Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

26



PALACE OF JUSTICE

NUREMBERG, GERMANY

NOVEMBER 20, 1945

10:00 A.M.

The crowd rises to its feet in Courtroom 600 as the Nuremberg war crimes trials get under way. Twenty of Nazi Germany’s most brutal leaders sit in the dock under a bank of hot floodlights so bright that each of the prisoners has been given sunglasses.1 Behind them, a row of white-helmeted American military police stand at crisp attention. The eight judges, two each from the United States, Britain, Russia, and France, take their seats at the front of the room. The proceedings begin with a reading of the twenty-four-thousand-word document listing the atrocities for which these men are being tried: the murder of one million Russians at Leningrad, the death of 780 Catholic priests at Mauthausen concentration camp, the machine-gunning of British POWs who were recaptured after their “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III, and much more.

The litany of grisly indictments will take two full days to recount, and the Nazi prisoners soon grow bored. Some, such as Hitler’s former deputy führer Rudolf Hess, actually fall asleep.

Former Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering wears headphones to listen to an interpreter repeat what is being said. Arrogantly, he smirks as an accounting of his war crimes and tales of the art treasures he looted are read into the official court records. The formerly obese Reichsmarschall wears a simple gray uniform that hangs off him; he has lost seventy pounds since being taken prisoner. Goering is eager to speak in his own defense. Across the courtroom, he can see the deputy prosecutor, an American who has interviewed him for weeks. They have come to know each other quite well—so much so that Goering has confided stories about the sex lives of Germany’s greatest generals, and other salacious gossip, to his new friend, who speaks fluent German.



The Nuremberg courtroom

That prosecutor is none other than Wild Bill Donovan, the sixty-two-year-old major general, Medal of Honor winner, and chief of the OSS. The war may be over, but Donovan still has scores to settle. That is why he is here today. Many of his spies died at the hands of the Nazis, who also murdered countless innocent civilians as revenge for successful OSS operations. Donovan is relentlessly anti-Nazi, and began laying the groundwork for these trials as far back as October 1943, when he coaxed President Roosevelt into setting up a postwar apparatus for trying war criminals. It was two months later, in the spirit of Allied cooperation, that Donovan flew to Moscow and began forging a relationship between the OSS and the NKVD.



Hermann Goering with Hitler in Berlin

But things have gone horribly wrong for Donovan in recent months. He has been undone by sordid and unfounded rumors that he is having an affair with his daughter-in-law—a rumor that most displeased the prudish Harry Truman when it reached the Oval Office.2

In a separate incident, a fifty-nine-page report leveling charges of gross mismanagement and incompetence within the OSS was manufactured by Donovan’s rivals and also found its way to President Truman.

Now, even as the heat from the courtroom spotlights makes his pale, broad face flush a light crimson, Wild Bill is desperately clinging to what little authority he has left. A power struggle with chief Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson has not ended in his favor, and the fiery Donovan has decided that he will soon leave the trials rather than be a subordinate.

Even worse, as of October 1, his agency is no more. President Truman has shut down the OSS.

But Donovan knows that the United States needs a global spy network. So even though he is not technically America’s top spy any longer, he still maintains a close relationship with the leaders of the Russian NKVD and with British spymaster William Stephenson.3

It was with British help that Donovan undertook what was known as Operation Jedburgh, in which teams of British, French, and American commandos parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe and conducted the espionage that laid the groundwork for D-day. The men selected to be “Jedburghs” were trained in firearms, sabotage, and close-quarters fighting.

In early 1945, while staying at Claridge’s, his favorite London hotel, Donovan met with a Jedburgh soldier named Douglas Bazata. The thirty-four-year-old Bazata was a red-haired former U.S. Marine with a fondness for tweaking authority by calling colonels “sugar” rather than “sir.” He was also a top marksman and was once the unofficial heavyweight boxing champion of the Marine Corps.

As he sat down for lunch, Bazata was curious: “You have an additional mission for me? You can trust me totally. I am the servant of the United States, of the OSS and General Donovan.”

“Douglas, I do indeed have a problem,” Donovan admitted. They were at a corner table, where they could not be overheard. “It is the extreme disobedience of General George Patton, and of his very serious disregard of orders for the common cause.”

“Shall I kill him, sir?” Bazata was eager to please Donovan, but also cautious. He had met Patton before and liked the general.

“Yes, Douglas. You do exactly what you must. It is now totally your creation.”4

* * *

Weeks ago, Donovan sent his personal papers relating to the Nuremberg Trials back to his home in Washington. But it is not yet time for him to return from Europe. There is something else he must do.

Between the last week of November and the middle of December, when his plane finally touches down at LaGuardia Field in New York, Wild Bill Donovan will roam the continent. With no assignment or agency, he has no reason to report his whereabouts to anyone.

But one thing is clear as the morning of December 9 dawns cold and damp over central Germany: Wild Bill Donovan and Douglas Bazata are on a mission, and it may very well alter George Patton’s future.