Armageddon (74 page)

“I have four divisions, facing 22 Soviet divisions with two in reserve,” the officer commanding the Hermann Göring Parachute Corps reported to OKH on 12 March. “Each of our divisions is holding six miles of front. I have 41 tanks and self-propelled guns against four tank brigades. I have 58 artillery pieces against 700. In the first two months of 1945 the Corps has lost 37,000 men; of 106 grenadier companies, 45 are commanded by NCOs, the remainder by young and untrained officers. The average company changes its entire personnel in 9 to 12 days.”

On 13 March, the Luftwaffe’s Luftflotte 6 reported that it possessed fuel for its aircraft to make just one sortie apiece, and pleaded for further supplies before the Russians launched their next offensive. It was impossible, said Luftflotte 6’s commander, to take any action at all against the enemy’s Oder bridgeheads without more fuel: “In this sixth year of the war, the Luftwaffe requires from the army understanding and co-operation on supply issues.”

Many soldiers had become desperate to escape from the war, if they could only identify an opportunity to surrender. On 17 March, twenty-two-year-old Corporal Henry Metelmann lay over his elderly rifle and watched with considerable bewilderment as the American Seventh Army advanced on Speyer. “The whole cavalcade looked like a Sunday school outing. What a strange army! Infantry spread out in line with tanks.” Metelmann came from a working-class Hamburg family and was an ardent Nazi when he marched into Russia as a volunteer with the Wehrmacht in 1941. Three years later, his idealism had evaporated. He yearned only to survive. He had been transferred to an improvised unit in the west after being wounded in the east. As they paused in Speyer, housewives pleaded with them not to fight in the town. When he laid down his faust by a wall, it disappeared. Women in the vicinity merely giggled when he begged for its return. The soldiers discussed among themselves what to do next, and agreed to surrender as swiftly as possible.

When they heard American tanks a few cobblestoned streets away, they retired to the cellar of the nearest house, took out cards and played the first of many games of
Skat
. The young son of the house eventually came in, contentedly munching a chocolate bar which a GI had given him. Their moment had come, the soldiers decided. They stepped apprehensively into the street. Some chattering women laughed and said something about “Hitler’s last hope.” The men hung a white towel on a broomstick, and walked cautiously forward until they met two Americans strolling towards them with hands in their pockets. Metelmann said, “Surrender! Surrender!,” and was disconcerted when the enemy soldiers hastily turned and fled. Five minutes later, some infantry and armoured cars appeared, told the German to drop his broomstick and herded the prisoners into willing captivity. When they ate their first American rations, these half-starved men decided “that with food and beverages of that quality and quantity, we could have conquered the world.”

“S
INCE THE ISSUE
of the Yalta communiqué,” suggested a Second Army Intelligence Report on 22 February, “the very hopelessness of Germany’s fate after the war may be one of the reasons for the continuance of a struggle which daily becomes more desperate. Death is better than slavery. Smashed cities are better than seeing them handed over to the Poles or occupied by the Allies.” A German company commander fighting near Oppeln, Lieutenant Patteer, addressed his men: “Friends, this isn’t about our lives any more, it’s about the fate of Germany. We soldiers must prove that we are real Germans. Imagine what the fate of our own families will be if the Russians get to them. It will mean death.” Likewise Lieutenant Hummel: “Men, we must fight to the end, or we’re all dead anyway. Think of East Prussia and what the Bolsheviks are doing there!” Within the British Army, a marked class division influenced attitudes towards the tide of Soviet vengeance now sweeping into Germany. “Other ranks” had been incited by their own country’s propaganda and by a fashionable sense of socialist solidarity to regard the Russians and “Uncle Joe” with enthusiasm. Many of their officers did not share this view. David Fraser, a twenty-five-year-old captain of the Grenadiers, wrote in disillusionment to his family on 25 February, after hearing news of the Yalta conference: “It fills me with utter gloom . . . Poland has been sold, which one knew would happen but is nonetheless disgusting and humiliating when it occurs . . . All this has been ratified, and yet are the very things against which . . . we went to war.”

Fraser felt little animosity towards the Germans, but profound hatred for the Soviets: “I cannot see that this war has or will have accomplished anything except a military decision as unimportant as a victory in one of the dynastic wars. The root evil still flourishes, and everybody knows and daren’t say. Wretched Europe!” Fraser could never remove from his mind the belief—entirely correct, but in 1945 still keenly disputed—that the Russians, rather than the Nazis, had murdered thousands of Polish officers at Katyn in 1940. “To most [of our officers],” he wrote, “this possibility, let alone likelihood, was often regarded as near-disloyal to the Allied cause if mentioned. I had bitter arguments with friends, who were not stupid but were determined to believe only good of those who were fighting the same enemy.”

A
T THE SUMMIT
of the Nazi leadership, fantasy still held sway. At one of Hitler’s conferences in February, Speer drew Dönitz aside and sought to persuade him that the military situation was now hopeless, that steps must be taken to mitigate the catastrophe facing Germany. “I am here to represent the Navy,” responded the Grand-Admiral curtly. “All the rest is not my business. The Führer knows what he is doing.” Even at a much humbler level in the nation’s hierarchy, fantastic delusions persisted. After Cologne fell, Sergeant Otto Cranz of the 190th Infantry was surprised to hear one of his comrades insist mechnically, yet with utter conviction: “My Führer must have a plan. Defeat is impossible!” Even as Königsberg stood besieged in February, Dr. Hans von Lehndorff wrote in his diary: “Most people are still convinced that the Führer’s present conduct of the war is in accordance with a pre-determined plan. And the fact that the Russians have already reached the Oder, and we are now living on a little remote island, is hardly realised.”

General von Thadden, commanding the ruins of the 1st Division in East Prussia, met a local artist who expressed his delight in the extraordinary scenes he was able to paint amid catastrophe. Von Thadden asked where the artist’s family was. They were still at home and quite well, said the man easily.

“But isn’t there too much shelling going on? The Russians are no more than a thousand yards away from you.”

“That’s true. The top storeys have had one or two hits. But we live on the ground floor.”

The general suggested that the artist should evacuate his family.

“Do you think that’s necessary, Herr General?”

“Necessary? That depends on . . . your feelings towards your family.”

To such a perversion of rationality had Nazism brought an entire generation of Germans.

REMAGEN AND WESEL

V
ANITY AS MUCH
as military necessity caused Montgomery to lavish extra-ordinary care and resources upon his crossing of the Rhine. It was plain that this would be the last great setpiece operation of the campaign. Twenty-first Army Group’s commander intended it to be a fitting memorial to his own achievement. No fewer than 37,000 British and 22,000 American engineers were deployed to conduct the river crossing. For the assault, the British Second Army collected 118,000 tons of supplies, and the U.S. Ninth 138,000 tons. Landing craft, amphibious DUKWs and Buffaloes in profusion were trucked or driven to the crossing points at Wesel. One American and one British parachute division were to assist in securing the far bank, but here they would descend only two thousand yards beyond the front, rather than sixty miles as at Arnhem.

An operation on this scale, and of this complexity, required laborious preparation. A party of Intelligence Corps NCOs, drinking tea in their cosy farmhouse billet, were irked to receive a visit from a gunner officer, who told them that next day a battery of medium artillery would be digging in outside their door. “ ‘Mind you,’ said the gunner amiably, ‘you’re very welcome to stay, provided you don’t mind squeezing up a bit. The windows will fly out with the blast, of course, and we’ll probably lose a good deal of the roof.’ ”

Having reached the west bank of the river on 10 March, Twenty-first Army Group proposed to cross, together with the U.S. Ninth Army under command, on the 24th. For two weeks, Montgomery’s forces planned, briefed and amassed matériel. Perhaps this was unavoidable. But, with the Wehrmacht in ruins, it seemed to many Americans then, and to history since, regrettable that so many men dallied for so long. As early as 7 March, when Collins of VII Corps met Hodges beside the Rhine in the newly captured ruins of Cologne, he told First Army’s commander that he hoped the Allies would not sit tight in front of the river, giving the Germans a chance to recover. Bill Simpson urged Montgomery to allow Ninth Army to make a fast crossing at Urdingen, where there were few German troops. The field-marshal turned him down flat.

Yet on 7 March events took a hand. As 9th Armored Division headed towards Remagen, south of Bonn, they learned that the Ludendorff rail bridge, which ran across the river between a low ridge on the west bank and a sheer cliff on the east side, was still intact. Just before 1300, the lead American platoon commander reached high ground overlooking the river and saw German troops still retreating across the bridge, a formidable structure of three arches supported by four stone piers, landmarked at each end by sooty, mock-medieval towers. Wooden planking had been laid across the twin rail tracks, to ease the passage of marching soldiers. Two hours later, 9th Armored’s commander decided to risk the bridge being blown while his men were crossing, and ordered his infantry to storm it. A German civilian told them they had better hurry: he had heard that it was to be demolished at exactly 1600. The Americans believed that they had an hour in hand.

Yet it was already 1600 when men of the 27th Armored Infantry, led by Lieutenant Karl Timmerman, reached the bridge approaches under small-arms fire from the towers. There was a heavy explosion. When the debris settled, the smoke and dust cleared, the Americans saw that the bridge was holed somewhat, but still standing. Timmerman ordered his men to push on across it. Pershing tanks provided fire support, while three engineers followed the lead riflemen, cutting every wire they could see. With amazingly little difficulty, Timmerman’s company was soon across the 350-yard span. Two of his platoons deployed to cover the bridge’s eastern approaches, while one began to climb the steep cliff overlooking the river. 9th Division’s commander ignored orders to divert most of his formation to another bridge across the Ahr river, and threw the rest of his armoured infantry across the Rhine at Remagen. When III Corps heard the news at 1630 that men were holding a crossing, 9th Armored was formally ordered to exploit the opportunity.

Not everyone rejoiced, however. Eisenhower’s G-3 from SHAEF, that unconvincing officer General Harold “Pinky” Bull, happened to be visiting Bradley when word of Remagen reached 12th Army Group. Bull recalled a staff study which showed that a Rhine crossing between Coblenz and Cologne offered scant opportunities for exploitation on the eastern side. He said as much, declaring brusquely that Remagen was the wrong place for First Army to cross the river. Bradley exploded: “What in hell do you want us to do—pull back and blow it up?” A telephone call to the Supreme Commander yielded more sensible orders for 12th Army Group: “Hold onto it, Brad. Get across with whatever you need—but make certain you hold that bridgehead.” Eisenhower suggested committing four or five divisions. Yet even as Americans streamed triumphantly across the precarious bridge at Remagen, Bull persisted with his stubborn objections. He displayed the mindset which made the Allied advance across Europe such a cautious affair. Even as the Americans reinforced at Remagen, Eisenhower made plain his intention to close up his armies at the river, before allowing any grand exploitation on the east bank. He remained fearful that, as long as some German forces survived on the western side of the Rhine, the potential existed for another unpleasant surprise, a counter-attack across an exposed American flank. Any senior German officer would have heaped scorn on this notion. But SHAEF regarded the threat most seriously.

A
T
H
ITLER
’
S
headquarters in Berlin, the atmosphere grew ever more frenzied. Like exhausted jugglers, Germany’s commanders struggled to sustain their efforts to rush formations across the Western Front. On 2 March, Hitler inveighed perversely against von Rundstedt’s proposal to move men south from the 21st Army Group sector: “It just means moving the catastrophe from one place to another.”

Hitler responded to news of the Remagen crossing in his usual fashion—by sacking von Rundstedt as commander in the west. The haughty old man was replaced by Kesselring, “Smiling Albert,” an implausible former airman turned general, who had nonetheless conducted a stubborn fighting defence of Italy for eighteen months. Kesselring now found himself concluding his military career by presiding impotent over a catastrophe. His initial task was to deploy every available man against the Remagen bridgehead. In the first twenty-four hours, the Americans had pushed across 8,000 men, supported by tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Thereafter, huge traffic jams built up on the west bank, as units surged towards the bridge under German artillery fire. On 13 March, the engineers insisted on closing the Ludendorff entirely, to repair the serious structural damage inflicted by the initial German demolitions. Troops continued to cross the river near by, using landing craft and rafts. Surviving Luftwaffe aircraft and even German frogmen attacked again and again in the hours of darkness. They were frustrated by American guns and searchlights.

On 15 March, the battered Ludendorff bridge suddenly collapsed into the river with a thunderous roar, killing twenty-eight of the engineers working on it and injuring many more. By now, however, its loss scarcely mattered. By 21 March, five engineer pontoons were open across the Rhine at Remagen. Elements of nine German divisions were concentrated north of the American positions on the east bank. Yet these formations were desperately weak, and deployed piecemeal. Men like Captain Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert of 9th Panzer recognized that “what we were doing was no longer fighting a war in any proper military sense.” His unit was able to move only by night. Air attack had destroyed most of its vehicles and killed all his battery’s radio-operators and telephonists. They retreated across the Rhine at Düsseldorf just as the U.S. First Army crossed at Remagen. Schaefer-Kuhnert’s regiment was ordered to proceed to Frankfurt, but within a few miles was urgently redirected, to support a counter-attack through the hills against the American bridgehead. Desperately short of fuel, they were reduced to begging a few litres here, a few there, at the gates of factories they passed on the road. Somehow, they reached the Remagen battlefield, sited their guns in quarries a few thousand yards from the river, and opened fire on 10 March. Model himself arrived. The stocky little field-marshal strode about behind the front, overseeing the battle with increasingly visible desperation. The Germans were doing their utmost, but their commander knew that this was not enough. The American bridgehead was invulnerable to Model’s enfeebled formations.