Griffin W.E.B.: Honor Bound 02 - Blood and Honor

One of the men shot him twice, in the face and chest, with both barrels of a twelve-bore side-by-side shotgun.

El Coronel Frade fell onto Enrico's back and then slid down it, coming to rest between Enrico's back and the seat.

The man with the Thompson submachine gun looked at the bloody head of Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Cavalry, Retired, and professionally decided that shooting him again would be unnecessary.

[TWO]

Wolfsschanze

Near Rastenburg, East Prussia

2130 5 April 1943

The license plates of the Mercedes sedan bore the double lightning flashes of the SS. As it approached, a Hauptsturmf?hrer (SS Captain), a Schmeisser submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, stepped into the floodlight-illuminated roadway and rather arrogantly, if unnecessarily—a heavy, yellow-and-black-striped barrier pole hung across the road—extended his right hand in a signal to stop.

He wore a leather-brimmed service cap with the Totenkopf (death's-head) insignia. Behind him, wearing steel helmets, their Schmeissers in their hands, an Unterscharf?hrer (SS Sergeant) and a Rottenf?hrer (SS Corporal) backed him up. Between two narrow silver bands around the cuffs of their black uniform sleeves, the silver-embroidered legend "Adolf Hitler" identified them all as members of the Liebstandarte (literally, "Life Guard") Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard.

The Hauptsturmf?hrer approached the Mercedes, raised his arm straight out from his shoulder in salute—the passenger in the rear seat wore the uniform of a Standartenf?hrer (SS Colonel)—and barked, "Heil Hitler!"

The Standartenf?hrer raised his right arm, bent at the elbow, to return the salute, then reached in his pocket for his credentials, which he extended to the Hauptsturmf?hrer.

"Standartenf?hrer Goltz to visit Partieleiter Mart?n Bormann," he announced. "I am expected." (Partieleiter—Party Leader—Bormann, as Hitler's Deputy, ran the Nazi party.)

"Be so good as to have your driver park your car, Herr Standartenf?hrer, while I verify your appointment," the Hauptsturmf?hrer said, as he opened the rear door of the Mercedes.

Goltz stepped out of the Mercedes. Above the two silver bands on his tunic cuffs were the silver letters SD, identifying him as a member of the Sicherheitsdienst, the security service of the SS.

He stood waiting in the road as the Hauptsturmf?hrer went into one of the four buildings of the Guard Post South. Not even a Standartenf?hrer of the Sicherheitsdienst was passed into Wolfsschanze ("Wolf's Lair," Adolf Hitler's secret command post) without being subjected to the most thorough scrutiny.

A minute later, the Hauptsturmf?hrer returned, and again gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute.

"If the Standartenf?hrer will be so good as to follow me, I will escort him to his car."

"Thank you," Goltz said, again returning the salute with his palm raised to the level of his shoulder.

The yellow-and-black-striped barrier pole rose with a hydraulic whine, and the two passed through what was known as the "outer wire" of Wolf's Lair. The compound, four hundred miles from Berlin and about four miles from Rastenburg, was an oblong approximately 1.5 by .9 miles. The outer wire was guarded by both machine-gun towers and machine-gun positions on the ground and by an extensive minefield.

Just inside the outer wire perimeter—separated as far as possible from each other to reduce interference—were some of the radio shacks and antennas over which instant communication with the most remote outposts of the Thousand Year Reich was maintained.

A Mercedes sedan, identical to the one Goltz had just left, backed out of a parking area inside the outer wire and up to the now raised barrier pole. A Rottenf?hrer jumped out, opened the rear door, and raised his arm in salute.

SS officers in charge of security had decided it was more efficient to require Wolf's Lair visitors to leave their cars outside the outer wire, and transfer inside the wire to cars from the Wolf's Lair motor pool. Doing so obviated subjecting the incoming vehicle to a thorough search. It also spared the visitor the waste of time such a search would entail, not to mention the time of the SS personnel who conducted the search.

As soon as Standartenf?hrer Goltz was seated in the back of the Mercedes, the driver closed the door, ran around the front of the car, and slipped behind the wheel.

The road passed for three-quarters of a mile through a heavy stand of pine trees, with nothing visible on either side. Then, in the light of the full moon, behind a Signals Hut on the left, railroad tracks came into sight. A parallel spur, Goltz saw, held the F?hrer's eleven-car private railway train. A moment later, on the right, ringed with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements and towers, the first of the two inner compounds of Wolf's Lair came into sight. This one held, essentially, the personnel charged with the administration and protection of Wolfsschanze.

There were buildings assigned to the Camp Commandant and his staff; the headquarters of the battalion of Liebstandarte troops, and their barracks and mess hall; a second mess hall, dubbed the Kurhaus ("Sanitarium"); and a thick-walled concrete air-raid bunker, dubbed "Heinrich," large enough to hold everyone in the compound.

Past the first inner compound and to the right, lining the road for half a mile, were other small buildings that housed the second level of Thousand Year Reich officialdom. Here, spreading out from the Gorlitz Railway Station, were the offices of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop; Albert Speer, Germany's war-production genius; GrossAdmiral Karl Doenitz, the Commander in Chief of the Navy; senior Luftwaffe officers; and another mess and another huge concrete bunker.

Across the road, ringed by barbed wire and the heaviest concentration of machine-gun and antiaircraft weaponry, was the F?hrer's compound itself.

Inside were no fewer than thirteen thick-walled concrete bunkers. The largest and thickest, not surprisingly, was the F?hrerbunker. Across the street from it were two other bunkers. One housed Hitler's personal aides and doctors; the second housed Wehrmacht aides, the Army personnel office, the Signal Officer, and Hitler's secretaries.

To the east Reichsmarschal Hermann Goring had both an office building and his own personal bunker. Between these and the F?hrerbunker was a VIP mess called the "Tea House." Nearby were the offices and bunker assigned to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, titular head of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW). He shared his bunker with Generaloberst (Colonel General, the equivalent of a full—four-star—U.S. Army General) Alfred Jodl, the chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the OKW.

Once, when they were alone, Reichsleiter Mart?n Bormann had explained to Goltz that while Jodl was important enough to be given space inside the F?hrer's inner compound, he was not important enough to have his own bunker.

Bormann—who was deputy only to Hitler in running the Nazi party—of course had his own bunker, as did Josef Goebbels, the diminutive, clubfooted genius of Nazi propaganda. But Bormann's staff also had their own bunker, while Goebbels's staff did not. Although bunkers were provided for servants, liaison officers, and official visitors, Goebbels's underlings privileged to be in the Fuhrer compound had to find bunker space for themselves.

Standartenf?hrer Goltz believed that Wolfsschanze—rather than Berlin— provided the best clues to judging who stood where in the pecking order. And nothing he had ever seen—here, or in Berlin or anywhere else—had caused him to question the very senior and very secure position of Mart?n Bormann. That perception had provoked an interesting decision: Where did his loyalty lie? With Heinrich Himmler, who as head of the SS was his own direct superior? Or with Mart?n Bormann, with whom he had been close since the early days?