Thus, his mind was clear to consider the issue of railroads.
It seemed the Russian Jabos weren’t blowing them up with the same regularity. They knew that Western Ukraine would be theirs again soon, and everything they blew up would have to be replaced, so they had decided momentarily against machine-gunning and rocketing German troop trains, if they were headed west, full of wounded. In fact, since the front was lost and would crumble any day now, they had ceased machine-gunning and rocketing even German troop trains headed east. The arrival of the new troops would just increase the Reds’ bag somewhere along the line.
It wasn’t that they felt any mercy for the wounded Germans. It was that they would need the track to propel their own troop trains westward, through the Carpathians and into Hungary as they drove for the prize of Budapest in the next few months.
“It is essential,” he dictated to his secretary for Directive No. 559, “that we seize upon this opportunity to accelerate certain goals.”
It was a matter of priorities. A sound manager — having examined at length the competition for rail space per Reich element vis-à-vis the ongoing strategic situation and need-based budget requirement, the transportation difficulties, the volume of cargo — understood that not everyone could be accommodated. There weren’t enough locomotives, there wasn’t enough coal, there wasn’t enough track. This small window in the dynamism of the war had to be managed precisely in order to gain the most from it.
He went back to his adding machine and prowled through the spools of calculation, to once again check his numbers.
“Dr. Groedl?” asked his secretary, a lumpy woman named Bertha.
“I want to check it one more time,” he said, not really seeing her or noting her lumpiness. Neither did he see the modern angles of this modern room, which had been built by the Poles in 1936, under Bauhaus influence, as an avatar of the future that they thought they faced. Alas, they found out in 1939 that they did not, when the Soviets took over North Ukraine and again in 1941, when the Germans did. He did not even really notice the aerodynamically sleek art moderne desk at which he worked, another example of misplaced Polish optimism. He did not see the Nazi banners that had been hastily thrown up everywhere, or the piles of files, the loose paper, the bound volumes, the records, the log books, the account books, everywhere. He did not see the mess of temporary relocation. He saw only the numbers.
He calculated. Colonel Haufstrau of Medical needs a train of at least eighteen cars to move a thousand wounded men from the front at Trinokova railhead to Hungary. Eighteen cars requiring one engine and eight tons of coal, clear track from Trinokova to Stanislav by night, then out of the true danger zone, through the Carpathians whose rail tunnels hadn’t and wouldn’t be blown by Ivan, clear track to Budapest the next day. There would be a rest stop at the Uzhgorod rail yards, so that an ammunition train headed for the front could be routed through, and the medical train would have to recoal there, consuming another six tons. The total fourteen tons of coal would reduce the ready reserve by a factor of about 9 percent, when the average daily reduction was under 6 percent, and the 6 percent vs. 9 percent projected to six more operational days in late July when it was expected by Army Group North Ukraine’s Intelligence Staff that the front would collapse and would have to regroup and reestablish lines of resistance — tank pits and minefields were already being built — west of Stanislav, possibly in the lee of the Carpathians. The Carpathian passes must be held to enable most of Army Group North Ukraine and all of SS Reichskommissariat personnel to get out before the Reds took everything over.
On the other hand, the train run by the small yet important niche of the SS security bureaucracy called Department IV-B4 had an equal claim to priority. It had assumed as part of its cargo a last load from Lemberg before it fell, and it had added transport cars at several way stations along the route, the trophy of a final sweep operation. Now it waited for coal here in the Stanislav yards, dispensing a foul miasma of stench demoralizing to men who came in contact with it, not just Ukrainian yard workers but also Reichskommissariat staff.
The data: IV-B4’s cargo load was by far lighter than the thousand wounded soldiers, and for obvious reasons no time or resources must be spent on maintaining it as a physical property, whereas the medical train needed a constant influx of medicine, water, and food to sustain the lives of those poor wounded boys who were its passengers. This made everything about it problematic and meant added layers of administrative responsibility and refined organizational input. Regarded purely as a logistical contest, there was no doubt that the IV-B4 train represented a lesser allocation of resources than the medical train, and there were certain intangible spiritual elements involved.
Dr. Groedl loathed such considerations. What was “spiritual,” what was “moral,” what was “ethical”? These values could not be calculated numerically. It took a certain sensitivity to the greater ethos, which he admitted, if only to Helga, that he somewhat lacked.
“I hate it,” he had said. “It is nothing. You can’t quantify it, you can’t shape it, you can’t weigh it. What is it? Why do we care so much about such things?”
“I’m sure you’ll work it out, my dear,” said Helga, stroking Mitzi’s smooth head on her lap. “You always do, my genius.”
So now he struggled with the issue before him, yearning for guidance, and yet he understood that seeking advice would be interpreted as weakness, and even at this point, the Reichskommissariat was a cesspool of politics, with strivers and whores of ambition, politicals, plotters, cabalists, all of them waiting, just waiting, for him to make a mistake so they could whisper nasty things about him in the right ears, and ease the skids under him while assisting in their own rise. He had so many enemies! If Heinrich only knew, or The Leader himself, what mischief was perpetrated by the human folly of ambition! He was simply too pure for a political world. He lived only for duty, not foolish medals and empty titles or promotions!
“Dr. Groedel?”
“Yes, yes, Bertha, I simply want to be certain.”
“It is difficult, sir, I understand.”
“But we must forge ahead,” he said. He winced, pinched the bridge of his nose, wished he had a cup of tea, and then proceeded. “Where was I?”
“ ‘… to accelerate certain goals.’ ”
“Yes, yes. Continue, ‘Thus priorities are henceforth determined. Train 56, under the auspices of Department IV-B4, will be given the coal authority and the track clearance to proceed at once to its destination. All entities are hereby directed to offer maximum support to this transport and further memos will follow adjudicating logistical responsibilities. Train 118, under the auspices of the Wehrmacht medical service, will wait at least twenty-four hours, dependent on the resupply of coal to the yards at Stanislav, which, when it again reaches a level of nine percent surplus under normal operating procedures, it will be allowed to depart.’ Sign it Groedel, and you know the rest, Bertha, get it out to our people as quickly as possible.”