Germanica

CHAPTER 18

Lena sat primly in a chair beside Tanner’s desk. He had to fight the urge to reach out and grab her and, judging from the smile on her face, she was thinking the same thing. They lived in a world with little privacy, which meant few opportunities to carry their relationship farther than a few swift, almost stolen, kisses. Her tent mates had offered to rent their tent for a couple of hours or simply look the other way while they made love, but the offers had been laughingly rejected.

Lena shook her head. “I have interviewed all of the women you rescued. There were sixteen of them and two of them actually were prostitutes. The rest were kidnapped and forced into it. Where they were being kept in the compound actually wasn’t a brothel. They were taken to places where there were GIs and were used there. Their captors kept all the money, of course. The girls were poorly fed and several had venereal diseases.”

“Which didn’t slow down a bunch of horny GIs, did it?”

“Of course not. Nothing would.”

Tanner shook his head, then smiled warmly. “So you’ve absolutely decided to come to the States?”

“Yes. And as I’ve said before, I will continue my search for my father from there. Who knows, if he’s survived, maybe he’s headed to America as well. And yes, I will be following you, so make room wherever you plan on being.”

Lena winked at him and walked away.

Almost immediately, Cullen came and took her seat. He looked stricken. “What’s your problem, Cullen?”

“Maybe a big one, Tanner. Would you kindly tell me why we’re being issued brand new gas masks?”

* * *

Harry Truman clenched the edge of his desk. He was so shocked and angry that he could scarcely speak. The idea that the Nazis would use innocent people as human shields was beyond repugnant. The report from Allen Dulles had reached him within hours after he had met with Hahn and had been confirmed by camera-carrying airplanes flying over the area.

General Marshall put down a copy of one of the photos. The quality was poor since it had been sent by wire. Better copies were coming, but would take at least a day. These showed the outlines of camps and barracks just as Hahn had said. There was no way that Bregenz could be bombed without the slaughter of great numbers of innocents. Already he was catching hell for using the atomic bomb on Japan despite the fact that destroying those two cities had effectively ended the war and likely saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. That millions of Japanese had been saved from slow, awful deaths from starvation was also forgotten or ignored by many people.

“How many options are left, General?”

“Not that many. We keep nibbling at them, but it’s your decision whether or not to continue planning on a massive attack.”

“Keep planning. The bleeding hearts who don’t seem to recognize that war means killing people will accept civilian battle casualties rather than bombing casualties. Well, that’s too bad. If the innocent people in Bregenz are harmed, it will be on Goebbels’ head.”

“I assume that a negotiated settlement is still out of the question.”

“It is, although I will accept, even authorize, the escape of any of the higher-ups in the Nazi command. If we can in get the chief rats to leave the ship, then maybe the little rats and assorted vermin will follow. Dulles is right. We can always catch them later. We can use the OSS or whatever organization succeeds it to help search for them wherever they might find refuge.” He smiled tightly, angrily. “In the meantime, we will also prepare for other extreme measures.”

* * *

Winnie clutched Ernie’s arm and watched intently as the steady trickle of humanity left Germany. It seemed strange to not refer to the area as Germanica, but even the Nazis had buried the term. Now, if only they could bury the Nazis, she thought.

A sedan pulled up to the German side of the gate. German soldiers wearing SS armbands pushed other people out of the way. Winnie held her breath. “The short guy is Captain Diehl,” Ernie said. “He’s a real monster. What happened to Marie and Sven was his fault.”

She gasped as two people were led out of the car and towards the gate. They leaned on each other for support. They would have fallen otherwise. Neither Diehl nor any other soldiers offered to help. She wanted to cry.

And then they were through. Winnie started to run but Ernie grabbed her arm. “Hold back. Walk up to them and greet them warmly. Do not let the bastards see how concerned you are.”

She nodded and let Ernie guide her. Marie and Sven had stopped and were standing, looking around. They were confused. They didn’t know what had happened or where they were. Winnie quickly walked the last few steps and grabbed Marie’s arms.

“Marie, it’s me, Winnie. You’re safe. Sven’s safe, too.” But badly hurt, she could tell. He was barely conscious.

Recognition dawned. “Winnie, what’s happening to us? Where are we?”

“It’s over, Marie. You’re in Switzerland.”

Marie gasped and sagged. She would have fallen if Winnie hadn’t grabbed her. Ernie had already taken control of Sven and was heading him towards a parked ambulance. A small hospital served Arbon. They would stay there until they were strong enough to travel to Bern and then out of the country. It would also allow a chance to debrief them. Neither Winnie nor Ernie wanted to hear the grisly details of their imprisonment, but it had to be done. Diehl and Hahn might get away this time, but a strong case would be built up against them. When caught, they would either spend the rest of their lives in prison or be hanged. Sven and Marie’s war was over.

* * *

“Now what do we do?” asked Hummel. Before them and below them lay the deep blue waters of Lake Constance. They were dug in on a hill to the north of Bregenz and along the coast. It was heavily wooded and they hoped it made them invisible. They knew better, of course, and made every effort to hide what they had done. Even so, they froze when American planes flew overhead-which they did with regularity. Both men, along with the rest of their unit that now numbered a dozen, longed to smoke a cigarette. They had been warned, however, that smoking in a forest was not a good idea for several reasons. First, it might start a fire and, second, keen eyes might spot wisps of smoke lifting into the sky. The same applied to smoking at night where the glow of a cigarette could be seen or the striking of a match create a sudden flare.

They also quickly realized that this meant that warming or cooking food would be next to impossible. Cold rations would be the menu for the foreseeable future. Nobody was happy, but it beat getting strafed or bombed.

A battery of four 88mm guns was dug in several hundred yards to their right and another to their left. When the shooting finally started, they planned on being as far away as possible from those guns. American retaliation would be savage and overwhelming. They had even gone so far as to dig bunkers two hundred yards behind their main position and in an area where the hills hid them from prying eyes on the lake.

Lieutenant Pfister crawled into the foxhole with Hummel and Schubert, who was staring at the lake and smiling. It was a beautiful scene and they hoped it gave Schubert some peace of mind. Although he seemed to be gradually getting better, he occasionally suffered minor setbacks.

“Too bad we can’t arrange for Schubert to be surrendered to the Yanks,” said Hummel. “He might get proper treatment from them.”

“Or they might just shoot him. We don’t know what they do with crazy people. If we could surrender him, perhaps we could arrange for us to surrender as well. You do realize that we’re about as far from the American lines as we can get? I wouldn’t mind going on holiday here in the mountains, but that is out of the question thanks to dear, dead Adolf Hitler.” Pfister didn’t even bother to look around to see if anyone was listening in on them. The SS rarely showed up at the front lines anymore.

Pfister now commanded a company consisting of twenty men. He’d earlier informed Hummel that he might get a battlefield commission. Hummel had told him to shove the commission-which resulted in gales of laughter from Pfister.

Hummel nodded and continued to look through his binoculars. An American gunboat patrolled a couple of miles off shore. It was within easy range of German artillery, but they would not fire and give away their positions or waste ammunition. The squat little craft might have been a tugboat at one point in its life. It had since been heavily armored and rode low in the water. It also had a 155mm artillery piece pointing at the German shore. So far it was the only American vessel they’d seen, but they thought there would soon be others. Their future was grim.

Pfister tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the sky. Contrails were visible. The Americans were watching from on high. No bombs were dropping. Apparently the informal truce was still holding. Both he and Hummel thought the use of human shields was repugnant but was far better than being bombed to oblivion. They also agreed that whatever fools thought you could apply rules to warfare were out of their minds. Survival was a soldier’s foremost goal. To hell with bravery and glory and doing the right thing, was the common thought.

“Lieutenant, so what do we do besides wait for them to attack us?”

“Would you rather attack them? At least we’re alive for the moment, while doing something foolish would be absolute suicide.”

Hummel laughed softly. “Maybe we could build ourselves a very small boat and row out to the Americans, or maybe go along the coast to Switzerland.”

“And maybe both sides would blow us out of the water without asking questions. No, I urge you to forget any ideas like that.”

“Lieutenant, do you realize that you merely urged me; you didn’t order me.”

It was Pfister’s turn to laugh. “Hummel, we’ve come too far for that sort of nonsense. I just want to live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up. Of course I first have to survive this war and then find someone foolish enough to marry me before I can have children, much less grandchildren.”

* * *

It took a long time to get an infantry division on the road and, when it finally did, the caravan of trucks, artillery, cars went on forever. Pilots in spotter planes, the military’s version of the Piper Cub, said it looked like an olive drab tapeworm that had no beginning or end. The division was headed towards the German city of Oberlingen, which was on the northern coast of Lake Constance. The U.S. Seventh Army was firmly ensconced in the city. From there, rumor had them moving down the coast to Friedrichshafen or even Lindau, which was only a couple of miles from Bregenz.

Nor were they alone on their trek. The Tenth Mountain Division was heading for the same location, only taking different roads. Tanner had a sneaking idea that the Tenth would be attacking up the hills while the 105th moved along the coast. It seemed like a decent plan and nobody had come up with a better idea.

Maps and photographs told Tanner and the others what they would be facing. There was a narrow strip of what could even be called a beach that ran along the lake and inland for a few yards up to several hundred. In some areas there were narrow roads leading inland. Everywhere, however, were the steep and heavily wooded hills that ultimately led to the Alps. There would be no climbing the more rugged mountains, at least not by the men of the 105th, although they might have to climb some of the hills.

“Are you confident that you could make it to the top?” asked Tanner.

“Yes,” said Cullen. He was quiet and thoughtful and not his normal self. “I just don’t relish the idea with somebody shooting down at me or lobbing grenades as I try to haul my ass to the top.”

“We’ll probably have to carry full packs as well,” Tanner added.

“What great joy,” Cullen muttered. “Whatever happens I just want it to end the war with Mother Cullen’s oldest boy in one piece.”

Don’t we all? thought Tanner. What was a concern to everyone was the fact that brand new gas masks had been issued, replacing the ones the GIs had so cavalierly tossed away months earlier. And, unlike the past, there were strict orders for soldiers to have them in their possession at all times. Clearly, there was a serious suspicion that the Germans would introduce the horrible weapon as a desperation measure.

Tanner had seen photos from the last war of long lines of gassed soldiers who’d been blinded and were being led by the hand away from the trenches. Some soldiers survived, but many had died and others been seriously scarred, both mentally and physically. Back in the States, he’d seen a man in an army hospital coughing away what remained of his life, the victim of a gas attack a generation earlier. Adolf Hitler himself had been gassed and the consensus was that it was too bad he hadn’t been killed. Some gasses required the victim to inhale them, while others needed only a brief touch to the skin to kill.

Nor was gas particularly accurate. Once released as clouds of death, it went where it wished and as the wind blew it. It was like a mad dog that had been let loose among tethered sheep.

No wonder it was so dreaded. One of the smaller blessings was that Germany hadn’t introduced it, at least not yet and doubtless for fear of retaliation from enemies who controlled the skies. So what had changed? Was Germany so desperate that she would risk annihilation?

Then he had a thought that chilled him. What if it wasn’t the Germans who might introduce poison gas?

* * *

Sergeant Archie Dixon had gotten himself a brand new Sherman tank and he liked it. The tank was a vast improvement over the one the Germans had destroyed and taken so many of his crew with it. This new tank had a higher velocity 76mm gun and could likely handle anything the Germans had, with the exception of the Panther and Tiger series. But then, he thought with as much happiness as he allowed himself, the Nazis didn’t have any more of those beasts.

Along with a fresh tank, he had a newly minted crew and they all hated him, and this was fine by Archie. He’d lost one crew and didn’t want to lose another if he could possibly help it. Of the five men in the original crew, he was the only one to survive physically unscathed, although he’d spent some intense time talking to chaplains and psychiatrists before they would let him back into the war. The chaplains tried to commiserate with him and he thought that the head doctors were crazier than he had been. One of the things he now understood fully was don’t ever become friends with the crew. In his first tank, they had all been friends, buddies. They’d gone through basic and tank training and had become close. They’d partied together, chased women and fought as a team. Dixon had known all about their personal lives and what they wanted for a future. He’d known who had kids and whose wife was giving him a hard time and maybe sleeping with some damn 4-F.

Now three of them were dead and the fourth one spent his time so heavily medicated he might as well be. He had brutally severe burns on his legs. A doctor had told Archie that the man might walk again, but always with a limp and always with pain. Since Archie had been their commander, he’d blamed himself. He knew he was being irrational, but didn’t care. They had been his responsibility. Therefore he would never let anyone get as close again. Losing strangers was bad enough, but losing friends just hurt too much.

Thus, he kept his new crew at arm’s length. He never used their names. They were Driver, Gunner, Loader, and Co-driver. He was Sergeant. Not Sarge, Sergeant. Nor did the tank have a name, and that further pissed off the crew. Tough shit, he thought. People have names, not lumps of metal.

He trained them hard, and that too annoyed them. The war was almost over, he’d heard them say, so why doesn’t he lighten up? Because the war isn’t quite over, you assholes, he’d yelled at them. And until that happy day, he was going to train them and train them. One of them actually went to a chaplain to complain about Archie’s behavior. Archie wanted to kill the whiny little shit, but the chaplain calmed him down.

As to where they were all going, it was no secret. There was some town on Lake Constance with an unpronounceable name and they would then be the spearpoint that would drive down the coast and to the German capital of Bregenz. It was almost a given that they would again be alongside the 105th Infantry and that was good. They’d worked together before and knew each other. He snorted and one of the crewmen looked at him, puzzled. He’d just realized that he probably knew more about some of the men of the 105th than he did of his own crew, and that pleased him. At this stage of his life he wanted no friends, no entanglements, no sentiment.

* * *

Hans Gruber’s devotion to the cause of Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels was fading rapidly. He had just found out that both General Hahn and Captain Diehl had disappeared during the night. “Disappeared” had become a euphemism for deserting, and this upset him deeply. He didn’t care about Diehl, whom he thought was a slimy shit and who had tried to caress Gruber’s leg. But Hahn was his hero, a man who had made him a Werewolf. He was a general and a confidante of Josef Goebbels.

What was he supposed to do now? Worse, many other leaders of the new Reich were also fading away, leaving the junior officers and enlisted men to their fates. If the Americans caught him, would they treat him honorably as a prisoner of war or as a terrorist? He felt that the Americans at that base had been legitimate targets, and that included their general. Would the Yanks feel the same way or would they call him a murderer and hang him?

He rolled over and stared at Astrid Schneider. They were in her bed at her parent’s quarters and she was, as usual when she was with him, quite naked. She was the first woman he’d ever made love to and he wondered if he was in love with her. She had repeatedly told him that she loved him and he’d told her that he loved her, but he wondered if he meant it. Or did he just like getting laid? Whenever he said he loved her, she became a tigress and that was good.

“Everyone is leaving Germany,” Hans said.

“My brother and father are still here. They will not abandon the Reich.”

“Nor will I, although I think you should make plans to go to Switzerland with your mother.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“And I don’t want you to leave either. But I would feel better knowing that you were safe. Think about it. You serve no real purpose here, except of course,” he added with a grin, “satisfying a brave German soldier’s lusty needs.”

She laughed and punched him on his thin shoulder. “My father is deathly afraid that he will be considered a war criminal. My mother told him that if the Allies arrested everyone who’d done what my father did, there’d be no one left. My father may have done some things that the Allies will doubtless consider wrong and he may have to spend a little time in a prison, but he’s done nothing serious. He’s not a Himmler.”

“What about that girl you said he raped, the one who beat up you and your brother?”

“What of it? Millions of German women were raped by Russians and others. My mother and I were fortunate to make it here safely.”

“Astrid, I would still feel better if you were in Switzerland.”

“All right. I will get my mother and we will leave, tomorrow if I can do it.”

He sighed happily. He had no idea how deep his feelings were for this girl, but he would be much happier if she was out of the war. Then he could concentrate on his task, if only he could now define it. If the cause of the Reich was truly doomed, then he should be looking out for himself as much as he was looking out for Astrid Schneider.

Astrid smiled. “I have one other piece of information for you, my dearest.”

Hans yawned. She had worn him out. “And what is that?”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

Shit.

* * *

Josef Goebbels took the small box from his pants pocket and looked at it. How many times had he done just that in the past few days? The box was innocuous. It could have held a tie tack or a ring but not anything expensive. It didn’t say Cartier or some other elegant jeweler. All it had was a swastika.

He opened it and looked at the small pills inside. They were cyanide. One would be more than enough, but he had asked for two in case he dropped one in his haste to end it all. He would not be taken alive. As he had promised an eternity ago, he would join Adolf Hitler in death. The world would honor him for his bravery and devotion. Besides, he did not want to end up on exhibit as was happening to so many of the Reich’s leaders. The Allies had announced that a series of trials would commence at Nuremberg, beginning with the highest-ranking Nazis in their custody and working down to the smaller fish. If captured, he would be the ranking Nazi. He would be displayed and mocked like an animal at some perverted zoo. Magda understood that, but the children would not. Therefore, he could not be captured.

So why then did his hands shake when he held the box? Goebbels took a deep breath. His hands shook, he decided, because he was as afraid of death as anyone. The Nazi empire that had once stretched from the Pyrenees almost to the Urals was now reduced to a few hundred square miles of desolate and useless mountains. The larger portion of the army was still fronting the Americans near Innsbruck, while a decent force remained to defend Bregenz. The generals were confident that the Americans would have to come down the narrow valleys that led from Innsbruck to the small town that was the current capital of Germany. He did not share their confidence, but he deferred to their knowledge.

Field Marshal Schoerner knocked and entered. Goebbels tried to hide the pill box but wasn’t fast enough. “I will not take cyanide,” Schoerner announced. “If and when the time comes, I will do everything in my power to die in battle.”

Goebbels gasped. Had Schoerner just insulted him? “Are you implying that I’m less of a man for considering poison?”

“Of course not, Minister. I merely state the obvious, that we come from different backgrounds. If I cannot get killed, I will try to shoot myself. If that doesn’t work, one of my aides will finish the task.”

“Will your aide get a promotion for the job?”

“Quite likely,” Schoerner said. He flushed when he belatedly realized that Goebbels had been sarcastic.

“Do you have any good news at all?”

“None whatsoever. Our time may be counted in days, or at best, weeks. We are almost out of food and ammunition and the Americans now control the lake. This means that they might try to attack from it.”

“The Swiss will not permit that.”

“Minister, the Swiss will not have a choice. From what intelligence we’ve been able to gather it looks like the Americans scent blood and wish to come in for the kill. When that happens, the Swiss will stand aside. Further, the number of desertions is increasing. Only about half the men we brought into the Redoubt remain with us. Yesterday, some enterprising soldiers overwhelmed their officers, stole a small boat, and sailed off towards an American patrol craft. They were welcomed with open arms.”

Goebbels laughed harshly. “Do you think they would welcome us with open arms?” Yes, he thought. Open arms-and a noose.

“Minister,” Schoerner said softly, “I think it is time to complete plans for using the bomb.”

* * *

Any plans for the bomb were limited by the capacity and range of the two V1 rockets they’d brought to Bregenz. The rockets had a range of two hundred miles and carried a one-ton warhead. They were also horribly inaccurate at long range. They had chosen the V1s over the V2s because they were much easier to move and launch.

Some thought had been given to arming the rockets with poison gas, but it was quickly decided that a ton of gas would not accomplish much except to anger the Americans and perhaps cause them to retaliate. With a two-hundred-mile range, it meant that major targets, such as Paris, London, or Rome were impossible reaches. They could only hit cities in Switzerland or northern Italy or, of course, Germany, which would be pointless.

Therefore, any target would have to be closer, much closer. The scientists had toyed with the idea of enlarging the warhead to house a greater atom bomb by reducing the fuel that would be unnecessary if the target was close. They had quickly come to the conclusion that reengineering the rocket would take more time than they had. Thus, they were stuck with a short-range rocket with a one-ton atomic warhead. Doctor Esau had been of the opinion that the American atomic bombs had weighed at least five tons. Thus again, they had a small nuclear device. It had to work and they had to convince the Yanks that they had more than one. The second rocket was for show only and some other dummy rockets were being constructed out of wood.

Schoerner smiled. “What do the Americans fear more than anything else, Minister?”

Goebbels returned the smile. “Why, casualties, of course. The American soldier is a coward and his leaders are politicians who are afraid to lose soldiers in battle. If our one bomb can decimate a large American force and if we can convince them that we have more of them, they will negotiate.”

“But the bomb has to work,” said Schoerner. “And Doctor Esau and his people have pledged their lives that it will.”

* * *

Generals Truscott and Devers watched as elements of the two-division assault force gathered itself. Devers was uncomfortable with his position. Even though he was the ranking officer, he had the uneasy feeling that Truscott was in charge and that Truscott would complain to Ike if he didn’t like what was going on. That would be like being taken to the woodshed, a humiliation that he could not tolerate. His pride would force him to resign.

Of course, he had to admit that the gravelly voiced Texan had done a magnificent job and had given Devers little to worry about.

The Rhine was clear, both of debris and enemy forces, all the way down to Lake Constance. That it meandered all over the place as it approached the Alps was irrelevant. It meant that small armed craft could sail its length and emerge in the lake. It also meant that many scores of landing craft could do the same thing and these were congregating along the shore at Oberlingen. When the army moved south to Lindau, the landing craft would follow. The army would board them and launch an attack from the lake. The Swiss would be even more furious than they already were, but nobody gave a damn about the feelings of the Swiss. Getting the landing craft and other support vessels to Oberlingen meant riding the Rhine along its length and in some cases cruising through small chunks of Swiss territory. There had been no incidents, but the American high command was confident that German sympathizers had relayed precise information about the American movements to the Nazis in Bregenz.

“How soon?” Devers asked, resenting that he didn’t know all the information.

“A couple of days at the most. A lot depends on the winds.”

Yes, Devers thought sorrowfully, the winds. Was the United States really about to commit an atrocity on the scale of what the Nazis had done?

* * *

Tanner and Cullen watched the generals have their meeting on a hill. Many others watched as well. It wasn’t every day that high-ranking officers displayed themselves as Devers and Truscott were now doing.

“What do you think?” asked Tanner.

“This means war,” he said solemnly. “Oh yes, I forgot. We’re already at war. This means that we’re going to go into battle very soon and that’s not a surprise either.”

“I hope this is the final one.”

He and Lena had managed a couple of minutes together that morning. Each was terrified that the next battle would be someone’s last one. While Tanner was in the greater danger, the incident in which General Evans had been killed and Lena shot at had showed them that danger was imminent and everywhere. Their embraces had been intense, as each knew that it could be the last for a long time, perhaps forever. Tanner was somewhat comforted by the fact that she was well behind the lines. But would that matter if long-range artillery came into play, or if someone made a tragic mistake, or, God forbid, the rumors about the gas masks were true.