Chapter 102
Chapter 102
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Valkyrie Operation (3)
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Hitler arrived at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia just past 8 p.m.
The Führer had hastily ordered a response to the plot unfolding at Army Group Center, but Communications Director Fellgiebel's sabotage meant the Wolf's Lair's voice wasn't reaching the outside world properly.
Hitler had no choice but to rely on a few live telephone lines to check on the situation around him.
It was thirty minutes after arriving at the Wolf's Lair that he confirmed a coup had broken out in Berlin.
With information coming in so slowly, the Führer's response couldn't be swift.
Still, he managed to get through to SS Reich Leader Himmler somehow.
In truth, Himmler himself had fled Berlin to evade the arrest squad sent by Berlin Police Chief Arthur Nebe.
Hitler bellowed in an agitated voice.
"Traitors are trampling the Empire in the mud, and the Gestapo couldn't even detect this—what the hell have they been doing?"
"I apologize, my Führer. The SS will respond swiftly."
"Swiftly? Before the Armed SS can return to the capital, those bastards will strike the Wolf's Lair first!"
"My Führer, in that case, go to Vinnytsia in Ukraine. I'll dispatch SS armed forces there immediately."
"That's out of the question. We don't have time to waste flying around up there. Don't you get it?"
Hitler, already irritated, took it out on Himmler.
He vented for a while before finally calming his excitement.
"I'm sorry. I lost control of my emotions."
"Not at all, my Führer."
"Deploy the fastest units available to march on Berlin."
"Understood."
Hitler then spoke with Göring, second in the Reich's hierarchy.
Göring immediately reaffirmed his loyalty and promised to commit 100,000 air force troops for the crackdown.
"I know the Reichsmarschall's loyalty well. See to it, then."
The Navy also pledged its loyalty.
What about the Army?
How reliable was the Army?
'Untrustworthy scum.'
The traitors who had launched the rebellion were all Army personnel to begin with.
Just thinking about it made Hitler's blood boil.
But turning the entire Army against him would turn even a winnable fight into a loss.
Once he'd calmed his excitement, Hitler summoned Operations Chief Adolf Heusinger.
"You called for me, my Führer?"
"I want a list of the major units in Berlin."
As Heusinger began listing the units one by one, Hitler listened silently.
Then he paused at one.
"Grossdeutschland Division?"
"It's currently the most powerful force in Berlin."
The GD—Grossdeutschland Division—was the German Army's elite, in service since the early days of the world war, with its main forces always at the front lines.
The GD elements in Berlin consisted entirely of four companies under the Capital Guard Battalion.
But this small force could sway power across all of Berlin.
The Führer remembered how loyal to Nazism the Capital Guard Battalion was.
Of course, the coup forces wouldn't leave the situation alone, so the balance of forces in Berlin might have shifted.
Still, it was worth a try.
"If only communications were restored."
Hitler gnashed his teeth.
Before long, Communications Director Fellgiebel, who had disrupted the Wolf's Lair communications, was arrested and dragged before Hitler.
"Why did you betray me?"
"My Führer, I merely acted out of loyalty to my fatherland as a soldier."
Hitler glared at Fellgiebel without a word, then ordered him imprisoned for now.
After an hour of repairs, the Wolf's Lair communications were restored, and Hitler immediately picked up the phone.
"Operator, Capital Guard Battalion commander's office."
Capital Guard Battalion Commander Major Otto Ernst Remer was stunned when he received the Führer's call.
He had thought the SS propaganda claiming the Führer was alive was a lie.
But it wasn't.
The Führer was alive and well.
Moreover, he was being told the Capital Guard Battalion was being used by the coup plotters.
"M-my Führer. I've been deceived by the traitors."
"Then you know what you have to do?"
"Of course, my Führer."
Remer immediately summoned his subordinate officers.
"Release the detained SS men and Nazi Party members immediately. The rest of you, head to Replacement Army headquarters."
Remer switched sides to the Führer with a single phone call.
The coup forces had no idea the situation had flipped with one call.
'If we just arrest a few more Nazis, we can corner them so badly that even if Hitler tries to counterattack, he won't have the manpower.'
Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg of the Replacement Army staff, on his way back from the police station to bolster their forces, spotted trucks heading toward Replacement Army headquarters.
Why were troops going to Replacement Army HQ?
In that instant, Stauffenberg sensed danger.
"Everyone, dismount."
The Capital Guard Battalion soldiers, who had been coup forces but now turned suppressors, flooded into Replacement Army headquarters.
"Chief! We have to stop them!"
Stauffenberg hastily attacked the Capital Guard Battalion alongside the Berlin police led by Arthur Nebe.
Their firepower was at a disadvantage, but the police numbers weren't negligible.
Gunfire erupted from both sides, turning the area in front of Replacement Army headquarters into chaos in an instant.
"What the hell is all this shooting?"
Mayor Goerdeler, realizing the situation too late, asked the attendees with a pale face.
As a civilian bureaucrat, he couldn't comprehend how things had turned.
"The Capital Guard Battalion seems to have switched to the Nazis' side."
Beck said.
Brigadier General Ulrich displayed a resolute attitude.
"For now, I'll arm the officers inside headquarters. If we mobilize everyone here, we can gather about a hundred men and hold off their entry into the building."
At Ulrich's order, one officer hurried downstairs.
"Is the situation really turning against us?"
"If we hold out for two hours, one of our infantry regiments will march on Berlin."
They hadn't mobilized forces properly by this point because officers who should have been on their side had made excuses and hesitated.
If not for that, they would have had more than enough troops in Berlin to handle the GD.
Ring.
At that moment, the phone rang.
At Ulrich's glance, Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim picked it up.
"Replacement Army."
The caller was Abwehr's Hans Oster.
"This coup is over. Tell the attendees to get out of there while they still can. The Wolf's Lair communications just came back online—the entire army now knows Hitler is alive. Hurry."
"Understood."
As Colonel Quirnheim hung up, Beck asked.
"Who was it? General Franz Halder? Heusinger? The 3rd Military District commander?"
"Abwehr's General Oster. He says Wolf's Lair communications are back."
"Then."
If only the Capital Guard Battalion hadn't betrayed them, they could have held Berlin, gained recognition for the regime, swayed the commanders, and solidified the board.
But now the tide had turned.
Allied forces that had pledged support might not come after all.
Was this how Germany lost its chance at salvation?
"My Führer. A telegram from the Wolf's Lair just arrived at the telegraph office."
An officer came up and handed over the dispatch.
"Execute rebel commanders on sight?"
The Wolf's Lair communications really were back.
With things this far gone, there was no chance of victory.
"My Führer. Field Marshal. It looks like it's over. Mayor, you should withdraw too."
Ulrich urged the coup leaders to evacuate with dignity.
Field Marshal von Witzleben, who had been sitting as the figurehead, shook his head.
"The Field Marshal of Germany neither flees nor surrenders."
Field Marshal Beck gave a bitter smile.
"So he says."
"What about you, Mayor?"
Mayor Goerdeler let out a heavy sigh.
"How could I save myself alone in this situation? I'm no stranger to honor."
Ulrich bowed to them, then offered Goerdeler a pistol.
"Use it at the last moment."
"Thank you, General."
Ulrich went downstairs and toured the Replacement Army offices.
The young Replacement Army officers and staff swept up in the coup watched him anxiously, rifles in hand.
"Gentlemen, on behalf of Germany, I thank you for the devotion you showed your fatherland tonight. But our task is done. I and the other generals will fight to the end, but I can't demand such sacrifice from you. So those who wish to leave, do so. Those who wish to stay, stay. Whatever you decide, I will forever remember the courage you showed rising for the fatherland."
Ulrich gave his subordinates a choice, then entered the room where Replacement Army Commander Friedrich Fromm was confined.
It was confinement in name only—no one was actually guarding Fromm's room.
Fromm was smoking a cigarette at the time. When he saw Ulrich, he stubbed it out.
"From the moment you made a indecisive man like Beck your leader, you had no chance of winning. I saw this coming."
"You're speaking as if you'll come out of this unscathed, General. Operation Valkyrie was launched in your name."
"What crime have I committed? My only crime is being confined by you."
"Do you think the Führer will buy that?"
Even Fromm couldn't guarantee it.
"If you had cooperated with the uprising, General, we would have succeeded."
"There's no 'if' in the affairs of the world. What's the point of a failed coup?"
"At the very least, the world now knows not all Germans support the Nazis. Isn't that enough?"
Ulrich saluted crisply and withdrew.
Fromm felt pity for the subordinate who had confined him and wielded power arbitrarily.
He wasn't incapable of understanding the plotters' mindset.
But they were wrong.
You only gamble when you have odds of winning.
Fromm stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
1 a.m.
After the Armed SS joined the Capital Guard Battalion's GD in attacking Replacement Army headquarters, the isolated coup forces could no longer hold and collapsed.
Colonel Stauffenberg and General Ulrich, who had resisted fiercely, were killed on the spot, while Beck, Witzleben, and Goerdeler took their own lives.
The remaining conspirators were rounded up and arrested one after another.
Fearing exposure of his complicity, Fromm discreetly had officers who knew of his involvement summarily executed.
Once word spread that Berlin had fallen, coup forces across the regions crumbled silently.
Many participating commanders chose suicide.
Brigadier General Tresckow, who had attempted to assassinate Hitler at Army Group Center, was no exception.
"Long live my fatherland, Germany."
Tresckow pulled the pin on a grenade and blew himself up.
Abwehr Chief Canaris poisoned himself just before the Gestapo arrived at his office, and Hans Oster shot himself in the head.
From the ruins of the conspirators' collapse, the Nazis emerged victorious once more.
In crushing the Junkers' rebellion, the Führer thought for the first time that there was something to learn from Lee Seong-jun.
The 무반 purge.
That was Lee Seong-jun's greatest achievement.
Hitler intended to make the Junker purge his own greatest legacy.
"Leave not a single 'von'-using traitor alive—wipe them out! Uproot them!"
Hitler unleashed merciless retribution on the Junkers.
A massive purge swept through the German Army.
As this purge began shaking the German Army, Hitler's eternal rival Stalin responded in kind.
"The fascists are distracted by infighting—best to finish them now. Marshal Zhukov, launch the offensive."
At Stalin's word, 8 million Soviet troops on the Eastern Front surged forward as one.
The end of the coup was the red army tide crashing toward Berlin like a tidal wave.