War Stories III (40 page)

The German ranks were now filled with old men and boys. Kesselring was plagued by inadequate equipment, insufficient fuel, and deficits in ammunition, weapons—even food. Patton, Hodges, and the other Allied commanders rolled right over his western army in every engagement. On 22 March Patch's 7th Army joined with Patton in the Saar and Palatinate regions, and captured a bridgehead on the Rhine at Oppenheim.

By the end of the month, the American 1st, 3rd, and 9th Armies had encircled Germany's nearly ruined industrial heartland. There, Joachim Fest, a seventeen-year-old German conscript, came face-to-face with the Americans.

On 19 March a tormented Adolf Hitler sought refuge in his Berlin underground bunker—caught in an undeniable downward spiral, measured only by the continuing injections that his doctor administered regularly.
One of Hitler's own staff members described him as, “a dreadful sight . . . saliva frequently dripped from the corners of his mouth.” Yet, the Führer continued to issue orders—including a directive drafted by Albert Speer, calling for war production to continue until the last possible moment, then—if factories or facilities were unable to function—they should be crippled or destroyed.

By the evening of 23 March, the 21st Army Group and the U.S. 17th and British 6th Airborne Divisions had followed Patton across the Rhine and the next day, the rest of the U.S. 9th and British 2nd Army had also entered Germany's heartland. The U.S. 7th Army crossed the Rhine further south, at Worms on 26 March, along with the French 1st Army.

But then, on 28 March, Eisenhower, at Marshall's direction, sent word to Stalin that the western Allies would not advance on Berlin. Instead, the British and Americans would proceed along the Efurt-Leipzig-Dresden corridor to split German defenses and then link up with the Red Army. When General Omar Bradley called Patton and told him that Eisenhower did not want him to venture any farther into Germany, it is said that “Old Blood and Guts” had tears in his eyes. By 1 April 1945, the final Red Army drive to Berlin was on.

 

Hitler shortly before the end of the war.

A disheartened General George Patton turned his army east toward Czechoslovakia, and on 7 April, his troops literally struck gold, uncovering a hoard of Nazi treasure—$250 million in gold bars—hidden deep inside a salt mine in the town of Merkers. After receiving a tip from local residents, Patton's engineers blasted their way into the salt caverns outside the town and found millions more in priceless works of art—paintings, jewels, and 8,000 gold bars—along with more than fifty boxes of gold bullion, gold and silver coins, and
hundreds of bales
of currency from various nations worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It appeared that most of the gold reserves of the German Central Bank had been stored there.

Excitement about the discovery was tempered with a grisly realization—Hitler's SS had also used the mine to hide gold and jewels stolen from Nazi death camp inmates—including dental fillings, wedding rings, and other jewelry and personal effects.

Although the Merkers mine was located in an area designated as a Soviet-controlled zone, Patton ordered the booty to be removed before the Red Army arrived.

The death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 12 April did nothing to slow the momentum. The following day, Soviets troops occupied Vienna, Austria, and subdued the last German defenders in Hungary. Though American and British troops paused briefly out of respect to the American president, Russian troops continued their offensive and by 13 April, 2.5 million Red Army soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front effectively encircled the capital in a ring of massed artillery and mortar fire. Two days later, American and British soldiers overran the Ruhr Valley, capturing 320,000 German troops. The Third Reich was in its death throes.

Hitler marked his fifty-sixth birthday on 19 April 1945 by decorating several Hitler Youth defenders of Berlin for their valor. The next day, the 3rd Infantry Division entered Nuremberg, the seat of Nazi power. American
troops lined up in Adolf Hitlerplatz and ceremoniously raised the Stars and Stripes over a huge Nazi swastika.

With the end near, Hitler was spending nearly every moment in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery with his closest Nazi Party officials. Nonetheless, Heinrich Himmler, one of his most steadfast followers, still managed to slip away long enough to meet in secret with Swedish diplomats in an effort to see if he could negotiate some kind of conditional surrender on the Western Front.

Now, only a select few remained loyal to Hitler. One of them was Eva Braun and another, a Hitler Youth soldier, sixteen-year-old Armin Lehmann, on courier duty, was dodging Russian bullets to deliver messages to and from Hitler's bunker.