Order of Battle

by Ib Melchior

  An orderly jumped from the limousine and opened the door. Quickly the lone passenger got out. He was a small man. He wore a Nazi uniform cap and a long leather overcoat with broad lapels and a wide belt. He walked toward the steps of the ministry with a pronounced limp. At the steps he turned to look at the destruction around him.

  Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, was appalled. His strangely simian features were grim. It wasn’t going to be easy, he thought. He was well aware that a growing number of Berliners no longer shared his unshakable belief in the Führer. They were misled, of course. They were wrong. But it wasn’t going to be easy to ensure their continued support in the face of daily and nightly air raids like this.

  He started up the broad steps. A small group suddenly came hurrying from the building. Obviously agitated and excited, they met him halfway up. Urgently, with unconcealed exhilaration, a ministry secretary spoke to “the Doktor.”

  The flames from the burning buildings were reflected in a flickering danse macabre on Goebbels’ lowering face. The secretary was trying to make himself understood above the din from the streets. And suddenly Goebbels grabbed the man’s arm. His face lit up with triumphant elation, and followed by the others he hurried into the building.

  The minister made straight for his office. As he hastened down the corridor, eager and willing hands helped him out of his great leather coat. Everyone seemed to be in a high-spirited mood.

  Goebbels went directly to the massive desk that dominated his richly and solidly furnished office. He sat down and faced the excited people gathered expectantly before him.

  He rubbed his hands, a grin of satisfaction on his face.

  “Now!” he said. “Bring out our best champagne. And get me the Führer on the phone.”

  Someone hurried away to carry out the minister’s order. The secretary at once began to establish contact with the Führer Bunker, where Hitler was sitting out the air raid. Dr. Goebbels’ eyes were bright as he looked around him. He noticed the large desk calendar before him. It showed Thursday, April 12, 1945. He glanced at his watch, and reached over to tear off the page. A new day had begun.

  The secretary handed him the phone. For a moment Goebbels waited in silence. The others watched him intently. There was not a sound to be heard in the big room. Then Goebbels spoke:

  “My Führer,” he said emotionally. “I congratulate you! It is written in the stars: ‘The last half of April will be the turning point for us!’ This is Friday, April the thirteenth! My Führer—this is the turning point. I have just been informed, President Roosevelt is dead!

  13 Apr 1945

  Berlin

  0249 hrs

  The domed lights studding the ceiling at regular intervals gave a yellowish, unnatural light to the concrete walls of the long corridor connecting the Staff Quarters Bunker with the Führer Bunker deep in the ground under the Chancellery.

  Oberst Hans Heinrich Stauffer, adjutant to Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, buttoned the last button on his uniform tunic as he hurried along the corridor. A summons to report to the Führer Bunker meant now—even at three in the morning. There were more people about in the bunker complex than usual at that hour, and Stauffer wondered what was up. Perhaps the Allies have at last surrendered! he thought with sardonic gallows humor.

  Stauffer made his way through the various bulkheads, through the mess hall, where a few SS guards were drinking hot black ersatz coffee, and down the stairs to the lower level of the Führer Bunker, fifty feet below the street surface. He hurried through the empty lounge and into the conference room.

  A handful of officers were in the room, among them the Führer’s Adjutant, General Wilhelm Bergdorf, and his personal aide and bodyguard, SS Colonel Otto Günsche. Everyone turned to look at Stauffer when he entered, but no one said anything. They all looked tense and expectant.

  Stauffer glanced around for the field marshal, but he didn’t see him. He concluded that the chief of staff was with the Führer. He looked questioningly at Günsche, who nodded.

  With the others Stauffer waited. He’d been in this bunker conference room countless times before, yet he never got used to it. It was comfortably though haphazardly furnished with odd chairs and tables brought down from the Chancellery offices above. The walls were hung with paintings of German landscapes, and with two large maps, one of Greater Germany and the other of the Berlin area. Both of them were dotted with military signs and symbols. The areas east of Berlin were so thick with red markers that they looked blood-spattered. A long table held stacks of additional maps. For the hundredth time Stauffer wondered about the luxurious Persian rug that incongruously covered the cement floor. From which Chancellery office did it originally come? The edges had had to be folded under to make it fit. He noticed that the folds were already getting worn. They would always show.

  The other officers were talking among themselves in low voices. Colonel Stauffer settled down to wait. He was used to waiting. He’d spent hours doing it. He was a career soldier. . . .

  0327 hrs

  The metal door to Hitler’s study suddenly opened. At once the waiting officers fell silent. Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel stood in the open door. Stauffer could see past him into the study. It was quite small and simply furnished; a sofa, a desk, a few chairs, a table heaped with a mountain of maps. There were only a few personal touches of Adolf Hitler: an ornate clock and, hanging over the desk, an oval portrait of Frederick the Great, the Prussian warrior king, whom Hitler revered. Hitler stood staring at the painting, his back to the door, his hands clasped behind him.

  Keitel was about to close the door behind him, when the Führer spoke:

  “Sie! Herr Feldmarschall!” he said. He did not turn around. “Ich verlasse mich auf Sie!"

  There was surprising strength in Hitler’s voice, Stauffer realized with interest. It was almost like the old days. It was unusual. Hitler was already a broken man physically. He was stooped and hunched. His injured left hand and arm trembled badly, and he walked dragging his left foot. Yet his eyes could still be bright, burning with strange mesmeric powers.

  “My Führer,” Keitel said. “I shall do my utmost.”

  He gave the Heil Hitler salute and closed the door. For a moment he surveyed the officers before him. . . .

  Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel looked like the personification of a Prussian Junker. Tall, erect, with close-cropped graying hair and a small, well-groomed mustache; cold, pale eyes, a sometime monocle screwed into the left one; immaculate field-gray uniform and high boots polished to a black gloss, he presented the perfect image of a haughty Prussian aristocrat. Yet he was neither Prussian nor an aristocrat.

  Keitel was actually a farmer at heart, who came from an intensely anti-Prussian, Hanoverian family. He loved nothing better than to busy himself with the bucolic duties of running his farming estate, Helmsherode, in Braunschweig, and holding Treibjagd to shoot deer, wild boar and pheasant. That’s what he would do whenever he could break away for a few days from carrying out his Führer’s orders and signing his name to documents that would cost millions of lives. . . .

  Keitel was worried. It had been some time now since he had seen his beloved estate. The Americans had overrun it only two days before. There had been no word since. And now this. He was far from enthusiastic about this latest idea of Hitler’s—but he had been given his orders; orders from the Führer. He couldn’t change them. Wouldn’t. But there was something he could do.

  “Meine Herren,” he said solemnly. “What I am about to say here, now—this night—must never go beyond this room!”

  He searched the faces before him. The men were watching him raptly. He walked to the two big wall maps.

  “Gentlemen,” he continued. “The fortunes of war are about to change. The Führer has instructed me to inform you—President Roosevelt is dead!”

  He waited patiently for the excited react
ion that raced through the group of officers to die down.

  Stauffer, too, felt his pulse quicken at the announcement. It was the kind of news that could trigger—well, anything, or nothing. He watched his chief closely. He grew puzzled.

  This is only the curtain raiser, he thought.

  Stauffer felt uneasy. He’d worked with Keitel for a long time. He knew most of the man’s idiosyncrasies. Whatever Keitel had to say was still to come. And it was important. The field marshal always managed to sound stiff and stilted when he had to speak to any group. The more concerned he was with what he had to say, the stiffer he appeared, the more stilted he sounded. Stauffer decided his superior was very concerned. Keitel continued.

  “In the words of the Führer: Destiny will not be denied!”

  He turned to the map of Berlin behind him.

  “The Russians shall yet meet their bloodiest defeat at the gates of Berlin!”

  He turned to the map of Germany and swept his hand across it in a decisive gesture. “We shall roll the Allies back into the sea!”

  He faced the officers, fixing them with his pale, cold eyes, framed by the map of a defeated Germany behind him.

  “The Führer has said: The victor of the last battle is the victor of the war.’ That last battle, meine Herren, shall be ours!”

  Stauffer cringed inwardly. My God! he thought. Another invincible secret weapon! The other officers listened and watched the chief of staff with reactions ranging from fascination to pure incredulity. Stauffer was worried. Keitel was outdoing himself. Stauffer had no great respect for his superior officer. Privately he considered him a spineless brown noser, who was ruled by blind obedience to his god, Adolf Hitler. . . .

  Keitel had been Chef des OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht)—Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces—since February 4, 1938. He was a perfect choice for Hitler’s purposes. His loyalty was unquestionable—and unquestioning. His dossier was above reproach. He’d taken part in the Nazi conspiracy to build up the German armed forces in the early thirties in direct violation of the Versailles Treaty, and he had done so with complete dedication, giving orders and issuing instructions verbally, whenever possible, on the principle that “matters communicated by mouth cannot be proved—they can be denied.” Ever since then he’d shown himself completely subordinate to all Hitler’s orders and demands, never questioning his Führer’s motives or morality—and permitting no one else to do so. The field marshal was a pedantic, uninspired man without humor but with a great capacity for detail and the routine of administrative work. Wilhelm Keitel, the farmer, was exactly the kind of staff officer Adolf Hitler needed to carry out his wishes without questions, without opposition. Keitel stayed close to the Führer, wherever he was. It was on his arm Hitler had walked from the bomb-shattered building at Rastenburg, injured, burned and bruised, his hair singed, his face blackened, after the abortive assassination attempt by Colonel Stauffenberg. Keitel himself had been shaken, but uninjured. . . .

  Keitel walked to the map table. The. officers gathered around him. He selected a map, and Stauffer spread it out on the table. It was a map of the Alpine areas of Bavaria, Austria and northern Italy. Keitel’s voice and delivery, as he went on, was familiar to them all from previous briefings. Yet this was to be something more than just another briefing. This was to be something extraordinary. They all felt it. The air itself was electric with their curiosity.

  “The time is now,” Keitel stated. “At the earliest opportunity we shall regroup—consolidate our forces as planned—here.”

  He placed his whole hand over the map. “The Bavarian Alpine Fortress—Die Alpenfestung. From here the war shall be won! I have recommended to the Fuhrer that Field Marshal Kesselring be given the Southern Command.”

  Keitel looked from officer to officer.

  The Americans have sustained a great blow in losing their war-intoxicated President at this crucial time. They are confused, demoralized. The German people—our troops—need a focusing point. Now. A bold, a dauntless stroke to rekindle them, to make the Alpenfestung truly invincible! We shall give it to them!”

  Stauffer watched the field marshal, spellbound. Did the man really believe what he was saying?

  Keitel went on.

  “The Americans have been struck to their knees by fate. We must act now. We must bring them all the way down! They have lost their political head. We shall cut off their military head as well! Meine Herren . . .”

  He paused dramatically.

  “Meine Herren, the Führer has ordered General Eisenhower killed. Now!

  15 Apr 1945

  Feldstein

  2047 hrs

  Riding on rubberless metal rims, the battered bicycle made a grating, crunching sound on the gravel at the roadside. A group of six men and a woman came walking along the dark country road. They carried bundles and knapsacks. One man had two old suitcases hanging from a rope across his shoulders, and the bicycle, pushed by another of the men, was loaded with bundled-up gear. All seven looked tired and bedraggled—a typical little group of aimless civilian refugees left in the wake of war. The night was dark; the sky was overcast, and there was a hint of a cold drizzle in the air.

  Three and a half miles west of Feldstein in the Frankfurt am Main area, the road wound through a sparsely wooded region. Here a large area had been enclosed in accordion-rolled barbed wire. Scattered among the trees mountainous stacks of jerry cans and drums could be made out dimly. At the guarded gate in the barbed wire a well-lit sign showed the area to be a U.S. Army Supply Dump, Class III Supplies. Gasoline and Oil.

  The group of weary refugees trudged past the gate on the opposite side of the road and disappeared around a bend.

  T5 Henry Williams watched them go. He was in his fourth hour of guard duty and he was itching to be relieved. He wondered briefly if he should call the sergeant of the guard and report the refugees. He decided against it. He wasn’t really sure what the hell the curfew hours were out here, and he wasn’t that eager to get his ass chewed out if he guessed wrong. Those Krauts could be perfectly okay—and anyway, they were gone. So why rock the boat?

  Around the bend in the road the barbed wire enclosure came to an end and the wire ran into the woods at a ninety-degree angle. The band of refugees shuffled across the roadbed toward the corner of the compound. They left the main road and started down a dirt path along the wire running through the darkened woods. And a striking metamorphosis took place.

  Almost instantly the weary group of wayworn refugees was transformed into a deadly efficient commando team. Two of the men at once picked up the old bicycle and carried it along, as they hurried silently down the path. There was not a sound to be heard. Then, as if on an unspoken command, they all sank to the ground next to the wire.

  For several moments they listened intently. Then they looked toward one man. He nodded. Not a word was spoken. A pair of wire clippers, a Schmeisser submachine gun and a couple of Luger pistols quickly appeared from the bundles, while four of the men loaded up with the knapsacks.

  Expertly, noiselessly two men cut the wire, strand by strand, until an opening was made, large enough to let them through one by one. The woman stayed behind with one of the men, armed with the submachine gun. The other five quickly melted away into the shadows among the stacks of cans and drums.

  Pfc David Rosenfeld was disgusted. Utterly disgusted. He’d been sitting in that Godforsaken Repl Depl back in Normandy for weeks, waiting for assignment. He was nineteen and raring to go. And what happened? Two days ago he finally got his orders.

  This is it! he had thought. I’m finally going to see some action. Tie down Germany, fellers, here I come!

  Rosenfeld kicked a stone in resentment. Some action! Guarding a fucking pile of tin cans. Walking peripheral post, yet. What a crock of shit!

  Rosenfeld looked toward a small group of huts located a short distance inside the area. A few jeeps, a staff car and an olive drab Cadillac sedan were parked outside. A couple of GI drivers lo
unged around the vehicles. Something was up at the Dump HQ. A lot of high brass had arrived not long ago. Probably another supply route snafu, Rosenfeld thought.

  He sighed. Sourly he contemplated the jerry cans, piled high in row upon row; the towering heaps of oil drums. Some action!

  He didn’t see the furtive shadow that darted between two stacks of jerry cans. He was too busy griping to himself. . . .

  The first blast obliterated Pfc Rosenfeld.

  It slammed a fist of roaring, boiling sound into the night sky. A split second later another explosion rocked the depot, and another. In an instant the dump was transformed into a blazing holocaust. Flaming gasoline, hurled into the air by the thunderous blasts, showered down on the HQ huts. The explosions shook the buildings violently.

  One of the drivers, drenched in gasoline, burst into flame. Like a flailing, fiery scarecrow he ran stumbling into a stack of jerry cans. Tumbling, the cans cascaded around him. Instantly the man was engulfed in a blinding eruption of fire.

  From the huts several men came running, silhouetted against the leaping flames. Desperately they tried to protect themselves from the flying incandescent debris. Some of them leaped into the two cars. The staff car was the first to race away. The sedan followed almost at once. Gathering speed, it careened down a path between huge piles of oil drums. Suddenly a tremendous explosion immediately next to the lurching car lifted it into the air and slammed it to the ground in a tortured mass of twisted metal showered with blazing oil. The car shuddered in its death throes, as the gas tank exploded into flame.

  Three bodies could be made out trapped in the funeral pyre. They were charred and mangled beyond recognition. But a rectangular piece of metal fastened to the front bumper could still be recognized, and on it the star of a U.S. general!