Himmler's War

CHAPTER 10

Morgan’s flight over liberated Paris was simply a joy ride. He’d informed Whiteside that he needed to check out the Piper’s engine and then told Snyder he could stay home. Neither man believed for a second that there was anything wrong with the Piper Cub which now had the silhouette of a German truck painted on its side. Instead of a regular copilot, Levin sat in the back seat, enjoying the ride and the view.

The 74th was resting. For that matter, almost all the army was sitting on its hands, catching its breath and licking its wounds. The crossing of the Seine had not only resulted in heavy casualties, but had used up vast reserves of fuel and ammunition. Until replenished, it would be unwise, even dangerous, to place the army in a position where they’d have to fight a possibly better armed and well-supplied Nazi force.

Nor would resupply be quick. There were still no major ports close to the Allied armies. Cherbourg was still being rebuilt after demolition by the Nazis and Marseilles was too far away. Stoddard had informed the regiment that the rumors were true-Montgomery’s attempted landings to the north had been a disaster. Britain’s First Airborne Division had finally fought its way to the sea and the remnants were being taken off by U.S. Navy warships, a further insult to the Brits. The British Airborne force had lost half its men and virtually all its equipment. Even those who disliked Monty and the British were appalled. It meant the Nazi tiger still had claws and teeth. Overall the Brits had suffered more than fifteen thousand casualties and there were echoes in Parliament for Churchill and Monty to explain themselves.

Patton’s crossing south of Paris had been successful because he’d not used bomber attacks like Hodges had. The bombers in Jack’s area had tipped off the Germans as to where the attacks would come. Instead, Patton had the bombers drop their load a full thirty miles south of his intended crossing point, which had thoroughly confused the Germans in the area.

Even though the American army had joined the Free French in Paris, a handful of fires still burned, which meant that fighting still continued as the Free French Forces wrested control of the city from Nazi collaborators and sympathizers, along with the communist-led labor movement. It looked more and more like leave time in Paris with a ration of wine, women, and song would have to wait a while.

For the sheer hell of it, he flew around the Eiffel Tower, doubtless exasperating gendarmes and American military police. A few moments later, a pair of American fighters flew by and checked him out. Jack decided buzzing the tower wasn’t such a good idea, even though the fighters had wiggled their wings at him once they realized he was harmless.

“Now let’s fly through Notre Dame and the Louvre and see how many other planes we can scare up,” Levin suggested. “Who knows, if I like the place maybe I’ll convert to Catholicism.” He had been taking pictures. “By the way, I heard you got another letter from Carter’s cousin. You and she are becoming regular pen pals, aren’t you?”

Morgan felt himself flushing. “Yeah, and I kinda like it. It’s nice having somebody fairly close by to write to. And it’s an interesting way to get to know someone.”

“So when are you going to marry her?”

Morgan laughed. “As soon as I can get her pregnant, which isn’t very likely since I haven’t even met her yet. She said her Red Cross unit will be moving to Paris soon, so just maybe I’ll get some time off and get to meet her.”

Jessica had sent him another picture and he’d decided she really was cute in a quiet sort of way. He’d sent her a snapshot taken by the regiment’s photographer. It showed him leaning against the plane and, in his opinion, smiling foolishly. He’d also sent one of Carter and Levin.

“Of course, by the time she gets to Paris, we’ll all likely be too far away.”

“Not a chance,” said Levin. “The way things are shaping up, we won’t be in any condition to move for a couple of weeks.”

“Okay, you know everything so what about the rumor that we’re getting new tanks?”

“False,” said Levin. “What they’re trying to do is upgrade the Sherman with a higher velocity seventy-five that’ll enable us to take on the Pk4 and the Panther on more even terms.”

“That’s not news, Roy.”

“I know, but what is news is that they’re actually doing it instead of talking the problem to death.”

Jack checked the time and his fuel situation. He turned the plane back towards the regiment. One of the last things he wanted to do was run out of fuel and have to cadge some from another unit. That would be too embarrassing, especially since there would be no compelling reason for it to happen except pilot stupidity.

“Roy, so what does it matter if we get better guns? What kind of surprises will the Germans have for us?” Levin replied that he didn’t want to think about it.

Much of the work on the weapons referred to by the Allies as the V1 and V2 rockets had taken place at Peenemunde, on the Baltic coast. In 1943, however, the facility had been heavily bombed, which resulted in the disbursing of its factory units to a number of other locations. This impaired efficiency, but the rocket program survived.

At only thirty-four, Dr. Wernher von Braun was technical director and effectively in charge of the program. He was almost childishly young for his position. Stocky, even plump, he smiled affably at Varner and the two men shook hands.

“So tell me, Colonel, Herr Himmler requires more information regarding the rocket program and wants to know why it isn’t performing better and winning the war.”

The so-called Vengeance weapons that had fascinated Hitler also had intrigued Himmler from the beginning, and he’d exercised considerable control and influence over the program.

“That’s a pretty close estimate of the situation,” Varner admitted.

Von Braun took a seat and gestured for Varner to do the same. “Sadly, Colonel, the V1 and V2 are merely high-tech toys. Someday when we are in outer space, history will say these were the first tiny steps towards taking man to the stars. They are capable of annoying the Allies, but not of winning the war. We can hurl them at England or even locations in France that have fallen to the Allies, but they cannot do enough damage to make a difference. As you know, both rockets carry a warhead of about one ton, while a single American or British bomber can exceed that by a wide margin. Better yet, a bomber stands a chance of actually hitting what it’s aiming for, while our rockets are unaimed and simply fired in the general direction of a very large target, say London. Even with such a huge target, very many of them go astray or suffer mechanical failure, or, worse, are shot down as the British are doing to our V1’s.”

Varner already understood that. “But what about the rocket that can hit New York?”

Von Braun guffawed. “A pipe dream. Someday certainly, but not for a decade or more. What is possible, theoretically, is that a V1 or V2 rocket might be launched from a U-boat and thus strike New York or any other American port. However, the warhead will still be small and odds are that it will land in a pond on Long Island or a farm north of the city and never even be noticed.”

“You don’t paint an encouraging picture.”

Von Braun smiled coldly. “I thought you wanted the truth, Colonel Varner. The wonder weapons will not change the course of the war. Ultimately and in another form, they might change the course of history, but that’s for decades in the future.”

Varner’s opinion of von Braun diminished. The young scientist had just said that the missile program was a fraud. The expenditure of money and manpower had been for nothing. Scientists like von Braun were using the resources of the Reich to foster their dreams of spaceships and travel to outer space instead of winning the war.

The whole V-weapon enterprise had also used thousands of slave laborers for the construction of the facilities. The more Varner saw and thought of the plight of the Jews and others who were being mistreated by the government, the more he realized that Germany would have a lot to answer for if she lost the war. Therefore, she could not lose the war.

“I think,” Monique said dryly, “that there are more American military police in Paris than there are Frenchmen.”

Jessica agreed. Every block or so they were stopped by MP’s who demanded their identification and orders and wondered why they were driving U.S. Army vehicles, even though they were clearly marked as belonging to the Red Cross. Jessica’s American passport and ID got her through, even to the point of intriguing the MP’s who hadn’t talked to an American woman in a long while. Monique was just another French woman and they were sometimes curt with her.

Monique didn’t mind. “They are the victors. The victors always set the rules.”

“And write history,” Jessica added. Or rewrite it, she thought.

She had been only mildly surprised when Monique decided to accompany her when the unit moved to Paris, leaving her son behind with relatives. It turned out that her master sergeant lover had also been transferred there as part of the massive American supply operation headquartered in Paris. He had used his influence to get them quarters they didn’t deserve, close to the center of the city. Jessica had to pay an exorbitant rent for the apartment, but that was all right as rooms of any kind were at a premium. Jessica and Monique would have separate bedrooms with a shared bath and a stunning view of a rubbish-filled alley. It would be more than satisfactory in a city overflowing with refugees and military personnel from a multitude of nations.

Uncle Tom Granville was somewhere in the mass of humanity and Jessica was determined to look him up. Among other things, she wanted to swap news about relatives back home, and she wanted to know what he could tell her about Cousin Jeb’s situation. She admitted to herself that she was more than a little intrigued by his friend, Jack Morgan. The photo he’d sent her made him look like a little boy alongside his flying toy, and the smile on his face looked genuine and not forced for the camera.

Dear God, she thought, am I falling in love with someone I’ve never met?

Monique had chided her frequently about dressing better and, therefore, looking better to men, especially American men who were starved for a familiar sounding voice. Jessica had laughingly informed her friend that she would not slink around the Red Cross offices in a low-cut red dress. Not only was it not appropriate, but all she had was very functional and relatively sexless clothing. She admitted that she’d never thought she’d wind up in Paris.

Along with a couple of letters from Jack Morgan, she’d gotten a batch from home. Most of the comments from her mother were complaints about the inequities of the ration system. There never was enough gas, they were supposed to do without meat on certain days, and, heavens to Betsy, nylons were nonexistent.

Jessica’s father was more pragmatic. It didn’t bother him that they were reduced to driving one car and that it was now almost five years old. Everyone was in the same boat and, he said, as long as the boat wasn’t sinking, all was well. She sometimes wondered just what planet her mother came from. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler hadn’t made a new car since shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everything they now produced went to the military. Her father said there would be plenty of time for new cars, new houses, and, yes, nylons, when the war was won.

Jessica decided she’d write her father about the idiot pilot of a small plane she’d seen buzzing the Eiffel Tower. Hundreds on the ground had cheered and laughed while the military police glowered in impotent fury. There was no doubt that it was an American plane and she wondered if the pilot would get into trouble. Whimsically, she wondered if it had been Jack.

Finally, the small convoy arrived at their new offices. Sign painters were busy writing instructions to the people already waiting outside. To Jessica’s dismay, there were hundreds of anxious French men and women, some clutching thoroughly confused and squalling small children. Once again, she would be telling hopeful people that she had no information at the moment, and that she could only hope to provide hope for the future.

Someone in the Red Cross had estimated that fully ninety-nine percent of those missing or displaced would find their own way home and to their families. The remaining one percent would be the cause of all the heartaches and grieving. With millions of displaced persons expected, it could still result in many tens of thousands needing their help.

Nor was Jessica comfortable with the ninety-nine percent figure not needing their help. Not when she saw the line of humanity waiting for them.

How was it possible, the Soviet Union’s Foreign Minister, Vacheslav Molotov, wondered, that the senior representatives of two of the world’s major powers were reduced to meeting in a seedy hotel room in Sweden? He had arrived that morning in a transport plane bearing Swiss markings, while his counterpart flew in from Germany in a plane also with Swiss markings. That neither was even remotely associated with neutral Switzerland was irrelevant. What was important was that nobody noticed and, most definitely, nobody at either the Soviet or German embassies was aware of his arrival or that of his counterpart. Embassy personnel were supposed to be trustworthy, but there was an old saying about secrets attributed to an American, Benjamin Franklin, that three could keep a secret only if two were dead. He sometimes wished a Russian had authored that wonderfully prescient quote.

Molotov was thankful that he would not be in discussions with that pompous and crude buffoon, von Ribbentrop. Molotov hated the aristocracy with the true fervor of a dedicated communist. Aristocrats and capitalists were the cause of the world’s ills and he wished he could exterminate them like the Nazis were exterminating the Jews. However, even he had been appalled by the reported numbers of dead coming out of Poland regarding the concentration camp complex near Auschwitz.

At least his counterpart, Franz von Papen, was a real aristo, and not a parvenu like Ribbentrop who’d gotten the right to use the “von” mostly because he’d married well. Von Papen had history and ancestry on his side, while Ribbentrop had simply fucked his way into the nobility.

Von Papen entered the small room, and the two men bowed and nodded. They did not shake hands. Molotov got directly to the point. “You wished this meeting, why?”

Von Papen was not shaken by Molotov’s bluntness. He’d expected it. “It is time to end this war, at least for a while. Our two countries have been tearing at each other like mad dogs, while the Americans and British do nothing. If we are not careful, when the war does end, as all wars do, they will be the winners and our two nations the losers.”

Molotov silently agreed. The Americans had taken their own sweet time getting into the war. They had waited years while Mother Russia absorbed the best, and worst, that the Nazis could hand her. And in return for scores of millions dead and wounded, what did the Soviet Union get? A few thousand trucks and some useless tanks. He knew he was being unfair about American Lend Lease. It was brutally difficult to send supplies by sea around German occupied Europe and an incredibly long way to go overland from Iran and Iraq. Still, the American armies had waited until the heavy fighting at Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, Sevastopol, and Kursk was over before finally sending a pathetically few divisions into France where a small German army had all but halted them. It did appear that the Americans, and their lap dogs, the British, were more than willing to let Russia fight their war.

Molotov kept his expression cold. “May I remind you, von Papen, that your country violated a perfectly good treaty and invaded Mother Russia, thereby starting this ruinous war? May I further remind you that Germany is the cause of all the troubles and all the devastation in Russia that is now going to be repaid by Soviet armies as they invade your country?”

Papen nodded solemnly. “That tragedy was perpetrated by Hitler, Goering, and Bormann, none of whom are any longer with us, thank God. While there is nothing we can do to bring back the dead and remove the devastation, it is possible that we could consider some form of compensation in the future should the war be brought to an end.”

Molotov noted that Himmler’s name was absent from the list of those who’d perpetrated the surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Of course, Herr Himmler, inventor of Germany’s concentration camp system, was as pure and innocent as the new fallen snow.

Regarding compensation, Molotov thought that the Soviet Union would like to take anything of value that Germany possessed, including the dubious virtue of the Reich’s women. This would be in return for the countless rapes and other atrocities endured by the Soviet people. Russia wanted ten pounds of flesh for each pound earlier ripped from her. Still, what was von Papen proposing?

The German diplomat smiled. If Molotov didn’t know better, he might have thought it was with warmth. “My dear Molotov, there is no reason for us to be enemies when our true foe is the United States. The Jewish capitalists will rule the world if we are not careful. If we destroy each other, the Wall Street barons will be in total control and will hold both our countries in bondage. You know that the Americans hate communism, and you must be aware that the Jew Roosevelt’s government plans to turn Germany into a vast farmland devoid of manufacturing and incapable of defending itself. It is a tragedy that we went to war and the Reich accepts the blame for it. Now, however, it is time to change the course of history.”

Molotov eyed the German coldly. “Are you saying there is room to negotiate?”

“Comrade, there is always room to negotiate.”

Jeb Carter whooped into his tank’s microphone at the sight of the German vehicles on the road parallel to his and only a half mile away.

“So much for them being the master race. They screw up just like everybody else and we’ve got them dead to rights.”

The German unit holding the crossroads had made a major blunder. Instead of heading east to safety, they’d taken a wrong turn on a road that looped west instead. By the time they’d figured it out and turned around, Morgan in his little plane had spotted them. Thirty German vehicles were all in a row. Most of them were lightly armored troop carriers like American half-tracks. Most happily, three trucks were towing what looked like 88mm antitank guns and they were accompanied by only a pair of Panzer IV tanks.

The Germans panicked, which was not a smart thing to do. Their vehicles scattered in all directions. Carter whooped again and ordered a general attack, a charge, with machine guns and cannon blazing from his dozen Shermans. The two German tanks gamely turned to protect their charges. Concentrated fire from the American tanks quickly knocked out one Mark IV and the other moved away in reverse, firing and keeping his more heavily armored front towards the Americans.

“They’re getting away,” Carter snarled.

He ordered three platoons to chase the other vehicles while the remaining platoon tangled with the surviving Panzer. A shot from the German blew the treads off one Sherman, but a pair of shells struck the Panzer, stopping him cold. Hatches opened and men jumped out while machine gun fire raked them. One man dropped and two others ran off. Carter recalled that the Panzer IV had a crew of five. Tongues of fire came from the hatches of the last tank, telling him that the other two men were cooked.

Carter’s other tanks were catching up to the trucks which couldn’t move fast on rough terrain, nor did they have a chance to unlimber and man their guns. Again, men abandoned their vehicles and ran for their lives.

Overhead, Morgan watched the slaughter. There may have been people down there, but they were the enemy and the presence of the towed eighty-eights told him they’d been shooting and killing Americans. With a roar, a quartet of American fighter bombers, P47’s, flew low and began to strafe the fleeing Germans. Morgan hoped to hell that the flyboys could tell which side was which. They could and they chewed up the vehicles that Carter’s tanks couldn’t reach.

“You called for the cavalry?” Carter radioed. “If you did, we sure as hell didn’t need them.”

Jack wasn’t so sure. It looked like several German half-tracks would have made it. Carter was a cocky bastard.

Prudently, Carter called a halt to his advance. He didn’t want his men getting tangled with the Germans and a tragedy to occur.

“Hey, Bomber,” he radioed to Jack.

“What, Rebel?”

“Looks like the good guys won one today.”

“Yeah, Carter, but I’ll bet you a dollar that the Air Force takes full credit for this little barroom brawl.”

Molotov had given his report and sat nervously while Stalin contemplated the consequences of the German proposal. Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron and bloody fist. In his zeal to first consolidate communism in the newly formed country, and to export it to other countries, he had been ruthless. Millions of reasonably well-off peasants, the kulaks, had starved when he’d forced them to live in communal farms, and millions of others had died in the civil war that had resulted in him taking the reins of power from Lenin on that man’s death. People had made the mistake of underestimating the small, rumpled, and often crude man with the thick mustache.

Above all, however, Josef Stalin was a realist. The Soviet air forces ruled the skies over the Germans, and Soviet armor and artillery outnumbered the enemy and were qualitatively better in many areas. Numerically, the vast Soviet horde was hugely dominant.

Realistically, however, the Red Army’s march into Poland was slowing. The army continued to go forward, but now in small, painful steps instead of great sweeping advances. The reasons were several. The Germans had withdrawn isolated pockets of their soldiers to form new and stronger defenses. The Germans had retreated closer to their bases which meant they could be supplied more easily while the Red Army’s replacement equipment, manpower and ammunition had farther to go. Also, the Germans were now fighting behind a shorter defensive line.

Worse for Stalin’s ambitions, the professional German generals were now running the war and not the erratic and insanely stubborn Adolf Hitler. Not for the first time did Stalin wish that Hitler was still alive.

Zhukov’s warning of several weeks earlier was coming true. The mighty Soviet war machine was running out of gas, and, in some ways, literally. There was little fuel, and the army was indeed exhausted. If it collapsed, so too might Josef Stalin and his dream of communist expansion.

So, he wondered, what might be the outcome of a truce?

Obviously, as Zhukov said, it would grant time for the army to rest and re-fit. But what about the political and long-term aspects of a truce?

Stalin agreed that communism’s long-term enemy was the United States and, as the war was progressing, America increasingly looked to be victorious and unscathed while Russia would be in tatters after having won a Pyrrhic victory. Worse, America would soon be in possession of the powerful nuclear weapons being developed in New Mexico and elsewhere, and would be in a position to impose a peace. His spies were keeping him reasonably well up-to-date on America’s progress towards an atomic bomb. He shuddered at the thought of a victorious America having such a weapon. The Germans, too, were working on a bomb and Soviet scientists were trying to apply the information stolen from the Americans toward building their own, but so far without success. He’d thought of executing a few of the Soviet Union’s physicists, but thought better of it. Not even fear could improve the pace of acquiring knowledge. He’d purged the Red Army of thousands of officers prior to the war and suffered for it. He would not do the same with the few scientists he had.

The idea of Germany and the United States tearing each other’s throats out appealed to him. Germany would buy time and quite possibly win a negotiated peace for itself, but Russia would be the stronger and could simply abrogate any truce at her convenience. Thus, Russia’s new war with Germany would be against a seriously weakened opponent, and the United States would be in no position to intervene.

He was unconcerned about England and France. The French were in no position to affect anything militarily, while the British were far more concerned with conserving their manpower than they were in fighting and winning a war. His intelligence said that English were growing disenchanted with Churchill’s leadership and a war that seemed to drag on forever. Churchill might not survive the next election. It was incredible to him that the England and the United States would permit political opposition, especially during a war. To Stalin, political opposition was synonymous with treason and the reason the Gulags existed.

A respite would give him a chance to tidy up his own house. The self-titled Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia was showing signs of becoming independent of Moscow, which was intolerable. Granted, Yugoslavia and Tito were still fighting the Nazis from behind German lines, but, if the war paused, perhaps the Germans would do the Soviet Union a favor and crush Tito. Perhaps they would withdraw and let Russia do it.

Another benefit from a pause in the fighting would enable Stalin to resolve his relations with China’s growing communist movement. He could join forces with Mao Zedong and throw the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea; thus earning Mao’s gratitude. Or he could ally with Chiang Kai-Shek, dominate that man and subsequently destroy him. Mao called himself a communist, but Stalin considered him a peasant and worse, a potential rival.

Regardless, the attack on the Japanese would also aid the Americans whom he wished to destroy. It was an irony he understood and appreciated. The Americans would be grateful while two more countries would be added to the Soviet bloc. Three if China was counted.

If he did it correctly, Stalin thought, he could confuse the Americans and leave them wondering just what had happened to them.

Stalin smiled grimly and Molotov shuddered at the sight. “We will negotiate with the devil, Comrade Molotov.” Stalin wrote furiously on a sheet of lined paper while puffing equally furiously on his pipe. “And here are the terms we will settle for.”

Molotov scanned the sheet and nodded approval. “The Allies will realize rather quickly that we have departed the war.”

Stalin was unperturbed. “Then we will have to have a reason that is plausible enough to justify our defection.”

“Do you have something in mind, Comrade Stalin?” The question was rhetorical. Stalin always had a plan.

Again Stalin smiled, this time with humor. “The French, of course. The French are always good for something. They think the world turns on them and the sun rises and sets on Paris. They cannot abide being second fiddle to the damned Americans and the British. The communist party in France is very strong and, since many of its members were in the Resistance, fairly well provided with light arms. I believe they would provide us with a most useful distraction.”