2 At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Stalin’s dacha served as a hotel. Rooms rented for seven thousand rubles—approximately two hundred dollars—per night.
3 In 1964, CIA analysis cast suspicion on Sedov’s death. It pointed out that the autopsies did not probe for evidence of poisoning, such as traces of microbes that might have been injected, nor did they include a thorough search of the nervous system and the skin, to make sure that the location of all injection marks was consistent with medical procedures. Sedov’s successor in Trotsky’s Communist movement, a German named Rudolf Klement, was murdered by NKVD agent Alexander Korotkov on June 13, 1938. His headless body was found floating in Paris’s Seine River.
4 Known as the Bloody Dwarf, Yezhov rose to power by arranging the arrest and execution of Yagoda. He then went on an unparalleled terror spree, killing an estimated six hundred thousand men and women in just two years. The killing was systematic, with security officials given murder quotas that, if not met, resulted in their own executions. Beria, Yezhov’s successor, almost became one of Yezhov’s victims. However, he cleverly aligned himself with Stalin, and Yezhov’s influence soon waned. The Bloody Dwarf was arrested on April 10, 1939, and soon confessed to anti-Soviet activities and homosexual behavior. He was executed on February 4, 1940. His nickname then changed to the Vanishing Commissar, because his image was soon removed from all official photographs until it was as if he had never existed at all.
5 Testimony of Semyon Zhukovsky, head of the Twelfth Department of the NKVD. File number 975026 in the archives of the Soviet Senior Military Prosecutor’s Office.
Chapter 26
1 In all, twenty-four political and military leaders of the Third Reich were tried at Nuremberg. Martin Bormann was tried in absentia. Twelve will be sentenced to death by hanging, seven will be given time in prison, three will be acquitted, one will commit suicide four days after the trial begins, and one will be declared medically unfit for trial.
2 The rumor was untrue, and some believe it was generated by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
3 The forty-eight-year-old head of British intelligence is widely considered to be the model for Ian Fleming’s fictitious spy, James Bond. It was Stephenson who convinced FDR that Donovan should head the OSS.
4 Bazata was held in high esteem by members of the OSS. No less than William Colby, a former OSS agent who went on to become head of the Central Intelligence Agency, made a point of depicting Bazata’s heroism in the 1978 book Honorable Men. Bazata’s obituary in the New York Times on August 22, 1999, was specific in recounting his work behind enemy lines in France. However, for three decades after the general died, Bazata remained silent about his alleged role in Patton’s death. These quotes come from a letter he wrote to a friend on August 2, 1975. He later confirmed these claims in a 1979 article in Spotlight magazine.
Chapter 27
1 In addition to being the location of Patton’s headquarters, Bad Nauheim was also the site of Hitler’s Adlerhorst command post. Also, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s father used to travel there to take the waters for his heart condition. Finally, Bad Nauheim was host to Elvis Presley during his short stint in the army between 1958 and 1960. The gate to the city’s castle is depicted on the cover of Presley’s 1959 No.1 hit record, “A Big Hunk o’ Love.”
2 Thompson will try to cover his tracks regarding the “borrowed” truck by telling investigators that at the time of the accident he was turning into a quartermaster depot to return the vehicle, but in fact the depot was much farther down the road. There was a redbrick building to Patton’s right, with a broad driveway that might have been Thompson’s intended path. He will later change his story to say that he was turning onto a side street. But that is suspicious. The closest street to Thompson’s vehicle was fifteen feet north of the accident. In effect, Thompson did not know where he was going.
Afterword
1 This was reported in the Washington Star.
2 This is the citation for Bazata’s Distinguished Cross: “The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Captain (Infantry) Douglas D. Bazata, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy as an organizer and Director of Resistance forces serving with the Office of Strategic Services, in action against enemy forces from 27 August 1944 to 6 October 1944. Captain Bazata, after having been parachuted into the Haute Saone Department of France, organized and armed Resistance Forces, numbering 7,000; planned and executed acts of sabotage against rail and highway markers in order to divert German convoys onto secondary routes, leading them into well prepared ambushes and causing them to lose many men and motor vehicles. All of these tasks were performed in civilian clothing. Captain Bazata’s services reflect great credit upon him and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the armed forces of the United States.”
APPENDIX
Gen. George S. Patton’s Speech to the U.S. Third Army
SOUTHERN ENGLAND
JUNE 5, 1944
Be seated.
Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self-respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight.
When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser.
Americans despise cowards.
Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are.
The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they are He Men.
Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.
All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call “chickenshit drilling.” That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don’t give a f-ck for a man who’s not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn’t be here. You are ready for what’s to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you’re not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sock full of shit!