Authors: Sven Hassel
Himmler smirked. Von Choltitz distractedly pulled out a cigarette and lit it, and the hated smoke curled up into Himmler's face.
'You can rely on me, of course,' said von Choltitz. 'The destruction of Paris shall be carried out just as soon as I have the troops and the arms that have been promised me, but for the moment I don't even have enough men to defend the Hotel Meurice... I was told I could have a regiment of heavy tanks. The only trouble is, they no longer have enough tanks left to supply even, one to each company. The exact number, I believe, is seven Panzers, all in a deplorable condition and quite unfit for active combat, and a couple of Tigers. Besides that they have enough ammunition for approximately twenty minutes' fighting. At the moment the tank crews are simply wandering about the countryside on foot with rifles over their shoulders... I have no wish to end up in Gemersheim or to be hanged at Plotenzee like a common criminal, you understand, Reichsfuhrer, but unless I receive the necessary troops and the necessary weapons, I really cannot guarantee that I shall be able to carry out my orders to the fullest.'
Himmler nodded gravely, one hand over his mouth against the cigarette smoke.
'You shall have all that is necessary,' he said. 'Now let us turn back to the map and see in detail what is to be destroyed.'
Throughout the whole of the Third Reich the telephones were ringing. In Jutland, where the 19th S.S. Panzergreniadierdivision 'Letland' was stationed, they were ringing through for them to reassemble. Hundreds of heavy vehicles were leaving the military camp of Boris. At Fensborg and at Neumunster six hundred armoured cars of every description were being assembled. The engineers laid down roads, of a sort, overnight. Commanding officers worried and nagged at their men to get a move on. There had been no advance warning of the departure of the armoured divisions, and the result was a monstrous bottleneck. Jutland became one enormous military camp.
In the middle of the chaos, the 20th S.S. Panzergrenadierdivision 'Estland', which had only just been ordered to Jutland, received counter-orders to about turn and make their way back again. Obergruppenfuhrer Wengler at once performed a remarkably good imitation of someone having an epileptic fit. His men watched admiringly as be went through his antics and waited in some anticipation for the invectives that would surely follow.
'What short-arsed cretin thought that one up?' he roared, into the grey and rainy night. 'How the bloody hell am I supposed to turn round on these filthy flaming roads?'
'I don't know how, but as to who,' replied the liaison officer, sitting laughing on his heavy motor-cycle with the rain dripping off his black cape, 'your short-arsed cretin was none other than the Reichsfuhrer himself.'
Wengler spat and swore, and then spat again as the liaison officer roared back up the muddy road is a spray of black droplets.
'All right! Orders to all commanding officers: head back again in the direction of Neumunster. Exact destination not yet known. And don't take all bloody day about it!'
Officers at once skidded off in all directions shouting orders. Wengler stood sourly watching. He was one of the toughest of the officers commanding the armoured divisions, and he had small patience with any situation that did not place him firmly in the front line of the fighting.
Even as he watched, the scene disintegrated with astonishing rapidity into a state of demented confusion. Vehicles were reversing blindly into each other, into ditches, into trees, into fences. Several had arbitrarily broken down and were now blocking the road. Everywhere men were shouting and swearing. Someone had uttered the word 'sabotage', and the idea was now firmly fixed in most people's heads as a proven fact.
Slowly, very slowly and very unsurely, the enormous column lurched forward in a southerly direction. The leading vehicles had reached the crossing of the Haderslev -Tender roads before matters went irretrievably wrong. An innocent Oberstabszahlmeister approached with his munitions column, making for the heavy coastal batteries. His tiny vehicle narrowly escaped a head-on collision with a tank. The car skipped dexterously out of the way, but the tank careered into its neighbour, there was an ugly squealing and grinding of caterpillar tracks, the clang of metal upon metal, and both tanks came shudderingly to a halt. The cries of sabotage, which had never entirely faded, were now taken up again and reached a pitch of frenzy, to such an extent that the unfortunate Oberstabszahlmeister was hoisted from his car, pinned against a tree, and summarily shot. It was almost certain that the wretched man had merely mistaken his way, but if so he paid very dearly for his error. The munitions column never reached the coastal batteries. They were sent off instead to an infantry division being held in reserve in Fionia, and several weeks later there was intense consternation when it was discovered that the 21-cm. shells could by no means,be fitted in to the 10.5-cm. field-guns. Conversely, the artillery batteries on the coastal cliffs were exceedingly amused when their 21-cm. guns began spitting out 10.5-cm. shells.
'Sabotage!' cried the staff officers.
'It's that bloody Resistance again!' screamed an apoplectic colonel.
As a matter of form, a few miserable hostages were executed. Someone had to pay the penalty, after all.
It was dawn when the leading vehicles of the 20
th
Armoured Division entered into Neumunster. They had learned now that their destination was Paris, and that the matter was one of the greatest urgency. It came, therefore, as something of a surprise
to
reach Neumunster and discover that the only form of transport awaiting them at the railway station was a dozen French goods wagons of an extremely venerable vintage. The roads were blocked for kilometres around by the 19th Tank Division, also on its way to Neumunster. And coming up strongly from the east was the 233rd Panzerdivision. Every road in Jutland Was crammed to overflowing with tanks and soldiers and armoured cars. All bound for Neumunster, all needed in Paris, and a dozen French goods wagons to take the lot of them.
'Sabotage!' screamed the Reichsfuhrer's frantic dispatches.
More hostages were executed. The officials responsible for the running of the Neumunster railway station were executed. The Reichsfuhrer was temporarily appeased, but meanwhile the problem continued. Two armoured divisions, 14,000 vehicles and their full complement of men, stranded in Jutland with twelve French goods wagons!
For three weeks, a boy of twelve years, condemned to death, had been confined in the prison of Fresnes awaiting execution of his sentence. The crime that had placed him there might well have been no more than a piece of childish high spirits. It might, on the other hand, have been a premeditated act of resistance against the enemy. The Germans naturally preferred to believe the latter. The boy had stolen a revolver from a German soldier at the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Michael and the Place de la Sorbonne, and for this he must die.
The frantic mother tried all she knew to have the sentence repealed, and she finally reached the highest authority of all: General von Choltitz. Not that she herself was allowed to pester the General. The liaison officer, Dr. Schwanz, presented her case for her. He met with no more success than might have been expected.
Why come to me with this trivia?' cried the conqueror of Rotterdam and Sebastopol, angrily tossing the documents back across the desk. 'There are proper channels for this sort of thing: use them! Presumably if the boy's been sentenced to death there's a very good reason for it? At any rate, I have far more pressing matters to deal with. Take it away and don't waste my time.'
There was no one else to whom the woman could turn, and the following day a child of twelve years died at the hands of the firing squad out at Vincennes. Why should a man of the stature of General von Choltitz concern himself with the fate of a mere child? That was not the way to fame or glory. Posterity would not remember a general who saved a child from the firing squad. It would, on the other hand, remember a general who had destroyed one of the most beautiful cities in the world...
CAN PARIS BE SAVED?
General von Choltitz returned to Paris. The city was sombre and sullen; beneath the smooth surface of life there lurked an air of brooding menace. The number of desertions from the German Army was assuming catastrophic proportions. And accordingly the number of reprisals was stepped up. In one evening alone over forty people suspected of working for the Resistance were lined up before the firing squads. The Communists were the first to die...
One morning at dawn, two officers of the front line presented themselves to von Choltitz. One was a major-general, who wore a patch over one eye and the black uniform of the tank corps; the other was a young captain of the engineers and an expert in the laying of mines. Both men were specialists in the art of destruction. As soon as they had entered the General's room, a large notice was hung on the door: ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. Behind that door the future of Paris was being decided.
At the same time as this most secret conference was being held, another, even more secret, was taking place in an apartment on the Avenue Victor-Hugo between a certain Hauptmann Bauer, an officer in the service of Admiral Canaris, and a diplomat who went by the pseudonym of 'Farin'. Hauptmann Bauer was earnestly putting the diplomat in the picture, as he saw it, and the diplomat was as earnestly listening.
'Monsieur Farin,' declared the officer, speaking very low and very rapidly, 'this whole town is going to go up in smoke and come down in ruins unless something very unexpected happens to put a stop to it. It's absolutely essential that you get to see von Choltitz before it's too late.'
The diplomat mopped up a few genteel pearls of perspiration from his forehead. He swallowed two glasses of cognac before replying.
'Who is this General von Choltitz? Where has he come from? Why have I never heard of him?'
'You have heard of him--you simply haven't remembered the name. You've heard of Rotterdam, I suppose? You've heard of Sebastopol? Well'--Hauptmann Bauer nodded, grimly--'that is General von Choltitz'
'You mean----'
'I mean that the man's a past master in the art of destruction! Why else do you suppose they picked him for the job? He belongs to the same school as Generalfeld-marschall Model: blind obedience, no matter what the circumstances. Give him an axe and tell him to chop off his right hand and he'd do it, provided your rank was higher than his.'
The diplomat scraped his throat a few times.
'What--ah--what do they have to say about it in the Bendlerstrasse?'
'Nothing, for the most part.'
'Then why... why are we--why are you----'
The Hauptmann's eyes glinted behind his dark glasses.
'The only reason they say nothing is because the few that are still left are too damned scared to open their mouths! The others have--gone.'
'Gone? Gone where?'
'The same place you and I shall be going, unless we're very careful--to Plotenzee.'
The diplomat opened his mouth.
'Hanged?' he said, hoarsely.
'Certainly hanged! Now listen, Monsieur Farin, and tell me what you think of this: a new tank regiment has just arrived in Paris. They're stationed at the Prinz-Eugen barracks out at Versailles. Their commanding officer is a man typical
of
the type we shall have to deal with: a major-general, twice demoted, in charge of the toughest group of tanks in the world. And I don't say that lightly. I can promise you that if word ever reached Berlin that they were on their way Admiral Canaris would be gone so fast you wouldn't see him for dust. He wouldn't even stop to pick up his grandmother, that one...'
'So what do you suggest?' asked the diplomat, nervously. 'What can I do about it? And why have they been brought here, anyhow?'
Bauer hunched a shoulder.
'What could be more destructive than a tank? Especially a tank from the 27th Z.B.V....Let me tell you a bit more about them. The regiment consists of six battalions under the command of Major-General Mercedes. He himself, as I already explained, has had cause to be demoted twice in his career. The men under him have all, at some time or another since being in the Army, served prison sentences. Rape, robbery, thuggery, buggery--you name it, they've done it. They are, to say the least, a thoroughly undisciplined bunch of roughnecks... You can imagine how it would be if they were let loose in the streets' of Paris?'
'Yes.'
'Wholesale massacre--'
'Yes.'
Farin moved slowly to the window, another glass of cognac in his hand. He stood for a while, silently staring down into the street.
'A blood bath,' he said, at last. 'You're right, of course. Something must be done to prevent it.'
'I'm glad you agree.'
'How would it be----' Farin hesitated. 'How would it be if we were to organize police barricades? Look down there, Hauptmann Bauer.' He pointed out of the window, at a police sergeant strolling down the street. 'The defence of Paris--and why not? The police, aided by members of the Resistance... it could be arranged.'
'I'm sure it could, Monsieur Farin. But at the same time, I rather fear we might be playing straight into Hitler's hands. I happen to know that at this very moment a battalion of the Dirlewanger Brigade is on its way to Paris. Every single man of that force is a reprieved criminal--reprieved not because his case has been considered in a new light, but because the Fuhrer suddenly decided that even criminals might have their uses. My information is that they're being sent here for the express purpose of provoking action of just the type you mention.' Bauer shook his head, regretfully. 'The police and the Resistance... It's a tempting idea, but just how long could they hold out against the might of the German Army? Just how much resistance
could
they put up? Not enough, I fear. Not enough.'
'So what do you suggest, Hauptmann?'
'As far as I can see, we have only two courses of action open to us. One is to hold up for as long as possible the men and vehicles that von Choltitz is waiting for; the other is to get the American armoured divisions to Paris as quickly as possible.'