Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  Himmler’s government, on the other hand, bought one last chance to defeat the West and recover in time to make it a one-front war against the Soviet Union. The failure of Operation Fuchs am Rhein meant the chance had been squandered, and that in turn would mean a renewed Soviet offensive beginning soon.

  The German-Soviet armistice was, as we have shown, an exercise in mutual cynicism on the part of both parties. In one famous observation, Führer Heinrich Himmler compared the pact to throwing babies off the back of the sled to distract the pursuing wolves. The babies were, of course, the countries of Norway and Greece. Neither morsel was large enough to slow down the Soviet wolf for very long, but Himmler’s hope was that it would be long enough.

  Poland, that oft-contested plain, was labeled as a neutral zone in the armistice treaty, a mostly demilitarized buffer between the two great powers. The Nazis were able to keep control of the western part of the country, including the majority of the operating death camps; the machinery of the Holocaust required slight adjustment to cope with the change. The Balkan countries, meanwhile, had been subjected to heavy Soviet political pressure. By the end of 1944, Bulgaria and Rumania were prepared to change sides. The Gestapo had wind of these developments, however, so the Wehrmacht had been quietly evacuating their garrison units, as well as the significant counterinsurgency forces they had maintained in Yugoslavia. These troops were deployed to the north, in Hungary, Poland, and East Prussia; they would form the first line of defense when hostilities were rejoined.

  For Germany then, this Army Group Vistula fortified the area between the Oder and the Vistula, though was hampered by the demilitarized zone. Behind this formation, Army Group Center had been re-created from the ashes of the previous summer. These troops had spent the last four months of 1944 creating defensive positions behind the Oder River.

  This left only a few Volksgrenadier divisions available as reinforcements in the West. Their mobility was severely hampered by the overwhelming Allied air superiority. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had often observed that commanders whose experience was primarily in the East had no conception of the meaning of such air superiority. Unless the weather was too bad for the Allies to fly (which created operational problems in its own right), troops were able to move only under cover of darkness, with significant logistical difficulties involved in concealing vehicles and supplies before daylight. German rail was mostly wrecked and unusable; those bridges that remained had been wired by the Germans themselves for demolition ahead of advancing Allied troops. It was for this reason that the Germans were not able to mass even a greater army in support of Operation Fuchs am Rhein. The forces were there, but the mobility was not.

  In the bitter days of December and early January of 1944–1945, weather allowed the German forces greater mobility of operation, and a large force was available inside Germany itself. If those troops could be deployed along the difficult barrier of the Rhine River, they could make the allied crossing a dangerous and costly operation. But whose orders would these soldiers obey?

  There were two competing German commands. One was Field Marshal Rommel’s Army Group B, renamed the German Republican Army on January 1. It claimed not only Rommel’s original command, but all German forces in the West. As a practical matter, it claimed only volunteers. The second command was the newly appointed Field Marshal Mödel’s Heeresgruppe West. It consisted of all German forces in the West, primarily the original Operation Fuchs am Rhein reserves as well as Westwall defensive units. Each of the two commands had all the codes, passwords, and command protocols for all German units in the West. Each issued orders to all units it could reach, not merely those that had acceded to its authority, with the result that commanders of individual companies were receiving conflicting orders on a daily basis. Choosing one’s loyalties had to be done immediately—no one was able to remain neutral.

  While the majority of Fifth Panzer Army and Seventh Army followed Rommel first into surrender and second into the newly created German Republican Army, the majority of Sixth Panzer Army (which was shortly thereafter renamed Sixth SS Panzer Army) remained under control of the Nazi government in Berlin. General Sepp Dietrich, whom Rommel had earlier replaced as head of Sixth Panzer Army with General Heinz Guderian, returned to his previous command and oversaw the extraction of Sixth Panzers.

  The initial plan was to return to positions in the Westwall and defend, but the loss of two armies had torn such a hole in that line of fortifications that it became quickly clear that the barrier could no longer be held successfully. That meant the next defensive line was the Rhine itself. Field Marshal Mödel took command of two army groups that were stationed in western Germany, both for defensive purposes and for potential exploitation had Operation Fuchs am Rhein been successful. These were Army Groups G (Upper Rhine) and H (Ruhr). As both were understrength (like most German commands at that stage of the war), Mödel simply planned to incorporate all salvaged parts of Army Group B into one of the two remaining army groups. From there, he planned to fortify the Rhine against the imminent Allied advance. This was made difficult because the same cause that had torn such a large hole in the Westwall also meant that a portion of the Rhine defenses was now nonexistent, and renewed Allied strategic bombing made it daily more difficult to move troops and guns into position.

  Of the Army Group B forces, reserves and slow-moving troops, ironically, were the easiest to recover, because they were already far behind the front at the time of the surrender and had the shortest distances to go in their withdrawal. The elite panzer forces at the leading edge of the Fuchs offensive were either trapped and cut off by the surrender or forced to fight their way through increasingly hostile and uncertain territory in which even other German units had to be considered suspect. In fact, German vs. German battles were some of the most savage and bloody of those terrible winter days, as neither side had any intention of taking prisoners.

  Western Allied troops, especially Third Army units situated along the flanks of the surrendered Fifth Panzer Army and Seventh Army areas, suddenly had their opposition vanish, and were able to move ahead with astounding speed, rushing through what had been enemy-held areas with the cooperation of the enemy themselves! (A few regrettable incidents on both sides were only to be expected, but by and large, the surrendered Germans seemed relieved and even proud in their new role supporting the newly created German provisional government.)

  Because of this, it began to seem as though even the Rhine itself was no longer secure as a line of defense … .

  OPERATION CAN OPENER

  30 DECEMBER 1944–20 JANUARY 1945

  There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now, when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won’t have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, “Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.” No, sir! You can look him straight in the eye and say, “Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned- bitch named Georgie Patton!”

  —George Patton’s speech to the Third Army, 5 June 1944

  30 DECEMBER 1944

  NORTH OF BASTOGNE, BELGIUM, 0130 HOURS GMT

  The name Volksgrenadier was a poor joke, one that was not lost on the men of the 218th Volksgrenadier Division. Although grenadiers were historically elite soldiers, modern Volksgrenadier units were a mix of boys, ancients, walking wounded, and those previously unfit for military service.

  “I say we thank God Almighty for this surrender and consider ourselves the luckiest men alive. We’re alive, and that makes us lucky. Why screw it up?” Obergefreiter Felix Durr, corporal of his platoon, was old enough to wear his cynicism proudly. His previous experience had been in World War I, and he had thought himself too old for any sort of service in the new war. But he’d turned out to be wrong.

  The soldiers around him listened avidly. One
of the few in their unit to have seen actual military service, he was the unofficial man to whom everyone turned, including the twenty-two-year-old feldwebel who officially was in charge.

  Lukas Vogel was only fifteen, but he disagreed violently. “Defeatism is evil! We owe our lives to the Party and the Fatherland. Our führer has ordered us to go on fighting, and we must obey!

  “Ah, so young to be so certain,” the obergefreiter said in a patronizing tone that put Vogel’s teeth on edge. Vogel was a newly promoted oberschütze, or PFC.

  “Nah, that’s the KLV talking,” laughed another soldier. All German youth had been shipped to KLV camps wherever there was little bombing going on. With a shortage of adults to supervise, the camps quickly turned into a hierarchy of children preying on children. What official activities there were involved Nazi indoctrination and military training. Vogel had been in a KLV camp since 1941. He could scarcely remember living at home, or visualize his mother’s face if he tried.

  He jumped to his feet, fists clenched. “Piss on you, Manfred. I bet you never amounted to shit in Hitler Youth.” He was thin and wiry, with a shock of blond hair falling across his forehead into his eyes. His eyes were hard.

  Manfred Bauer was on his feet as well. Bauer was nearly twice the size of the small, wiry youth. “Yeah, tough guy? What were you, some big-shit stabsführer?”

  Vogel had only made it as high as bannführer, but that was good for his age. Damned if he was going to admit it, though. “I ranked a lot higher than you did, I bet. And I’m the same rank as you in the army even though you’re a lot older. I guess they didn’t draft you earlier because they don’t take pansies, right?”

  “You goddamn little shit!” roared Bauer as he came for the young boy, his fists raised and ready for action.

  But Vogel had been dealing with bullies for years. At KLV camp, if you didn’t learn to take care of yourself, you were in deep shit. He had his knife out so quickly that none of the other soldiers spotted him, and as Bauer closed, Vogel slashed him across the face.

  Bauer screamed and his hands flew up to his nose, and Vogel kicked him in the balls with all his might. The huge soldier folded up and lay groaning on the ground. “My face, my face, that little bastard cut my face,” he moaned. “I’ll kill him!”

  Vogel wiped his knife on his pants leg. “It’s just a little cheek cut. If I’d wanted to do damage, you’d be missing an eye now.” He turned around quickly. “Anybody else want to try me?” He made no directly threatening move, but his cold eyes fastened on each soldier in the tent. “No? Smart of you.”

  Obergefreiter Durr felt that as senior enlisted man in the tent, it was his duty to negotiate peace. “Now, now,” he said in his most soothing voice. “Vogel, put your knife away. Bauer, you started it. Let me look at your face. Hmm. Just a long scratch. You could go see the medic, or you could just wash up and put some gauze over it. Tomorrow, you’ll barely know you have a cut. Let’s everybody calm down. Remember, the war is over for us. Let’s try to get along like civilized Germans.”

  “The war is not over and I will not stand here and listen to some old fart without the backbone to stand up for the führer and the Reich. I tell you that we can take over this unit from any cowardly officers who don’t have the stomach for a fight anymore and get back in the war. Who’s with me?”

  There was silence. A few soldiers were actively uninterested, and a few looked away with sheepish expressions. Even considering his youth, Vogel’s fanaticism and passion made him a force to reckon with. “So.” He looked at his fellow Volksgrenadiers with disgust. “No one. Not a single real German. Very well. Then I will tell each one of you: This war is not over. It will not be over while I have a single breath to draw. It will not be over until every true German is dead. And we will prevail.”

  “Vogel, wait a minute,” Durr interjected. “Calm down. Wait until morning. Ask around camp. Decide what you’re going to do.”

  “There is no decision to make. I am a German soldier, and I am going to fight. Good-bye.” Vogel turned to leave.

  “Wait—that’s desertion! You can be shot!” pleaded Durr, “Come on, Lukas—I’ve got grandchildren your age. Listen to me. Calm down. Wait. You’ll see things differently. You’re young. You have a life to lead, children to sire.” His persuasion fell on deaf ears.

  “It’s not desertion to leave a nest of traitors, and make no mistake, this surrender is treason. I’m going. Your grandchildren will stand with me, Herr Obergefreiter. You’re old, and perhaps yon don’t have what it takes anymore. But I do. Good-bye.”

  And this time he did leave, grabbing his coat and his duffel and slipping out of the tent into darkness. There was silence in the tent, except for the groaning of the man on the floor.

  RED SQUARE, MOSCOW, USSR, 0352 HOURS GMT

  The air was cold enough to freeze the tiny hairs in Krigoff’s nostrils with each harsh, dry inhalation. He loved the challenge and discomfort inherent in this wintry bite, for it was proof of the primacy of his people, the anointed leaders of World Communism. How foolish the foe who felt that he could defeat not just Mother Russia, but Father Winter as well!

  It was fitting that the major had been invited to meet Nikolai Bulganin here, outside, under the pure, cold sky that had been such anathema to his country’s enemies. The invitation had been waiting for him when he had returned to his barracks the previous night, following his meeting with Stalin. Krigoff had been impressed—and a little frightened—at how quickly the Soviet bureaucracy seemed to be noting his presence, and giving him attention. Bulganin was a powerful man in his own right, and it was no doubt significant that he had ordered Alyosha to meet him here in the chilly pre-dawn hour, away from the eyes and the ears of the Kremlin’s staff.

  Krigoff stopped at the low stone wall above the river and looked out at the River Moskva, now a ribbon of ice that curled its way through this great city. A great statue of Chairman Stalin, the landmark for this meeting, towered behind him. He was early, he knew, but that was only appropriate as he awaited yet another great man in the Soviet hierarchy.

  There were few people about, and, like Krigoff, they were muffled into anonymous shapes of fur and wool against the cold. The major relished a few minutes of silence and solitude as he breathed the frigid early-morning air—the day at its very coldest!—and wondered about the purpose of this newest summons.

  Political Marshal Bulganin was one of the most powerful men in the country, a member of an elite handful ranking just below the chairman himself. An esteemed member of the state defense committee, Bulganin had been established by reputation as one of the few political appointees with the power to keep even the highest-ranking military officers under observation, and control. His agents were seeded throughout the Red Army, charged with supervising even the army commanders in the state’s relentless search for any act of sedition or disloyalty.

  “Comrade Colonel Krigoff?”

  The question startled him and he spun about to salute the marshal, who strode around the statue to soundlessly approach Alyosha from the rear.

  “Comrade Marshal! It is an honor—though I beg to explain that I am but a humble major.”

  The political officer, a short man with dark hair and thick glasses, chuckled at a private joke. He wore a heavy woolen overcoat, but that did not conceal the wiry, athletic nature of his compact frame. “I must remind you not to correct your superiors, Alexis Petrovich, on matters about which you lack the necessary knowledge. I have your promotion orders in my pocket.”

  Krigoff was very startled by the news—he had been a mere lieutenant only three days ago—but he recovered quickly. He bowed with sincere respect and gratitude. “Thank you, Comrade Marshal. I will strive to prove myself worthy of this great honor.”

  “I assume you will. More to the point, the chairman believes that you will do so; this promotion is a direct order from him. I trust that you will not disappoint him.”

  Again Krigoff felt those butterflies, the mingled sense
s of danger and opportunity. Of course, no man in his right mind would want to disappoint Josef Stalin, but in this case the opportunity side of the equation seemed to beckon with clear advantage.

  “Your trust is not misplaced, Comrade Marshal,” he replied. He was desperately curious to know why they were here—a political marshal did not take strolls in frigid winter mornings merely to dispense promotions to young officers—but he forced himself to bide his time while Bulganin lit a cigarette and drew deeply, exhaling a cloud of aromatic smoke.

  “Smells good, eh?” said the older man, looking sideways at Krigoff. “American ‘Camels.’ Lend Lease was a wonderful thing, while it lasted.”

  Krigoff smiled narrowly, longing for a cigarette himself. “The capitalists are useful for making such luxuries,” he allowed. “Though it is Soviet tanks, and Soviet blood, that will win this war.”

  Now it was the marshal’s turn to smile. “Comrade Stalin told me that you were an astute officer, and I see that his judgment—as always, of course—is correct. You know, then, that we will be attacking the Nazi devils once more?”

  “It is a guess, Comrade,” Krigoff allowed. He decided to be daring. “I can only hope that I will have a role to play in this great campaign.”

  “You will, Comrade Krigoff, you will,” said Bulganin. He scrutinized the young colonel, making Krigoff very nervous as the inspection dragged on for the better part of a minute. There was only the puffy fog of their breathing, vapors wafting through the night air between them, as he waited for the marshal to speak.