Robert Conroy - Himmler's war

Sergeant Major Rolfe pushed Jack aside and shot the German in the head only to be gunned down himself by another. Jack took Rolfe’s rifle and tried to fire with one hand. He hit nothing and screamed as the pain overwhelmed him.

Feeney and Snyder appeared beside him, shooting and killing. Jack pulled his pistol and shot another German in the face. He pointed the . 45 at another who threw down his rifle and raised his hands. “Kamerad,” he screamed. Others began to scream the same thing and they too dropped their weapons and held up their arms.

All around them, German soldiers were surrendering. Not only that, the sun was coming out. He paled. There were scores of German tanks approaching his position.

Overhead, Phips dropped through the clouds in his Piper and saw the German tanks heading west. He radioed in his position and gave a rough estimate of their numbers, admitting that there were so many that a proper count was impossible. Finally, he exulted, he was doing something useful.

All the American planes in the world, or so it seemed, had earlier been arrayed on landing strips for this very moment. In anticipation of the clearing weather pushing in from the west, they’d taken off and had been circling overhead, hoping to God that they’d find targets before they ran out of gas.

Even as he watched, the clouds began to part. It was like a curtain lifting on the set of an epic play with him as a front row audience of one.

Time to get out of the way, he thought, and climbed to ten thousand feet. He laughed as he saw literally hundreds of American fighter-bombers converging on his position. He whooped with glee as they began their drops through the fading curtain of fog.

Joachim Pieper could also see his shadow. More precisely he could see the shadow of his tank, Sigurd, on the ground. Overhead they could hear the growl and whine of vast numbers of American planes. In a moment they would be through the rising cloud level and rain hell on what was left of his Panzers.

While he was annihilating the American tanks in his rear, his infantry had gone ahead and tried to storm the American lines. He could see the ground covered with their dead. At least they’d died more bravely than he’d suspected they could. It appeared that they’d made some penetration in the American defenses, but he could hear enemy automatic weapons firing. No, the Volkssturm and the few SS troops would not carry the day. They needed his armor.

He opened his hatch and looked around. Fewer than a score of tanks remained in his command. He looked ahead and squinted at something reflecting in the distance. Was that the Rhine? Was he that close to success?

A plane screamed low overhead and dropped a bomb. Two of his remaining tanks were engulfed in a sea of napalm. He paled as reality sank in. His tanks could not go forward. He had too few of them, but still, he could not stand still or retreat. The American planes would kill them all.

Another tank burst into flames. “Goodbye Sigurd,” he said, hoping he was saying farewell to his tank and not to his wife.

Pieper gave the order and his men climbed out of their remaining tanks and began to run to the rear. Maybe, just maybe, the American planes would pleasure themselves by shooting up abandoned German armor.

He’d gone only a few yards when a napalm bomb detonated nearby and consumed him in a billowing cloud of flame.

The men outside Himmler’s closed office door stared in shock and horror at the thing coming toward them. The man’s hair was white and stood out in clumps on his head. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes wide like a lunatic’s.

Otto Skorzeny had returned from hell.

When a female secretary tried to halt him, Skorzeny pushed her aside with surprising strength and entered Himmler’s inner sanctum. The Reichsfuhrer looked up. His face registered the same shock and horror. “Good God, you look awful.”

Two OKW generals were in the office and Skorzeny waved them out. They scuttled away like frightened insects. Skorzeny closed the door behind them. “And so do you, my dear Reichsfuhrer.”

Himmler had lost weight and his hands were twitching. His eyes were red from lack of sleep and stress. Skorzeny laughed. “You bet and you lost didn’t you, Himmler?”

Himmler was annoyed at the familiarity, but endured it. Word was arriving that the great and final assault against the Amis had failed disastrously. While a few units had indeed pushed through to the Rhine, they’d been small and few in number and the Americans had quickly annihilated them. Dietrich’s Reserve Army had been destroyed. The carefully husbanded armored force had been smashed by American artillery, armor, and waves of planes from the skies. Dietrich himself was nowhere to be found and there rumors he’d committed suicide. Von Rundstedt had also left Berlin, possibly before Himmler could have him shot. It was over.

“Where are you going to run to?” Skorzeny asked. “I hear Argentina’s a good place. Me, I’d prefer Spain. We have a good friend in Franco.” Francisco Franco was the fascist dictator of Spain and, although officially neutral, was deeply sympathetic to the Nazi cause.

Himmler blinked. Of course it would be Argentina. Perhaps a small-fry like Skorzeny could hide in Spain, but not him. He and the rest of the Nazi hierarchy would be welcome in Argentina where they could begin planning anew.

“Where’s Heisenberg?”

“Dead of the same radiation poison that nearly killed me. I’m getting better, or haven’t you noticed?”

Himmler sniffed. “Frankly, Otto, I’ve seen better looking corpses. A shame. I was hoping he would make us another bomb or two to use against the Americans.”

“Before he died, Heisenberg said it would take a large team several years to construct another one, assuming we had the resources, which we don’t.”

“You’re right, we don’t. But there’s always a chance to succeed in another manner. We will use what resources we do have to at least make a radiation bomb. Explosives wrapped in what uranium we have will make a deadly concoction.”

Skorzeny listened in disbelief. “But you would have to detonate it in Germany. And if you did, the Americans would drop some of their own atomic bombs on our heads, or had you forgotten what they are up to in New Mexico?”

Himmler snarled. “I forget nothing. Regardless, I have a task for you. Our beloved generals are planning a coup. They are going to try to overthrow me and place Rommel in my stead. Apparently that was von Rundstedt’s plan all along, which is why Rommel didn’t have a field command. Von Rundstedt and the other generals seem to think that Rommel is saintly enough to make him acceptable to the Allies. My intelligence says Rommel is on his way to Berlin with several thousand soldiers loyal to him. They are to arrest me, and doubtless you as well.”

Himmler’s hands shook as he lit a cigarette. “Your orders are simple, Skorzeny, you are to intercept Rommel and kill him. That will buy all of us time. My staff estimates we have two to three months before the Allies arrive here.”

Skorzeny laughed. It came out as a cackle. “You have maybe three weeks, Reichsfuhrer. Yes, Dietrich did maul the American First Army before he and his men ceased to exist, but Patton’s Third is beginning to run loose to the First’s south. And, in case you’ve forgotten, Montgomery’s entire army group is also starting to cross the Rhine to the north. Not even he will take two to three months to drive to Berlin. The English want your head on a platter as much as the Americans do.”

“We’ll stop them at the Elbe,” Himmler said.

Skorzeny scoffed. “Compared with the Rhine, the Elbe is a stream a man can piss across. The Elbe won’t even slow down the Amis. They will ride up in their little ducks and simply drive across. Himmler, half the army is dead, wounded, or captured, while the other half is looking for a way to surrender or is burying their uniforms and trying to pretend they are civilians. Maybe a few of your fanatics will delay the Allies for a short while, but that is all.”