“No, fine, you’re right. We liberate them anyway. If George had just waited a week or two, he’d have gotten his son-in-law in hand, with no problems.”
“All right, Beetle, we’ve beat this horse to death. You’ve got other things to worry about, and so do I. I’ll deal with Patton when the time is right, and that might be tomorrow. For now I need him grabbing as much countryside as he can. Children, for God’s sake. How do you think George would treat a ten-year-old girl who killed one of his men?”
Smith lowered his head.
“I’d rather not think about it at all. Don’t worry about the staff, though. We’ll keep this whole Hammelburg thing buttoned up.” He moved toward the door, paused, said, “When you see George, tell him I hope Colonel Waters recovers. He’s a good man.”
Eisenhower was grateful for Smith’s deflating temper.
“Tell him yourself. But later.”
Smith was gone, the door closed again, and Eisenhower felt a burst of energy, a mix of relief and fear. At least we liberated the damn POW camp. That’s the important thing. He scanned the papers, General Strong’s report, thumbed to the last pages. Here it is … fifteen hundred Americans, plus hundreds of foreigners, Serbians mostly. Thank God for that. Dammit, George, what in hell were you trying to prove? Word gets out that you sent a task force to the one camp in Germany that just happened to house your son-in-law … what did you think was going to happen? He could see Patton in his mind, the man’s self-righteous strut. Yeah, you thought you were gonna get your name in the papers again, for all the right reasons. Instead, your Captain Baum gets the crap kicked out of him, and for all we know he’s dead. Sometimes you make your plans like you’re writing a comic book, for God’s sake. You owe the commander of the Fourteenth Armored Division one hell of a gift. The Krauts could just as well have machine-gunned every damn prisoner, all because of your Task Force Baum, and by God, there’d be blood on your hands.
Eisenhower rose, moved to the map wall, scanned, located Hammelburg. The pins had been shifted continuously, marking the position of the Allied forces, bulges pushing eastward, the larger cities starting to fall, Frankfurt, Würzburg, the lines extending close to Nuremberg. In the north, Montgomery was driving hard not only to reach the Elbe, capturing the vital port cities of Bremerhaven and Hamburg, but then to slide northward, cutting across Germany’s border with Denmark. The official reports insisted that the move was a necessity, a means of cutting off the German forces still in that country, which would also cut off German troops still occupying Norway. But unofficially, Montgomery’s mission to put himself between Denmark and the advancing Russians was a strategy no one would discuss publicly. The agreement with the Russians had called for the Elbe to be the boundary between the two sides of the great Allied vise, both driving toward a junction that would put them face-to-face, crushing the Germans between them. But the Elbe emptied to the North Sea only miles from the western fringes of the Danish border. Eisenhower knew there was concern in Washington that once the Russians reached the river, it might be tempting for them to offer a military excuse for punching northward and occupying Denmark. Montgomery might be sulking over his lost opportunity to drive on Berlin, but Eisenhower had no time for Montgomery’s complaints. Whether Monty likes it or not, he thought, this mission is important enough, even if it can’t be trumpeted to his beloved newspaper reporters. The Danes are certainly aware that the British might be the only thing standing between two very different definitions of liberation, something the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians are already finding out.
Stalin had made every pretense of establishing homegrown governments in every country his troops had liberated, but no one in the West had been fooled. The men now in charge in eastern Europe answered first to Stalin.
The Russian offensive that began in January had been enormously successful, and along the Polish border, Marshal Zhukov’s troops had heavily lined the banks of the Oder River, only thirty miles from Berlin. But Zhukov had been stalled by the exhaustion of his armies and the contracting of German defensive lines. Having their armies pushed backward in an ever-tightening circle was a benefit to the Germans. Now, with the Russians spilling into Germany itself, the Germans had been driven back into the very defensive positions their generals had hoped for, which allowed them to shorten their supply lines and make the best use of their rapidly declining strength. Eisenhower knew that Zhukov was too capable a commander to sit still for long, and Stalin was too dedicated to crushing Hitler and his army to tolerate much of a lull. Like the Americans, the Russians had what seemed to be an endless supply of men and equipment, a wave that the Germans could not stop for long.
All along the Western Front, Eisenhower’s generals were seeing firsthand the collapse of the army that had once inflicted so much vicious damage, a great beast growing slowly toothless. It was clear that many of Germany’s best armor and infantry were being sent east, Hitler and his High Command far more concerned with holding back the Russians than they were the Americans.
In the south, Patton and Devers were continuing their push toward the Czech border, a snout of land that jutted into Germany from the east. In the center, the rest of Bradley’s forces under Hodges and Simpson were doing as Montgomery was doing, driving relentlessly toward the Elbe River, after first swarming around and through the Ruhr, one of Germany’s most critical industrial regions. The number of German prisoners captured in the Ruhr pocket had been extraordinary, and one by one the factories and other crucial tools for Hitler’s war machine were being shut down or obliterated.
As he studied the map, Eisenhower couldn’t keep his eyes from Berlin. The Russians will be putting everything they have toward crushing the place, he thought. Zhukov has Stalin on his back every day, and Zhukov is not a man who will disappoint his boss. Surely Hitler knows that. Surely Hitler has a map just like this one, and even if his own staff lies to him, or deludes him, Hitler must know what the Russians are capable of doing. Will Hitler risk the complete destruction of his capital? We’ve already bombed parts of the place to rubble. Will Hitler fight on to his last soldier? Who will fight beside him? Why in hell won’t the Germans give up?
MERKERS, GERMANY
APRIL 12, 1945
Bradley had flown with him in a small plane, the two men reaching the airstrip selected by Patton, who had met them when they landed. They drove mostly in silence, Eisenhower passing the time in silent concentration on what he might still say to Patton, all three men aware of the tension. There was no chatter, none of the mindless gossip or bellyaching that Eisenhower was so used to. Beside him, Bradley was his usual stoic self, seemed content to keep his conversation to a minimum, and Eisenhower wondered if Bradley had his own speech prepared for Patton, if there was a good blasting yet to come for Patton’s astonishingly ill-advised commando mission. It had to be the primary reason Patton was keeping quiet. He had to know what was coming.
They passed through the small village with an escort of armored trucks, and Eisenhower saw the MPs working the crossroads, directing the flow of traffic from Patton’s Ninetieth Division, as they passed through on their way east. Eisenhower had heard no criticism of the Ninetieth since Patton had put them into line, a testament to Patton’s ability to whip any unit into shape. The Ninetieth had been one of the great disappointments in the early days of the Normandy campaign, untested soldiers crumbling completely at their first confrontation with the Germans. Bradley had cleaned out the division’s problem officers from top to bottom, and once the unit had become a part of Patton’s Third Army, the soldiers had seemed to find something new in their backbone. In the nine months since, they had performed as well as anyone could hope. Now, by an act of chance, they had occupied a town that happened to be sitting on a treasure that no one even knew existed.
The troops had been led to the enormous hoard of gold bullion, coins, currency, and artwork purely by the innocent comment of a local civilian, a woman who matter-of-factly informed two patrolling GIs that among the loca
l salt mine shafts, one in particular happened to be the one where the gold could be found. Her nonchalant description had turned out to be an extraordinary understatement.
They descended in a shaking uncertain elevator, and Eisenhower was crowded in with four other men, Bradley among them. Above them, Patton rode in a second car. The elevators were operated by the same German civilians who had labored in the salt mines for years. At the mine’s entrance, Eisenhower had been selective, testing the hospitality of several workers, had chosen a cordial ruddy-faced man to handle the controls of the elevator, a man who seemed pleasantly impressed that his place of work would suddenly receive so much attention. The man’s quiet sense of competence had been the assurance Eisenhower required before he actually stepped into the elevator car. The car was supported by cables that extended two thousand feet into a hole that Eisenhower had to imagine would be a German general’s idea of a perfect tomb for three of the American army’s highest-ranking commanders.
When they reached the bottom, Eisenhower’s fears abated immediately. The mine was in fact a vast series of tunnels and chambers, fully staffed now by MPs and officers. Every precaution had been taken to ensure that the extraordinary find would be preserved intact, at least until some higher authority should decide what to do with it. Once Patton began their tour, Eisenhower understood why he had been so enthusiastic about Eisenhower’s visit.
The gold was the most obvious draw, a tunnel lined with cloth sacks that contained, by some officer’s knowledgeable estimate, $250 million worth of bullion, which included both bars and coins. Among the hoard were bundles of currency, primarily German, with a significant amount of American dollars, and lesser amounts of currency from several other European nations. In yet another tunnel were heavy wooden crates containing paintings and other works of art. Eisenhower had to wonder if these were German art treasures placed far belowground for safekeeping, or if they had been looted from various museums and cathedrals all over German-occupied Europe. Patton had been eager to point out that the entire display could fund a midsized nation’s treasury for years. The question in Eisenhower’s mind had been, which nation? For now, the entire hoard was secure in American hands. Where it would go next was a decision to be made by politicians.
Patton was facing him from the front of the staff car, a wide grin on his face.
“Pretty amazing, wasn’t it, Ike?”
“I’ll give you that. I’d hate to be in charge of figuring out who really owns all that artwork.”
Bradley laughed, said, “You know, George, in the old days of warfare, loot was considered the property of the man who found it. Either you or one of your boys could have gone home one of the richest men in the world.”
Patton feigned seriousness. “I guess that did occur to me. Gave a brief thought to keeping my mouth shut, sealing the damn hole up with a few well-placed charges, and then maybe come back here after the war. Bribe some of these locals to help me out, and then I’d set up shop, my own bank, maybe a good-sized castle. Call my country Pattonstine. Nice ring to it.”
Eisenhower laughed, said nothing, thought, I bet he did think about it too. He glanced at Bradley, who caught the look. Best to let some things lie quietly.
Patton continued, “Actually, I had a better idea. Melt the whole shebang, have medals made for every man in the Third Army. That would really piss off …” Patton seemed to catch himself, and Eisenhower completed the sentence in his mind. Montgomery.
Eisenhower appreciated Patton’s minor show of discretion, an opportunity to change the subject. “How much farther we have to drive, George?”
Patton’s mood abruptly changed, and he glanced out through the front windshield, looked to his driver, who said, “We’re close now, sir. Ten minutes.”
Patton turned to Eisenhower again, said, “I knew you’d want to see this. We knew the Germans were doing some of this stuff, slave labor, locking people up just for being … different. We heard stories from some of the civilians in the cities, all those hotshots bending over backward to curry favor with their new conquerors. Funny, Ike, in every city I’ve been through, no one has ever called me a liberator. I guess these people are used to being under somebody’s thumb. It’s normal to them. We’re just … one more thumb.”
Eisenhower saw troops gathered, rows of parked trucks, tents with red crosses.
Patton said, “We’re here, gentlemen.”
The car stopped, and Eisenhower prepared to exit, saw Patton not moving, heard an audible breath, Patton obviously hesitating. Bradley was out of the car, the guards from their escort vehicles moving quickly, spreading out into a perimeter. Officers began to appear from the tents, the word already passing from Patton’s staff that the generals were coming. Eisenhower rose up from the car, saw recognition from the soldiers, men gathering. He waved, smiled, his usual greeting to men in the field, but there was something different in these men, no cheering, just respectful nods, salutes. To one side he saw a road sign, noticed that someone had tied a black ribbon on the post, a strange adornment. But the sign told the story. It was Ohrdruf.
You go on ahead, Ike.”
The words choked off, Patton slipping away quickly, and Eisenhower was surprised, could see now that Patton was obviously sick. Eisenhower said nothing, understood, the powerful smell of death and decay swirling around all of them.
Patton had ordered every soldier in the general vicinity to march through the camp, unit after unit, had insisted that every commander and every subordinate be made aware what had been found, what kind of enemy they were fighting. As he moved farther inside the wire, past the first rows of buildings, Eisenhower saw dozens of men, some older officers, MPs and medics, office aides and rifle-toting GIs. He was recognized again, but again, there were no cheers. He could feel it immediately, an odd sense that this place required silence.
The survivors of the camp were mostly gone, moved to hospitals or other makeshift facilities, vastly overworked doctors and medics trying to find the most humane way to restore the health of the most brutalized prisoners. But in every barracks, and across the open ground, the dead still lay, the victims of the last massacre still spread out close to the wire. He saw the open doors of the one barracks he had heard about, where the stacks of corpses had been coated with lime. He moved that way, fought through the obscene odors, stared at the sickening sight, then forced himself to keep going. No matter the sickness or the nightmarish sights, Eisenhower had already told himself he would make absolutely certain he saw it all.
For the next hour or more he walked down every alleyway, through every barracks where there was something to be seen, past the corpses that filled every dark corner. In the open fields, army engineers had unearthed enormous mass graves, bodies only partially covered, hasty burials by German guards who knew their time was short. Some of the dead who were not buried were piled high in a funeral pyre, someone’s effort to hide their crime in heaps of ash. But again, the Germans had abandoned the camp without the time they needed to complete the job, and so the bodies were only partially burned, blackened skeletons that curled among themselves in a twisting tangle of bare bones and seared flesh.
Most of the medics who moved through the barracks wore masks, but masks could not prevent the senses from absorbing what Eisenhower saw and smelled and felt. In one barracks, he slowed the pace, moved toward a doctor, the man kneeling beside a near-naked man, applying some sort of salve to an open wound on the man’s chest. The doctor stood, saw Eisenhower, offered no salute, no reaction at all.
Eisenhower said in a low voice, “Will he survive?”
He felt foolish, the question meaningless, and he realized that his voice had broken the sickly silence. Dead men were scattered to one side, dead where they had fallen, eyeless faces staring into nothing, lice and maggots swarming on their yellow and black skin. The doctor seemed to search for words, seemed confused, lost, looked at Eisenhower, tearful sadness in his eyes.
“He says they ate the dead. They ate their
own dead. What do we do about that? How do we treat that?”
The man turned away, sobbing, and Eisenhower fought his own emotions, the shock of all he was seeing soaking through him. He had no answer for the doctor, no answer for any of it. He moved outside, had to escape the barracks, move away from the hollow eyes. The security men were shadowing him, keeping their distance, no one speaking. He stared at the fence wire, some of it gone, ripped down by tanks, broken posts, more corpses, blending in with the splintered wood, splintered themselves. He closed his eyes, tried to see Hitler in his mind. Who would do this? Has he been here? Has he seen this? Why? These were not … animals.
He opened his eyes again, fought for logic, fought for the energy to do his job, thought, there is a reason Patton needed you to see this. He wants justification, he wants a free hand to crush the enemy wherever he finds him. But there are reasons why I had to be here that even he might not understand. Eisenhower thought of his first reaction to the news, word of concentration camps. Horrible thing, certainly. Penning up people like so much cattle. Imprisoning your enemies, imprisoning anyone who could be a threat. It is war, after all. We penned up the Japanese, our own citizens, because we thought they were dangerous. Pearl Harbor scared hell out of us, and we believed they would be sympathetic to their home country more than they would be to us. Milton ran the program, my own brother convincing me it was necessary, that it could not be helped. But that’s over now, the Supreme Court, someone there who must be wiser than so many of us … realizing that just because a man is different doesn’t mean he is the enemy. But that cannot compare to what has happened here. Hitler did not fear these people, this was not about hysteria or mob rule. This is slavery and butchery and the worst kind of crime. War brings out the worst instincts of man, and we’ve already seen the atrocities, what the Germans have done to civilians. I know our boys have done their share, some things I’ll never hear about, things that will go unpunished, that dark need in some men to take revenge. But that’s not what happened here. This has nothing to do with war. Hitler set out to use these people in the most brutal ways imaginable, and when he used them up, he just brought in more. Slave labor. A kind euphemism for mass murder.