En Uzun Gün
Cornelius RyanQuotes
Did the man get his information direct from Moscow?
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"All Quiet on the Western Front" / Erich Maria Remarque
Rus cephesinde yeni bir şey yoktu.
Sayfa 234 - 1. baskı - Şubat 1984
Voigt had lived seventeen years in Chicago, but he had never taken out naturalization papers. In 1939 his wife, visiting her home in Germany, had been forced to stay because of an ailing mother. In 1940, against the advice of friends, Voigt had set out to bring her home. Unable to reach wartime Germany by regular routes, he had made a tortuous journey across the Pacific to Japan, then to Vladivostok and via the Trans-Siberian railway to Moscow. From there he had traveled to Poland and into Germany. The journey took nearly four months--and once across the border Voigt could not get out. He and his wife were trapped.
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The determined field marshal had taken advantage of every moment. "I have only one real enemy now," he had told Lang, "and that is time." To conquer time Rommel spared neither himself nor his men; it had been that way from the moment he had been sent to France in November 1943. That fall Von Rundstedt, responsible for the defense of all Western Europe, had asked Hitler for reinforcements. Instead, he got the hardheaded, daring and ambitious Rommel. To the humiliation of the aristocratic sixty-eight-year-old Commander in Chief West, Rommel arrived with a Gummiberfehl, an "elastic directive," ordering him to inspect the coastal fortifications-- Hitler's much-publicized "Atlantic Wall"--and then to report directly back to the Feuhrer's headquarters, OKW. The embarrassed and disappointed Von Rundstedt was so upset by the arrival of the younger Rommel--he referred to him as the "Marschall Bubi" (roughly, the "Marshal Laddie")--that he asked Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of OKW, if Rommel was being considered as his successor. He was told "not to draw any false conclusions," that with all "Rommel's capabilities he is not up to that job."
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After the collapse of France all that remained was England--standing alone. What need had Hitler for a "wall"? But Hitler didn't invade England. His generals wanted him to, but Hitler waited, thinking the British would sue for peace. As time passed the situation rapidly changed. With U.s. aid, Britain began staging a slow but sure recovery. Hitler, by now deeply involved in Russia--he attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941-- saw that the coast of France was no longer an offensive springboard. It was now a soft spot in his defenses. By the fall of 1941 he began talking to his generals about making Europe an "impregnable fortress." And in December, after the U.s. had entered the war, the Feuhrer ranted to the world that "a belt of strong points and gigantic fortifications runs from Kirkenes [on the Norwegian-Finnish frontier] ... to the Pyrenees [on the Franco-Spanish border] ... and it is my unshakable decision to make this front impregnable against every enemy."
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