Fox On The Rhine

by Douglas Niles

  Abruptly Goebbels lunged at the desk, pulling open a drawer with astonishing quickness. Major Remer watched miserably, obviously reluctant to draw his weapon against this man who had been such an icon of the state. “Don’t!” he groaned, eyes wide.

  Frantically the minister reached inside the desk, scrambling for something with groping fingers. His eyes glowed and his lips were twisted into a crazed sneer--a taut grin of triumph, it must have seemed to the hapless Remer.

  “Stop it!” cried the officer, finally drawing his sidearm and leveling the cold steel barrel. He watched Goebbel’s hand emerge from the desk drawer, and relaxed slightly when he saw no gun there. “Come with me, Herr Reichsminister...

  Major Remer’s words were cut short by the cackle of glee emanating from the quivering Nazi. Goebbels raised a hand and Remer saw that it wasn’t empty--the minister held a tiny white object between his fingers. Again the major raised his gun, ineffectually waving it as the man popped the capsule into his mouth.

  “No--wait!” cried the soldier, dropping his gun and lunging forward. But Goebbels bit down hard, cracking the capsule. Immediately potassium cyanide filled his mouth, passing almost as quickly into his system through the salivary glands.

  Three seconds later he was dead.

  SS Command, East Prussia, 2200 hours GMT

  Another headquarters lay concealed in the East Prussian woods, though it was not so large or so active a compound as Wolfschanze. Here, too, the swastika hung listlessly, and black-shirted SS guards patrolled with pacing Alsatians. Besides the smaller size, there was another, more subtle difference to this compound--here all the guards wore black. Nowhere could be seen the feldgrau tunics of the Wehrmacht, for this was the headquarters of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler.

  During the course of the hot afternoon and muggy evening, no sign of undue excitement had stirred around the gray concrete blocks or amid the wide walkways bordered with bright flower beds. Yet within these bombproof shelters, a controlled frenzy drove the officers who manned the radio and telephone centers. Desperately they tried to establish contact with the Wolf’s Lair--with Hitler, or at least with some member of his staff. Meanwhile, the reichsführer had brooded in the darkness of his office, consulting star charts and then pacing in agitation, waiting for news as darkness settled over Poland and inched westward to blanket the rest of the continent.

  For most of these hours the officers had been able to establish precious few facts--until shortly before midnight a frantic telephone call arrived from the Wolf’s Lair. Within minutes, General Gerhardt Fuller entered the reichsführer’s office and snapped to attention. His black eyes gleamed beneath the brim of his high, peaked cap--the only sign of the general’s rising state of excitement.

  “The führer is dead!” he began, without preamble. “Conspirators have moved in Berlin, Munich, and other districts--but there is a lack of coordination in their efforts.”

  Himmler turned to look at the general. His hands were clasped behind his back. In the dark room, his black uniform made him virtually invisible, except for the metallic glistening of the SS death’s-head insignia. As usual, the general’s skin crawled as he felt the penetrating eyes of the reichsführer on him. Although Himmler was not a physically prepossessing figure in his wire-rimmed spectacles, there was something about his gaze that put Fuller in mind of a snake facing a rabbit. Fuller could swear that Himmler was not surprised by the earthshaking news.

  “Are you certain?” said Himmler in a mild voice.

  “Yes, Herr Reichsführer. Hauptmann Braun, a loyal officer of the SS, reached us by ordering a technician to splice into the telephone line at the Wolf’s Lair--the switchboard and radios there were destroyed shortly after the assassination. In fact, the man underwent no little risk to get his message out.”

  “I see,” observed Himmler. “Please continue.”

  “A bomb was planted, apparently by Count von Stauffenberg, Fromm’s chief of staff. No one knows who’s in command, and everyone is accusing everyone else.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s to be expected. And the rest of the army?” inquired Himmler, his voice almost prim.

  “They are paralyzed. There is no doubt that high-ranking officers stand behind the revolt, but the bulk of the rank and file--and the generals as well--await guidance, orders.”

  “Of course,” murmured the leader of the SS. For a few moments Himmler was silent, and Fuller remained rigid.

  The leadership of the state stood vacant, but it would not remain so for long. Of course, with the Reich threatened by looming defeat on all sides, even the prize of the government might seem a hollow trophy. Still, the murderous act meant that right now Himmler was the most powerful man in Nazi Germany. As personal commander of the SS, the reichsführer had the fanatical loyalty of those vast legions--a private army that existed alongside, and even within, the conventionally structured Wehrmacht. Could he use that power to seize control, to arrest this chaos in the early stages?

  It was Fuller’s job to see that he didn’t get that opportunity. The import had been clear to Fuller since those five words had been whispered over the telephone, long before Braun had leaked the news to SS command. The bridge has been burned--the phrase still echoed in his mind. Neutralizing the SS was crucial to a successful coup, and that meant Himmler needed to die. Fuller knew that his own death would follow quickly thereafter. It is too bad that Stauffenberg couldn’t have gotten them both together, he thought regretfully.

  Slowly, with mechanical precision, he drew his automatic and raised it toward the reflective reichsführer.

  Himmler blinked, the only expression of his surprise. Two shots thundered in quick succession, resonating in the confined office.

  The impact of the bullets hurled General Fuller backward, smashing him into the closed door before he slumped to the floor. His eyes were wide, staring in an expression of astonishment.

  “Well done, Colonel Bücher,” Himmler observed quietly as a second SS officer emerged from behind a wall partition. The scent of gunpowder followed him as he trained his Luger carefully on the lifeless Fuller. The general’s blood looked black in the shadowy room.

  The fierce-eyed SS colonel looked at the dead man with a cold, contemptuous stare, allowing himself the shadow of a smile. The dueling scars that had slashed both his cheeks blazed redly, the only sign of his emotions. As Fuller’s life ebbed away, his passing was marked only by the sharp degrading smell of his bowels releasing.

  “Quickly!” he commanded, throwing open the door. “Get this offal out of here!” SS troops rushed in to drag out the corpse. Bücher was sorry only that he would not have a chance to interrogate him. Soon, he was left in the darkness with Himmler once again. Only a little of the odor of Fuller’s death remained in the room, and that was tinged with the smell of gunpowder.

  “Herr Reichsführer,” the tall, lean officer said, “I must confess that I found it hard to believe you when you said an SS general would turn against you. And is it true--the führer is dead? This is a black day for the Fatherland.” Left unstated was the two men’s realization that Göring was now destined to become führer--and both men shared the same low opinion of the Luftwaffe head.

  “Indeed it is, but from these ashes we will yet come back to life,” Himmler said. “I didn’t expect the attack against the führer at Wolfschanze; I thought the conspirators would wait until the führer and I were together. Still, I have made plans against this day. Only the SS can save Germany now. And as for you--my special thanks, General Bücher.”

  Before the loyal officer could frame a reply, Himmler absently gestured for the phone, and Bücher hastily handed him the receiver.

  “Commence Operation Reichsturm.” The SS reichsführer spoke these three words into the telephone, nodded dismissively at Bücher, and sat back in his chair with an expression of pensive satisfaction. Bücher’s last image of him was Himmler as a black shadow, even darker than the surrounding night.

  OPERATION REICHSTURMr />
  July 21-31, 1944

  Rockefeller Center, New York, United States, 21 July 1944, 0655 hours GMT

  Chuck Porter crushed his cigarette into the overflowing ashtray and lifted his weary body out of his swivel chair. It was a dull night on the early out of New York, where he was the supervisor of the newsroom, and the minute hand was creeping so slowly toward three o’clock in the morning that he thought it was stuck. It was so boring that he’d spent the last hour doodling variations on the letters “cheAP,” which reflected his opinion of the Associated Press pay scale.

  It was hard enough making the change from North Carolina to Manhattan culturally without the additional shock of the living expenses. The payoff was supposed to be prestige, but the title wasn’t prestige enough to compensate for the lack of money.

  Worse, he had recently passed his thirty-fifth birthday. His hair was thinning and his waistline was expanding. He’d never been a handsome man, but he had possessed an intensity and a drive that had stood him well in his years of reporting. He could cover a fire and interview a politician. He was even something of a ladies’ man and knew his way around a martini. He’d spent three years in Europe reporting on the German military buildup in the late 1930s, but most of those stories had been spiked.

  He was afraid that some of the younger men were starting to think he was over the hill. They didn’t listen to his advice, his experience, and his perspective the way he thought they should. He’d long since forgotten how he himself regarded editors in his own salad days. Well, he’d show them. He had his application in for the Paris bureau chief’s job, just as soon as Paris was liberated. He wasn’t washed up yet. He could even get a smile out of Trish, the secretary.

  Earlier that night he’d spent an hour holding forth on the end of the war. One of the new reporters suggested that there might be some surprises to come. “Not a chance,” Porter said. “It’s a straight grind from here on out. They’ll retreat, we’ll advance, and between us and the Soviets, Germany’s going to end up about a mile wide from border to border.”

  “No way,” an argumentative reporter said. “They’ll surrender first.”

  “You’re wrong,” Porter said flatly. “Hitler’s going to lead the German people over the cliff like a herd of lemmings.” He liked the analogy and made a mental note to use it again soon. “They’ll fight until the last one is alive. Hitler’s like a god to them. People get fanatical when they’re following their god.” But no one was interested in more of his wisdom right now. He was tired of doodling. When in doubt, check the Teletype, he thought. A good way to waste some time on a slow news day. He scanned the cavernous newsroom in the Rockefeller Center headquarters--a fluorescent-lit football field stuffed with desks, mostly deserted on the night shift, a few lazy people sipping coffee, chatting, one or two actually typing on their big Underwoods. The clatter of the bank of gray Teletype machines was a constant backdrop.

  Then the four-bell “Flash” signal on the Teletype rang. News--real news--was rare on the night shift. Editing filler material and follow-up pieces, that was most of the work. A “Flash”--that signaled breaking news. Get it in, get it edited, get it out to the client papers over the wire.

  Porter, already moving, was the first over to the Teletype. The chattering keys printed out the story. His eyes widened as he read, silently willing the slow printer to move faster. A crowd gathered. The only sound was the steady clacking of the machine.

  FLASH/BULLETIN

  LONDON, 21 JUNE, 0600 GMT

  COPY 01 HITLER REPORTED DEAD

  DISTRIBUTION: ALL STATIONS

  LONDON, 21 JUNE (AP) BY EDWARD REED

  THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS LEARNED THAT ALLIED RADIO MONITORS HAVE PICKED UP GERMAN BROADCASTS ANNOUNCING THE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER.

  THIS REPORT, SO FAR UNCONFIRMED BY SUPREME ALLIED COMMAND HEADQUARTERS, IS STILL UNCERTAIN AT THIS TIME.

  GERMAN RADIO BROADCAST AT 0600 HOURS GMT THAT ADOLF HITLER HAD BEEN ASSASSINATED BY “JEWISH TERRORISTS.” HERMANN GORING, LUFTWAFFE HEAD AND HITLER'S DESIGNATED SUCCESSOR, ASKED FOR CALM BUT DEMANDED REVENGE AGAINST JEWS AND ROOSEVELT, WHOM GORING CALLED “THE JEWS' GREATEST ALLY AND A SUSPECTED JEW HIMSELF.”

  GORING IS OFFICIALLY THE NEW FUHRER. “THE VALIANT GERMAN PEOPLE MUST REDEDICATE THEMSELVES TO THE ARMED STRUGGLE,” GORING SAID, “TO REVENGE THE DEATH OF THE FÜHRER AND ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVES FOR WHICH HE GAVE HIS LIFE.”

  NO COMMENT FROM ALLIED LEADERS IN ENGLAND. A HIGHLY PLACED SOURCE SAYS THE BRITISH CABINET IS CURRENTLY MEETING.

  A MILITARY SOURCE CAUTIONED NOT TO TAKE THIS REPORT AT FACE VALUE. “THE WHOLE THING IS UP IN THE AIR,” HE SAID. “NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON EXCEPT THE GERMANS. AND I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE ABOUT THEM.”

  MORE

  AP LON 333548 JF/072044

  With the final routing code complete, the Teletype chatter stopped. There would be more later, but this was enough to go on. There was a brief pause. This was big enough to shock even the most unflappable reporter.

  Porter broke the silence first. “All right, people, let’s go! Harry--pull the Hitler obit and spruce it up. Frank--background on the military situation. Lambert, Eaker, McCulley--start calling around. Reactions! I want reactions! Smith--rewrite and get a flash bulletin out now! Go! Go! Go!”

  He looked at the other Teletype machines with satisfaction. Nothing on Reuters or UPI yet, he thought. Even a few minutes of scoop was important.

  He watched his troops shift into high gear with satisfaction. The sounds of furious typing, of reporters pleading for quotes, waking up newsmakers in the middle of the night, of stories being created out of thin air--suddenly, being supervisor was a good job. “The war will be over inside a month,” Porter opined loudly, his previous certainty forgotten. “Maybe only a week. Göring’s a fat incompetent and he’ll quickly negotiate surrender terms.” No one paid attention in the heat of the moment, but Porter was sure they all agreed with him.

  Yes, I sure love the night shift, Chuck Porter thought with satisfaction as he picked up the telephone to make the first of many calls.

  Southampton, England, 0930 hours GMT

  Winston Churchill’s resonant voice was flattened by the static hiss of the military radio, but his words were clear.

  “It is with a joyous heart that I bring to you good news. At long last, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazis, is dead. At noon yesterday, a brave group of German officers, sickened and disheartened at the ruin caused by this man, this tyrant, this cowardly criminal, finally brought him to his just fate by means of a well-placed bomb.

  “Does this mean the final curtain has been brought down on this terrible conflict? Not yet. For there are still Nazis who will struggle to hold on to their inevitably declining power, who will struggle to escape their final fate. Perhaps the brave German officers who slew the tyrant will succeed in ushering in a new age for their beleaguered nation, or perhaps they will fall, as have so many others, to the Nazi sword.

  “But it is certain that if this is not yet the final curtain, it is at least the final act, for our brave forces, now securely placed on the continent of Europe, will continue their march, will continue their fight, will continue their great crusade for victory--”

  Brigadier General Henry Wakefield, executive officer of the Nineteenth Armored Division, snapped off the radio. “Goddamn it!” he snarled, grinding out the butt of his cigar. “Why does that son of a bitch have to get killed just as I finally get into the war?” His large hands clenched into fists of frustration.

  He picked up his hat and shoved it onto his head. He was a solid man, short and squat and powerful. His hair was mostly gone on top, and what was left was shaved so close as to be virtually invisible. Shoving the remains of his stubbed-out cigar into his mouth, the general strode out of his cramped office. He picked his way through a mob of enlisted clerks who tried manfully to master the maze of paper needed to move an armored division across the English Channel. On the other side of the water, action awaited.
>
  Outside, at the overcrowded Southampton harbor, the raucous chaos of his office was magnified. Sergeants bellowed at heavy, slow-moving machinery, trying to speed them up by sheer force of will, while hapless enlisted men tried to jockey tons of mammoth equipment through cramped spaces and around boxes and crates into the awaiting fleet of battered and ugly landing craft tanks, the LCTs that would move his division across the choppy Channel into France. A number of the ungainly flat-bottomed boats were already filled with armor and equipment; they had less than twelve hours to go and would need every minute of that time.

  Wakefield shoved his way through the mess, his anger radiating before him, melting away any possible obstacle. It wasn’t nearly the tangle it appeared to be--indeed, this kind of chaos was inevitable, expected. But suddenly his sense of urgency had been magnified. He had suffered through too many training commands and staff jobs to have his war snatched out from under him at the last minute. Hitler’s death wasn’t good news, not at all. That bastard should have died when Wakefield blew a personal hole through him, and not a day before. But now that was too late. Another situation O.B.E.--”overtaken by events.”

  Finally, Wakefield saw the man he was looking for. “Jackson!” he bellowed at a young colonel whose eagle insignia was as fresh as Wakefield’s star. Colonel Bob Jackson, slicked-back black hair, sharp face, wide grin, looked up. His uniform was crisp and new, his tall and thin frame made him a contrast in every way--height, weight, age, and coloration--to his division XO. He was the commander of Combat Command B, the second of the armored fists that composed the one-two punch of the Nineteenth Armored.