Half an hour passes, and the place is soon bustling. The stove burns, a soup of sorts brews in the urn, the gramophone squawks, homeless neighbours sit in pews exchanging gossip, while excited children charge about howling like Messerschmitts. I’m in the cubicle dressing the ulcerated leg of an elderly man when one of the women helpers appears round the curtain.
‘Excuse me, Herr Doktor. May I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘We wondered if we might open every day. Rather than just twice a week.’
‘It’s a nice idea, but Doctor Henning and I can only get here twice a week.’
‘We realize that. But we could still open, as a place for people to come.’
‘And hold clinics on the days we’re here? Yes, it’s certainly a thought. Let me speak to Erik about it.’
‘Thank you, Herr Doktor. Oh, and there’s a man to see you from the Gemeinde.’
I’m rather startled at this. The Gemeinde, as my German understands it, translates as the ‘municipality’. Officialdom, in other words, something Erik and I try to avoid, as far as the drop-in goes. I peek round the curtain and see a man in his fifties wearing a rumpled suit, spectacles and homburg. He seems to be looking round with great interest, and even as I watch produces a notebook and jots something down.
‘May I help you?’ I enquire warily.
‘You are Henning?’
‘No, the other one. Garland.’
‘Ah, the British captain. Even better.’
‘And you are?’
‘My name is Adenauer, I’m from the Bürgermeister’s office.’
‘I see.’
He shakes my hand. ‘I’m the Bürgermeister’s stand-in.’
‘So where’s the Bürgermeister?’
‘There isn’t one. The chair has been vacant since 1942.’
‘Oh. And where’s his office?’
‘Marktplatz. But it was destroyed in December. Then it was in the museum. Which was destroyed in February. Now it’s in my house, although we’re hoping to move to the library. Once the roof’s repaired.’
‘Right. I see. Listen, I’m very sorry, Herr, um…’
‘Adenauer.’
‘Adenauer, yes, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand.’
‘The war is due to end.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And the Allies will prevail.’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘So we must make provision.’
‘Provision.’
‘Yes. The city of Ulm is undefended. The garrison has withdrawn, the senior military presence is unreliable or absent, the police are old men and severely under-staffed. Local government structures barely exist. There is great fear and uncertainty among the population, particularly over what will happen when the Allies arrive. Law and order is already starting to break down.’
‘Is it?’
‘Which leaves you.’
‘Me.’
‘As the titular governing authority in the city.’
‘The what!’
‘You are the most senior Allied representative in Ulm. We wish only that the transfer of authority goes smoothly and peacefully. The city therefore looks to you to ensure this.’
‘But—’
‘And to ensure the protection of its people.’
*
Erwin Rommel left Italy to take up his new post in late 1943. Before departing he held a farewell dinner at his new home in Herrlingen for some of his old retinue, one of whom I learn was Gerhardt Brandt, who was applying for a transfer to his staff. At that dinner, Rommel, in reflective mood, spoke gloomily of his posting, which, even dressed up as a special assignment or Führerauftrag to save face, was clearly a demotion. ‘I am no longer a soldier, but an inspector,’ he joked dryly. More darkly he talked of his views on the war, and of the German leadership, including Adolf Hitler. ‘Our brave soldiers are dying by the tens of thousands at the hands of incompetents and fantasists,’ he said. ‘Our efforts now should be about preventing the annihilation of Germany and its people.’
‘How, sir?’ a guest asked, surprised at his candour.
Rommel shrugged. ‘End it. Before it is too late.’
Then next morning he went to work, and in true Rommel fashion attacked his new role with zeal and thoroughness. His brief was to inspect and report on Germany’s countermeasures against the expected Allied invasion of northern Europe, specifically the much-touted Atlantic Wall defence system. This ‘wall’ formed the main component of the Reich’s defences, supposedly forming a continuous and unassailable barrier along northern Europe’s shores, all the way from Norway to the Bay of Biscay.
But it didn’t, and what he found worried him greatly. Firstly the ‘wall’ wasn’t a wall at all, but a random series of unconnected fortifications most of which weren’t finished. Indeed, many had barely been begun, and several key ones existed only on paper. A few, he acknowledged, like those in the Channel Islands, or the Loire, or the Raversijde complex in Belgium, were complete, and impressive, featuring massive sea-facing guns and networks of emplacements, trenches and tunnels linked by sophisticated communications systems. But these were the exceptions, and it was soon all too clear that glaring gaps and vulnerabilities existed along the entire length, including several stretches with no defences at all.
Within days he was firing off reports to High Command, begging at the same time for the authority to take charge of the situation himself. Alarmed at the news, Berlin swiftly granted this permission and he immediately set to work, journeying hundreds of miles a day, castigating, chivvying and cajoling as he went, visiting every piece of coastline from Bergen to Bordeaux, revising plans, issuing deadlines, berating contractors, diverting materials and manpower, and galvanizing everyone from field commanders to lowly labourers with his infectious drive and urgency. He also visited the many military units tasked with manning these defences. Some he noted were crack troops of high calibre, but many were poor-quality conscripts from Eastern Europe, Russia and even from France. Regardless of this, his message to them was always the same: you must drive the enemy back into the sea at all costs. Let them ashore and we’re finished.
He did his best, earnestly and tirelessly, but knew that completing the work was impossible; there simply wasn’t the time, manpower or resources. Maximum effort therefore, he urged, should be concentrated on those areas at highest risk, northern France in other words, specifically the Channel coast from Calais to Brittany. Berlin concurred and by mid spring 1944 attention was further focusing on the Pas de Calais region, with Calais itself considered the most probable target for invasion. Calais was a large port, readily resupplied by sea and air. It was situated close to the border with Belgium, only a short march into the Low Countries and thence into Germany, obviating the need for long supply lines. It offered the shortest sea crossing for the Allied troop carriers, and short flights for their supporting aircraft. Finally, all the intelligence suggested Calais, with suspicious build-ups of British and American forces in Kent, fleets of invasion barges hiding in rivers and creeks, and intercepted signals about German troop numbers in the Calais area.
Rommel supported the Calais assessment, but only partly. His theory, which he circulated widely, was that the Allies would mount two invasions: a diversionary one somewhere in Normandy, followed by the main one around Calais. And the key to defeating both, he argued, was crushing the first one before it could take hold. ‘Bloody their noses on the beaches of Normandy,’ he wrote, ‘and they’ll think twice about landing in Calais!’ All that was needed to achieve this, he went on, were improvements to the Atlantic Wall defences in both areas, sufficient forces to mount a proper defence, and the imaginative deployment of those troops such that they were ready to rush into action wherever the alarm sounded.
That and someone competent to manage it all.
Hitler, capricious as ever, and impressed as so often before by Rommel’s strategic vision, as well as his tireless efforts, was inclined t
o agree with his old protégé, and so suddenly in April, to the fury of his competitors, Rommel found himself commanding Army Group B, and charged with the defence of northern France. Delighted to be a soldier again, he nevertheless knew the task was daunting. With the Eastern Front sucking up vast quantities of resources, and a second front halfway up Italy expending yet more, he was now expected to open a third front with whatever spares Berlin saw fit to allocate. And time was desperately short. Guessing he had barely weeks to prepare, he moved into a chateau south of Rouen, set up his headquarters and went to work.
Staff would record his efforts as prodigious, a return to the Rommel of old, of Gazala and Tobruk, and of the 1940 conquest of France. He was everywhere at once, backwards and forwards along the lines, visiting every emplacement, every battery, every unit, every last man, encouraging, questioning, exhorting and inspiring. Where he found weakness he strengthened – both men and materials, installing miles of barbed wire, sowing mines by the thousand, digging tank traps, burying lethal steel obstacles on beaches, placing flak batteries and flooding fields against air landings, positioning and repositioning troops then drilling them day and night until they dropped. And everywhere he went he drummed the same message home: don’t let them get off the beaches. If you do it’s over. There is no fallback plan.
And yet, unknown to all but a trusted few, there was.
*
How do I know? Because, at the request of his family, I’m sitting at his desk in his study wading through his personal papers. And that’s a peculiar thing for a lowly British medic and no question.
Tonight is my second session. Having returned to Erik with the startling news that the good burghers of Ulm are looking to us for safety and salvation – at which his jaw duly drops – I hastily wolf down the slop they call supper, wash and smarten myself up, and, remembering to take my English–German dictionary, descend the stairs to await the Herrlingen car. Prien has gone off duty, Vorst we haven’t seen in days, so one of the guards signs me out. He does so without a glance, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t care if I never come back. That I could slip out right now and simply wander off. But wander off where, is the question. Germany’s in chaos, with desperate and bloody fighting going on in all directions, and bombs falling hourly by the thousand. Order is breaking down, as is transportation and information; there’s no food, no cover and no obvious route to safety. Wandering off would be madness. Bide your time, Stalag 357’s CO, McKenzie, preached to my irritation back in November. Keep your head down and we’ll all be home before we know it. He may have been wrong then, but not these days. How things have changed in five months.
I’m wondering if Rommel might have suffered some sort of breakdown in his final months. As I read through his papers I can’t help but reflect on his state of mind from a medical perspective. There are frequent references to illnesses, doctors, stress and exhaustion, hospitals and sanatoria over the years. And as D-Day loomed, his writings suggest increasing inner turmoil. On the one hand there’s no question he threw himself into his duties wholeheartedly and without question, as he always did. On the other he’s clearly conflicted. ‘I’ll be sending brave boys to a needless death,’ he confides in one letter to Lucie. ‘Knowing our leadership for what it is, can this be justified morally?’ Furthermore he’d been waging war for years with no respite and unremitting pressure from above. God knows the cumulative cost of this to his mental equilibrium. I search further, burrowing down through the boxes, then come to a manila envelope containing a dozen or so typed sheets headed ‘Fall Grün’ or ‘Case Green’. And as I translate them, thumbing the dictionary at my side, my blood begins to run cold.
‘Herr Doktor Garland?’ Manfred Rommel appears round the door. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I made it myself.’
‘Well, yes, I would. How very kind.’
‘It is not your British tea, and rather old, nor do we have milk or sugar.’
‘No matter, Manfred, please come in.’
He sidles cautiously forward and places the cup beside me. I take a sip and taste something bitter and non-tea-like. ‘Delicious,’ I say, wondering briefly if he might be trying to poison me. ‘When do you have to report for duty?’
‘Tomorrow. I leave early.’
‘Where to?’
‘Riedlingen. My unit forms part of the defence force there.’
‘Will you please be careful, Manfred?’
He looks surprised. ‘Yes.’
‘For your mother’s sake. Because if anything happened to you…’
‘I understand.’ He stands beside me, his eyes scanning the papers atop the desk.
‘It must be a little odd,’ I say, discreetly covering them, ‘having someone, a stranger, an enemy in fact, sit here reading your father’s papers.’
‘A little. But Gertrud says we can trust you. Mother too.’
‘You can.’
‘Yes.’ He hesitates, his fingers brushing the desk. ‘It was here…’
‘Here?’
‘The last time I saw him. Alive, I mean. He called me in here to explain what was happening. Less than an hour before…’ His voice fades.
‘You must miss him terribly.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you talked to anyone about it? About that day?’
He shakes his head.
‘Would you like to?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve no wish to intrude.’
‘Sorry.’ His young brow is deeply furrowed, and his lower lip none too steady.
‘Look here.’ I give him a nudge. ‘It’s his diary for last autumn. He writes of you nearly every day, and with great pride and pleasure, describing all the walks and talks you had together.’
‘It was some of the best times. Although he was different.’
‘Different?’
‘Following his injury, in France. It changed him.’
A few weeks after D-Day. The fighting is intense, the Allies pushing hard to break out from the Normandy bridgehead. Rommel’s in his staff car, racing from one defensive position to another, when he gets bounced by a Spitfire, strafed by machine guns and crashes. His skull is smashed; he isn’t expected to live.
‘Well, it was a very serious injury.’
‘He was blinded for a while and suffered fits, and very bad headaches and blackouts. At first he was bedridden, and I would come and read to him, but his moods would change often and he could become upset or enraged. Then as the weeks passed and he slowly recovered, he became more calm, more happy – you know, playful even. As though his troubles were over. As though he was a youth again, and more like a brother to me than a father. It was quite special.’
Dusk is falling, the clock ticks on the mantel, and the soft hiss of spring rain drifts through the window. Beyond in the garden birds are roosting, flowers budding and the trees bursting into leaf, while somewhere in the distance a lone dog barks. War seems very remote; the setting, the house, Rommel’s study are so peaceful that I can almost sense his presence. A family photo sits on his desk, one of those folding travel ones of leather. It is considerably battered, testament to its many years campaigning. Three figures smile out at him: Lucie, Gertrud and Manfred.
He suddenly draws a breath.
‘Two officers came to the house,’ he begins, as though reciting a prepared text, ‘while a third man waited in the car. My father warned us there might be visitors that day but did not say what the visit was about. The officers arrived at about twelve. He didn’t know them but received them politely and brought them into his study. I waited upstairs with Mother, who was becoming agitated. Gertrud was at work. About half an hour later the men came out and my father went upstairs and asked me to wait in his study while he spoke to my mother. In a while he returned here and told me he had just said goodbye to her, and now must say goodbye to me, because Adolf Hitler had given him the choice of taking his life, or being brought before the People’s Court for his part in the twentieth
of July plot to assassinate him. My father told me he’d known about the plot but had taken no part because he believed it would not solve Germany’s problems and only make a martyr of Hitler. But three of his close friends had spoken his name under torture, which was enough to implicate him. The two officers told my father if he chose suicide then his family would be protected and provided for, and that he would be buried a hero. If he chose the People’s Court, however, there was no such protection.’
His gaze in the twilight is fixed, and his voice determined, but I can see he’s struggling. ‘Manfred, old chap, you don’t have to—’
‘I begged him to choose the People’s Court, saying if he told the truth then surely he would be found innocent. But he said the People’s Court was a sham, set up only to convict people, innocent or guilty, and nobody was ever found innocent. I pleaded again, and became upset, and he told me his mind was made up and I must be brave and take on the role of man of the family. He then told me to say goodbye and we embraced. After that he went to his dressing room and changed into his field marshal’s uniform with cap and baton, before descending to the hall where he said goodbye to the staff and Gertrud, who had returned. He then went out to the car where the two officers were waiting, and got into the back. The car drove off, and about an hour later we received a telephone call to say my father had suffered a heart attack, and a doctor had been called from Ulm Hospital, but he had died.’
A long silence follows. The mantel clock ticks on. Then, still standing at my side, he bows his head, and a single tear plops on the desk. I raise my arm and pat him gently on the back.
‘Well done, Manfred. Very well done.’
‘Will you…’ He hesitates. ‘Will you make sure people know?’
‘I’ll do my best. But you should write it down also. Like a sworn affidavit. And keep it safe. In case.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘Of course I’ll help you.’
*
Back at the Revier, Prien’s once more on the desk. As I enter he holds a finger to his lips and gestures at Vorst’s door, beneath which a light glows. I nod, then tread softly up to the second floor. Where I need to speak to Theo Trickey.
The Bridge Page 5