Free Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot to Kill Hitler, by Its Last Member by Philip Freiherr von Boeselager Page A

very important matters, the marshal called upon the commander in chief. In the summer of 1942, the critical situation in the Rzhev salient already justified a request for an audience. In July, the German army had purged the region’s southwest sector of the last Russian troops that had been infiltrated there. But the feeling of security did not last. Since August 1, Rzhev had been under attack by Soviet forces several hundred thousand men strong. The feeling of security did not last. The Soviets, now supplied by the Americans, were using unprecedented firepower. The Ninth Army,under General Walter Model, was now in serious danger of being surrounded—a real mousetrap. Within the structure of Army Group Center, the Ninth Army occupied an important place. Kluge, fearing that it would be completely destroyed, urged that certain positions considered nonstrategic be abandoned, that the front line be shortened to make it more defensible, and especially that the troops that had been fighting nonstop since June 1941 be relieved, allowing them a little rest in the rear area to rebuild their strength. The conversation had been carefully prepared, with a series of arguments, information sheets for the presentation, and so on. I was all the more interested in this issue because I had several friends and cherished cousins in that sector. It was a matter of life and death for my old comrades in the Eighty-sixth Division, and also for my brother Georg’s comrades in the famous Sixth Reconnaissance Battalion, which was caught in the same net. Early on the morning of August 9, we flew to Vinnytsya.
    For the first time, I was not allowed to take part in the discussion. At lunch, I was separated from Kluge. While he sat at the Führer’s table, I was placed at Martin Bormann’s. Bormann was the head of the party and the Führer’s partner in crime. My first impression of Bormann—brutal, careless, and violent—was of a man who immediately inspired fear. At the table were seated representatives of all the ministries. Although I was surrounded by men in various uniforms, I was among thefew genuine military men. These gaudy outfits and tinny decorations seemed to me worthy of a decadent royal court. The conversations I overheard were so dreadfully banal that I remember them perfectly.
    Soon after the meal began, the representative of the Foreign Ministry, who wore an elaborate dress uniform, asked Bormann what should be done in the following case: Archduke Joseph, an Austrian marshal, was about to celebrate his seventieth birthday. Should a congratulatory telegram be sent to him? The diplomat pointed out that the marshal had married a Wittelsbach—that is, a Bavarian Catholic (he seemed not to realize that the Habsburgs themselves were Catholic). Bormann peremptorily issued his verdict: “Catholic? Then he won’t get his telegram!”
    The representative of the Ministry of Agriculture asked Bormann what would happen to the former Soviet collective farms (kolkhozes) that specialized in growing
kok-sagyz
, a local variety of dandelion whose roots could theoretically produce a rubber substitute. Scientific studies would have to be done to confirm the value of growing it. Bormann, half serious, immediately passed the buck, saying only, “That’s a matter for Reichsführer Himmler!”
    At dessert, some of these gentlemen complained that fresh strawberries were already unavailable in the Führer’s headquarters, so that they had had to resort to cherries—which were unpleasant because they had pits.Finally, a few of them who’d drunk a little too much asked in loud voices who wanted to go that evening to provide gallant company for the girls in the Kraft durch Freude group that was visiting Vinnytsya.
    This was too much for me: the gravity of the fate of the Ninth Army had met with moral and intellectual poverty and a disconcerting futility. Without a word, boiling with rage, I left the table and went out to smoke a cigarette to calm down.