Free The Nazi Hunters by Damien Lewis Page A

poorly armed Maquis, to take on in open battle. Moreover, the 19th Army also included the 11th Panzer Division, which – with its distinctive emblem of a sword-wielding ghost – had seen action on the Eastern Front, where it had fought with distinction around Kiev and Moscow. Equipped with 140 tanks, this was a battle-hardened and hugely capable force, one that Druce and his men would be well advised to avoid.
    In light of Freine’s report the guard was doubled around the camp. At just past midnight dark cloud rolled in from the south-east, and ear-splitting peals of thunder were punctuated by searing bolts of lightning. By dawn the storm had blown over, the morning scoured clean by the torrential rains. But the Storch was back in the air, the crystal-clear skies doubtless giving it a perfect view of whatever it was searching for.
    Further worrying reports filtered in that morning. The male population of Allarmont, the nearest hamlet, had fled to the forest to avoid the German soldiers storming through their valley. Worryingly, the 19th Army troops had discovered the DZ upon which Druce and his men had landed. They were reported to be moving more soldiers into the region, supported by their battle tanks.
    In that morning’s radio sked Druce sounded a somewhat harried note: ‘Could not get radio contact yesterday. Sent message blind. Expect conference with Maximum . . . today. Must march 5 miles from camp to send messages. Can only manage 1 Sked per day at present.’
    He also warned SFHQ that ‘between one thousand and five thousand enemy soldiers’ were moving through the region, and that he needed to establish a new and secure DZ. For now, the flying in of the main body of the Op Loyton force would have to be put on hold.
    Deep in his bones, Captain Henry Druce could sense that the net was closing.

Chapter Five
    On 16 August 1944 Hitler gave orders that his forces in southern France should start to withdraw northwards to bolster the defence of the Reich. Their concentration on the eastern approaches to Germany meant that even more men and war machines were headed into the Vosges. By contrast, General Patton’s 3rd Army – the nearest friendly force – was still some 300 miles to the west, endeavouring to secure a breakthrough.
    Devoid of an immediate enemy to fight, the incoming Vosges garrisons were ordered to concentrate their full might on finding and eliminating the Maquis, and their British parachutist brothers in arms. The overall German security commander in the region, Dr Erich Isselhorst, was no stranger to such anti-partisan operations.
    Isselhorst, a trained lawyer, had joined the Nazi party in 1931, rising rapidly through its ranks. He came to Hitler’s notice while defending various prominent Nazis on trial, becoming a protégé of the Führer. Shortly after the outbreak of war, he was appointed an SS officer and chief of the Gestapo in Munich, reflecting his meteoric rise to power. Three years later he was sent to the Eastern Front to use his talents hunting down the very active Russian partisans.
    Commanding Einsatzgruppe B, based at Smolensk, a Russian city 225 miles to the west of Moscow, Isselhorst would earn several decorations for so-called bravery. In truth, Isselhorst’s Einsatzgruppe was one of the euphemistically named ‘special commandos’, which were basically death squads, charged with rounding up those earmarked for ‘liquidation’: Russian resistance fighters, Jews, gypsies and the disabled.
    In Smolensk, part of Isselhorst’s remit proved to be the merciless ‘evacuation’ of the Jewish ghettos. In August 1943 he wrote in his diary of one such operation: ‘Since there was resistance – great slaughter; 3,100 J [Jews] dead. Only 350 have volunteered for transportation available.’ That transportation was, of course, to the concentration camps, and during his time on the Eastern Front, Isselhorst would earn a reputation for being an efficient orchestrator of the