The General Secretary's Son and the Sorcerer's Apprentice
Otto Moritz Walter Model.
The Lion of Defense—Abwehrlöwen.
Master of the Defensive—Meister der Defensive.
Savior of the Eastern Front—Retter der Ostfront.
Hitler's Fireman—Hitler's Feuerwehrmann.
This man, who collected every sort of nickname a soldier could earn, was Greater Germany's finest defensive commander—and the finest defensive commander of the Second World War itself.
In the war's early years he had been a passionate, aggressive armored commander; after taking command of the Ninth Army in 1942 and driving the Rzhev campaign, he was thrown into every collapsing sector and either reversed the disaster or held the line. Walter Model, the great captain of Greater Germany.
I could scarcely believe he stood before me, so I asked again.
"Is it truly Walter Model?"
"It is… yes."
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice—Der Zauberlehrling?"
"Hm? You know that name as well?"
… Damn.
Without thinking I had let slip the nickname that circulated only among German officers.
Cold sweat ran down my spine. Model's sharp eyes fixed on me as if he had just caught something out of place.
"I saw it in Pravda. It said that among the exchange officers training under the Treaty of Rapallo was Walter Model, star pupil of the 'Superman of the Western Front.'"
"What is Pravda?"
"A kind of newspaper, Captain Model."
Zhukov's brief clarification eased the edge in Model's gaze by a fraction. He did not look entirely convinced, but he seemed willing to let it pass for now.
"So the Union even prints such things in its papers."
"Ahaha… pure coincidence. I happened to read it in yesterday's Pravda."
I laughed awkwardly. In front of me Rokossovsky held out a glass of vodka. A fierce alcoholic heat rose from it, sharp enough to scorch the throat.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice… quite a fine nickname."
"Isn't it? Meanwhile someone else is stuck with 'beetle.'"
"Shut your mouth, Broom—Besen."
Zhukov and Rokossovsky bickered as usual. Model paid their squabble no attention at all; his eyes stayed on me as he spoke.
"Yakov Dzhugashvili."
"You may call me Yasha… if you like."
Model nodded.
"First, allow me to offer my sincere apologies for barging so abruptly into your gathering. When I heard that the Union possessed a master of tactical theory, curiosity simply would not let me rest."
A master of tactical theory…?
Just what had they told him I was?
I glanced sideways at Rokossovsky and Zhukov. The two of them were still arguing.
"… If the uninvited guest is the Sorcerer's Apprentice, then it is we who ought to receive him with open arms."
"Forgive me. That nickname rather makes my skin crawl. I am merely a captain who has had the great honor of being sent on exchange under my mentor's renown."
Model extended a hand, then politely declined something and removed the monocle from his eye.
Strictly speaking, most of the nicknames attached to Model had originally belonged to his ideological mentor, Fritz von Lossberg. That fact did nothing, however, to diminish the achievements of the soldier named Walter Model.
"Do not belittle yourself. Captain Model, you will one day become a great soldier who surpasses even your mentor's renown."
"… Heh. Is it proper to praise an officer of another country so highly?"
Why shouldn't it be? I was only stating the plain truth.
Model held out a glass with an expression so mild I could never have imagined it moments earlier.
"Since we are in a tavern, we ought to drink first."
"Gladly."
I smiled and clinked my glass against his.
"Khh… this liquor is truly fierce."
Model wiped his mouth and began in a calm voice.
"In any case, those two officers told me something interesting. They said there is no theorist in the Union to match you. May I ask which unit you belong to?"
"Um… well…"
"Haha…! Captain Model, Yasha is an ordinary student!"
"Hm?"
"He isn't even an adult yet. Isn't that right, Dzhugashvili?"
"… A student?"
Model repeated the word with open doubt.
"Did you not call him 'the Union's foremost theorist'? I naturally assumed he would be at least an operations staff officer…"
"We said theorist, Captain—not soldier."
"… Word games."
Model's mouth curved in a short laugh. His eyes did not smile.
"Very well. Then there is no disagreement that a student who has never even set foot inside the military has, through pure 'theory,' convinced two commanders who have been through every ordeal?"
"On that point there is none."
"Well… at least Yasha's insight outstrips ours."
Before I could even wave the praise away, the two generals conceded the point without hesitation, leaving me thoroughly flustered.
— Thunk.
The sound of an empty glass being pushed to one side of the table rang especially clear.
"When two regimental commanders of the Union speak with one voice, how can I simply let the matter drop?"
"……"
"Yasha, I wish to hear it from your own lips."
Model fixed his gaze on me.
"I have a problem that refuses to resolve itself. No matter how carefully I refine it, some corner always sticks, and no answer emerges."
His eyes gleamed as he continued.
"What about you? Might you offer a word of advice?"
"Hmm…"
Walter Model.
He might be smiling over his glass now, but this monocled gentleman remained an officer of the Weimar Republic. The Treaty of Rapallo had normalized relations between the Soviet Union and Germany, yet they were still a former enemy of the Soviet state.
Strategy and tactics were not subjects to discuss freely with an officer of a hostile power—least of all with a rising young officer of such promise. And if history ran its course, this man would become one of Nazi Germany's finest generals.
… Still, this is Walter Model. I'm curious what he'll say. Might as well listen.
When I gave a small nod, Model opened his mouth with a solemn expression.
"For example…"
Even knowing what label might attach to him if a single careless word leaked back to his homeland, Model laid out, without reservation, the form of future warfare as he envisioned it.
— Tap.
Model planted his index finger on the table. Then, using the vodka that had spilled from the glasses and the empty vessels themselves as terrain, he began to draw invisible lines across them.
"In the last war we were fools. We committed the error of packing soldiers into a single line along the front while clinging to the trenches."
His finger passed elegantly over the vodka.
"Who could have known that the trenches we believed the strongest ramparts would collapse before the British secret weapon—the Tank?"
— Swoosh.
"Once the trench line was breached, that was the end. One point gave way, and like a bursting dike everything was swept away."
The horizontal line shaped like a trench crumbled beneath Model's fingertip.
"The Imperial Army belatedly fielded countermeasures such as the A7V, but by then, unfortunately, the tide of the war had already turned. We staked everything on the trench line… and so we lost."
A brief silence followed, as if he were chewing over the memory of defeat.
Model had fought in countless battles on the Western Front—the Marne, Verdun, the Somme, and more. As aide-de-camp to Oskar of Prussia he had known both frontline command and staff work; he was an elite officer in every sense.
So the German Empire's defeat was hardly someone else's story to him…
"The form of future war will revolve around these armored vehicles."
At those words Zhukov and Rokossovsky, who had drawn closer at some point, both nodded. They were veterans of the First World War, the Civil War, and the Bolshevik campaigns—men who had felt the destructive power of Renault tanks on their own skins. They could certainly understand.
"In the last war these machines were nothing more than slow hunks of scrap iron that constantly broke down. Yet none of us can deny it: that scrap iron was the strategic weapon that changed the nature of war itself."
— Scrape.
Model picked up an empty glass.
"If these scrap-iron machines continue to develop until they become a single hammer—no, a hundred hammers—then the front will collapse in one blow."
He shoved the glass rapidly, like lightning, into the center of the puddle that stood for the enemy nation.
"The problem is precisely that. No matter how hard I think, I cannot conceive of a strategy or tactic to plug the hole that will be smashed open…"
Model clutched his head, his face twisted with frustration.
Only then did I understand his purpose.
Model was trapped in a dilemma. The shield was rusting while the spear grew ever sharper, and nothing came to mind that could replace the perforated shield. Yet to speak of spear against spear was impossible, for Germany was in no position to forge spears of its own.
After the armistice the Treaty of Versailles had forbidden the development of new weapons…
How was such a Germany to survive the coming age of armored warfare?
That was what Walter Model was asking now.
"……"
I did not open my mouth at once.
I knew how to fill the hole. And this monocled gentleman would, in time, grasp the method somehow. The tactics I was thinking of had been his to begin with.
So what choice should I make?
After a moment's deliberation in that fleeting span of time, I opened my mouth.