AN:
A short time after my last post, my brand new laptop was caught in the local flooding. Sigh! I finally got another, but after losing every bit of research, saved data, story ideas and plot lines, I nearly gave it up. Then, after many years, I watched "The Last Days of Patton" again, and the Muse hit me like a sledge hammer. Here is the result.
With a LOT of sounding board work from Sentinel and pre-reading/Beta from CajunBear, I present you with
Chapter 41 The Honor of an Amerikaner
November 26, 2007
Vienna
Döblinger Friedhof Cemetery
Skorzeny family plot
The headstone read
Otto Skorzeny
12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975
Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel)
Iron Cross(First and Second Classes)
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross
Before it was a short man, wearing a heavy winter greatcoat and jackboots. He just looked at the headstone for a while, then began to speak.
"Dis is a poor resting place for you, Otto, my old friend. I just vanted to let you know that ve are nearly ready to begin again. Soon, the Forth Reich vill start to rise and return Germany to its rightful place. Zhere are a few details I have to attend too before hand, but zhe orders have already been given."
"Vish me luck, Otto. Luck like you always seemed to have. The luck you needed to escape for Darmstat in 48, right out from under zhe noses of zhe Allies. Hehe. Und zhen to be photographed drinking coffee at a café on the Champs Elysées in Paris. Even that svinehunt, Patton said you had more ballz then just about anyone he knew. He hated your guts, but he respected you."
"Like you, I vill have to use trickery und misdirection at zhe beginning. Hehe, you know Otto, in December of 44, zhe vay you had entire divisions tied down, und Eisenhower himself locked away by his own zecurity forcez, vith just you und two dozen ozher men, it vas magnificent. I vill need that same audacity."
"I face some of the same problems ve faced in zhe 40's. Ve discovered a mole of zhat damn Spaniard in zhe ranks a few days ago. Damn all spies anyvay! I know you vere considered one yourself, but ve know zhe difference, don't ve. You vere 'Strumtruppen' und zhe best ve had. Only 'Operation Long Jump' failed under your command, und zat vas not your fault. It vas that idioten von Ortel's. Ve both told zhe moron to stay sober."
Sigh, "But zat is in zhe past."
"I promise you zhis, Otto. Dat vonce I have the capital returned to Berlin vhere it belongs, I vill have your resting place moved to one more fitting of a Reich's Volkshero. I give you my vord."
December 21-22, 1944
Belgium
East of Bastogne
Enroute from Arnhem to General George Patton's Command HQ
The young messenger rode his Harley-Davidson WLA through the falling snow. The German forces had driven him further and further from his preplanned route and it was only the speed and power of the 45 CID engine that allowed him to avoid capture several times.
It was both hunger and darkness that forced him to stop in a large sinkhole that hid him from both the road to one side and the rail line on the other. After hiding the bike, he dug a shallow trench and built a well sheltered fire. Then he melted enough snow to refill his canteens and had enough left over to turn the dehydrated beef and vegetables into a palatable soup to warm him up before he turned in for the night.
Just before dark, he built up the fire to the point that it filled the trench. He wasn't too worried about anyone smelling the smoke, with the air interdiction of petrol fuel, many of Germany's rail engines had to resort to wood to continue operating. Once the wood had burned down to red glowing coals, he covered the trench with the dirt he dug out to make it in the first place.
He pulled his Thompson sub-machine gun from the scabbard in front of the handle bars and a ground cover, poncho and wool blanket from the ammo cans mounted beside the front tire on the bike. The ammo cans were a trick he learned from the Americans to keep things dry in almost any conditions.
He'd learned a lot from those strange people from the Western side of the Atlantic.
He placed the ground sheet on top of the recovered trench and lay down pulling the wool blanket over himself, the poncho covering the blanket to keep the snow off. With the Thompson in his hands and settled in for a few hours sleep. He wanted to be back on the road well before dawn.
Along about midnight, he was awakened by the sound of a train on the track 100 meters away. The problem was the train was stopping. Quickly, yet silently, he rolled out of his blankets and started rolling everything and repacking it on the bike.
He couldn't leave, yet. The sound of the Harley V-twin was distinctive compared to the BMW Boxer engine motorcycles ridden by most Wehrmacht messengers. Once the gear was stowed, he switched the Thompson's smaller box magazine out for a larger drum and waited silently. Voices from the train told him that they were concerned about damage to the tracks from Allied air attacks.
Many trains had taken to operating at night to avoid strafing attacks by American Mustang fighters and Thunderbolt fighter-bombers. He was thankful for the smell of wood smoke from the train's boiler. That meant the faint smell of smoke from his fire would go unnoticed.
Then he heard a worrisome commotion. German Soldiers hollering orders to 'halt', some gunfire from the Mausers they carried, crashing though the brush in several directions, including towards him. Still he remembered his father's teaching about the hunt. "The game that panics and bolts it often the game in the pot." He froze. Surprisingly hard to do on a night with sub-freezing temperatures. Breathing through his slightly open mouth prevented the slight whistle common when breathing through the nose and kept his teeth from chattering, too.
The full moon gave a haunting feel to the night. He both blessed and cursed the weathers clearing yesterday. Sliding down the side of the depression, through the brush came what was obviously not Wehrmacht Soldiers. It was a pair of children being hustled along by a woman that appeared to be in her early twenties. They looked ghastly. Gaunt, underfed and on the edge of starvation. For an instant, he nearly shot them as they passed by, thinking they were the ghouls of one of his mothers tales. It was only the large yellow star on the rags they were wearing that stayed his hand.
Just before they passed him by, he grabbed the woman and one of the children covering their mouths, hissing 'Ich bin Amerikaner' at them. He really wasn't an American, but figured they would understand that better then trying to explain he was Spanish. Besides, to his shame, there were Spaniards serving in more than one Waffen-SS unit. In German, he told them the only way to survive the next few minutes was to freeze, and if they didn't, he would kill them himself. The emaciated figures froze.
From the direction of the train came the sound of more people, Soldiers this time. He crept to the ridge of the depression. Careful not to look directly at the lights the Soldiers were using, he preserved his night-vision. He saw two men in the greatcoats and the distinctive coal-scuttle helmets of the Wehrmacht. But these weren't Wehrmacht troops. In the bright moonlight, he could just make out the distinctive double lighting bolt on their collars. These were SS Troops, and not Waffen-SS either. This was bad. If captured, he would face torture and a summary execution. That didn't even count losing the communiqués he was carrying falling into the hands of the Enemy. He simply waited and watched.
The men somehow missed the sinkhole he and the escapees behind him were hiding in. The Soldiers were griping about the numbers not matching at Buchenwald if they didn't recapture these prisoners. After a few minutes of cursory searching, one of the men mentioned about how "It is no loss. The cold will kill 'the Judean' as fast as Buchenwald. As cold as it is, there's no way they can survive tonight. We can tell them we shot them on the way."
They walked back to the train and the messenger melted back into the hole. Reaching the bike, he found the trio still there, shivering through the rags they were wearing. He felt the trench he slept over and felt the residual warmth of the coals still burning slowly under the top layer. He made them sit on the warmer spot and took his blanket, poncho and ground sheet and covered them as best he could.
For over an hour, they wait until they heard the train pull away. The densely forested Ardennes provided more than enough dead-fall wood to rebuild the fire, this one tiny to avoid the light reflecting and drawing the German Army down on them.
The messenger questioned them closely, who they were, why they were on the train, where they had been bound. As the woman spoke, the young man became more and more horrified.
Never in his life would he have believed that anyone could do what this skeleton of a woman was saying had been done to her and her family. The children weren't even hers. Her children were dead, as were the parents of the two, what he now knew to be, girls. They were so gaunt and lifeless there was now way of telling.
He gave them every scrap of food he carried, his blanket, poncho, the ground sheet, extra clothes, all the money (American, British, French and German Reich marks) he carried.
Leaving them with enough wood to last several days with careful use, two hours before dawn, he remounted his motorcycle and roared out of the depression, making as much noise as he could, hoping to draw anyone after him and away from the abused, terrorized, terrified trio hiding behind him.
He rode as fast as he could. The General had to know about this. The General would know what to do.
In later years, he often wondered what happened to the woman and those two poor tow-headed little girls, because he never saw or heard from them again.
The young woman and two little girls would survive, huddled in the sinkhole, for days. After what they had been through, the little food the Amerikaner had left behind would be enough, eked out with some roots and nuts, to stave off the crushing hunger for a while. The blanket and clothes were better than anything the woman had had in years and the best the children had ever seen. They sheltered there, warmed by the tiny fire and the blanket until, like another miracle, the battle lines shifted and they were found.
Found by more of those godlike Amerikaner's. The grim-faced, yet surprisingly gentle Soldaten who carried guns like the dreaded Schutzstaffel and had more food in their pockets then the girls had eaten in days and thought nothing of handing it to them. Those Soldaten cared for them, kept them warm, gave them more warm clothes and Thank YHVH fed them, more food then any of them had seen in years.
In the years to follow, the young woman would adopt the two little girls, move to the country of that young man that saved their lives, never knowing about his lie. The lie of being an Amerikaner instead of his native Spanisch.
With the two little girls in tow, she settled in the town of Middleton, Colorado, married and lived out the rest of her life in peace. And close to the end of her life she fondly listened to her youngest tow-headed great-grandson as he jabbered about the little red-headed girl who was the 'Bestest Friend in the World'.
December 22, 1944
Belgium
South West of Bastogne
Standing watching as Troops hurried past was a tall, spare man with his hands folded behind him. He had just dismissed his Aide-de-camp and continued to watch his men pass by. His Troops! The Third Army. The Troops he had drilled and trained mercilessly until they were almost living extensions of his will. He beamed at the men marching along a cold, soggy, muddy road. They were filthy, muddy, cold, wet, tired and hungry. But their discipline, courage and determination showed even in their slipping, sometimes faltering steps. The General's Pride in these men swelled within his breast and almost misted his eyes.
There was no doubt in his mind that there was no other Army in the world that could have done what his men were accomplishing: While fully engaged with the enemy, they pulled out of a winter battle, passed it over to other units before they marched 150 miles in three days with no hot food, little rest and less sleep, to where they were preparing to drive into the southern flank of one the toughest armies in history.
Despite what those media idiots spouted back home, there was no denying the courage, determination and unit level leadership of the Reich's Heer, the German Army. The Wehrmacht was beaten and they knew it. But that didn't mean they were going to quit. They were going to make him fight for every inch of ground. Every tree, every hillock, every valley, every town and village; he was going to have to take them by force of arms.
The entire world was at war. It was a test of arms that he had prepared for all of this life and all the others he had lived, even if he couldn't remember them clearly. Flashes and glimpses, that was all. But it was enough.
His enemy was an honorable one, the Heer, the Luftwaffe and even the Waffen-SS. He had not had to personally face the Kreigsmarine, but even there he had heard of how the vast majority of them had acted with Honor.
Their political leadership were vermin that needed to be exterminated, but the Unit leaders from the Division level on down to the rank and file for the most part refused to take part in atrocities against unarmed Soldiers, wounded, POW's and civilians.
He knew, as surely as the Sun rose in the East that after the war, Germans were going to be a reviled nationality for generations to come. But the men he faced, his Enemy, these men, they were Soldiers. And he held their courage and skill in Honor and Esteem that was surpassed only by the Pride he had for his men. The Soldiers of the United States Third Army who were about to slam into the flank of the German besiegers of Bastogne, relieving some of the toughest Light Infantry in the world, the 101st Airborne Division.
He noticed the young courier of Monty's approaching and grinned. Now there was a brave young man. He was barely out of his teens and he had demonstrated his courage and ingenuity to the point that he was trusted by both Monty and himself to deliver messages, by hand, unescorted, across open battlefields. How the young Leftenant was able to maneuver his motorcycle to avoid both the Heer and Waffen-SS patrols as well as Luftwaffe aircraft was something the Three Star General didn't know.
The Leftenant dropped the kickstand, dismounted his motorcycle and pulled a Thompson sub-machine gun the scabbard on the bike. The General approved of the Leftenants' actions with the weapon. You never knew where the enemy might appear. And the same Leftenant, using that very same Thompson won more than one bet empting a drum into a man-sized target at 25 yard. No mean feat with a weapon known for walking off target on full auto.
Slinging the weapon, he marched toward the general. He finished his approach, snapped to attention and smartly saluted, using British English with a slight Spanish accent, "Sair, I have a communiqué for the General from Field Marshal Montgomery, Sair."
The General returned the salute with a smirk, and asking in an slightly high pitched aristocratic, Virginia twang , "So what's ole Monty want this time, Lieutenant?"
With a completely blank face, the Leftenant flipped the package with a flourish, presenting it to the General. "I'm sure I wouldn't know, Sair."
"Right, like Hell you don't. You probably knew what's in here before Monty dictated it to his aide."
"Respectfully Sair, it isn't the Leftenant's place to comment on the contents of the Field Marshal's communications."
"Hahahaha, well put, Lieutenant." The General paused, looking out over the passing Troops and then looked back at the Leftenant. The General was a very obsoverant man and noticed the grim expression. "Lieutenant, are you alright?"
The young Lieutenant's Mediterranean features went instantly pasty and the General could tell the young man was barely holding his composure as his eyes misted. "Sair, the Heer and Waffen-SS patrols had forced me off of the planned route and made it necessary to attempt to go around to the East of Bastogne to complete my mission."
"You've been behind their lines? Lieutenant, you get with the S-2, tell them everything, that clear?"
"Sair, there's something you should know." The messenger told the General about his encounter.
"God damn it. Lieutenant, I could really hate you right now. That's because you're not the first to give us information like this. Before you it was mostly rumors and hearsay. But you're one of the first of people that I personally trust to know the difference. Are you fucking sure about this?"
The voice of the young Leftenant was breaking. "You didn't see them, Sair. You have no idea."
The General rubbed his freshly shaven chin, "Buchenwald you say, that's way over near Weimar. That's over a hundred and fifty fucking miles on the German side of the lines."
"Lieutenant, I'm sorry, but there's not a God damned thing any of us can do about it right now. The fastest way, only way to help them is beat the shit out of these Kruat bastards as fast as we can."
"Right now, to the north of us, brave men are fighting and dying. And you save their lives by me, the Bastard, snatching my men up by the balls and driving them down the road, then kicking them in the ass whenever they start whining about how hard a mission is."
The General looked back at his cold, muddy, exhausted men and pride swelled in his chest again, "In a short while my men will once again enter into battle. And contrary to their 'reputation' the majority, the vast majority of our Enemy will be honorable men, who will face us with courage, honor, determination and skill in the only real test of adversaries there is. Force of Arms."
"He was not my friend, but Erwin Rommel was my honorable foe. And it pains me that he is no longer here to face me battle. He was an Enemy that I could trust. More so than some of my allies. Every God-dammed time I turn around I get cut off at the knees by those same 'Allies'. No supplies, no fuel, orders to stand and hold."
The General continued, growling, "And if he wasn't to fall in battle, I only wish he could have taken that Austrian, house-painting, paperhanging son-of-a-bitch with him." The General snapped his hawk- faced visage to the young man, "Heart attack my ass. I don't give a flying fuck about what the Nazi propaganda machine might say. I know it in my gut. Somehow Rommel got linked to that bombing back in July."
"Then those Nazi bastards gave him a choice. 'We'll execute you and your whole family or you can take the 'Honorable Choice' and commit suicide by poison and we'll turn it into a propaganda coup.' If they'd have had any Honor, they would have let him face me in battle and die as a Soldier."
Buchenwald
Weimar
Germany
April 15, 1945
The General was watching as his Battle hardened men herded German citizens into the gates of the camp. After seeing what was contained inside the formerly electrified fence, he had been so disgusted, he had ordered all the German citizens to tour the camp.
From out of the camp, in front of the General came the messenger, he announced his presence. "Sair." He was pasty-faced and clench-jawed.
Still watching the procession, the General responded, "I'm going to tell you something, Lieutenant, then I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, then I want you to make an observation. You don't have to tell me your conclusions, matter-of-fact, it's probably best if you never tell anyone your conclusions. But I want you to use your brain and think. The most important thing someone in Command of Soldiers can do is learn how to think. Understood?"
"Sair, yes Sair.
"I have been called 'a hot tempered, impetuous asshole', a 'hard-charging, hard-driving son-of-a-bitch' who can be fickle at the drop of a hat. My immediate superior is my very good friend, General Omar Bradley. One of the most even tempered men I've known, in this or any other life time. Now since the beginning of this war, do you know how many commanders I've relieved?
"No Sair."
"I've only had one commander I've had to relieve for cause. Just one. Do you have any idea how many Brad's relieved?
The Lieutenant considered, "One, Sair?"
"A couple of dozen actually." The Lieutenant knowing General Bradley's reputation was surprised and it showed. The General grinned, "Yep, the shit-head who slapped a couple of…" here the General snarled, "yellow-bellied cowardly sons-a-bitches… has only relieved a single Commander for incompetence, and my friend Brad, the 'G.I. General' won't hesitate to sack someone for a perceived failure."
"I'll tell you something else too. If you take a look at the statistics, you'll find that I've had fewer causalities percentage wise, as well. Me, the Bastard who won't take shit from nobody and runs his men ragged trying to accomplish the impossible simply for Glory, has lost fewer men to Combat then the General that cares about the men under his command."
"The point here is two things. First, never accept someone's reputation at face value, until you or someone you implicitly trust can verify it, and more broadly, never paint a group of people with the same brush, ever. Because the larger the group the lesser the chance of the 'reputation' being true."
"And the second thing is, just because I am an asshole doesn't mean I don't care about my men. But molly-coddling them isn't the way to save lives. You save their lives by being an asshole. By being the son-of-a-bitch that forces them to wear their fucking helmets anytime their near a Combat zone. By being the cocksucker that instills in them the discipline to wear their uniforms properly, follow the rule of law, the laws of War and of Honor."
"And what's happened here, violates them all."
The General looked the boy the young man had suddenly became with compassion, "You don't know, I can see it on your face, son. Do you know why I ordered you into that camp?"
"Sisi…Sair, no Sair."
"Twenty, thirty, maybe even fifty years from now, there will be people who are going to try to deny that it happened. Deny that those camps existed, that the Nazi's were trying to exterminate entire races. You're young enough that in twenty, thirty or fifty years, there's a good chance that you'll still be alive. And you can look those naysayer's in the face and say 'BULLSHIT, I seen it with my own eyes!' And no propaganda, no revisionist histories, no doctored evidence will ever erase those memories."
The General's furious eyes returned to the Soldiers passing by, driving German civilians into the gates on that cold, muddy, slippery road. "But one thing I want you to always remember Senior, is that it was this 'hot tempered, impetuous asshole', this 'hard-charging, hard-driving son-of-a-bitch' that made sure you knew the God dammed truth! And to never, ever forget what Honor means!
"No Sair!"