Bloody Bush by Len Levinson

Author:Len Levinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: world war ii stories, len levinson, the sergeant, gordon davis, normandy france, war military
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eighteen

The morning war conference was ending at Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia. The conference had been a gloomy one, because the Eastern Front still was torn wide open.

The staff officers left the conference room one by one or in groups, and Hitler stood with his arms crossed in front of the map table, his facial features creased into a scowl. In only two weeks he’d lost three hundred and fifty thousand trained German soldiers to the Russians. His Army Group Center was a huge gap two hundred miles wide and the Russians had just overrun Minsk. The Russians were pouring one-hundred-twenty-six infantry and six cavalry divisions through the gap, along with forty-five tank brigades. All Hitler had in that sector were eight infantry divisions. He wondered if his will and brilliance could turn the debacle around.

The door to the conference room opened, and General Rudolph Schmundt, his Wehrmacht adjutant, entered, swimming against a sea of officers who were leaving.

“Mein Fuehrer!” he said excitedly, waving a piece of paper in the air.

His arms folded, Hitler turned toward him. “What is it?”

Schmundt thrust the piece of paper toward Hitler. “Good news from the west!”

Hitler snatched the piece of paper out of his hand and read it greedily. It was a report from Field Marshal Rommel that said the American drive in Normandy had been stopped cold by the Lehr Division.

“This is the beginning!” Hitler said, his eyes glittering as in the old days. “This is the turn of the tide! I can feel it! Can’t you?”

Schmundt couldn’t feel anything, but he said: “Yes, my Fuehrer.”

“This is marvelous news!” Hitler gushed. “The Americans and British are on their last legs in Normandy—I can see that quite clearly now. Soon we’ll push them off the continent, and then we’ll be able to concentrate all our forces and new weapons on the Russians in the east!” He grasped Schmundt by the shoulders. “Victory is within our grasp!”

“Yes, my Fuehrer!”

Hitler looked over Schmundt’s shoulder, and his eyes fell on a colonel carrying a bulging yellow briefcase. The colonel wore a black patch over one eye; was missing one arm; had lost two fingers from his remaining hand; and limped badly. Hitler felt a chill run up his spine at the sight of this badly maimed officer.

“Who’s that?” Hitler asked.

“Who do you mean?” Schmundt asked, turning around.

“That one over there—the one with the black patch over his eye.”

Schmundt looked across the room. “That’s Colonel Count Schenk von Stauffenberg. He’s on General Fromm’s staff. Would you like to meet him?”

“No-no-no. That won’t be necessary. I just wondered who he was. I’ve noticed him here before.”

“I’ve heard that he was wounded in North Africa, sir, and that he was a very brave officer. They say he’s a member of one of the finest old families in South Germany.”

“Hmmm,” said Hitler, watching von Stauffenberg limp toward the door. “Very interesting.”

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