THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (38 page)

“We know our duty as soldiers: to fight to the best of our ability. But the situation has been getting worse by the day. Our men are exhausted and we're running out of tanks. The British didn't break through with their recent offensive, but it was a mighty close thing. It may only be a matter of time.”

“But,” replied Dietrich, trying to be optimistic, “we have the two reserve Panzer divisions. Give me a few of our tanks and I'll pulverize some of those Shermans.”

“I admire your spirit, particularly after what you've been through. But let me give you a bit of unsolicited advice, my boy.” As a colonel, Dietrich was not used to being called a boy, but he realized how young, at 28, he must seem to the generals. Student continued.

“It's not good to be too enthusiastic. Your boss came here with great optimism, but his reports to the Führer have become much more guarded. Even pessimistic.”

Deitrich's expression conveyed some skepticism. Student became more blunt. Perhaps the pressures of the campaign had made all the generals less cautious.

“Yes, my boy”—there it was, again—“when your boss assumed command several weeks ago, he, uh....” Student paused for the right words. “Hitler believed that gutless generals were responsible for the problems in Normandy. Or, perhaps I should say, irresolute field marshals. Your boss was determined to put some spine into us.”

Deitrich decided the time had come to keep his mouth shut. Student went on:

“Ja. When he first met Rommel, there was quite a scene. He started right off by suggesting that Rommel had not shown sufficient enthusiasm in following the Führer's orders. To drive home the point, he added: 'Now you, too, Field Marshal, will have to get used to taking orders.'

“Well, of course, Rommel wouldn't take that insult, not even from his new commander. He bluntly suggested that von Kluge might wish to visit the front before making snap judgments. When von Kluge did, he was shaken. Every time he comes back, he looks more grim. I shudder to think of what will happen when he gets back in a few hours.”

At that point, there was a knock on the door. A corporal in the signals corps entered, saluted smartly, and handed Student a message. Student turned pale, rose abruptly, and left the room without saying a word.

Dietrich waited five minutes or so, thinking that Student might return, and then went back to the main room. Officers were huddled in small groups of four or five, talking intensely. Enlisted men were scurrying to and fro in great agitation. Deitrich picked a group that included several middle-level officers—majors and colonels—and wandered over.

Their faces were ashen. At once, Dietrich found out why. Hitler was dead.

Soon, rumors began to circulate: Hitler had been assassinated by a group of generals. Abruptly, officers began to say very little. In his mind, Dietrich went back over conversations among generals that he had heard in recent months. Was any of them, he wondered, involved in the assassination? And who would be in charge now?

A teen-aged corporal tapped Dietrich on the shoulder and saluted, somewhat casually. He was wearing combat fatigues, and, to judge from his grimy appearance, had just returned from the front. “The Field Marshal has returned and wants to see you. Please follow me.”

He was taken to von Kluge's quarters, where the Field Marshal was getting into a clean uniform. He greeted Dietrich warmly; they had not seen one another for over a year. Then von Kluge began a rambling report of his day at the front, and the difficulties he and his driver had faced moving from one command to another. The constant threat of attack from the air had clearly been a strain. As von Kluge rambled on, Dietrich was astonished: was it possible that von Kluge had not yet heard about Hitler? Finally, his curiosity got the better of him:

“Have you heard the news from Germany, sir?”

“What news?”

Dietrich was even more surprised. “Hitler is dead.”

“It's not quite so clear. There was a message, in code, about an hour ago, saying that he is dead. But just a few minutes ago, German radio announced that the Führer is very much alive, and will address the nation tonight. I have a call in to Keitel to confirm this. I want to be sure before we have dinner tonight with von Stülpnagel.”

Dietrich's thoughts came in a jumble: Why does he need to know before dinner? Is General Heinrich von Stülpnagel—the Military Governor of France—in on the plot? And how about von Kluge? If he knows that Stülpnagel is involved, doesn't that mean he's in it, too? Dietrich had never thought of von Kluge as someone to take unnecessary risks, but he had gotten some idea of the desperate military situation during the afternoon's debate over the depleted Panzer reserves. The time has come, thought Dietrich, to be very careful. His caution was heightened when von Kluge added:

“Let's not forget our time in Russia. I'm counting on your loyalty, my boy.”

Ach, thought Dietrich, this “boy” business is a disease. Maybe it's because these guys have been away from their sons and grandsons for so long. A deeper thought nagged his subconscious: loyalty could be a dangerous virtue.

The phone rang. Keitel was on the line. The radio report had been correct. Hitler was alive and only slightly wounded. He had met that afternoon with Mussolini, as planned. In Hitler's mind, his escape was one more confirmation that he had a destiny to fulfill.

There was a knock on the door. Stülpnagel and his chief of staff, Lt. Col. Hofacker, were downstairs, and urgently wanted to see von Kluge before the other guests arrived.

Von Kluge and Dietrich went quickly down to a drawing room where Stülpnagel and Hofacker were nervously waiting. After quick introductions, Stülpnagel got down to business:

“Now we've gotten rid of that old bastard, it's important that we move quickly to consolidate our position.”

“I should inform you, general, that the Führer survived the assassination attempt,” von Kluge replied in even tones.

Stülpnagel was thunderstruck. “Then we're all in mortal danger. We must act at once.”

Von Kluge said nothing.

“It's absolutely essential,” Stülpnagel's agitation was visibly increasing, “that we arrest the SS generals and anyone else who can block the coup.”

The pause was painful. Then von Kluge calmly responded:

“What do you mean, we? This was your plot, not mine.”

Hofacker was now turning red and was apparently about to explode, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. The other guests had arrived. Before Hofacker could say anything, von Kluge had already left for the dining room.

When the guests were seated, von Kluge expressed a few lukewarm words of welcome, and the diners fell into a stony silence. It was a macabre scene—lit by candlelight, with only the sound of knives and forks occasionally clicking on the fine bone china settings. It seemed that the house had been visited by the Angel of Death. Perhaps it had. As Dietrich would find out later, several of the other conspirators were also present.

After dinner, Stülpnagel and Hofacker tarried as the other guests left. When they were gone, Stülpnagel, in an agitated tone, insisted that they must talk. Von Kluge glanced uneasily at the servants, then led the other three back into the drawing room, closing the door.

“I'm not sure that we have anything more to add. As I said before, it was not my plot.” Von Kluge's tone was flat, expressionless.

“What do you mean, not your plot?” Hofacker was obviously having trouble controlling himself. “As the Field Marshal might be so good as to remember, he met with us last year in Russia. He committed himself to being a part of the conspiracy.”

“Ah,” said von Kluge, maintaining his unperturbed air, “but that was on the condition that the pig was already dead.”

“You bastard,” retorted Stülpnagel. “You can't slip out of it that easily. You're already committed. I've issued orders to have all the Gestapo and SS men in Paris arrested.”

It was now von Kluge's turn to explode. “You've done
what
? Well you had bloody well better unarrest them. And, as soon as you reverse your order, I'm relieving you of your command.” At that point, von Kluge's tone abruptly softened. “In light of our old friendship, Heinrich, I would advise you to disappear. You might not have to hide so very long before you're safe.”

My God, thought Dietrich, headquarters duty may be just as dangerous as being at the front. But at least I won't have to go through another of those ghastly Russian winters.

And, oh, yes, von Kluge did decide to move the two Panzer divisions from the west to face the British threat. He guessed wrong. Rommel had been right: the western sections of the German lines were in peril.

J
ust four days later, after the Panzers had been transferred eastward toward Caen, Dietrich received a puzzling message from the western end of the front, near St. Lô. Elements of the American army were beginning to withdraw, even though the German army was applying no pressure. “Im Westen, Nichts neues,” thought Dietrich: “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

He would not be puzzled for long. The next morning, the quiet was shattered. Wave after wave of Allied aircraft—almost 3,000 in total—began laying a carpet of bombs on the German army facing St. Lô. The purpose of the American tactical withdrawal now became clear: to prevent a repeat of the accidents of preceding days, when a combination of bad weather and poor navigation had led American planes to bomb their own troops. The new attack devastated the German defenses. Every tank in the forward area was destroyed, many being tossed through the air as if they were Patton's inflatable decoys. Through the gap, American tanks began their rush.

Von Kluge's staff meeting was tense. How quickly should they make their stand, and where? Following the Führer's standing orders, von Kluge sent a curt message to the front: No one is to retreat. Dietrich was appalled by the reply:

Every one is holding out. Not a single man is leaving his post! Not one! Because they're all dead. Dead! You may report to the Field Marshal that the Panzer Lehr division has been annihilated.

Even though Dietrich had served in Russia with von Kluge, he decided that it was wise to keep this reply in his pocket. He reported only that the division was being overrun and was in imminent danger of disintegrating.

The Führer's order to stand firm was irrelevant. Within a few days, American tanks advanced 25 miles to Avranches, a seaside town at the base of the Normandy Peninsula. In the vanguard was Patton, who had left his phantom army in England and was now in charge of flesh-and-blood troops and real steel. Ignoring orders to post a strong defense on his left flank, he pushed two infantry and two armored divisions across a single bridge within 24 hours—about 80,000 men—with three more divisions following within the next two days. They fanned out into the open countryside, moving westward into the Brittany Peninsula with its ports, southward toward the heart of France, and eastward towards Paris. They thereby cut off German access to the whole of the northwestern quadrant of France.

After weeks of grinding struggle, the battle of Normandy was coming to a sudden end. The battle for central France was opening—and beyond that, the battle for the Third Reich itself.

23
Headlong Into the Trap

There is only one extremist and that is Hitler himself.

German aristocrat Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, attempting to disabuse the British Foreign Office of their illusion,
in the weeks before Munich (1938), that Hitler was a passive leader being egged on by “extremists.”

A
t Headquarters, Army Group West, panic was setting in. Von Kluge was increasingly depressed by his quarreling generals, and took solace in one-on-one conversations with Dietrich. Von Kluge faced an urgent question: where could he make a stand? But his defensive plans were brushed aside when the Führer, from the isolated depths of his
Wolfsschanze
(Wolf's Lair) in East Prussia, saw an opportunity where others saw only peril. He ordered his forces to attack westward toward Avranches, to cut the narrow corridor through which Patton's tanks were rushing. “We must strike like lightning,” he urged von Kluge. There must be a “bold and unhesitating thrust” to the sea. Hitler emphasized the stakes in the coming attack: “On its success depends the fate of the battle of France.”

With Hitler's orders came an unwelcome guest: a senior member of the German General Staff, to “observe” von Kluge. Was this just an indication of the Führer's waning confidence in his Field Marshall? Or was it a hint that von Kluge was now suspected of treason, of complicity in the plot against Hitler's life? As Dietrich was already well aware of von Kluge's contacts with the conspirators, von Kluge had little to lose by being frank with his subordinate.

“How can we possibly follow this order? If we do, we'll be delivering ourselves into our enemy's hands. We'll be rushing headlong into the American trap. They'll swing north, behind us, and link up with the British.”

“But, sir, with our new 'guest,' we can't use the most obvious ruse. We can't pretend we didn't get the order. With all the people at headquarters, we wouldn't get away with it, anyhow.”

“Then what are my alternatives? I could ignore Hitler's command and attempt an orderly withdrawal.”

“There's a powerful case to do that, sir. It's a fundamental of blitzkrieg: if we rush at our enemy, with insufficient forces to protect our flanks, we'll be blundering into a trap; we'll be surrounded. For the sake of our men, we should be setting up a tenable defense. But I should point out, sir, that I can't advise you to defy the Führer's direct order.” By now, Dietrich was becoming accustomed to the desperation around headquarters and added, “Of course, I'm not sure that I know what it's like to be a field marshal.”

“Ah, so field marshals are entitled to defy orders?” Von Kluge was trying to salvage a bit of humor from the gloomy outlook.

“Not exactly, sir.” Dietrich still did not feel comfortable enough to banter with his boss. “But field marshals do have some leeway in interpreting orders in light of the situation at the front.”