you arrogant square-headed sod… signed anonymous’ is their general tone. I can tell ‘signed anonymous’ here and now that Otto has no intention of sullying the holy soil of Wigan with his presence, not even if he were asked to do a signing session of his book at the local W. H. Smith’s. No way!
A few of the readers’ letters have been critical, mainly about the accuracy of Otto’s recollections after such a length of time. Of course, some of Otto’s statements about his experiences do sound quite outrageous, I can appreciate that, and a biographer like myself has to spend a great deal of time trying to verify the facts, in spite of Otto’s oft-reiterated statement that, ‘I’ve never told a lie in all my life, well, not often.’
For this present volume, I can assure the interested reader, that I have taken extra care to check the details of Otto’s experiences in England and on the Continent. I have been able to verify that two German civilians were captured in a commando raid on the French coast immediately after Dunkirk, though it was not the first commando raid as Otto maintains. That honour goes to a group which missed its target, France, landed by mistake in German-occupied Jersey and returned with three punnets of strawberries and several pounds of tomatoes as their war-booty.
I have also been able to confirm by reference to the newspapers of the period held at the Newspaper Museum in Dortmund that an unnamed German civilian did escape from the temporary POW camp at York Racecourse in the winter of 1941. So Oberleutnant von Werra was not the only German to escape from a British camp in World War Two.
‘Of course, it was me who yer read about,’ Otto said when I informed him of my find. ‘But naturally, von Werra was an officer and a gentleman and he had this little lion cub, which looked bloody good on the front cover of the mags. That’s why they played him up, the shits!’
As the reader can see, Otto has not lost his taste for earthy language. I have even been able to confirm that there was one ‘Alf Cheetham, employed as a caretaker at HM Embassy in Athens during the German invasion of that country. Unfortunately he has long passed away, apparently due to drink.
It is quite clear to me, of course, on what score most of the complaints about this second volume of Herr Stahl’s memoirs will come: the business of Mr Winston Churchill’s illegitimate son, the Hon Reggie Gore-Browne – “Kicked out of Harrow – buggery! Sent down from Balliol – Indecent exposure! Sacked from the Foreign Office – Importuning in Hyde Park” (as, according to Otto, Mr Churchill once described his son). As a loyal admirer of the Great Man myself, I undoubtedly would feel the same indignation at Otto’s revelations, if I didn’t believe in them implicitly, which I do.
Naturally a lot of older readers will be familiar with the insidious rumour that circulated during World War Two that the bespectacled, moon-faced Mr Brendan Bracken, who appeared from obscurity to become Minister of Information in Churchill’s wartime cabinet, was Mr Churchill’s natural son. But I doubt if even they will accept the Hon Reggie Gore-Browne.
I have made the point to Otto. But he sticks doggedly to his story. In reply to my most recent letter to him on the subject, he sent me a photograph of two white-haired elderly gentlemen with bronzed faces sitting under a palm tree. Turning it over, these words were clearly visible: ‘Love and kisses to Otto, from his chums Rodney and Reggie, Marrakesh, 1979’.
In his own hand, Otto had scribbled in pencil, “The best I can do for you, Leo. Don’t bother me again until you get the shekels from the new book. Otto.”
Leo Kessler,
Denia,
Spain,
1981
BOOK 1 – IN THE BAG
CHAPTER 1
‘Otto,’ the Count said, ignoring the noise coming from the waiting men.
Otto Stahl took his gaze off the lone Heinkel III limping low over the French countryside, its port engine silent, trailing a plume of black smoke behind it through the hard, blue September sky. It was obviously another casualty of the air battle that had been raging over the English coast for the last month.
‘Yes, Count,’ he said.
‘When I was a boy,’ the Count said, smoothing down the long Roman Catholic soutane which he had recently taken to wearing, ‘I knew an East Prussian Junker who thought he was a bird.’
Otto looked at his middle-aged partner, but said nothing. Since they had first met in that prison cell in Aachen in September 1939 he had got used to Graf von der Weide’s strange ways.
The Count continued.
‘Because of his little quirk, his servants – servants were very cheap in those days, though they were only Water-Poles – made him a nice nest in the oaks just to the front of the house. He would stay up there most of the day billing and cooing – oh, I forget to tell you, Otto, he imagined himself to be a pigeon, just an ordinary one, not a racing pigeon. He was too portly for that, naturally.’
‘Naturally!’ Otto echoed, but sarcasm was always wasted on the silver-haired Count with the fleshy, handsome pale face. Otto flashed a glance to the line of wounded soldiers from the military hospital, waiting expectantly for the doors of the mobile brothel to open. They were a good crowd for a Wednesday, he told himself, and turned his attention to the Count again.
‘Just before dinner, the servants would scatter a bit of seed at the base of the tree,’ he continued, ‘and he’d come down, pick at it a small while and then go inside to change for dinner. In those days in East Prussia, they always dressed, including military decorations on Sundays.’
Two amputees were limping up, pushing a basket-case to the head of the line, while the others grumbled. Further off, in the Bayeux Military Hospital’
s English section, the wounded prisoners jeered and gave raspberries.
‘Typical Hun,’ they called. ‘Even needs a couple of other blokes to put him on the job!’ Obviously understanding English, the basket-case pushed back his blanket to reveal that his pyjama flies were already open. He made an obscene gesture with his right hand, crying back, ‘That’s all you Tommies are good for – five against one. Haw! Haw!… Five against one!’
‘Well, one day,’ the Count continued, deigning as a man of the cloth, temporarily at least, not to notice the obscene ribaldry, ‘the servants forgot to scatter the usual seed. The Junker didn’t descend. That night it poured down – there’s a lot of rain in that part of East Prussia, that’s why the potatoes are so good.’
‘Get on with it, Count,’ Otto urged. ‘It’s nearly opening time.’
‘Of course, my dear boy. We have to think of such mundane matters, I suppose. Well, the poor Junker got thoroughly soaked and caught pneumonia to which he unfortunately succumbed.’ He stopped abruptly and stared down at the French priest’s shovel hat which had been acquired by letting a local parson have a few minutes with the mobile brothel’s latest reinforcement, a girl named Berlin Lola.
Otto Stahl’s bright blue clever eyes took in that tragic look which the Count’s face always bore when some crisis or other was in the offing.
‘Now Count, don’t let’s have any moods. What’s that little tale supposed to mean, now? Come on, cough it up. The customers are getting impatient. They’ll be after poor old Leo’s arse – ’ he indicated the dray horse in the shafts to the front of the converted Berlin furniture van which acted as accommodation for their four ladies of pleasure ‘– in half a minute.’
The Count hesitated.
Up at the barred window of the Tommies ward, one of the English had pulled down his pyjama trousers, stuck one of the midday salt herrings into his bottom and was hobbling around on his crutches, crying, ‘Get me, fellers… I’m a mermaid!’ It was obvious the English were envious of the men crowding up to the van below.
‘Well, to be frank, Otto, I miss the eccentricity of the old days before we had to flee and take up this – er – business,’ the Count said, measuring his tone for the benefit of his fine young friend.
Otto looked at him incredulously. ‘You mean the spy-school, with Admiral Canaris as Father Christmas, and the Jewish fascist Hirsch with his pigeon-shit, and Brass-Eggs, the warm brother who was always grabbing at your balls, and Gertie, the Commandant, dressed up as a female auxiliary all the time, and Maps… ’ He gasped for breath. ‘You don’t miss them, do you?’
The Count nodded numbly.
‘But holy strawsack,’ Otto exploded. ‘Why?’
‘Because, my son, since we have won the war – or almost, save for those funny English over there – society has become very dull. Everyone is expected to conform.’
‘Count,’ Otto said, for he liked the middle-aged aristocrat who had saved him from the prison camp and perhaps even worse only months ago. ‘We’ve got a nice little business going here. Four good girls who can service a whole company of infantry in one night and never a complaint from them, except perhaps that the stubble-hoppers might care to take their military boots off in bed now and again. We’re in France, eat Chateaubriand steaks every night and swill them down with champagne, have a very decent frog mistress each – ’
‘I have decided to give Fifi up for the sake of the church, Otto,’ the Count interrupted.
Otto ignored the interruption. ‘Above all, Count, we’re outside the Reich, free agents, with no Gestapo sniffing around all the time. What did you say when we took up this job – like Kings in France? Now, don’t you – ’
He broke off abruptly. Lola from Berlin, one of their girls, had just opened the door to the mobile brothel. She filled it completely, all three hundred pounds of her.
Leo, the dray horse, whinnied with the shock of the shifting weight and dug in its hooves grimly, twin jets of grey breath escaping from its distended nostrils.
A great cheer went up from the excited soldiers as Berlin Lola blew kisses from the doorway and cooed in a deep, gravelly baritone, ‘Yoo hoo! Are my boys ready to party?’ Her fluttering eyelashes nearly disappeared behind enormous rouged cheeks as she grinned a grin that showed off her gold-capped front teeth.
‘I wish she wouldn’t damn well do that,’ Otto exclaimed, rising to his feet, as Leo, who acted as an animal brake when the van was fully operational, pawed the ground desperately to keep it balanced. ‘She’ll have poor old Leo kicking his hooves three metres in the air one of these days. Come on, Count, let’s get down there and start the – collection fund.’
Together they hurried towards the van, while the soldiers crowded excitedly forward, five-mark coins in one hand, the issue rubber in the other.
‘Take it easy, gentlemen!’ Otto cried above the racket. ‘Everybody will get his turn, don’t worry. But just keep your money and your Parisian sheath at the ready. Tempis fugit, you know.’
‘Not before me he doesn’t,’ the basket-case croaked, urging on the two comrades who were going to help him, a greedy look in his faded eyes. ‘Let Tempis wait. I’m first, ‘cos I’m not expected to last the day out.’
At the door the Count sighed and with an effort of will gave the man in the basket a dignified blessing. It was all just another day in the life of Occupied France.
France had been occupied for three months, and by this time the conquerors and the conquered had come to a modus vivendi. It was a very simple arrangement, motivated by money, food and sex.
The German conquerors paid and the French served: food and sex. But not to the ordinary Wehrmacht field-grey. At higher headquarters in Paris, it had been decided that the delights of ‘la cuisine Francaise et l’amour Francais’ should be reserved for officers only. As General Stülpnagel, the Military Governor of Paris, had maintained when this vital question had been discussed by his staff – in secret, of course:
‘Much too good for the rank-and-file, Mein Herren. Much too good! I mean, what will become of the Wehrmacht if the common-or-garden stubble-hopper gets to know about Moet-et-Chandon and tripes a la Mode de Caen and certain other little perversions which I will not mention in this place?’ He leered at his officers knowingly through his monocle. ‘No, gentlemen. We cannot allow our men to be perverted by such things. As from this moment, they are reserved for officers. After all, one has to be a gentleman to cope with such – er – piggeries.’
Thus Otto Stahl’s mobile brothel filled a different niche. French ladies were out of bounds; therefore he supplied pure, unadulterated German instead, thanks to Leo's single horsepower, to his German soldier customers. He had taken to lecturing the ranks of field-grey, ‘Now what do you fine upstanding young men want Frog ladies for, eh, when you have good homemade stuff on hand, checked, signed and sealed as fit for human consumption by high-ranking medical doctors in Berlin?’
Business boomed. Yet as Otto stood there that warm September day outside the Bayeux Military Hospital – cricket bat in one hand in case of trouble (it had been abandoned by the Tommies at Dunkirk), the other full of hot five-mark pieces – he abruptly experienced some of the Count’s dissatisfaction.
Chateaubriand steaks and his mistress Arlene’s private performances, which she did exceedingly well, were all right in their place. But was running a mobile brothel the peak of his life achievements? It was an unnerving thought. Under his thoughtful gaze, the basket-case was wheeled out dead, but with a happy smile on his face.
Slowly but surely, Otto Stahl realised he was bored.
Otter-faced Admiral Keyes was standing ramrod straight, as befitted a well-decorated veteran of British military service. He was the head of Combined Operations, the Victoria Cross hero of Zeebrugge, and the deviser of bold but typically impractical schemes. One such scheme was set out in front of him on his desk. Papers, strategic drawings, and pencils littered its surface. A military issue waste basket was overflowing with crumpled
papers by its side. He didn't need to look at the table to recount every detail of the plan – its next step was standing in front of him. Now that the terse pleasantries were over, he addressed his visitor with as stern an eye as he could muster.
‘Now listen, A&D,’ he snapped in that brisk naval fashion of his, staring down at the Laird of Abermockie and Dearth, the comical little commando with his drooping kilt and his shaggy mop of carrot-red hair, ‘I’m going to ask you to do a tough job, although you’ve had hardly any training. But it’s urgent, damn urgent!’
Outside in the other office, one of the Wrens was saying in an affected, middle-class voice, ‘But, darling, our black stockings do contrast well with white underthings, don’t you think? Imagine having to wear those khaki bloomers like the ATS, or even worse, grey like the WAFs. Unthinkable!’
The Admiral shook his head. ‘Walls like paper, A&D. Boche espionage would have a field day here, what?’
The little Laird had once been an East End barrow-boy but, on the death of his uncle had inherited, to his astonishment, a castle, a couple of lochs, and half of the bleeding Scottish highlands. He was no fool, in spite of his ridiculous appearance and his private army, financed by the fortune that ten generations of canny Scots had built up. He was going to fight Herr Hitler, he was going to fight him in his own way. He ignored the question.
Instead he asked one of his own. ‘What you got for me and the lads, Admiral?’
Keyes’ otter-like features let slip a quick grin. Old A&D was a man after his own heart. ‘Well, at the present moment we can tell the time from the clock on Calais’ railway-station tower, but that’s about all. We know virtually bugger-all about what’s going over there on the other side of the Channel, and old Winnie's getting anxious. He wants to know.’
