Reich Government Finally Meets to Discuss Minister Appointments

Doenitz sat at the head of the table, correct and steely-eyed as always. Schwerin von Krosikg, the chancellor and foreign minister, sat to his left, while Speer, in charge of the economic portfolio, at at his right. The other ministers and advisors sat around the table, all of them looking very serious. Doenitz's government was now ten days old. At its inception, it had consisted of Doenitz, Speer, and von Krosigk, and a geographical realm that, besides northern Germany, included all of Denmark, Norway, Bohemia, and Crete, plus fragments of Russia, Latvia, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy and even the British Channel Islands. Now there were more than a dozen ministries, several special departments, and more than sixty typists, clerks, and other staff members. The government's territorial jurisdiction, on the other hand, barely extended beyond the gates of the Marineschule.

They convened each day to have meetings, explore problems, issue orders, and attempt to establish some coherence amid the chaos. But what effect any of it had was hard to say. Whether their orders would be carried out, or, for that matter, even delivered, was largely beyond their control. The all-powerful Allied Control Commission was a bureaucratic hydra that stood in their way, without having any clear plan of its own. From time to time, its members would show up and nose around and issue orders and directives, whose meaning they usually seemed at a loss to explain. 

The discussion on fertilizers went on for another twenty minutes and then they moved to the next topic on the agenda: churches. The question was whether a portfolio should be added for religious affairs. Dorpmuller, the transportation minister, suggested it might be a good idea, given everything the German people had just gone through, indeed it was necessary, that a Christian moral culture be reinstituted in the state.

People bristled at the idea. "Are you suggesting that just because National Socialists weren't Christian, they weren't moral?" one of the ministers countered.

"All I'm saying is we need to go back to old, traditional values. For more than a thousand years the Germans have been a Christian people. We need to emphasize that point both to ourselves and to the world. I think it would also be a good idea to embrace the contemporary Christian theology of human dignity."

"Do you have anyone in mind?" asked Doenitz.

"Yes, I do, Grand Admiral. I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be a perfect candidate. Last I heard he was still alive. We should see if we can locate him."

While an aide was dispatched to make some calls, the topic changed to banking issues. There wasn't enough money on hand to pay state employees or to fund purchases of emergency foodstuffs from Sweden and Portugal. The question boiled down to asking the Allies permission to print an emergency issue of reichsmarks. They were discussing it when an aide returned to inform them that Pastor Bonhoeffer had been executed by the Gestapo two weeks before.

The afternoon meeting wound down and Speer trudged back to his office to find a young Luftwaffe colonel waiting for him. It took Speer a second to realize it was Werner Baumbach, whom he'd often run into while kayaking on the Havel back before the war.

By the look of him, Baumbach was the happiest man in the world. He'd just arrived in Flensburg and only now had it occurred to him that he'd survived the war in one piece. And on top of it, it was May and everything was in blossom and he'd seen his first women in several months and they were even more beautiful than he'd remembered them. He'd billeted himself at Schloss Glucksburg, a nearby castle owned by his friend the Duke of Mecklenburg-Holstein, and it was great!

"You Luftwaffe buys have all the luck," said Speer, trying to sound upbeat. "I just got kicked out of my quarters by the British." He told Baumbach how he and the rest of the government had been living aboard the Patria, an old Hamburg-Amerika liner docked in the harbor. But that morning they had been told to vacate it and were now crammed into the cadets' dormitories. He gave a sour look.

Baumbach laughed. "Well, that's great, then, Albert. You can stay with me! There's plenty of room, plenty of food, plenty to drink. Get your stuff together. Let's go!"

(Excerpt from Germania, Simon & Schuster, 2008, ebook version available on Kindle here).

Allied Spooks Call Doenitz on the Carpet

“Korvettenkapitän Cremer,” asked Doenitz. “Did you not suggest to me several days ago that we move the flying boats out of Flensburg harbor to the patrol station to the north?”

“Yes, Grand Admiral, that is correct,” said Cremer. He stood rigidly at attention, the way they always did when reporting to the Old Man. Ziggy was next to him, waiting for when the Grand Admiral’s wrath got directed at him, while in chairs a few feet away, two Allied officers glared at them with undisguised malice.

“Didn’t you also inform me that you were placing lookouts in the surrounding hills to keep an eye on them?”

“Yes, Grand Admiral.”

“So then, logically speaking, you should have known anything that might have been going on up there.”

“Yes, Grand Admiral.”

“But yet you profess to know nothing of the incident which took place last night. How is that?” Doenitz regarded them both icily. He was furious. Twenty minutes earlier the British and American officer had stormed into his office, accusing him of secretly moving the flying boats out of sight in order to allow a large number of former Nazi officials to escape. To defend himself, he called in Cremer and Ziggy, the two men who were supposed to keep him on top of these things. But instead everything they were saying made him look like a liar, or worse, a fool.

“Well?” asked Doenitz.

“Grand Admiral,” Cremer began. “At the time the incident at the cove took place, my men and I were involved in an operation at Schloss Glucksburg, assisting a British unit in an attempt to capture Reichsfuhrer Himmler, and therefore could not leave to investigate.”

Doenitz sat still, like an iceberg which had just become infinitely colder.

The British colonel raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Really?” he asked. “We are not aware of any effort by our forces to subdue the Reichsfuhrer.”

“Why wasn’t I informed about this?”asked Doenitz.

“Because it was a secret operation,” volunteered Ziggy and immediately regretted it.

“Secret? Secret from whom?” asked the American.

“Sir, we were asked not tell anyone so as not to jeopardize the operation’s success.”

“Told by whom?”

“A British intelligence officer named Major Westerby.”

The two Allied officers exchanged significant glances. For a second, Ziggy thought he saw just the tiniest glint of relief in Doenitz’ implacable mien, that perhaps this was all just a misunderstanding and that his trusted captains were merely doing what they’d been ordered.

“Were you?” asked the British officer. “And when did he call you to action?”

“Last night around 8:30,” said Cremer.

“You’re lying, Captain Cremer,” said the American.

“Captain?” asked Doenitz. “I expect you to tell the truth.”

“I am telling the truth,” said Cremer.

“Captain Cremer,” said the American. “Major Westerby has been dead for two days.”

“Murdered,” the British officer added.

Ziggy felt the coldness which always came over him whenever he learned a friend or former shipmate had died. Poor Westerby, he thought. He’d been right about the danger Franzi was facing.

“Actually, the request came from Major Westerby’s adjutant,” Ziggy said.

“Oh?” said the British officer. “And who might that be?”

“His name is Manni Loerber.”

There was a very long silence. The British officer stared at Ziggy. Doenitz stared at Ziggy. The American looked like he didn’t know what was going on.

“Manni Loerber?” asked the British officer in a shrill voice, like he knew he was being pointedly insulted. “Manni Loerber of the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers? Is this your idea of a joke?”

“My brother,” said Ziggy.

“Grand Admiral,” the British officer turned angrily to Doenitz. “What is going on?”

“Captain Cremer,” said Doenitz, coldly as before. “Explain what your subordinate is talking about.”

“Sir?” asked Ziggy.

“Not another word out of you, Loerber,” said Doenitz. “Captain Cremer, report.”

“Major Westerby approached us with his adjutant Corporal MacDonald, who it turned out was really Captain Loerber’s brother Manni, who then called us last night to provide support for an operation against Himmler. He never said anything about flying boats or anything going on in the cove, only to expect Himmler’s arrival sometime shortly after 10:30 at Schloss Glucksburg. But since the flying boat blew up at precisely 10:30, I assume he must have had something to do with it.”

“Corporal MacDonald?” countered the British officer. “I know for a fact that Major Westerby never had anyone working for him with that name.”

The American jumped in. “I think we can stop this part of the discussion right here.”

“But Colonel,” protested the British officer, “if this Corporal MacDonald knows something, shouldn’t we..."

The American cut him off. “This discussion is closed, Colonel.”

Ziggy watched them stare at each other; the British officer red with indignation, the American angry at having had to reveal that he’d been holding back on some key information. The British officer looked away from the American and, facing the window, asked, “So then, Captain Cremer, was this joint operation you describe successful?”

“No, the Reichsfuhrer and his men got away.”

“Perhaps this phantom operation was actually just a way of helping Himmler to escape?”

Doenitz bristled. “Colonel, I can assure you none of my people have been helping Himmler in any way,” he said. “We have been scrupulous in observing to the letter the terms of the surrender agreement and any suggestion to the contrary is an affront to the Navy’s honor.”

But the American was already in a hurry to wrap things up and get out. He stood up, forcing his British counterpart to do the same. “We’ve heard enough, Grand Admiral,” he said. “We’ll be making our recommendations to Supreme Headquarters. I can assure you that neither General Eisenhower nor the EAC will take any of this lightly. Good day, gentlemen.” And with that, they walked out.
(Excerpt from Germania, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster, now also available on Kindle here).

The Nazi Government in Flensburg, Doing What All Governments Do: Growing.

The subject that afternoon was fertilizer; nitrogen fertilizer. The nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow corn, corn to feed hungry people, but more importantly, to feed the draft horses which were in turn needed to plow farmland on which to grow more corn to feed more hungry people and more draft horses.

And in order to do this, Grand Admiral Doenitz told the assembled cabinet members, they needed to reactivate, on a priority basis, Germany’s nitrogen works. “Speer, how long would it take to bring them back on line?”

Speer stood up from his chair and started recounting the steps necessary to get gunpowder plants converted to fertilizer production. If they had the electrical generation on hand, and sufficient numbers of skilled repair crews, there was no reason something couldn’t be operational within a week. But, more likely, they would have to bring the electrical power plants on line first. With luck and a lot of cannibalization, it could be accomplished in two weeks. Rail lines would also have to be brought back up so that coal could be transported to the power plants and depending upon what bridges were still up, that might take another week in addition to that.

“So what you’re saying, Speer, is that it could take anywhere from one to four weeks to get the nitrogen production started?”

Doenitz was looking at Speer in complete seriousness, as though it hadn’t occurred to him that everything they’d been discussing existed purely within the realm of fantasy. The reality was that all the nitrogen works and electrical power plants were in Allied hands and the Allies had so far shown not the slightest inclination to listen to any suggestions the Doenitz government might make about getting Germany’s industries back in operation.

Doenitz sat at the head of the table, correct and steely-eyed as always. Schwerin von Krosigk, the Chancellor and Foreign Minister, sat to his left while Speer, in charge of the economic portfolio, sat at his right. The other ministers and advisors sat around the table, all of them looking very serious. Doenitz’ government was now ten days old. At its inception, it consisted of the three of them and a geographical realm which, besides northern Germany, included all of Denmark, Norway, Bohemia and Crete, plus fragments of Russia, Latvia, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, and even the British Channel Islands. Now, there were more than a dozen ministries, several special departments and more than sixty typists, clerks and other staff members. The government’s territorial jurisdiction, on the other hand, barely extended beyond the gates of the Marineschule.

They’d go in each day and have meetings, explore problems, issue orders and try to establish some coherency amid the chaos. But what effect any of it had was hard to say. Whether their orders would be carried out, or, for that matter, even delivered, was largely beyond their control. The all-powerful Allied Control Commission was a bureaucratic hydra which stood in their way, without having any clear plan of its own. From time to time, its members would show up and nose around and issue orders and directives, whose meaning they usually seemed at a loss to explain.

The discussion on fertilizers went on another twenty minutes and then they moved to the next topic on the agenda; churches. The question was whether a portfolio should be added for religious affairs. Dorpmuller the Transportation Minister suggested it might be a good idea, given everything the German people has just gone through, it was necessary that a Christian moral culture be re-instituted in the state.

People bristled at the idea. “Are you suggesting that just because National Socialists weren’t Christian, they weren’t moral?” one of the ministers countered.

“All I’m saying is we need to go back to old, traditional values. For more than a thousand years the Germans have been a Christian people. We need to emphasize that point both to ourselves and to the world. I think it would also be a good idea to embrace contemporary Christian theology of human dignity.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?” asked Doenitz.

“Yes, I do, Grand Admiral. I think Dietrich Bonhoffer would be a perfect candidate. Last I heard he was still alive. We should see if we can locate him.”

While an aide was dispatched to make some calls, the topic changed to banking issues. There wasn’t enough money on hand to pay state employees or to fund purchases of emergency foodstuffs from Sweden and Portugal. The question boiled down to asking the Allies permission to print an emergency issue of Reichsmarks. They were discussing it when the aide returned to inform them that Pastor Bonhoffer had been executed by the Gestapo two weeks before.

###

If the present is simply the intersecting point between past and future, then Flensburg was that unrepeatable circumstance where the two merely brushed against each other, like two party guests eyeing each other as they wait for an absent host to come and make the requisite introductions. And while the past normally stands solid and unalterable and the future is but a swirling cloud of possibility, in Flensburg the opposite seemed to be the case. Here the future appeared fixed, bright and obvious, while the past was a murky shifting shadow, best not dwelled on, for its details seemed to change hourly.

And nowhere was optimism toward the future stronger than in the Doenitz government. The fact that it continued to grow was all the proof some people needed to believe that they had put themselves on the ground floor of a very prospective enterprise. They began seeking more and better furniture, larger offices with more windows and all the other appurtenances with which to demonstrate their recovered status.

Those stranded in the past, on the other hand, found themselves searching frantically for something, anything, which might help them ascend. Some lobbied for the creation of an ‘inter-ministerial working group’ to study undefined problems, others sought diplomatic passports, medical certificates or, failing that, a few sheets of office letterhead, as a protection against Allied arrest.
(Excerpt from Germania, first published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, now also available on Kindle here)