Chapter Six Hundred Eighty-Six
3rd October 1948
Near Kleinburg, Silesia
Helene telling her father what was going on with her on Friday night changed the entire course of the weekend. At the celebratory dinner on Saturday evening Helene found herself the center of attention which wasn’t what she had wanted. Ilse watched everything play out and noticed a dynamic between Helene and the rest of her family. The barely disguised envy and resentment that Helene’s sisters had for Helene was evident, then there was Helene’s older brother. Lothar von Richthofen had already had a lifetime of failing to live up to expectations, a failed marriage and what Ilse suspected was a growing dependence on alcohol. There was a younger brother who was absent, apparently his military career had taken him overseas. Helene’s father, Manfred, as Graf von Richthofen tried to maintain an air of the stern patriarch, but Ilse could tell that he was struggling with the realities of who his children had become and a world that was changing rapidly from the one he’d known as a youth.
That was also when it occurred to Ilse why Helene’s father was supportive of her University studies. The forest was subject only with the rhythm of the seasons, unchanged for millennia. Ilse was Hans’ sister which made her family and she had shown an interest in some of the things that Manfred loved almost as much as his family.
There were dozens of other guests in the house and Ilse had been given a room in the guest house. It was the same room she’d lived in while she’d been here in the spring and early summer, so Ilse was hardly put out by that. Some of the other guests, the upper crust of Silesian Society however, were offended to not have rooms in the main house. These were the same people who wanted to know who Ilse was. That did put her in an uncomfortable position, Ilse didn’t consider herself anything special. When Helene’s mother pointed out that Ilse was the younger sister of Freiherr Johannes and Gräfin Katherine, it took moment for her to realize who she was talking about. After that everyone looked at her differently.
Things had played out a lot like Helene said they would. Saturday evening had been spent with the feast, dozens of dishes made with wild game or sourced in the forest. The whole thing had been well lubricated with copious amounts of wine and beer. Then on Sunday morning all the men made a big show of leaving for the hunt. According to Helene they were only going as far as a roadhouse that was a couple kilometers away, where they would continue to drink and play cards until sunset. The women stayed in the house, had drinks and gossiped. Ilse found it all incredibly boring, by Sunday evening she found she just wanted to go home.
Cape Town, South Africa
The lory brought in the two bodies covered in a tarp. Hans knew that Jost wasn’t being mean, but he insisted with the Oberst’s backing on all the Soldaten in the Regiment filing through to see what happened if you were careless or unlucky. These were the first fatalities in the 8th Panzer Infantry Brigade since they had arrived in South Africa, fortunately they weren’t from the 140th Regiment. The Oberst of 49th Regiment, whose men these were, didn’t seem to have a problem with it.
It was the helmet that one of the men had been wearing is what had caught Hans attention. A small hole on one side and larger hole on the other side. “How much you want to bet that when we measure this hole, it will be 7.62 millimeters?” He asked. Jost just shook his head when he heard that.
Hans had presented the report that Jost had dictated to the Oberst. Then he had to give it repeatedly, first to Generalmajor von Stauffenberg, then further up the food chain. It had made for a long week.
“Anyone know what happened?” Hans asked.
“Word is that they were sitting in a couple different lories that were on the road from Port Elizabeth” Soren said.
“Any idea of the distances involved?”
“Three to four hundred meters”
“Did anyone hear how many shots were fired?”
“Three or four” Soren answered.
Hans almost cursed aloud when he heard that. He might have to go to the site of the shooting to look for himself, but a three or four hundred meter shot on a moving target took a great deal of luck or some real skill. The fact that two men were hit and killed, one shot through the head, with only three or four shots suggested that it was the latter.
“This probably means that things are about to get a lot more difficult” Hans replied, “We’re going to need to institute some precautions.” That did get a great deal of cursing among the men surrounding them.
There was something that Hans had read as part of the course work while at Regimental Staff School. Field Marshal von Wolvogle’s opinion was that the Heer had dodged a bullet in Spain because the different factions had alienated most of the population before they had gotten involved. Here in South Africa it was shaping up to be a multi-sided conflict and each faction seemed to have their own backers. It was Hans' hope that General Rommel, who was the overall Commander of their portion of this operation and a largely unknown quantity for much of the Heer outside the 2nd Army had a plan of action.
