Patton’s private sentiments indicate serious concern. “First Army is making a terrible mistake,” he worried in his diary two weeks ago. “It is highly probable the Germans are building up east of them.”

*   *   *

As General Patton leaves the War Room, Colonel Koch goes back to the endless business of acquiring information. It is a skill that he will one day put to good use while working for the CIA. For now, he is most pleased that General Patton wants the Third Army to be “in a position to meet whatever happens.”

But Patton needs to do more than just make backup plans. He calls Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and passes on Koch’s assessment. Ike, in turn, passes this on to his own G-2, Gen. Kenneth Strong, who relays Patton’s concerns to the First Army.

Where the warning is promptly ignored.

7

GERMAN FRONT LINES

DECEMBER 16, 1944

5:29 A.M.

Sunrise is still two hours away. The morning sky is completely black, without even moon or starlight. German artillery crews stand at their guns, making happy small talk and stomping their feet to keep warm. Their cheeks sting from the record December cold. They have been awake for hours, waiting for this moment. Someday they will tell their grandchildren about the great instant when Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) commenced, and how they were among the lucky gunners who fired the first rounds into the American lines, turning the tide of war in favor of the Fatherland, once and for all. They will regale their descendants about the brilliant deception that allowed a quarter million men, more than seven hundred tanks, and thousands of huge artillery pieces to remain camouflaged in the Ardennes Forest for weeks. And these young soldiers will talk about the glory of the surprise attack that split the American and British armies, and then the relentless push to reclaim the strategically vital port city of Antwerp. Next, Adolf Hitler successfully sued for peace with the west, thereby preserving the Third Reich and preventing an Allied invasion of the German homeland. With the Americans and British neutralized, Hitler activated step two of Operation Watch on the Rhine and launched his legendary second attack against Stalin and Russia that defeated the Communists.

That is the story they hope to tell.

But all that is in the future. Right now these young Germans are eager, awaiting the command to rain down hellfire on their enemies.

At 5:30 a.m. that order is delivered. Up and down the eighty-mile German front lines, some sixteen hundred pieces of field artillery open fire. The silent forest explodes, and muzzle blasts light the sky as the furnaces of hell are thrown open. “Screaming Meemie” rockets screech into the darkness, a deadly sound that American soldiers everywhere find unnerving. And big 88 mm guns fire their fifteen-inch-long shells at targets almost ten miles away, hitting U.S. positions before they even know they’re being fired upon. Every German soldier within a hundred yards is rendered temporarily deaf from the noise. Hand gestures replace the spoken word.

SS Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny has never once fired an artillery piece, but he has waited for this moment just as eagerly as those men manning the big guns. His life has been a whirlwind of activity since his meeting with the Führer less than two months ago. For his special role in Operation Greif, as the offensive is known, he has scoured the ranks of the German military for men who speak English. He has outfitted these men in American uniforms, and acquired American tanks, trucks, and jeeps to help them travel effortlessly behind U.S. lines. Their ultimate goal is to make their way through this rugged, snow-covered terrain as quickly as possible to capture three vital bridges over the Meuse River. But their more immediate task is to sow seeds of confusion throughout the American lines. They will spread rumors and misinformation, tear down road signs, and do everything in their power to mislead the Americans as the German army pours into the Ardennes Forest.

The problem facing Skorzeny is that the Americans know all about Operation Greif. Shortly after his Wolf’s Lair meeting with Hitler, some idiot in the Wehrmacht high command circulated a notice up and down the Western Front: “Secret Commando Operations,” the directive stated in bold letters at the top of the page. “The Führer has ordered the formation of a special unit of approximately two battalion strength for commando operations.” It went on to ask all English-speaking soldiers, sailors, and pilots who wished to volunteer to report to Skorzeny’s training center in Friedenthal.

An irate Skorzeny went directly to Hitler to have the notice withdrawn, but the damage had already been done. As Skorzeny knew it would, the paper fell into Allied hands. It was the sort of intelligence coup that G-2s such as Oscar Koch live for. And while Skorzeny insisted that Operation Greif be canceled for this blunder, the Führer personally requested that it proceed. Skorzeny reluctantly complied. In the weeks of training that followed, his men were sequestered in a special camp, set apart from other German soldiers. To brush up on their English, they conversed with captured U.S. soldiers and pilots in prisoner-of-war camps. They learned to chew gum like Americans, how to swear, and casually banter using American slang. One German soldier who made the mistake of writing home about his whereabouts was immediately shot.

The sound of the 75 mm guns thundering up and down the lines signals that the time has come for Operation Greif to begin. It is a moment that fills Skorzeny with equal parts euphoria and dread.

The legendary commando is known for his ruthlessness, which is just one reason the Allies have named him the most dangerous man in the German army. But he is also extremely loyal, and fond of his men. As Operation Greif commences, he fusses over them, quietly worrying about their fate. Every mission has peril, but this one is especially dangerous, as all the men in Skorzeny’s elite commando unit know.

If captured by the Americans, they will not be treated as prisoners of war, as regular German soldiers would be.

By disguising themselves as Americans, Skorzeny’s men of Panzergruppe 150 are deliberately violating the Geneva Convention. If captured in German uniforms, they could expect to spend the rest of the war in U.S. captivity, but at least they would live.

But Skorzeny’s soldiers will be wearing U.S. uniforms, and therefore will be classified as spies. The punishment for being captured while wearing an enemy uniform is death by firing squad.

Skorzeny gives the order to move out.

*   *   *

Confusion reigns. The narrow, muddy roads leading from Germany into the Ardennes are now clogged with German tanks, trucks, horse-drawn carts, and halftracks as thirty German divisions flood toward the American lines. The front extends north to south through three countries, meaning that Wehrmacht forces are now on the attack in Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Their movement was supposed to be lightning quick. But with the roads too narrow to handle all the German vehicles, the biggest surprise attack of the war has become an enormous traffic jam.

Still, Hitler’s gamble is achieving some success. The American army has been caught off guard. Even as German infantry creep through the forest in their winter-white uniforms, the highest levels of Allied leadership still believe that Germany is incapable of launching a major offensive. Some dismiss this as a “spoiling attack”—a diversion that weakens the American lines by forcing them to shift men and supplies from some other location. Convinced that an attack through such wooded and mountainous terrain is impossible, Dwight Eisenhower considers the Ardennes to be a place of rest and sanctuary for weary American troops. “Of the many pathways that lead to France, the least penetrable is through the Ardennes,” notes Gen. Omar Bradley, the commander in charge of the American front lines. “For there the roads are much too scarce, the hills too wooded, and the valleys too limited for maneuver.”