The Valkyrie Option

by Markus Reichardt

  Stauffenberg pressed a simple point. ’Your unit has new orders; they call for a redeployment to the Lemberg (Lvov) area to deal with the partisan threat and the Red Army advance in that region.’

  Sidestepping the question Dirlewanger said, 'My men are anti-partisan specialists, .. Gruppenführer, Colonel. I believe sending this unit to the front as regulars would be wasting their talents.'

  Stauffenberg was not to be denied, the man was not merely impertinent, he and his unshaven grubby manner was also repulsive. 'Do you recognize my authority as well as that of Gruppenführer von dem Bach.'

  'Dirlewanger searched the eyes of his former commander and found no support. A shrug 'Ja Herr Oberst.'

  'Sehr gut. I actually agree with your assessment and will amend my order accordingly. Now that that is settled you will entrain your troops tomorrow afternoon for Vienna and from there to Sarajevo. You are the partisan specialist - keep Tito's hounds at bay while our men withdraw from the Balkans. Go save some German lives!' If you are still here tomorrow, I have given order that will see you and your rabble summarily court-martialled for disobeying a direct order of the Deputy Minister of Defence and your immediate Superior on a matter of critical importance to the Reich.’ A brief military salute and Stauffenberg spun on his heel. Dirlewanger's response was too late to be noticed.

  A moment later von den Bach followed, unsure of his own position. Many in the Waffen SS still feared that the new regime would make them disappear into the meat grinder of the Eastern Front. Dirlewanger was SS not Waffen SS but would the Wehrmacht differentiate ? Like most of them von dem Bach did not fear death, he feared dishonour.

  As usual Stauffenberg got around the complicated SS ranks by using Wehrmacht equivalents, 'General von dem Bach, my aide will be back tomorrow at four in the afternoon. By then this gang of thugs will be en route to real fighting. I do not expect any of them to return, they are the sort of people who will hang like a dark shadow over our country's honour if they survive this war. But they can be of use if they allow us to recover as much of our forces from Greece and the Balkans as we can.'

  Something in the Waffen SS General's face made him catch himself. He was letting his emotions get carried away. The threat of civil war would not be over for a long time. The Waffen SS could still ignite it, no matter how loyal Waffen SS commanders such as Dietrich, Bittrich and Hausser were to Rommel. There were fanatics in the ranks of the Waffen-SS, men who had also proven themselves in battle and could carry entire units. He paused. The Waffen SS officer’s pale eyes regarded him expectantly through his rimless glasses. You wouldn't notice him if he were not wearing that uniform in any civilian crowd. If you did you might take him for a mild and rather serious accountant. No, von dem Bach was not one of those radicals who would rise. But he might be swayed if not given a future.[62]Was this the master race the Nazis had sought?

  For a few seconds Stauffenberg said nothing. von dem Bach just stood there, cowed but not defeated. A deep breath. 'General... Gruppenführer, please forgive my outburst. I understand that the Dirlewanger unit is not representative of the Waffen SS or the German soldier. I accept that the man thinks he was doing his duty, but it is the actions of his kind that threatens our ability to negotiate and honourable peace for Germany and its armed forces. The massacre caused by his troops can derail any attempts at peace negotiations ..ultimately our survival, the survival of our people and their honour.' He stopped unsure whether his agitated state was making him do the right thing. What had his former mentor, Stefan George said about situations like this. Nothing came to mind but gut instinct was a damn good start, Stefan Gorge who believed in the righteous of the educated, moral leader would have approved of that.

  Unbeknown to Stauffenberg the gut instinct that had chosen the words was the same that had been drilled into the Waffen SS General when he had first worn the German uniform more than 20 years prior; the same uniform Stauffenberg wore now. The older man relaxed visibly 'It is the honour and survival of Germany to which all our efforts must be dedicated, Herr Oberst. These are extraordinary times; they call for extraordinary measures. Rest assured your orders will be carried out.' He caught himself in time to avoid his arm snapping up in the Nazi salute, instead he managed a passable military one which Claus returned.

  August 11th

  Naples Italy

  For all the opportunity that the Polish situation presented Berlin, things were going rather less well in Italy. After some initial hit-and-run raids by Communist partisans had failed to elicit the standard reprisals, partisan attacks had refocused on transport infrastructure and become a major obstacle to the Wehrmacht's attempts at orderly withdrawal northwards. Coupled with the need to send more than 700 000 interned Italian military personnel south, and the continued spirited marauder raids by Allied small bombers on secondary bridges and tunnels, the entire effort grew slightly too uncontrollable for German staff work to triumph.

  The last controlled event had been the handing over of Mussolini to representatives of the new Government in Rome on August 1st. Since being deposed in 1943, Il Duce had endured, imprisonment by his own people, a daring rescue by SS-parachutists, and a half-life as head of the puppet government of the fascist republic in northern Italy. Arriving in the Wolfschanze by special train just hours after the bomb had gone off on July 20th, he had witnessed the final moments of Hitler's death throes and the subsequent implosion of the Nazi hierarchy. His SS babysitter SS Gruppenführer Wolf, has switched sides upon hearing of Himmler’s death and redirected the train in which they had originally travelled to see Hitler back towards Italy. After some deliberation in Berlin he had been taken to Pisa where one morning he had walked across a railway bridge over the Arno river towards a group of British and Italian soldiers as in a trance. The new regime had shed its first problematic ex-ally.

  While the powers that be in Rome began to squabble over how to deal with their former leader, the German retreat began to come apart. Within the narrow confines of the Italian peninsula there were only a limited number of railways and roads capable of handling the retreating forces. By the first week in August three critical bridges were sabotaged by partisans, leaving nearly a quarter of the German forces, especially the naval units in northwest Italy, stranded.

  Allied units attempting to make daring dashes to bag large numbers of retreating enemies soon ran out of fuel as the intercine fighting among Italy's partisans and the factitious squabbling of its resurgent civil servants and allied logistics staff laid a dead hand on their supply lines. The resurgent black market did the rest. Apart from a few rich US-Army quartermasters with close mafia ties, for the moment in Italy, no-one was going anywhere fast. That more or less suited Field Marshall Alexander, the Allied Commander in the Theatre. Alexander shared Churchill’s views on the Balkans and the Russians and after a confidential meeting with Alanbrooke and the Prime Minister, had no intention of getting himself entangled with German forces unnecessarily. He was also no friend of Italy. His eyes were set on the Balkans. His Prime Minister agreed which was why he had come to Naples to meet Tito[63].

  Tito had come to Italy in the hope of being recognized not as a partisan leader but as a head of government; as someone the British would have to deal with in future. His lieutenants had given him grand ideas about the extent of British aid that should be supplied immediately to assist them in asserting their claim in the wake of the retreating Germans. But all that was academic now. The Wehrmacht was almost out of Greece. The small force left in Albania was there only to keep the murderous bands of Enver Hoxha’s Communist partisans whom Stalin and the Yugoslavs regarded as backward cave dwellers, at bay until the last units had evacuated northwards. No the Wehrmacht was leaving and the British were coming. Tito could not justify military aid from Britain, and he was there to discuss this change in realities.

  The Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean Theatre, General Henry Maitland Wilson, had spent the past few days making the Yugoslav leader’s visit a success, sh
epherding him around British installations, to frontline visits, to meetings with Italian locals politicians. All the while both sides were taking the measure of each other. When Churchill finally met Tito, the latter was wearing a fanciful marshal uniform which the British leader – himself in a white boiler suit - would later describe as a ‘gold lace straight jacket’. They spoke to each other through a female interpreter but that did not matter, they connected. Both had fought in the Great War and both were pragmatic leaders, convinced that the power of their office justified their actions in the fight against a greater evil. Churchill was frank in his questions about the partisans war with the Chetniks whom the British had supported until recently. He needed to know whether civil war in Yugoslavia was an inevitability. Tito managed to convince him that this would not happen, if Britain overtly supported him. He talked vaguely about an amnesty for all but some of the most murderous of the Chetnik leaders. The phrase was lost partially in translation and Churchill then turned to the question of a post-war political system. Although Tito gave no firm commitments, he left the British leader in no doubt that summary imposition of a Soviet system was not his plan. Satisfied the two men then spent the afternoon on the terrace of the villa they were using overlooking the Italian countryside baking in the hot afternoon sun.

  Just as they were about to part Churchill finally came to matters of immediate strategy. What would the partisans do if British forces moved into Croatia or landed on the Istrian coast. Tito taken aback mumbled something about British intentions and whether these would be forces of occupation or liberation. The wily Prime Minister smiled, puffed on his cigar and flatly said. ‘They will be there to support Yugoslav independence for as long as you and I agree it is necessary. They would of course use their presence to assist in the creation and equipping of a formal standing Yugoslav Army, Navy and Air force.’ Tito stared but gradually a smile crept onto his face and both men laughed; Churchill had just signalled his desire to marginalize Stalin from Yugoslavian politics.[64] “ Well then maybe you should talk to the Germans to make sure that they don’t let the Red Army in before you get to Yugoslavia.’. Tito would not forget that the British had for years supported his royalist rival and enemy Chetnick leader Mihailovic despite the latter’s collaboration. But for the moment the British presence could serve a purpose. It would give him a bargaining chip against Stalin. And Josif Broz Tito sensed that he would soon need such bargaining chips. He had driven the Germans out, surely the British with a less totalitarian system would not prove a tougher opponent for his partisans if it came to that. The Red Army would be a tougher not to crack. No, for the moment he would welcome the political leverage that Churchill’s desire to play powerbroker in the Balkans would give him. And to convince his lieutenants of this logic he also extracted a promise for the delivery – within a week – of 24 Sherman tanks with ammunition and fuel via sea to the Dalmatian coast. It would be symbolic but that was what politics was all about and Churchill had understood that. Mindful that during the year Britain had already supplied his partisans with more than 6 000 tons of equipment, including 50 tanks and some planes, he stated that if Britain could deliver such a gesture,[65] then she could demonstrate to the partisans that she had influence in the region when compared to Russia and her support levels. What Churchill did not realise was that the Yugoslav leader resented the tardy levels of Soviet support almost as much as he had resented British aid to the collaborationist Chetnicks. But there was another factor that Churchill had overlooked; for reasons best known to themselves, the Americans maintained a liaison officer at the Chetnick headquarters long after the British had withdrawn their support. Tito was well aware that the royalist Yugoslav ambassador in Washington was still actively campaigning – with reasonable success – for US recognition of the Chetnicks. He quietly feared that unless he could extract a public commitment from the British – and he would publicize the arrival of the 24 Shermans – the Americans might yet push for a monarchist alternative to Yugoslavia’s post war politics. It would mean civil war all over again. No, for the moment British objectives and his overlapped. He knew that would not always be so.[66]

  While Tito headed home with the understanding of British support for a socialist, but non-Stalinist Yugoslavia, Churchill’s entourage was having kittens. In a single stroke the PM had overthrown British policy by committing not merely diplomatic but potentially military support to the partisan leader. Churchill dismissed their concerns with the view that the British Army did not wish to battle the Russians for influence in the Balkans, rather he preferred to fight to the last Yugoslav. Among the military men only Alexander understood, perhaps only he understood that with the tanks would come British instructors, and they would maintain a British presence long before his land forces could.

  Following the Tito meeting, headed for Rome where he spent two nights in the British Embassy. He had an audience with Pope Pius XII and they both agreed on their opposition to Communism. His Holiness urged the British PM to make all haste in liberating catholic areas like Croatia from German occupation and the threat of Soviet rule. He also confided in the Prime Minister that he was already taking a series of steps to prevent the dominance of communism in Europe, although he did not elaborate. And the PM assured him that Allied forces would indeed be doing so soon.[67]

  August 11th

  Reichskanzlei

  Berlin

  The situation in northern Italy also led to the first major showdown in the cabinet of the new German state. When the session had begun it had all seemed rather ordinary: von Witzleben droning on about the details of the retreat all across Europe. As usual the civilians, except for Leber, had switched off after the third sentence, glancing only occasionally at the map, leaving the military to do their thing; strangely accepting the extraordinary as ordinary. Stauffenberg saw their attention drift all along the long, heavy oak table. Papers shifted and thoughts wandered. As professional politicians the majority of them still struggled to accept the military’s primacy. The natural response mechanism to ignore it. All of their minds were already on the post-war world. Only four people around the table - Goerdeler, von Trott, himself and Speer - truly realised that to get to this post-war world they needed both military and political solutions. At present the two groups were not truly co-operating, both suspicious of the other and unfamiliar in treating it as an equal in the matters of state.

  It was the closing statement on Italy that got things going. Having summarized the situation, von Witzleben concluded: “With the destruction of the main railway bridges over the Po River our ability to move men and material has been effectively cut in half. Since we cannot assume that we will be able to rebuild these bridges in time the Wehrmacht is down to road transport. Given the limited petrol supplies we will have to rely on foot soldier and horse speeds to manage the withdrawal. Without adequate rail transport we also cannot recover the S-Boats and naval stores in the Adriatic and at La Spezia. It means that nearly half of our personnel will still be in Italy by the time the deadline runs out. We must postpone the deadline in this theatre. “

  Goerdeler, who since his release from the Gestapo jail had gained a few pounds, beat Leber in responding: ‘Feldmarschall, I thought we had closed this matter a few days ago. As a matter of fact I recall it coming up even before then. We agreed, and I believe that you were part of the agreement at the time, that keeping to the deadline overrode all other considerations. I am most distressed that the Wehrmacht appears unwilling to let the matter rest. Your report suggests that the Wehrmacht has made a decision with which you are presenting us now.” A signal to Leber, kept the other man quiet for the moment.

  “Chancellor, I accept that on previous occasions we agreed as you said. However, that was on the basis that we would lose limited resources, fixed infrastructure and isolated units. In Italy we are now talking about more than 100 000 men and substantial amounts of special equipment. Surely something of this scale warrants consideration.”

  To his left A
dmiral von Friedeburg, representing the Navy that day, chipped in: Chancellor, the Feldmarschall has the support of the Kriegsmarine in this request – we have a number of small units in the various Italian bases, specialist units whose infrastructure requires rail transport. They are unique, in other words would be impossible to replace in the short-term. In addition, we need time to transport Italian stores and disable the Italian units.”

  And what purpose would disabling the great Italian navy serve?” Leber’s voice dripped with sarcasm ‘were they ever a threat to us, or the Allies for that matter before 1943?’

  The Navy man missed the tone “the Italians and their infrastructure could not be used against us.” He was clearly new to the job of politics.

  “Hardly a threat in the greater scheme of things, Admiral unless you are anticipating a major Italian naval sortie up the Rhine or the Danube? For the sake of some Italian midget U-boats or extra machinery whose value is not at all strategic in the present situation, you wish to place the credibility of the Government on the block.”

  “Minister, “von Witzleben” cut in we need more time to get our men out.”

  “Fine get your men out – you have time. Man, they can all walk out of Italy and across the Alps within that time. In Russia in ’41 they managed up to 40 kilometres a day. Did they not?“