On Desperate Ground (19 page)

“Lookee here boys, real live SS brass!”

Catcalls and open scorn were heaped upon the
Brigadeführer
as they marched him through the group of men, and into the barn. It was dark inside, and Mack halted as they took a moment to allow their eyes to get used to the relative darkness.
 

“Down here,” motioned Mack. They moved into a large stall that had been turned into an interrogation room. The barn was built into the side of a hill, so there was no window except for a small rectangle of light six feet up on the wall facing the door. The walls were stone and the floor hardpacked dirt. Mack walked over to a small table and sat on a wooden chair. A rough stool faced the table. Corporal Mandelbaum pushed the officer toward it with the barrel of his shotgun.

“
Setzt dich.
”

“I speak English.” The
Brigadeführer
sat down, looking straight at Mack, taking in his Captain’s bars. “I prefer to speak directly to the highest ranking officer present.”

“What you prefer,
Brigadeführer
, is of no consequence here. I also speak German, as does the Corporal here. For the sake of Lt. Rose, we will proceed in English. I happen to be the highest ranking officer present. Now, what is your name?”

“Manfred Dichter, SS
Brigadeführer
, Stuttgart.”

“Well, Manfred, we don’t often see SS bureaucrats up on the front lines with the average
Landsers
. Very commendable. What were you doing on the road south of Remagen?”

“I have given you my name, rank, and duty station. Nothing else is required.”
 

Corporal Mandelbaum had stepped forward as if to join Mack. As he passed Dichter, he pulled back and slammed the butt of his shotgun sharply against Dichter’s cheekbone. Dichter’s head snapped and he howled in pain. Mandelbaum moved on as if nothing happened. Mack took no notice.

“It is against the Geneva Convention—” Dichter moaned, cupping his hand around the blood dripping from the skin split over his cheekbone, his left eye blackening already.

“Geneva’s in Switzerland, Manfred. You’re in here with us.” Mack went quiet, holding eye contact with Dichter and letting the meaning of both the sudden violence and his words sink in.

“Please, I have never harmed anyone,” Dichter’s voice wavered and he looked as if he were about to cry. “I am not really a soldier at all.”

He stopped and his eyes widened in terror as he watched Mandelbaum sling his shotgun and pull a switchblade knife from his field jacket pocket. He pressed the handle and a bright gleaming blade snapped out, the
snick
loud and sharp in the small room. Mandelbaum ran his finger down the blade, checking its sharpness. Dichter pulled his face back, as if a fraction of an inch distance from the threatening blade would make a difference.

“Manfred,” Mack said calmly, leaning back and locking his fingers behind his neck, “one of the many virtues I lack is patience. I can’t stand a long drawn out interrogation. So here is the only deal you’ll get from us. Let’s have a nice little chat, here, just us. You tell us what we want to know, and we won’t hurt you anymore. When we’re done, we’ll bring you back to the POW cage and tell the guards in earshot of your buddies that we couldn’t get anything out of you. You’ll have that cut to show how we beat on you, and you can tell them what a hero you were. Everyone wins.”

“What if I decline?”

“Manfred, that would be very unwise,” Mack said, shaking his head sadly, as if the thought pained him. “In that case, the Lieutenant and I would have to leave the room for a while. Corporal Mandelbaum would stay in here alone with you, for about half an hour, while we smoke some cigarettes and decide what to do next. By the way, Manfred, did you know the Corporal’s family is Jewish, from Hannover? That’s why he speaks such good German. He’s wondering how many of his aunts and uncles he’ll find alive when we get to Hannover. He’ll probably want to talk to you about that in private if we have to leave the room.”

Dichter was shaking. He looked at his bloody, trembling hand, then up at Corporal Mandelbaum, who was grinning widely as he pulled a whetstone from his pocket and began sharpening the switchblade. The sound of steel against the gritty stone seemed like the loudest thing he’d ever heard.

“Yes, yes, I’ll talk with you. Ask me anything. Just don’t kill me, please.”
 

“Good, Manfred. Very smart choice.” They began the interrogation. Mack shook a cigarette from the Lucky Strike pack and offered it to Dichter.
 

“Smoke?”

Dichter took it, the shaking in his hand still evident but not as dramatic, since Mandelbaum had closed up the switchblade. Mack lit both cigarettes.

“Now, Manfred, tell me why a high-ranking SS officer such as yourself was so near the front line.”

“I was instructed to interview the commander of the Wehrmacht formations on the heights above Remagen as to the reason the bridge was not blown up in time. Orders direct from Berlin, from Himmler or perhaps the
Führer
himself. There was all hell to pay when the
Amis
—you—crossed the Rhine. Normally I would have sent a subordinate, but this was top priority, so I went myself. My driver became lost, since we had tried to take only back roads because of the
Jabos
—fighter planes. We had stopped to ask directions at a farmhouse when a single
Jabo
strafed our vehicle. My driver was killed and the car burned. I started to walk back, but evidently went the wrong way. An American patrol found me in the woods and took me prisoner.”

“Did you want to be taken prisoner?”

“No! I…it didn’t enter my mind at first. Then, in the woods, I began to wonder what would happen if I failed in my mission. The Wehrmacht commander at the Remagen bridge will certainly be shot. I didn’t know what would happen to me. When the patrol found me, I was somewhat relieved.”

“A real hero, huh?” Rose spoke up for the first time.

“I am only an office manager in Stuttgart. I have never been in the army. What good would I do at the front?” Dichter was beginning to whine, justifying himself to his captors.

“What other duties are you responsible for?”

“Mostly morale. We read letters from the soldiers at the front to their families, to be sure that no defeatist attitudes are communicated. We have a legal department that institutes field court martials in conjunction with the military police.”

“Meaning you execute troops who aren’t energetic enough in the defense of the Reich,” said Mack, unable to hide his distaste even for purposes of the interrogation.
 

“Everything is done according to military law.”

“How many soldiers have you found innocent?”
 

Dichter was quiet and simply stared at the ground. Mack leaned forward intently.

“Manfred, if a common
Landser
got separated from his unit and was found by you hiding in the woods, waiting to be captured, what would you do to him?”
 

“Well, the military police would…”

“I don’t care about the
Kettenhunde!
What would happen to that soldier?” The German military police wore a metal identity tag around their neck, hung by a short chain. They were commonly known as Chain Dogs by the
Landser
.

“He…I don’t know.” Dichter buried his face in his hands as a contained sob burst out of his throat.

“You’d have hung him from the nearest tree or telegraph pole, with a sign on his chest saying he was a traitor to the Reich. We’ve seen your work.”

The room was quiet. Each of them looked at Dichter with a disdain he could feel, thick with disgust, filling him with shame. Not only was he the hated SS, he was also the enemy of the common soldier of every army, the rear area brass who sentenced youngsters to death. Rose spat on the ground, and said to Mack, “Time to slit this fucker’s throat. He’s not telling us anything.”

“No!” Dichter raised his hands in protest. “No, please,” he blubbered, tears streaming down his face.

“Seems like you’re holding back on us, Manfred,” Mack said with a snarl. “I think you’re more than an office manager or paperpusher.” 
“Paperpusher?” Dichter looked at him quizzically.

“Bureaucrat, clerk, whatever. I think you’re probably more important than that. Who do you report to?”

Mack could see that Dichter was struggling with himself. At this point in the interrogation a stronger man would have called his bluff. He could sense Dichter weakening and making the calculation in his head.
If I tell them everything they won’t hurt me anymore.
 

“I worked in the Occupied Territories office, Amt IV-D, in Belgium. Counterintelligence. Since our departure, I have been assigned to organize SS military police in this area to instill discipline in the forward troops. The
Führer
himself established my office of Flying Special Tribunal West as a mobile court to stiffen resistance. We have problems with deserters and shirkers.”

“So you dispense military justice? Personally?”

“Yes. I must report each week to Berlin how many enemies of the Reich we have found and dealt with.”
 

Rose moved directly behind Dichter and spoke quietly, as if were controlling an intense anger.

“Two days ago, on patrol behind your lines, trying to scout a route around the Erpeler Ley above Remagen, we found three kids strung up.” Rose glared at Dichter as he remembered the young German boys whose uniform sleeves were longer than their arms. “They had those signs in German on their chests. They didn’t even look fifteen years old. What’d they do?”

“They were Hitler Youth who were assigned to the bridge defense. The signs said ‘I am a coward who deserted the
Führer
’. They ran off when the
Amis
came across the bridge.”

“So you hung them?”

“Yes,” answered Dichter indignantly. “As a warning to others. It is all quite legal.”

Rose glared down at Dichter. Nobody said anything. Rose pulled the grease gun forward from where he had it slung around his back. He pulled the bolt forward with a metallic snap that caused Dichter to jump in his seat.

“No, please, I didn’t do anything wrong, please, please.”

“How many times have you heard that yourself, you bastard?”

“Hold on!” Mack spoke out loudly with his hand raised up to halt Rose. He looked at Dichter carefully. Now the man was fully broken, shamed not only in front of his enemy, but also in his own eyes. He looked at the soft hands that signed so many death warrants, and felt his bile rise. Time to move onto the real agenda.

“Let’s all calm down. It’s not like Manfred was killing our boys, after all. Now, Manfred, if I like your answers from here on out, we won’t return to this topic. OK, fellas?”

Rose and Mandelbaum grunted their assent. Mack waited a few seconds.

“What do you know about the Alpine Redoubt?”

Mack could see the anguish on Dichter’s face. At this point in the interrogation, he wanted to please his questioners more than anything, to give them what they wanted so they’d leave him alone. Mack could see he had nothing to give.

“
Ach
,” Dichter said, frowning and wiping his tear-streaked face, “that is nothing more than propaganda from Goebbels. We are working night and day to make sure enough men stay fighting on the eastern and western fronts. We couldn’t possibly build such a Redoubt anywhere except in the Propaganda Minister’s imagination.”

Mack sighed inwardly, frustrated again in the quest for the Redoubt. He came up with a quick idea to try to rattle Dichter.

“Nice try, Manfred, but I happen to know that special operations have been conducted to obtain American uniforms and weapons in support of the Redoubt project. Probably for special units to steer us away from sensitive areas as we advance. Or to pull us into a trap?”

“Nonsense! Where do you get your intelligence? I’ve never heard of such a ludicrous idea.”

Neither have I
, thought Mack.
Oh well, worth a try.

“You must be talking about that special OKH operation,” Dichter said, searching his mind for something of value to tell the Americans.
 

Mack froze, trying to not show his excitement. He tossed the pack of Luckies to Dichter and used all his self-control to respond as if he couldn’t care less.

“OKH operation?” he said, lighting his own cigarette and squinting through the smoke rising into his eyes. He leaned forward with his Zippo and lit Dichter’s Lucky.

“Yes, something big from the Wehrmacht. A special operation run from HQ at Zossen. We were told to forward any American equipment or uniforms to an SS contact in Berlin. Of course, we had nothing, why would we? They never pressed the matter, so I just forgot about it, until you asked just now.”
 

Mack thought long and hard, pulling on his Lucky as if it might contain all the secrets of the world, if only he could inhale them deeply enough.
Berlin? SS? Wehrmacht?

“Who was the Berlin contact?”

“Ah…let me think,” Dichter replied, now feeling himself on firmer ground, giving the
Amis
what they wanted. “Hettstedt, Otto Hettstedt, a
Sturmbannführer
, I believe. Yes, Otto Hettstedt.”