Chapter 29

(DEC 1941 HITLER TAKES OVER THE GERMAN ARMY)

In those days after the shock of realizing the full might of the sleeping giant, the United States of America, suddenly had the Third Reich in their battle sights, Hitler and his henchmen began to consider the possibility of losing everything including their own lives for their criminal genocide and breaking the rules of war.

The huge risk of invading the Soviet Union was already in progress and the campaign in North Africa was doomed to failure. Now that the United States was at war with the Axis Hitler decided he had better be the one that determined the military strategy without any interference from the German Staff and he had already written Italy off as an unreliable partner. His thoughts about the Japanese were only in the sense that he hoped they would be able to drain away Army and Marine divisions to fight in the Pacific and out of his backyard of Europe and the sacred borders of the Fatherland.

In was in the atmosphere of this chaotic situation that the Fuhrer made the disastrous decision to take over direct control of the German Army. Up to this point the Fuhrer was somewhat respectful of the professional soldiers of the Wehrmacht, but he sensed things were slipping away from him and he wanted to have his hand on the helm when the fast approaching critical points were reached.

Looking back in history, the reason why Hitler felt at this juncture that his direct command was necessary was recent development of the United States entering the war as his principal opponent and the fact that Operation Barbarossa was not going smoothly in far distant Russia.

In fact, the Nazi offensive against Moscow was proving to be a disaster of gigantic proportion.

The perimeter set up by the Russian Army was a full two hundred miles from the City and the Germans were not able to penetrate the defensive line. The terrible winter had set in with below zero temps and the German vehicles were literally frozen in their tracks. The Russians launched a vicious counterattack that forced the German Army into retreat. This was in direct disobedience of Hitler’s orders and he was not one to hesitate to remove high ranking officers from their positions.

For the first time, the German Wehrmacht was on the losing side and the morale of the soldiers was rock bottom.

Hitler fired General Von Bock who was convinced his men had reached the end of their endurance of the frozen battlefield. He was replaced by Von Kluge despite the fact that his command the Fourth Army was already in permanent retreat from Moscow due to severe losses. The situation was worsened by the removal of Von Rundstedt because he had retreated from Rostov against Hitler’s orders.

Clearly disturbed by his field commander’s desire to retreat before they lost the cream of the German Wehrmacht, Hitler took the opportunity to assume command and establish firm punishments for retreating on the battlefield.

The ability of the American forces to rebuild their greatly reduced armed forces and to turn their peacetime economy into a full-blown wartime economy surprised the entire world. Almost every American from the youngest child to the oldest senior did their best to contribute to the war effort and it paid in handsome dividends for the quick deployment of new units on the battlefield and the production of the tools of war with around the clock production lines on a wartime footing industrial front.

(Author’s Note: I bet a lot of readers are wondering why so many of the German Staff officers have a last name that begins with the word “Von”. This oddity is the carryover of feudal days when the nobility were addressed with more respect than ordinary commoners. Any officer with the title of Von was a male child born into a noble family line. The Prussian families seemed to advance that formality a bit longer than other parts of Germany and Austria. The use of the word “Zu” indicated they still were in residence in the familial estate. In a way, it was a sort of affectation because under the laws instituted in 1919, both countries declared that all German and Austrian citizens were equal under the law and that no preference be given to former nobility. It certainly didn’t hurt military officers to have a Von in their last name because it practically labeled them as a Knight of Teutonic tradition.)

We will do a quick time shift forward here to Jack Kruger’s time frame that is about a year in the future. He is safely settled in an isolated farmhouse near the city of Trieste and happy that both he and Francesca had decided to leave Marseilles when they did because the Gestapo and the Nazis were already tightening the noose around the dock area and the narrow streets of the criminal gangs that controlled that part of the city with an iron fist.

The remaining Jewish population was completely confused not knowing if they should try to cross the border into Italy or try to stay out of sight and not get transported to the terrifying concentration camps that were almost certainly a “one way” ride to oblivion.

They were becoming harder and harder to catch even for the experienced Gestapo agents and the “bounties” for information about their locations rose drastically as the agents did their best to meet the quotas assigned by the headquarters in Paris. Of course, the French police and the French militia were completely complicit because of orders from the Petain Government. I felt that we had escaped certain death and now it was another game of hide and seek with the Axis elements and other evil doers wandering around making trouble and extorting money from innocent civilians.

I had been surprised that it was so cold in the region as I was used to the balmy breezes from the sea in Marseilles and no need for a heavy coat or hat and gloves. Those were items that I definitely needed in Trieste and Francesca’s father was kind enough to gift me with some of his spares to make life a bit easier for me. We had plenty of blankets at night and Francesca and I were joined in the narrow bed by her cousin Louise on my other side. I had to admit it was more for body heat than anything else and besides Louise was only seventeen and not very experience in the ways of men.