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Authors: Douglas Niles,Michael Dobson

BOOK: Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)
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It’s been observed to the point of cliché that government agencies view their internal competitors with more dismay than their national enemies. When Kim Philby, officially employed by MI-6, the Secret Intelligence Service, needed to examine matters on British soil—the turf of MI-5, the British Security Service—on behalf of his true employers, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he knew that he was crossing into enemy territory, and would need to move with extreme caution.
As part of that caution, Philby followed the sort of routine that would lull
potentially suspicious observers. He left his office at the same time most evenings, unless a major operation was in progress or the work demands were otherwise unusually high. He ate dinner at one of a small number of restaurants in his neighborhood, Indian one night, a chop house another, a pub with two or three acquaintances still another. He had a walk after dinner, weather permitting, did some reading or paperwork back in his flat, turned out the lights at a reasonable hour, and got a good night’s sleep.
He had enough variety to make a normal life, but not enough to give any hypothetical observer cause to work hard to keep tabs on him. Within his limited universe, he had eight message drops, twelve alert points, and three preset escape routes, should he have to leave in a hurry.
Dinner and walk complete, Philby turned on the lamp on his desk, drew out a pad of lined paper, and began a methodical ticking off of points.
He viewed his tasking with some skepticism. In the normal course of his duties, he was privy to a fair amount of daily information about the size and scope of Allied forces. While there was a substantial level of detail available only on a “need to know” basis, he didn’t need to know it for the purposes of his current mission, which was to assess the overall level of the Western Allies’ ability to take and hold Berlin against determined Soviet opposition. As long as the general information was reasonably accurate, it would serve.
Were there major resources capable of affecting the outcome of a Berlin campaign not part of the generally available information? If so, what kinds of resources would they be? He began to jot notes as he thought. The first and most obvious type of hidden resource would be a secret weapon of some sort. There were always secret weapons of one sort or another under development. Most of them tended to fizzle out, which was the nature of scientific research. Of the ones that entered production and service, the majority tended to prove somewhat less world-shaking than originally advertised. A few, such as radar, were truly revolutionary.
Another resource would be the shifting of forces from one theater of war to another, either delaying action on another front, or possibly discovering that the other front required far fewer forces than originally thought. The shocking surrender of Army Group H the previous day would allow Rommel’s army group and Bradley’s army group to move forward at a greater rate. Sir Miles Dempsey’s mostly British and Canadian Twenty-first Army Group, in the north—Dempsey had replaced the late Field Marshal Montgomery—still faced the German Army Group G in the north, but would tomorrow bring news that Army Group G had also surrendered? If not, perhaps he could find a way to complicate any such action, slow up any movement on that front. He jotted notes in outline order, checking them in order of action. For many items, he knew the answers already; for a few, he would begin his investigations tomorrow.
Back to secret weapons. He jotted down a list of projects with which he
had some familiarity. He could relatively easily check into the status of those projects; with previous knowledge came a lessening of suspicion when curiosity intruded. If there did turn out to be a secret weapon serious enough to alter the military balance, however, random questioning would be greeted with far less generosity. How, then, to probe for secret weapons without triggering a dangerous response?
He decided on a strategy by knowledge area. For a potential field such as rocketry, for example, he would identify and call upon a well-known and elderly figure in the field, one unlikely to be personally selected to work on such a project, but one likely instead to be part of the field’s gossip chain. Philby had a well-developed sixth sense; it came with the job. He could listen to general chatter and from what was said (and frequently from what was not said) draw surprising amounts of insight.
A famous contemporary poster cautioned against chatting with strangers. It read, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” Most people laughed at it, thinking it a rather silly exercise in wartime paranoia. But Philby knew better. All he needed to do was be at the right party, in the right company, and idle chatter would form itself into patterns, almost as if by magic. And from there would come clues and eventually conclusions.
By nine-fifteen Philby had finished his lists. It took him approximately ten minutes to memorize them, then he carefully burned his working papers and once again flushed the ashes. He turned his desk light off and his reading lamp on, then lit his pipe. He picked up Gibbon where he had left off the previous night, and exchanged the worries of the twentieth century for the challenges of the second.
“You lying, double-crossing bastard! I’ll kill you for this! I’ll tear your fucking heart still bleeding from your chest and shove it down your throat!” Heinrich Himmler’s thin voice screeched his rage. His round, chinless face was red and swollen; his eyes bugged out beneath his wire-rim glasses. “You come here and sit in this office after suborning the treason of yet another of my generals!” The Führer of the Third Reich was standing right in front of Günter von Reinhardt as he screamed into his face. Himmler was much shorter than the aristocratic von Reinhardt and had to tilt his head back to look at him. They were close enough for bits of spittle to hit von Reinhardt’s face.
“General Student’s change of allegience had nothing to do with me,” von Reinhardt lied. He worked to keep his voice calm, but firm, as he argued. “Do you think I’m the only intelligence officer or agent Field Marshal Rommel has? Or do you think I’m stupid enough to put myself in your clutches right after the act? Besides, even if it were me, do you expect our side to implement a truce during these negotiations? I note that Army Group G continues to fight in the north. Should I take that as evidence of your bad faith?”
“Don’t talk to me about ‘bad faith,’ you contemptible little slug!” screamed Himmler in return. “You’re the traitor here, and so is your master Rommel! You’re an offense in the eyes of Germany! You’re unworthy to call yourself a German officer! You oath-breaking, lying
Hurensohn!
”
Von Reinhardt could tell he was centimeters away from being shot. Having already been shot, he was not happy about repeating the prospect; on the other hand, a certain dread of the unknown was now missing. His chest ached terribly, and he felt faint under the physical and emotional strains of his position. In a way, that helped him cope better with his current situation.
He looked at the screaming führer and was momentarily reminded of seeing Adolf Hitler in a similar rage. Fortunately, he was no longer subordinate to either man. Putting all the forcefulness into his voice that he could, he stated firmly, “This is business. It is not personal. We are resolving the future of Germany as well as the future of Heinrich Himmler.” It was the first time he had ever spoken Himmler’s surname aloud.
“The future of Germany? National Socialism is the future of Germany! The Third Reich is the future of Germany!” Himmler’s tantrum, if anything,
actually increased in volume. Unlike their earlier encounter, this temper was not faked, not calculated. That was dangerous for everyone concerned.
“That may be so, but the future you are discussing is a long-term future, not a short-term one. If you do not manage the short term correctly, there will not be a long term. Do you want to save your cause and save your life?”
The discipline of difficult negotiation was to focus on the interest of the other party, not merely on one’s own interest. Only if the other party saw an advantage to be obtained could a negotiated solution possibly work. An angry opponent was a disadvantage to both sides because an angry opponent was often more interested in harming the other party than in helping himself. The Nazis had always been more interested in hurting their enemies than in helping themselves. That was one of their fatal flaws.
“I don’t need your help to save National Socialism, you treasonous, scheming bastard! I’ll make you pay for this! You’ll beg me to die before it’s over!”
“What will Rommel do if he has to kill Germans in order to reach Berlin and take over? What will he do to you if he gets his hands on you? You ordered him killed, remember?” When an adversary crowds your personal space, it may be cultural, it may be deliberate, but either way, one must never back up. Move forward, bring yourself even closer.
There—he saw a small chink in the führer’s armor with his last gambit, a flicker of doubt in Himmler’s eyes. He sought to exploit his opening. “You need time, you need resources to rebuild, you need to escape the trap of this city. It’s the only way left in which you can still win. Let’s work together to get you safely away. Rommel has an open road until he reaches the outskirts of Berlin. You don’t want to fall into Rommel’s clutches. Trust me.”
“Trust you? Trust you! Why should I trust a lying traitor?” The screaming was weakening now. The question about trust was no longer rhetorical. “Prove to me that I can trust you” meant “I want what you are offering,” and that meant the game had changed once again.
“You can only trust what you can guarantee, Reichsführer,” von Reinhardt said in softer, more soothing tones. “I don’t ask for trust, I offer proof.”
“It’s a good thing,” grumbled Himmler. “I still don’t trust you.”
“Of course not,” replied von Reinhardt. “This is business. That’s why you were smart to have Peiper open this channel in the first place. You’ve always understood what’s at stake.” Flattery is inexpensive. The smarter the other person feels, the more relaxed he becomes, the more receptive to the process.
“Yes, that’s right, that’s right,” said Himmler, moving behind his desk but not sitting, walking back and forth. “What do you propose?”
Von Reinhardt sat down, relieved to have the initial gambit over. He would have to take care that his sense of relief and the accompanying euphoria did not weaken his discipline and judgment. One danger in this kind of
negotiation was that by identifying with the interests and goals of the other party, one could get swept away in the eagerness to reach agreement. That’s why it was wise to make someone other than the front-line negotiator responsible for the final decision. The final decision would be Rommel’s. Still, he wanted to return with a workable deal.
“Let’s start with both of our goals. Field Marshal Rommel’s goal is simple: Berlin, so he can defend Germany against the Slavic hordes. You want to preserve the promise of National Socialism, which requires you and other important members of the government to have privacy, wealth, and an opportunity to rebuild. This cannot be achieved in Berlin, where the options are Rommel and the Western Allies or Marshal Zhukov and his Communist thugs. You cannot leave Berlin safely without cooperation from at least one of those parties. You must carry real liquid wealth, mostly gold, of an amount that will fill several trucks. You need safe conducts and a place to go, one that does not expose you to an easy double-cross. Do I understand correctly?”
The hook had been fully set, von Reinhardt could see. This gave him quite a lot of satisfaction, but now he would have to reel this big fish in slowly and carefully. He kept his face carefully neutral, his eyes continually studying his opponent’s expressions and body language.
Himmler continued to pace. “I know where to go; there is a safe haven. There is wealth already stockpiled, but it’s not enough. I will need more. And there are people—people I’ll need. I can choose them. Yes, yes, I understand I am struggling against difficult odds, but I’ve known that even before the führer died. But there is still a chance, still a chance …”
Von Reinhardt was surprised to notice that Himmler was essentially talking to himself. But that was a very good sign, because it meant that “I want what you are offering” had now trumped “Prove to me I can trust you.” The desire created its own proof, and the mechanism was von Reinhardt’s understanding of Himmler’s goals. Von Reinhardt had to struggle to keep a smile off his face. Instead: empathy, eye contact, head nodding up and down in the same rhythm as the führer paced behind his desk.
“There is still a chance, Reichsführer. What you want is quite possible, and in everyone’s best interest. Let’s see if we can work out the details together.”
“Very well,” replied Himmler, a slight absentmindedness in his voice revealing that he was still looking inward at his own vision. Suddenly, though, Himmler looked up, looked sharply at von Reinhardt, and von Reinhardt could feel the probing stare. “You
were
the right man for the Soviet mission, weren’t you? You’re very skilled. I wish you were still on my side.”
In the compliment was a warning:
Don’t take me for granted or assume I’m too dumb to understand what you’re doing.
Von Reinhardt could hear it clearly. “When the interests of the different parties are aligned, we’re all on the same side,” he replied, and that seemed to be the right thing to say, because
Himmler sat down in the high-backed chair behind his desk and leaned forward. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
Von Reinhardt leaned forward as well and began to talk.
The jeeps roared up the steep road, following the twisting switchbacks between frowning bluffs lined with dark firs. Snow lay heavy across the ground, drifts mounded especially deep in the sunless depths of the primordial woods. One by one, the drivers backed off the gas as they neared the crest of the ridge. The middle jeep turned out of the narrow road to park in a natural overlook next to a large Mercedes staff car while the other two jeeps continued on. Maintaining an army on the move had something in common with cowboys moving a herd across the plains; the jeeps were the outriders, rounding up stragglers and strays and keeping the dogies rollin’.
A flag with three white stars fluttered from the fender of the jeep that stopped. General George S. Patton pushed himself from the front seat of that vehicle, nodding as he took in the vista of rolling hills and dark pine forests. He raised his binoculars and scrutinized the road before them, for the several kilometers it remained visible before the next ridge. A Sherman tank was visible before him, though it quickly disappeared around a gentle bend. On the far horizon he saw a string of half-tracks cresting the elevation and rapidly vanishing from sight on the other side.
Pronouncing himself satisfied, the general strode to the shoulder of the road, unzipped his trousers, and relieved himself. When he had finished, he planted his fists on his hips and looked around. Ahead of him, at the very edge of the ridge, stood a man in a leather trench coat holding a pad of paper, watching the moving line of vehicles and sketching. Patton walked toward him. It was Rommel.
“Nice spot for a couple of tourists,” Patton joked. “This is a fine view!”
“Indeed,” replied the Desert Fox. “There is good hunting in these woods—for deer and boar, during better times.”
“Right now, it’s open season on Nazis,” the American general replied. “But the bastards seem to be pretty scarce. That’s the tail end of Fourth Armored up there, and I can barely keep up with them. Maybe all of Himmler’s boys have gone to ground for good.”
Rommel nodded hopefully. “We haven’t encountered any resistance stronger than a platoon since crossing the river. I am beginning to think we’ll have an open road for as far as General Eisenhower wants us to go.”
“The real prize is out there,” Patton said, pointing unerringly on a line east by northeast. “I’ve been hammering at Ike to turn us loose, send us all the way to Berlin, but he keeps hemming and hawing.”
“We will go to Berlin, General Patton. One way or another. You have my word on it,” said Rommel with certainty in his voice.
“Yeah? I hope you’re right. But listen, Rommel—Do you mind if I call you Rommel?”
“Not at all. I will call you Patton. Unless you prefer George … or is it ‘Georgie’?”
Patton laughed. “Patton suits me fine. Thanks. But listen, Rommel—Berlin is only the first stop. You know where I want to go?”
“Where?”
“I want to kick the commie bastards all the way back to Moscow.”
Rommel continued to sketch. “It’s a nice thought, but personally, I would be satisfied merely keeping them out of Germany.”
“Why? Don’t you know that they’ll be back? They won’t rest until every inch of Europe is red.”
“Perhaps. But Europe has seen so much war, so much destruction, that I’m afraid it cannot take very much more. If you’re dead, it makes little difference whose flag flies over your grave. Another major war on top of everything else the twentieth century has given us, and there would be no victor.”
“That’s pretty defeatist, Rommel. I’m surprised at you.”
Rommel chuckled. “Remember, Patton, my friend, I have been defeated. Of course, when it comes to war, I have been the most fortunate of men. I went through the First World War without experiencing trench warfare and the Second World War without experiencing the Russian Front.” He finished his sketch and turned over the page.
“I didn’t know you were an artist,” Patton said.
“I’m not,” Rommel replied. “I do a little sketching, it’s true, but it’s mostly to fix the picture in my mind.” The pencil sketch was rough, with quick outlines for vehicles and men. The men were articulated stick figures, but quite animated. The scene was surprisingly vivid, showing a military operation in progress.
“That’s pretty good,” Patton observed.
“Thank you,” Rommel replied. “I make the drawings and write a daily summary that forms the raw material for the books I plan to write when this is over. I will return to the war academy, I expect, and spend my remaining years writing and teaching the operational arts of war. I look forward to it. I seem to have an aptitude for the craft of making war, but had that not been my calling, I think I would have made a fine engineer and been quite satisfied with that life.”
Patton looked out over the ridge. “I suppose I’ll write a book and teach as well, but I’m not looking forward to it at all.”
“No?”
“No. Ever seen a greyhound dog?”
“A racing hound, right?”
“Yep. Bred for one purpose, not good for anything else. That’s me. My entire life is about this. When it’s over, I’m just marking time till I die. If I’m lucky, I get killed by the last bullet.”
“It’s a great shame, my friend, that you were not born German. You Americans have come over here late in the war with the aim of finishing it. With huge armies and immense power, you move through any obstacle, and you don’t have the opportunities for creativity that come only to those who are short of resources. You would have gotten your appetite better satisfied as a German.”
“You’re damn right, Rommel. I admire you people, I really do. You planned and fought a war against the rest of the world put together and damn near won. A hell of an accomplishment. A
hell
of an accomplishment.”
“In the area of military strategy and tactics, I thank you for your compliment. I’m afraid, though, that Germany has much to answer for in other spheres—aggression against its neighbors, inhumanity against its own citizens and civilians among its neighbors …”
Patton waved his hand. “Liberal bullshit, if you ask me. But, hell, let’s not talk politics. That’s not what they hire generals to do, anyway, right?”
“Exactly. Taking Berlin, on the other hand, is exactly what generals are here to do.”
Patton laughed. “You got that right, Rommel. Shit, the Brits are still taking their sweet time crossing the river up north, while we’ve ripped the belly of the country open.” Patton knew that the British offensive was facing much heavier opposition than his own advance; still, that knowledge did not to diminish the delight he took in the comparison. “We should take Berlin, then come back and help Dempsey mop up around the Ruhr.” General Sir Miles Dempsey, who had been commanding the British Second Army, had been promoted to field marshal and taken command of the Twenty-first Army Group after the death of Montgomery during the Fuchs am Rhein offensive. “Last time I talked to Ike, he sounded like he was coming around to that idea. Now that the fucking communists are back in this game, I think he’s starting to see that we could have some real problems if we
don’t
get to Berlin first.”
Rommel smiled at that, but tactfully made no reply.
“Well, another day or two of this, and then we’ll get to some open country, right?” Patton remarked. “Then we can really let these hounds loose to run.”
“Ah, the hunt, again,” replied the German. He gestured to the vehicles waiting with idling engines. “Then perhaps we should get back to our saddles?”
“I like the way you think—and the way you make war,” General Patton agreed, shaking Rommel’s hand before turning back to his jeep. “Let’s do this again in a few days! Maybe by then the Big Boss will have come to his senses—and we can plan a parade in front of the Reichstag!”
“It would be my pleasure,” the field marshal replied, with a little bow and
a click of his heels. The two commanders returned to their vehicles. Rommel stood at the door of his staff car as Patton climbed into his jeep. The Desert Fox saluted again as the three jeeps roared into motion, one after the other starting down the next descending slope.
EXCERPT FROM
WAR’S FINAL FURY
, BY PROFESSOR JARED GRUENWALD
Field Marshal Walther Mödel had taken every precaution to keep his commanders from switching sides, recognizing the temptation posed by Rommel’s German Republican Army. Senior staff were shuffled to keep any general from having a completely trustworthy team; the Gestapo routinely bugged all headquarters offices; random transfers of key personnel were routine. Even at troop levels, SS troops were mixed in with regular Wehrmacht troops and even Volksgrenadier units, serving the classic medieval function of shooting those who would either retreat or surrender.
Mödel fully recognized the extent to which this would hamper military operations, but the alternative—as shown in the defection of Army Group H—was catastrophic.
Mödel, who committed suicide shortly after the Army Group H defection in order to avoid capture—“A field marshal worthy of his oath never becomes a captive or a pawn of his enemy,” read his suicide note in a thinly veiled stab at Rommel—was a brilliant military officer, but had been dealt a losing hand.
In spite of all his precautions, there was a slow but steady hemorrhage of individuals and small units moving to the other side. To complicate Rommel’s life, Mödel even arranged decoy defections—spies and saboteurs. This forced the German Republican Army to be more cautious in accepting surrenders. With the inevitable misunderstandings, it became understood that there were dangers involved in trying to change sides.
The full story of the surrender of Army Group H did not come out until well after the war. The officer/diplomat Günter von Reinhardt, who had been instrumental in the Soviet pact of the previous year, passed through Army Group H headquarters several times while on secret visits to Berlin on behalf of Rommel. Although both Army Group H commander Colonel-General Karl Student and von Reinhardt denied any collusion at the time, the two men had literally passed notes to one another under the very nose of the Gestapo. Student had identified those officers who might resist the surrender, and these officers were taken prisoner before the surrender was announced.
Although Mödel went to his death thinking of himself as a failure, the odds against his success were so high that it is unreasonable to judge this
failure harshly. He tried to hold together an unstable front made of disaffected troops who saw a clear opportunity to join the winning team and still regard themselves as patriots. That initiative was surely doomed from the outset.
With Army Group H gone, only Army Group G (Upper Rhine) remained to give battle in the west, resisting the British and American armies who were battling toward the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. Because of the large number of SS divisions in Army Group G, it continued to resist, giving ground only slowly, but even its motivation was substantially diminished by the realization that Rommel now had a completely open road to Berlin.

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