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“They couldn’t stop us.”
“I think,” Dietrich said carefully, “that if we were to rise again it would have to be somewhere else.”
“You mean in Italy?”
The last place on God’s earth! “No, not Italy. The British and Americans would keep a tight rein on the Black Shirts here.”
Hudal looked at him suspiciously. “You seem very fatalistic, Gruppenführer.”
“Merely anticipating every eventuality.”
“Where then, Spain?”
“I hardly think so,” Dietrich said. “Franco has refused to cooperate with the Führer.” He paused, staring at the photograph of Hitler. “No, I think it would have to be farther away than that. Brazil maybe, one of the South American countries.”
“That seems rather far-fetched.”
But Hudal was out of touch. He hadn’t seen the slaughters in Russia. He didn’t seem to realise that the Allies would soon be on the mainland of Italy. That soon they would be landing in France. Above all he couldn’t comprehend the atmosphere in Berlin where already some of Hitler’s trusted lieutenants were planning their escape routes.
Patiently, Dietrich nosed his way through the little cleric’s dogma and blind fanaticism. “If — let us just say if — some of the top men wanted to escape when there was no longer any possibility of victory, would you help them?”
“If they weren’t escaping purely because of cowardice.”
Well put, Dietrich decided, regarding Hudal with new respect. “If they were escaping to form a new order elsewhere. The cream of Aryan manhood. To form an alliance between the Church and National-Socialism,” Dietrich suggested slyly.
Hudal’s eyes gleamed. “Then of course I would help.”
“And you have many followers here who would help?”
“Of course.”
“Inside The Vatican?”
“I have many friends inside The Vatican. The Teutonic College itself is on neutral territory.”
Dietrich stood up. He stuck out his hand. “Then let us hope we never have to make use of them.”
Hudal stood up. “Are things really as bad as you make out?”
“They’re not good,” Dietrich said.
* * *
That night as he lay between the soft sheets of a bed in the luxurious Excelsior Hotel where many German officers stayed, Dietrich, unaware that he had escaped death by a couple of seconds, reappraised his day. A bad one.
Soon he would be back fighting in Russia — the Führer couldn’t afford to keep the Leibstandarte “slummocking” (as Field-Marshall Günther von Kluge had put it) in Italy much longer — and today he had finally acknowledged to himself that only defeat lay ahead. So much for those shining dreams of the ’30’s, for the glorious victories of the Leibstandarte as they swept through Europe.
Dietrich, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, knew that he would fight to the last tank, the last man. And he would execute the Führer’s every order even if he had lost that intuitive touch of genius of the early days. Hitler had resurrected the pride of Germany: had shown its men that they still had balls. Elevated me from a nonentity to the commander of the most feared military machine in the world.
Dietrich reached for the suitcase beside his bed. Underneath a copy of Mein Kampf was a well-thumbed sheet of paper, a copy of Hitler’s remarks at the birthday celebrations for Hermann Göring on January 12th, 1942.
The role of Sepp Dietrich is unique. I have always given him the opportunity to intervene at sore spots. (Sore, well that was a bit of an understatement). He is a man who is simultaneously cunning, energetic and brutal. Under his swash-buckling appearance Dietrich is a serious, conscientious and scrupulous character. And what care he takes of his troops. He is a phenomenon … someone irreplaceable. For the German people Sepp Dietrich is a national institution. For me personally there is also the fact that he is one of my oldest companions in the struggle.
And I would die for him, Dietrich thought. Or, more practically, save him from the vengeance of the enemy.
Which was precisely what Dietrich proposed to do.
This was the plan known only to a handful of other top-ranking SS officers. To snatch Hitler from the muzzles of the enemy guns when Germany was finally on the brink of defeat. Regardless of the Führer’s wishes. Dietrich smiled fondly as he imagined Hitler’s ferocious reaction if he heard of Grey Fox.
And it was Grey Fox — Dietrich’s description of the Pontiff — that had prompted Dietrich to seek an audience with the Pope. How could Pius XII refuse with the 3rd Panzergrenadier camped on his doorstep?
Dietrich had proposed to sound out the Pope’s true feelings towards the Nazis. To test his reactions to any proposal to spirit top Nazis to freedom via The Holy See. To threaten, in the vaguest terms, retribution if he didn’t agree to collaborate. To extract a promise from the one man who couldn’t break his word.
But it hadn’t worked out like that. Dietrich had lost his motivation in the presence of the Pontiff with his long eloquent fingers, pallor of sanctity, aescetic features and gaze of total understanding.
The Pope had promised nothing, given no hint of his sympathies. He had handled the exchange with the practised ease of the career diplomat.
And finally Dietrich had kissed his ring a chastened man. Out-smarted by a priest!
But still, Dietrich comforted himself in his hotel room, the Pope had not denied any of his faltering proposals. Cold comfort.
Dietrich swore tersely and, thrusting aside the memory of the humiliating experience, took a green folder from the suitcase. On the first page was a list of eight names. The possible candidates to implement Grey Fox. Not Dietrich himself, nor the other SS conspirators, because they were all soldiers, nothing more, and they intended to fight to the last.
The chosen candidate had to have exceptional qualifications to carry out the most daunting mission of World War II. Bravery obviously — if he was Leibstandarte that went without saying. Authority. Resourcefulness. Unquestioning loyalty to the Führer.
But he had to have more even than these qualities. Much more. He had to be a man whose moral fibre had not been corrupted by the brutality of war. Untouched by cynicism. A man who still believed.
Inside the green folder were reports on the eight candidates. All good men. The finest examples of the Waffen-SS. But only one man had those additional qualities that Dietrich sought.
Now he would have to be put through the tests that the Committee of SS officers had devised. Tests far more exacting than the gruelling training of the SS.
With a thick-leaded pencil Dietrich scored out seven names on the list. The eighth name was Kurt Wolff.
VI (#ulink_4a9bb595-21c0-5e47-9d8a-34991ee7753b)
The Russian T-34 tank seemed to have lost its way. It stopped 150 yards from the German foxhole, its 75 mm gun swivelling slowly like the proboscis of some prehistoric animal scenting danger.
The young officer seconded to the 5th SS Panzer, the Viking, raised his head over the lip of the foxhole and cautiously surveyed it.
He turned to the Sergeant crouched beside him. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
“I don’t know, Hauptsturmführer.”
“Then it’s time we let them know.”
“If you say so, Hauptsturmführer.”
The blond Captain with the startling blue eyes looked at the T-34 — perhaps one of the survivors of Kursk, the greatest tank battle in history — through a pair of captured Russian binoculars. No movement except the slowly rotating gun.
“A pity to lose a fine specimen like this, Unterscharführer.”
“You are not suggesting we capture it?” the Sergeant asked. He hadn’t yet made up his mind about this laconic young officer, the embodiment of the Teutonic dream, who had so mysteriously arrived in the midst of the exhausted Viking, now in full retreat towards the Dnieper, the last natural barrier before the Polish border.
Ordinarily he would have assumed that he was a fanatic, dispatched from headquarters to bolster morale. My God it needed bolstering! The Viking had been fighting since the invasion was launched over the River Bug on June 22nd, 1941. More than two years in this bastard wilderness that the Ivans called Mother Russia!
But no, this man was no instrument of discipline, instructed by generals skulking far behind the sound of gunfire. This man was a soldier, albeit a rash one. There was the Knight’s Cross at the throat of his tunic, open at the neck, and a Silver Wound Medal, and a scar on his cheek which the Sergeant recognised as the furrow from a bullet.
Nevertheless he was an enigma. The scar long healed, the tunic miraculously well-preserved, standing out like a spare prick on a honeymoon among the crumpled, lousy, bloodstained clothing of the old soldiers.
The Sergeant glanced curiously at the captain as he surveyed the tank through the field-glasses. He noticed a muscle moving in the Captain’s jaw-bone, the needles of his close-clipped hair, the small cleft in his chin. Not a man to argue with, this one.
But who are you? Where have you come from?
The Captain lowered the field glasses: “You’re right, Sergeant.”
What had he said?
“We can’t capture it. We’ll have to destroy it,” he remarked conversationally, apparently overlooking the fact that all they possessed between them was a Schmeisser machine-pistol and a 9 mm Walther pistol.
The Captain pointed and the Sergeant raised his head to follow the line of his finger.
A Panzerfaust, a grenade launcher, lay on the wheat-coloured grass fifty yards from the foxhole.
He wants me to go and get that? No, my friend, those days are long past. We fight only to survive. Wait till you’ve been two years on the steppe.
“Cover me,” the Captain snapped.
The Sergeant was ashamed of his suspicion. “With a machine pistol, Hauptsturmführer?”
“At least it’s better than the Walther,” the Captain said.
God in heaven, he was making jokes!
“But they’ll spot you. One burst and they’ll have you.”
“There’s some cover over there,” the Captain said. Some scrub on which the first frost of autumn was just beginning to melt.
And then he was up and over the edge of the foxhole, wriggling flat-bellied over the grass.
The turret of the T-34 swung round.
You’ll dirty that precious uniform, the Sergeant thought inconsequentially. But they hadn’t spotted him. Not yet. The Sergeant raised the Schmeisser. Did the idiot want a bullet scar on the other cheek? Or through his chest?
The Captain was ten yards from the grenade-launcher when a machine-gun opened up from a belt of woods to his left. He flung himself to the ground and stayed there until the burst spent itself.
The Captain raised his head — For Christ’s sake keep down! — then his shoulders. As the machine-gun opened up again he scuttled behind a boulder.
Instinctively the Sergeant aimed the machine-pistol in the direction of the machine-gun. But what was the point? They were well out of range. Vaguely the Sergeant wondered what they were doing there. How they had got there. Had the Ivans secretly mounted yet another attack? Had the tank lumbered up merely to give the machine-gunners some target practice? Usually, the Sergeant thought grimly, they preferred prisoners for target practice. But what fighters. Even the Waffen-SS had to admit that.
The barrel of the gun on the tank swung lazily in the direction of the Captain hidden behind the boulder. One shell and both boulder and brave Captain would be no more. But they didn’t fire. Giving the machine-gunners some sport, the Sergeant decided. And after the Captain, me … Why in God’s name had this crazy two-man reconnaissance mission been mounted in the first place?
An aircraft with gull-shaped wings and a silver belly flew overhead. A Stuka. Perhaps one burst from its cannon might change the situation. But the Stuka flew away across the steppe — the infinite steppe — in the direction of the Dnieper.
Their only chance was if the Captain could make it back to the fox-hole. Then, if the machine-gunners are fool enough to move nearer, I’ll have them with the Schmeisser.
If … Peering over the top of the fox-hole the Sergeant realised that the Captain was indeed on the move. In the opposite direction. Towards the grenade-launcher.
And had reached it!
As bullets whipped over his head the Captain rolled into a hollow.
Now the tank must finish him off.
The Sergeant saw the snout of the Panzerfaust protruding from the hollow. Its grenade was said to be capable of punching a hole through eight inches of armour-plate. But the tank was beyond its effective range. Still, it was worth a try.
Machine-gun bullets plucked viciously at the ground around the hollow.
Then the Captain fired the grenade-launcher.
The Sergeant had no doubt of this because he heard the grenade clang against the tank’s armour. The hollowest clang of them all. A dud.
So this is how I am to die, the Sergeant thought. After two years of battle, after glorious victories and a few defeats, I am to die here in a foxhole.
For what? he wondered, failing at first to hear another sound on the crisp autumn air. But when the machine-gun stopped firing he heard it. The Stuka had returned. And was diving as only a Stuka can dive. It opened up with machine-gun and cannon.
The shells and bullets fell short but when the Sergeant again peered over the edge of the foxhole the T-34 was on the move heading for the cover of the woods. And the machine-gun was silent.
The Stuka climbed, wheeled, prepared for another attack. But as it came into a screaming dive the tank had reached the woods.
Inside the Russian tank the two German SS officers, instructed by Sepp Dietrich to put Kurt Wolff’s courage and initiative to the test, nodded at each other before abandoning it for their own armoured car.
When they reached the German machine-gunner he stood up and said: “Excuse me, Gruppenführer, I know I shouldn’t question an order but what was that all about?”
He never found out because one of the officers blew out his brains with a Luger pistol.
* * *
Kurt Wolff’s principal regret in his youth — he was only twenty-two now — was that he hadn’t been born early enough to be a fully-fledged member of the SS in those exciting, formative years of the struggle.
But he was old enough to remember the Congress of Victory, the Nazi rally at Nuremberg, in September, 1933. He was twelve years old then and he was wearing a black vest and shorts, marching in the Zeppelinwiese, with sixty thousand members of the Hitler Youth, in intricate formations that spelled out in black, red and white slogans, BLOOD AND HONOUR or GERMANY AWAKE.
In the centre of the formations was a swastika.
Military bands thumped out Lehar and Beethoven, flags fluttered in the late summer breeze. Then the finale: Sixty thousand knives simultaneously drawn like a flash of summer lightning.
Wolff was not an emotional man but he was still deeply moved when he gazed at the photograph of the rally, saw the child-like trust on the faces of the boys. Ten years later, how many of those boys had died for the cause?
He remembered the scene in the Luitpoldhalle after the display. At the back of the stage the German eagle clasping a swastika; at the sides of the hall a hundred or so SS resplendent in the black and silver uniforms.
