Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: German Civil War - Oath of Loyalty (1)
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< German Civil War - Oath of Loyalty (1) >
October 6, 1939
Kassel, IX Military District, Central Germany, New Government Chancellery in Frankfurt
After the conference concluded, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier resigned to take responsibility for the complete diplomatic failure, despite his personal involvement. Paul Reynaud succeeded him.
La Rocque's French Social Party vehemently condemned the Radical Party's failure, gaining momentum and further fueling the chaos within the French Third Republic.
Unfortunately for them, the German people saw the turmoil in France as sweet revenge for Versailles and the Ruhr, and they rejoiced. The diplomatic staff and I, upon returning from our diplomatic battle in Britain, were welcomed with fervent enthusiasm.
We had succeeded in satisfying a public that wanted neither a war with Britain and France nor another capitulation.
The new government, which had been teetering from the monarchist coup, was able to quickly overcome the crisis.
“You’ve worked hard. You handled it rather well.”
My father, Hjalmar Schacht, praised me, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly on his characteristically stern face.
Honestly, I thought I did a pretty good job this time, but is that all the recognition I get?
As if his business with me was finished, Hjalmar immediately moved on to congratulate Weizsäcker and Kordt.
I’m the fool for expecting anything more from him...
“Still, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief on the diplomatic front. How are things with Italy?”
“Well, about that…”
At my question, Ludwig Beck, no longer regent but Minister of Defense, trailed off with a peculiar expression.
“Don’t tell me they broke through?”
No, surely not. It couldn’t be that the Italians, the same ones who screwed me over at Guadalajara, were only incompetent as allies but suddenly became formidable as enemies, could it?
“They were attacked and repulsed by the Austrian army and are now engaged in a border skirmish.”
“Excuse me?”
Why would the Austrian and Italian armies be fighting? And wasn’t most of the Austrian army integrated into the Wehrmacht and deployed for the invasion of Poland?
“The Italians announced they would annex Tyrol. The enraged Austrian border guards attacked and routed the Italian forces. The Italians have since launched another attack, and they’re currently fighting.”
A so-called great power, routed by border guards? What is this? And before that, annexing Tyrol?
“Didn’t Mussolini join the war as an ally of the Nazis?”
“He did.”
I was simply at a loss for words. All that time on the plane worrying about what to do if Bavaria was invaded was a complete waste?
“Haha…”
How absurd. I’m genuinely curious what kind of face Hitler is making right now.
Still, I couldn’t let such a golden opportunity pass.
With the internal and external crises averted, it was finally time to settle the score.
-
October 7, 1939
Berlin, Northern Germany, New Reich Chancellery
[The Führer, who claimed to serve the German people and nation, is selling out his own homeland to a foreign power while denouncing us as rebels! Germany, awaken! What Germany was it that Goebbels and his cronies cried for us to awaken to!]
“Schacht, Schacht! That traitor! Turn it off! Turn it off this instant!”
Hitler, who had been listening to the radio, screamed hysterically.
[Open your eyes now! Do not close them and listen to their propaganda, but see the truth with your own eyes! The Germany they speak of is not our fatherland, but a nation subservient to them—]
Wilhelm Keitel, sweating profusely, turned off the radio as Hitler clutched the back of his neck and staggered.
“That, give me that! Quickly!”
Erwin Rommel sighed softly as he watched Hitler.
After saving Hitler during the attack on the Chancellery, Rommel had become the Führer's most favored Wehrmacht general and was promoted to Lieutenant General, but lately, his sighs had become more frequent.
“Here you are, my Führer.”
Hitler tossed the pills Morell handed him into his mouth and gulped down some water.
Even to Rommel, who knew little of medicine, it was clear that the drugs prescribed by his physician, Theodor Morell, were steadily worsening the Führer's condition.
But Hitler, suffering terribly from the aftereffects of his injuries, trusted Morell’s word implicitly and demanded medication from him whenever the pain flared up.
“Hah, hah. Mussolini, what in the hell is that damn fool thinking!”
His supposed ally was making insane demands for Austria, and when the military government’s coup occurred, he reached out to Britain and France.
Only after being rejected by them did he offer his help, again demanding southern Austria. Hitler felt his blood boil.
Mussolini had stubbornly insisted he couldn't help without a territorial concession, so Hitler had hastily agreed to hand over Tyrol, planning to teach Mussolini a lesson after crushing the rebels...
But even Hitler had never imagined those madmen would declare the annexation of Tyrol in the middle of a civil war.
“Once I crush these rebels, I’ll deal with Mussolini, agh!”
Hitler clutched the back of his neck again.
He had sent all the Nazi party members and pro-Nazi Austrian generals to the Polish front, intending to let them earn glory. As a result, Major General Eglseer, who was in command of the Austrian border guard, was far from being a Nazi.
Upon hearing the Italian declaration to annex Tyrol, he immediately rallied the local residents and border guards and began a furious assault on the Italian forces.
Hitler hastily ordered the Reichskommissariat for Austria to cease hostilities with the Italians, but the Austrian Nazi Party had already lost control of the situation.
The new government seized upon the incident, launching a massive propaganda campaign accusing the Nazis of selling out their own people. The Wehrmacht and public opinion, which had just begun to quiet down after the coup, were once again in an uproar.
It’s that damn Schacht, that’s the problem. Schacht, Schacht. Father and son, the most vicious of traitors.
The father opposed him at every turn, and he should have realized the son had the makings of a traitor from the moment he pointedly avoided pledging his loyalty directly.
“My Führer, with all due respect, the Wehrmacht High Command is being inundated with calls from generals demanding to know if it is true that Austrian territory was promised to Italy.”
Wilhelm Keitel spoke, though he was drenched in a cold sweat. Hitler just yelled.
“How many times must I say it! Nothing of the sort happened! The Austrian forces are traitors who have sided with the new government, and the Italians are merely suppressing them! Tell the Wehrmacht to start their offensive against those traitors at once!”
In the end, Hitler and the Nazi Party chose to abandon Austria. The Nazis announced that General Eglseer and a portion of the Austrian army had joined the rebellion, necessitating suppression by Italian forces.
For now, with the Nazis having banned the new government's radio, newspapers, and phone lines into their territory, it would be somewhat effective. But it wouldn't be possible to conceal it for long, as civilians and even some Wehrmacht soldiers were listening to the new government's radio on the frequencies they'd seen in the newspapers distributed on the first day of the coup.
The Nazis had nothing to gain by dragging this out and were pressuring the Wehrmacht to crush the rebels by any means necessary.
“With respect, my Führer, we continue to issue the order, but the only response we receive is that an offensive cannot begin without supplies.”
The Nazi Wehrmacht looked good only on paper. As the main force prepared for the invasion of Poland, its numbers and equipment were stronger than the new government's army.
But with the Ruhr industrial region, which produced key equipment, and the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt (in northern Bavaria) in enemy hands, they couldn’t properly manufacture a single piece of heavy equipment or spare parts.
What good was an armored division? If a tank broke down while driving, they couldn't even get engine parts.
“Damn them all! Those are just excuses! Do they think I don’t know they’re just waiting to see who comes out on top between us and the rebels!”
Hitler blamed the Wehrmacht, and he was half right, but the equipment situation for the Nazi-aligned Wehrmacht was truly deteriorating by the day.
Currently, the only armored vehicles Nazi Germany was producing were Czech-made tanks from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Even those production lines had been in the process of being converted to produce Panzer IIIs and IVs, as further production was deemed unnecessary. After the civil war broke out and they lost the ball-bearing factories, they had to switch back to the Czech tank lines, which could be produced without German-made parts.
Moreover, the local Czech workers were being very uncooperative. Production was naturally hitting rock bottom, and what little was produced was being assigned to the Waffen-SS, not the Wehrmacht.
“My Führer, please send me to the front. I will stand at the vanguard and pledge my loyalty.”
Unable to watch any longer, Rommel stepped forward, but Hitler immediately went to him and shook his head.
“Oh, no. General Rommel. You must stay by my side.”
Wilhelm Keitel eyed Rommel, whom Hitler was practically clinging to, with disapproval, but Rommel himself felt nothing but distress.
He was ambitious, but his poor relationship with the General Staff, the real power in the German army, had blocked his path to advancement. That was why he had tried to get on Hitler’s good side.
As a result, he had been promoted to Major General, and as head of the Führer's security detail, he had saved his life, earning another promotion to Lieutenant General.
At first, Rommel felt it was a soldier’s point of pride to have saved the life of his nation’s leader from a terrorist attack.
But the joy was fleeting. By Hitler’s side, he listened to the new government’s radio broadcasts and overheard Hitler’s orders to Nazi officials, and a sense of doubt began to grow.
It was agonizing to deal with a Führer who was unable to go to the front, watching the situation deteriorate while being ravaged by the aftereffects of his injuries and the drugs, his respect for the man slowly eroding.
“The only one I can trust in the Wehrmacht is you, General Rommel. The rest are all traitors, schemers, and vile opportunists.”
To the Führer, who had become pathologically dependent on him since the attack, Rommel could only reply with a bitter smile.
“There must be loyal men within the Wehrmacht as well, my Führer.”
“Of course, of course there are. Yes. The problem is the opportunistic traitors…”
Rommel had merely offered a platitude, but he flinched when Hitler spoke as if suddenly inspired.
Hitler, however, quickly retreated into his own world, muttering to himself. Then, his eyes, which had taken on the glaze of a madman ravaged by pain and drugs, lit up as he whispered quietly.
“In that case, I have no choice but to make a clear example of them.”
-
October 9, 1939
Potsdam, a city southwest of Berlin, Northern Germany, 10th Army Garrison
The garrison of the 10th Army, the first to pledge loyalty and rush to Berlin after the new government’s coup, was in an uproar.
“What, what is it! What’s going on?!”
The Gestapo, who had barged into the XI Army Corps headquarters, made a bold declaration before the stunned corps generals.
“General of the Artillery Emil Leeb! By order of the Führer, you are under arrest on suspicion of colluding with the rebel Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb.”
“What? Arresting the corps commander while we’re facing the enemy?!”
Major General Friedrich Karl Cranz, commander of the 18th Infantry Division, protested as if it were absurd, but the Gestapo paid him no mind.
“Obstructing our official duties will be taken as an admission of collusion with the rebels.”
“This is insane…”
As the staff officers sighed in despair, the commander of the XI Army Corps, General of the Artillery Emil Leeb, let out a deep sigh.
“Yes, my brother did join the rebels. But I am a general of the Wehrmacht who has sworn an oath of loyalty. It seems that oath meant nothing to the Führer.”
Emil Leeb gestured for his subordinate generals not to intervene, then rose from his seat and followed the Gestapo out.
“What in the world is…”
Only the staff and subordinate division commanders were left behind, muttering in a daze as their commander was dragged away.
At almost the same time, similar events were unfolding in other corps.
“General of the Cavalry Erich Hoepner! We have confirmed records of your phone calls with the rebel leader Ludwig Beck! You are under arrest for collusion!”
“That damn Bohemian corporal…”
“So you admit to being a traitor!”
The Wehrmacht, which had been sitting idly in its garrisons without proper equipment or supplies, was thrown into chaos. But the Gestapo, as if they had prepared for this, swiftly descended upon each unit, arresting the generals for whom warrants had been issued.
“Commander-in-Chief! What is the meaning of this! They are arresting front-line commanders of units facing the enemy at will!”
Walter Model, Chief of Staff of the IV Army Corps, was on the phone with the Army High Command, enraged.
[Calm down, Model. All those arrested are suspected of colluding with the rebels, and the Führer himself ordered it.]
Brauchitsch spoke calmly, but Walter Model did not back down.
“We rushed to defend Berlin first, out of loyalty to the state and the regime! The army has fulfilled its duty to the regime, yet the regime is—"
[Model, you were on the arrest list too.]
Walter Model was cut off by Brauchitsch.
A brief silence followed before Model spoke.
“Is it because I recommended that fellow, Schacht?”
[Yes. Of course, I know you are innocent. But you should also know I went to great lengths to have your name removed from the list. It makes things difficult when you act like this.]
Walter Model sank weakly into his chair.
[Cool your head and just follow orders. You’ve done well so far. I’m busy, so I’ll hang up now. Keep up the good work.]
The call ended, and Walter Model stared blankly at the light fixture on the ceiling.
“A soldier does not judge; he merely obeys.”
He recited the teaching of Seeckt that he had followed his entire life, but he could find no answer.
For what, exactly, does one pledge loyalty?
< German Civil War - Oath of Loyalty (1) > End
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