Charles Jackson - England Expects

He sighed sadly and ceased writing momentarily as he thought of what Michelle had said, returning the Knight’s Cross to its resting place about his neck and reseating his cap. Suddenly, even though he knew it would seem unpatriotic to an unexpected reader, he continued to write with a renewed vigour.

Today I met the children who live in the farmhouse across the fields. Their father is dead — I quote — “the Nazis killed him.” As I think of this I’m reminded of things that perhaps I should record in these pages. These are things that should be remembered for others, should men like myself fall in combat…or by other means.

There are rumours spreading of ‘massacres’ by some of the more fanatical units of the SS. I’ve not witnessed anything of these myself, but I’ve spoken to army officers at a number of messes, particularly recently, who claim they have. One told of a group of British prisoners murdered near Wormhoudt in Belgium, a month ago.

I’m an oberstleutnant of the Luftwaffe. I’m the commanding officer of a geschwader. At the fliegerschülen we were taught that there were certain laws and ideals that were inviolate. As an officer of the Wehrmacht it’s essential to obey the orders of a superior to the utmost: this is the essence of military discipline. Of equal importance however is honour. If the orders given are just then the two concepts shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

As much as any German soldier, I’m product of Versailles and our humiliation at the hands of that enemy alliance and their ‘stab in the back’. It’s not my place to question the orders of my superiors. Still, could there be something awry here, for are there not ‘codes’ of war that must be followed?

I love and respect our Führer as greatly as any man in the service of The Reich. This one, great man has brought us out of the despondency of Weimar and into a new age of prosperity. Grossdeutschland will become a nation envied by its peers. Yet I don’t understand what the Führer means by this idea of lebensraum. What is the value of this ‘living space’ for these ‘Aryan’ peoples? What is its value if these rumours are true?

Ritter closed the booklet and glanced up as a Junkers tri-motor transport spluttered past overhead, turning on to a landing approach. He silently pondered the words that he’d written, the ramifications and complexity of it all a little more than he could come to terms with through simple military logic and thinking. These rumours — and others — were things that didn’t bear thinking of…

Could these things be true…?

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Saturday

June 29, 1940

A mansion that had been a home for French royalty during the 18 thcentury lay among the trees and sweeping lawns of a country estate a few kilometres west of the town of Amiens. Following the Revolution it had lain empty and in disrepair for some years to be subsequently acquired by a wealthy developer and landowner during the 1850s and restored to its original splendour. A young industrialist purchased it as a home for his new family following the Great Depression, only to be sent fleeing across the Channel eight years later as the Wehrmacht steamrolled across the French countryside, smashing all before it.

In this fashion, the mansion came under the control of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht , which deemed it a perfect place for the establishment of a headquarters for their campaigns in the west. Although technically it was close enough — at roughly 80 kilometres or so from the French coast — to still be under threat of enemy air attack by the RAF, the truth of the matter was that Luftwaffe air superiority over mainland Europe was such there was really no creditable danger whatsoever.

The property on which the huge, two-storey home was situated covered dozens of hectares of rolling fields and forest untouched by the rigours of war, although a series of large tank battles had occurred the month before at nearby Arras. The main building itself was a massive affair of stone and brick with towering marble pillars and expansive bay windows on both floors. Flowing red banners adorned with the ubiquitous swastika hung from the tall pillars bracketing the main entrance, while a multitude of ‘Christmas tree’ arrays of communications antennae rose from the rooftops. The building was still being fitted out for operations, and construction workers and equipment were in abundance as modifications and additions were made daily.

Outbuildings that had once housed a legion of servants now provided reasonable comfort to a company of panzer grenadiers while a pair of medium panzers and a trio of armoured cars stood guard both at the front and rear of the house in the unlikely event of an attack. Similarly, a battery of 88mm flak guns was positioned in the fields about the house and outbuildings, each cluster of weapons complemented by a Wirbelwind self-propelled AA gun mounting a quartet of powerful 23mm cannon. Half a kilometre away, the large, bulky shape of a specially-fitted Arado T-1A Gigant transport aircraft lay dormant in the middle of a long, level field at the front of the house awaiting any errand.

The main briefing and conference area had once been a ballroom, and its ornate chandeliers and beautifully polished floors stood mute witness to its former glory. Swastikas were paraded about in various forms, as were Nazi eagle statuettes and a large portrait of The Führer against the rear wall. Seating for a dozen in the centre of the room surrounded a large, rectangular table, and a second smaller, ovoid table held a variety of maps and reports at the far end of the room opposite a pair of large double doors that were its only entrance, accompanied by a large projector screen mounted to the nearest wall.

Sitting alone at that table was Kurt Reuters, Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht . A professional career soldier, he’d served the various armed forces of Germany for sixty of his eighty-two years. Fit and strong for his age, he was a tall man who wore his grey hair cropped short, usually beneath an officer’s peaked cap that at that moment rested on the table beside him. He’d served that particular German Army — the Wehrmacht — for six years and had been the Commander-in-Chief of the OKW (ultimately under the command of the Führer , of course) for the last two.

It’d been his invasion plans that had taken the German war machine sweeping through Poland. It’d also been his plans that had so quickly and devastatingly blasted aside the Allied forces in France and the Low Countries and had neutralised Norway as a potential threat (not to mention the ‘incidental’ benefit of captured Norwegian air and naval bases and securing vital Scandinavian raw materials). Just four weeks earlier, General Lord Gort had surrendered the remains of the British Expeditionary Force on the beaches at Dunkirk, to all intents and purposes signalling the end of the Battle of France (although some pockets of local resistance had fought on for a week or more). So pleased was the Führer that he’d created a special new rank for this able and talented man — the rank of Reichsmarschall .

As such, Reuters’ position was now officially higher than that of any other member of the German Armed Forces. As far as actual command went, Adolf Hitler had also placed the tactical command of the front-line combat units of the Waffen-SS under his control, although administratively they were still attached to the Schutzstaffeln and therefore under the oversight of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. As OdW ( Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht ) Reuters was answerable only to Adolf Hitler himself and was the relative equal (although never in their eyes) of Deputy Führer Hess and Martin Bormann, the Nazi Party Secretary.