Fox On The Rhine

by Douglas Niles

  Now I wish I’d listened harder to some of the stories that Grandpa and Granny told about the Old Country, because it would have helped me make conversation with her. Anyway, Maura works in a local dairy, and she’s a very nice girl. You’d like her, Mama.

  The raids have been big business, and when a raid is on, there isn’t a lot of time for anything else. The battle order normally comes out at five o’clock in the evening, and then you know that you’re going to have to fly the next morning.

  I usually don’t have a lot to do until we’re getting pretty deep into enemy territory, and then depending on the number of enemy fighters they send up sometimes I’m really busy and sometimes there isn’t a target for me to shoot at.

  We did fly one raid to a town called Schafhausen, and we were attacked by twenty to thirty Me-109s with light-colored bellies, dark on top. Several of them were camouflaged with white stripes so they looked kind of like P-5 Is. I fired at one fighter and he broke away right under us. He came in right under my waist window and he obviously didn’t want to end up on the tail because the tail gunner has the best shot at any fighter because he doesn’t have to worry about any kind of deflection. This fellow broke away so close that I could see the pilot sitting in the cockpit. I had my gun shooting straight down at the time he was breaking away under us, trying to hit him. I fired at another fighter that trailed black smoke but there were no flames. I didn’t see any pieces flying off the aircraft but it was not unusual to see a German fighter trail black smoke even if you didn’t hit him.

  The Germans are burning a synthetic fuel made from coal and God knows what else in their fighters.

  When a fighter is coming in on you, you’re closing pretty fast. What they’re trying to do is get out about three or four thousand yards in front of you and a thousand feet above you and roll over and start firing. This way he flies what is called a Pursuit Curve and he always ends up on your tail unless he breaks away before he ends up back there.

  Now when this fellow broke away under us, I could see him trailing black smoke. But when they start in on you, they throttle back so that they don’t close so fast and then when they start to break away they almost invariably trail black smoke because they hit the throttles and give it all the power they’ve got to break away fast when they’re in close.

  That’s why I’m pretty sure I hit that fellow but I’m not at all sure whether I hit him enough to shoot him down, because you’d probably see the black smoke either way. Now, Harry Glass, the other waist gunner, did shoot down one airplane because I saw it explode in midair.

  The strange thing is, right after that mission, the enemy fighters seem to have pretty much disappeared from the sky. I guess the truth is they weren’t hurting the raids that much, and even though it is hard to shoot them down, the Germans probably can’t stand to lose as much as we can. But it’s certainly made my job a little less exciting, although it is safer for everyone.

  The Germans still have antiaircraft fire, though, so even though I don’t always have a lot to do, we still have a little excitement every once in a while. We’re getting a new airplane, because our old airplane P-Bar got pretty badly shot up over Kiel, which is in northern Germany on the Jutland Peninsula. The navigator, Booker, gave the heading to Sweden to our pilot, Lieutenant Russ, three or four times, but he didn’t take it. We flew on over the target pretty badly crippled, dropped the bombs and came out, and by then the rest of the group was pulling away and leaving us behind.

  We flew out over the North Sea above an island called Heligoland and this thing was nothing but a big, stationary antiaircraft battery with I don’t know how many 88s and 105 and 155 millimeter guns on it. By the time we got over Heligoland, we were about twelve thousand feet and it looked to me like they were firing every gun on the island at us. We finally got away and flew on across the North Sea and landed at an emergency airfield in Scotland. Old P-Bar was in such bad shape I doubt it will ever fly again. They flew up from our group and picked us up and took us back the next day. When I last saw P-Bar they were just stripping the parts off it.

  I hear we’re getting another airplane shortly, and so we’ll be going back to work in a few weeks. In the meantime, I’m getting to spend more time with Maura and I don’t have too much to do at the base, so I think I’ll enjoy it while I can. I’ll write soon, and you do too.

  Love,

  Your Son

  Frank “Digger” O’Dell

  Army Group B Headquarters, Trier, Germany, 7 October 1944, 2330 hours GMT

  “Colonel von Reinhardt, could you remain for a few moments, please?” Rommel asked. It was well after midnight, and a marathon staff meeting was just breaking up.

  Reinhardt cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Yes, of course, Field Marshal,” he replied as he gathered the papers from the briefing he’d delivered earlier. Rommel was deep in conversation with General Bayerlein, and Reinhardt knew that it could be some time before that conversation was finished.

  For an invalid, the Desert Fox kept amazing hours. Up at four and to bed after midnight, always alert and sharp. Reinhardt had detected a significant mood change since his return from Berlin by way of Augsburg, and that mood change was having its effect on the other members of Rommel’s headquarters staff.

  Müller was hungry, of course. It was their normal custom to find a midnight snack after the long meetings broke up; Rommel’s late hours meant that the kitchen staff knew to leave out bread and coffee at all hours. Reinhardt could tell that Müller was eager to get out of the room and get at the food, but didn’t want to seem unsympathetic to Reinhardt, who would be left behind.

  “How did you know the Amis were going to make such a push at Aachen?” Müller asked. During the meeting, Rommel had congratulated his colonel of Intelligence on his accurate analysis of American intentions.

  “Simple logic, really,” said Reinhardt with Sherlockian dismissal, although he was secretly quite proud of an insight that had escaped even the Desert Fox--though admittedly Rommel’s recent Berlin mission had kept him from focusing all his attention on the military situation. Nothing much escaped Rommel’s eye; Reinhardt wasn’t used to being around people whose analytical skills were as good or better than his own.

  Reinhardt reviewed his analysis as much to confirm his own reasoning as to impress Müller. “One of the consequences of the so-called free press that the Americans pride themselves on is that military objectives must sometimes be subordinated to the need for propaganda, because the military and government cannot shape the propaganda message with full control. When there is little action or clear short-term gain, the press becomes anxious and wants to invent a story even if none exists. To gain significant morale and propaganda value, it was obvious that a good Allied move would be to capture a German city. As none of our other cities was even vulnerable at this stage of the war, the move against Aachen was therefore inevitable.”

  Müller shook his head. “Gunter, I don’t know how you keep all this stuff straight. It’s like looking into echoing mirrors, the way you think. This is their point of view, therefore this would become our point of view, which modifies their point of view ... I have a headache that only a sandwich can cure.”

  Reinhardt laughed. “I’m a little hungry myself. Why don’t you head for the mess hall, and I’ll come join you as soon as I have a chance to talk with the field marshal.”

  That was all the encouragement Müller needed. “Okay, Gunter. Don’t worry--I’ll save you some würst.”

  Reinhardt sat down at the long conference table, now littered with the detritus of a long meeting: paper, coffee cups, overflowing ashtrays. The dim electric bulbs had given him a headache. Now alone in the room, except for the Desert Fox and his general, he sat down, suddenly very tired. He looked at a long column of intelligence figures but couldn’t quite focus on it.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel,” said Rommel, suddenly appearing over his shoulder.

  Reinhardt snapped back to consciousness. “No problem
, sir. How can I help the field marshal?”

  “Come, I just wanted to talk with you for a few minutes.” Rommel led the way to his private office. Reinhardt noticed a slight limp, a slight droop of the shoulders. It was the first time he’d ever noticed any fatigue in the man, yet Rommel was still smiling, positive, cheerful.

  “Here, sit down,” Rommel said, gesturing toward a chair. He sat himself in the high-backed wooden chair behind his desk, which was filled with papers and reports, the evidence of true command responsibility. “Good job with the intelligence briefing today. I liked the way you combined political insight with military judgment in figuring out that the Allies would move against Aachen. A rare combination in an intelligence officer. Most are more narrowly focused. They think about the battlefield of the ground, when there are other battlefields we must also consider.”

  “‘War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means,”’ said Reinhardt, paraphrasing Clausewitz. He sat at attention, curious why Rommel wanted to see him, alert because he didn’t know everything that was going on around him.

  “Of course, of course,” laughed Rommel. “But while everyone says it, few take the time to remember what it means. In any event, I wanted you to know that I’ve noticed your work and I’m quite impressed.”

  “The field marshal is too kind,” Reinhardt said, though he was aware that the Desert Fox was not the kind of man to give idle praise.

  “Not at all, not at all,” Rommel said. “Since you were assigned to me by Himmler’s staff, I wanted to learn a little more about you. I got some of the background on von Ribbentrop’s mission to Moscow. Evidently your political and military insight was quite useful to bringing back the treaty that took us at least temporarily from a two-front to a one-front war.”

  “Thank you, sir. As you say, however, any success on that front is temporary.”

  “Oh?” said Rommel. “Your fellow members of the mission and Himmler himself tend to think Stalin’s neutralized for good. In fact, General Bücher keeps reassuring me that I don’t have to worry at all about the east, now or in the future.”

  “Highly unlikely, field marshal. We threw the wolf some food and that will keep him busy until he has time to digest it. Then he will look around for his next meal. The question is whether we will look like the most tempting entrée on the menu.”

  Rommel laughed. “A very good image. ‘Most tempting entrée.’ I like that. You have a way with words, Colonel.”

  “Our success--rather, your success--in the west will help determine Stalin’s range of options. The big issue is whether the west will recognize the true threat to civilization in time to behave rationally. There is quite a lot of political pressure in favor of the ‘unconditional surrender’ goal, although perhaps that pressure is lessened since Stalin was one of its primary advocates.”

  “I see we think alike in some respects,” Rommel mused. “I, too, worry more about the east than the west, at least in the long term. Though my command responsibilities are exclusively concerned with the west. Are you a member of the Party, colonel, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  ‘“When one comes to a strange city, one should worship by all means the gods of the place,”’ Reinhardt misquoted cautiously. He was a member of the Nazi Party, though not in fact a believer in much of Nazi ideology.

  Rommel smiled slightly before replying. “On the other hand, ‘No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.’ That was by Roosevelt. Not the current one, but the other. The one with the mustache. I always liked that sentiment.”

  Reinhardt was not used to being out-quoted by anybody. Like many smart and verbal people, he had grown to assume that other people tended to be ignorant. It embarrassed him to be caught short, and he very nearly blushed. Rommel, for all his military genius, was not known to be a scholarly man. In fact, rumor had it that he had never read a book outside the field of military arts. Reinhardt couldn’t quite believe that, but it was true that Rommel’s focus was in contrast to his own eclecticism.

  “General Bücher is your friend, is he not?” asked Rommel.

  “We went to university together,” replied Reinhardt noncommittally. “He’s a very talented swordsman.”

  “Though I understand you gave him one of those scars?”

  “Yes, sir. But that was the only time I beat him at fencing. Chess, though, is another matter.”

  “Ah, chess,” sighed Rommel. “I miss playing. We must have a game sometime.”

  “It would be my great pleasure, Field Marshal,” said Reinhardt.

  There was a long pause, then Rommel picked up a folder on his desk. “I took the liberty of reviewing your personnel file.”

  Reinhardt’s arched eyebrow was the only answer he gave. He sat with utter rigidity.

  Rommel tapped the folder. “You’ve had a quite distinguished staff career, Colonel von Reinhardt. You’ve impressed several senior officers, and reading between the lines I would assume that in some cases their action was essentially your advice. You’ve impressed me, and that is not the easiest thing to accomplish. But what is missing here is as interesting as what is present”

  “Sir?”

  “There is an absence of direct line experience. You seem to have avoided combat altogether.” Rommel looked at Reinhardt directly, calmly.

  The blush Reinhardt had been trying to suppress welled up in his face to his utter humiliation. Being shamed before this man he admired was a pain he would have done anything to avoid. “Sir--I have accepted every assignment and shirked no duty--I have not done anything to avoid danger--”

  “Peace, peace,” said Rommel. “I am not accusing you of cowardice directly or indirectly. I believe that you have not worked to avoid personal danger. I merely note that you have not sought it out, volunteered for combat as many of your peers have done.”

  “Sir--I believe I have served the Fatherland in the best way in which I am capable--”

  Rommel waved his hand. “Please, I am not condemning you. I simply wanted to make an observation. Colonel von Reinhardt, you are a smart and capable man. I believe you are also a brave man, or at least that you will be when you face the time of trial. But you are a man who has built a wall of separation between you and the experience of life. You have developed the intellectual side of your inheritance, but that is not all there is in life. The problem with the other sides of life is that they are messy and imperfect, and I suspect that’s difficult for you. You have enormous gifts, and I would like to see them developed to the fullest extent for your sake. No, I don’t want to reassign you to a combat command right now. Frankly, I need you where you are. But I do want you to consider that your growth lies not in what you are already accomplished in, but in that which you have not yet pursued. Wasn’t it Goethe who said, ‘He only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.’”

  “Yes, it was, sir,” replied Reinhardt, almost absently. Another quote. And Rommel not a reader. But the sentiment could easily have come from Rommel’s own soul. Reinhardt wanted to respond, to defend himself somehow, but he felt exposed, vulnerable. He looked into the eyes of Rommel and saw his own reflection, but it was a shamed and small version of himself, not the sharp and distant intellectual he saw himself as being.

  “Field Marshal, you have given me much food for thought. I will reflect on this. Thank you for your kind and thoughtful words, and for your consideration,” he said, the formal words barely coming out of his mouth. He wanted to defend himself, argue, change the reflection he saw in the eyes looking at him. He was in the presence of a mind greater than his own, and it was a horrible feeling. In the compartment in his mind that always stood outside himself, he suddenly realized, This is how others sometimes feel when they are around me. The irony kept him moving, helped him stand and salute.

  Then he paused, and said again, “Thank you, Field Marshal.” This time it sounded completely different.

  And Rommel smiled as he said, “You’re welcome.”

 
; Dessau, Germany, 12 October 1944, 2000 hours GMT

  Franz Steinberger was born in Germany, raised of German parents. He spoke German as his only language and had shared the misery and tragedy of 1918, and the resulting shame of Versailles, with the rest of the German people. He had attended a German universitat, and upon earning his degree in engineering had been determined to use that education for the betterment of Germany’s industry, economy, and world power.

  And then, in 1933, he had learned that he wasn’t really a German after all.

  He was merely a Jew.

  Now, as he debarked from the crowded train, the packed compartment that always smelled of sweat, shit, and fear, he wondered how he could ever have considered himself a part of such a monstrous land. He looked around at this old Saxon city. With its homes and factories, gardens and parks, you wouldn’t know it was a part of a darkness so all-consuming that it gave a meaning on earth to the Christian concept of Hell.

  And maybe those Christians were right, he thought--for if there was such as thing as Hell, he was living it.

  Yesterday the Gestapo had shot Model Zweiss, for no other reason than that the day’s engine production had lagged slightly behind the ridiculous goals that had been established. Two more men had died during the train ride back to camp, from suffocation in the overcrowded cars, or perhaps merely from despair, and another had failed to awaken in the predawn hours of this morning, when the guards and their dogs had come to roust the slaves from their narrow, wooden bunks.

  Now he shuffled in the crowded file from the train yard to the factory, eyes lowered in the long-practiced art of survival--you didn’t want to give the guards a single reason to notice you, for that reason, however trivial, could mean a sentence of death. His body was broken, his limbs frail and skeletal, and his strength was a mere shadow of his former robust health.

  His spirit, too, was grievously wounded. It had been gashed beyond repair when he had watched his beloved Annie loaded onto a different train, a crowded car that would roll toward the east, carrying Jews to a fate that none could speak of, for none had returned. But by now they all had their guesses, and with those suspicions had come an end to all hope.