Authors: Anthony G Williams
Eventually, the man rose to his feet and walked slowly to the village to search for the bodies of his wife and son.
After he had buried them, he knew what to do.
The conifers shaded Herrman from the summer sun as he walked around the narrow, winding roads within the ‘Sperrkreis I’ security fence.
He felt relaxed by the warmth, his mind in neutral, slipping idly through random patterns; forgetting for a while where he was and why he was there.
‘May I join you or is this a private expedition?’
Stadler’s sardonic voice jarred him back to reality.
‘Please
yourself
,’ he said resignedly.
His guard and companion fell into step and they walked for a while in silence.
‘I’ve noticed you’re inclined to spend more and more time on these solitary rambles.
Is this a sudden urge to commune with nature or achieve athletic prowess perhaps?’
Herrman laughed shortly.
‘Hardly that.
It’s just that there isn’t much else to do,
cooped
up in here.
I hardly have a function anymore.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.
The Führer likes to have you at his nightly table talks in the tea house.
I’m sure you remain a constant source of comfort and inspiration to him.’
They walked on in silence for a while, past the cinema and towards Göring’s house.
Herrman tried in vain to recover his earlier equanimity, the presence by his side a silent but continuous pressure.
Eventually he stopped with a sigh. ‘I have this terrible feeling of having set some huge juggernaut into motion, then watching it veer off course toward destruction.’
The SD man’s eyebrows lifted.
‘My, you are in a pessimistic mood.
I can’t think why; the news from the front could hardly be better.
All three Army Groups are ahead of schedule and the Soviets have taken appalling casualties.
They’ve lost thousands of tanks and aircraft and hundreds of thousands of men – in fact OKH reckons they’re past the million
mark
.
And there’s no sign of any slowdown.
Long before autumn is here, we’ll be in Moscow and the Soviets will have run out of equipment and men.’
‘Unfortunately they can replace both at an astonishing
rate,
and still have vast stretches of territory to fall back into.’
Stadler started walking again and Herrman reluctantly followed.
They turned left at the crossroads to walk past the Keitel Bunker, the sun strong on their backs.
‘Is this the same man who has spent years convincing our Führer of the evils of Stalin’s system and the importance of crushing it?
What has changed?’
‘Nothing in principle.
It’s the practice that bothers me.
These Einsatzgruppen.’
‘Ah-ha.
Your liberal sentimentality is surfacing again.
You really must do something about that.’
Herrman shook his head.
‘It isn’t even that, although God knows I can’t see the point of killing all those civilians just for the sake of it.
No, it’s the consequences that bother me.
Our troops were welcomed with open arms in the Ukraine, the Baltic
states
, even in eastern Poland, God help us.
With the right handling, we could have had all of those nations on our side, fighting alongside us.
Instead, we’re turning them into implacable enemies, with partisan activity already being reported.
It just increases the depth of enemy territory we have to operate in.
On top of that, the order for the liquidation of all captured Red Army political commissars just stiffens their resistance.
I’ve explained all of this to Hitler, countless times.
I can’t understand why he won’t listen.’
Stadler laughed grimly.
‘Actually, that’s your fault.
With your information, he’s been able to plan a decisive campaign with much better equipment and the power to sustain the effort for as long as it takes.
He is quite certain of victory so sees no need to make concessions to the Untermenschen.’
‘I would feel more confident of that if only I could stop him from interfering.
The OKH and the Army Group commanders know what they’re doing – they’re the most capable set of professional soldiers on Earth.’
They bore left along the main road, passing between the Kasino and the Wehrmacht-Adjutant’s office.
‘The Führer’s bold and inspired guidance has led the Wehrmacht to historic success.’
Herrman glanced at him but there was not the slightest trace of irony in his expression.
Stadler was too good at his job to reveal anything.
‘His bold and inspired political leadership has, yes.
It’s just that as soon as the armies start rolling, he turns into a nervous meddler.’
The SD man glanced around hastily.
‘I’d be a little more judicious in my choice of words, if I were you.
You might be favoured but you’re not immune.’
‘Then there’s his siege mentality,’ Herrman ploughed on regardless.
‘All he cares about is establishing defensible eastern boundaries which include sufficient economic assets.
He doesn’t seem to realise that unless he completely destroys the Soviet regime, they’ll just lick their wounds and rebuild their forces, safe behind the Urals, ready to continue the struggle.
This obsession with capturing
Leningrad
and the
Ukraine
instead of aiming straight for
Moscow
.’
‘Well, you won that one, at least.’
‘Only
just,
and only because the entire General Staff was behind me.’
Stadler laughed.
‘That isn’t necessarily a recommendation, in the Führer’s eyes.’
‘They know what they’re talking about,’ Herrman continued stubbornly.
It was as if the frustrations building up inside him had to be released.
‘It’s standard and well-tried doctrine to choose a Schwerpunkt for maximum effort and stick to it, instead of dispersing the Army across half Russia.
If we try to grab everything at once, we run the risk of ending up with nothing.’
‘But you’ve said yourself that the longer we give the Russians to recover from our onslaught and organise their defences, the harder the job will be.
We have to seize as much as we can, while the initiative is ours.’
Herrman sighed.
‘I know.
Perhaps we have bitten off more than we can chew.
I did want Hitler to wait until after the British were defeated before opening up a second front.’
Stadler laughed.
‘Well, Guderian agreed with you there, and much good did it do him.
Besides, you are forgetting that your own information correctly indicated that the Soviets were in the middle of a military restructuring and had just begun to re-equip.
They would have been a much tougher target had we waited a year.
And then, the Führer is impatient.’
‘I know.’
Neither of them needed to comment on Hitler’s obsession with his health and mortality, his nervous determination to achieve as much as possible while he still could.
They stopped outside the liaison barracks where they both lived.
‘Look on the bright side,’ Stadler said expansively, ‘we’re winning the war, it’s summer, and we are staying for free in a delightful resort.’
Herrman laughed reluctantly.
The Rastenburg FHQ was a scatter of camouflaged bunkers and other buildings hidden in a wood and surrounded by several layers of security.
‘I didn’t know it was possible to suffer from claustrophobia out of doors.
Still, it’s nice to know some things are still predictable.’
Stadler raised an eyebrow.
‘The Führer called this place ‘Wolfsschanze’ in my time, too.’
The mood of Hitler’s daily Lagebesprechung was buoyant, as usual.
Keitel and Jodl, respectively Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Head of Operations in the OKW, were not inclined to be critical.
In any case, there was no apparent reason to be so.
Herrman had been invited to attend, for once; possibly because none of the more forceful OKH or Army Group commanders, with whom he might agree, were present.
After a rambling discourse from the Führer on the Wehrmacht’s successful implementation of his ideas, the question turned to future priorities.
‘We have agreed,’ this with an ironic glance at Herrman, ‘that the current priority remains the destruction of the Soviet forces which are now concentrated for the defence of Moscow.
Now the conversion of the railway gauge has been completed as far as Smolensk, OKH has stated that the army will soon be sufficiently rested and reequipped to begin Operation Typhoon.’
The obsequious Keitel nodded happily, for once able to agree with both his Führer and OKH.
‘It will be better to secure Moscow while we have them on the run and before the Siberian troops can be deployed.
At this time of the year, we are assured of plenty of daylight and good flying weather for Luftwaffe support.’
‘What is the current assessment of the balance of forces?’
Keitel turned to Jodl, who did not need to check his notes.
‘Casualties have been higher than we might have expected, given the scale of the Soviet defeats, simply because the political commissars ensured that their troops kept on attacking even in the most hopeless situations.
However, we are back up to twenty-five
Panzer
and a similar number of motorized divisions, together with fifty infantry divisions.
Half of these are in Army Group Centre, which will be heading straight from Smolensk to Moscow and will therefore face the toughest resistance.
While the bulk of the Soviet troops are being pinned in front of Moscow, the Panzer and motorised divisions of Army Group North will be aiming to circle behind the city to cut off any further reinforcements.
The northern infantry divisions will remain in holding positions for the time being.
Meanwhile, Army Group South will be continuing the destruction of the relatively strong Soviet forces in the Ukraine.’
‘And the Soviets?’
‘They are in such a mess that I doubt if they know themselves.
At the beginning of Barbarossa they had around three hundred divisions, including fifty armoured.
Their casualties and equipment losses have been almost incredible and what they have left is mostly disorganised.
They have twenty to twenty-five divisions in Siberia, but are hesitating to move them because of the potential threat from Japan.
We believe they have managed to raise another twenty divisions, mostly of infantry, to block the way to Moscow.
Nevertheless, the current estimate is that Moscow will fall two weeks after Operation Typhoon begins.’
‘And after that?’
‘The plans are for a double encirclement of the remaining Soviet forces.
Some of the Panzer and motorized divisions will head north to cut off Leningrad and, with the aid of the Finns, crush the defending troops there against the anvil of our infantry divisions already in place.
The remainder will head south-east to meet a north-eastern thrust by Army Group South.
By the end of September, we should have destroyed all organised opposition and be in control of Russian territory up to the Volga.
That will give us time to consolidate our position before the worst of the weather sets in.’
Herrman felt moved to contribute.
‘The Russians will not be stopped by winter.
Unless we can persuade the Japanese to attack, they will have reinforcements from Siberia as well as many new divisions raised by the spring, equipped from the factories they have moved east of the Urals.’
Hitler was dismissive.
‘The Japanese will not attack; they still remember the bloody nose they received from Zhukov in Manchuria when they adventured there a few years ago; besides, they are fully engaged in China and the rest of their attention is on the south.
But it does not matter.
By the spring, our forces will be still stronger and equipped with tanks and aircraft which will beat anything that the Russians have.
They may not know it yet, but they are already finished.’
The Major commanding the Panzer IV Kompanie of the 900th Panzer Brigade stood in the turret and watched with quiet satisfaction the retreat of a force of Panzertransportwagen half-tracks in the valley below.
They were fleeing in good order, keeping well ahead of the pursuing T 34s.
The Major scanned the advancing mass and estimated there were at least a hundred of the fast Russian tanks, some with tankriding infantry clinging to handholds on them.
He shuddered briefly at the sight; scarcely a satisfactory substitute for armoured personnel carriers.