Free The Nazi Hunters by Damien Lewis Page B

machinery of mass murder.
    Isselhorst returned to Germany a Standartenführer (the equivalent SS rank of colonel) and was appointed the Gestapo chief for the Vosges, based in the city of Strasbourg on the region’s eastern border. By the summer of 1944, he was hearing reports of Maquis activity in the region. Then, in mid August, matters became altogether more alarming. Low-flying aircraft had been heard at night, and there were reports that ‘English parachutists’ had joined the Maquis, bringing weapons to raise an insurrection.
    For the staunch Nazi Isselhorst, this was infuriating. Working closely with his triumvirate of deputies, Isselhorst drew up plans for the ironically named Operation Waldfest (which translates as ‘party in the forest’). Waldfest was modelled on the type of brutal and bloody operations that he had orchestrated in Smolensk against the Russian partisans.
    Isselhorst’s deputy on Operation Waldfest was Wilhelm Schneider, a former navy captain from the First World War, and a renowned bully and drunkard. Small of stature, weasel-faced and with a greying, goatee beard, Schneider was largely ineffective without his two partners in crime – one of whom proved to be the real brains behind Waldfest.
    Alfonso Uhring, Isselhorst’s foreign intelligence chief, was an overweight, balding, jowly tank of a man, who would be responsible for interrogating any captured British operators. Uhring had Schneider’s ear, and might be described as the puppet master who pulled his strings. Operationally, Waldfest would be very much his baby.
    The third figure in Isselhorst’s triumvirate of deputies was Julius Gehrum, a piggy-eyed, triple-chinned bull of a man, one who was said to be inordinately fond both of drink and of his Nazi uniform, and especially of the Iron Cross that adorned his left breast pocket. Gehrum was the chief of the frontier guard force, and he was renowned as a figure of extreme ruthlessness and brutality.
    Under stage one of Operation Waldfest, spearheaded by the Wehrmacht , a massive military sweep would uncover the arms and ammunition dropped to the Maquis, and find and eliminate their bases in the hills. In stage two, spearheaded by the Gestapo, the surrounding villages would be purged of all Maquis and their supporters, thus draining the Resistance of all backing.
    Just as Isselhorst had done in Smolensk, Einsatzkommandos would be posted across the Vosges. Most were named after their German commander. Einsatzkommando Ernst was commanded by notorious SS officer Sturmbannführer (major) Hans Dietrich Ernst, who had recently sent eight hundred French Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz. Ernst was a vicious, sadistic man, and a past master at forcing captives to break under extreme interrogation and torture.
    Operation Waldfest received the personal blessing of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, at that time one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. With the bulwark of the Vosges forming the German military’s key line of defence, Himmler ordered that it be defended at all costs. The area was to be ‘cleaned’ of all Maquis, a demand that gave Waldfest added urgency and impetus.
    By the evening of 16 August 1944 the noose of Waldfest was being drawn ever tighter around Druce’s force. Just three days after the British Special Forces had got boots on the ground, Isselhorst’s intelligence was already remarkably accurate. He’d split his forces between two valleys – the Rabodeau and Celles-sur-Plaine – leaving the Maquis and their British comrades trapped on the 3,000-foot ridge lying in the middle.
    Druce awoke on the morning of 17 August to learn of the dire developments that had occurred overnight. A necklace of German troops had been strung around the base of the mountain. They were moving stealthily upwards, seeking to enclose the British force and the Maquis in a steely embrace. Druce decided to move immediately to stand the best chance of escape. Lieutenant LeFranc