Fortunately for the Allies, the V-2s were expensive to make and tricky to launch. The Germans were able to fire four a day, then six, but never more than thirteen. That was still enough to worry British leaders, who feared a panic if word spread about the heavy rocket. For almost two months, landing sites were quickly roped off and the huge explosions attributed to malfunctioning gas mains or sabotage; the government denied that the gooney birds even existed. The charade ended in November, when Churchill felt he could no longer pretend that what his people were seeing and hearing was imaginary.
Between September 1944 and the following spring, more than a thousand V-2s hit British territory, about half in and around London. The deadliest crashed into the Woolworth’s in Deptford right at the peak of Christmas shopping. As frightening as the explosives were, they did not have an “annihilating effect.” They didn’t carry enough weight, nor could they be manufactured rapidly enough, to make a strategic difference. The weapon certainly didn’t cause British morale to plummet to the extent that the Nazi leadership had hoped. In fact, the Germans would have been wiser to have invested in a more capable fleet of long-range bombers. Still the development of rockets that could travel a distance, deliver a large payload, and remain roughly on target was sobering to those thinking ahead. “Every time one goes off,” wrote George Orwell, “I hear gloomy references to ‘next time’ and the reflection, [that when war comes again] they’ll be able to shoot them across the Atlantic.”
Two additional aspects of the V-2 story are worth noting, the first for what it says about Nazi depravity, the second for what it reveals concerning American pragmatism.
The rockets were produced in a construction complex fifty miles north of Berlin, near the Baltic Sea. The workers—or more accurately, the slaves—included French, Soviet, Belgian, Dutch, and German prisoners who labored underground for twelve hours each day. Their bodies were nourished only by coffee, thin soup, and bread. The combination of malnutrition, impure water, poor ventilation, harsh climate, and physical abuse killed so many that replacements had constantly to be shipped in from nearby concentration camps. In April 1945, immediately before surrendering the construction site, the Germans locked 1,046 of the workers into a barn and burned them alive.
The director for technical development of the V-2 was Wernher von Braun, a thirty-one-year-old SS major who personally provided Hitler with updates on the project. Through a combination of his own fast talking and America’s willingness to overlook the faults of those with useful skills, the young Nazi was spared postwar punishment. He later became a prominent figure on the “Tomorrowland” segment of the Walt Disney television show, and—more valuably—an architect of the U.S. space program. In recognition of his accomplishments, von Braun was publicly congratulated by President John F. Kennedy, whose older brother, Joseph Jr., had died while on a 1944 bombing mission against a doodlebug launch site in France.
22
Hitler’s End
The air was so cold that my feet turned numb and I could not feel the stairs, so cold that I thought my bones would freeze, until King Albert II of Belgium gallantly offered to share his blanket. From 1993 until 1997, I was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. During those years, I felt as if the world were celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of everything; not that I minded. On December 16, 1994, I had the honor of representing my government on a day of commemoration and thanksgiving.
The setting was Bastogne, a small Belgian city just west of the German border. The frigid temperatures were apt because the battle waged there half a century earlier had been fought in subzero conditions, in the ice and snow of the dark woodlands of the Ardennes. From the podium, I could see beyond the steamlike condensation of my breath to the colors that had guided the U.S. Army through its sternest test: among them the banners of the V Corps, the 7th Armored Division, the “damned engineers” of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, and the 30th Infantry Division. There, too, were veterans from the 101st Airborne Division and elements of the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions that had made their stand not far from where I now sat.
From the landing at Normandy in early June 1944 until the middle part of the autumn, Allied troops advanced more rapidly than anticipated. This was good news, but it overextended supply lines, requiring a pause before the final push. The Germans chose that interval to mass their forces and launch—on December 16—a desperate counterattack aimed at compelling the enemy to seek a negotiated and more favorable peace. Thus began the epic clash known in Europe as the Battle of the Ardennes and in the United States as the Battle of the Bulge. The German generals had given the assault little better than a 10 percent chance of success, but the element of surprise led to a promising start. They had timed the action to coincide with poor weather so the Allies would be unable to generate air support or track hostile troop movements from above. The Nazis pounced where the opposing lines were most thinly spread and caught their foes at a moment when many units were short of equipment and experienced manpower. Suddenly the U.S. Army leaders were on the defensive, for most a novel experience.
A turning point was reached when the 101st Airborne Division found itself surrounded in Bastogne. The Germans had expected the position to fall on the assault’s second day; it was now day ten. Asked by a Nazi messenger if he would care to surrender, General Anthony McAuliffe said just one word: “Nuts.” The courier asked, “Should this be interpreted as a positive or a negative response?” The answer: “Negative, and it means ‘Go to Hell!’ ” In the days before Christmas, General George Patton’s 4th Armored Division prepared to break the encirclement. Because air support would be critical, his chaplain led a prayer for better weather; when skies cleared early the next morning, the churchman was rewarded by Patton with a Bronze Star.* On December 26, the Allied tanks drove and dodged their way through a maze of enemy artillery and minefields to relieve the trapped division.
Skirmishes continued for several more weeks, but with the 101st back in action, fewer clouds, and a frenzied commitment of fresh men and equipment, the Allies quickly regained the upper hand. Eisenhower had told his men, “By rushing out from his fixed defenses, the enemy may have given us the chance to turn his great gamble into his worst defeat.” So it proved. The German attack stalled, and with their reserve forces now exhausted, the defenders of the Reich began their final fallback. In a month of bloody encounters up and down the front, roughly 90,000 U.S. and 1,400 British troops were killed, wounded, or captured. More than 3,000 Belgian citizens died. The U.S. Army lost nearly 800 tanks—more than it had even possessed prior to the war. Hitler’s final charge left the Wehrmacht with 60,000 casualties and four times that number taken prisoner. All in all, a fearsome price.
As I shivered that morning in Bastogne, I could see a silver-haired army of old soldiers who had crossed the Atlantic to relive memories and recall lost friends. After greeting our hosts in French, I directed my words to those brave Americans:
You, the veterans of this conflict, may have felt that you were fighting only for yourselves, your buddies, your unit, and your family. When the scourge of war is visited upon us, it is not countries that fight, it is people, and the emotions of conflict are intensely personal. But your skills, courage and sacrifice were enriched and ennobled by the cause for which you fought. Let us never forget why this war began, how this war was fought, or what this war was about. . . . History did not end here in these fabled woods; it did not end with the Nazi surrender or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Each generation is tested; each must choose.
EARLY IN FEBRUARY, Churchill, Stalin, and the ailing Roosevelt met in the czar’s former vacation home in the resort town of Yalta on the coast of the Black Sea. There, in palatial surroundings, they planned for the finish to the war and thought about what would come next. Three topics headed their agenda: the future of Germany, the creation of a new world organization (the United Nations), and the question of what to do about Poland.
Given their deservedly honored status in the history of the twentieth century, one yearns to imagine the U.S. president and the British prime minister at their best in this moment of triumph. We might envision them going briskly about the world’s business informed by a shrewd strategy and clear principles, their thoughts seasoned by profound insights concerning the legacy of war and the substance of future hopes. We might wish to see them pressing Stalin hard not only on the terms of agreement but on the precise meaning of each word and phrase, understanding that a quarrel over interpretation could drain the value from any pact. Alexander Cadogan, who admired both leaders, was ordinarily a sympathetic observer. Still, he wrote that at Yalta, Churchill behaved like “a silly old man” who rambled on at variance with the positions of his own government, while Roosevelt “did not look well and was rather shaky. I know he is never a master of detail, but I got the impression that most of the time he hardly knew what it was all about.” The spectacle was, he added, “rather disturbing.”
In this company, particularly with his army but sixty-five miles from Berlin, Stalin did not have to work very hard. He began in disarming fashion by pledging to atone for the Soviet Union’s mistreatment of Poland, a state that he agreed should be fully independent, with leaders chosen through free elections. As to the border, he proposed that the Poles be given a large chunk of Germany in return for the 30 percent of their country that he referred to as “western Ukraine and Byelorussia.” He also accepted the idea of broadening the Soviet-installed provisional government in Lublin to include democrats; this would ensure that balloting was fair. Churchill, whose mind possessed a vast library of martial phrases, vowed that Poland must be “free and sovereign, captain of her soul.” Stalin purred that he had precisely that intent; elections, if all went well, could be held within a month.
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta, 1945
Associated Press
Returning to Washington, FDR declared that the Yalta Conference had put an end to the kind of balance-of-power divisions that had long marred global politics. His assessment echoed Woodrow Wilson’s idealistic and equally inaccurate claims at the end of World War I. In London, Churchill told his cabinet that “poor Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don’t think I’m wrong about Stalin.” Soviet-British friendship, Churchill maintained, “would continue as long as Stalin was in charge.”
There had been other business done at Yalta: the Soviet Union had agreed to participate in the conference to be held in San Francisco that would establish the United Nations; it had also consented to join the war against Japan, a move thought likely to hasten an end to the still bloody conflict in the Pacific. In the British capital, however, it was Poland that generated the most controversy. The London-based Polish exiles denounced the proposed border settlement agreed to at Yalta and criticized what they termed the legitimization of their rival, the pro-Russian Lublin regime. When the House of Commons debated the issue, a group of twenty-five parliamentarians sided with the exiles and offered an amendment condemning the allegedly unfair treatment. The proposal failed but not before it caused significant trouble—for my father.
The Czechoslovak government in exile needed the support of the governments that had participated in Yalta; it was natural, therefore, that Beneš—whose route home would take him through Moscow—endorsed their decisions. It followed that my father would use his broadcasting platform to explain his government’s point of view. In a program on March 3, 1945, he did just that but with perhaps too much enthusiasm. Instead of offering a straightforward defense of the Yalta Agreement, he stuck verbal pins into the British parliamentarians who opposed it, labeling them as past supporters of the Munich pact and as “members of the British-German Association.” The targets of this criticism, led by a Mr. Maurice Petherick, MP, thought it outrageous that they should be insulted by a foreigner—let alone a guest of the BBC. They demanded Korbel’s immediate dismissal. My father rarely cast aspersions without meaning every syllable, but in that case he prudently agreed to an apology, conceding that “the offending passage should have been more accurately and carefully worded.”
The next act in this drama took place in California, where delegates had gathered to write the rules for the United Nations. The question arose as to who should represent Poland. The USSR pushed for recognition of the Communist provisional government. The British and Americans preferred to wait until a more democratic body could be assembled. For the first time, Czechoslovakia was forced into a zero-sum choice between acquiescence to Moscow and alignment with the West. Sadly, the motion to approve the Soviet position was made by none other than Jan Masaryk. “We want a strong and democratic Poland,” Masaryk explained, “but only a Poland that will collaborate with the Soviet Union.” He later confided to U.S. Envoy Charles Bohlen:
What can one do with these Russians? Out of the clear blue sky I got a note from Molotov saying Czechoslovakia must vote for the Soviet proposition in regard to Poland, or else forfeit the friendship of the Soviet government. . . . You can be on your knees and this is not enough for the Russians.
The Soviets could not have done more in this period to expose the naïveté of their apologists. In March, Stalin invited sixteen Polish democratic leaders to Moscow for talks—promised at Yalta—about forming a unified provisional government. No sooner had the democrats arrived than they disappeared. For six weeks, the Russians claimed not to know where their visitors might be. The British and Americans demanded to know what was going on; the Polish democrats in San Francisco were incredulous. Finally the Soviets admitted that the Poles were in Lubyanka prison, having been arrested for “organizing diversionary tactics in the rear of the Red Army.” The prisoners were tried, and most were sentenced to jail terms, thus embarrassing all those who had vouched for the trustworthiness of Stalin. The betrayal was just beginning. Despite the promises made on the shores of the Black Sea, the USSR imposed a totalitarian government on Poland that would not relax its grip for more than forty years.
IT WAS APRIL 1945, the European war’s last month. Prisoners were being released by the thousands. The days lengthened, and the weather warmed. Streetlamps were turned on. Motorcar headlights were unmasked. Now almost eight years old, I learned with glee what it was like to live in a house without ugly dark curtains draped over the windows. Fresh meat and produce reappeared in the grocery store; the return of coconuts made the news. Our radio was almost always on, and for the first time in six years, it was considered safe to have weather reports. I listened whenever I was trapped inside by spring rain. When the sun came out, I worked in the garden with my mother, planting vegetables that we did not expect to be around to eat. I spent much time playing with Kathy because my parents were often on the phone. The Sunday-afternoon gatherings in our backyard were filled with laughter and a sense of anticipation. My father was soon to have a new job. Best of all, we would be going home—a grand adventure, to be sure, but one I had no way to envision.
Patton’s army, with all its equipment, had pushed its way across the Rhine and into Germany. The British and Canadians were linking up from the north. The Soviets had reached and entered Austria. The Allied bombing of Germany was relentless, the destruction horrible. On Friday the thirteenth, we learned that President Roosevelt had died of a cerebral hemorrhage while having his portrait painted in Georgia; the West bowed its head at the loss of a man who, while sitting in a wheelchair, had raised democracy from its knees. Two days later, U.S. soldiers stormed into the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald. Edward R. Murrow was with them, and his account of the human devastation was broadcast by the BBC. Never has the need to confront evil been more graphically demonstrated.
Still the bulletins came. Berchtesgaden, the mountain retreat where Hitler had met with Chamberlain, had been bombed. The Allies had taken Munich. On April 28, there was a snow- and ice storm in England; so much for the vegetable garden. Now Berlin was encircled by Soviet, U.S., and British troo
ps. In London, people prepared to celebrate. Large quantities of liquor were imported but held in reserve for the special day. The air-raid warning system was turned off. Flags were everywhere on sale. Bunting was purchased in the dimensions of Buckingham Palace. The Nazis had nowhere left to run.
It took a day for the tidings to reach her, but the news penetrated even the thick walls of Terezín, where, on May 2, Eva Ginzová, the fifteen-year-old sister of Petr Ginz, wrote in her diary, “Apparently, Hitler has croaked.”
Part IV
May 1945–November 1948
No man shall dictate to me what books I shall read, what music I shall hear, or what friends I shall choose.
—JAN MASARYK
23
No Angels
In April 1945, Eduard Beneš returned to the homeland he had left six and a half years previously. Escorted by the Red Army, he crossed by train from Ukraine into the town of Košice in the eastern part of Slovakia. He was welcomed by joyous villagers garbed in national costumes, waving flags, cheering, and tossing flowers. A young girl offered him the traditional greeting of bread and salt. From London, the president had communicated with his people only by radio. On the BBC broadcasts he had made no secret of his identity, but over the clandestine network used by the Resistance, he had been referred to by his code name: Mr. Comeback.
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