Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General (28 page)

Beatrice Patton

“I am getting soft?” Patton asks Beatrice rhetorically.

*   *   *

Predictably, Montgomery waits. The British commander is assembling the largest amphibious operation since D-day. His staff checks and rechecks every detail, from the perceived numerical superiority of Allied forces to the number of assault boats that will be required to cross the Rhine, and even to the tonnage of munitions that British bombers will drop on Wesel to set it ablaze and thus root out any concealed German resistance.

Meanwhile, Patton attacks. His Palatinate campaign will go down in history as one of the great strategies of the war. Even the Germans will say so. And their praise for Patton is evidence of their enormous respect for the general. “The greatest threat,” a captured German officer reveals during his interrogation, “was the whereabouts of the feared U.S. Army.” George Patton is always the topic of military discussion. “Where is he? When will he attack? Where? How? With what?”

Lt. Col. Freiherr von Wangenheim will go on to add, “General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts … The tactics of General Patton are daring and unpredictable … He is the most modern general and the best commander of armored and infantry troops combined.”

Patton’s tanks are riding roughshod over the rugged countryside. After the staggering setback at Metz six months ago, Patton has shown what he’s made of at Bastogne and now at the Palatinate.

“We are the eighth wonder of the world,” Patton says of the Third Army on March 19, congratulating himself on yet another success. “And I had to beg, lie and steal to get started.”

Patton’s forces capture the pivotal city of Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers. He now has eight full divisions lined up along the western shore of the Rhine, the tank barrels aimed directly at the eastern bank.

All Patton needs is a place to cross.

*   *   *

The date is March 22, 1945. Two hours before midnight, under cover of darkness, a Third Army patrol paddles across the Rhine at Nierstein in flimsy wooden assault boats. The slap of their paddles stroking the swift waters goes unheard. They report back that no enemy troops are in the vicinity. When Patton receives the news, he immediately orders that bridging material be sent forward. By morning, hastily built pontoon bridges
⁷
span the river, and an entire division of Patton’s army is soon across.

Patton calls Bradley, but instead of making the sort of bold pronouncement that would inform the Germans of his precise location, he sets aside his ego in a moment of caution.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m across,” Patton informs Bradley.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bradley responds. “You mean across the Rhine?”

“Sure I am. Sneaked a division over last night. But there are so few Krauts around here they don’t know it yet. So don’t make any announcement. We’ll keep it a secret until we see how it goes.”

It goes well—but only for a short time.

The sight of thousands of men marching across hastily built pontoon bridges is hard to conceal. The German air force discovers the Third Army’s encroachment later that day. Disregarding Allied air superiority, the few Luftwaffe Messerschmitt fighters that have survived thus far in the war patrol low above the Rhine, searching for signs of soldiers, vehicles, and supplies. The pilots radio back what they see, then harass the intruders by dropping down to treetop level to strafe the Americans with lethal rounds of machine-gun and cannon fire.

But the German pilots are
too
bold, and in their determination to throw back Patton’s invaders, all thirty-three Luftwaffe planes are blasted out of the sky by precision firing from the Third Army’s antiaircraft guns. The German pilots are so low that bailing out and parachuting to safety is not an option. The American soldiers continue their march across the swift blue waters of the Rhine, cheered throughout the day by the sight of enemy planes exploding all across the horizon and falling into the river with a mighty splash.

It is clear that the Americans no longer need to proceed under radio silence.

Patton once again phones Bradley, on March 23, eager to make history at his rival Montgomery’s expense. “Brad, for God’s sake, tell the world we’re across,” he barks into the receiver. Bradley will later remember that Patton’s already high voice “trebled” in happiness. “We knocked down thirty-three Krauts today when they came after our pontoon bridges. I want the world to know Third Army made it before Monty starts across.”

*   *   *

Patton’s swagger only increases the next day, as he takes his victorious celebration to a new level. He is driven to the front, close to where American troops pour across the Rhine at the small German town of Oppenheim. The broad, icy river is dull gray, reflecting the overcast morning sky.

Sergeant Mims eases Patton’s jeep onto the temporary bridge, taking care to align the wheels with the wooden planks. Patton has thought carefully about how he will mark the occasion of crossing the Rhine and has a very special plan in mind.

At the bank of the river, he orders his driver to stop. “Time out for a short halt,” he tells Sergeant Mims. Patton steps out of his jeep and walks along the wooden planks to the center of the bridge. “I have been looking forward to this for some time.”

Walking carefully to the edge of the swaying bridge, Patton instructs army photographers to look away. However, his aide Charles Codman will be allowed to take a photograph to preserve the moment for posterity. Patton unzips his fly, faces downriver, and relieves himself.

General George Patton making good on his ambition to “piss in the Rhine”

“I didn’t take a piss this morning when I got up so that I would have a full load,” he brags as he begins to urinate.
⁸
Patton looks straight into the camera lens.

Upon reaching the far bank of the Rhine, Patton continues his celebration by once again stepping from his jeep and re-creating William the Conqueror’s arrival in England nearly nine centuries earlier. It was William, the legendary invader from the Norman region of France, who famously fell flat on his face while leaping from his boat as it kissed the English shoreline. “See,” he yelled to his men. “I have taken England with both hands.”

Patton falls to one knee and then plants his hands deeply into the German soil. “Thus,” Patton cries, “William the Conqueror,” in an allusion appreciated but not completely understood by some within earshot.

George S. Patton and his Third Army are now across the Rhine and prepared to invade the German heartland. Just as he did nearly two years ago at Messina, the ever-competitive Patton has defeated his military nemesis, British field marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.

Patton will take particular pride in boasting of this accomplishment: “Without benefit of aerial bombardment, ground smoke, artillery preparation and airborne assistance, the Third Army at 2200 hours, Thursday, 22nd March, 1945, crossed the Rhine River.

“The 21st Army Group was supposed to cross the Rhine on 24th March, 1945,” Patton will continue, “and in order to be ready for this ‘earthshaking event,’ Mr. Churchill wrote a speech congratulating Field Marshal Montgomery for his first ‘assault’ crossing over the Rhine River in modern history. The speech was recorded and through some error on the part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, was broadcast. In spite of the fact that the Third Army had been across the Rhine River for some thirty-six hours.”

*   *   *

Looking east, Patton just needs to find a way to beat the Russians into Berlin.

“We are now fairly started on that phase of the campaign which I hope will be the final one,” he writes to Eisenhower two days after crossing the Rhine. He couches his letter in respect, but his desire to remain in the fight is evident in the quiet demands of his conclusion.

“I know that Third Army will be in at the finish in the same decisive way that it has performed in all preliminary battle,” Patton reminds Eisenhower.

17

B
ERLIN,
G
ERMANY

A
PRIL
1, 1945

N
IGHT

Nobody stands as Adolf Hitler enters the conference room.

The Führer’s entire body quivers as he assumes his usual place before the war map table. Hitler’s hands shake, his head nods uncontrollably, and he is bent at the waist, too weak to stand upright. The distant thunder of Allied bombing shakes the concrete walls. Yet the Führer’s eyes shine brightly behind his rimless pale green spectacles, showing no fear as he gazes down at the current location of his armies. Most of them, however, are not real, though he is too deluded to know the truth. In his desperation to end the war on his terms, Hitler imagines nonexistent “ghost” divisions as he scrutinizes the map, and pictures thousands of Panzers in places where there are none at all.

Meanwhile, private conversation hums as if the Führer has never even entered the first-floor room. German officers and Hitler’s secretaries gossip and chitchat as if the most feared man in the world were not in their presence.
¹

An Allied bomb explodes nearby. Lights sway, flickering temporarily, then return to full strength. All talk ceases. The military officers know better than to appear afraid, while the secretaries train their eyes on Hitler, waiting for his response.

“That was close!” Hitler says to no one in particular.

Weak smiles fill the room, as yet another sign of defeat enhances the awkward sense of community. Just weeks ago such informality would have been an unforgivable lapse in protocol, but being fifty feet underground is taking its toll on Hitler’s staff. They live like a cave-dwelling prehistoric Germanic tribe, in a world where the walls are made of hard rock. The cement corridors are narrow, painted the color of rust, and the ceilings low. The rooms are all painted a dull gray, and the walls weep as moisture seeps through the rock. They have their own water supply, thanks to a deep artesian well. A sixty-kilowatt diesel generator provides energy for the switchboard, lights, and heating. The air comes from up above, through a filter to ensure its purity.

Yet the bunker is hardly pleasant. There are three separate security checkpoints just to get in, and all entrances are manned by security guards carrying machine pistols and grenades. In this way, Hitler’s headquarters is, in fact, a prison.

“The whole atmosphere down there was debilitating,” one German soldier who served in the bunker will later remember. “In the long hours of the night it could be deathly silent, except for the hum of the generator … Then there was the fetid odor of boots, sweaty woolen uniforms, acrid coal-tar disinfectants. At times toward the end, when the drainage backed up, it was as pleasant as working in a public urinal.”

The bunker’s residents can hear the air-raid sirens at ground level, but rarely go up to the garden to feel the sun on their faces. The Führer has banned smoking in the bunker, but breathing dank air that is fouled all too often by the Führer’s meteorism is an ordeal for all. As of late, the group has become so used to the sight of their Führer that even the lowest-level staffers no longer feel the need to cut short their conversations when he is in their presence.

Yet the informality belies the truth: everyone, with the exception of Adolf Hitler, is terrified. “You felt it to the point of physical illness,” one German officer will later write. “Nothing was authentic except fear.”

And yet Adolf Hitler is convinced that the war can still be won.

Aboveground, the Allies are bombing around the clock: the American Army Air Corps in the daylight and the British Royal Air Force by night. Berlin is a city in ruins. Of its 1,562,000 homes and apartments, one third have been completely destroyed. Almost 50,000 citizens have died, repaying the butcher’s bill of the German bombings of London five times over. The people sleep most nights in cellars or subways. Still, despite the mayhem, there is an amazing sense of routine to life on the streets of Berlin: mail is delivered each day, the Berlin Philharmonic performs at night, and the subway runs on time. Bakeries open their doors each morning, ensuring that the beleaguered populace can purchase their daily
brot
. And despite the drone of RAF Lancaster bombers, the bars are jammed each night with Nazi bigwigs and those businessmen wealthy enough, and lucky enough, to have escaped military service. The gossip, as always, centers on the bombing: who died, who lost their homes, whose job no longer exists because their place of business was been reduced to rubble.

One quiet reality, however, pervades life in Berlin: the city is mostly female. Able-bodied men have been called away to war. The Russian army is now less than forty miles from Berlin; refugees pouring into the capital from the east, seeking to escape these brutal oppressors, tell horror stories of murder and rape. They talk of a pamphlet that has been distributed to the Russian troops through Joseph Stalin’s propaganda ministry, directly threatening Germans of all ages, particularly women.