The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

his secretaries since 1933, when Hitler had first become Chancellor. At first
she thought they must be heading to Staaken, but then they drove on, past
the airfield. Eventually, they came to a halt in the forecourt of the small
station, where an unusual train stood waiting.
This was Amerika, the Führer Train – ten extremely long, dark green,
armour-plated coaches pulled by two steam locomotives. Hitler was in a
relaxed, confident mood still. Over the years, Christa had learned to tell his
mood from his tone of voice, and now it was clear and exact, his face often
breaking into smiles. The Führer had turned fifty-one just under three
weeks before. A chronic hypochondriac, he felt sure his health was slipping
away; it was one of the reasons he was in such a hurry – he needed to
achieve his ambitions before it was too late. His pale eyes, however, were
still bright, and his hair was still mostly dark, as was his distinct moustache,
kept partly for its obvious identity value and partly to hide his large nose.
‘My nose is much too big,’ he had once said. ‘I need the moustache to
relieve the effect.’
Still Christa had no idea where they were headed. Nor, it seemed, did
her fellow secretary, Gerda Daranowski, or Hitler’s press chief, Otto
Dietrich. At dinner in the dining car, Hitler’s army adjutant, Generalleutnant
Rudolf Schmundt, joked, ‘Have you all got your sea-sick pills?’ Christa
immediately concluded they must be headed to Norway. Hitler then teased,
‘If you are good, you might be able to bring home a sealskin trophy.’
Christa Schroeder may have been in the dark, literally and metaphorically,
as Amerika puffed its way through the wide forests of northern Germany,
but along the German border the men detailed to launch the great offensive
were finally being briefed. Army Group A had just seven panzer and three
mechanized divisions. Eight of those were in the specially formed Panzer
Group Kleist, of which Guderian’s corps was to provide the point of main
effort. But while Panzer Group Kleist was to mount a second supporting
crossing with General Georg-Hans Reinhardt’s three divisions a little
further north of Guderian’s corps at Monthermé, a third was planned twenty
miles north still, at Dinant, by two panzer divisions that were part of the
Fourth Army and quite separate from Panzer Group Kleist.
One of these was the 7th Panzer Division commanded by a thrusting
young Major-General named Erwin Rommel, who as an infantryman had
won Germany’s highest award for bravery in the First World War, the Pour