Fox On The Rhine (8 page)

Third possibility: A coup within a coup... someone who either (a) wanted Hitler dead or (b) in the event of Hitler’s death wanted to take control of Germany. And that someone would have to be... the survivor. Himmler. The SS. Of course. Thunderstorm had to be Himmler. The Gestapo had either infiltrated the conspiracy, in which case Himmler wanted Hitler dead so he could take over, or Himmler had a little backup plan just in case Hitler got killed so he could pick up the pieces. Göring dead, Goebbels dead--would Speer pose a threat to Himmler’s accession? Probably not.
How many divisions does Speer have?
he asked himself, paraphrasing Stalin. And there was Rudolf Hess, of course, still languishing in prison. Unlikely that he would be a ringleader in any countercoup, though it was possible that he might get a later role to play in any plan. Himmler had to be the key.

All right. Himmler has launched a countercoup, starting by killing off his key rivals in a way that attributes their deaths to the Stauffenberg conspiracy. He won’t move against the conspirators yet, because he needs them as a threat to help him consolidate power. Afterward, he’ll liquidate them all in a series of show trials, blaming them for the excess deaths and making sure no one is left alive to challenge him.

Next move? Mobilize the party faithful and reach out to the German people. The party faithful can be reached by SS and Gestapo easily enough. The people...communications! He sat up, knocking over the dregs of coffee and watery cigarette butts. “General Waverly!” he yelled as he pushed his way into the conference room. “We’ve got to get in touch with the Stauffenberg team--now!”

The general looked up with mild eyes and held up his hand. “Radio program from Berlin has been interrupted. The special announcement from Stauffenberg’s team is coming on now.”

“No, sir,” said Sanger. “I don’t think it’s going to be Stauffenberg at all.”

Broadcast House, Berlin, Germany, 1115 hours GMT

The sound of gunfire echoed in the streets of Berlin as SS General Horst Bücher’s car passed the Chancellery building and turned the comer onto the Wilhelmstrasse. SS troops had stormed into the communications building and seized all vital areas. Two Panzer IVs flanked the entrance, and a twin phalanx of riflemen formed a corridor from the curb to the front doors. The newly made general of SS climbed from the car, saluted briskly, and studied the stone edifice of the Reich’s central radio facility, Broadcast House. There were fresh scars in the stone, revealing the battle for the soul of the Reich, just as fresh as the new insignia on his black SS uniform.

Horst Bücher was a perfect specimen of the SS ideal, body and soul an emblem of German pride. From his early days in the Hitlerjugend, where he gained distinction by reporting his father, a city government bureaucrat from Mainz, for anti-Nazi sentiments, he was marked for greatness. Strong and rigid, he won a competitive scholarship to Heidelberg University, where he was a championship fencer--the scars on each cheek were evidence of his dueling prowess with the saber--and an honors student in military history. There, his European history professor had proved too understanding of the Bolshevik movement, and besides, he dated back to the Weimar days--the professor, like his father, was dragged away by the Gestapo, never to be seen again.

Bücher’s progress through SS ranks was steady; Himmler had seen in him the perfect Aryan looks and build that, strangely, numerous top Nazis did not themselves possess. He’d served with distinction under the noted commando Otto Skorzeny. And now he was a general of the SS, and not just any general--he was Himmler’s strong right arm, securing the Reich for the party and the SS. Now he had been charged with tightening Nazi control of the central radio facility.

The martial tones of Wagner blared from an array of speakers on the walls. Bücher knew this was the current broadcast of the station--the network had fallen back on staple fare until instructions were issued concerning the current crisis.

He ignored the troops, dark eyes intent upon the doorway before him. His temporary aide, a full colonel pulled from Himmler’s staff, trotted several paces behind as he stalked up the walkway, climbed the steps, and passed through the doors into the tiled hallway. The building was not so grandiose as the Chancellery or the Reichstag, but that only made sense to Bücher. After all, this place was designed to disseminate words, not pictures.

Two guards lay in pools of blood beside the doors to the broadcasting chambers. Bücher was used to the smell of the charnel house, and this time barely noticed the odor. Whether the guards had resisted, or simply failed to comply quickly enough when the SS troops commanded them to stand aside, was moot. It was a well-known principle that once one or two were shot, it had a salutatory effect on the cooperation of others.

Or perhaps it had not, at least in this instance. An officious little producer, sleekly bald and wearing a threadbare but unmistakably expensive suit, appeared from nowhere to block the general’s steady advance.

“Apologies, Herr General--but you cannot come in here!” he stammered with remarkable boldness. “The orders of Reichsminister Goebbels himself are required before--”

“This man is to be shot, immediately,” Bücher snapped. The fellow’s face went slack with an almost comical effect. He gasped noises, unable to articulate anything beyond a gurgling plea. One of the SS sergeants was raising his Schmeisser when the general suddenly recalled the mess he’d passed at the door. No need to take the lesson farther than necessary. “Take him outside, first!” he amended his order.

The sergeant roughly prodded the blubbering producer away, and Bücher stalked into the broadcasting section. Pale, tight-lipped secretaries stared at his scarred face from behind a wooden counter, while a storm trooper rushed forward to indicate the proper booth.

As the Nazi officer burst through the doors a trembling announcer sprang to his feet, gesturing Bücher toward the microphone with frantic obsequiousness.

“Very good,” declared the general with a secret smile. There would be no need to shoot anybody else; these civilians were now completely cowed. He settled into the chair provided. “Signal the control booth to prepare for a broadcast--Reichsführer Himmler has a very important announcement....” The clock showed a few minutes past noon.

War Ministry, Berlin, Germany, 1125 hours GMT

Just after noon, Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators allowed the phones to rest. All that could be done via mere communication had been done. The coded messages had been sent and were now being decrypted by conspirators all across Europe, in cities of Germany and conquered nations, in various commands of the Wehrmacht. Throughout the Reich bold Germans should be preparing to take action to overthrow the Nazi yoke. Now they could only wait and hope.

Beck settled back in his chair. The old man’s eyelids drooped with weariness, and the tension of the day had left him drawn and haggard. It was an exhaustion shared by them all, yet still overshadowed by the great truth: Hitler was dead!

“When do we make the broadcast to the nation?” General Olbricht inquired, as the colonel who was their leader rubbed his three fingers across his face.

“Sometime tomorrow morning, I should guess,” Stauffenberg replied. “As soon as all the pieces are in place.” The encoding of the coup announcement had taken considerable time, and though it had been sent some hours ago, none of the Wehrmacht units had had time to react. Still, the plotters felt certain that, with the death of Hitler confirmed, the German army would quickly fall into line.

One of the phones rang, and Olbricht lifted the receiver, listening for a minute before hanging up. “That was Stulpnagel--the SS and Gestapo troops in Paris have all been rounded up. They’re keeping them under guard at the Hotel Continental,” he added wryly.

“Good--together with Munich that gives us a good start on a power base,” the one-eyed colonel remarked. That important city, capital of Bavaria, had yielded to the plotters earlier in the evening.

“I wonder what happened at the ministry of Propaganda--how the good Dr. Goebbels got himself killed!” Beck could not suppress his good humor--though the death of the minister of propaganda had not been part of the plan, none of them had greeted the news with anything like dismay.

“If only we can be so lucky with Himmler and the SS leadership,” added Olbricht. The conspirators looked at each other with pretended nonchalance, but all of them knew the importance of the question. Himmler, with his legions of Gestapo and Waffen SS troops, presented the greatest obstacle to the plot. Since he had not been present at the meeting, they had to rely on the unknown quantity of their fellow conspirator, Fuller, to neutralize this threat. As yet, there had been no report of any kind from SS headquarters.

Another phone rang, and Stauffenberg himself took the call. Shock registered plainly across his features as he reported the news:

“That was Karinhall. Göring has been killed--shot in his study!”

“What?” demanded Beck. He fixed an accusatory eye on the count. “That wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan!”

Stauffenberg shook his head in confusion. “It wasn’t.” This was potentially bad news--very bad. Göring was an incompetent, and that would have made him easier to manage, easier to bring under the will of the conspirators.

“Any word on who killed him?” inquired Olbricht, his brows knitting in alarm.

“No. Lieutenant Haeften,” the count said to his aide. “Take the car and get out there now--see what you can find out.”

As the young officer departed, Stauffenberg rose to his feet and began to pace. He looked at the phones in irritation, and as if in response to his mute plea one of the instruments rang.

“War Ministry--Replacement Army Headquarters. Colonel von Stauffenberg here.”

Again the count’s shock was obvious to his coconspirators, as the color slowly drained from his face. The message was brief, the caller breaking the connection after barely half a minute. “Well? What is it? News?” Beck pressed irritably.

“Yes--of a sort.” Stauffenberg paused, looking so stricken that Beck wondered if he was going to be sick.

“That was Himmler.” he finally reported, his voice dull. “He plans to broadcast a message of calm to the nation in a few minutes. He wanted to send us his best wishes, before he goes on the air--and to assure us that he is well. He told us not to worry--said that SS troops have secured the Broadcast House.”

“Is that all?” breathed Olbricht, suddenly turning a sickly shade of pale.

“No--he requests the honor of our presence tomorrow at 1000 hours, in the Chancellery building. He plans to gather the general staff and make plans for the future conduct of the war.” At that moment Stauffenberg knew that encoding the messages had been a possibly fatal mistake. The loss of time had given Himmler a chance to react, and now the SS reichsführer had seized the initiative from the plotters. There was still a chance for the conspirators to win, to free Germany from the Nazis, but it was a small chance, and growing smaller every minute.

578 Squadron Base, Wendling, Norfolk, England

Staff Sgt. Frank “Digger” O’Dell Wendling,
Norfolk, England
July 22, 1944

Mrs. Lucy O’Dell Roxboro,
North Carolina

Dear Mama,

Well, it’s not looking too good for your little boy fulfilling his plan of dropping a bomb down ol’ Hitler’s chimney, if the news we just heard is true.

As you can tell by opening this letter, we made it to England OK. When we left, it looked like the war would be going on long enough for me to get into it, and now it looks like it just might be over before I ever get a chance.

I was so happy that you came up to see me in Sioux Falls when I was in radio school. I told you I’d washed out of pilot training and that they wouldn’t let me be a gunner on account of the fact that I was over six feet tall. That’s why all the boys in the unit started calling me “Digger” O’Dell like the undertaker on the Life of Riley show.

Well, I fixed that. I forged a form that listed me as five feet ten inches, and that’s how I got into gunnery school in Texas. I managed to pass, but just by the skin of my teeth. When the colonel pinned a set of wings on me I felt like snatching them out of his hand to be sure I had them.

We did our advanced training all over, and ended up in Casper, Wyoming, where we received our own airplane, a new B-24. There were only three crews out of forty to get a fly-away airplane. Those three crews were considered to be the best and we were one of those.

We finally flew across the Atlantic to England, where we’ll be stationed. When we landed, they rode us from the airfield over to the barracks and all of the old hands were standing in the doorways of the barracks looking at us and yelling things like, “You’ll be sorry,” and saying if anyone wears a size 38 blouse or a 14-32 shirt, how ’bout moving into this barracks.

In spite of that, they turned out to be a good bunch of fellows. When we heard about ol’ Hitler getting killed, we all went out to celebrate, though I felt pretty disappointed that I wasn’t going to have much to do in the war. But the other fellows were happy that it looked like they’d live through it, so I guess it’s okay for them. We went to an English pub and they taught me how to order an “arf and arf ’ which is two kinds of beer mixed together, though I thought they were pulling my leg and getting me to bark or something silly like that. But it’s the way they talk.

Well, it’s looking like it will be a quiet war after all, so-I will probably write you real soon and be home before you know it. As Digger O’Dell says, “Cheerio! I’d better be shoveling off!” Love,
Your Son
Staff Sergeant Frank “Digger” O’Dell

Headquarters, General Staff, Berlin, Germany, 1822 hours GMT

“It’s very quiet right now,” observed Colonel Wolfgang Müller, looking out the dirty window.

“Or perhaps it’s merely the calm before the storm,” said his friend, Colonel Gunter von Reinhardt.

In the smudged glass, Müller looked with annoyance at the reflection of the tall, calm aristocrat. Reinhardt was always so composed, so calm--the antithesis to the overweight, balding, bespectacled figure that was Müller’s reflection.