The Valkyrie Option

by Markus Reichardt

  “Stauffenberg cut in to support Leber. “If we allow the western allies into the Reich and facilitate their advance that will to all intents and purposes constitute surrender. I think what Minister Leber is proposing is that they will be so busy with establishing their occupation that they will have limited scope to practically enforce surrender on our forces in the east until they physically reach them. That is unless they suddenly drop thousands of parachutists on that theatre. We may nominally accept unconditional surrender, we‘ll just not abide by it until they force our hand.”

  “What if they take hostage, impose penalties?”

  Chancellor, what practically can they do other than advance their occupation efforts? And what is the discomfort of a few hostages in return for protecting thousands from the Bolshevik hordes. ” Leber retorted.

  “There is of course an additional benefit from this, “ it was von Molkte, “if the AngloAmericans advance while we hold the Russians in Poland, it could provoke a very serious rift in the alliance. I gather Stalin is already unhappy about our deal with the Poles, just as Churchill is angry over being stymied in Greece.”

  For once Speer joined in. “I must support Stauffenberg’s and Leber’s point. We are rapidly running out of raw materials to make critical systems. Half of the metal going into Panzer spares comes from melting down half-finished U-Boats and the unfinished aircraft carrier that sat around in the docks. Soon we will be physically out of materials for even basic items like ammunition. At least on the scale required by the Ostfront. I agree that it is best to push production as hard as we can for as long as we can but once the allies are into Germany, we should get them across to the East as soon as possible.” Two hours later the debate was not settled but Leber’s proposal was not off the table. On the way out Stauffenberg nodded to his friend: have you ever thought of teaching strategy ? You certainly have the vision. “

  “It’s not vision Claus, its realism. We must also atone for what has happened. What we did to the Poles and to other nations, what has been done to the Jews, imposes a responsibility to create a better post-war Europe and if the Chancellors pride cannot handle it, that will just have to be another casualty of this conflict.”

  30 November 1944

  The Pentagon, Washington D.C.

  Rarely did so many key commanders in the Pacific come together but there were some major decisions to be made and politics to be sorted. General Marshall as Chief of Staff, Admirals Nimitz, King, Halsey and various aides all gathered around the table to determine the future conduct of the war in the Pacific. The plan before them was the invasion of Luzon the main island in the Philippines. As always the proponent of the attack, which Nimitz had opposed, was not present. General Douglas MacArthur was busy preparing his forces secure in the knowledge that Roosevelt had backed his strategy. It was now up to the US Navy to deliver the troops into the meat grinder.

  Nimitz’s Hawaiian-based command had completed clearing the Marshall and the Marianas Islands and together with MacArthur’s command they were now fighting their way through the Philippines in the largest land campaign US forces in the Pacific had yet conducted. The conquest of the Philippine island of Leyte was now complete and Americans were readying themselves for what everyone knew would be a bloody campaign on Luzon. Despite a rather decisive victory against the Japanese navy in Leyte Gulf, the American public had taken the high casualties of the previous campaigns badly. In particular Admirals King and Nimitz were shocked about how badly the impact of the futile death charge of the desperate Japanese garrison on Saipan had hit US morale. Hundreds of American soldiers who had witnessed the attack of 20 000 Japanese soldiers including hundreds of doctors, nurses and walking wounded, had put in for medical treatment. There was no doubt in the minds of the men around the table that the cultural divide between the two opponents in the pacific conflict was too deep to bridge. The Pacific conflict would be a fight to the death.

  They had now concluded the planning of the Luzon invasion which they hoped would take place in mid-December. If they took Luzon, the Japanese mainland would be cut off from its resource base in the Dutch East Indies – the source of most of their oil, metal and rubber. Luzon was also critical as a base for the new long range bomber the B-29 Superfortress. Capturing Guam had put their bases in range for a bombing campaign of the Japanese mainland, but with bases on Luzon these bombers would also have fighter escorts all the way. From the bloody experience of Germany they knew just how critical such fighter cover would be. Strategically Luzon would be worth it, but the men around the table worried that given the phoney war going on in Europe, that the American public was losing its appetite for war, its ability to tolerate casualties.

  The problem was that even if they took Luzon, Japanese land forces remained far from beaten, and in fact Luzon would be the first large scale test. For the moment, Japan had the upper hand in China, having just completed operation Ichi-Go in southeast China which had led to the capture of virtually all the airfields used by the Americans to resupply the Chinese army. Already the lack of support was telling and the Japanese army remained on the move determined to deprive China of large tracts of key rice-growing areas. If they cleared Chinese forces out of the southeast, the conflict between the nationalist and communist Chinese, barely settled the year before, would flare up again. In all likelihood China would drop out of the war, or at least go on the defensive. That would free a large part of the Japanese Imperial Army up for operations in Indo-China, in the defence of the Japanese main land or elsewhere. It was not a situation that General Marshall or the Admirals around the table looked forward to. Clearing the Pacific island by island of the Japanese forces was costly enough. The men around the table agreed they had four months to capture Luzon before the Japanese could reasonably clear southeast China. If the capture of Luzon took longer than large-scale Japanese action against Indo-China or Burma could be expected. That would require major shifts in manpower.

  Of all of them, Marshall was the most politically astute. He had analysed the election result that had so narrowly returned Roosevelt to the White House. Marshall understood that it had been the phoney war in Europe and Roosevelt’s seemingly callous policy towards Russian domination of Eastern Europe that had nearly cost him his job. He understood that since the election any hard line in Europe was for all practical purposes dead in the water. What this meant to his mind was that America needed the manpower to extend her occupation of large areas of Europe for the foreseeable future, but that these forces were unlikely to need offensive capability. What would be more problematic would be the logistics of projecting AngloAmerican power into some of those countries. Already he had had endless carping from the British about availability of amphibious landing barges, but gratefully Admiral King had dealt with those issues. Marshall smiled. King, bulldog of a man was so focussed on the Pacific that since early 1942 he had basically waged a one man campaign against his President’s ‘Germany first’ policy, directing all available resources towards the Pacific theatre. It was King who had pulled all landing craft out of the European theatre the moment the D-Day landings had succeeded. Marshall was painfully aware just how badly that had limited British flexibility in dealing with the crisis in Greece and he made a mental note to resist the redeployment of any further transport assets for the time being.

  Now King and Nimitz had had to bow to the Presidents wishes and support MacArthur’s ambitious Luzon invasion. Marshall could not see how this could be done without drawing troops from the European theatre. By the end of the debate 40 000 Americans were ordered away out of France and into the Pacific or at least into supporting roles where they could relieve troops with better Pacific experience for the Luzon meat grinder. And this was, Marshall mused, after more than 60 per cent of 8th US Air Force bombers had already been sent into the Pacific theatre. General Douglas MacArthur, through his aides had asked for more but George Marshall was determined that for the moment US forces had to remain the dominant force in the western allian
ce in Europe. Even though Roosevelt had been weakened at the polls, his policy for the region remained more or less intact. There were too many commitments, too many possibilities in Europe. For the hundredth time that day Marshall wished that his ailing President would commit more to paper or increase the clarity of his directives.

  30 November 1944

  The Treasury Building, Washington D.C.

  .

  The Morgenthau Memorandum was by now was circulating as official policy. In a nutshell it said that Britain had borrowed rather recklessly in time of dire need and the US had been right to come to her aid through lend-lease. However, Britain had expended most of this treasure in the protection of an Empire whose existence was at odds with the objectives of the Atlantic Charter and the United States, committed to the United Nations project could hardly be expected to adopt a lenient position on such expenditure. The memorandum then went on to argue that since August 1944 Britain had departed substantially from the stated war aims which was the unconditional surrender of Germany, made all the more urgent and necessary by the revelation of the war of destruction waged against Europe’s Jews. The argument went that America could not be expected to fund activities that went against her policy objectives and therefore needed to co-ordinate the two better. If Britain were to fall into line with the original war aims there would be scope for negotiations on the scale and timing of her war debt, but as long as she persisted in pursuing policies which diverged significantly from the unconditional surrender policy adopted and confirmed by the allies in Casablanca she would be expected to settle her debts in a prompt and expeditious manner just like any other debtor nation.

  The memorandum was dynamite and Morgenthau’s briefing to FDR had been somewhat selective, highlighting the potential to use economics to bring Churchill back in line. The ailing President, pressured by outraged American business interests scrambling for a piece of the German secret weapons document cache was in no mood to compromise. He and especially American business had planned to exploit and profit from a weakened Europe in the wake of the war, that’s why some die-hard Republican businessmen had accepted many unsavoury parts of his economic policy. Now the prospect of a slightly less than completely devastated Europe, and one with enough intellectual capital retained at home to fight back economically and technologically in the post-war markets, was not to their liking. FDR’s mistake was to leave matters in Morgenthau’s hands with the comment that he had had a good conference with the guy from the British Treasury, Keynes. They seemed to have agreed, they should work something out that would get the general point across without being too hard on the British. After all FDR added, they did hold the line for us for some time. Morgenthau basically overheard that last part. Eager to please, Roosevelt as usual had not pressed the point. Privately he noted in a letter to Eleanor that he hoped that the mere existence of the Morgenthau memorandum would bring the British closer to his own positions again.

  In London, the memorandum caused a panic, Keynes and his colleagues went into crisis mode until a key Treasury official got wind of the matter. This official was one of three who knew of General Schellenberg’s threat to trash the British pound. He escalated the matter in an urgent private meeting with the PM only to be told that the General had died before her Majesty’s Government could take executive action against him. The assumption was that the plates for the fake pounds were being hidden somewhere in Spain or Switzerland. In any case they had not been recovered from the General’s associates. Most likely the General’s associates had become so rich from the proceeds of the fake banknotes that they could not be touched without creating an incident. And sadly Churchill added at the moment we are not even sure exactly who we would be talking about.

  Once the Treasury official had departed, Churchill’s romantic imagination about spy craft and cloak and dagger policy was given free reign, much to the chagrin of his private secretary Desmond Morton. A day later the PM sat down with the same Treasury official and the Head of SIS to discuss the possibility of the Schellenberg threat against the US currency. Since they had nothing to go on but the indistinguishable fakes from Schellenberg and his claim to possess the same capacity in respect of the US currency, they were stuck. The discussion ended inconclusively.

  That evening Churchill dined with the Prof. Together the two soul mates indulged in their fascination for intellectual adventure, their same love for the unconventional and the same humour. Lindemann who had felt a bit out of favour since misjudging the extent of German advanced military technology was cautious but in the end was still in shock over the extent to which the Germans had seemingly solved technological weapons problems that still bedevilled allied researchers. He concluded that the SS General must have been telling the truth and that the threat to the American currency was genuine. After all if the Germans could build intercontinental missiles then surely they could master the little things involved in faking currency, and a currency at that which, unlike the Pound, was unicolor – the greenback. To this Churchill added the view that with the General gone, matters now rested in the hands of some SS subordinate whom the General would have briefed but who would be more mechanistic than Schellenberg in the execution of his orders. A Germanophe, Lindemann agreed that the next rung down would most probably not make contact before executing the threat.

  “They are our allies, Prof. “ the PM mused over the post dinner cognac. “Also we are so indebted to them that we cannot to stand by.”

  For a moment Lindemann saw both possibilities, if they did nothing and Schellenberg’s threat to the US currency was genuine Britain’s war debt would evaporate, but so would any chance of a stable post-war economic system. But at the moment he could not counsel caution. Just two days before he had finally untangled the language of one of the ore obscure documents in the German cache and found it to be a report on a series of experiments involving a time machine.[96] The report had made some sensational claims but had been a little weak on the hard facts. But the Prof was too shaken to challenge the concept at which normally he and his entire fraternity has scoffed.

  After playing through a few more scenarios with Lindemann, Churchill’s mind was made up. “I will speak to Harry Hopkins off the record and make sure that he understand all sides of this predicament. This is not us blackmailing them but us telling them of a very real danger that the realisation of Morgenthau’s policy would entail. That is if Schellenberg did not talk to them before he died. If Morgenthau pushes us too hard we will end up doing things that could bring down either us or the United States or both. That discussion will most probably mean that I will have to go see the President.”

  As he watched the Premier knock back the rest of his cognac, Lindemann felt a deep admiration for the man who had promoted him to the inner circles of Government decision-making and who now did not shirk from the necessary, if unpleasant consequence of the situation.

  The emotional link between Churchill and Roosevelt was never as close as was commonly thought. It was more of a partnership of circumstance and convenience than a friendship of individuals.

  Roy Jenkins, Churchill biographer[97]

  It is absolutely necessary we should try and get a common mind about the Balkans, so that we may prevent civil war from breaking out in several countries, when probably you [FDR] and I would be in sympathy with one side and Uncle Joe with the other.

  Winston Churchill in telegram to FDR, 11 October 1944

  Churchill-FDR phone call

  Churchill had rarely heard the President’s voice so strained, as if he was hissing between clenched teeth between rather sharp intakes of breath: “Winston, this is just what our enemy wants, … a divided alliance unable to bring this conflict to its inevitable conclusion, …unable to force the unconditional surrender…”

  ‘Which we sought from Hitler, Mr President’ He could not know that Roosevelt was on edge not merely over the contents of the phone conversation but the President of the United States had just completed a week in which five
delegations of influential voter associations nominally associated with the Democratic party had paid him a visit in quick succession. All of them had made a simple point; the Democrats had lost large parts of the East European and Catholic vote already. If Roosevelt did not protect Eastern Europe from Soviet domination, these groups would find a permanent home in another party for at least a generation. Outwardly Roosevelt had smiled, made generic and vague promises, and talked much about collective security which the United Nations, backed by the two superpowers – the US and Russia - would guarantee. Some of his visitors had taken the bait but a member of a group representing Baltic-Americans showed him a simple piece of paper – a Soviet charge sheet from 1940, the year Hitler gave Stalin carte blanche to annex the three independent Baltic states. This man had lost both of his parents, a sister, an aunt and two uncles to Soviet labour camps, but he had managed to ascertain the reason for their deportation and subsequent murder at the hand of Soviet authorities. The charge sheet was simple it stated that his father, mother, sister, uncle and aunt were charged with the crime of ‘belonging to the Latvian nationality’. “You underestimate this man, Mr President,” the Latvian had said, “and he will send your dreams to the labour camps of Siberia.”

  Since then Roosevelt had been a stressed man and for the first time he had doubt. The Latvian had left him the original charge-sheet, which a day later Admiral Leahy confirmed as authentic. Still the dream of the United Nations could not flounder on some miserable nations problems, bigger issues were at stake. He needed to get Churchill to see that.

  “Winston… this is my point, the Germans want you to think they’ve changed. But we know better. The Germans will always be a militaristic people, a nation threatening their neighbours through their expansionist habits. That’s who they are. Come now, you and I know what happened in the Great War..”