They Used Dark Forces (53 page)

As the modern Nero ceased speaking he pressed the bell on his desk. Gregory's muscles tensed. He felt certain that during the past ten minutes the Reichsmarschall had been only relieving his feelings by criticising the Führer to him in a way that he still dared not do even to his personal friends, and that this was the summons for the guard to take the man to whom he had been blowing off steam away to face a firing squad. But when a footman appeared in the doorway, Goering said only, ‘Bring champagne.'

Gregory tried not to show his relief. Although he knew that the postponement of his execution could be only temporary, the idea of buoying himself up with a few glasses of good wine before he had to meet his end was most acceptable. To keep the conversation going, he remarked:

‘Could the Generals do nothing to persuade the Führer that many of his decisions would lead only to defeat?'

Goering's big belly shook as he sat back from his desk and roared with laughter. ‘The Generals!
Gott im Himmel
, no! From the beginning the Führer has paid little heed to what they had to say. And since the July
Putsch
he would sooner take advice from his woman vegetarian cook. He is convinced that every one of them is a traitor. He doesn't trust even that time-serving toady Keitel. It is Martin Bormann who rules the roost today.

‘Bormann is a cunning devil if ever there was one. He poses as the humble secretary whose only thought is to take work off his master's shoulders; but he has a finger in every pie. Not even I can get in to see the Führer now without Bormann being present and poisoning the Führer's mind against me afterwards. What is more, as Party manager he controls the Gauleiters and under him they are now absolute rulers in their territories. Even an Army Commander's authority is restricted to within five miles behind the front on which his troops are fighting. At times the Gauleiters even divert and commandeer for their own use trains of supplies intended for the troops. But the protests of the Generals go unheeded.'

‘How fantastic,' Gregory murmured.

At that moment the footman brought in a magnum of Krug in an ice-bucket, and glasses. When he had poured the wine, both Goering and Gregory took a long drink. Then the Reichsmarschall went on. ‘But that's not the worst the Generals have had to put up with. They are now being overlaid by Himmler's vast private army.'

‘The term “vast” may apply to the Waffen S.S. but I should not have thought that in quality it could compare with the regular army.'

‘You are out of date, my friend. Contrary to the belief of her enemies, during four and a half years of conflict Germany had not become geared for total war. Right up to last summer there were still hundreds of thousands of young, able-bodied men who continued to enjoy a protected status as Civil Servants, actors, authors, artists, agriculturists, bank clerks, railwaymen, and in a score of other occupations. Then came the Normandy landings and Goebbels persuaded the Führer to order a
levée en masse
. Within a few weeks a million men were winkled out and called up to form what became known as the Replacement Army. But the Generals were not given control of it, because after the bomb plot the Führer openly proclaimed them to be his enemies. He gave the command to
der treue Heinrich
, as he affectionately calls Himmler; and, at the same time, permission to increase his Waffen S.S. without limit by any means he could devise.'

Goering took another long drink of champagne and added, ‘Himmler's ambition for power is boundless. Naturally, he drafted the pick of the recruits into his Waffen S.S., and left only the duds for the Army. While he was at it Goebbels scraped the bottom of the barrel; so it may surprise you to hear that the Wehrmacht now has units composed entirely of men who are deaf, others of men suffering from stomach ulcers who have to have a special diet, and others again of epileptics and old dug-outs of over sixty.'

‘Surely such troops are a liability rather than an asset?' Gregory remarked.

‘Of course they are. They were roped in only on Himmler's insistence. His object was to swell the numbers of the men that could be allocated to the Army, so that when the Generals
protested to the Führer he could be persuaded that they had had their fair share of recruits. Meanwhile, that little swine Goebbels had induced the Führer to order me to release half a million men from the ground staffs of my Luftwaffe stations.'

At the memory the Reichsmarschall's fat face turned almost purple. Quickly, Gregory refilled his glass and handed it to him. He took a gulp of wine then spluttered, ‘Those … those are the fine fellows who are now being sent to die in Hungary, so that more Jews can be exterminated before the curtain comes down. Nine-tenths of them, and the greater part of all that was left of our German youth, have been enrolled in the Waffen S.S. Not content with that, Himmler for once scrapped his race-purity obsession in order to get another half million men under his command. He made honorary Aryans of Bulgarians, Albanians, Slovenes, Hungarians and even Russians. His S.S. Leaders combed the prisoner-of-war camps for anyone and everyone who preferred to put on a Nazi uniform rather than starve to death. To that he added French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Latvian collaborators by the thousand; so now his private Army numbers scores of Divisions and is nearly as big as the Wehrmacht. That's why the Führer could not refuse him the command of an Army Group.'

‘What!' Gregory exclaimed. ‘Himmler an Army Group Commander! But he can know nothing about soldiering.'

‘Not a thing. But the greater part of the Wehrmacht's armoured divisions had been lost in Russia and in Normandy. The best we had left were the new ones created for the Waffen S.S. by Sepp Dietrich; and he is a good soldier even if he did start his career as the Führer's chauffeur. They had to be used as the spearhead of the Ardennes offensive, and as they were Himmler's troops he claimed the right to command the whole sector. Von Rundstedt would not stand for that and the Führer had to give way to him; so Himmler was bought off by being given command of the neighbouring Army Group, covering the sector between the Ardennes and the Swiss frontier.'

Once more Gregory was so intrigued that he had temporarily forgotten that he was talking to a man who, as soon as he tired of giving vent to his bitterness and rancour, would have
him shot; and he asked, ‘What sort of showing did Himmler make as a General?'

Goering shrugged. ‘He proved not only helplessly incompetent himself, but has continued to be a menace to the success of all the other Army Commanders. You see, Commanders of S.S. divisions that are allotted to Army Groups come under Wehrmacht Generals only for operations, not for discipline; so they owe allegiance only to their own chiefs, the Obergruppenführers and, of course, to Himmler as their Supreme Commander. In consequence, being given an Army Group did not deprive Himmler of the power to interfere on all the other fronts on which Waffen S.S. divisions were employed.

‘Sepp Dietrich did a splendid job with his armour in breaking through the Ardennes front. Had he been properly supported he might have reached Antwerp and delayed the Allied advance for several months. But the offensive failed for two reasons. The divisions from the Replacement Army given to von Rundstedt to follow up the attack were of such poor quality that they were not up to the task; and when he asked Himmler to release some of his S.S. Divisions from the neighbouring front to support the armour, Himmler refused. Instead he despatched his reserve divisions to Hungary, in another effort to prevent the Russians from capturing Budapest before all the Jews there could be killed off. There you have our tragedy: the units of two separate armies mixed up on every front, with the Generals of both hating the others, bitterly jealous and refusing to co-operate.'

Gregory shook his head. ‘I had no idea of this. It must render all planning hopeless, and in such chaotic conditions I marvel that Germany is still able to maintain any front at all.'

‘Planning!' Goering gave a cynical laugh. ‘There is none. Each General is fighting only a local battle to stave off defeat. None of them knows what is happening to his neighbours, because they are forbidden to communicate in case they get together and decide to lay down their arms. The Führer sitting in his bunker in Berlin not only decrees the major moves but also directs everything, even down to the movement of battalions, with only the vaguest idea of what is really happening in the battle areas. Quite frequently he orders new units of the
Replacement Army to proceed to places that have been overrun by the enemy a week or more before.'

‘That makes it all the more amazing that there has not been a general collapse.'

‘Two factors account for that: the Wehrmacht Generals now ignore all the Führer's more idiotic orders, and the dogged determination of our soldiers to protect their homeland. We Germans and you British are the finest fighting men in the world, both in victory and defeat. But the Führer's distrust of the Generals and his fanatical belief that he can direct the war better than any of them has brought us to this shocking pass.'

‘Could you not have persuaded him to see sense,' Gregory asked. ‘After all, you are Nazi No. 2 and his appointed successor. Surely you must have great influence with him.'

Goering sighed. ‘In the old days I had; but now he is barely civil to me. And that goes for the German people, too. They used to call me “fat Hermann”, and they loved me. Now they blame me for the failure of the Luftwaffe and curse my name when the bombs come crashing down. That is my personal tragedy and my heart bleeds for my gallant airmen. Today they are humiliated and stigmatised as cowards. But it is no fault of theirs or mine that the Allies have driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.

‘Dominance in the air is largely a gamble on which nation has the latest machine in operation when a war breaks out. It was no thanks to your Government, but because Lady Houston gave her millions to the development of fighter aircraft, that you had your Hurricanes and Spitfires operational in 1939. Had the war broken out a year later, we would have had a better type of Messerchmitt and you would have lost the Battle of Britain. But even then it was not too late. I could still have beaten the Allies in the air, or at least have prevented the bombing of our German cities later in the war, had I been allowed to manufacture our new types in sufficient numbers. Instead the fools hamstrung the Luftwaffe by diverting irreplaceable technicians and vast quantities of precious materials to the making of the V.1's and V.2's.'

After emptying his glass again, the Reichsmarschall said
bitterly, ‘Well, now you know how things really are with us. That's why you find me amusing myself by dressing up like this and fiddling while Rome is burning, instead of ordering such squadrons of the Luftwaffe as are still serviceable into battle. They have to continue to make sorties, of course; but since I realised that our situation had become hopeless I've been trying to conserve the lives of as many of my boys as I can. The awful thing is that unless the Führer ordains otherwise this desperate last-ditch resistance may go on for months yet. I would to God that we could end it tomorrow, but I'm thoroughly discredited and there is nothing I can do.'

‘About that I don't agree,' said Gregory firmly. ‘You still possess immense powers, and your Luftwaffe troops would obey your orders. Since the Führer will not listen to reason and is clearly mad, you could surround his headquarters with your men, arrest him and, if need be, shoot him; then take over and ask for an armistice.'

Suddenly the elephantine figure behind the desk lurched forward. With eyes blazing, Goering brought his huge fist crashing down on the desk and bellowed, ‘
Lieber Gott
! For suggesting that I've a mind to have you shot.'

Gregory's mouth fell open. Before he could stop himself, he exclaimed, ‘But … but, aren't you going to have me shot anyway?'

With the same suddenness as had marked his outburst, the Reichsmarschall sat back, relaxed and shook his head. ‘No. Why should I? You're a brave man, Sallust, and I like brave men. What is it to me now that you happen to be a British spy? God knows, I've enough blood on my conscience already. Men and women are dying by the thousand while we sit here. Why should I add yet another corpse to this senseless carnage?'

So certain had Gregory been that he was living through his last hours that it took a long moment for him to adjust his mind to this utterly unexpected reprieve. His face went whiter from relief than it would have done had the guards arrived to lead him off to execution. Then he swallowed hard and stammered:

‘For … for giving me my life,
Herr Reichsmarschall
…
well, I can't find words to thank you adequately. All I can say is that had our positions been reversed I would have acted in the same way towards you.'

Goering nodded. ‘Yes, I believe you would. But never again suggest that I play the traitor. All of us know that the Führer is mad and has brought about Germany's ruin. But, all the same, he had the touch of genius. There is not an iota of truth in those stories that he was no more than a brilliant orator that the rest of us made use of as a figurehead. When he came to power Germany had eight million unemployed. It was his brains and courage that saved her from Communism, brought her back to prosperity and gave her again a place in the first rank among the nations. Had he refrained from resorting to war and from persecuting the Jews, he would have gone down in history as a great ruler. We others were no more than his servants and we obtained wealth and power in his shadow. Others may betray him, but I never will.'

‘I appreciate your point of view,' Gregory said seriously, ‘and your sentiments do you honour. All the more so since you have given me to understand that for some time past the Führer has treated you with little consideration.'

‘That is hardly surprising in view of the failure of the Luftwaffe. He constantly rails at it and throws its failure in my teeth. What does surprise me is that he has not deposed me as his successor in the event of his death. Himmler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop and Bormann never cease from endeavouring to bring that about; but he won't listen to them. It may be that because I did more than anyone to gain support for him in the days of his struggle he still feels a certain loyalty towards me. But I'm inclined to think the real reason why he is reluctant to disgrace me publicly is that, if he ever did decide to throw in his hand, he believes that the Anglo-Americans would be more willing to negotiate terms with me than with any other of the Nazi leaders.'