They Used Dark Forces

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘That is by no means fair. By bringing in Lease-Lend, President Roosevelt gave Britain invaluable assistance.’

  ‘But not until Britain had pawned her shirt; so could no longer find the money to pay for further armaments. Lease-Lend, my friend, was a shrewd move to enable Britain to continue the fight and so further exhaust herself. And even then the Americans got their pound of flesh for it—fifty obsolete destroyers in exchange for a lease of British possessions in the West Indies. Believe me, had it not been for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour the United States would have remained neutral to the end. It was Pearl Harbour which gave Churchill his opportunity to force her hand; and that clever old devil seized upon it. Within the hour he declared Britain to be America’s ally in her war against the Japs. After that how could the Americans refuse to reciprocate by declaring war on Germany? But if Churchill trusts Roosevelt he’s more of a fool than I take him for. When it comes to making the peace those American money-grubbers who behind your backs always refer to you as ‘the bloody British’ will do you down and bring about the dissolution of your Empire.’

  While listening to the views of such a shrewd and well-informed man as the Reichsmarschall, Gregory’s fears for himself were momentarily forgotten and he said, ‘You are convinced, then, that had Germany played her cards rightly in 1941 she would now be the master of the whole of Europe?’

  ‘I’ve not a doubt of it; and of Africa as well. That is, had my advice been followed. Again and again I urged the Führer to let Russia wait and, with or without Franco’s consent, go into Spain. We could have closed the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar and cut off the British Army in Egypt; leaving it to rot, as did the Army of Napoleon there after Nelson had cut its lifeline by the Battle of the Nile.’

  ‘After Italy came in, it was in any case virtually cut off for a long period; but we succeeded in supplying and reinforcing it by the long route round the Cape.’

  Goering laughed. ‘Do you think that having got as far as Gibraltar we should have stopped there? In ’41 the French saw no hope for themselves except by collaborating with us. They believed Britain to be finished, so would have given us a free hand in North Africa, and in Equatorial Africa too. From there it is a short step to the Belgian Congo. Then we would have launched a Blitzkreig against South Africa. The handful of aircraft there would have been helpless against the Luftwaffe. A few nights’ bombing of Johannesburg and Cape Town would have forced the South Africans to give in. Look now at the strategic picture that would have resulted. With our U-boats and aircraft operating from bases in Northern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, the Canaries, West Africa, St. Helena and South Africa, we could have made it impossible for you to send convoys round the Cape. With her army in Egypt stranded and all supplies to Britain from Africa, Asia and Australasia cut off, how could Britain possibly have refused to accept the reasonable terms we would then have offered her?’

  There could be no doubt that Goering’s great strategic conception had been the right one for Germany and, while Gregory still believed that if Britain had been in extremis the United States would have come to her aid, he said with a wry smile, ‘I can only thank God that Your Excellency’s advice was not taken. No part of Africa could have offered any prolonged resistance against the might and organising ability of Germany, and you could have had the whole continent for only half the effort that was put into the attempt to conquer Russia.’

  ‘You’re right!’ Goering sighed. ‘Yet even that false move need not have proved so utterly disastrous if the Generals had been listened to. We could still have fought the Russians to a standstill on a line along the Vistula and the Carpathians down to the mouth of the Danube, and so kept them out of Western Europe, had it not been for the Führer’s obsessions about holding every foot of ground, and the Jews.’

  ‘The Jews?’ Gregory echoed in surprise. ‘What had they to do with it?’

  The Reichsmarschall shrugged and adjusted the laurel wreath on his head, which had slipped a little. ‘I suppose you could not be expected to realise it, but it is the Jewish question that has bedevilled our entire strategy for the past year. At least you must be aware that Himmler’s one aim in life is the complete elimination of the Jewish race, and that the Führer wholeheartedly supports him in his endeavours to achieve it.’

  ‘I know that in Poland they were murdered by the million and that, since then, hundreds of thousands more of them have been collected from all over Europe to be driven into gas chambers.’

  ‘Yes, poor devils. They are not my favourite people, but many of them were intelligent and useful citizens and there was nothing to be gained by their wholesale slaughter. On the contrary, it has robbed Speer and the Todt Works Organisation of a great reservoir of slave labour. Far worse, Himmler’s policy of “the ultimate solution”, as it is called, has led to a great part of the Army being diverted from the job it should be doing.’

  ‘Surely you cannot mean that the S.S. have found the job of rounding up the Jews too much for them, and have had to call on the Army for help?’

  ‘Not precisely; but that’s what it amounts to. Even after the loss of von Paulus’s Army outside Stalingrad, and our Northern Army that became bottled up in Courland because the Führer refused to allow it to withdraw, we still had ample troops to fight a defensive war successfully. But when Rumania showed signs of collapse the Führer insisted that the front there must be held long enough to get the Jews out to Germany, so that they could be executed. The result was that another sixteen of our Divisions were encircled and destroyed. The line of the Carpathians was lost and a great gap torn in our south-eastern front. To fill it an Army was moved from Warsaw and its withdrawal so weakened our all-important Russian front that it caved in.

  ‘And this madness about putting the killing of Jews before all other considerations continues. We had nothing to gain by going into Hungary. Up till last spring the Hungarians observed a favourable neutrality towards us and acceded to all our requests for supplies and volunteer Divisions to help fight the Russians. But there were seven hundred thousand Jews there and the Hungarians refused to have them murdered; so Himmler got permission to send in his Waffen S.S. troops to do the job, instead of their being employed on a battle front. Rounding up and eliminating such hordes of Jews takes time; so half of them are still alive. The thought that they might be saved by the arrival of the Russians in Budapest sent the Führer berserk. Rather than let them escape he has transferred yet another German Army from our vital Central front to Hungary with orders to hang on there whatever the odds against it, until Himmler’s man, Eichmann, has administered “the ultimate solution” to the remainder of the Jews.’

  That Hitler’s demand that every yard of conquered ground should be held had led to immense losses of German troops by encirclement was now common knowledge; but that his disastrous strategy had been dominated largely by his obsession to eliminate the Jews was a revelation to Gregory. After a moment he said:

  ‘Had anyone other than yourself told me this, Herr Reichsmarschall, I would not have credited it. But, of course, you know the facts. And how extraordinary it is that indirectly the Führer’s persecution of the Jews should have played so large a part in Germany’s defeat. One cannot help seeing in that the hand of fate.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Goering shrugged his great shoulders. ‘Anyhow, that’s the way things are. This last attempt to hold Hungary is bound to fail. Instead we should have withdrawn our southeastern Armies to the Bavarian Alps. And the price to be paid for having weakened our northern front will be to have the Russians in Berlin. I’ve had a grand life while it lasted so I’ll have no complaints when my time comes; but you and I both know that the game is up. We are finished; all of us.’

  As the modern Nero ceased speaking he pressed the bell on his desk. Gregory’s muscles tensed. He felt certain that during the past ten minutes the Reichsmarschall had been only relieving his feelings by criticising the Führer to him in a way that he still dared not do even
to his personal friends, and that this was the summons for the guard to take the man to whom he had been blowing off steam away to face a firing squad. But when a footman appeared in the doorway, Goering said only, ‘Bring champagne.’

  Gregory tried not to show his relief. Although he knew that the postponement of his execution could be only temporary, the idea of buoying himself up with a few glasses of good wine before he had to meet his end was most acceptable. To keep the conversation going, he remarked:

  ‘Could the Generals do nothing to persuade the Führer that many of his decisions would lead only to defeat?’

  Goering’s big belly shook as he sat back from his desk and roared with laughter. ‘The Generals! Gott im Himmel, no! From the beginning the Führer has paid little heed to what they had to say. And since the July Putsch he would sooner take advice from his woman vegetarian cook. He is convinced that every one of them is a traitor. He doesn’t trust even that time-serving toady Keitel. It is Martin Bormann who rules the roost today.

  ‘Bormann is a cunning devil if ever there was one. He poses as the humble secretary whose only thought is to take work off his master’s shoulders; but he has a finger in every pie. Not even I can get in to see the Führer now without Bormann being present and poisoning the Führer’s mind against me afterwards. What is more, as Party manager he controls the Gauleiters and under him they are now absolute rulers in their territories. Even an Army Commander’s authority is restricted to within five miles behind the front on which his troops are fighting. At times the Gauleiters even divert and commandeer for their own use trains of supplies intended for the troops. But the protests of the Generals go unheeded.’

  ‘How fantastic,’ Gregory murmured.

  At that moment the footman brought in a magnum of Krug in an ice-bucket, and glasses. When he had poured the wine, both Goering and Gregory took a long drink. Then the Reichsmarschall went on. ‘But that’s not the worst the Generals have had to put up with. They are now being overlaid by Himmler’s vast private army.’

  ‘The term “vast” may apply to the Waffen S.S. but I should not have thought that in quality it could compare with the regular army.’

  ‘You are out of date, my friend. Contrary to the belief of her enemies, during four and a half years of conflict Germany had not become geared for total war. Right up to last summer there were still hundreds of thousands of young, able-bodied men who continued to enjoy a protected status as Civil Servants, actors, authors, artists, agriculturists, bank clerks, railwaymen, and in a score of other occupations. Then came the Normandy landings and Goebbels persuaded the Führer to order a levée en masse. Within a few weeks a million men were winkled out and called up to form what became known as the Replacement Army. But the Generals were not given control of it, because after the bomb plot the Führer openly proclaimed them to be his enemies. He gave the command to der treue Heinrich, as he affectionately calls Himmler; and, at the same time, permission to increase his Waffen S.S. without limit by any means he could devise.’

  Goering took another long drink of champagne and added, ‘Himmler’s ambition for power is boundless. Naturally, he drafted the pick of the recruits into his Waffen S.S., and left only the duds for the Army. While he was at it Goebbels scraped the bottom of the barrel; so it may surprise you to hear that the Wehrmacht now has units composed entirely of men who are deaf, others of men suffering from stomach ulcers who have to have a special diet, and others again of epileptics and old dug-outs of over sixty.’

  ‘Surely such troops are a liability rather than an asset?’ Gregory remarked.

  ‘Of course they are. They were roped in only on Himmler’s insistence. His object was to swell the numbers of the men that could be allocated to the Army, so that when the Generals protested to the Führer he could be persuaded that they had had their fair share of recruits. Meanwhile, that little swine Goebbels had induced the Führer to order me to release half a million men from the ground staffs of my Luftwaffe stations.’

  At the memory the Reichsmarschall’s fat face turned almost purple. Quickly, Gregory refilled his glass and handed it to him. He took a gulp of wine then spluttered, ‘Those … those are the fine fellows who are now being sent to die in Hungary, so that more Jews can be exterminated before the curtain comes down. Nine-tenths of them, and the greater part of all that was left of our German youth, have been enrolled in the Waffen S.S. Not content with that, Himmler for once scrapped his race-purity obsession in order to get another half million men under his command. He made honorary Aryans of Bulgarians, Albanians, Slovenes, Hungarians and even Russians. His S.S. Leaders combed the prisoner-of-war camps for anyone and everyone who preferred to put on a Nazi uniform rather than starve to death. To that he added French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Latvian collaborators by the thousand; so now his private Army numbers scores of Divisions and is nearly as big as the Wehrmacht. That’s why the Führer could not refuse him the command of an Army Group.’

  ‘What!’ Gregory exclaimed. ‘Himmler an Army Group Commander! But he can know nothing about soldiering.’

  ‘Not a thing. But the greater part of the Wehrmacht’s armoured divisions had been lost in Russia and in Normandy. The best we had left were the new ones created for the Waffen S.S. by Sepp Dietrich; and he is a good soldier even if he did start his career as the Führer’s chauffeur. They had to be used as the spearhead of the Ardennes offensive, and as they were Himmler’s troops he claimed the right to command the whole sector. Von Rundstedt would not stand for that and the Führer had to give way to him; so Himmler was bought off by being given command of the neighbouring Army Group, covering the sector between the Ardennes and the Swiss frontier.’

  Once more Gregory was so intrigued that he had temporarily forgotten that he was talking to a man who, as soon as he tired of giving vent to his bitterness and rancour, would have him shot; and he asked, ‘What sort of showing did Himmler make as a General?’

  Goering shrugged. ‘He proved not only helplessly incompetent himself, but has continued to be a menace to the success of all the other Army Commanders. You see, Commanders of S.S. divisions that are allotted to Army Groups come under Wehrmacht Generals only for operations, not for discipline; so they owe allegiance only to their own chiefs, the Obergruppenführers and, of course, to Himmler as their Supreme Commander. In consequence, being given an Army Group did not deprive Himmler of the power to interfere on all the other fronts on which Waffen S.S. divisions were employed.

  ‘Sepp Dietrich did a splendid job with his armour in breaking through the Ardennes front. Had he been properly supported he might have reached Antwerp and delayed the Allied advance for several months. But the offensive failed for two reasons. The divisions from the Replacement Army given to von Rundstedt to follow up the attack were of such poor quality that they were not up to the task; and when he asked Himmler to release some of his S.S. Divisions from the neighbouring front to support the armour, Himmler refused. Instead he despatched his reserve divisions to Hungary, in another effort to prevent the Russians from capturing Budapest before all the Jews there could be killed off. There you have our tragedy: the units of two separate armies mixed up on every front, with the Generals of both hating the others, bitterly jealous and refusing to co-operate.’

  Gregory shook his head. ‘I had no idea of this. It must render all planning hopeless, and in such chaotic conditions I marvel that Germany is still able to maintain any front at all.’

  ‘Planning!’ Goering gave a cynical laugh. ‘There is none. Each General is fighting only a local battle to stave off defeat. None of them knows what is happening to his neighbours, because they are forbidden to communicate in case they get together and decide to lay down their arms. The Führer sitting in his bunker in Berlin not only decrees the major moves but also directs everything, even down to the movement of battalions, with only the vaguest idea of what is really happening in the battle areas. Quite frequently he orders new units of the Replacement Army to proceed to places that ha
ve been overrun by the enemy a week or more before.’

  ‘That makes it all the more amazing that there has not been a general collapse.’

  ‘Two factors account for that: the Wehrmacht Generals now ignore all the Führer’s more idiotic orders, and the dogged determination of our soldiers to protect their homeland. We Germans and you British are the finest fighting men in the world, both in victory and defeat. But the Führer’s distrust of the Generals and his fanatical belief that he can direct the war better than any of them has brought us to this shocking pass.’

  ‘Could you not have persuaded him to see sense,’ Gregory asked. ‘After all, you are Nazi No. 2 and his appointed successor. Surely you must have great influence with him.’

  Goering sighed. ‘In the old days I had; but now he is barely civil to me. And that goes for the German people, too. They used to call me “fat Hermann”, and they loved me. Now they blame me for the failure of the Luftwaffe and curse my name when the bombs come crashing down. That is my personal tragedy and my heart bleeds for my gallant airmen. Today they are humiliated and stigmatised as cowards. But it is no fault of theirs or mine that the Allies have driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.

  ‘Dominance in the air is largely a gamble on which nation has the latest machine in operation when a war breaks out. It was no thanks to your Government, but because Lady Houston gave her millions to the development of fighter aircraft, that you had your Hurricanes and Spitfires operational in 1939. Had the war broken out a year later, we would have had a better type of Messerchmitt and you would have lost the Battle of Britain. But even then it was not too late. I could still have beaten the Allies in the air, or at least have prevented the bombing of our German cities later in the war, had I been allowed to manufacture our new types in sufficient numbers. Instead the fools hamstrung the Luftwaffe by diverting irreplaceable technicians and vast quantities of precious materials to the making of the V.1’s and V.2’s.’