The European scavengers had been filtering back with various pieces of equipment, and the French factories had supplied a healthy number of new Panther Felix vehicles.
Fiedler had been correct, in that the two Centurions were not destined for Uhlmann’s armoured regiment, but instead bolstered the small number of heavy tanks in the Corps’ heavy tank battalion.
The recently promoted Commandant Jorgensen already had his force sorted, the supply of SPAT vehicles having dried up to nothing, although his unit boasted a good number of old Jagdpanthers and new Schwarzjagdpanther, plus the two remaining Einhorns.
St. Clair, commanding Alma, the other division in the Corps, had similar problems, especially as Camerone seemed to always manage to get in ahead of his units when it came to new kit or scrounged equipment.
Knocke had barely started sorting out the new order of battle before the meeting was interrupted.
Lutz entered clasping a radio message sheet, his face relaying the fact that the day would not go as planned and things were about to change.
“Message from Corps Headquarters, Oberführer. Marked most urgent.”
“Thank you, Lutz.”
The men around the table tensed as Knocke read and reread the message… order.
He held out his hand and gestured at the table.
“Map please.”
Emmercy took one from the other table and quickly laid it out.
“Hmm.”
“Sir?”
Knocke passed the order to Uhlmann, and he and Emmercy gathered together to read it as their commander drew a mental line on the map.
“Scheisse!”
“Merde!”
Camerone had spent some days preparing its present final positions opposite the Soviet final withdrawal line, only to find out that it wasn’t the final withdrawal line, and that they now had to move forward again.
At that time, they were not to know that it was a renegotiation of the position initiated by the Soviets, who considered their foothold on the west bank of the Vistula a problem, at least a problem in that area.
Of course, there was a trade-off elsewhere.
Both officers looked over the map to where Knocke was beating a discontented rhythm with his fingers.
“Przeciszów… we’re ordered up to Przeciszów. Apparently an oversight… up to the Vistula… and then the Skawa just east of Przeciszów. That’s where we’re supposed to have been all along.”
“That’s why we haven’t seen or heard a sound from the bastards since we’ve been here.”
Emmercy could only reiterate his previous observation on the matter.
“Merde!”
The three men understood just how much effort their men had put into creating excellent defensive positions, which were, to all intents and purposes, now useless.
“Twenty-six kilometres.”
Knocke said it to no one but the map, his mind working the problem quickly.
“Right. I’ll send Bach’s troopers ahead immediately. Haefali is closest so he can put two battalions on the road immediately. The rest of his unit can bring up the bits and pieces. Rolf, get your ready Kompagnie in line behind Bach’s column. I’ll get a platoon of pionieres in case you meet up with any presents from our Socialist colleagues.
“I’ve been there before, Général.”
“Where exactly?”
Knocke’s tone was unusually strained.
Emmercy indicated his former haunts.
“I used to come here carp fishing in happier times. Lovely carp around there, General. I went with friends from Munich, which is how I learnt your atrocious language.”
“Instead of catching fish.”
Emmercy grinned at Uhlmann’s retort, but Knocke was already factoring in the new information.
“Right, Pierre. I want you up there as soon as possible. Move your headquarters up with the first column. Advise Rolf, who will be group commander. I’ll worry about the left flank. Alma has the right… I’ll speak with General St.Clair to coordinate our moves.”
“I want the first men on the road in twenty minutes, Klar?”
They responded positively, knowing they had no choice.
“Leave orders not to dismantle our present positions. We’ll build new, and these will do for breaks from the line and training exercises. Klar?”
Knocke seemed to gather himself before delivering his final instruction.
“Unless militarily necessary, there will be no investigations of any facilities on the route of march. There’ll be time for that later.”
He considered everything and decided the rest could wait.
“Right then, Kameraden. Let’s get the division on the move.”
The senior men quit the room at speed and Lutz appeared in their stead, anticipating orders.
Instead he received none as Knocke seemed preoccupied by something on the map.
“Sir?”
“Lutz? Something else?”
“No, Oberführer. I was awaiting your orders.”
“Yes, indeed.”
He rattled off his instructions to the various units under his command, halfway through which Haefali arrived, clearly armed with the new knowledge.
Knocke continued as he passed the new orders to the commander of 5e RDM, who immediately tried to marry the words to the map.
“Right, Lutz. Please get them off immediately and make sure the headquarters duty officer knows we’ll be moving tomorrow… by 0800 at the latest.”
“Zu befehl, Oberführer.”
“Albrecht.”
“Mon Général.”
“As you see, we’ve wasted our efforts here.”
“Soldier’s lot, mon Général. Dig holes… move on… dig more holes.”
“Yes, slightly more than digging a few holes of course, but you’re right, Albrecht.”
Knocke fell silent as he examined the map, and Haefali felt an undercurrent of something he didn’t recognise from the German legionnaire.
“Anything I should know, mon Général?”
“There is certainly something you’ll discover, Albrecht.”
He tapped the map, some distance away from their final destination.
Haefali took in the map and the name and failed to appreciate its significance.
He questioned Knocke with his eyes, silently seeking further knowledge.
“When your forces swept through Germany in the previous war, you came across some places… awful places… places where murder was done in the name of the German people.”
“Dachau… Belsen… Mauthausen…”
“Yes… to name but a few, Albrecht. A stain on my country and something that haunts me and, I suspect always will. I fought for that regime… the regime that brought such abominable places into being.”
“And you… pardon… the SS are forever associated with them, of course.”
“Yes. I did not know of Dachau other than its beginnings before the war. I’d heard of Belsen and Mauthausen and understood them to be other than what we now know they are… but this is different.”
Knocke sat down heavily.
Haefali drew a glass of water and placed in front of his divisional commander.
“Sir?”
“We’re going to somewhere that I believe to have been hell on earth. I found out about it… heard gossip… that sort of thing… refused to believe it… but I now know it’s there… and that everything I was told was true.”
“Where, mon Général?”
He drew a pencil circle round the name.
The map was an ex-Wehrmacht map, so the names reflected their German history.
“I did nothing, Albrecht. Ignored it all.”
Haefali looked at the map closely and saw a name associated with rumours since before the world had stopped fighting in May 1945.