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Authors: Douglas Niles,Michael Dobson

Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine) (27 page)

BOOK: Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

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“Don’t you threaten me! Mutiny, and I’ll see you rotting in jail!” Goerdeler wasn’t planning to give an inch.

Rommel’s eyes flashed angrily. “You’re a puppet running a fake paper government. You had better realize who you’re dealing with, and understand that
I
run this army. Not you, not some paper-shuffling group of bureaucrats without a government. You’re nothing without me and my army, and you had damned well better remember it.”

Von Reinhardt winced a little at Rommel’s bluntness, and wished he could teach the man greater subtlety. Everything he was saying was true, of course, but it was impolitic. Rommel’s army needed a civilian government for its legitimacy, and Germany would require a functioning new administration to replace the old. The two men needed each other, but neither seemed able to settle for less than complete power.

“They will obey lawful orders,” Goerdeler said, but his voice was less strong. “No man is indispensable. Not even the Desert Fox.”

Rommel smiled, but only with his mouth. He could recognize that he now had his opponent in retreat. “Chancellor, you can speak the words, but remember that it is I whom you expect to perform the dirty work. You want me to lead this army into war against our own countrymen, for Germans to kill Germans. You want me to kill Germans to achieve your objectives. Well, I won’t, if it can possibly be helped. If the Nazis can be removed from power by peaceful or diplomatic means, then I don’t have to kill as many Germans.”

“I expect you to obey lawful orders and work alongside our allies!” Goerdeler responded. “You cannot let the murderous Nazi scum escape their just punishments!”

“And how many others shall I punish on the way?” asked Rommel. It was time for the coup de grâce. Clearly he held the victory in his hands. “Chancellor, let’s get this straight between us. This army is mine. It’s not yours. It goes where I want it to go, it fights whom I want it to fight. I command this army by virtue of the loyalty of its soldiers to me. Not to you, not to the paper government you represent, but to me. I will lead this army as I see fit. If you want others to see you as technically in control of the army, I don’t object, but understand me very clearly. I give the orders.”

Goerdeler looked ready to fire the Desert Fox on the spot, but he paused. It was obvious that Rommel was not bluffing. “I see,” he said, the coldness in his voice echoing Rommel’s. “So you are, after all, the megalomaniac we all feared you would be. When Speidel first recruited you, there was a deep disagreement as to whether you would be part of a democratic government, or
whether you would turn yourself into another tin-pot dictator. You have shown your true colors today, and I will remember it.” He stood up to leave. The Desert Fox remained seated.

Von Reinhardt stood up. He could not leave this dangerous breach untouched. “Chancellor,” von Reinhardt interjected, urgency in his voice. “I beg you to think carefully before you speak or act. Field Marshal Rommel is not a new dictator in the making, and doesn’t wish to be. He’s right that you can’t ask this army to make war against its own fatherland. It’s not just the field marshal, it’s the soldiers as well. They didn’t sign on for this. Can you truly expect them to shoulder the burden of killing their countrymen and fellow soldiers?”

Von Reinhardt could see the chancellor thinking, calming down. Goerdeler was a good politician. He understood the realities of power, and he understood the political necessity of getting along with his own opposition. He and Rommel could fight—would fight—but at the end, they had to present a solid front together for the sake of their mutual objective. It was easier for Goerdeler to see this than Rommel. Von Reinhardt resumed his persuasion, ignoring the pain that threatened to clamp his chest in a fiery vise.

“We must get this war over with quickly, or else the Soviets will take over everything. There is the old Russian story of the sled being pursued by wolves. In the bargain I made, I threw some food off the back to slow down the wolves, but all I could do was slow them down a little. They must be stopped. Let the field marshal stop them. Other things can wait, and it will be different when you occupy Berlin.”

Goerdeler looked at von Reinhardt closely, seeing more of him than before. He grunted, and shook his head slowly from side to side. “I don’t see that you’ve left me much choice. Very well—for now. But I warn you. Both of you. The crimes of the Nazi government are much larger than either of you imagine. If you let the leaders get away, the outcry of the world will do more damage to Germany than would a military offensive.” He turned and left.

Von Reinhardt sat down again, slowly so as to minimize the pain in his chest.

“A good job,” Rommel said. “You handled him well.”

Von Reinhardt nodded his acknowledgment. “He has a point, of course, as you no doubt know,” he observed.

“Yes, I know. I’ve heard some of the stories. I’m sure they’re exaggerated like all rumors, but if the stories are even fractionally true, it’s terrible. I’d like to bring those responsible to justice as much as anyone,” Rommel replied. “But I have to address first things first.”

Von Reinhardt had heard the stories, too. Some of them were so outrageous, so enormous, it was hard to conceive how they possibly could be true. But even if they were only partly true, it would be bad enough.
That, however,
is a matter for another day,
the intelligence officer thought. For now, the issue was ending the civil war as quickly and as bloodlessly as possible.

“Now let’s talk about you making an approach to Himmler,” Rommel said. The two men leaned forward and began to plan.

13 JANUARY 1945

PANZER BATTALION, TWELFTH SS PANZER DIVISION “HITLERJUGEND,” KOBLENZ, GERMANY, 1540 HOURS GMT

“You—Untersturmführer Vogel!”

“Yes, Hauptsturmführer!” Lukas replied, hopping out of the passenger seat of the truck as they came to a rolling stop on the Koblenz waterfront. Captain Friedrich was deploying his men and his few tanks along a stretch of warehouses on a low bluff, just a few hundred meters from the great river.

“I want you to take your men and garrison this tanning plant. You will have support from a panzer to your left, and a light antitank gun in that smokehouse to your right. You must hold this line at all costs.”

Lukas saluted. He could see the girdered span of a railroad bridge nearby, and another, a highway bridge leading across the Rhine a kilometer or so to the south. “Are the engineers going to blow the bridges?” he asked, as Friedrich took off his cap and rubbed a grimy hand across his forehead.

“No—we’re not going to destroy the bridges!” snapped the captain. “We must
hold
them, keep the Americans off, so that the Panzerarmee can get across the river! We can’t very well defend the Reich if we leave the Panzerarmee on the other side, can we?”

“Hold them, yes sir!” replied Lukas, embarrassed. “You can count on us, sir!” Friedrich drew a breath and shook his head, looking like a very old man—until he placed his cap back on his head and was once more transformed into a resolute veteran of the SS. “I’m glad I can count on you, Lukas … glad, because I have no choice. The future of the Fatherland rests upon what we can do, right here.” He placed his hand on Lukas’ shoulder, then patted him gently.

The captain went away then, stalking along the outside of the tanning factory, no doubt inspecting the rest of his positions. Lukas looked at the building, which seemed very large to try and hold with a dozen boys. But he would do it … they would hold it, or die trying.

Because, as Friedrich had said, they had no choice.

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 2203 HOURS GMT

It was a few minutes after five o’clock. Civil-service Washington was shutting down pretty much like clockwork, packed trolley cars carrying the occupants
of the Federal Triangle complex up Pennsylvania Avenue toward Georgetown and up Fourteenth Street toward Thomas Circle and their respective residential neighborhoods. The city was dark and cold; the remnants of a two-week-old snowstorm clung to shadowed corners of buildings.

Other corners of official Washington continued, random offices casting their lights into the city’s darkness. In the Executive Office Building next to the White House, Hartnell Stone was entering the state of mind in which additional coffee no longer contributed additional wakefulness; he found himself crossing out more words than he was adding to a summary report of troop movement data. He stubbed out his cigarette and was about to start another when the intercom buzzer rang. “Mr. Stone? The President would like to see you.”

“On my way.” He took the steps down to the basement quickly, two or three at a time, then walked briskly through the tunnel that connected the Executive Office Building to the basement of the White House. Climbing two sets of stairs, he entered a carpeted hallway on the ground level.

Grace Tully, the president’s personal secretary, looked up as Hartnell entered the president’s outer office. “Go right in. He’s expecting you.”

“What’s going on? Can you give me a heads-up?”

Tully grinned. “Nothing bad, Hartnell. Go on in. He won’t eat you.”

The Oval Office, like the upstairs Oval Study, reflected the personal style of this president. Overflowing inboxes, ten aides—including both Stimson and Hull—having eight simultaneous conversations, with Roosevelt in the middle of the whirlwind. With the president’s growing ill health, the whirlwind was being tamed somewhat by his staff, though FDR was notoriously difficult to manage. A doctor and two nurses sat nearby, pretending to be invisible as the president listened and spoke, read memoranda and jotted notes at the bottom. The presence of people gave him much-needed energy, and he looked surprisingly hale even after a long day’s work.

Roosevelt glanced up and saw Stone enter. “Hartnell, my boy! Come in, come in! Just in time for cocktail hour, isn’t it? Why don’t we take this upstairs and splice the mainbrace, eh?” He grinned, his cigarette holder clenched firmly between his teeth, and signaled to his valet. While the president and his valet traveled upstairs by elevator, the rest of the party—quickly sorted by Grace Tully into those who had continued purpose with the president and those who did not—walked up the wide center staircase to the residential level.

It was traditional for FDR to serve as mixmaster for the presidential cocktail hour in the Oval Study. He made drinks for the two Cabinet officers and for himself, then allowed someone else to take over. Although this time was officially labeled as a cocktail hour, the Oval Study hours were as much work time as the daylight hours in the White House, and would often go on until midnight, although of late this was no longer the case.

Hartnell nursed a gin and tonic as he waited his turn. He understood the rhythms of this White House well enough to know that he had in fact been summoned for a purpose, and he would learn that purpose whenever it suited FDR to get around to it. What’s more, his assignment might or might not have anything to do with his official areas of expertise, such as they were. FDR did not like his assistants turning into subject-matter experts; he preferred to keep them generalists by throwing them at random targets. It was stressful, but it was certainly educational.

“Hartnell, my lad?”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Tired of this DC winter?”

“A bit, sir.”

“Ready for a little jaunt? Something warm and exotic, maybe with a few bathing beauties?”

“Well, that sounds pretty good, sir.”

“Sounds pretty good to me, too. Too bad you won’t find any where you’re going, eh, Cordell?” FDR winked at his secretary of state.

Cordell Hull chuckled. “Well, I understand that Moscow has an event where people swim naked in the river in the middle of winter, but that’s as close as you’d get to bathing beauties, I’m afraid.”

“Moscow?” Hartnell interjected.

“I think I need to send a little personal letter to Uncle Joe, and I want it hand-delivered,” FDR said. “Teletype is a bit impersonal, you know. You’ll be the courier, and you’ll go along with Averrell when he delivers the note.” W. Averrell Harriman was the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. FDR leaned forward. “Hartnell, what I need you to do is to be my eyes and ears. Averrell is a fine and smart man and he’s going to do all the heavy lifting. You’re going to be watching for the small stuff. I want you to get a feeling for what’s going on—I want you to be able to make me feel like I’m there. I want to know what people sound like, I want to know what expression is on their faces—everything. It’s important. Understand?”

“I think so, sir. I heard a German word once.
Fingerspitzengefühl
. It was used to describe Rommel. It means ‘intuition in your fingertips.’ You can’t be there, so you want me to see if I can be your fingertips.”

“Finger-spitting fool? Is that the word? Well, close enough. Sounds about right.” FDR looked over at Hull. “Not bad. The boy’s got promise. Okay, Hartnell. Be my fingertips. Make me feel what it’s like to be there. I know Uncle Joe pretty well, and I think I know which way he’s going to jump, but the warning signs are subtle. Watch him very well. Notice everything and tell me all about it. I’ll have a letter waiting for you with Grace first thing in the morning and then you’re off to Moscow.”

“Bathing beauties and all,” Hartnell added.

FDR grinned. “Find a bathing beauty in Moscow in January and I’ll let you replace Wild Bill Donovan as head of OSS.”

Stone laughed. “It’s a deal, Mr. President.”

BOOK: Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

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