Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

“I’ll pass that along to my superiors,” Dönitz said, dryly. “How many children?”

“Seven. Five boys, two girls.”

“I’m sure you’re proud.”

“Goddamn right,” Pfundt said fiercely.

“As you should be,” the admiral said, smiling for the first time as he finished his last bite, and dropped his plate into a battered trash. “Thank you for the snack, Herr Pfundt, and the advice.” He gave the man a crisp salute before pivoting away.

Dönitz would have liked to talk to Pfundt again. Today in particular. But Pfundt was nowhere to be seen, the park deserted, a chill Siberian wind convincing even the desperate to stay inside. Blowing steadily since the night before, it was driving horizontal sheets of rain through trees stripped naked months earlier. And too soon it would be dark again.

The radiator in the corner of Dönitz’s office creaked and grumbled, struggling to keep the cold at bay. He knew his staff called his office the refrigerator, as much for his icy personality as the chronic inadequacy of the building’s heating system. He didn’t mind. Icy matched his mood, particularly on this late Thursday afternoon the second week of January 1939.

He should have been elated. The previous day he had been promoted to rear admiral — Konteradmiral —a fitting exclamation point to a career began when he stepped aboard that cramped, dank German submarine twenty-five years earlier and had a sudden premonition of its potential in the art of war making.

Yes, indeed, the newly christened rear admiral mused. He should have been elated. But numbers did not lie. With enough U-boats, he could starve and freeze England into submission and Germany would surely triumph. Without them?…

Of course, he had argued for delay until the end, risking even Hitler’s wrath in his persistence. He had sixty submarines, he pointed out. He needed three hundred.

At their last meeting, Hitler had slammed his open palm on the table, ending Dönitz’s criticism once and for all. “Enough and enough,” he said, spit flying from his mouth. “You will just have to make do with what you have. If not, I will find someone who is.”

Dönitz locked eyes with the most dangerous man on the planet, his stomach tight as a fist. Logic was on his side. And yet, logic didn’t matter with this man. “You will hear no more of it, mein Führer,” he submitted after a moment. And may God have mercy on us all.

Hitler had appraised Dönitz shrewdly, and then smiled forgiveness. “That’s a good boy, Karl.”

It might have gone differently if not for Göring, Dönitz thought coldly. Hitler had chosen to listen to his self-promoting boasts and wishful thinking.

“My pilots are ready for the sacrifice to come,” the corpulent head of the German Luftwaffe reminded everyone earlier in the meeting, glancing briefly at Dönitz as he spoke.

His argument was clear to all. Why wait for more U-boats? Now was the year to strike, not 1941 or ’42. The Luftwaffe by itself would be enough to bomb the French, English and anyone else who stood in the way into capitulation.

Dönitz lit a cigarette—an American Camel cigarette, he was sure the Gestapo had noted somewhere in his files—and watched the wind swirl through the park, the stark gray trees shivering as it passed. Snow by nightfall. Weather forecasters said otherwise, but he trusted his nose and his aching right knee more than those pseudo-scientists. It smelled like snow, the air bitter. His knee agreed. And so, it would snow.

It reminded him of his promise to take his granddaughter for a walk that evening. She loved to chase snowflakes across the wide lawns at his estate on the outskirts of Berlin. It was the same every year. It could not be truly winter until they each had caught a snowflake on the tip of their tongue.

“It is a tradition!” she scolded just that morning, standing before him in her pajamas, stuffed bear under one arm. “Today is the day. Baby Bear told me. And you must catch at least one, Grandpapa,” she said, reminding him of the rules, as if nature herself needed the permission of a rear admiral, and, more importantly, a little girl, before it could continue on

Dönitz heard the step outside of his door just before the knock. He pinched the bridge of his nose, dismissing the memories. “Enter.”

A slick-haired aide stuck his head into his office. “Sir. Excuse my interruption.”

“What is it?” There was a practiced edge to his voice.

“The report you were waiting for.”

Dönitz gestured with his hand. The aide scurried across the room, laid the folder on the admiral’s desk, and then retraced his route. Dönitz let the door close, opened the folder and began reading.

It was dark outside when he finished. He closed the folder. Maybe this was a small part of the answer? It was a crazy, audacious plan. And if anyone could pull it off it was Peter von Ritter, the plan’s author. It would require good men in the right places to take advantage of every opportunity. But it might work. If they could seize just one of Poland’s Dutch-built submarines, it would increase Germany’s long-range U-boat fleet by 20 percent.

Of course, it was hard to imagine how one more submarine would make much difference in the upcoming conflict. And yet, Dönitz was enough of a student of history to realize that the fate of wars had turned on much less. And the submarine the Dutch had built for the Poles was the best in the world. It would be another six months before Germany had anything close to its capabilities.

In any case, Hitler’s mind was set and Dönitz would have to play the game as best he could with the cards he had in hand: five German long range submarines, a fistful of others and if they were lucky, a Polish wildcard thrown in to the mix.

He gave one last glance out the window then stood, stretching stiffness from his aching back. He slipped the folder into a well-traveled attaché case, a gift from his father on his eighteenth birthday, shrugged into a leather overcoat, slowly pulled on his gloves, and then put on his cap. He stared at his visage for a moment in the mirror by the door. Hawkish nose. Strong chin. Perfectly composed. Stern but not haughty. A man completely in control. “Never let them hear you fart,” his first captain was fond of quoting. “And if you do, make sure they think it stinks like French perfume or are too afraid to say otherwise.” It was one of the best pieces of advice he ever received from the man.

Dönitz grasped the doorknob and hesitated. Best to keep the plan quiet. For now. But he would make sure Ritter’s team was in place with plenty of time to spare just in case Hitler changed his mind once again and decided to attack even earlier.

In the meantime, he had more important matters to attend: an urgent appointment at home chasing snowflakes with his granddaughter. Truth be told, he regretted disappointing her above all. Perhaps this year, he would catch more than one.

Nearly nine months after his plan had been dropped on the desk of Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz, Peter von Ritter moved steadily up the rain-slick dirt path that snaked its way beneath the thick canopy of trees in the woodland above the Polish port city of Gdynia.

The clouds on the western horizon were ablaze, as if the sun, fleeing in the face of yet another defeat, had chosen to ignite them instead of surrendering. The flare of orange and red that leaked through the shadows above revealed the sharp planes of the man’s face, thin lips and white dueling scar that curled as if drawn by the caress of a beautiful woman from the edge of his eye to the tip of chin. He was dressed in the clothes of an outdoorsman: fine wool pants and Norwegian wool sweater. On his feet were the kind of leather hiking boots you might find a man of leisure and wealth wearing on holiday in the Swiss Alps.