Rommel looked out the smeared-glass side window of the jeep, at the countryside that didn’t look so very different from the forests and swales of Belgium or France. But it was different—this was Germany.
This was home.
He pondered how, exactly, he returned here. Was it as a traitor? A liberator? Conqueror? All of the above, in some measure or another, he supposed. He did feel like a stranger, a foreigner in his own fatherland. And he came here, rode the wave of a whole tide of foreigners, these amazing and energetic Americans.
They were racing everywhere, it seemed. Throughout Belgium the roads had been jammed with columns of trucks, jeeps, tanks, and troops, all moving toward the front. The Westwall was breached in a gap a hundred miles wide, and all those men were flowing into Germany, surging toward the Rhine.
On a purely military basis, he remained amazed at how rapidly the American columns physically moved across the ground. The HQ unit that was his destination served as a prime example: there were hundreds of men, dozens of trucks full of equipment and supplies, and when it was up and running it was like a busy and crowded office building. Yet the staff could set up or tear down that office in about an hour, and load it up for transport in less time than that. With a roar of engines and cloud of dust, the HQ was a motorized column racing down the road to the next city, or the one after that.
There seemed to be plenty of gasoline for all of these vehicles, and ample food for the men, and even for POWs and displaced civilians. As to American equipment, he believed that the Yanks made up for in quantity what they might have lacked in quality. The Sherman tanks were light and undergunned by the standards of modern German armor, doomed in a face-to-face shootout with a Panther or Tiger. But at the same time Rommel acknowledged that they were fast and reliable, so nimble that they could move across all types of terrain, and light enough to cross rivers on bridges that would never support even a Panther tank, much less one of the gargantuan Tigers. Furthermore, there seemed to be hundreds of the things, everywhere he looked. Speidel had remarked earlier, only half in jest, that the Yankees must be growing their tanks on the vast steppes of the North American heartland. After his experiences in the past month, Rommel was forced to agree.
The Desert Fox had been driven to Trier in a closed jeep by an American driver, and as they made their way through the narrow streets, crowded with military traffic, he saw that this town—gateway to Germany going back to Roman times—had been given over, completely, to American control.
Third Army MPs were busy steering traffic through the town, all of it the olive drab of American military, and most of it heading east. Rommel’s driver apologized as they were halted for more than ten minutes, while an apparently endless column of Shermans rolled past on the main avenue through the city. The field marshal found it telling that, even as the great column rolled speedily along, there was enough traffic in the side streets that each of them became thronged with waiting vehicles. As the last of the M4s passed, each driver stepped on the gas, to be challenged by a chorus of MP whistles and shouts.
Only by jockeying through a tight turn, then dashing down an alley, did the jeep driver finally break free of the crush. He turned back onto the thoroughfare with a screech of tires, and then pulled into the elegant, semicircular driveway of the grand and venerable Hotel Trier.
“This is the HQ building, for today anyway, General,” the driver said in his passable German. Rommel ignored the mistake in rank, knowing that the Americans had no field marshal in their military hierarchy. “I’m supposed to drop you here.”
“Thank you,” Rommel replied, getting out of the small car and stretching. His back was sore and his legs stiff, but he shook off the travel kinks and entered the large lobby, returning the salute of the MP who stood outside the door. The room was a rather jarring contrast of military functionality and Baroque overindulgence. There were great, floor-to-ceiling mirrors along one lofty wall, with vivid tapestries framed by marble columns. In between were tangles of radio and power cables, plain tables, and functional folding chairs.
His arrival didn’t seem to cause much of a stir. That was interesting, he reflected—perhaps it might be possible for the Wehrmacht and the American army to work together after all. Instinctively he went to the table, where a large map—depicting Germany from the Westwall to the Rhine—was spread. Everything had an air of transience. Several tables were simply sheets of plywood laid across sawhorses, while the radio consoles across the room resembled a jungle of hastily laid wiring and cables. He knew that the HQ staff had moved in here a few hours ago; by tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, they would be back on the road.
He had hoped to find Patton here, but was informed that the Third Army commander had blown through the temporary headquarters like a winter squall. He was up at the front, supervising the fast-moving spearheads of his armor divisions. Rommel nodded in understanding, and in fact wished that he could be doing the same thing.
One of Third Army’s senior intelligence officers, a one-star, was emerging
from a small office adjacent to the lobby, and he greeted the field marshal warmly in German.
“General Patton asked me to show you every hospitality if you should visit. I am sorry not to have greeted you when you arrived, but I was just finishing up in the decoding room,” he said, with a glance at the door that had just closed behind him. “And I’ve got good news, Field Marshal! Frank Ballard of the Nineteenth is already twenty miles down the Moselle Valley. We have four more divisions through the Westwall, and they’re driving to the east and north. It looks like your Seventh Army is going along with the surrender. So our own Seventh—that’s General Patch—can move into the Palatinate south of here.”
“Good. I expected as much, in that arena. I have been in regular contact with General Brandenburger, and he has been willing to follow my orders,” Rommel declared. “What is the latest word on Sixth Panzerarmee?” While he greatly disliked asking that question of an American officer, no matter how polite, the current status of those forces was continuously on his mind.
Here the American general’s good cheer wavered slightly. “They’re giving First Army and the Brits a helluva tussle—they still hold the Westwall north of Dasburg, all the way to the sea. Our only breakthroughs are from here south.”
“So the valley of the Moselle is the best route, the only fast route, to the Rhine.”
“Right. The main threat seems to be here—” The general marked a line from Bitburg to Koblenz, which was a shorter distance than the Moselle Valley route. “There are several SS-kampfgruppe racing eastward. Panzer Lehr is in pursuit, but the Nazi panzers have slipped away for now. There’s a chance they could reach the Rhine before us, and if they do we won’t get the crossing without a nasty fight.”
“Big news, men!” This shout came from the radio room, where a colonel rushed into the room waving a piece of paper. He skidded to stop when he saw Rommel, then threw up a quick salute. “Hello, Field Marshal,” he said hastily. “Um, this can wait.”
“Spill it, Joe,” the general said quickly. “The field marshal is in this with us, remember?”
“Yes, sir,” Joe replied. He held up the paper. “Intelligence reports are in from some of the Polish resistance. They report that the Red Army has opened fire—a helluva bombardment, along a hundred miles of the Vistula. Looks like the Russians are getting back into the game.”
Rommel nodded, unsurprised. He saw the same kind of acceptance on the faces of the American staff officers all around him. Indeed, they had expected the attack for so long that it was almost a relief to know, at last, what Stalin was planning to do.
“Well, looks like the race is on,” the American said after a moment. “We’d better get busy.”
“I’ll head up to Panzer Lehr,” Rommel said. “It may be that I can help with logistics, up there. It’s important to get as many of your troops through the Westwall as possible—we need to reach the Rhine before the SS can blow bridges and form some kind of defensive front.”
“Right, sir. General Patton has already ordered the Nineteenth to aim for Koblenz, with Fourth Armored moving up right behind. You know what kind of speed they can maintain. We have two divisions driving north, moving up behind the Westwall, trying to roll up Dietrich’s flank. Unfortunately, the mobile SS elements seem to already have bugged out.”
Rommel nodded, concerned but hopeful. The day promised another clear sky, and he was learning to think of that as a
good
thing—the tactical air forces would have free rein, and that should only help the Shermans as they raced for the river.
This was a race, he knew, that the Americans—and his loyal Germans—very much had to win.