Armageddon (66 page)

Well, well, well, Falkenstein thought to himself. They were answering the challenge with the strongest indication yet of a determination to remain in Berlin. “I am certain you have examined the consequences.”

“Any consequence is better than handing them the city.”

“After we make our announcement, we want the Berlin Assembly to pass a resolution favoring our B marks,” General Hansen said.

“That is a tall order.”

“We think you are a tall man,” Hazzard said.

Falkenstein’s mind ran in practical channels. Would he be able to hold his people together and push a vote through in the Russian Sector? Yet, the Americans and British were committing themselves to risk, too, for the first time.

The alternative? Give the city to Rudi Wöhlman. How long would it last? As long as Prague ... as long as Warsaw.

Falkenstein did not like the alliance with the Americans. They were hedgy. They came to him only out of self-interest Yet, there was no one else, there was no place to go.

“When do you plan to announce the B marks?”

“Over RIAS in the morning so that it will be covered in the afternoon papers.”

Falkenstein nodded. “I have a busy day’s work then.”

“There is a question I am forced to ask,” General Hansen said. “Knowing what might happen, are the people of this city going to hold?”

“And you, gentlemen. Will you hold?”

“I don’t know,” Hansen answered. “If we do leave we will pay for it with the blood of unborn generations. But the question is here and now. At this moment we have a way out and you don’t. How are the people of Berlin going to choose to go this time?”

With his hot and cold love of the city, Ulrich Falkenstein had made himself believe that Berliners were different ... but they had endured the Nazis, the bombs, the rape of their city. Was there enough left in them to resist? Would fear of the Russians band them together to accept this half-hearted alliance with the Americans; or would the history of the past tell them that resistance is useless and would they then stampede to the Russians as the best way to survive?

He looked directly at the American military governor. “You have my word, sir, that so long as the American garrison remains in Berlin, the people will stand with you.”

They shook hands. Hansen and Falkenstein looked at each other with a mutual lack of warmth.

Chapter Forty-two

T
HE DAY AFTER THE
announcement of the B marks, the Soviet Union suspended canal and rail traffic for “technical” reasons and the movement on the autobahn slowed to a trickle.

Hovering on the brink of a complete blockade, Ulrich Falkenstein presented a bill to the Berlin Assembly to accept the Western currency.

Rudi Wöhlman used the full bag of parliamentary tricks to stall and the SND of Adolph Schatz worked overtime to apply terror on the assemblymen.

On the day of June 23, 1948, the. vote could no longer be delayed. As he had done many times before, General Hansen sent Sean O’Sullivan into the eye of the hurricane. He was dispatched to the office which the Americans kept at the Berlin City Hall.

Berlin’s Rathaus sat well inside the Soviet Sector a short distance from the rubble-strewn Unter Den Linden and two full miles away from the junction where the British, American, and Russian sectors came together.

The former Lust Garten at the end of the Unter Den Linden had been cleared and made into a huge plaza, renamed Marx-Engels Platz, and served as a massing place for shows of Soviet solidarity.

On this day Action Squads from the factories, the university, the political clubs, and the youth groups assembled in the plaza and placards were passed among them.

DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST WARMONGERS!

AMERICANS, GO HOME!

PEACE AND PROSPERITY THROUGH OUR SOVIET COMRADES!

HITLER! HANSEN! HAZZARD
!

On cue they filed out of the Marx-Engels Platz, crossed the bridge over the Spree River, and took up their posts at the Rathaus and at the Magistrat a block away. The police were nowhere to be seen.

The arrival of the first Democrats from the Western Sectors started catcalls and shoving. As more came some rocks were hurled and the last through were mauled and the clothing torn from them.

In his office Ulrich Falkenstein received word from one of his floor deputies that the Communists were creating pandemonium, refusing to come to order. He walked to the balcony overlooking the Assembly and watched the Communists throwing ink bottles, shouting, and stomping.

“Call Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan.”

Sean watched for some ten minutes. Every attempt to bring order was drowned out.

“All right,” Sean said at last, “you’ve got my clearance.”

Falkenstein walked down to the floor and over to Rudi Wöhlman, who stood on a desk top exhorting his people. He tugged at Wöhlman’s trouser leg and motioned for him to come down.

“Comrade Wöhlman,” Ulrich said, “if you do not establish order in your ranks in one minute we are authorized to leave and conduct the business of this Assembly in the American Sector.”

Wöhlman had been warned by V. V. Azov not to let such a thing happen. He got his people quiet, held a quick caucus, and announced a boycott of the “illegal” bill before the Assembly.

With the Communists refusing to vote, the Berlin Assembly voted in behalf of the Western B marks, rejecting the Russian currency unanimously.

When the session ended, the physical violence outside reached a new peak with Hanna Kirchner being severely beaten at the Magistrat and hospitalized along with two-dozen assemblymen from the free parties.... But the vote stood.

Any comradery that once existed between Neal Hazzard and Nikolai Trepovitch was gone. Hazzard looked angrily at the Russian at what was obviously going to be one of the last meetings of the dying Kommandatura.

“You have used the Red Army as thugs, bullies, and hoodlums to terrorize defenseless people in country after country. Is this your glorious way of life? Threatening to starve two million people. You were not wanted in Poland. You were not wanted in Czechoslovakia and you’re not wanted here in Berlin. I only regret that my country was not in Prague and Warsaw to prevent their rape.”

Trepovitch was pale. He was ill from the strain of the past days. “The Soviet Union vetoes the illegal action of the Berlin Assembly,” he recited.

As the Russian spoke, an aide whispered to Neal Hazzard that General Hansen was on the phone. Neal was excused and left the conference room for his office.

The instant he was gone, Trepovitch sprung to his feet “The Americans have walked out of the Kommandatura!”

“Nonsense,” T. E. Blatty answered, “he slipped me a note requesting to be excused to take a phone call.”

“A lie! This was a direct provocation! The Americans have deliberately walked out in the middle of my arguments! The Soviet Union will no longer tolerate such indignities!”

And with that, the Russian led his staff from the Kommandatura, duplicating Marshal Popov’s abandonment of the Supreme German Council. The flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the staff before the building, never to be raised again.

The free parties of Berlin called for a unity rally in the still battered great Olympic Stadium. It was jammed to overflowing with 125,000 aroused Berliners. Yet, it was an orderly demonstration as only German demonstrations can be. The passion in them was under control.

As their leaders arrived and mounted the rostrum a swell of cheers arose, but the great ovation was reserved for Colonel Neal Hazzard, who clasped both hands over his head like a victorious fighter.

Those on the rostrum who led the Democrats and Christians and Conservatives realized that the people cheered the man rather than his nation, for the alliance was shaky.

Hanna Kirchner came from her hospital bed and the thunder swelled. One by one they stood before their people and begged them to be firm and begged the world to look upon them. And then, Ulrich Falkenstein:

“Berliners! We have been asked if we have the courage to stand! Give me your answer!”

A long and loud plea for freedom swelled the air!

“Hear us in Moscow! Hear us in Washington! Hear us in London! The spirit of Berlin was never Nazi and will never be Communist! From the depths of our souls, our will to be free will build a mighty dam that will beat back the raging Red Seas which try to drown us. Berlin will be free!”

The next day the Soviet Union announced that the bridge on the Elbe River was closed for “repairs.” Berlin was blockaded by land and by sea.

Part 4

The Last of the Gooney Birds

Chapter One

A
NOTHER MORNING.

Another gathering of Germans over the boulevard from American Headquarters. They stared through a Berlin mist as the color guard marched to the flag pole and continued to watch silently as the Stars and Stripes went up the staff, unfurled, fluttered. Certain now that the Americans were in Berlin for another day, the clump of Germans broke, carrying lunch buckets, shopping bags, briefcases, and trudged toward the U Bahn.

Outside city limits three divisions of Soviet troops with heavy armor continued nerve-wracking maneuvers, ostensibly poised to strike into the Western Sectors.

People’s Radio increased the tension. They began with a water-shortage scare, then a rumor that the West had annexed the Ruhr. “Food riots sweep West Berlin as thousands are thrown out of work. Babies are dying from lack of milk! This cruel imperialist policy is bringing new untold suffering to the workers!”

On the third floor of American Headquarters, General Andrew Jackson Hansen wrestled with the most pressing of his problems. Barney Root, the USAFE commander, had been able to fly in between eighty and a hundred tons daily of supplies and the British were flying in enough to handle their own immediate needs. But now, food for the entire population of Western Berlin was in a growing crisis.

With the food shortage was a power shortage. Before the war there had only been a single power plant in the Western part of the city. It stood on the Hauswehr Canal opposite the West Harbor, the inland barge port.

This plant was the most modern in Berlin, but used mainly as an auxiliary during peak hours. The Russians had stripped it and only a few of the generators had been replaced. Most of the power for the Western Sector came from Saxony through Russian-controlled lines.

The Russians cut the electricity, causing an industry shutdown and a sweep of unemployment.

Sean O’Sullivan worked with the Magistrat experts to determine the immediate situation. He brought the grim tidings to Hansen.

“We have a thirty-six day supply of coal for the power plant. We can generate enough power to run our own installations, move minimal transportation, prevent a communications collapse, and keep certain emergency facilities going. No coal for German civilians, and almost none can be spared for industrial purposes.”

Hansen lifted the receiver of his red, emergency phone and told the switchboard to put him through to Army Headquarters in Heidelberg. Commander of combat forces Lieutenant General William Warren Crossfield answered on his red phone.

“Scramble the conversation.”

Each pressed a scramble button, a device to jumble their voices against a phone tap.

Crossfield spoke excitedly. “We just heard news of the food riots. Do you need help?”

“There aren’t any food riots. That’s Radio Moscow crap. There was a little excitement over a water-shortage scare, but we’ve settled them down. Billy, I want you to assemble an armed convoy and have it stand by.”

“Are we going to try to break through the autobahn?”

“If Washington lets me.”

“Chip, I’ll personally lead that convoy but we’d better not have our bluff called.”

“The Russians are the ones bluffing.”

William Warren Crossfield had commanded an Army Group north from Southern France and over the Rhine. He was not given to being a flashy leader, but he was a shrewd, steady tactician who had an immaculate grasp of logistics, supplies, support, and all the other nuances of battle ... and he was a cold-blooded realist.

“We’re playing with fire,” he said, “and we don’t have a damned thing to put it out with.”

“It’s not that kind of a fight. This is a battle of will power,” Hansen answered.

“Maybe you’re right, Chip, but I know that Marshal Popov knows that the whole United States can’t call up two reserve divisions of infantry.”

A few hours later General Hansen arrived at USAFE Headquarters in Wiesbaden for a conference with General Barney Root.

“You’ve got to think of flying in five, six, seven hundred tons of supplies a day. We need coal as badly as food, and somehow we’ve got to get some more generators in.”

Barney Root stared at Chip Hansen as though he were crazy. “Would you repeat that?”

“If I can’t sell Washington on an armed convoy, I’m going to sell them on supplying Berlin by air.”

Barney relit his cigar butt. “Three years ago we had twelve thousand aircraft in England and on the European continent. Right now our air transport consists of eighty-two worn out Gooney Birds. My crews are punchy. They’re flying almost triple the number of hours we consider safe.
We didn’t even ask them to fly this way in the war. Chip, I haven’t got enough spare parts in Europe to rebuild the ass end of a Piper Cub.”

“Barney, I intend convincing Washington to send over Skymasters to replace the Gooney Birds and I’m going to ask the President to recall Hiram Stonebraker.”

“Look, I’m with you all the way. I’ll keep scratching around for aircraft and crews. I’ve already assigned Shorty MacDonald on the Berlin supply run exclusively. He’s the best transport man we’ve got.” Barney Root squashed out the dead cigar.

“You don’t believe in this, do you?” Hansen said.

“I’m a bomber man. I don’t know enough about transports.”

“You don’t believe in it?” Hansen repeated.

“You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than Stonebraker and Skymasters.”