Germanica (40 page)

“General Truscott, I wish to surrender what remains of the German army. I am in the process of ordering all units to cease fire and lay down their arms. I sincerely hope that you will command your units to accept my army’s surrender and that it occurs both quickly and without incident. I wish to bring an end to this foolish extension of a war that should never have been fought. We can arrange a formal signing of a surrender document at any time and place of your choosing. In the meantime, I wish to stop the killing.”

“My orders are going out as we speak,” said Truscott. To Vietinghoff it sounded like the American’s voice was heavy with emotion. Well, his was too. Perhaps someday he would be able to go home.

* * *

Archie Dixon’s Sherman tank plowed through the knee-deep water and onto dry land just outside Bregenz. As instructed, their hatches were closed. Even though the white cloud might not have been deadly, it was, they were told, uncomfortable and could incapacitate Driver and play hell with Gunner’s vision. That meant closed hatches, even though that might make them targets for fanatics with Panzerfausts or Molotov cocktails. As it was, a few bullets had pinged off their hull and turret. No harm had been done to men or tank, but it had been unsettling.

Dixon was pleased that Gunner had fired on seeing the flashes and hit the target with the first round. The building hiding the shooter had already been badly damaged and the rest of it flew to pieces when their 76mm shell hit and exploded. Dixon had trained them all well.

At first they’d thought it annoying that they had to wear gas masks. But now, as they drove slowly through throngs of choking, gasping and terrified German soldiers and gaunt, frightened civilians, they changed their minds.

Dixon stopped his tank in the charred mess that had been the town square of Bregenz. He was amazed. He had just seen
Josef Goebbels
being hustled onto the back of a truck. Even better, he and his new crew had survived the war. He climbed out of the tank and his crew followed. They looked at him with apprehension and a little bit of fear. He had been a monstrous and cold taskmaster. But he had won. They had all survived. He could be a human being again.

Dixon slipped off his mask and took a quick breath. The tear gas was almost gone, dissipated and blown away. He took a deeper one and signaled for the crew to do the same. They did and looked around in amazement. Several German soldiers came up, lay down their rifles and stood with their hands up. Some grinned sheepishly like this whole thing had been a silly mistake and could we all go home now?

For the first time in a long while, he grinned and turned to his crew. They had climbed out and stood beside him. “Guys, what say we go find a bar and get a beer or six?”

* * *

Lena found Tanner in Doc Hagerman’s clinic. He was sitting on a table while a medic swathed his feet in ointment and wrapped them in white bandages. Hagerman looked at her. “I told the foolish little boy not to get his feet wet, so what does he go and do? Why he spends all day playing soldier in cold mud and water. So now he has a flare-up that was caused by his initial trench foot incident. This has to stop.”

“So what are you going to do?” she asked timidly.

“Why, after I’m through curing him again, I am going to sign papers that will have his worthless ass thrown out of the army. You two might as well book passage on a ship back to the U.S., unless you’d like to fly. I’ve got some friends in the air force who can arrange it.”

She slid easily into Tanner’s arms. Neither cared who saw. “I think flying is a great idea,” Tanner said, and Lena nodded. “I’ve had enough of Europe.”

* * *

Swiss soldiers had moved several hundred yards inside what had been the German border. It was necessary in order to control the large numbers of people who wanted to leave the remnants of Germany. The Swiss were meticulous. They would ultimately admit everyone, but they wanted to know who each person was. That some of the more odious Nazis would disappear was obvious and none of their business.

Ernie Janek was getting used to life on crutches and enjoying the scene. The curtain on the final act of the Third Reich had fallen. The Twilight of the Gods part of the Wagnerian opera had ended with a ludicrous whimper and not in flames of glory. An entire army had run from a terror weapon that wasn’t. The German army might never recover from the embarrassment. Good.

Winnie slipped her hand in his. “I’ve arranged for us to go and see Vietinghoff formally surrender. It’s going to be across the lake in Constance. You’ll have to be careful of your leg.”

“I was planning on it.”

“I’ve also arranged an elegant suite for us in a hotel overlooking the lake. With all those American warships out there, the view won’t be as lovely as it could be, but who plans on looking out a window? I just want to learn how to make love to a man with a broken leg.”

“Carefully,” Ernie said, “very, very carefully.”

* * *

In the White House, Werner Heisenberg was well on his way to being drunk. He was being toasted for the failure of Germany’s atomic bomb. He’d almost passed out when word that the warhead on the rocket had been a dud. Heisenberg wondered if there had even
been
a warhead on the V1. Esau had likely been working in a secure area and could have filled the warhead with sand.

He’d even been hugged by Harry Truman, who clearly had been crying. He’d been informed that his incarceration would cease immediately. He could go wherever he wanted, but with one exception. General Groves said he would not be able to work with the American scientists in what was called the Manhattan Project. So be it. He’d had enough of nuclear weapons. He would go back to Germany—the American zone, of course—and try to pick up the pieces of his life.

EPILOGUE

The newspaper said it was the Fourth of July, 1960. In the United States they would be celebrating their independence with fireworks, picnics, baseball and beer. Not so Alfonse Hahn, former general in the SS. The war in Europe had been over for almost fifteen years. The world had changed and not for the better. Hahn still could not fathom a world where the Jews had their own nation and had defeated other countries in order to keep it. Who knew that Jews could and would fight? And now they had their own secret police force, the Mossad. Like the worms they were, the Mossad slithered all over the world and part of their job was to seek out and either kill or capture what they referred to as Nazi war criminals.

Just last month, Israelis had located and kidnapped Adolf Eichmann from a suburb of Buenos Aires. This had shaken Hahn. He lived only a dozen miles from Eichmann and had seen him on several occasions, although he had never approached the man. He respected what Eichmann had done in planning the disposal of the Jews, but he personally thought the man was nothing more than a pale, mousy clerk. At least, Hahn thought, he himself had been a Nazi warrior, not a glorified railroad engineer.

But Eichmann’s capture meant that the Jews were close by and still looking. He’d read some of the magazines and seen lists of those Nazis the Jews were looking for. He was high on the list. Hitler was first even though most people thought he was dead. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” who decided who would live and who would die on arrival at Auschwitz, was high up as well and nobody knew where the hell he was. It was an honor to be in such company. Still, he had been small potatoes when compared with the Nazi hierarchy. He had personally killed only a few dozen people, mostly Jews, although he had shipped off large numbers to die in the death camps. He had only killed two Americans, yet they were still infuriated by it. A surviving witness named Tanner had written a book about it. It had become a bestseller and that galled Hahn. What a book he could write and what stories he could tell! Sadly, that would not happen.

Hahn’s escape from Italy had been fraught with danger. His companion, Diehl, had been killed in a gunfight with Italian partisans only a few days after escaping through Switzerland. Hahn had used the money and identification he’d taken from Bregenz to get on a steamer to Spain and then to Buenos Aires, where he’d lived a quiet and simple life in a small apartment overlooking a quiet street. It was far from the glamor and glory of the days when he’d been an SS general, but it would do until the Reich rose again.

On a positive note, young Hans Gruber had gone to East Germany where he had joined the East German secret police force, the Stasi. His sources said he was quickly rising in rank. Good. He had even survived the scandal when his wife, the former Astrid Schneider, had been murdered by her brother, a man driven crazy by the war.

Today Hahn had to be even more careful than usual. Today was the day he went to the post office to pick up the envelope that contained his monthly allowance. It was his only source of income and he lived in fear that his unknown benefactor would either die or get caught.

He entered the small grubby post office building after checking to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Some familiar people were coming and going along with the inevitable scattering of strangers. Nothing looked wrong. He had no idea how Eichmann had been found but he did know that the man had made himself a family. Probably someone blabbed or bragged. It was another good reason to live alone, which he did. If he needed sex, there were prostitutes in the neighborhood and he only frequented the regulars.

A truck driver leaned on his horn and began to curse loudly, attracting everyone’s attention. A woman pushing a baby carriage jumped in front of him. Hahn was distracted by the woman and barely noticed that someone had bumped him until he started to lose his balance. Something was terribly wrong. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He collapsed onto the sidewalk and heard people calling for help. Someone looked down at him with real concern. He heard a siren screaming and growing closer.

The ambulance stopped and medics jumped out. They put Hahn on a gurney and into the vehicle. As they drove off, Hahn heard people comment that the poor man had been fortunate that the ambulance had been so close.

After a few blocks, the siren was turned off and Hahn, still unable to move, realized that he was living a nightmare. They drove in silence for a few minutes and into another building. He was removed from the ambulance. He could see that they were in a large garage. The men laid him on a table where they cut off all his clothes and replaced them with a hospital gown.

A man leaned over him. His expression was cold. “Hello, General Hahn. Yes, we are Jews, and, yes, we are Mossad. And how we located you doesn’t matter. I don’t know and wouldn’t tell you if I did. Probably someone talked. Money always does that, although sometimes fear works as well, as you well know.

“At any rate, you are now going on a plane ride, a very long one. You will be transported by a private aircraft that has you listed as a severely psychotic mental patient who must be kept tranquilized for his own safety and that of those on the plane. The destination is listed as a sanitarium outside Paris, but, of course, we won’t go there. Your final destination will be Tel Aviv.”

The Israeli spat into his face and laughed as the spittle ran down Hahn’s cheek. “Mazel tov.”