“Does your wife mind you being away, Mister van der Haan?” Maisie McMullen’s voice was tentative, as if she wasn't sure she should be interrupting when the men were speaking.
“Call me Piet please. She's not happy about me coming here at all. Down in the Republic, we hear bad things about Europe. How the bombing made everybody sick and all. Tell you, haven't felt quite right since I came here either. Still, the bossmen had to pay a big bonus for us to come here so it’s worth it. Look forward to getting back though, that's the truth. Lord knows how I miss home.”
They chatted on, exchanging stories about the occupation and life in the Republic of South Africa, and McMullen insisted on ordering another round. Eventually they parted, van der Haan back to his hotel, the McMullens to their home. As they walked down the street, Maisie McMullen had a smug smile on her face because she had noticed something her husband had not. Their affable South African friend carried a gun under his jacket.
Headquarters, Second Karelian Front, Riga, “The Baltic Gallery”
The long lines of tanks and artillery had grown even thicker, denser, the cannon barrels seeming to bristle at the sky like some great steel porcupine defying the gods that lived beyond the clouds. Rows upon rows of them. Field Marshal Rommel hardly noticed. The professional part of his mind noted what he saw and even jabbed him into awareness when they passed something new, a long-range rocket battery- A bit like the German A-4 but a pointed cylinder instead of the A-4s graceful bullet shape. But, for the rest of the drive his mind was far away, churning over what he had learned. Or, rather, what he had been made to learn.
It had sounded so simple. Pick out a couple of units, ones that had no great crimes to stain their reputation, ones where the soldiers had just done their duty and deserved to find refuge where they could. He'd picked out some likely candidates and drawn their files to check them. Then, he'd been horrified by what he'd found. He'd checked others and found the same. There were no blameless units; there were no units without great crimes to stain their reputation. There were no honest, simple soldiers who had just done their duty.
Like most Wehrmacht officers, Erwin Rommel had convinced himself that the stories of vileness, of atrocities, of horror were all the work of others, the SS and the even more foul groups that followed them. The last 48 hours had shattered that comforting delusion. There were no clean, blameless units that had just done their duty. For the first time, he'd seen the truth of what the war on the Eastern Front had been like. It didn't help, it wasn't a comfort, to point to the Russians, or the Canadians or the Americans and say that they too had done the same. They had, but that was no excuse. It was their problem and their consciences would have to carry that burden. As he sat in his staff car, Erwin Rommel felt the vileness clinging to him and he believed he would never be clean again.
At the Russian headquarters, he saw the Russian infantry that surrounded it staring at him with cold, all-encompassing hatred. He'd seen it before, on his first visit, but then he'd dismissed it as the aftermath of war. It was a terrible feeling to understand how that hatred had been earned, to know that it was deserved. It was a relief to get inside where Konstantin Rokossovsky, ever the urbane and genial cavalryman, was waiting for him.
“Field Marshal Rommel, I have good news for you. The Swedes are prepared to take an initial five thousand of your men as refugees. They are even sending a ship, one of their Baltic ferries, to collect them. Finland and Norway are speaking of taking five thousand each also but we have no confirmation of that yet. Now, what white have you got that you can offer me?”
Rommel reached into his briefcase and took out three files. “My white is the 21st Panzer Division. They spend much of the war on occupation duty in France. As a panzer unit, they were used mostly for assaults and for counter-attacks, they took no part in anti-partisan operations and I can find few accusations against them. I suggest we start with the tank regiment first and then the artillery regiment. Then, if the five thousand are not yet filled, the two panzergrenadier regiments. The 21st is an old unit, regular Wehrmacht and they received fewer replacements than most.”
That was something Rommel had noticed, the units that had received the most replacements, the ones filled with the brain-washed fanatics from the Hitler Jugend, were the ones that had the records bad enough to turn his stomach. Across the table Rokossovsky nodded. He spoke to one of the Russian women who left, glaring at Rommel as she did. “I understand why you hate us now.”
Rokossovsky looked at him. “You do German? And why do we hate you?”
“I have seen what we did, even in the words of our own reports and statements. There can be no forgiveness for us. I do not expect any.”
“German, that is war. It is not a game, it is horror incarnate and unimaginable. Perhaps we had forgotten that and it took General LeMay to remind us, but we do not hate you for war. Do you want to know why we hate you?” Rommel nodded.
“Because you were so rich, you had so much. We had nothing. The men in the rifle divisions, the Frontniki, are peasants from collective farms. They were so poor, for them to have nothing was an improvement. Yet you, who had everything, came to our country and took what little we had and that which you could not take you destroyed.
“Two starving peasants fighting for a piece of bread can fight desperately and cruelly, they can rip with their teeth and gouge eyes but they fight with desperation, not hatred. But a starving peasant with a crust of bread who sees a rich capitalist rob him of his bread, take a small bite and throw the rest down a sewer has a heart filled with the blackest hatred imaginable.”
For a moment Rokossovsky's gracious demeanor slipped and Rommel saw the same blaze of loathing in his eyes. “There are many in Russia who strongly oppose letting any of the German soldiers return. They believe you should all be turned into slave labor, Zhukov's mules they call it, to be worked to death repairing the damage you have caused. President Zhukov does not agree with them. It would be very wise to ensure that he does not change his mind. Thank you Katya.”
A Russian woman had brought out a pile of files. Rokossovsky took the one labeled 21st Panzer Division and read it quietly. The silence in the wooden building was oppressive, while Rokossovsky read, absorbing the contents of the tile, Rommel mulling over what he had been told, the woman soldier staring at the German in the hope that the fury of her gaze might bring about his death.
“'Your white is acceptable German. As we discussed earlier, 5,000 of the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers up to the rank of Sergeant will be released to Sweden. The exceptions are the men on a list I have here. As their units disband, their equipment will be handed over to us, and their senior NCOs and officers will surrender themselves for investigation. I cannot speak for the NKVD and would not wish to do so but it is my opinion that the majority of those men will not have much to fear. Now we have my black. There is a unit we want more than any other. The Dirlwanger Brigade. An anti-partizan unit with a record that would make the devil himself weep for their victims.”
Rommel nodded. In his studies, he'd seen that unit's record and he guessed that it would be high on the list of Russian demands. “You may have them with my blessing. Of course, some may be dead when we deliver them. You will have no objection to that?”
“As the Americans say Field Marshal. Wanted, dead or alive. As they come. But if you do kill any, deliver their bodies. We demand an accounting for that unit.”