Chapter 106
Chapter 106
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: Operation Valkyrie
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May 31, 1940
Berlin, Northern Germany – Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters
I had almost completely excluded the Army General Staff, relying only on Beck, Richthofen, and General Tresckow, a general staff officer whom I trusted implicitly.
As the three of us put our heads together to plan this operation, one question nagged at me.
What are the acceptable limits of self-defense justified by a potential threat?
As the sun began to set, I arrived at the Replacement Army Headquarters and stepped out of the car. I immediately turned and blocked Claudia, who was about to get out.
“Claudia. Would you mind going down to Frankfurt?”
“No. I’m staying with you.”
Her immediate reply drew a bitter smile from me. This was just like her, but it felt a little troublesome right now.
With Nazi stooges potentially anywhere, staying in Berlin on the eve of the operation was anything but safe.
To be honest, I was certain I was at the top of the Nazi remnants’ kill list.
“...What if I make it an order, aide?”
“I would obey, but you would be resented for it, Mr. Vice-Chancellor.”
As I let out a small sigh, Claudia added.
“You wouldn’t send me alone, would you? If we’re going to split the escort, I think it would be better to concentrate them in one place. You’re in more danger than I am, aren’t you?”
...She had a way of persuading me. Her ability to think rationally even in moments like this was truly remarkable.
“...That’s wise.”
“Honestly, I’m wondering if I just came up with a plausible reason to justify my feelings.”
Just as I thought that, she added in an uncertain tone, making me laugh despite the tension.
“Hah, very well. Follow me, aide.”
As I entered the Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters with my bodyguards and Claudia in tow, just as the workday was ending, all eyes immediately fell on us.
Some of the men in uniform, seeing my Lt. Colonel’s insignia, saluted me, and I returned their gestures appropriately as I walked inside.
Walking into the Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters with an operations order… it felt like a scene from a modern Korean movie.
But the commander of the Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters was not Friedrich Fromm. He had been punished as a collaborator of the Nazi regime.
Instead, I came face to face with General Friedrich Olbricht, the man who, in the original history, had arrested Fromm alongside Stauffenberg during Operation Valkyrie.
“My apologies for the late hour, General Olbricht. I am Dietrich Schacht, Vice-Chancellor of the Chancellery.”
General Olbricht had surrendered along with the 8th Army, then distinguished himself during the civil war and was promoted to General of the Infantry, taking command of the Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters.
“Welcome, Vice-Chancellor Schacht. There aren’t many in Berlin who don’t know your face. What brings you to the Berlin Replacement Army Headquarters?”
I handed General Olbricht a sealed envelope containing the order. He immediately tore it open, unfolded it, and spoke.
“...The signatory is Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Ludwig Beck. ...Is this a direct order from the Ministry of Defense, not the Army High Command?”
“That is correct, General. Certain elements within the army are plotting a coup in league with Nazi remnants. Tonight, at dawn, we must mobilize the Berlin Replacement Army to neutralize the Nazi remnants within Berlin and prepare for a potential clash with coup forces.”
There were confirmed Nazi remnants in Berlin that needed to be secured, and we had to mobilize the Replacement Army in advance in case we failed to suppress the 3rd Army.
However, neither the suppression of the 3rd Army nor the mobilization of the Replacement Army could happen before the other, lest it alert the enemy. Thus, we had to execute both simultaneously, which made the timeline rather tight.
For security reasons, I had delivered the order myself. Thanks to that, General Olbricht seemed to immediately grasp the gravity of the situation.
“This order is so sudden that I’m a bit taken aback, but with you here in person and the order from Field Marshal Beck being authentic...”
General Olbricht looked down at the order again before speaking.
“We will execute Operation Valkyrie.”
-
June 1, 1940
Poznań, Northeastern Germany – 3rd Army Garrison
In the dead of night, as most people slept, dozens of Ju 52 transport planes flew across the dark sky above the 3rd Army garrison, signaling the start of the operation.
Unfortunately for the 3rd Army, the sky was quite cloudy, preventing the countless parachutes descending upon their garrison from being clearly visible.
The 3rd Army sentries, on their usual boring and leisurely watch, were startled by figures suddenly appearing in the dark streets.
“What the—Halt, halt! Hawk!”
“Frog!”
The sentries let out a sigh of relief at the correct countersign and lowered their rifles, but the man just looked around at the ground as if searching for something, then found a large, spread-out object on the ground.
“What’s your unit? Why are you wandering around at this hour...”
On a tense frontline, this would have been unthinkable, but the sentries, accustomed to their tedious duty, approached the man who had given the correct password without a second thought.
That was why they could only freeze in shock when the man, who had been folding up the parachute on the ground, suddenly raised a submachine gun and aimed it at them.
“Wh-what the hell?”
“Sorry, buddy. That’s not our password.”
Before the sentries could react, the man lunged forward and struck one of them in the head with his gun, knocking him out. The other sentry, seeing his comrade fall, was struck from behind by another man before he could even shout and collapsed.
“Hawk?”
“Meyer.”
The two men, who had exchanged a password used only in the Luftwaffe, dragged the pitifully unconscious sentries into a corner, grinning.
“Damn it, landing right next to the sentries. What a mess.”
“See the rifle crate?”
“Here.”
The two men, members of the Fallschirmjäger (German paratroopers), quickly cleared the parachute, opened the crate, and picked up rifles.
“First combat jump and it’s a total clusterfuck. Where’s the commander?”
“Who knows? It’s the paratroopers, what do you expect? We know what we have to do, right?”
The two men recalled the words of their grim-faced commander and, grinning, shouted in unison.
“Take down anything that gets in the way and crush the head!”
-
The Fallschirmjägers' operation, which began quietly by neutralizing sentries after dropping into the 3rd Army garrison under the cover of darkness, soon threw the entire garrison into turmoil.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?”
“Hawk!”
“Uh, huh? F-Fro—Ugh!”
Soldiers of the 3rd Army, rushing out in confusion, were swiftly subdued the moment they answered the demand for the password.
Though they were effectively isolated in the middle of enemy territory, the Fallschirmjäger, filled with pride as the Luftwaffe’s special forces and rigorously trained by the ‘most dangerous man in Europe,’ were not cowards who would be intimidated by second-rate ‘grunts.’
Moreover, the Fallschirmjäger had been forced to memorize the layout of the 3rd Army garrison, provided by the Abwehr, until they were sick of it. Now, filled with the desire to vent their frustration on the responsible parties, they swarmed through the barracks and buildings of the garrison.
Though outnumbered, the 3rd Army was in chaos, ignorant of the enemy’s size and identity. They couldn’t control the situation at all, their numerical superiority rendered meaningless.
Some 3rd Army commanders did grasp the situation quickly and reacted immediately.
“This is an order from Lieutenant General Petzel! The Kempf Panzer Division is to return to their barracks and hold their positions! Do not engage!”
“The 11th Infantry Division will follow the orders of the Fourth Reich government! We are not involved in this incident!”
Lieutenant General Walter Petzel, commander of the I Army Corps, who had been lukewarm and noncommittal from the start, quickly assessed the situation and began personally shouting orders, gathering his subordinate commanders one by one. Soon, he had verbally broadcasted a declaration of non-resistance throughout his entire corps.
Thanks to this, the Fallschirmjäger were able to cut through the already chaotic 3rd Army and target its high command.
Meanwhile, the 3rd Army's Commander-in-Chief, General of the Artillery Georg von Küchler, remained completely oblivious to the situation. In his command post, with no lights and only a flashlight for illumination, he and his senior staff were in a state of utter confusion.
“What’s going on? Radio and lights are all out?”
“Y-yes, sir! It seems all power and communication lines have been cut!”
To achieve this, Count Blumenthal and Clemens Fleck’s garrison battalion in Poznań had mobilized engineers and troops to dig trenches all night.
It was a risky move, but the 3rd Army, having been stationed alongside them for a long time, had grown complacent and accustomed to their presence. They either didn't notice or simply accepted the flimsy excuse of "maintenance work."
Of course, Clemens, who was carrying out the task, had several heart-stopping moments, but that wasn't important now.
“Damn it all! What the hell were the sentries doing?”
Küchler felt like he was about to burst with frustration.
They had been ambushed in the dead of night, and the enemy was now roaming through the middle of their camp as if they owned the place, wreaking havoc under the cover of darkness.
They were all German soldiers, so without lights, there was no way to tell friend from foe. Firing indiscriminately would only lead to a friendly-fire catastrophe, with the larger 3rd Army suffering the most.
Besides, even if the high command knew the exact situation, they had no way to relay orders to their troops.
How could they possibly command an entire field army in the middle of the night without any means of communication?
Unfortunately, among the generals who had joined the coup plot, none possessed Lieutenant General Petzel's quick-wittedness.
Perhaps in an age reliant on messengers, it would have been different, but having grown accustomed to modern conveniences, they were simply lost in the sudden chaos.
Furthermore, the generals involved in the coup were paralyzed by the fear of being discovered, their panic preventing them from making calm judgments.
“Wh-who—Ugh!”
At that moment, a large figure burst into the command post and struck down a staff officer. Immediately after, a flood of soldiers poured into the room and began overpowering the senior staff.
“W-what is this? Who are you!”
Küchler immediately drew his pistol, but the enemy shone a flashlight directly into his face. He groaned, unable to see, and was promptly disarmed and subdued.
“General of the Artillery Georg von Küchler. By order of Minister of Defense Field Marshal Ludwig Beck, you are under arrest for treason.”
“D-damn you! I was doing this for the Fatherland—”
Küchler, who had been shouting, fell silent as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and he made out the grim face of the man standing before him.
“For the Fatherland, you say?”
“N-no, no.”
As the towering figure, a head taller than him, asked the question with a menacing face, Küchler flinched and had to deny it.
“Commander! It's the signal flare. All teams have completed their missions!”
Otto Skorzeny grinned, his grim face breaking into a smile.
“Haha, we pulled it off beautifully. Yes, this is it. Nothing beats being in the field.”
He’d been wondering where to go after being rejected for pilot training when the civil war broke out. He was lucky to have caught Richthofen’s eye.
Of course, right after that, the upper echelons of the Luftwaffe were wiped out, leading Richthofen to place great trust in him. However, the distrustful gazes toward Skorzeny, the "unproven newcomer," had not disappeared.
This operation was his first mission as the interim commander of the paratroopers, and it was crucial. It was important for both the Luftwaffe, which needed to shed its reputation as a Nazi-founded organization, and for his own career.
“Congratulations, Commander! Now you can officially become the commander of the paratroopers!”
Otto Skorzeny smiled with satisfaction at his subordinate’s words.
It seemed he had definitively achieved the results that the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, Wolfram von Richthofen, had demanded—results that would earn the paratroopers recognition as a fully independent special operations unit.
-
“Damn it, damn it all. To be exposed so pathetically.”
Walter Schellenberg, the head of the SD who had been lying low in a hotel in Poznań, was hastily packing his belongings.
Out of nowhere, the Replacement Army had been mobilized in Berlin, and the Nazi underground organizations and prison informants preparing the coup were being arrested simultaneously.
A startled Schellenberg had tried to go to the 3rd Army garrison, only to see it being raided as well, forcing him to rush back to the hotel.
To be hit so one-sidedly without even knowing where the information leaked from. Where did it leak? Did the 3rd Army report them? Or was there a traitor among the agents?
Did Brauchitsch, who had met that damned Dietrich Schacht, reveal everything? Of course, at this point, it didn’t matter.
“Damn it all, this is why I didn’t want to come to Germany!”
Schellenberg, as the head of the SD, didn't need to come to Germany personally. But the German insiders, having already witnessed the fall of the Nazis once, had remained lukewarm despite persistent approaches.
As a result, Himmler had practically forced him to go, saying they needed a big shot to reassure them. And now, this had happened.
Schellenberg was haphazardly throwing piles of documents into the fireplace to burn when he paused, his hand hovering over the list of collaborators in this grand undertaking.
Even if he returned to Italy from here, would he be safe?
With the Fourth Reich confiscating the assets of Nazi personnel with hawk-like vigilance, the slush funds he had painstakingly smuggled out and the budget Himmler had wheedled out of Mussolini with all sorts of sweet talk were gone, not to mention the collapse of the remaining SD network in Germany.
His thoughts were cut short by a sudden knock on the door. Schellenberg swallowed hard and drew his pistol.
“Guest? I’m sorry, but we’ve had complaints from other rooms that you’re being too loud at this late hour.”
Thankfully, it seemed to be a hotel employee. Of course, real agents wouldn’t do something so foolish, but Schellenberg, who had been a desk worker, let out a sigh of relief and opened the door.
“Ah, my apologies. Ugh!”
The moment he did, he was grabbed by the collar and thrown against the wall.
“Kuh!”
Schellenberg tried to raise his pistol, but his arm was kicked by an Abwehr agent, and he watched with a despairing expression as his gun flew across the room. He then raised his gaze.
“Hello, you son of a bitch.”
Hans Oster, Deputy Director of the Abwehr, looked down at him and smiled like the grim reaper.