number of the splendid 88 mm guns that could stop most tanks as well as shoot down planes. The German soldiers had stayed to defend their city and been swept up by the advances of the Russians and the Americans.
Von Schumann had reviewed the situation and made a modest proposal that they all be put to use in the defense of Potsdam. The Germans were willing, and the American soldiers had no apparent qualms, so what was the problem? Miller asked himself. Certainly, no one was concerned about using the other side’s weapons. That had been done many times in the war.
Von Schumann had argued that it really didn’t matter that use of German personnel wasn’t yet authorized by SHAEF or Truman or anyone else, although there were rumors that it soon would be. What did matter was that they use every means possible to defend themselves. War is hell, he reminded Miller, and it contains no rules except to destroy one’s enemy. He was reminded that the Germans in Potsdam would be slaughtered by the Russians if they broke through and would, therefore, fight like tigers. He added that they had a right to have weapons to defend themselves, and Miller couldn’t rebut him.
Miller smiled and patted his pocket for some tobacco. Once again there wasn’t any. “Advisers,” he said smiling.
Von Schumann blinked. “What?”
“They cannot be allies and they cannot be part of the American army. At least not officially and not yet. However, they can be advisers. Someone must teach my soldiers how to use those nice antiaircraft guns of yours and how not to shoot themselves in the foot with the panzerfausts. Therefore, they will advise our soldiers.”
Von Schumann thought it over. “Should it become necessary, or even helpful, can these advisers man guns and shoot them?”
“Of course, Herr Oberst,” Miller said sweetly. “How better to advise?”
The planes that had ravaged the oil fields and other vital areas of the Caucasus had come from airstrips in Iran and Iraq. There had been as many as a thousand fighters-P-51s and P-47s-and they had simply overwhelmed the inadequate defenses of the area and destroyed virtually all the planes left to defend the precious oil-producing area. These had been followed by the bombers, hundreds of B-17s and B-24s along with a few score of newly arrived B-29s.
For the Russians, the final tally was 139 of their planes shot down, and nearly 350 destroyed on the ground. Even allowing for the wildly inflated claims of the surviving aircrews and those gunners on the ground who had found targets worth shooting at, the Americans had lost only about fifty planes of all types. To make matters worse, it appeared that the Americans had overflown Turkey and then entered Russian airspace from the Black Sea. They had been wolves among the Russian sheep before there was any reaction from the Russian defenders, even the handful who had been looking westward.
The simultaneous raid on Ploesti had been staged from bases in Italy and North Africa, and the planes, again more than a thousand, had crossed the Adriatic, and then Yugoslavia, and been above Ploesti only seconds after the alarm had been sounded. It was noted by the Soviet leadership that the Yugoslav Communists under Marshal Tito had not been terribly efficient or prompt in communicating the presence of Allied aircraft to Stavka. It was a lapse of fraternal socialist brotherhood among ostensible Communist allies that Stalin swore he would remember. It seemed to some observers that Tito did not look with total favor upon the thought of Russian hegemony in Europe.
Stalin, Beria, and Molotov had traveled from Moscow to this dismal German city of Kustrin on the Oder to acquaint Marshal Zhukov with the new realities confronting him. At least the place for the meeting was better repaired than the last time. Now the windows were glassed over and there was electricity. Otherwise, Kustrin was still a city in ruins.
But first there were matters that had to be settled in the traditional Soviet matter.
“This motherfucking Guchkov,” Stalin asked, “it is confirmed that he is dead?”
Zhukov saw the dread look in Stalin’s eyes and was glad he was not Guchkov. It was the look of a snake stalking its prey. Stalin was openly expressionless but his eyes gave him away. He looked to be mad for revenge. Zhukov replied. “Yes, Comrade Stalin. He is dead, a suicide.”
Stalin turned to Beria. “Then he has cheated justice. Have his family picked up as well. They must be considered equally guilty for his actions.” Beria nodded. He guessed there would be a score of people, women and children included. They were as good as dead. A few years in the gulag and they would be dead in fact as well as theory.
“And who,” Stalin continued, “commands the Fourth Air Army? Who is the fool that left the idiot Guchkov in charge of such a sensitive and important area as the Caucasus with such limited resources?” Stalin knew the answer. He just wanted someone else to say the name.
“Vershinin,” said Zhukov. Stalin gestured to Beria, who nodded. Another casualty of the raid.
“And Ploesti?”
Zhukov wondered where it would stop. “The Fifth Air Army is under Goryunov.” Again the gesture to Beria. Both generals would be arrested by the NKVD within two hours and be shot within three. The price for failure-or stupidity-was high in the Soviet Union.
The feral look left Stalin’s eyes. The beast had been sated, tamed at least for a while. “Now, Marshal Zhukov, do you understand the situation with oil?”
“What I understand is that there will be very little more oil for the foreseeable future. How long are we talking about? Weeks? Months?”
Molotov spoke. “Perhaps much longer. I spoke with the minister of the interior, and it is his early estimate that there will be little more than a trickle for about three to six months.”
Zhukov nodded. With his intimate knowledge of Soviet efficiency, he knew that the actual length of time would probably be at least a year before any new oil appeared. He also knew that the Germans had been fairly successful in the expensive task of transforming coal into oil. Sadly, these facilities had been destroyed a long time ago and were doubtless in worse shape than those in the Caucasus. Another source, Lend-Lease from America, was obviously severed. The Allies had provided the Soviet Union with more than three million tons of oil, primarily by truck and pipeline, from the Middle East. Worse, the Americans had been a primary source of gasoline and aviation fuel, which the Soviets made poorly even when they had the resources.
When the war started, the USSR produced 10 percent of the world’s oil, virtually all of it from the now ruined Caucasus fields. The United States, on the other hand, produced more than two thirds of the world’s oil. The Soviet Union would run dry in a very short while and the United States would continue to be flush in petroleum.
Zhukov remained impassive. “It will make sustained operations very difficult, perhaps impossible. We must begin hoarding and rationing immediately and at all levels.”
“It is being done,” said Beria. Further reductions in oil for the civilian population meant a reduction of what was already almost nothing. “We are somewhat fortunate that our trains run on coal, and we have plenty of that. Most of our factories are also coal-heated, as are our homes, so there will be little reduction in production or transportation as a result of this disaster.”
Beria knew the need for warmth in homes was considered incidental by Stalin, but the Soviet Union did need fairly healthy workers to man the factories.
Stalin blinked slightly at the use of the word disaster, and Beria continued. “There will be no impact on food production. The troops will not go hungry.”
That presumes, Zhukov thought, that the food not currently in hand can be shipped safely under the increasing pressure of Allied air attacks. Without fuel, how could the air force defend the army from American planes?
Instead, he said, “We have already taken steps. As you know, the Russian soldier is very resourceful. We have appropriated food and livestock along the way and are in no danger of going hungry for quite some time.” He smiled. “Chuikov said we appear like a Mongol horde.”
Stalin nodded his approval. He had seen the effects of such appropriations of German food. Russian armies were almost literally eating their way across Germany, but not like Mongols who butchered cattle and people indiscriminately. A plague of omnivorous locusts would be more like it. Millions of Germans would starve this winter, but that did not matter to Stalin at all. What did matter was that, for the first time in years, food was being grown in the Ukraine and elsewhere to keep the workers fed and working; thus, his soldiers would eat while they
