`Surely such troops are a liability rather than an asset?' Gregory remarked.
`Of course they are. They were roped in only on Himmler's Insistence. His object was to swell the numbers of the men that could be allocated to the Army, so that when the Generals protested… to the Fьhrer he could be persuaded- that they had had their fair share of recruits… Meanwhile, that little swine Goebbels had induced the Fuhrer to order me to release half a million men from the ground staffs of my Luftwaffe stations.'
At the memory the Reichsmarschall's fat face turned almost purple. Quickly, Gregory refilled his glass and handed it to him. He took a gulp of wine then spluttered, `Those… those are the fine fellows who are now being sent to die in Hungary, so that more Jews can be exterminated before the curtain comes down. Nine-tenths of them, and the greater part of all that was left of our German youth, have been enrolled in the Waffen S.S. Not content with that, Himmler for once scrapped his race-purity obsession in order to get another half million men under his command. He made honorary Aryans of Bulgarians, Albanians, Slovenes, Hungarians and even Russians. His S.S. Leaders combed the prisoner-of-war camps for anyone and everyone who preferred to put on a Nazi uniform rather than starve to death. To that he added French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Latvian collaborators by the thousand; so now his private Army numbers scores of Divisions and is nearly as big as the Wehrmacht… That's why the Fuhrer could not refuse him the command of an Army Group.'
`What!' Gregory exclaimed. `Himmler an Army Group Commander! But he can know nothing about soldiering.'.
`Not a thing. But the greater part of the Wehrmacht's armoured divisions had been lost in Russia and in Normandy. The best we had left were the new ones created for the Waffen S.S. by Sepp Dietrich; and he is a good soldier even if he did start his career as the Fьhrer’s chauffeur. They had to be used as the spearhead, of the Ardennes offensive, and as they were Himmler's troops he claimed the right to command the whole sector. Von Rundstedt would not stand for that and the Fuhrer had to give way to him; so Himmler was bought off by being given command of the neighboring Army Group, covering the sector between the Ardennes and the Swiss frontier.'
Once more Gregory was so intrigued that he had temporarily forgotten that he was talking to a man who, as soon as he tired of giving vent to his bitterness and rancour, would have him shot; and he asked, `What sort of showing did Himmler make as a General?'
Goering shrugged. `He proved not only helplessly incompetent himself, but has continued to be a menace to the success of all the other Army Commanders. You see, Commanders of S.S. divisions that are allotted to Army Groups come under Wehrmacht Generals only for operations, not for discipline; do they owe allegiance only to their own chiefs, the Obergruppenfiihrers and, of course, to Himmler as their Supreme Commander. In consequence, being given an Army Group did not deprive Himmler of the power to interfere on all the other fronts on which Waffen S.S. divisions were employed.
'Sepp Dietrich did a splendid job with his armour in breaking through the Ardennes front. Had he been properly supported he might have reached Antwerp and delayed the Allied advance for several months. But the offensive failed for two reasons. The divisions from the Replacement Army given to von Rundstedt to follow up the attack were of such poor quality that they were not up to the task; and when he asked Himmler to release some of his S.S. Divisions from the neighbouring front to support the armour, Himmler refused. Instead he despatched his reserve divisions to Hungary, in another effort to prevent the Russians from capturing Budapest before all the Jews there could be killed off. There you have our tragedy: the units of two separate armies mixed up on every front, with the Generals of both hating the others, bitterly jealous and refusing to co-operate.'
Gregory shook his head. `I had no idea of this. It must render all planning hopeless, and in such chaotic conditions I marvel that Germany is still able to maintain any front at all.'
`Planning!' Goering gave a cynical laugh. `There is none. Each General is fighting only a local battle to stave off def.-at. None of them knows what is happening to his neighbours, because they are forbidden to communicate in case they get together and decide to lay down their arms. The Fьhrer sitting in his bunker in Berlin not only decrees the major moves but also directs everything, even down to the movement of battalions, with only the vaguest idea of what is really happening in the battle areas. Quite frequently he orders new units of the Replacement Army to proceed to places that have been overrun by the enemy a week or more before.'
`That makes it all the more amazing that there has not been a general collapse.'
`Two factors account for that: the Wehrmacht Generals now ignore all the Fьhrer’s more idiotic orders, and the dogged determination of our soldiers to protect their homeland. We Germans and you British are the finest fighting men in the world, both in victory and defeat. But the Fьhrer’s distrust of the Generals and his fanatical belief that he can direct the war better than any of them has brought us to this shocking pass.'
`Could you not have persuaded him to see sense,' Gregory asked. `After all, you are Nazi No. 2 and his appointed successor. Surely you must have great influence with him.'
Goering sighed. `In the old days I had; but now he is barely civil to me. And that goes for the German people, too. They used to call me "fat Hermann", and they loved me. Now they blame me for the failure of the Luftwaffe and curse my name when the bombs come crashing down. That is my personal tragedy and my heart bleeds for my gallant airmen. Today they are humiliated and stigmatized as cowards. But it is no fault of theirs or mine that the Allies have driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.
`Dominance in the air is largely a gamble on which nation has the latest machine in operation when a war breaks -out. It was no thanks to your Government, but because Lady Houston gave her millions to the development of fighter aircraft, that you had your Hurricanes and Spitfires operational in 1939. Had the war broken out a year later, we would have had a better type of Messerschmitt and you would" have lost the Battle of Britain. But even then it was not too late. I could still have beaten the Allies in the air, or at least have prevented the bombing of our German cities later in the war, had I been allowed to manufacture our new types in sufficient numbers. Instead the fools hamstrung the Luftwaffe by diverting irreplaceable technicians and vast quantities of precious materials to the making of the V.I's and V.2's.'
After emptying his glass again, the Reichsmarschall said bitterly, 'Well, now you know how things really are with us. That's why you find me amusing myself by dressing up like this and fiddling while Rome is burning, instead of ordering such squadrons of the Luftwaffe as are still serviceable into battle. They have to continue to make sorties, of course; but since I realized that our situation had become hopeless I've been trying to conserve the lives of as many of my boys as I can. The awful thing is that unless the Fьhrer ordains otherwise this desperate last-ditch resistance may go on for months yet… I would to God that we could end it tomorrow, but I'm thoroughly discredited and there is nothing I can do.'
`About that I don't agree,' said Gregory firmly. `You still possess immense powers, and your Luftwaffe troops would obey your orders… Since the Fuhrer will not listen to reason and is clearly mad,, you could surround his headquarters with your men, arrest him and, if need be, shoot him; then take over and ask for an armistice.'