Armageddon (51 page)

“They owe us the coal. It must be demanded.”

“It is not quite so simple. The Ruhr mines are capable of only one third of their prewar capacity.”

Azov assumed it was for a lack of miners and offered to send “volunteers” from the Silesian districts of Poland.

“It is not a question of either miners or techniques. The English know the mining business. The machinery is obsolete. The miners do not receive sufficient ration for such difficult work. Transportation is broken down. These are technical problems that would only bore the commissar. Our own mines in the Soviet Union are suffering from the same problems.”

Azov hated engineers. They hid behind a foreign language. He insisted the pressure must be increased.

Igor insisted you cannot pressure an Englishman. “Besides, the British argue they don’t owe us the coal.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“For one thing, we have not returned fifteen thousand freight cars in which previous shipments were made.”

“A legitimate reparation.”

“Yes, of course. However, the British also claim we are behind in our shipments of brown coal to Berlin by some thirty thousand tons.”

Azov mulled it over. There was an agreement to exchange the industrial coal of the Ruhr for the brown coal from Silesia to heat the city. This was part of the general plan to exchange the natural assets of the four zones to keep Germany operating as a single economic unit. This was what the Potsdam Agreement said. The Soviets took the hard industrial coal for their own use in Russia and never delivered the soft coal from Silesia. Fortunately for Berliners the winter of 1945 was mild.

“The Silesian mines,” Azov said, “are no longer a part of Germany and therefore do not come under the economic exchange regulations. They are the property of the People’s Democratic Republic of Poland. We cannot force the Poles to send coal to Germany.”

Igor digested the commissar’s words. He had offered quickly enough to send in Polish miners, then in the same conversation defended the “autonomy” of Poland against delivering Silesian coal. Igor was on tricky ground.

“The British do not recognize the border changes ceding Silesia to Poland until a peace treaty is signed.”

Azov changed the subject.

“The West has agreed to an on-site inspection of the industrial complex preparatory to a reparations conference. You are assigned as a member of the inspection group.”

Igor nodded.

“You will begin next week in the American Zone. After inspections of the zones you will be assigned as a technical advisor to our delegation at the conference. The conference will be held in Copenhagen.”

Igor realized that Azov was watching carefully for a reaction to the name of a Western city.

Once, during the war, as the Soviet Union swept west along the Baltic he had seen plans to send three Soviet divisions into Denmark and occupy it. Unfortunately, the British got there first. He had not believed he would see a Western city outside of Germany in his life.

“Traveling in the West is a great responsibility. There will be a session tomorrow to discuss your behavior. Captain Ivan Orlov will accompany you as an assistant.”

Igor was not annoyed. He had lived with commissars and NKVD too long.

“One last thing. Your friend, Lotte Böhm.”

Igor started.

“She has relatives in Dresden,” Azov continued. “We have issued travel papers for her to visit them and remain there until you return.”

Lotte would be a hostage. They had decided that he was deeply attached to the girl.

“Fraulein Böhm will be delighted to learn of her trip,” Igor said sadly.

Chapter Sixteen

W
HEN
S
EAN RETURNED FROM
his emergency leave he was assigned to escort the Russian inspection group. Later, in Copenhagen, General Hansen would lead the American delegation in the reparations claims conference.

The Russians sent twenty-two officers and civilian experts. American intelligence revealed that the group leader, General Lipski, and half the delegation were from political security and the balance technical experts.

Most of the Russians had been exposed to the Americans in Berlin but nevertheless arrived at Tempelhof Airdrome to board General Hansen’s personal plane filled with suspicion.

The first stop was American Headquarters, I. G. Farben Building, Frankfurt, where they were given a two-day briefing on what to look for in the way of reparations and what to expect in the way of bomb damage.

The Russians, to a man, were impressed, for the Americans briefed them with a depth of technical knowledge and in an open manner of discussion that was unknown to them. Each member of the Russian group was quietly aware of the vast amounts of American motorized and mechanical equipment, the efficiency, the facilities for common soldiers which would be luxurious even for Russian officers and were caught in an over-all spell of the wealth of the great power.

When the briefings were done, General Lipski reckoned Russian suspicions were based on good reason. The Americans told them, in effect, that Western Germany’s industrial complex was all but destroyed. Their own agents did not report such ruination. Obviously the Americans were trying to cheat them out of usable machinery.

They conferred in General Lipski’s quarters after the NKVD members turned the place inside out looking for hidden microphones and were exceedingly nervous when they were unable to locate any.

“The Americans are trying to trick us,” Lipski said. That was the end of his knowledge. He was in NKVD and had no understanding of technical affairs. There was general agreement that the Americans were up to something, but the question was how to prove it

Igor Karlovy confined himself to studying the documents listing the factories, rail centers, refineries. He took no part in the accusations, but suggested that the American liaison, Major O’Sullivan, be contacted and more facts provided.

Sean came later that night to Igor Karlovy’s quarters in the Officers’ Club at the I. G. Farben Building.

“Major O’Sullivan,” Igor said bluntly. “We demand to see a more comprehensive report to back your claims.”

Sean understood it as Russian mistrust. He said he would begin to gather data immediately.

Igor reported this to General Lipski. Knowing his own operation, Lipski said they were in for days of American evasions. He began to draft a sharply worded protest and planned to dispatch it to Marshal Popov the next day.

The protest was never sent. Within twenty-four hours Colonel Karlovy was handed the organizational charts and missions of the Eighth and Fifteenth American Air Forces listing every plane, every installation, every mission, every bomb load, and supporting reports on the results. He promised the same data from the Royal Air Force within forty-eight hours.

Igor Karlovy was chagrined.

“General Hansen believes that if we are to work together in the next weeks, it might be well if you understood America’s global war effort. This document will acquaint you with the nature of our forces and our conflict in every corner of the world.”

Igor eyed the thick record out of the corner of his eye. The cover read:
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ARMED FORCES AND SUPPORT IN WORLD WAR II. PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
He was most eager to read it but thought better of it. “It has nothing to do with the work of this inspection mission.”

“We believe it has, Colonel Karlovy. Your propaganda that you won the war single-handed is incorrect. Once familiar with the extent of our effort you are apt to approach the work here with a little less suspicion and hostility. I’d like to call your particular attention to pages eighty-four through ninety-nine listing war material shipped from the United States to the Soviet Union.”

He handed the document back to Sean. “It has nothing to do with this mission,” he repeated.

“Nothing you care or dare to see?”

“Major O’Sullivan, I think we had better rule politics out of our discussions,” Igor said. “You deal in theory. We deal in reality. Invasion of your borders, destruction of your homeland changes one’s point of view. We have lived with war inside our country for centuries.”

Igor Karlovy, the most knowledgeable of the group in air matters, studied the reports on the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces with a rising disbelief! If the Americans had what they claimed, then the Red Air Force was a pigmy alongside it.

Igor had seen with his own eyes the bomb damage in Berlin, but that had been attributed mostly to Soviet Artillery. He had seen damage in the Russian Zone of Germany and believed that the West concentrated their air power against East Germany while they preserved the industry and cartels in the Western Zones for a war of revenge.

In the ensuing days they inspected Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart with American Air Force experts and engineers. The precision destruction of transportation centers and manufacturing capability tallied in close detail with the American claims.

A confusion grew within the Soviet group.

And then they came to Rombaden, where the plum was to be the Romstein Machine Works.

They arrived in a convoy of cars late in the afternoon and before receiving billets went to the Rathaus to the offices of the military governor and the Oberburgermeister for the official welcome. At first a few curious people gathered at sight of the Russians. Then the word spread that Major O’Sullivan had returned.

Within minutes hundreds of people had poured from the buildings on the square and the city band was hastily assembled. When they all left the mayor’s office they were greeted by a rendition of “God Bless America”—in waltz time.

Igor and his Russian companions were stunned by what was happening. They knew by now that O’Sullivan disliked Germans intensely and had been a stern master. What a strange welcome for a conqueror!

The spontaneous outpouring continued. School children paraded before him on the Rathaus steps, bowed, and curtsied, and the portico became filled with bouquets of flowers. Everyone wanted to shake Major O’Sullivan’s hand.

Then beer barrels rolled in on horse-drawn brew wagons and an impromptu festival took place right on the spot.

General Lipski allowed his group to mellow a bit. As Igor watched the folk dancing he remembered his dozens of trips to East German cities, where all that ever greeted him was fear. And as the Germans nodded and bowed and smiled to O’Sullivan he remembered the look of hatred in the eyes of the Polish people in Warsaw.

O’Sullivan was intimate with the destruction of the Machine Works. Russian agents had sent back false reports.

The tour went on. Knowing now that the original briefings in Frankfurt would be borne out, the Russians began to relax.

Darmstadt:
September 11, 1944. RAF raid. 300 planes dropped multi-thousand incendiaries in 45 minutes gutting 72% of the city and turning it into an inferno. It took a week for the place to cool off.

Mainz:
Rail center and arteries destroyed. Center of city a mass of brooding stone.

Offenbach:
60% destroyed. 93% of war-effort factories destroyed.

Kassel:
Wartime armaments factories made it a priority for Allied bombers. Not even Berlin took such a pounding for its size. Inner city entirely leveled.

And so it went in one city after another. The political section of the group spoke among themselves about the efficiency of American Military Government, the de-Nazifying procedures, the new legal codes and the speed of open elections.

Wiesbaden. The inspection of the American Zone was coming to an end. Now they saw an undamaged German city. And this, too, made a mark on Igor Karlovy. It was a great, plush old spa of sumptuous beauty, the likes of which he had never seen, something he had believed existed only for czars. The Taunus Mountains looked down on lush forests and the people had bathed in spas from the times of the Romans. Seeing this unspoiled place enabled Igor to put together bits of the ancient German culture that he had seen in the jigsaw of rubble.

At the Schierstein Harbor they boarded the yacht
City of Cologne,
which once belonged to Adolf Hitler, and sailed down the Rhine to the little sporting town of Rüdesheim and docked. Here the full splendor of that fabled river revealed itself. The Watch on the Rhine, the statue of Germania, stood high above the magnificent terraced vineyards.

German school children gathered to sing a welcome in their high-pitched voices. They sang the traditional “Lorelei” and the village dancers and band and singers added their odes to the ethereal beauty of the Rhine.

This was a side of Germany Igor Karlovy had never known. In the warmth and sentimentality of their songs, so like his own, he realized there was something in the German character other than brutality and militarism. How puzzling! But after all, did he not love a German woman? Had he not seen these things in her?

After an elegant banquet at the centuries-old mansion of Krone they tasted the wines at Castle Crass. As ancient wine-tasting ceremonies ensued, the party loosened up, and then ... brotherhood came about. Even NKVD General Lipski enjoyed himself and those limber ones among the Russians were soon showing off a few dance steps of their own to the delight of the American hosts and the German entertainers.

They boarded the
City of Cologne
at dawn with bombing hangovers. As the boat pulled away the children were there again, singing the “Lorelei.”

The boat moved down the river. Major O’Sullivan walked among the group shaking hands with each of them. In two short weeks he had gained their respect after the passing of the initial hostility. He seemed to be an unusually open and honest man as well as extremely pleasant.

Sean sat at the rail, caught up for a moment with the overwhelming beauty of the river. Igor Karlovy sat alongside him.

“Well, Major O’Sullivan, what will we do without you?”

“The British will take good care of you.”

“Will we be seeing you in Copenhagen?”

“Probably.”

There was general excitement as the yacht came around a treacherous bend and they could see the great basalt rock that rises out of the river and hovers in a large cliff over the water. The voices of the children singing the haunting “Lorelei” still reached their ears.