Carl-Heinz Clausen pressed his face to the window of the Dakota aircraft, shifted awkwardly in his seat—his feet were jammed into a tiny space between crates of canned hams—and grinned like a delighted schoolboy as the panorama of the great capital came into view. It was his first airplane flight, and one of the most thrilling experiences of his life.
He didn’t know if the field marshal had pulled strings to get him one of the precious seats on this transport. After all, a hundred kilos of Carl-Heinz Clausen on the plane meant a hundred kilos of ham, or dried eggs, or flour, or any of dozens of other precious commodities that were not coming in to the besieged city on this flight. And
that
meant, of course, that he would have to work hard to make his presence in Berlin worthwhile.
But then, hard work was neither new nor unpleasant to him. Indeed, he relished the wholeness of his flesh again, the return of his strength, the capacity to make himself useful. He suspected that many of the prisoners who had been alive when the Americans had liberated Buchenwald would never again return to health—either physically, or mentally. He counted himself among the lucky ones, probably because he had been in there only a short time. Already the memories were starting to fade; instead, he could happily picture his daughters bouncing on his knees at home, or the walks he had taken through the orchard with Yetta during his convalescence. He could have stayed there, at home, for the rest of his life, and been a happy man—except for one thing:
He knew that the Desert Fox was still at war. So, as soon as he had felt whole again, he had fussed and complained, written letters, even made expensive phone calls to the new provisional government that was taking shape in Frankfurt. Who or what had taken those queries he didn’t know, but three days ago the package had come in the mail: orders, and a plane ticket. He had taken off from Frankfurt before dawn, and now, in this dazzling summer morning, he was coming down in Berlin.
Already the tarmac at Tempelhof was rising to meet him. He studied the soldiers on the ground. They had looked like ants a few minutes ago; now they were recognizable as men, mostly in American uniforms, though he spotted several Wehrmacht tunics among them. There were US Army trucks, hundreds of them, all over the place, and at least two dozen transports like this big C-47 parked around the edges of the runways.
The Dakota touched down with a startling bump, then rolled for a long time before inching to a halt. Carl-Heinz followed a few other passengers, all American military, but there was a hold-up at the door of the plane. He heard some of the Yanks talking—“Do you know who
that
is?” “Really?” “No shit?”—before they moved on and cleared the steps. He had started to learn a little English while in the camp and in the hospital.
When he saw who had come to meet him, Carl-Heinz Clausen suddenly found himself too choked up to speak.
“You look good, my friend,” said Rommel, clasping his former driver in a bear hug as the man tried awkwardly to salute. “And I am glad to see you!”
“B-But sir! Surely you have more important things to do than to meet a mere sergeant coming in on an early flight?”
The field marshal chuckled at the man’s discomfiture. “Ach, we are in a siege here, Carl-Heinz. That doesn’t keep a general busy the way a mobile battle does. Plus the enemy is not now, nor has he been for three months, attacking. And in any event, there are other important things to do at Tempelhof airport. Give me a few minutes, and I will think of some. Here, can I help you with that?” The field marshal indicated the small duffel that Carl-Heinz had slung over his shoulder—all the luggage he had dared to bring on the precious flight.
“No, sir! Thank you sir, but I can manage.”
“How’s the gut?”
“Seems to be good as new, sir. I can put away a plate of sauerkraut and schnitzel and ask for seconds. Don’t have all my old weight back, but for this flight maybe that is a good thing.”
Rommel grew serious, looking back at the C-47, which was already being unloaded by American soldiers—black men, Carl-Heinz observed with some interest. He had never seen a negro in the flesh before the Americans had come, and they were still unusual enough that he noticed. He had become particular friends with a hospital orderly, a black man from Alabama, who shared his talent and enthusiasm for creating mechanical devices. Between them, they had gone through the ward making self-adjusting trays for soldiers in traction, wheelchair seat lifts to allow patients to get themselves in and out of their own chairs, and adjustable crutches to ease arm strain.
Nearby, a file of passengers—German women and children, for the most part—formed a queue preparatory to boarding for the return flight. In the time since the plane had landed, at least five more aircraft had come in, including a big four-engine transport that was taxiing up nearby. More planes were circling the airport, with several lined up in the sky, approaching the runway in an aerial queue.
“We don’t refuel them in Berlin, of course, because all the petrol would have to be airlifted in,” the field marshal continued, speaking with pride.
“Instead, they carry enough for both legs. We get the cargo unloaded, the passengers on, and the plane takes off again. On a nice, clear day like this, we have them landing more than one a minute.”
“It is a remarkable feat,” the sergeant agreed. He had already thought of at least three technical improvements, but decided they would wait—at least a day or so. The field marshal’s area had to be inspected first. Goodness knows what sort of mess he would find there.
“But come,” Rommel said. “I have a car waiting. And believe it or not, we do have some work to do.”
Wolfgang Müller looked up from his desk as the field marshal walked into the cluttered office. The supply officer was about to voice his vexation—the food shipments were still barely adequate, and he couldn’t even
think
about the medical supplies—when he recognized the man behind the Desert Fox.
“Carl-Heinz!” The colonel bounced up immediately, coming around the desk. He pumped the blushing sergeant’s hand. “
Now
things will start getting done around here!”
“Thank you, Oberst Müller. It is good to see you! I understand, sir, that you were the one who found me in that … place?” He remembered nothing after the fever began.
“You are assigned to the headquarters staff, of course?” Müller asked Clausen, though he arched his eyebrows to look at Rommel.
“Of course,” replied the field marshal. “In fact, for now you can go to the motor pool and get us a car. We have a meeting in thirty minutes.” He smiled at Carl-Heinz. “How would you like to see the inside of the Reichstag?”
Colonel Reid Sanger had his new office in the great marbled halls of the building that had once been the center of power in the Third Reich and was now the headquarters for the Army of Berlin. He was reviewing the morning’s dispatches from SHAEF, followed by the intelligence assessments from the front line units—those Third Army formations that were arrayed around the fringes of Berlin, facing off against the massed armies of the Soviet First Belorussian and First Ukranian fronts.
Through complex political face-saving arrangements, Patton was the actual commander of all SHAEF forces in Berlin, while Rommel, senior in rank, held a more advisory role as commander of the Army of Berlin. The arrangement worked well, because both men kept any arguments in private and presented a united front in public, and because Rommel understood the practical reality that Patton owned the vast majority of forces and the Americans controlled the supply line.
As liaison officer, Sanger was now the daily point of contact between Rommel’s German Republican Army and all the other SHAEF forces in Berlin.
In his spare time, he had another function—serving as jailer for one special prisoner of war who was being held in what was once the führer’s bunker in the Reichs Chancellery building.
The Reichs Chancellery was serving as administrative headquarters for the airlift operation and for city management, both staff-intensive operations. The two underground German military headquarters—Maybach I and Maybach II—that had housed OKW and OKH, were also being used as staff headquarters, communications centers because of their advanced communications technologies, and as backup command centers in case the battle grew hot again.
Sanger heard the distinctive squeak of Patton’s voice in the hall—the two men had their offices quite close together—and it was time to go. The American colonel left his office, saw the Desert Fox coming, then smiled broadly as he saw the loyal German driver just beyond. Carl-Heinz was being greeted by everyone on the HQ staff, and was clearly embarrassed by the attention, so Sanger fell in behind the field marshal and strode into the briefing room.
The map on the wall depicted the same situation it had portrayed, with virtually no change, since the end of March. The Americans held the German capital, its suburbs, including Tempelhof, another major airport at Gatow, and several smaller landing strips. A small prong extended from the southwestern quadrant, where the Nineteenth Armored Division was holding the adjacent city of Potsdam, connecting to Berlin by a neck of land between two broad lakes. The Russians had the whole mess of them surrounded, with perhaps a mile-wide strip of unoccupied territory between them. In several locations, notably at Potsdam, and Spandau in the west, the Soviet positions thrust aggressively close, like hammerheads pointed into the heart of the great city.
General Patton came in and everyone stood at attention until he took his place at the front of the room. “Let’s get started,” said the CO of Third Army and SHAEF commander in Berlin.
General Zebediah Cook, Third Army’s chief of intelligence, took over. “The airlift went well for the last twenty-four hours. No accidents, no weather delays. That means, of course, that we are bringing in as much food as we are eating. As well as a few little odds and ends—another eight thousand pounds of petrol, and three hundred rounds for the 155s.”
“What does that bring us, for capacity on the big guns?” asked Patton. The 155s were the largest guns in the Third Army artillery section. The shell and powder for each shot weighed more than a hundred pounds; and if the Russians attacked, these guns would see nearly constant action.
“We could sustain intensive fire with all batteries for something like one day plus a couple of hours,” Cook replied, after double-checking one of his sheets. His aide, Sanger’s old nemesis Keegan, was serving as keeper of the files. Better yet, he was still only a major, which gave Sanger quite a bit of satisfaction. “After that, we’ll be throwing the crockery at them.”
Nobody laughed.
“What of the front line?” Patton interjected. “Another quiet night?”
General Cook nodded at General Wakefield. “Henry—you had something on that?”
The stocky general nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. “Probe in the Potsdam front last night. Good-sized commie patrol, ran into our pickets. Shots fired; ours and theirs. None of ours got hit; heard groans on their side. Found some blood when we checked it out this morning. Looks like the Reds took a few hits.”
Patton grimaced, and gestured to the map. “I know you’re sticking out like a sore thumb down there, Henry, but we need you to stay in position. If we fall back from Potsdam, they could snatch Gatow airport with one quick thrust—and that would cut our supply route by forty percent!”
“Got it. And so do my boys. They’re dug in pretty damned well.”
“Ah yes, not like those heady days of mobile operations, is it?” asked the army commander rhetorically—and a little wistfully, Sanger thought, as he turned his attention to the supply situation.
It was the middle of the afternoon by the time Henry Wakefield’s jeep pulled up to the headquarters of his Combat Command A, in Potsdam. Ballard had set up his post in a sturdy building of concrete and steel that had once been a slaughterhouse. Now it made for a solid pillbox, with a ring of small windows on the second floor providing a good view in all directions.
“Any more trouble today?” the general asked Frank Ballard, finding the colonel at his desk—a long table that had once been used for dismembering pigs.
“We saw a few of their boys poking around in no man’s land. Didn’t shoot, ’cuz they didn’t get too close. But I don’t like it general. They’ve got us hemmed in tight, with water on two sides.”
“The water guards your flanks,” Wakefield grunted. “And Patton needs us here—this is one of the key places on the whole perimeter.”
“We’ll stay put,” Ballard replied with a sigh. He saw Captain Smiggs enter the room, and remembered to add: “Say—do you have anything for the mail sack? Smiggy’s going to run the letters out to the airport, get the bag onto an evening flight.”
Wakefield shook his head. “Thanks for asking.”
Captain Smiggs had a driver, but he preferred to be at the wheel himself. He guided the jeep down the Potsdamer Strasse, glad that the engineers had finally bulldozed the last of the debris out of the way. Berlin had been plastered pretty well by the Allied bomber campaign, and many neighborhoods had been reduced to rubble. Surprisingly enough, other, large parts of the city looked relatively untouched by the war.