Speer looked at the Diplomat, and then back to Jodl.
“So you suggest what?” Albert asked.
“Well, there is a simple solution—move south. Simple. Move south. Stalin’s Achilles heel is oil—just as it is for us. And so we should attack south, protect our Ploesti oil fields and capture or destroy the Baku oil fields in the Caspian. We should collapse the current elephantine front to a line running from Brest-Litovsk to Kiev down to the Crimea and to Baku. I’ve discussed this with Rundstedt and he agrees. This line means we protect and strengthen Ploesti and Romania as a whole. We can also ferry fuel across the Black Sea. And it is warm—no fucking snow. With a line like this means we can have Turkey enter on our side, and if they don’t, then fuck them—we’re in a strong position to take Turkey by force. And with Turkey, we’re in a very strong position to take the Middle East and then...”
Albert finished the sentence,
“The Suez Canal.”
Jodl smiled.
“One of our biggest problems is that the current Chancellor is a political animal who deludes himself that he is a military expert. Lawyers kowtow to local hick politicians who promulgate the laws. Regardless of how bad these laws are, the lawyers take the laws as sacrosanct. Politicians are the same, they kowtow to the perceived leader, and because of the March of ‘23 to Rome, the Chancellor is enthralled by the short fat one in Rome. And this strutting Italian is the same as Koch—he is entirely capable of losing the war for us, and in a few months, not years. While the Italians fought well in the Great War, they have decayed into a gutless mob. Just look at last year in the Western Desert—what a fucking joke those dagos are. This insane love affair with Rome will cost us dearly, mark my words. But if we attack overland we do not need these worthless monkeys. I agree with Albert’s professor—oil is the key to this war, not people, not armies, and certainly not cities. When we take or control Baku, Stalin is done for. But this is just a pipe dream in the current political climate.”
From the main house, Jodl’s ADC came running down the stone steps. In his hand was a sheet of pink paper—an urgent wireless message.
The ADC bit his lip and said nothing and passed the flimsy to Jodl.
“Thank you, Schäfer. Keep this strictly to yourself, and put the army on full alert on my authority. Get in contact with all the batons and tell them to expect to get a Category One message from me in 30 minutes.”
The ADC saluted and raced back to the house.
“What is it?” Milch asked with rare curiosity.
Jodl passed the urgent wireless message on pink flimsy to Milch.
Milch jumped to his feet.
“Holy fucking shit.”
The paper was passed to Albert.
The message read:
*** URGENT ***
FLIGHT D-2527 CRASHED ON TAKEOFF STOP
NO SURVIVORS STOP
REPEAT NO SURVIVORS STOP
*** URGENT ***
— 00 —
“Well, this does change the landscape a little. Doesn’t it?”
Without meaning to, Albert laughed at Jodl’s massive understatement.
“Blessing in disguise,” Jodl said.
“Yes, yes it is, it truly is. He did so love using Fatso’s old Ju-52 with the red markings of von Richthofen,” Milch replied.
“Well, gentlemen, this event has changed our country’s destiny; I will tell both of you that Russia is a problem and will be our downfall. I have wanted to make these changes, but I have been overruled. But now, the situation has suddenly changed, or should I say improved?”
As Albert and Milch contemplated Jodl’s comments, a disheveled figure was seen running down the steps.
“The news. The news. The news. It is terrible. It is the end of us all. He’s gone. He’s gone.”
Jodl was the first to speak, “Bormann, whatever do you mean?”
“He is gone. Gone. He is gone.”
“Who is gone?” Jodl asked, teasingly.
“The Chief, the boss, the Chancellor—he’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“He’s dead”
“Who is dead?”
“The boss, our leader—killed.”
“No, not possible; here man, sit down, enjoy this fine sunny Bavarian weather, enjoy yourself.”
“Enjoy, are you mad? Are you living in cloud cuckoo land? He’s gone. Look at this message.”
Bormann passed a garbled telephone message from one of Bormann’s lackeys.
Bormann sat down in the gazebo, making no sound.
Milch stood and quietly walked two steps behind Bormann. Jodl looked up and without changing his expression gave the slightest of nod of agreement. The bullet from Milch’s luger chipped the left incisor of Bormann’s lower jaw as it left his skull and proceeded to nick one of the granite flag stones on the late Bormann’s gazebo. Bormann’s body slumped forward, like a marathon runner exhausted after finishing a grueling race.
The Diplomat replaced his luger in its holster, puffed his cigar and said,
“Of all of the many, many cunts in this Reich, this cunt has to have been the cuntiest cunt of the worst fucking cunts, a total cunt of cunts.”
Jodl smiled, “Not a fan?”
Slightly nervous and nonplussed, Albert asked,
“But what if it is not true—we’re all in deep horse shit?”
“Why? He is just a casualty of war. Come on, dump him over the cliff. I am sure my flimsy was correct. If it isn’t, we’ve done the country a service. If the flimsy is false, just deny it when asked.”
“He’s right, dump the cunt,” Milch added.
With that, the three men manhandled Bormann’s body over the cliff. For a brief second they could see it cartwheeling as it fell. A small sound a few seconds later was heard indicating Bormann had reached his final resting place.
“It’s over 900 meters down there and the foxes will clean up the body and it will be weeks before it is discovered,” Jodl said with without a modicum of emotion.
Jodl was wrong. It was not until ‘47 that the body was eventually discovered. As luck would have it, the body fell into the high branches of a pine and lay tightly wedged there for six years. And the body was discovered by—of all people—an American photographer on assignment for the National Geographic magazine hired to photograph the birds of southern Bavaria. The photographer climbed the tree in question and thought first he had come upon an elaborate nest. Only when he saw the bleached bones did he realize this had once been a man. The photographer almost fell out of the tree. The entire affair was by then ancient history.
“Let us assume the gods are not playing a trick on us, what do you gentlemen suggest are our next steps?” Albert asked.
“A list,” was Milch’s instant reply, withdrawing his ever-present small note pad from the left chest pocket of his uniform. (Milch was famous for his note taking—most photographs show him with ever-present cigar, scribbling away like a Teutonic Edward Gibbon.)
“Yes, I agree,” said Jodl.
Albert’s frown was addressed by Jodl.
“Actually we need two lists. First, a list of the political changes needed. Second, a list of the military changes needed. For the first, we need to stabilize the country—at the moment the country is more like 1748 than 1941—cabals of half-mad princes all struggling for power and influence. This must change. And this crazy and hare-brained campaign in Russia must be corrected today, now, this afternoon, not tomorrow.”
“Until one hour ago our problem was a very simple one—Emil’s luck was that of a beginner, or more specifically, amateur’s luck. In 1940 in France we were weaker along the entire front line except for the Ardennes. We did have the benefit of fighting the Poilus. You know, the ‘hairy ones’ as the French populi called the undisciplined, unwashed and filthy French soldiers who were so often drunk on cheap wine. But the Ardennes attack was a huge gamble, a massive gamble, and a breathtakingly dangerous gamble. I am still amazed we got away with it. It wa
s only the army’s superb leadership that pulled it off.”
At this last comment, Milch added,
“Albert, this is completely and absolutely true. I spoke to my pilots of the so-called Storks—the very light observation aircraft that can land on the top of a tobacco tin, and they were universal in their praise of our army. Of course, this was against the decadent French, who always prefer surrender to honor.”
Jodl continued,
“In the Ardennes, a single column of our armor, end-to-end, would have stretched 1,600 kilometers. The foreign press created this mad word called ‘blitzkrieg’—lightening war they called it. A better word would have been ‘Lucky-German-And-Badly-Led-French.’ And in France we just got through by the skin of our teeth—the French had more tanks, bigger tanks, better tanks, more powerful tanks. But the French were so gutless and so weak, we would send four, or six, or even eight of our little baby tanks to attack one of their behemoth Char B monsters. With this tactical superiority, we won, but it was a damn close run thing. Of course, we were more than happy to take the laurels, and the French used it as an excuse for their breathtakingly incompetent generals. Do you know that the French commander-in-chief Gamelin did not even have a telephone at his headquarters; all messages arrived by motor-bicyclists, and no messages could be delivered for two hours at noon—they were having lunch?”
“Shit,” was Milch’s succinct comment.
Jodl continued,
“So after the May ‘40 campaign in France, all of our political leadership caught that most dangerous of diseases—Victory Disease. A rank amateur gains the confidence of the people and bombasts the armed forces, and aided by his shit heads—like that wingless eagle we just tossed over the cliff—he took control of the nation and dominated all military planning. There is a difference between the actor—which all good politicians are—and an actual leader. Albert, you know as well as I do how the late Austrian had four departments in Berlin all doing the same work, just so he could set one against the other. This is no way to manage a country. And remember, the flashier the leader, the more completely full of horse shit he is—Stalin is boring, the short, fat dago is pure show and nothing else. And who are we attacking?”
Jodl’s comments were ended by his ADC, this time walking, making his way to the huge gazebo.
“General Jodl, all Field Marshals have been notified.”
“Good, we shall be up to the house shortly.”
The ADC left.
Pensively Jodl said,
“Life is so odd—moments ago we were talking about the correct but unattainable goal for Russia, then suddenly it is now completely attainable. I suggest the following steps: First, the Army occupies all the towns. Second, the Gestapo leaders are arrested and all Gestapo offices are sealed by the Army. Third, after these first two steps, we tell the poison dwarf to broadcast to the nation, from here. Before his defenestration, Bormann mentioned to me that little Paul was coming here today to do his typical brown-nosing of his beloved master. Now, the small matter of the new chancellor. I suggest the three of us are announced as the interim committee. This way the Army will be assured, the Air Force will be assured, and the foreign press always liked Albert.”
Jodl was rewarded with one of Albert’s rare smiles.
“I can tell you, gentlemen, that I feel a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” Jodl said.
The three men made their way back to the main house.
It was a pleasure to watch Jodl working in a crisis—it was as though it was just a weekend chess game in the park; no emotion, just clear and concise instructions. But for Jodl—with the superb training of a senior Wehrmacht officer—it was not a crisis. Just a change in plans. First, he spoke by radio to the commanders at the front. As expected, all were cautious—the Röhm purge was still a recent memory. But to a brother senior officer, they were also frank in their relief; they all hated the little Austrian with false teeth, bad breath and chronic flatulence; the quiet, conspiratorial jokes about his endless farting and terrible odors were legion. Then, Jodl spoke to all the regional commanders and told all to secure their cities, but as a first step they were to seize the local Gestapo offices and lock up everyone they found inside; this scum would be dealt with later.
Goebbels arrived in the early evening in a panic about rumors he had picked up on the road.
There were many—Albert was one of them—who wondered how Goebbels had survived Kristallnacht, the insane mob’s attack that almost destroyed the Reich’s finances and had successfully turned all the world against Germany—Roosevelt, Halifax, and a host of others saw the Ninth of November as the Rubicon. As the gobemouches told it, it was only little Paul’s wife that saved him—“her ovaries rattled whenever she was in the presence of Paul’s boss,” was the commonest view. But, for Germany it had been a disaster—America’s ambassador recalled; worldwide horror; the real and justified panic at the Reichsbank.
Goebbels became apoplectic when he saw Jodl, Milch, Albert and the commander of the local SS unit all smoking cigars and drinking champagne in the great room with their boots on the low coffee table—the highest act of sacrilege.
Until that day the coffee table had acted as a sort of tiny shrine to the British aristocracy, covered as it was with back copies of The Tatler magazine with photographs of smiling corgis and their happy, albeit very dim-witted, masters. The magazines were devoured by the late host until they were dog-eared. In the photographs of the smug, smiling, supercilious faces, there was the superior caste rightly destined to rule a great empire; at least this was what the poor peasant boy from Linz wanted to see. But in spite of his boyish phantasies and dreams, all the magazines actually proved was simply the desperate need for a second Cromwell, one this time that would do a proper and complete gutting.
“What are you doing, what are you doing—you know smoking in the great room is forbidden? It’s a deep insult. When I am asked, as I surely will be asked, I will have to tell the truth.”
“Well that will be a first,” said Milch, who detested Goebbels.
“Are you all mad?”
Albert passed the small pink piece of paper to Goebbels.
“Oh God, it is true. God, we’re doomed, we’re all doomed.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Milch said with real vitriol.
“The Army has occupied all the towns; the Gestapo scum are already under lock and key; and I have extra flights flying and reporting to the local Army commanders. God is in his heaven and your late boss is probably in the other place.”
Jodl rose and walked over; putting his arm around little Paul’s shoulder, he said softly,
“Paul, this is what you are going to do. Albert has put together a small announcement, which you are going to read, now, from the broadcast room down stairs.”
Goebbels read the hand written note, and reflexively said,
“I cannot say this, I will need to clear this with...,” then he stopped as he realized the completeness of the situation for the first time.
“But.”
“Paul, look, here is the situation: Albert, Erhard and I together are the new chancellor committee—we are your new bosses—we’re the ones with the power. So let’s all go and make the announcement; otherwise Albert will, and if Albert has to then, well, that will not be good for you.”
Ten minutes later Dr. Paul Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, broadcast to a shocked nation and an even more shocked world. He told the microphone that the late leader had specifically asked for no memorial and no special services. Of course this was completely false, but Albert’s goal was to erase immediately from the German consciousness and psyche any memory of the bitter, petty and vindictive Austrian in hours, not weeks.
Then the good doctor, somewhat reluctantly, called editors of all the German and Austrian dailies and told them to lead tomorrow’s front page with a large piece about a sudden snow fall in Kitzbühel and how this was the first time since 1822 that such an amazing event had o
ccurred in September. As the editors had no information, the papers’ accounts varied wildly to a comic degree—in some it was a light dusting at the start house; for others, it was ankle-deep on the Rasmusleitn. And the happy phrase “September Snow In Kitzbühel” entered the German language as an astonishing—but not completely unwelcome—event.
13: A Gift For Ayinotchka
Barcelona
Monday, 15 September 1941
Albert arrived in the early afternoon. The streets were dozing fitfully in the afternoon heat. He had taken a taxi from the train station to the Grand Caudillo hotel, frantically renamed to honor the short and pot-bellied conquistador, who had conquered Spain from his exile in Spanish Morocco courtesy of the German Luftwaffe—it was said that without the Luftwaffe, Franco would have remained exiled in that foul and desolate hell hole.
The lobby was almost empty with just three sleepy bellhops and a single officious concierge, who brightly greeted the modest German businessman, looking for a tip. The two resident whores seated in the lobby drinking coffee glanced at him for a second and judged him boring and not worth approaching—no Latin heat there and no interest or desire for a mid-afternoon dalliance, however exhilarating.
The senior bellhop carried Albert’s single modest case to his suite on the top floor. After tipping the bellhop, Albert surveyed the suite. It was typically Spanish—extremely high ceilings to counter the overpowering heat of the Spanish summer. The huge bathroom was deliciously cool in white marble with small, square, white tiles on the floor. The bathroom was dominated by a large, old-fashioned white enameled bath that proudly sat in the center of the room on its cast iron claw feet. Out of professional interest, Albert briefly ran the cold and hot water taps—water gushed out of both in a torrent and the hot was indeed very, very hot; the massive bath would only take a minute or two to fill.
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