CHAPTER 8

“Adolf ist Kaput!”

“The war is not yet lost!”

Lieutenant General Karl Weisenberger

When he arrived at Schloss Gibacht, now used as German regional headquarters, Dr. Lessing parked his motorcycle outside the main entrance, showed his pass to the guards and then marched directly into the entrance hall, his boots ringing on the flagstone floor. He was directed up the grand staircase to see Lieutenant Colonel Trost, a staff officer, who after a hurried conversation appeared to grasp the significance of Lessing’s mission. Trost quickly ushered Lessing in to see the commanding general.

Lieutenant General Karl Weisenberger, a tough-looking 64-year-old who wore steel-rimmed glasses and sported a severe iron-gray short back and sides haircut, was the German general who had been handed the unenviable task of trying to fend off General Patton’s probes into the border area between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Wehrkreis XIII initially had been so short of equipment that not a single artillery gun was available.¹ But it was feared that Patton might yet strike east directly into Czechoslovakia, maybe even towards the important cities of Pilsen and Prague. The borderlands had to be held—at any cost.

Weisenberger sat hatless behind his large wooden desk, a Knight’s Cross, Germany’s highest decoration for gallantry, at his throat. Hitler had bestowed it on him personally in 1940 during the French Campaign. On his right breast pocket was pinned the German Cross in Gold, awarded for the other French campaign, the bloody battle for Normandy in August 1944. The Führer glowered down at Weisenberger and Lessing from a large oil portrait on the office wall, his light gray eyes appearing to frown on the strange little meeting, as they did in every military and Party office across what remained of the Third Reich.

Not that the flesh-and-blood Führer now bore much resemblance to his heroic portraits. If Lessing and Weisenberger could see the man who now shuffled about the gray concrete corridors of his bunker, forty feet beneath the bomb-cratered Reich Chancellery garden in Berlin, they would have seen a shambling, food-stained, rheumy-eyed wreck, stooped and prematurely aged by illness, fatigue and military defeat. Yet the Führer had determined to fight to the last, his daily military situation conferences growing more stressful and pointless each time the generals and Party leaders appeared before him. Up above, the Red Army had encircled the Reich capital and was fighting its way grimly through the ravaged city towards Hitler’s last bolthole. Large German formations were already surrendering across the Reich, while on what remained of the Eastern Front others sought to disobey Hitler’s orders and disengage from the fight against the Soviets to try to reach the British or American lines, there to surrender.

Standing beside Weisenberger’s desk holding a sheaf of papers was his harried chief of staff, Colonel Götz Benneke. Outside, telephones rang constantly and teleprinters rattled out orders and reports like machine guns. Harassed staff officers dashed about with files in their hands. The information that trickled in from the front was confused and discouraging. The German Seventh Army, the force assigned to defend Czechoslovakia, had only depleted and battle-worn units. They were doing what they could to slow the Soviet encirclement of Prague, but it was a losing battle and everyone knew it. A strong push by the Red Army and its T-34 tank columns would be loose in the relatively flat land between Prague and Hostau and the horse stud. Weisenberger’s task was not to fight the Soviets; he was to prevent incursions into western Czechoslovakia by the Americans—effectively to guard the back door.

Before Dr. Lessing had arrived, Weisenberger had been in conference with Colonel Benneke, discussing the current state of the defenses in his region. There had finally been a little good news concerning artillery. Some 150mm Howitzers had been discovered in the Skoda Works in Pilsen and assigned to Weisenberger’s command along with a regiment of two battalions of infantry sent as reinforcements. Some new battalions had been formed from stragglers and four battalions made up from unemployed Luftwaffe ground personnel from local air bases, though they were not trained in infantry tactics. The experienced Engineer Brigade 655 had been subordinated to Weisenberger’s front, extending his line three miles to the north.² General Schulz’s battlegroup had not been reinforced and remained emplaced in the sector west of Weissensulz and Hostau.³ Colonel Baer’s Ski Infantry Battalion still covered Waier, Stockau and the entrances to the Bohemian Forest west of Taus.⁴

But news had also arrived that morale appeared to be deteriorating markedly. Weisenberger blamed the fact that these units had been cobbled together from stragglers or battle-broken formations. “The men didn’t know each other nor their officers, and all age groups and all degrees of training were represented.”⁵ Baer had recently telephoned from his command post to report that desertions had reduced his battalion to no more than a company in strength. Weisenberger was also concerned at what would happen when the Luftwaffe combat units were committed to action—they would probably not last very long against battle-hardened American soldiers.⁶

Dr. Lessing stood stiffly before Weisenberger’s desk, his cap tucked under his left arm, and repeated his story once again, but he noticed how Weisenberger’s exhaustion-ringed blue eyes grew suddenly wider behind his spectacles as Lessing recounted the American offer, and his feelings about the pointlessness of continuing the war when Germany had so evidently lost.⁷ Weisenberger suddenly slammed his fist down on his desk hard, making his pen tray jump, cutting Lessing off mid-sentence.

“You can’t just go out on your own and begin negotiations for surrender with the Americans,” he barked in a horrified tone. “The war is not yet lost!”⁸ Lessing thought that Weisenberger knew far better than he the parlous nature of the German position, but Lessing refused to believe that the Red Army or the Americans were going to be stopped by Schulz’s ragtag assortment of battle-shattered units and elderly reservists and Volkssturm at Weissensulz and Hostau. Lessing knew that all along the line about one thousand German soldiers a day were giving themselves up to Patton’s Third Army alone, desperate to avoid being taken prisoner by the Soviets. No one was keen on dying for Hitler at this stage, with the exception of some of the Waffen-SS.

Lessing, exhausted and increasingly frustrated by the reckless and misguided attitudes of his superiors, stood his ground and as with General Schulz, he impertinently challenged Weisenberger’s comment that the war was not yet lost.

“Really, General?” demanded Lessing, the old fury rising in him once more. “‘Berlin remains German’; ‘Vienna will be German again’—we heard it only recently on the wireless. But… do you believe that? I do not: I’ve been listening to such beautiful sayings for twelve years.” Weisenberger looked horrified. “What we do here is madness!” continued Lessing. “Shall we continue with this madness, and now, at the end, destroy all that has hitherto remained whole?”⁹

Lessing fell silent, his right hand tightly clenched around his gloves. Weisenberger had gone pale, and said nothing for a minute, as he mulled over Lessing’s impassioned words. Lessing knew that the interview could only go one of two ways—either the old campaigner would give him what he wanted concerning saving the horses, or he would order Lessing’s immediate execution for defeatism.

“All right,” said Weisenberger slowly, after a heavily pregnant pause, “do what you should, Captain.”¹⁰ Weisenberger evidently had more pressing matters to attend to than arguing horses with this angry young veterinarian.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” growled Weisenberger, when Lessing didn’t move, his iron Prussian composure returning. “What more do you want?”

Lessing knew the military mind, and he knew Schulz’s potential to still derail the operation. He insisted that Weisenberger, as the commanding general, give him official permission in writing.

“I cannot give you a written order,” countered Weisenberger, clearly reluctant to commit treason to paper. “That is a matter for General Schulz. He is the responsible sector commander. So we will not pass over his head.” Lessing began to speak, but Weisenberger cut him off by raising his hand. “But I’ll call him,” said the general patiently. “Send the American captain back to this Colonel Reed and let him tell him to come in God’s name and occupy the stud. We will not shoot.”¹¹

As Lessing was leaving the castle Colonel Benneke caught up with him and unexpectedly thrust a piece of paper into his hand. Weisenberger had changed his mind and put something in writing informing Schulz that the matter of the horses was his responsibility. The ball was now firmly in Schulz’s court. Now it was just a question of convincing Schulz to take responsibility for the surrender of Hostau and its stud.

Lessing kicked the motorcycle combination into life in the castle courtyard and left, his back wheel spraying gravel in all directions as he gunned the engine. He sped back to Hostau as fast as he could, knowing that with each delay the Red Army came closer to the stud and its precious horses.

Before Lessing took Captain Stewart to meet with General Schulz at Hostau Castle, the two men decided to conduct a brief reconnaissance ride around the district. As they walked across the yard from Lessing’s quarters to fetch their horses, a small group of eight or ten children were playing outside the stables, little kids of elementary school age. They were the children of the German staff. As the two adults approached, the children ceased their games and almost as one their right arms shot out and they yelled “Heil Hitler!” All but one little blonde girl at the very end of the line who didn’t raise her arm in the German greeting, but who very politely said “Grüss Gott” (“Good day”).¹² Lessing stopped and placed his hand affectionately on the little girl’s head.

“My daughter Karen,” he said to Stewart, his face beaming with paternal love. It was becoming increasingly obvious why Dr. Lessing was so keen to cooperate with the Americans.

After mounting up, Lessing and Stewart rode around the vicinity of Hostau. As they turned on to a country lane, slightly sunken with high thickets of greenery at the sides, they stumbled upon an extraordinary sight. Resting on both banks of the road were hundreds of Allied prisoners-of-war, mostly British and Americans. They were all very thin, their uniforms dirty and patched, and each man had at his feet a pathetic bundle containing his few worldly possessions. A few German guards, middle-aged men on reserve duty, were watching over them. When the prisoners spotted Stewart in his American uniform astride the great black horse, they surged forward, thinking that the relief had come—that they were finally free. But Stewart could only hold up his hand to calm and quiet them as his horse shuffled nervously.

“Delay your departure for as long as possible,” Stewart shouted at the crowd of expectant faces. “Our troops will be coming through tomorrow.”¹³ The thin faces lit up at Stewart’s words, but he could only hope that he wasn’t giving these desperate men false hope.

When Tom Stewart stepped into General Schulz’s office at Hostau Castle, accompanied by a weary Dr. Lessing, he was immediately struck by the German general’s exhausted look. The stress of the past few weeks had made Schulz’s disposition brittle and explosive, as Rudofsky had already discovered. Stewart wasn’t that impressed with Schulz, writing that he was a “small, unprepossessing man seated behind a bare table.”¹⁴ Schulz was wearing a field-gray uniform with the red and gold collar tabs of a German general, his receding hair slicked back from his heavily lined forehead. The Iron Cross First Class was pinned to his left breast pocket along with a Wound Badge and an Infantry Assault Badge. These were combat decorations won the hard way. But Stewart’s eyes were also drawn to the small round red badge emblazoned with a black swastika. Schulz was a Nazi Party member. So he was both a warrior and an ideologue. This could be a dangerous combination. Schulz’s flinty eyes signaled wariness and annoyance. Arrayed behind the general were four immaculately uniformed German officers, including Colonel Rudofsky.

“General, sir, I’m Captain Thomas Stewart, 42nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Group, Twelve Corps, United States Third Army,” announced the American, his voice a little shaky with nerves. He felt out of his league. He was only thirty, and was no trained diplomat or negotiator, just a junior combat officer. He snapped out a regulation salute as he spoke.

Schulz said nothing, and he didn’t offer his hand. Lessing stepped forward and asked Stewart to sketch out the idea of turning the horses over to the Americans, as Colonel Reed had offered, Lessing translating Stewart’s words for the general and his staff officers. Stewart then produced the document signed by Reed and placed it on the table in front of Schulz. The general briefly perused it before he turned to his officers and began an animated discussion. Stewart listened but Reed had expressly forbidden him from revealing that he

spoke and understood some German.¹⁵ It seemed that Schulz was particularly upset that Stewart had seen some of the military defenses as he had ridden into Hostau town. There was a discussion as to whether Stewart should even be allowed to leave, and for one awful moment Stewart thought that he was destined to spend the last weeks of the war a prisoner.

Things turned momentarily ugly when Schulz’s chief of staff, a tall, blond, haughty-looking colonel, turned from the group and sneered at Lessing, accusing him of being an American agent. Lessing, outraged and incensed, shouted back: “Sir, I am no spy. I am a German officer.”¹⁶ Both men angrily took a step towards each other. Schulz quickly interjected, gruffly ordering the two Germans to cease and desist with such nonsense and gestured to Captain Stewart that he should sit. Through Lessing, Schulz told Stewart that they agreed on two things, that the horses should be saved, and human life preserved. But he still seemed hesitant to fully commit himself to the plan.

“We are aware that your reputation could be at stake and we don’t want to do anything to jeopardize your standing in the army, or our intention of saving these horses from falling into the hands of the Russians,” said Stewart, carefully trying to mollify a reluctant Schulz.

“How many Panzers can you bring, Captain?” Schulz asked suddenly in heavily accented though good English. Stewart was caught off-guard by the direct question and thought for a moment.

“You name the number, we are flexible; we can bring any number,”¹⁷ replied Stewart confidently.

Schulz turned and conferred again with his officers, one commenting that Hitler had promised them a secret weapon. Others made “Adolf ist kaput” comments that seemed to bring general agreement among them.¹⁸

Schulz turned back from his officers and looked pointedly at Stewart for some time without speaking. Then the general sighed, nodded curtly, leaned forward and grabbed a pen and a pad of headed paper. He dipped the pen in a small inkpot and proceeded to scribble a note. He signed his name and then, using a Nazi eagle stamp, marked his signature in the official manner. Then he slid the piece of paper across the desk to Stewart. It was a safe conduct pass that would allow Stewart through Schulz’s lines without hindrance. Then Schulz stood, smoothed his uniform and pulled on his service cap. Stewart also stood.

“Captain,” said Schulz in a low voice.

“General,” replied Stewart, saluting again. Schulz’s right arm shot out in the Nazi salute, then he turned on his heels and stalked out of the office followed by his officers.

Stewart relaxed a little, letting out a long breath. Lessing stood beside him, twisting his riding gloves in his hands nervously. After a few minutes the chief of staff and another colonel entered the office once again.

“General Schulz has decided that there will be no defense of Hostau and the stud,”¹⁹ he said stiffly to Stewart. “But, Captain, this only applies to the Wehrmacht. The SS are not under our control. We cannot vouch for their actions.”

Stewart was worried—“unanswered was the question of whether we would have to fight our way through the first line of defenses,”²⁰ he wrote, referring to the German units emplaced at the border and in towns and villages along the road to Hostau.

Stewart thanked the colonel. He and Lessing had done it. The Americans had official German permission from both the enemy zone and district commanders to mount a local rescue operation. But Stewart knew all too well that the omission of the Waffen-SS from the deal, along with any Wehrmacht forces beyond the immediate vicinity of Hostau, was significant. The Germans clearly had no intention of opening a gap in their lines that Patton could exploit militarily.

It was time for Stewart and Lessing to return to the American lines to brief Colonel Reed. But Lessing was concerned that Stewart was exposed traveling through miles of German territory still full of hostile troops. He handed the American a German field cap and a camouflaged rain cape to wear over his uniform. From a distance the disguise might work. Lessing started the motorcycle, Stewart clambering into the sidecar, and off they went, hurtling at full speed down damp forest lanes, heading west to freedom.²¹

The 27th of April 1945 had proved a busy day for the 42nd Squadron. While Captain Stewart had been away on his mission, fighting had erupted at several locations along the front line. Troops A and C held the positions that they had occupied on the 26th, but reports began to flow back to Reed via the 42nd’s CO Lieutenant Colonel Hargis that the enemy had in place considerable defensive positions. Even more ominously, patrols were also reporting engine sounds, including those of tanks or self-propelled guns, clanking and rattling unseen in the distance like prehistoric monsters.

Hargis decided to confirm what was happening by establishing an observation post atop Hill 615. Troop C was detailed with the task and carefully ascended the hill’s tree-lined slopes until it reached the summit. The patrol was able to look for miles in every direction. The land undulated like a rumpled green rug, the mountains and hills marking the natural boundary between the old kingdoms of Bavaria and Bohemia.

Through field glasses the patrol soon discerned where the engine sounds had been coming from. Far below them on the reverse side of the hill, camouflaged German vehicles could be made out, some moving slowly down the country roads that snaked along the front line, while others sat stationary. Tiny black human specks, German soldiers reduced to ant men, went about their business; the Americans would glimpse them occasionally on the roads or in clearings and small fields. Colonel Hargis’ orders to the observation post were succinct: observe the German positions and engage targets of opportunity. They didn’t have long to wait for the latter.

“Able Two Zero, this is Hot Dog Three, over,” murmured the forward artillery officer into his radio headset. He had been assigned to the Troop C patrol atop Hill 615. The young officer from the 512th Field Artillery Battalion had been observing the German movements and plotting their positions on his grid map in consultation with the Troop C patrol commander.

There was a little static, then the artillery battery responded loud and clear.

“This is Able Two Zero, go ahead.”

“This is Hot Dog Three, fire mission. Enemy troops, estimated company size and two vehicles moving west.” The officer gave the enemy grid coordinates and his own position. “Will adjust, over.”

“This is Able Two Zero. Sending you one round WP.”

At the gun line, the emplaced M2A1 105mm Howitzers waited. Only one gun fired, sending over a WP or White Phosphorus round that would produce a highly visible white cloud; this would be used to adjust the guns on to the target.

“Splash—how do we look, over?” crackled the artillery battery operator’s voice. The forward observer, his binoculars to his eyes, watched the WP round release its white smoke.

“Able Two Zero—you were a bit short, up two hundred, left twenty, over.”

“Roger, Hot Dog Three. On the way.” A few seconds passed and then another white plume burst in the valley below the hill. “Splash!” called the operator. Already, the black human specks were running for cover, knowing what was to follow.

“This is Hot Dog Three. Fire for effect, over.”

“Wilco, Hot Dog Three. Sending you ten rounds HE and five Willy-Peter… On the way… impact in ten seconds, over.”

The 19kg high explosive shells began passing over Hill 615 and impacting with great clouds of dust and smoke in the valley beyond. In between the brown and gray explosions was a sudden flaring of orange flame as a German vehicle was hit, followed by a plume of dense black smoke.

“Able Two Zero, this is Hot Dog Three. Nice shooting. Target wiped out.” It was a cold, mechanical procedure that dealt death from several miles away.

Once the firing ceased, a patrol from Troop C scouted ahead for results. A German half-track had taken a direct hit, the men inside blown to pieces or scattered around the camouflaged vehicle, their uniforms charred and still smoldering, while further along a road a three-ton truck had been destroyed. The scouts reported that the truck was loaded with two tank engines.²² Panzer engines meant German tanks were close by. Probably forward elements of the 11th Panzer Division. It was a sobering realization.

“Halt!” screamed the leader of four middle-aged men who suddenly materialized in the center of the narrow country road after stepping from the thick trees. Three of them were armed with rifles, which they leveled menacingly at Captains Lessing and Stewart. Lessing hastily switched off the motorcycle’s engine and raised his arms above his head.

Stewart’s heart was in his mouth, his stomach a knot of tension. He too gingerly raised his arms. The ambush had happened so fast that Stewart hadn’t had time to draw his revolver from beneath the German Army rain cape he was wearing.

From the outset, the Germans were jumpy and aggressive. “Raus!” ordered the checkpoint’s leader loudly, gesturing with his pistol, and Lessing and Stewart slowly dismounted from the motorcycle combination. Three of the four men were dressed in a ragtag of civilian and army overcoats and Wehrmacht forage caps, with cylindrical field-gray gas mask canisters slung across their bodies. Lessing could see from their red and black armbands that they were Volkssturm people’s militia. These emergency forces made up much of General Weisenberger’s available manpower for static defense. Lessing also recognized their leader—he was a chemist in Hostau and the local Ortsgruppenleiter or Local Group Leader, the district Nazi Party bigwig. His brown tunic, breeches and cap, with its gold rank badges, had earned these Party functionaries, along with their esteemed superiors, the Gauleiters, the sarcastic nickname of “Golden Pheasants” among the population. On his left arm was the red Party armband. Many local group leaders had assumed command of local Volkssturm militia units, though they were often totally untrained in military tactics. Others were making themselves scarce to avoid arrest by the Allies.

“Amerikaner!” yelled one of the Volkssturm men, pointing his rifle excitedly at Stewart before Lessing had time to explain. The man stepped forward and wrenched up the rain cape to reveal Stewart’s khaki service tunic beneath. The militia man stepped back, cocking his Mauser rifle as he did so with a harsh metallic click. One of his comrades came forward and quickly relieved Stewart of his sidearm.

Stewart stood still with his hands raised watching as rain dripped from the muzzle of the rifle that was pointed squarely at his chest. The eyes of the man behind the gun were cold. Stewart noticed that the man’s finger had slipped over the rifle’s trigger, taking first pressure. The focus of Stewart’s world was suddenly reduced to the black hole at the dripping end of the rifle’s barrel and the face of the German behind it. Lessing and Stewart had enjoyed good fortune on their travels thus far, but it now looked as though their luck had run out. Stewart watched in horror as the German’s right eye narrowed along the rifle’s sights. His finger tightened ever so slightly against the trigger…