A less intuitive commander would have transferred Wohl to one of the other guns in the battery◦— SS-Kannonier Halle from Hofmann’s vehicle was an outstanding soldier and would make the crew world class◦— but Knispel was adamant that he should remain. In addition, von Schroif knew that he couldn’t select the best candidates for his favoured machine and still command the respect of the battery. There was no other option◦— Wohl had to stay on as a work in progress for both Knispel and von Schroif.
While von Schroif’s mind was elsewhere the pause in the conversation continued until he dimly became aware of Wohl shifting uneasily from foot to foot. The subtle, almost imperceptible movement was not accidental. Wohl hated sentry duty and would do anything to alleviate the hours of monotony. He was therefore eager to continue the conversation, but he said no more for the moment, hoping von Schroif would pick up the thread.
The thoughts of his commander, however, had moved on and he was now far away from the uncertain present. His roving mind had moved on from the Sturmgeschütze and was now cast back twenty-three years to the Great War, 1918, just before Wohl was born. That was the time when von Schroif had first rumbled into battle in the A7V, Germany’s first battle tank, a lumbering colossus as big as a house and filled with the chaos of noise, fumes and the stench of seventeen sweating, choking crewmen.
Eventually Wohl’s impatience overcame him and he decided to re-kindle the conversation with a question.
“Will there be anything else, Hauptsturmführer?”
“Not for now, Wohl…” came the disappointing reply. “I was just reflecting on what progress has been made in so few years.” Von Schroif rapped on the armour of the Sturmgeschütz.
Wohl decided it was worth one last try.
“I regret I do not follow you, Hauptsturmführer.”
“I mean this, Wohl… the StuG,” said von Schroif, taking the bait. “You lack the necessary experience to comprehend it, Wohl, but trust me, this great leap in engineering is surely the mark of how great Germany has become under the Führer! When I was your age, I entered an armoured battle in our first Panzer. You know what happened, Wohl?”
“No, I don’t, Hauptsturmführer,” said the young man expectantly.
“We toppled over into a shell hole during our first combat!” Von Schroif was smiling. “It was so massive, so top-heavy, that it was unmanageable, and there were eighteen of us packed in there. Definitely not the Fatherland’s finest moment! But now, in just one generation, we have this marvel, eh? Evolution at the pace of lightning, SS-Kannonier Wohl!”
Wohl looked back uncomprehendingly at von Schroif, who continued his exposition.
“Look how low it is, how agile, and how well-armoured. Tempered steel too, not the feeble plates we had to hide behind back then◦— they could just about stop a rifle bullet, but nothing else. You see, Wohl, the Sturmgeschütz, when compared to the A7V, is a like a greyhound compared to a mammoth, but this greyhound has an armoured skin and really sharp teeth. It is so much better armed and so highly efficient that it needs just four men to do the work that even a battalion of the old A7Vs could never have attempted, and all of this in just twenty-three years! That’s why we’ll hammer the Reds into the ground.”
The incessant ringing of telephones and the constant bustle of messages being delivered in the busy main office of the Abwehr Headquarters in Berlin was in marked contrast to the silence of the pine forests packed with men waiting nervously in the frontlines.
“Still over an hour to go, Sir,” shouted RSHA Kriminalassistent Walter Lehmann above the din.
“I appreciate that. We had the Dortmund signal at 13.00 hours,” said Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of Hitler’s secret service in Berlin. He was a man who took nothing for granted. He also checked his watch◦— 01:30. Looking for all the world like a kindly old gentleman who would not be out of place sitting placidly in his local church, he smiled at Lehmann and in an unspoken signal of solidarity gestured towards the quiet sanctuary of his private office. Once inside, he gestured towards a waiting tray and Lehmann poured a stiff measure of brandy into two waiting glasses.
Canaris too was conscious of his own breathing, but not in the same way as von Schroif or the millions of other German soldiers who sat poised in the East. His rapid breaths did not sound as if they followed one after the other, but more as if they were set against each other, the breathing of a man at war with himself, of a man living two separate lives. He and Lehmann were unlikely allies trying to stay inside the system and simultaneously trying to bring it down, carrying out acts which appalled his own Christian conscience in order to be in the position to enact small mercies to appease the very same conscience. He was a man who was slowly being strangled by the tightrope he had forced himself to walk. A man fighting for breath. It was Canaris who had sent Wendorff and the rest of the Brandenburgers behind enemy lines. Should operation Barbarossa be postponed, the coded message ‘Altona’ would be transmitted, but something told Canaris that this operation would not be cancelled.
“I respect your decision to join us, Admiral,” said Lehmann, raising his glass. “I’m still surprised that you should come to such a juncture. Formerly, you were such an enthusiastic supporter of the Führer…”
“I know it seems strange, Lehmann,” replied the older man with the air of someone delighted to unburden a weight of his mind, “but it was all so different back then. Who would not have been a supporter, given the shameless treatment we suffered at Versailles?”
“So why the change?”
“I suppose I first became disillusioned when I learned of the corporal’s plans to invade the Sudetenland. It was then I felt the first suspicions that we could be dealing with a gambler and an egomaniac. Why risk the Reich for the Sudetenland?”
“Surely not such a big gamble?” replied Lehmann, enjoying the taste of the finest brandy France could offer.
“You didn’t have the advantage of the intelligence, Lehmann. The Führer had not only underestimated the power of the Czech forces, but risked intervention by the Western powers. Finis Germania◦— and for what? It was reckless in the extreme, and that was just the first glimmering. Now look where he is taking us!”
“I take it there’s nothing, er… concrete we can do?” asked Lehmann with the air of a man holding out little hope.
“There may come a time, but not now. As you know, Lehmann, I had all the right people lined up. We had laid the most immaculate plan to launch a putsch, right down to organising a shock troop to arrest Hitler when the time came. But then that fool Chamberlain came along and waved Hitler in. Hitler’s popularity soared and this ludicrous cult of hero worship made it impossible to carry out the plan.”
“Damn that fool Chamberlain!” cursed Lehmann. “When the history of this needless, appalling war is written, sign it off in that idiot’s blood!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” replied Canaris with a glance towards the closed door. “Don’t forget I was in Poland, and don’t forget that I fought in the last lot too. I’ve seen some sights, but even an old warhorse like me was shocked by what I saw there. Add to that what my agents have been telling me◦— it’s not just burning synagogues anymore. Trains are moving from France, from Holland, from Greece.”
“The Jews were always going to pay a hefty price,” observed Lehmann.