Panzer Commander Part 4

Next morning I drove to m office-this time unescorted by the y colonel. I could not believe my eyes. Waiting for a laissez-pa.s.ser was a line of hundreds of civilians. Waiting in the office itself was a venerable old woman who was introduced to me as Madame Lyautey. She was the widow of the famous Marshal Lyautey, who had played a great part in the subduing of Morocco and was regarded as a popular hero.

"Mon Capitaine, I am an old lady who would like to go home. Can you please give me a laissez-pa.s.ser and a gas voucher? I would be grateful to you." What must have been going on inside this old lady, who had to ask such a favor of a young German who had fought against her country?

I gave her the papers without hesitation, and a leaflet showing which roads she was allowed to use. She thanked me very warmly.

I could detect no hate in her eyes, but understanding, rather, for the course of events which neither she nor I could have influenced.

The road map was hectographed and handed out to all recipients of the coveted doc.u.ments. At my request, a German administrator was sent to the fuel depot to supervise the issue of fuel. The day was filled with handing out doc.u.ments and answering questions. In this I had strong support from Kardorff and we were both glad when, in the late afternoon, we were able to return to the hotel, then to restore ourselves with a whiskey on board the s.h.i.+p.

P6tain's removal to Vichy was scheduled for the following day.

The surrender of the city was also being prepared, so in two days I would be free of my unaccustomed work.

That evening our "Moor" in the hotel had just served coffee.

"What do you think," I asked Kardorfr, "should we go somewhere in town and have a drink?" He thought it was a good idea, so we got into the jeep and drove to the town hall in the vicinity of which we hoped to find a bar.

The town was completely dead. Then it occurred to uurfew was at ten o'clock, as I myself had ordered. It was now quarter past.

What was to be done?

France, 1940 55 We then spotted a fiacre, at that time the most general means of transport, standing all by itself with the driver asleep on the box.

"Monsieur," we shook him awake.

He saw our uniforms and stammered in dismay, "Mon Genral, I have a family, I fell asleep, for G.o.d's sake." We rea.s.sured him, "That's all right, but do you know where one can still get a drink?"

"Non, Monsieur, everywhere is closed because of the couvrefeu, everyone is afraid. There is still a maison sgrieuse of course, but I don't know if they will be open for you." We had no idea what a maison s6rieuse might be, but we were prepared to risk it. So we let ourselves be taken by the driver to our hoped-for drink. The streets became narrower and narrower, the district more and more dubious. Now and then we thought we were being :watched from behind curtains. Gradually our situation became uncomfortable.

"Where are you taking us, Monsieur?"

"Voild, we're there." He climbed down from the box and knocked at the door. An elderly lady appeared.

"Please come in, General." (She promoted me just to be on the safe side; one can never tell!) I impressed upon the driver that he was to wait for us if he valued his life.

No sooner had we stepped inside than we realized the meaning of a maison s6rieuse. It was a, brothel, admittedly in the French manner. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were of quality, Madame was very kind, and the girls made a good impression.

"Ma dame," I tried to explain our presence, "until the surrender of the town we are the responsible German ofkcers of Bordeaux. We really only wanted a drink, but were caught out by the curfew we ourselves had ordered."

"You are very welcome. Let's drink a gla.s.s of champagne to celebrate the end of the war. We women are always the moumers." After half an hour of lively conversation on the sense and senselessness of the war, we took our leave, not without a.s.suring the old lady that we would recommend her establishment to the local German headquarters. She was highly delighted and gave us her visiting card.

Our driver was asleep again, but he was there, thank goodness.

We trotted slowly back to the town hall, where our jeep was 56 PANLLIC COMMANDER waiting. The driver refused any money.

When I paid him liberally all the same, he called out, "The Germans are not half as bad as we've been told. I'll wait for you here, mon Gn.gral, every evening until curfew, in case you need me." And he trotted off contentedly.

P6tain, meanwhile, had left the city with his provisional government. The ceremonial entry of our division had been fixed for the day after, with a march-past before our corps commander, General Hoth.

I reported back to Rommel and could not help telling him about the maison srieuse, which much amused him.

Our 7th Panzer Division was transferred to the area west of Bordeaux. Further orders were to follow. I managed to get permission from Rommel to move with my reconnaissance battalion to Arcachon, the delightful seaside resort on the Atlantic coast in the lee of the Cap Feret peninsula. There among the dunes I set up my headquarters in one of the pretty summer villas. For a few days we enjoyed bathing in the sea, fresh oysters, which were collected every day from the oyster beds, and the delicious dry white wine. The end of the French campaign could not have turned out better.

Interim, 1941 Every war brings with it, through the s.h.i.+fting of theaters of action, longer or shorter pauses, the "periods between campaigns." These pauses are of great value, both for the individual soldier and for the community. Everyone tries to mobilize his mental forces and is ready to suppress negative experiences and a.s.similate even the slightest positive ones.

People encourage each other and strengthen one another in the hope that at some point in time they will be able to escape this constant mortal threat forever.

Probably every soldier finds out in the course of a war that he can only bear the "having to kill" and "being killed" over long periods if he adopts the maxims of the Stoics: learn to endure all things with equanimity. He can only do this -it he builds up an immune system of his own against the feelings of fear and sympathy and probably, to a certain degree, even against matters of ethics, morals, and conscience. He cannot afford to question the whys and wherefores of the things that happen around him and in which he, himself, has a part. He must act and apply his whole concentration to that. He learns through a long process of habituation to suppress images of horror, to distance himself from his neighbor in order to remain capable of rational action.

If-he mana-W-&-bis chances of survival increase.

These thoughts and emotions were at work in us now after the end of the French campaign. We knew that our families at home were suffering from anxiety about their sons and husbands. We all felt genuine grief for our dead and severely wounded. We thought, also, of the losses we had inflicted on our opponents.

Predominant, however, was joy that we had survived thus far.

The navy and the Luftwaffe remained in action; the first Allied air raids on our industrial centers and communication networks made our own country a theater of war for the first time.

Rommel flew to Vienna, his last garrison before the war, for a few weeks' leave, to relax with his wife Lucie and his young son Manfred.

Through close friends on the general staff I learned that Hitler had tried to conclude a separate peace with Britain. To him, the British, besides the Scandinavians and the Germans, of course, were members of the "Germanic race," whom he secretly admired.

But he seemed to have completely misjudged Churchill, who, as we gathered from the British news bulletins, was determined to destroy Hitler and his National Socialism.

In July, our division was transferred to the area west of Paris.

Rommel came back and told us that "Operation Sea Lion" was being prepared, the invasion of Britain. The 7th Panzer Division was among those earmarked for the operation. This was the start of wearisome weeks and months of preparation. On converted barges and a few special s.h.i.+ps, loading and unloading was practiced again and again under combat conditions. But our impression was that the preparations for Sea Lion were halfhearted, as the Luftwaffe was losing the Battle of Britain.

I moved with my reconnaissance battalion to the Parisian suburb of Le V6sinet, which lay on a loop of the Seine west of Paris.

Living in the villa opposite was Josephine Baker; our neighbor was the owner of the Lido, which he reopened with a new show immediately after the armistice. Our villa belonged to a Swiss national who wanted to return to Switzerland, as he was unable, for the time being, to do any business in Paris. He saw us as a guarantee that he would one day find his villa again intact.

"I don't know how long we shall be staying here, but don't worry, I'll keep everything in order," I promised him.

He showed me around the villa and the wine cellar.

"Please help yourself as often as you like." I declined his generous offer with thanks. Finally we agreed on a token price of one franc per bottle of his fine old wines. I particularly enjoyed a 1929 Chambertin.

My men were quartered in a sanatorium. A baroness was the spokeswoman for the citizens of V6sinet. She praised our behavior. Friends were made, but this had nothing to do with so-called "collaboration," which was later to be punished so gruesomely by the French.

July 1940: Paris was on our doorstep. Military headquarters had been set up and entry to the city was permitted only with a special pa.s.s. I obtained one of these pa.s.ses and spent all my spare time refres.h.i.+ng my memory of this unique city and exploring the individual quartiers. One evening, I happened to go into Le Cavalier, a bar in the vicinity of the Champs Elys6es. Its proprietor was C16ment Duhour, an Olympic athlete in 1932 and a well-known chanson Interim, 1940-1941 59 singer and later film producer. We took to each other at once and Le Cavalier became my regular bar.

There one met no Germans from the ever more swollen administration, who often behaved overbearingly as "victors." They were the ones who had never heard a shot, let alone taken part in the war. It was often embarra.s.sing when drunken members of the military administration sang n.a.z.i songs in the bars, while the French customers would have liked to bear chansons.

Once, when it became too much for me and physical violence threatened to break out, I called the military Police and had the place cleared of rowdy Germans.

At C16ment Duhour's, I came to know a number of French artists.

I wore civilian clothes to avoid provocation. I also met J. B. Morel there, who is still one of my best friends today. He was an interior decorator and seemed to know everyone and everything in Paris. He was my own age and had fought against me as a lieutenant. He lived in a delightful apartment in the Rue du Dobropol, near the old Tivoli Gardens by the Bois de Boulogne.

Through him, I gained access to circles that otherwise wanted no contact of any kind with Germans. e evening he took me to a jazz cellar, in which prohibited black American jazz was played and swing music, unknown to us. There one could only get in by a special knock. "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller and "Down Mexico Way" became two of my favorite tunes; later, in captivity, we were to play them ourselves.

With my special pa.s.s and the faithful Mercedes cabriolet, I had no difficulty in roaming about Paris with my new French friends.

They were often my guests in Le V6sinet, where we would go out in one of the motorboats lying in the marina for a trip on the Seine, or cross over to Le Peq to eat in the famous restaurant Le Coq Hardi.

My men used their "war pay" to buy thin ,gs for their families which we had long had to do without at home, such as silk stockings, perfume, fine materials, and drinks. Hitler had established an exchange rate that was highly favorable to us.

At the end of August, I received 14 days' leave. That, for me, was a further sign that no one in the leaders.h.i.+p planned on a landing in England anymore. I decided to spend the two weeks in Bad Kissingen, my last garrison, to visit friends and settle a few matters. I would take along my orderly and trusted friend Erich Beck, who wanted to go home.

"Beck, get the Mercedes ready. I'm going to take Boy too, the setter, to put him into safe-keeping at home."

"Captain," Beck came to me excitedly, "I've found a brand new Buick in the garage. Couldn't we go in that? No one has ever seen an American car at home." I let myself be persuaded and actually got papers and army license plates from military headquarters.

In Kissingen, the spa season was well under way, albeit on a restricted scale, and I drove around the district proudly with pretty girls in the much-admired Buick. The setter, Boy, went to a forester in the Rhoen Mountains, where he unfortunately died later of a virus infection while we were in Russia. When we returned to V6sinet after the visit, I decommissioned the Buick and put it back again, clean, in the garage.

In October, "Operation Sea Lion" was called off. Our air force, after heavy losses, had been unable to gain ascendancy. The navy had insufficient capital s.h.i.+ps to cover a crossing of the Channel effectively.

How should things continue now, if a landing in England was not possible? We had occupied almost all of Europe, it is true, but uncertainty still hung over the Mediterranean, from which no good news was coming. Through the nonaggression pact with Stalin we had secured our back. But how should we deal with the British?

They had been forced to leave almost all their materiel behind on the mainland and had lost a not inconsiderable number of prisoners. But the ma.s.s of the British army was still intact.

The materiel was steadily being replaced from America-in spite of the heavy losses inflicted on the British in the U-boat war.

The British air force was gradually acquiring superiority.

Churchill let there be no doubt that he intended to destroy Hitler and his National Socialism.

After the abandoning of "Operation Sea Lion," our division received orders to move to the Bordeaux area. Movement again at last! I said good-bye to our friends in V6sinet and to my friends J. B. Morel and Clment Duhour.

"Hans," they both said to me, "you can no longer win this war, we know that." C16ment even suggested that in an emergency I should take refuge with his mother in the Basque country.

"You'd be safe there; we Basques never betray a friend." He meant it well, but for me it was naturally out of the question. After that, he gave me a silver ring with a Basque motto, the French translation of which was engraved on the inside: Mieux vaut penser que dire ("It is better to think than to speak"). I couldn't shake off Interim, 1940-1941 61 the feeling that the two friends belonged to the Resistance, which was becoming ever stronger. This belief would later turn out to be true. But our friends.h.i.+p was to prove stronger and more important than betrayal and cravings for revenge.

On our long march to Bordeaux, we stopped for a day's rest at one of the old Rothschild chateaux. There, I was visited by one of my older friends, Siebel. He had been a fighter pilot in the First World War and was the inventor of the "Siebel ferry," which was to save many men in North Africa from being taken prisoner. Siebel mounted old aircraft engines On Ordinary ferries and used their propellers to drive them, thus bridging the short link between Tunisia and Sicily in one night.

On arriving in Bordeaux, I couldn't help calling at the maison sgrieuse. I was greeted effusively.

"Mon G6ngral, we have been officially recognized by military headquarters. I am very grateful to you. You will always find friends here and champagne at our expense." I hope this charming woman did not have to suffer later as a collaborateuse.

Further replacements had arrived from home, including the new commander of the battalion, Major Riederer von Paar, who had taken part in the First World War and soon gained our confidence. I took over my No.3 Company again, which had been led so well by Sergeant Almus. Lieutenant von Poschinger came to the company as a new platoon leader.

I found time to enlarge my collection of French wines and cognacs. In vineyards north of Bordeaux, some of them very small, I bought bottles with a scarcity value which would never come on the market. My collection of old burgundies, cognacs, and armagnacs, some in mouth-blown bottles and with handwritten labels, had now grown to nearly 1,000 bottles, which I was anxious to send to Germany at the first opportunity.

In January 1941, the division was transferred to Germany, to the area west of Bonn. The French chapter was now finally closed.

Left behind were reserve units, a swelling military administration, and the Gestapo (the secret state police), *ith its reign of terror.

My company was billeted in the village of Heimersheim; I myself in a moated manor house from the fifteenth century which belonged to Baron von Boeselager, whose sons were also army officers. In the evening, when I returned from strenuous exercises in the field, we often sat together and discussed the situation. "Old Boeselager" was no follower of Hitler's. He was afraid that the next encounter with Britain could lead to disaster. While we talked, the..old Baroness" sat near us and played patience solitaire). She encouraged me to try it too because it was so soothing. To please her I let her show me two varieties and found the game by no means so boring and old-ladyish. When I left she gave me a pack of cards. They were to be a great help to me later in the recovery of my inner peace in critical situations. My young officers used to say at such times, "The Boss is playing patience and doesn't want to be disturbed. So things can't be too bad." Even today I still like to play my "soothing patience." At this juncture I tried to sum up the course of the war so far and consider how it might and should continue.

In two blitzkriegs, Poland and France had been defeated; Denmark, Norway, and Belgium had been occupied. Until the alarming news from the North African theater of war, the Mediterranean area too had seemed to be under control. The Wehrmacht, however, had had to release considerable forces to secure all the territories, especially against a possible invasion by the British at some unforeseeable place.

We still had our back free through the nonaggression pact with Stalin, which had been bought with territorial concessions in Poland and the Baltic. But how could Britain be defeated, who was being supported to an increasing degree by America, whose air attacks on the Reich had started, and who had retained supremacy at sea?

In the long conversations with Baron von Boeselager, in which we looked for a way in which the war might be brought to an end, we found none. We both feared that this war, which had begun so hopefully, would probably last for a long time yet.

At the beginning of February 1941, we were told that Rommel was being sent by Hitler to North Africa. The situation in Tripolitania had become so critical that we were being forced to go to the help of the Italians. Rommel spent a short leave with his family and then had no time left to say good-bye to us. On 12 February 1941, he flew to Rome and by the 14th had arrived in Tripoli, where he personally supervised the disembarkation of the first German unit, the elite 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, which I knew well from my time in Potsdam.

We were very sorry to have lost Rommel and met our new divisional commander, General Freiherr von Funk, with some doubts.

Interim, 1940-1941 63 He was the opposite of Rommel: a general staff officer of the& old school, no "trooper" like Rommel. He led "from behind," from his command post, and did not, like Rommel, seek contact with his men. All the same, we unit leaders managed to adapt to him, the more so since he made no attempt to restrict us in our mobility.

The weeks and months went by. The usual routine began: field exercises with imposed complications, training, and the integration of replacements. The war at the time was taking place elsewhere.

From army bulletins, we heard of Rommel's success in North Africa, of his unconventional, and for the British, unexpected, thrust to the east and the recapture of Cyrenaica. We heard of the increasingly heavy air attacks on Germany. These depressed us most. So now, in contrast to the First World War, the civilian population too was being drawn into the war. We were anxious about our families.

Hitler made angry speeches; his Propaganda Minister Goebbels called fgr the "Final Victory"; and the Jews were pilloried as fiends. Of their fate we heard nothing.

In April 1941, I received a short leave, half of which I spent with my parents. But I no longer felt happy at home. My brother was in action with his whaler somewhere off Norway; my sister was cramming for the emergency Abitur, my stepfather was suffering from an incurable intestinal cancer and being cared for devotedly by my mother. He couldn't come to terms with modern warfare and was always making comparisons with the First World War. We were at odds with each, other more and more.

The other half of my leave, I spent in my beloved Paris. There, J. B. Morel and C]6ment Duhour prophesied, again, that the British, alone or with the support of the Americans, would win.

In their view, Germany had nothing to set against the inexhaustible materiel of the British and Americans, especially since in Germany industrial areas and communication routes were exposed ever more frequently to air attack. I argued against them, but did not know either how we could win the war. I then returned to my company and the 5ame old round began again, which is enervating in the long run. The inhabitants frequently asked us what was supposed to happen next. There was great bewilderment. Only one thing was certain: initial euphoria had given way to sober judgment.

I wanted to get my collection of bottles into a safe place and asked Baron von Boeselager if I could leave them with him.

"But of course, I'll sink them in the moat with my own collection. No one will think of looking there." Later, in Russia, I had a letter from von Boeselager. He had borrowed two bottles of champagne from my stock for his daughter's wedding. He should have taken them all; at the end of the war, the hiding place was discovered by the French occupation troops. ,'The sales Boches stole our wine and cognac. Everything really belongs to us," said the French, as Boeselager told me later. That was the end of my dream of a French wine collection. Cest la guerre.

At the beginning of June, suddenly and without warning, our division was entrained in Bonn and, after a journey of two or three days, detrained in Insterburg in East Prussia. The battalion was billeted in the surrounding villages. I used the opportunity to visit some friends on an estate nearby, where some years before, gay and light of heart, I had celebrated the wedding of one of my comrades.

The old woman, who after the death of her husband, now managed the estate alone, greeted me sadly. "How depressing to see you again in these circ.u.mstances. How contented we were then and now we are threatened with a long and difficult encounter with Russia. Do you understand it all? What more does. .h.i.tler want?

The Lebensraum so often talked of by him and Rosenberg?" We walked through the clean stables. It was like saying good-bye to the old Germany. After a meal, my hostess asked me, "Please play something on the piano. Something lively, please, it's got to be something for me to remember." So I sat there by candlelight and played whatever came into my head. The old woman's eyes filled with tears. As I took my leave, her last words were, "Good-bye, may G.o.d protect you!" Today, her estate is part of Poland. Unfortunately, I don't know what became of her.

A warm, late spring lay over East Prussia. I thought back to my years as a recruit, to Koenigsberg, the old knight's castle of Marienburg, and the Masurian Lakes. I had grown fond of that little patch of earth with its dry summers and very cold winters with heavy falls of snow. I admired the people who had come there with the Teutonic knights at the beginning of the thirteenth century and in the course of the centuries, through conflicts with Poland, Sweden, and Russia, and not least through the climate, had grown into a tough race. The hospitality of the East Prussians was famous, their dry humor notorious. The wide expanse of East Prussia was a preview of how things would look in Russia.

Interim, 1940-1941 65 What did Hitler have in mind? The entry into Russia seemed certain. The ma.s.s of the Wehrmacht was concentrated on the eastern frontier. This showed that it would not be a matter of a limited operation, to bring "home to the Reich" the "Baltic provinces," which had once been occupied by the Teutonic knights. Would Hitler declare the nonaggression pact with Russia to be null and void? How would he try to explain this to the people? Goebbels's propaganda machine was going full strength. There was talk, once more, of "subhumans," of Lebensraum, which had to be secured for the German race. And, once again, popular opinion was successfully turned around 180 degrees.

The eve of our entry arrived. We were in a strange frame of mind. The vast Russian empire was hidden, as though by a Curtain. The huge distances were beyond our mental grasp. The Ural Mountains, which were nearly 2,000 miles away, were merely the end of the European part; behind them lay the start of the endless expanse of Siberia.

We thought of the fat-e of Napoleon, whose victorious army had foundered in the extent and cold of Russia. We were not actually afraid, but neither were we sure of what our att.i.tude should be toward an opponent whose strength and potential were unknown to us, and whose mentality was completely alien.

The euphoria of the past months had given way to a rather sober view. Even the young ones, who in the years since 1933 had gone through the school of National Socialism, and who had been sworn into the Hitler Youth in the name of their Fuehrer, had now fallen silent. They doubted that Russia could be defeated with idealism alone.

Would we be able to cope with a "Second Front," as a result of which the first front in the west would-be held mainly by reserve divisions? Would Britain be able to exploit the weak spot? In spite of all our doubts and questions, we did what soldiers have done in every age: We set our minds on the present and were ready to do our "duty."

The Russian Campaign, June 1941 to January 1942 At 4 A.M. on 22 June 1941, the German Wehrmacht crossed the border into Russia. The Luftwaffe made ma.s.s attack4 on air fields and railway junctions. On that morning, trains carrying Russian goods were still trundling over the frontier, delivering commodities under the terms of the nonaggression pact. A few days earlier, I had been summoned to my divisional commander, General von Funk. "Luck, you are being attached to 7th Divisional HQ with immediate effect and appointed as my adjutant." I was reluctant. "General, I don't like leaving my company at this vital moment. Couldn't you find someone else?"

"No," he replied, "the adjutant I asked for has not arrived yet.