Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: German Civil War - The Berlin Race (4)
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September 2, 1939
Wewelsburg Castle, SS Training Ground, Hanover, 11th Military District, Western Germany
Wewelsburg, a Renaissance-style castle purchased by Himmler and used as an SS training ground.
Leading the attack on the SS-held position, Colonel General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb gave the kill order without hesitation.
“Kill the traitorous SS bastards!”
“The rebel bastards are slandering us! The Führer will never forgive this!”
To the new government, especially its conservative, royalist-leaning generals, the SS were no longer Germans, but simply the enemy.
“Hitler is dead!”
“Nonsense! The Führer is alive!”
From behind cover, the new government's forces and the SS continued to exchange fire, all while fiercely cursing one another.
The sounds of gunfire and artillery never ceased on the battlefield surrounding Wewelsburg Castle. The once-proud castle, with its own antique charm, had been transformed into a grotesque ruin by the shelling.
“Get down!”
“N-no, agh!”
Watching a soldier get blown to pieces by a shell landing within clear view of the command post, SS-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser spoke irritably into the receiver.
“We can't hold on like this. This isn't a military base, it's a training ground. We're severely short on equipment, and our green trainees are being slaughtered!”
[Enemy units are advancing on Berlin right now, so army reinforcements are impossible! However, Marshal Göring has promised to airdrop supplies, so just hold on a little longer.]
“Airdrop supplies?”
Paul Hausser asked back with a deeply skeptical expression, but Army Chief of Staff Halder's reply was firm.
[That's right. Marshal Göring said there will be no problems at all, so don't worry and hold your position.]
Though Paul Hausser had been a promising officer in the army and was now respected like a father figure in the SS, the Wehrmacht did not look kindly upon a general who had retired to join their ranks.
“Understood.”
Paul Hausser put down the receiver and sighed, looking at the young SS members staring only at him.
“Just hold on a little longer. They say supplies are coming by air.”
A glimmer of hope appeared on the men's faces, but Paul Hausser couldn't smooth the frown on his brow as he looked up at the sky.
He didn't know much about the air force, but was it even possible to accurately drop supplies to them, surrounded by the enemy, defending a narrow perimeter around a castle and training ground with no airfield?
Paul Hausser could only hope it was possible, since the Marshal of the Luftwaffe had boasted it was.
The radio news that the SS had tried to start a war had made his own heart sink. But not everyone who joined the SS was a fanatic frenzied for Hitler and the Nazis, who hated Jews and 'inferior races' and craved war.
It was the Nazis' intention, of course, but a good number of men had joined thoughtlessly, simply because they thought the uniform looked cool, or because it seemed manly.
“I have to at least save the boys I trained. What other choice is there?”
The reality that these young men—who had joined out of admiration for Hitler's charisma or simply because they thought it was cool—were now dying, taking the blame for the leadership's sins, was bitter to Paul Hausser.
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September 2, 1939
Army Group South Headquarters, Breslau, 8th Military District, Eastern Germany
[Commander, the SS Adolf Hitler Panzer Regiment from the 13th Army Corps has deserted its position! They're heading for Berlin!]
“Does General Weichs have no control over the regiments under his command?!”
Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group South, clutched his head. He had intended to ignore the order from Berlin to suppress the rebels, dismissing it as an SS matter.
However, the 10th Army under Walter von Reichenau, a known Nazi sympathizer, had raced to Berlin as soon as they received the order. Meanwhile, SS regiments assigned to other armies were deserting their posts at will, causing widespread agitation.
In Blaskowitz's 8th Army, the SS Adolf Hitler Panzer Regiment had deserted, and in List's 14th Army, the SS Germania Motorized Infantry Regiment had done the same, shaking the units to their core.
“Sir, how about we move west for now?”
“Are you suggesting we fight them?”
Hearing the proposal from Manstein, his Chief of Staff for Army Group South, Rundstedt's expression soured.
Even without Beck bringing up the Blomberg-Fritsch affair, he felt a burden of guilt toward Beck and the other generals who had been forced into retirement. He had no desire to shed the blood of men who had once been part of the Wehrmacht.
This was the biggest difference between the Black Orchestra's attempted assassination of Hitler in the original history and the new government's coup happening now.
Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators had attempted to assassinate Hitler in the middle of a war, plunging Germany into chaos. The Wehrmacht viewed the coup, which occurred while they were bleeding on the front lines, as an act of treason committed by men trying to save their own skins.
But the coup happening now was being carried out under the pretext of preventing the German army from shedding that very blood, and a significant portion of the Wehrmacht was reluctant to actively oppose the new government.
“Of course not, General. But if we ignore a direct order from high command, we could be branded as traitors. For now, let's just move slowly. If we simply wait, we risk losing even more control over our troops.”
“Hmm, I see. Very well. Move the 8th Army to Dresden and the 14th Army to Bohemia-Moravia.”
“A wise choice, General.”
Manstein replied as such to Rundstedt, but his thoughts were complex. As long as he was Chief of Staff for Army Group South, he wouldn't be immediately accused of treason.
But he didn't know how long the new government's leaders would remain silent about him, so the moment of decision was crucial.
Moving Army Group South westward looked like a move to check the new government's forces, but it also made it easier to join them if the new government seemed to be gaining the upper hand.
The fact that he still had one foot in the Nazi camp was a demerit, but if he succeeded in bringing Army Group South over to the new government at the right time, the credit would be immense, so he wasn't worried.
For now, the new government was enjoying the advantage of surprise, just as his operational plan had intended. But if they started to look hopeless, he could earn credit for suppressing them, which would be enough to dispel any suspicious accusations.
Of course, even as he thought this, Manstein hoped the new government would prevail. If only for the sake of his own position as Chief of Staff.
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September 3, 1939
Berlin, Northern Germany
Two days after the terrorist attack on the Führer's Chancellery, Germany's capital, Berlin, was still in turmoil.
The citizens of Berlin already knew the reasons behind the coup staged by the new government, whom the Nazis were denouncing as rebels.
Police were busy patrolling the streets to maintain order, but vast quantities of the Frankfurter Zeitung had been scattered across the city during the chaos following the attack on Hitler, and many citizens had already read them.
What Captain Dietrich Schacht and the journalists of the Frankfurter Zeitung had prepared was simple, yet powerful.
The initial exposé was one thing, but distributing newspapers freely in Nazi-controlled territory after the civil war broke out would be difficult.
So, the scattered newspapers had printed the frequency for the resistance radio in huge letters.
The Nazis, of course, banned the frequency, but they couldn't exactly barge into every single home in Germany and smash all the radios.
Above all, the radio was a tool that the Nazis and Goebbels firmly believed was their weapon. The idea that rebels would use radio for a propaganda war, in Germany of all places, was impossible for them to anticipate and prepare for.
The new government had meticulously prepared in advance, more effectively utilizing the same methods the resistance had struggled to use in occupied territories under Nazi rule in the original history.
“Hey, you there! What are you doing!”
“Tch!”
Meanwhile, there were still those who snuck around, distributing newspapers. Ordinarily, during such an emergency and with so many police in Berlin, this would have been a suicide mission.
But with most of the army deployed on the Polish border, and with Himmler—who was in charge of the police—having sent a significant number of his forces west to block the advancing enemy, Berlin was full of gaps.
They had far too few troops to completely surround and lock down the massive city, especially amidst the chaos.
A police officer chasing a man who had been distributing newspapers through the alleyways of Berlin eventually lost him. Panting, he picked up one of the papers the damn rebel had scattered.
“Gasp!”
And what he saw made him gasp in shock.
The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, was waiting at the radio station to deliver a national address at noon.
The evil clutches of those damn traitors had reached for Hitler, the savior sent by heaven for the fatherland, but his messiah had narrowly overcome the crisis and was now stable.
He had not yet regained consciousness, but those rebels who dared to harm Germany's messiah would surely pay a heavy price.
Goebbels vowed this to himself, reviewing the speech he had prepared as he waited for noon.
The exposure of the SS's plot was certainly a setback, but he was confident he could turn public opinion against the traitors who had dared to assassinate the Führer.
“Doctor, five minutes until broadcast.”
Goebbels sat down in front of the microphone.
“To dare wage a propaganda war against us... they don't know their place.”
However, he would not be starting his broadcast.
“Doctor!”
Goebbels scowled at the SS officer who had rudely burst in just before the live broadcast, but after taking the newspaper the man carried and skimming a few pages, he shot up from his seat, his face pale.
Goebbels's scheduled national radio address was postponed.
All across Germany, newspapers were being scattered, filled with articles and photographs of pits piled high with hundreds of corpses, of concentration camp prisoners barely alive in a state too gruesome to behold, and even of a Nazi camp commandant who decorated his home with items made from prisoners' skin and with their skulls.
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September 3, 1939
Frankfurt Radio Station, 9th Military District, Central Germany
I slowly opened my eyes.
I was exhausted after staying up nearly all night yesterday. Thank goodness the sofa was reasonably comfortable.
No, wait.
“Are you awake?”
The sensation under my head didn't feel like a sofa. I looked up to see Claudia smiling down at me.
“Huh?”
“Good morning, Dietrich.”
“Good morning, Claudia.”
As I reflexively replied, Claudia burst out laughing.
Initially, the Abwehr had suggested assassinating Ribbentrop and smuggling her out of the country, but I opposed it.
A large part of it was that I didn't want to send her to a foreign country alone, but more importantly, I knew full well that most anti-Nazi activists were caught not within the country, but while trying to leave it.
So, I spent all the salary I had saved as a soldier, got some support from my father, and bought a mansion in Frankfurt, hiding her there.
It's hard to imagine that someone on the wanted list in Germany would be staying in a fancy mansion in a major city.
And it seemed to be the right choice. She was safe, and now that things have started, we can still be together.
As I smiled naturally, Claudia chuckled and helped me sit up.
“Come on, get up now. People are watching, and actually, it's not morning anymore. It's past noon.”
Her words drew a burst of laughter from those nearby. Argh! I was sleeping on her lap in front of everyone?!
My ears must have been burning red. I could hardly lift my face.
“Ugh, my apologies. I must have dozed off from exhaustion.”
Editor-in-Chief Theodor Heuss, who had moved to Frankfurt, was looking at me as if I were a thief.
I think I know why, but I didn't instigate this, Chief. It's a misunderstanding. He looked at my apologetic face, sighed, and spoke.
“You've been busy, so it's understandable, Captain Schacht. Goebbels's speech has been canceled, and we're ready on our end.”
I felt a great sense of relief at Editor Heuss's words.
Most of the staff from the Frankfurter Zeitung's Berlin branch had joined us in Frankfurt, but a few dedicated employees had remained in Nazi territory.
They were continuously distributing the newspapers we secretly supplied them, and their risky efforts were undoubtedly paying off.
“Excellent work. Thanks to Count Blumenthal's actions, the Nazis are definitely in disarray. We must press our advantage during this time.”
Count Blumenthal's assault team, though busy escaping after the attack, had reported their success in shooting Hitler. However, Nazi broadcasts were advertising that Hitler was fine, likely to prevent further chaos.
The high command, however, judged that Hitler was either dead or, at the very least, in critical condition, based on the fact that he hadn't appeared on any broadcasts.
The high command, which had worried that the raid on the residence would have a low chance of success, couldn't hide their joy, even though the Count's own fate was uncertain.
Furthermore, General Oswald Lutz was rapidly advancing toward Berlin, crushing what little resistance there was, while General von Witzleben and General von Hammerstein were taking over the Bavarian region without meeting much opposition.
Thanks to this, my attempt to persuade the new government's leadership to compromise went up in smoke amidst an elated atmosphere, as if they could win the civil war at any moment.
“Live broadcast in one hour.”
At the radio station staffer's words, I looked back at the former prisoners we'd brought from Buchenwald—those who were in relatively better condition and had volunteered to speak.
“Hah, all right. Let's begin.”
It was hard to expect the hard-headed, far-right royalist conservatives—especially a democracy-hater like Dr. Goerdeler—to agree easily, so we'd have to stick to the original, by-the-book plan.
To make them seriously consider our side of the story, we have to show them our value.
Swaying public opinion is ultimately our role, not the military's or the Kaiser's.
“Let's show those Nazi bastards. They're not the only ones who can play the media game.”