The Invasion of 1950 Read Online Free PDF Page B

barked a command, without looking up, until Skorzeny had reported. “ Heil Hitler ,” he said, and saluted. It made him envious, in a way; no matter how many blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans he surrounded himself with, it wouldn’t change his own appearance one iota. Himmler wasn't a perfect SS man and never would be, but the man facing him lived up to the legends.
     
    “ Heil Hitler ,” Gruppenfuhrer Otto Skorzeny said. “You wanted to see me, Herr Reichsfuhrer? ”
     
    Himmler took a moment to study Skorzeny. At forty-two years old, the famous commando, who had been involved in raids and attacks on the Soviet Union and the insurgents that had replaced them, still looked like a young man. He had planned and executed a daring raid on the Soviets just before the end of the war, and Hitler had been impressed enough to order Skorzeny promoted and given his own unique unit of soldiers. Skorzeny hadn’t wasted his time, either; the unit of commandos had proven themselves in covert operations against a dozen sensitive targets.
     
    “I need a readiness report on your unit,” Himmler said, allowing Skorzeny to draw his own conclusions. The Reichsfuhrer wouldn’t have summoned him for a report unless there had been a failing so great as to justify him being thrown out of the SS – or if there was a prospect of action. “How ready are you for immediate deployment?”
     
    Skorzeny’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of action. “The unit is in peak condition at the moment,” he said. Himmler had given him a thousand men back at the start; now, with reserves, new recruits, and even hundreds of SS men clamouring to join, Skorzeny could have tens of thousands of men under him. Instead, he had his core group and several thousand reserve soldiers, just in case they were needed. “The men are ready as they’ll ever be to launch an operation against any enemy.”
     
    He stopped and waited. “Within a month, perhaps less, we will launch an attack against Britain,” Himmler said, calmly. Skorzeny looked delighted. “Your unit has a vital role to play in the assault.”
     
    Skorzeny considered it. “The Tommy is a good soldier, but often unprepared for surprise,” he said, after a moment. “There is no one better at holding a piece of ground, but they don’t always react well when they are hit really hard. The best of their commanding officers match our own, but they don’t often have the same grasp of tactics that we do.” His grin grew wider. “And they have a unit to match ours; this should be fun.”
     
    Himmler stood up and paced over to the map. It didn’t show unit positions; instead, it showed SS locations and personnel throughout Europe. He also knew that there was plenty it didn’t show, such as the fatality rates from Skorzeny’s unit; the parachute-testing program had claimed over a hundred lives since Skorzeny had demanded that a new parachute design be put into production. It also didn’t show the exact details of their target…
     
    He turned back to face Skorzeny. Skorzeny was Hitler’s man, through and through; he didn’t have much time for the mystique that Himmler was trying to create around the SS, his Knights of the Black Cross. Where Himmler was fussy and precise, Skorzeny was impetuous and random. Skorzeny might be an excellent soldier – he was an excellent soldier – but he wouldn’t fit into the Order of the SS, or at least as Himmler envisioned it.
     
    “You launched an attack on General Zhukov’s headquarters,” Himmler said, remembering that incident with some private amusement. The USSR had never really recovered from the loss of Moscow; by the time Beria had succeeded in bringing the Red Army back into a fighting force, their long-term advantages had been reduced sharply and, whatever else he was, Beria was no Stalin. He had no choice but to trust Zhukov to hold together the Red Army and the defence line…and, one day, Skorzeny and a hundred of his men had landed in a Red