Fox On The Rhine (39 page)

Consequently, it was all that he could do to be civil to this Nazi, but he resolved to continue in that vein. Again he reminded himself that his job was the most important thing, for by holding it he could continue to save German lives.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Himmler was saying, gesturing him to a soft armchair beside a grand marble fireplace. “As you know, I am not fond of spirits, but can I offer you some tea?”

“Yes, thank you.” Rommel fidgeted, finding a comfortable position in the chair while the refreshments were brought by two black-clad SS stewards. When the servants had withdrawn, Himmler took a careful sip of his tea, then set the cup down with delicate, precise movements. He looked expectantly at the field marshal.

“Mein Führer--” the official title stuck in his throat, “I shall come right to the point. The armistice with the Soviet Union has created hope where, in all frankness, previously there was only room for despair. I do believe that the Allies can be held, at least for a time, at the Westwall. Though the fortifications are not complete, and our troops are lacking in material, their spirit is strong, and the terrain of our western border naturally lends itself to the defense.”

“This is the analysis of myself, and the other experts I have consulted,” Himmler agreed. “I believe that you were correct to withdraw from France as you did.”

Rommel blinked, surprised by the words, but determined not to be put off from his point.

“You must realize that it is not enough merely to hold the line of the Westwall. Right now, the Americans are pulling up to the border in a series of spearheads, some of which are dangerously overextended. If I were to have a greater availability of offensive forces, particularly panzer divisions, it would be possible to deliver a sharp setback to these advances. The minor victory at Abbeville could be duplicated on a corps, perhaps even an army, scale!”

Himmler nodded, allowing a tiny smile to crease his lips. “You know, of course, that I have directed all the available armor forces from the east to be shifted to your command at the earliest possible moment.”

“Indeed, Führer, I know of your orders. However, as usual, the devil is in the details. Given the current system of allocations, we lack the rail capacity to move more than a fraction of these troops at a time. I ask you to release the locomotives and rolling stock from the control of the Gestapo, and allow it to be used in this great transfer. I assure you that we could swiftly bring a powerful armor force, the equivalent of at least two panzerarmees, into the line on the western front.”

“I understand your problem,” Himmler began. “However, the trains allocated to the Gestapo are engaged in activities of great import to the future of the Fatherland. I am unable to release them for military purposes yet. Perhaps later, when their great task is done, they shall become available.”

“But mein Führer, that will be too late! The opportunity for our attack is now, and the odds against us increase with every passing day. If we can make this transfer of troops with all haste, it might be possible to push back the spearheads closing on Aachen, even to reinforce the outposts at Metz, or in the Vosges Mountains!”

“There is nothing to be done about that,” Himmler said, his tone ominously gentle. “I suggest we move the discussion to other aspects of the campaign.”

“Such as?” Rommel knew his voice was cold, but he couldn’t help it--or perhaps, he didn’t want to help it.

“You mentioned Metz. I have heard that the Seven Korps is showing signs of weakening. Surely you can see that the city must be held at all costs!”

The Desert Fox was immediately, and forcefully, reminded of the previous dictator... this sounded exactly like a “Hitler edict.” It was always “Stand and die”--at El Alamein, in Tunisia, in the hedgerows of Normandy, everywhere--and died they did.

“It is an impossible task!” he snapped, more sternly than he ever would have spoken to the previous führer. “Patton’s men are pushing north and south of the city. If we don’t withdraw, the entire Korps will be encircled--and captured. Do you want another Stalingrad?”

“Metz must hold!” Himmler retorted “It is key to my future plans on the front, to the activities that will commence when you
do
get your reinforcements--which, as I assured you, will be forthcoming.”

Rommel wanted to insist that this was a ludicrous statement, that the city didn’t stand a chance of holding out even for another month. But caution prevailed, and he bit his tongue, asking instead: “What plans are these you speak of?”

“The time will come where you will not be able to rest on the defensive. You will have to attack, and with such strength that the course of the campaign is reversed. For the time being, I want you to keep that thought in the back of your mind. Consider the possibilities, the objectives of an attack, if you were given sufficient forces to attack any realistic goal.”

“It’s not just the number of tanks on the ground that matters! There are two critical problems. The first is oil. While the armistice with the Soviet Union was clearly necessary, losing our supplies of Rumanian oil is a crippling handicap. It’s true that we already had troubles in that area because of the Allied bombing campaign against the Ploesti oil fields, but now we’re cut off completely. The second problem is equally serious. Surely you realize the effect of enemy air power? Even if we manage a breakthrough, a Schwerpunkt, our armor would be shattered by the Allied air forces!”

“Now please, my Field Marshal, I sense your frustration. But try to understand my position, which as you understand is also the position of your Fatherland,” said the new master of Germany in a conciliatory tone, which surprised Rommel. He placed his fingertips together to form a steeple before continuing. “You’ve given me a thoughtful analysis, and I, too, share many of your concerns. Perhaps I can be of assistance with these two issues. First, the oil. I’m not sure that we are in fact cut off from oil supplies. Our new friends in the east have a need for hard currency and perhaps we can work something out. Let me see what I can accomplish on that front. What I would like from you is a sense of what you might accomplish given at least a single major influx of oil.

“Second, air power. It may be that I can offer you a morsel of hope. On your way back to the west, I would like you to go through Augsburg, to the airbase at Lager-Lechfeld, specifically. There, you should seek out General Galland of the Luftwaffe. I will inform him that you will be coming.

“I suspect that he can show you something that will change some of your most cherished opinions.”

Lager-Lechfeld Luftwaffe Base, Bavaria, Germany, 1320 hours GMT

Krueger got out of the car and returned the salute of the guard outside of General Galland’s headquarters. The pilot’s step was light, for he knew that he brought good news...news that would ensure that the Luftwaffe would soon be in a position to strike the Allied Air Force a devastating blow.

“Ah, Colonel... how went your visit to Dessau?” asked the Luftwaffe commander, putting down his cigar and rising from behind his desk, which was strewn with blueprints, production figures, and maps.

“I can assure you that engine production should be undergoing a steady improvement,” replied the fighter pilot.

“Splendid--I knew I could count on you!” Galland apparently decided not to inquire too closely about methods.

“And how fares the preparation of the
Geschwader
?” Krueger gestured out the window toward the row of jets he had seen on the field. He knew that here at Lager-Lechfeld, Galland was preparing the first all-jet fighter formation in the world.

“Coming together nicely,” the general replied. “Here, let me show you.”

An hour later, Krueger was standing in the great hangar, looking at an Me-262 that had been freshly delivered from the factory. The engines had been installed only the day before, and though they had been test-fired, the craft had not yet been airborne.

“How do you like her?” asked the general around a crooked grin.

“She’s beautiful,” Krueger acknowledged, struck as always by the clean lines of the fighter, the low-slung engines looking sleek and supernatural under the swept-back wings. The aircraft looked wickedly capable, and he felt again the almost unbearable compulsion to take it into the sky.

“She’s the command craft of Geschwader 51,” Galland said. “That is, your group, Kommodore.”

“Thank you, General!” Krueger declared. He was genuinely pleased. This was more than he had expected. Unique to the Luftwaffe, the rank of kommodore meant that he was now master of three fighter Gruppe--nine Staffeln, or something like eighty aircraft. He looked at the row of jet fighters, more than a dozen for starters, lined up in the hangar and swore to himself that his unit would soon become a terror of the skies. “When will we be operational?”

“You already have the pilots, and these twelve planes. Additional aircraft are coming, several a day ... though you’re to complete training on the machines you have.”

“And when do we move against the Americans?”

“Only when I give the word, not before. You can wait, I trust?”

“With difficulty,” Krueger admitted, while his mind whirled with the prospects of the new post. A full Geschwader of fighters under his command!

“Perhaps you would like some marking, some notation to mark her as your own,” suggested the general.

“I know just the thing,” Krueger agreed.

Soon he was speaking to a young feldwebel, a man he had been assured was skilled with the paintbrush. “I want a flame motif here, along both sides of the nose,” Colonel Krueger explained, marking the sweep of fiery tendrils with a gesture of his fingers. “I want this to be a visible symbol that is burned into the eyeballs of every bomber pilot who sees them.”

“I understand, Herr Oberst.”

By the time he had finished inspecting the other airplanes and meeting the pilots of his group, the artist was done. Krueger came back to his Schwalbe and admired the work.

“Yes, indeed,” he mused. “This is an image suitable for escorting dying Americans all the way to hell.”

Lager-Lechfeld Luftwaffe Base, Bavaria, Germany, 25 September 1944, 1525 hours GMT

“Pull around there,” Rommel directed, and Carl-Heinz drove the big car up to the side of the big hangar. The mood of the meeting with Himmler, just the day before, was still a drain on the field marshal’s spirits. He was frustrated, sour, and more than a little afraid--though not, of course, for himself. Instead, he was again suffering that old, familiar anxiety, the fear for the future of his country.

He couldn’t shake his lingering sense of depression, the feeling that everything they did was hopeless, inevitably leading to death and defeat. Even the armistice with the USSR, which had seemed to offer such promise, now appeared little more than an opportunity for Stalin to grab all of Europe while the Germans and Anglo Allies--peoples who had more in common with each other than either did with the Slavic Communists--battered each other bloody in a pointless continuation of the war.

Still, at Himmler’s urging he had agreed to take this detour on his return to the front. He didn’t know why, didn’t believe a Luftwaffe general could show him anything that would change his orders. Still, the new führer had been most insistent, and this base near Augsburg was more or less on the way back to Trier.

Now he got out of the car, grateful for Carl-Heinz’s supporting arm. He took a moment to stretch and looked around at the huge airfield. There was evidence of new and hurried construction, the stumps of trees surrounding open fields.

“Ah, there you are, Field Marshall!” Accompanied by a waft of cigar smoke, a Luftwaffe general came around the comer of the building. “Our esteemed führer informed me that you would be paying us a visit.”

Though the two men had never met, Rommel recognized Adolf Galland. He nodded pleasantly, then politely declined the cigar that the airman offered. “I hope you have not gone to any trouble. In truth, I do not fully understand why my visit here should be judged important.”

“No trouble, no trouble at all. But come, allow me to get you seated.”

Galland led the way past the front of the hangar to a small outdoor enclosure, a patio not unlike a Bavarian biergarten, where several tables, shaded by broad umbrellas, had been placed before the command building. Although he was a trifle surprised that they would not be meeting inside, the Desert Fox gratefully accepted a chair and a glass of iced tea. Enjoying the sense of mystery, Galland sat down beside him and took visible pleasure in snipping the tip off of another cigar.

“Now, I understand that the tactical situation of our ground forces is greatly hampered by the enemy’s command of the air,” began the commander of fighter forces.

“You might say that,” Rommel agreed, voice heavy on the irony.

Galland laughed. “Forgive me,” he said. “I don’t mean to be flippant. In truth, it breaks my heart to see the way the German air forces have been driven from the sky over the battlefield. To think that we pioneered the use of close tactical support of our ground forces, only to have that strength preempted by our powerful enemy--and his almost unimaginable industrial capabilities.”

“Indeed.” Rommel liked Galland at once. This was another man who was not a politician, but rather a warrior at heart. He decided to speak frankly. “It is that capacity which has doomed our army to inevitable defeat. Try as we might, our panzers are helpless under the all-seeing eyes of the enemy air forces. That is why we cannot win this war.”

“If we have no superiority in the air, you’re completely correct, Field Marshal,” Galland said breezily. “But what if things were to change? What if we were able to recapture, or at the very least, hotly contest our enemy’s control of the skies?”

Rommel allowed himself a wry chuckle. “And if my panzers had wings, they, too, could fly.”

It was Galland’s turn to laugh. “Now there’s an idea. But let me show you the next best thing. Wait just a few moments.” The Desert Fox heard a sound. It was a dull roaring, a distant wind that swiftly expanded to a growing howl. Observing Galland’s calm smile, he felt certain that nothing was amiss but allowed his eyes to turn toward the southern sky, where the rolling green foothills of Bavaria formed a fairly close horizon.