Chapter 4
"Mon colonel?" LeBeau stepped up beside the radio where Hogan had just finished his conversation with London. Somehow they didn't seem to grasp the concept that he couldn't just send von Hofer over to them. He raised his head and looked to LeBeau.
"Permission to speak freely?"
Hogan raised an eyebrow. That wasn't a good start for a conversation. Straightening, he waved his hand and gave permission.
"We can't forget Remembrance Day," LeBeau stated and held his head high.
"Nobody wants to forget the day," Hogan said. "We just have to be careful how we remember it. Wearing poppies and cornflowers in front of the Germans isn't the best way."
"If we don't honor the day, we forget." LeBeau argued. "I know the U.S. entry into the war changed it for the better. But it's still our nation that took the brunt of the German aggression. There are areas without any life because everything is snowed in shells and bullets and human bodies. If you go there you'll find bones sticking out of the earth and if you have bad luck you'll find a grenade."
"I understand."
"With all due respect, I don't think you understand that especially in this time this day is more important than ever. This victory defined France. We stood together and endured everything that the Germans could throw at us, and at the end we won. Now France has been overrun by the Germans, and we need to hold out until we can push them back. It's not every man for himself, but every Frenchman for France."
"LeBeau," Hogan said and held up a hand to stop the speech.
"We need this symbol for a united France, for Liberté, égalité, fraternité." His voice became louder and stronger. He could make people forget his small height. Sometimes his heart got so big it outgrew his body.
"LeBeau, I hear you," Hogan interrupted him more firmly, "but if we wear a Bleuet de France on Armistice Day even Klink is going to ask questions like how we got this flowers. Because of the meaning of this day, we need to keep a low profile."
"I need to wear it," LeBeau argued and his voice was barely a whisper. "If necessary I can hide it and the Germans won't see it, but my heart will know that I haven't forgotten France."
Hogan sighed. With his left hand, he rubbed across his face feeling his stubble. He needed a shave. "I'll think about it. But you need to think about this war."
"Oui, mon colonel." LeBeau nodded and had calmed down again. "But it's easier to fight this war while knowing that you have once already won."
Hogan agreed with him on that point, but LeBeau carried his heart on his sleeve and in this case a Bleuet de France on his label.
Watching LeBeau disappearing in the tunnel again, Hogan pinched the bridge of his nose. Why couldn't the major pick a different time to stumble across them? Dealing with Armistice Day in a POW camp in Germany was already challenging enough. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "It's a good thing I love a good challenge," he murmured in the emptiness of the tunnel. "A really good thing."
November 9, 1944
Klink closed the door to his office and leaned against it. After he had smuggled Kurt and his mother into the camp, he had hid the son in his bed.
What was he supposed to do if the gestapo came?
He looked around the room, trying to spot a solution. But he only spotted his schnapps. Without hesitation, he went to the alcohol, poured himself a glass and gulped it down. The glass clanked against the bottle as he put it down. His hands were shaking so badly, he balled them into a fist.
"What have you done, Wilhelm?" he whispered into the empty room. "What have you done?"
For years, he had stayed out of all the political implications and just done his duty and now he had gotten involved.
He poured himself another glass. Forcing himself to go slowly, he only took a sip. The burning sensation down his throat was a welcome distraction from the feeling in his stomach.
Klink went to his desk and let himself fall down in his chair. He had found a safe place to endure the war far better than the last war and in one quick decision he had endangered all of it.
"What have you done?"
Only the ticking sound of his clock interrupted the silence.
Hogan tapped his pen against the desk. The way it went down, he needed to come up with two plans. One to get the German major to England and one to prevent a mutiny. If LeBeau and Newkirk went against his orders he couldn't just let it slip without reacting. He didn't really want to react but a simple prohibition didn't seem to be enough. For these two and more important for all the Brits and Frenchmen in camp it was far more than an important day. It was part of their identity and it would be unwise to ignore it he had realized.
He stood up and stretched the tense muscles in his back and shoulder. Time was running out for both plans.
Without conscious thought, Hogan wandered to their guest. He nodded to Olsen who lingered in front of their dead-end tunnel used as guest quarters or cell whatever term was preferred. Kinch deserved a raise how he organized that always somebody could be down in the tunnel without being missed upstairs. But then again somehow he also had always the radio manned.
He grabbed a stool and went into the tunnel.
"How are you?" He asked in greeting. The German major sat on a small cot, leaning against the cold wall behind him.
"Old," he answered.
Hogan put his stool down and sat down. "Old?"
"One year ago, I would have been shocked to discover a setup like this." The major leaned forward. A smile without humor flickered across his face. "I would have done everything to escape and make a report. But now?" He shrugged. "Now I'm just glad that somebody is still fighting against him and still having the means to do it."
Hogan nodded. "We need to talk."
Von Hofer glanced to the doorway. His stubble darkened his chin and underlined his exhausted expression. "About what?"
"We need to get you out of Germany," Hogan stated.
"Not disagreeing with you there."
"But at the moment we don't have an idea. So, is there anything London, we, need to know right now?"
The major shrugged. "Operation Valkyrie has failed and everybody who wasn't loyal enough or had been outspoken against something is now dead or in prison." He looked down. "But that's almost the same."
"So, there isn't anybody left to rise up against Hitler?"
"I don't think so." He slowly moved his head from left to right. "You have to realize that we have risked everything." He stared at Hogan, his face even paler now. "Last thing I heard Himmler wants to wipe out our names, killing everybody who is related to us. He has arrested our wives and taken away our children." He looked Hogan in the eyes. "I don't think you'll find anybody willing to rise up again. Not after they are done."
Hogan was silent for a few seconds. There wasn't anything to say. They both knew the truth behind his words. Then he repeated his statement, stating it more precisely. "We need information about military strategy and what kind of resistance we have to prepare for."
"How long do you have your operation here, Colonel Hogan?"
"Long enough."
"Then you should know in what kind of world we are living." Major von Hofer leaned back until he could rest again against the wall.
"I don't think I get what you're trying to say."
"The last war ended with an armistice and then the Treaty of Versailles."
"I know." Hogan crossed his arms. Armistice Day was following him wherever he went, even in a conversation with a German major.
"Our fathers had come home hungry, hurt and ashamed. Wilhelm I would have never signed the Treaty of Versailles and none of our fathers would have ever lay down their arms if they had known what that treaty would include." He tilted his head. In the flickering light of the lamp the shadows on his face seemed to tell a story and gave him an odd expression as if he was wearing a mask.
"I get that you think this treaty was unfair," Hogan said, "but this has nothing to do with my question."
"Quite the opposite, colonel. It has everything to do with your question. We watched our fathers suffer and being used by every political party. We saw them hurting and learned the most important thing - come home as a hero or don't come home at all. Hitler used this reading of the World War I to call us to the arms - to get justice - for our people, for our nation and for our fathers because they were sent home in shame without deserving this shame."
"You lost the war," Hogan stated. "Your Supreme Army Command had failed. It should have asked for an armistice long before 1918."
"Maybe, but then they would have deserved the shame and not our fathers. Do you know what it meant to watch every year my father on the eleventh of November? It hurt to see him like this, and I and the other sons I knew, would have done everything to heal this suffering, to take away their pain." The shadows distorted his face and as he moved his head he looked like a caricature. "And the worst of it? Our emperor wouldn't have ever signed the treaty. We didn't lose the war, we were betrayed by our own people back home. If the workers hadn't downed their tools - " He shook his head. "The republicans who signed the armistice and the treaty - they betrayed our people. They betrayed our fathers."
Hogan snorted. "You think you were betrayed?" He had heard about it, he had read it in the newspaper but it was the first time somebody said it to his face - somebody who wasn't a Nazi at all.
"Our army was still in France, none of the allied soldiers had set a foot in our country. They hadn't crossed the border. We had won against Russia. And from one day to the other we had lost. They signed our ruin."
"Do you really believe this?" Hogan had to ask. The major didn't strike him as somebody who would just repeat what he had heard. His words sounded sincere and honest, and yet he couldn't believe how a major who should know better could believe something like that.
"You won't find a true German who doesn't know this. The November criminals were responsible for this. They failed our people and led us into socialism. We didn't lose the war - we were stabbed in the back."
Hogan snorted. "You realize what we call this read on history? We call it the stab-in-the-back myth." He waited until the major had time to distill the words before he repeated his point. "It is a myth and as a major of the German Wehrmacht you should know this."
For a moment von Hofer looked away, his head bowed. But then he shook his head and raised his eyes to look at Hogan. "It doesn't matter," he said and sounded weary. "What matters is that nobody wants to become the next backstabber. This was the biggest obstacle. We are soldiers. The others of our group, the priests and reverends, they had doubts about killing somebody. They thought about eternal life and right and wrong. We weren't plagued by doubts as they were. We all had killed and had seen death firsthand. What we feared the most was the public opinion and how bad the backslash from the people on the streets would be."
"You think the German would have fought against you?"
A sharp glare hit Hogan. "We knew that we had to kill Hitler, or we would never have a chance to success. But yes, we were sure that we would be viewed as traitors." He rubbed across his stubble. "This was a given because we would do the same as they did back then - take power and ask for an armistice."
"So the Germans still support Hitler?"
"They support Germany," von Hofer said. "They just need to see that the Fuhrer isn't Germany."
Hogan felt sick. Now he understood why London needed to talk to him in person. It was hard work to separate propaganda and real information but unbelievable useful to have a better understanding about the German mindset for the advancing troops. He stood up. He was just glad that neither LeBeau nor Newkirk had listened to their conversation. They all were sons of men who had fought in World War I. But that didn't matter now, he needed to get him to London.
"Colonel?"
Looking over his shoulder, Hogan stopped at the rare and honest expression on the major's face. He opened his mouth but only on the second try he could make himself to ask the one question, Hogan had anticipated the whole time. "Do you have any information about our families?"
"Last thing I have heard Himmler hadn't followed through with his plan." Hogan had actually needed to ask London because the German radio had only reported endless violence. "But they were all arrested and if proven to be involved executed." He held his gaze. "But I don't know anything about your family in particular."
"Women, too?"
Hogan nodded. "Yes." He couldn't sugarcoat it. "Women, too." Waiting for a reaction, Hogan paused a moment. When the silence remained undisturbed, he turned away to leave the major alone with his thoughts.
"Colonel?"
He stopped again.
"There was one piece of information I have picked up in one of my visits in the Fuhrerbunker." He paused. "They said that the Ardennes were always kind to the Germans."
"They plan a new offensive?"
Von Hofer shrugged. "I don't know but I think that's what they meant."
There was no other way, he needed to get him to London.
