“I rather like his ‘Panzer Song.’” Magda begins singing: “Panzer rollen in Afrika vor…”
“And he used planes. You don’t hear about that,” Hans states.
“I heard,” I say proudly. “He flew over the battlefields in a Storch light observation aircraft, landing around his tanks.”
“Who told you that?” Hans asks.
“Goebbels.” It was really Göring, but I don’t want to bring up Göring’s name at this time.
“Rommel was constantly in the front lines. We even bombed him a couple of time ourselves.”
“Didn’t he win the Blue Max?” Magda asks.
“Long before this war,” Hans says dismissively. “Africa was all a sport to him. Open terrain. No civilians. Sharpshooting into the vision slits of French tanks. A game.”
“I miss those wonderful boxes of Magenbrot he would send just to me… such delicious sweet Swabian cookies,” Magda gushes.
“But from the desert, Rommel learned that silence and loneliness are infinite,” I interject, repeating what General Keitel once told me, in order to counteract Magda’s remark about silly cookies. “Is that not valuable in wartime?”
“The real hero of the desert was the German 88 mm, the most effective field gun against tanks in Africa. Ladies, better to think only of hofmann,” Hans brays.
“Of course. Precious Hofmann,” Magda says.
Magda is more sad about Hofmann dying before she could get him in her arms than the fact that he had died so heroically.
Trying to put Magda’s ripped sleeve back where it belongs is an impossible gesture. But Hans tries, the back of his hand brushing across her breast. Though she has calmed from her war fury, she’s now agitated by lust.
“You must eat noodles,” I say to both of them. “A full stomach is comforting.”
They don’t hear me, see me, or know that I’m there. The room has become still. They stare at each other without moving. From the situation conference in the map room comes the faint chatter of Generals Krosigk, Keitel, and Ramcke along with Götz Rupp, Goebbels, and Bormann talking to their Führer. I see them all as the door has been flung wide open because Heinz Linge goes back and forth with trays of cups, tea, and platters of pflaumenkuchen, crullers, and egg pudding to pacify the raving sweet tooth of his Führer. The cakes smell of dampness. Adi doesn’t care, he happily nibbles and gestures with a cream puff, jabbing it into Bormann’s chest of medals and smearing yellow cream all along his top buttons.
“I absolutely oppose the machine gun because it makes close combat impossible. Jet propulsion is an obstacle to air combat. And developing an A-Bomb is so much Jewish pseudo-science,” Adi shouts. “Now a Panzer tank… that’s a superior weapon. One 25-ton Panzer IV has 39,000 kg of steel, 195 kg of copper, 238 kg of aluminum, 63 kg of lead, 66 kg of zinc, 116 kg of rubber.”
“How magnificent is your memory,” Krosigk proclaims, smiling. “You know everything about the Panzer down to its pistol ammunition.” I wonder if the rumor is true that the general still has all his original milk teeth.
“I also continue to read the railway timetable.” Adi begins reciting from memory complicated arrival and departure times.
How long will Hans and Magda stare at each other like two fascinated animals? Who will make the first move? I think about the insect world where sex results in death.
“There! Right there! A formation of tanks are crowded together,” Adi shouts, and he’s pointing to his detailed ground plans with black dots to show where mines are planted. “Can’t you see, Generals?” He says Generals and makes it sound like bums.
“Their white stars are clear to see,” Goebbels remarks.
Götz calls loudly for ordnung. Order! Gunfire suddenly erupts for Adi shoots into the concrete walls to establish himself in the real war. He does this exercise for Corporal Götz Rupp feels it’s important that Adi relive active battle. Corporal Rupp yells: “Grenade!” Adi holds a phantom grenade so real to him that his fingers move expertly to work the pin loose.
The generals back away from the action as Corporal Rupp tells them that warfare is determined by the quick thinking of the common soldier in battle. Animal instinct moves that soldier to decide whether to advance or whether to employ one form of artillery over another. It’s the unplanned, the spontaneous decisions that brings about historic consequences. Things get exciting only when things go wrong, Götz tells them. He gives an example: “Place a grenade on the helmet of a soldier. If the grenade is balanced, he can pull the pin and stand at attention. No damage if the soldier maintains absolute stillness as the explosion dissipates above his steel helmet. But if he becomes rattled and lets the grenade fall… you see, it’s all in the hands of the individual.”
General Keitel is enraged. “Are you saying we should not give orders?”
“You know the old saying: ‘Germans won’t fight without an order.’ However, we can’t rely only on generals. Not even the great German military,” Götz says.
“Can you please restate that in high German,” General Krosigk orders sarcastically.
“Come now,” Goebbels pleads, “we all wish to kill the same enemy.”
“I don’t consider the act of killing so difficult,” Ramcke adds. “One has only to pull the pin.” In his uniform pocket, Ramcke carries a tin of loose gold nuggets that he shuffles with his fingers like worry beads.
Corporal Rupp calmly leans his small frame against the wall near Adi and stares with coldness at General Keitel. “You read too many diplomatic correspondences, Herr General, such as all those papers detailing the glider assaults of the Witzig’s group. Nevertheless, your presence is necessary for the genius of inactivity.”
Moving close to Götz, General Ramcke mockingly whispers, “I tried to get you a cashmere bathrobe, Mein Führer.”
Götz ignores the malicious mockery.
General Keitel’s ears turn red and his jaw quivers. He murmurs unheard words in fury while flapping the field glasses around his neck.
“To have generals standing around does contribute to morale.” Corporal Rupp gives a half-smile, like Blondi’s half-wag, and his ropy lips hold the smirk for several minutes.
“Didn’t Wordsworth talk about wise passiveness?” adds Goebbels hoping to calm matters.
“You can quote an Anglo at a time like this?” General Ramcke shouts.
“Well, we’re fighting them, aren’t we?” Götz shouts.
“Rupp, your impertinence is outrageous,” Rancke slams back.
“Remember, General Ramcke, I’m not a Nazi. Strictly a soldier,” Götz declares.
Adi likes dissent. It’s what he calls expanding. It makes his officers accountable for what they plan. But he moves on to more important things. “Herr Rupp, as you know, I’m particularly interested in the concept of German instinct and its importance against whatever struggles befall us.”
“There’s only unreason in times of war, Mein Führer,” reports Götz. “My official statement on the matter. You can verify that in the SS Questionnaire of 1934 which I completed at the Brown House in Munich.”
“Doesn’t unreason have to be adequately reasoned?” asks Goebbels.
“Not if it’s spontaneous.” Corporal Rupp tosses written reports to the floor.
The generals scramble to pick up the scattered papers. All this heated bickering, Adi knows, is widening everyone’s thinking.
“Your official reports have nothing to do with what takes place on the front,” Corporal Götz Rupp says.