Bellmon filled it in, addressed it to Barbara Bellmon in Carmel, California, had a moment’s painful mental image of the house there, and then wrote his message: “Alive, well, uninjured. Kiss the children. I love you. Bob.”
He wondered when he would see them again. He capped the fountain pen and handed it and the card to the major.
“Thank you,” he said.
“My pleasure, Herr Oberstleutnant,” the major said. He put out his hand. “Good luck, and may we meet again under different circumstances.”
Bellmon took his hand. He told himself that if the circumstances were reversed, he hoped that he would behave as the major had behaved toward him: correct, and compassionate. He realized he had been dismissed. Thirty minutes later, he realized that he had given the enemy information. He had confirmed that he was indeed Porky Waterford’s son-in-law. He should not have gone even that far. He didn’t know how they could use that information, how valuable it was to them, but he knew he should not have handed it to them on a platter the way he had.
(Five)
Friedberg, Hesse
12 April 1943
The bunker had been excavated under the castle at Friedberg, which stands at the crest of the ring of low mountains ringing the resort of Bad Nauheim, thirty-five miles north of Frankfurt am Main, in Hesse. The excavation had been conducted with the secrecy and the disregard of costs associated with anything that had Adolph Hitler’s personal attention.
The bunker itself was beneath at least twenty feet of granite, and where there had been an insufficient layer of granite, reinforced concrete had been poured to provide the required protection. Siemens had installed an enormous communications switchboard, which provided nearly instantaneous telephone, radio-telephone, and teletype communication with Berlin and the various major commands in the East, West, the Balkans, and North Africa.
A battalion of the Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler, augmented by a reserve regiment of Pomeranian infantry and a regiment of Luftwaffe antiaircraft artillery, provided security.
Camouflage netting, placed twenty feet off the ground in the thick groves of pine which surrounded Schloss Friedberg, concealed the fleet of cars and trucks necessary to support a major headquarters. It was changed to reflect the coloring of the seasons. The Führer’s train, when he was present, was protected from either view or assault by a concrete revetment, long enough to contain both his train and one other.
The bunker itself was an underground office building, four stories deep; access was by stairs for the workers and a private elevator for the senior officers. The Führer today was in Rastenburg, in East Prussia, so there was an acrid cloud of cigarette smoke throughout the bunker. When the Führer was in the bunker, smoking was forbidden.
The lieutenant colonel of the Feldgendarmerie, a portly, balding middle-aged officer, delivered his report to the generalmajor with assurance. He had been a policeman all his life, and thus trained to present facts—separate from conclusions and theory—to his superiors.
The Generalmajor, who was assistant to the chief of the Politico-military Affairs Division, asked several questions, all intelligent ones, and carefully examined the physical evidence which the Oberstleutnant of the Feldgendarmerie had brought in two bulging briefcases from Smolensk.
There were buttons from Polish Army uniforms; regimental crests; insignia of rank; identification papers; labels from uniforms bearing addresses of tailors in Warsaw; and a half-inch-thick sheath of photographs of bodies, open graves, and closeups of entrance and exit wounds in skulls.
“There is no question in your mind, I gather, Herr Oberstleutnant, of what happened here?”
“There is no question at all.”
The unspoken question was whether the SS could possibly have been involved. Both of them knew that the SS was entirely capable of an atrocity like this one. The unspoken question continued unspoken.
“If you will be good enough to wait for me, Herr Oberstleutnant,” the Generalmajor said, “Perhaps we can arrange to route you via Dresden on your way back.”
“I am at the Herr Generalmajor’s pleasure,” the portly policeman in uniform said.
The Generalmajor walked out of his concrete office, down a flight of stairs, and presented himself to a Generaloberst in his slightly larger office.
“I have the full report, Herr General,” he said. “Together with some insignia taken from the bodies—”
The colonel Generaloberst stopped him, with a wave of his hand, from opening his briefcase.
“Has intelligence come up with the name of someone who can handle this matter?”
“Von Greiffenberg,” the Generalmajor said. “For the moment, he’s the only one readily available. He’s on convalescent leave.”
“And is he physically able to undertake the journey?”
“Yes, sir.”
“His wife is a member of the Russian nobility,” the colonel general said. “It will be suggested that he would believe the communists to be capable of anything.”
“He was at Samur with General Waterford. It is considered important that Lieutenant Colonel Bellmon voluntarily inspect the site.”
The Generaloberst shrugged. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“Travel documents, and authority to take the American from the stalag.”
“And if he won’t give his parole?” the colonel general asked. But even as he asked it, he pushed a button which summoned a badly scarred Oberstleutnant, who stood at the door at attention. “The general will tell you what he must have,” the Generaloberst said. “See that he has it, please.”
He dropped his eyes to the documents on his desk, and then raised them.
“Let me know what happens, will you?” he asked, politely.
The Generalmajor clicked his heels, walked out of the office, and picked up the telephone on the Oberstleutnant’s desk.
“Would you get me, on this number, Colonel von Greiffenberg at his home in Marburg, please?” he said, and then hung up and told the Oberstleutnant what he was going to need in the way of transportation, money, documentation, and supplies.
While the necessary arrangements were being made, the telephone rang. The operator reported that the Colonel Graf von Greiffenberg was not available, but that he had Frau Grafin on the line.
“My dear Frederika,” the Generalmajor said, in Russian, which caused the badly scarred Oberstleutnant to raise his eyebrows. “Would you be so good as to tell the Graf that I would be very grateful to be received by him at half past two?”
The Mercedes was crowded. There were four flat-sided cans of gasoline in the trunk, filling it, and two more on the floorboard in the back seat. The fumes filled the car, whose canvas roof was up, and this made smoking impossible. There was salami and a half dozen tins of butter, captured from the English, and four cartons of American cigarettes. The Generalmajor’s aide-de-camp rode in the back with the groceries under his feet and the cigarettes, wrapped in gray paper, on his lap. The Generalmajor rode in front beside the driver.
They drove north from Freidberg on the road through Bad Nauheim which took them past the rear of the Kurhotels that faced the large municipal park. In the old days, a Kur had meant bathing in the waters of Bad Nauheim and taking a salt-free diet. Now the Kur was for convalescent wounded. The roofs of the Kurhotels, small Victorian-era structures, were now painted with the Red Cross, and the streets and the park were full of soldiers, some ambulatory patients, some pushed in wheelchairs.
They entered upon the autobahn at Bad Nauheim, and drove fifteen miles until they turned off onto another country road—sometimes cobblestone, sometimes macadam. This took them through Giessen. From Giessen, they followed the Lahn River to Marburg an der Lahn and drove to the center of town.
Marburg, one of the ancient university towns, was built up around the old castle which rose from the top of the rocky upcropping in the center of town. They were stopped by a Feldgendarmerie roadblock, and for a moment the Generalmajor wondered if he shoul
d have taken the Feldgendarmerie Oberstleutnant with him. Embarrassing questions could be asked about the petrol and the food. He immediately decided he had made the right decision. The less the Feldgendarmerie knew about what he was doing with the information they had provided, the better. The Feldgendarmerie was entirely too cozy with the SS and the Gestapo. Tomorrow or the next day he would turn over what he had found to the Sicherheitsdienst, as a matter probably falling under their responsibility; but he would not let them know what the army was doing on its own about the situation.
They drove past Schloss Greiffenberg, which was several hundred meters off the road. Its steep roofs were also painted with the Red Cross. The Schloss was serving as a neuropsychiatric rehabilitation center.
Three miles beyond the Schloss, they turned off the highway onto a fairly wide dirt road that cut through a pine forest. A mile down the road they came to a cottage. There was a bicycle chained to a steel fence in the stone wall around the cottage, and the tiny garage next to it was open, revealing a tiny two-seater Fiat inside.
“This is the place,” the Generalmajor said, when it seemed the driver was about to pass it up. The driver braked the car sharply.
“Help the lieutenant with the packages, and then put the gasoline out of sight in the garage,” he said. “Hoarding” of gasoline was a serious offense, even for a man like Greiffenberg.
“Jawohl, Herr Generalmajor.”
Colonel Graf von Greiffenberg came out from the cottage. He was a tall gaunt man with wavy silver hair, who wore a shabby tweed jacket, plus fours from some prewar golf-course locker, and a faded cotton plaid shirt.
“The Generalmajor will forgive me,” he said. “I was walking in the woods, and just this moment got home.” Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg was not at all pleased with the Generalmajor’s visit. He believed that it had nothing whatever to do with a discussion of any future command. He suspected that it had something to do with airing dirty linen, and he was not at all interested in that.
“I believe, Colonel,” the Generalmajor said, “that convalescent officers are encouraged to play golf and other sports, which will hasten their return to full physical capacity.”
“I have been poaching,” the Graf said, “not golfing.” The remark was a hair’s breadth away from insolence.
“Any luck?” the Generalmajor asked with a smile.
“Yesterday and today,” the Graf said, wondering what it was that had made him try to provoke a lifelong friend. Possibly, he thought, because he finds me dressed like a peasant and living in a forester’s cottage.
“A boar yesterday,” von Greiffenberg said, now smiling. “For our lunch today. And a rehbuck today. For tomorrow.” The Graf’s eyes fell on the sergeant, who was busy taking fuel cans from the trunk. “The Generalmajor is more than kind. I especially appreciate the petrol.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Colonel,” the Generalmajor said. “Certainly you are aware of the regulations prohibiting the diversion of petrol to nonmilitary channels.”
A tall woman and a thin girl of about fifteen were now in the doorway of the cottage. The woman had been born a duchess in what was once Petrograd. She had married a count. She carried herself like an aristocrat, the Generalmajor decided, but no one would have mistaken her for a duchess. Her clothing was worn and faded, and she wore neither makeup nor jewelry except for a thin wedding band. The girl, who curtsied as the Generalmajor approached, looked more like a forester’s daughter than the product of the union of two ancient and noble families.
“You are soon going to be quite as lovely as your mother,” the Generalmajor said. He bowed and kissed the woman’s hand. “Elizabeth, you are as lovely as ever.”
“Welcome, Herr Generalmajor, to our forester’s cabin,” the woman said. She spoke in Russian. “Ilse and I have gardening. Carrots and cabbage. No roses.”
“Better times will come,” the Generalmajor said. “We must believe that, mustn’t we?”
“As we devoutly believe in the final victory,” she said, with exquisite sarcasm. The Generalmajor thought that Greiffenberg was wise to keep his wife here in the country. She was unable to conceal that she held the Nazis in nearly as much scorn as she held the communists of her homeland.
“I must, I’m afraid, Frederika, pass up the great pleasure of your company at lunch,” the Generalmajor said. “I must speak privately with Peter-Paul.”
“Have you a command for him?” Frederika, Grafin von Greiffenberg asked.
“Not quite yet,” the Generalmajor said. “The hospital has not seen fit to declare him fit for field service. But I need him to do an errand for me.”
“Ilse,” the Grafin said to the young girl. “Would you please remove two place settings from the table? And then you and I will take a walk in the woods.”
“I am grateful for your understanding,” the Generalmajor said.
“I am grateful that you are not sending my husband back to Russia,” the Grafin replied, somewhat icily. “Perhaps there will be time for a glass of wine together?”
“Of course,” the Generalmajor said.
When the wine had been drunk, and the loin of roast boar put onto the table, and the Grafin and her daughter had left, the Generalmajor decided that he would eat his lunch in peace before opening the briefcase and talking business. What was in the briefcase would ruin anyone’s lunch.
(Six)
Near Szczecin (Stettin) Poland
15 April 1943
There were still patches of unmelted snow here and there on the ground, and it was cold in the rear seat of the Feisler Storche, but the sun was shining brightly, and it was evident that spring would soon bring green to the brown land.
Colonel Graf von Greiffenberg was in pain. His shattered knee hurt from the vibration of the four-hour flight in the small airplane. They had refueled in Leipzig after taking off from the Luftwaffe’s fighter plane airstrip in Marburg an der Lahn. Because he had been badly frostbitten in Russia, his toes, fingers, ears, and nose ached—in spite of his woolen socks and gloves and the woolen muffler wrapped around his head. From time to time shivers of pain swept through his body as if his fingers were broken.
He had waited all the previous day for the two Storches to show up. There had been some problem getting two of them at once. When they did finally shown up in Marburg just before dark, he had decided to wait until the following morning to leave. It was a question of his getting where he was going without problems. It would have been foolhardy to make the flight at night, although the pilots, two boys who looked as if they should still be in a Gymnasium someplace, were disappointed at his decision.
Their orders, marked SECRET, directed them to pick up the colonel in two airplanes, and fly him and anyone else he so designated anywhere he desired within lands controlled by the German state. Since they thought that what they were up to was quite different from the facts, they were eager to get at it.
They had taken off from the fighter base at Marburg, which was a one runway affair, built right down the center of what once had been a 160 hectare cornfield. This had been von Greiffenberg land, “rented” to the Luftwaffe for “the duration.” Their destination in northern Poland was another fighter strip laid down on what, too, had once been a field owned by a landed member of the aristocracy.
As they approached the field, the colonel saw the stalag next to it. It contained a barracks, and to judge by the line of one-story stables off to one side, a cavalry barracks. There didn’t seem to be an artillery park, so it must have been a cavalry barracks. It had once housed, perhaps, some of the Poles who had been sent out to challenge Panzerkampfwagen IIs and IIIs with sabers and glistening lances.
It was now a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag XVII-B, surrounded by barbed wire, guardhouses, and probably, von Greiffenberg thought, a minefield. They had captured vast quantities of Russian and English mines early in the war, and there had been a period of madness when any flat surface which even remotely could pose a threat to the securi
ty of the German Army had been mined.
The pilot of the Storche was unable to establish radio contact with the field, so they flew over it once, to let them know they had arrived, and then landed. A bored junior Luftwaffe officer swaggered out to the Storche, then saw the colonel’s insignia on von Greiffenberg’s greatcoat, and snapped to attention.
The colonel, once a car had been arranged for him, gave the senior of the two boy pilots their ultimate destination and told him to prepare the most careful possible flight plan—with alternate landing fields and refueling sites. The second passenger must not be endangered in any way, von Greiffenberg told him.
He showed the major commanding the fighter strip enough of his orders to impress him with the fact that he was traveling with the highest priority under the authority of the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht. And then he went out to the POW compound, taking a strange pleasure in seeing that he was right. It had been a cavalry barracks.
God, what a bloody shame, those horses! Some of the finest in Europe! Slaughtered senselessly.
The stalag commander was an elderly lieutenant colonel of infantry; his uniform carried wound stripes from World War I. A decent chap, von Greiffenberg decided on the spot, given this duty because he was too old for any other.
“How may I be of service to the Herr Oberst Graf?”
Von Greiffenberg produced his orders.
“I wish to confer with Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bellmon,” von Greiffenberg announced. “I may take him off your hands for a few days.”
That roused the commandant’s curiosity, but he was a soldier of the old school. He would ask no questions. If he was to have an explanation beyond the official orders, it would be given to him.
“I’ll send for him. And may I offer the Herr Oberst Graf a brandy and something to eat while he is waiting?”
“Yes, please,” von Greiffenberg said. “And bring enough to serve Colonel Bellmon, too, if you would be so kind.”
While he was waiting, von Greiffenberg left the food untouched—a plate of cold cuts, bread, and what looked like real butter; but he helped himself twice to the French brandy, wondering idly where the commandant had gotten it. The early days of the war, when there had been a good deal of French wine and perfume available to the services, were long over.
The Lieutenants Page 4