Chapter 117
Chapter 117
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Soviet Deployment (2)
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Soviet Expeditionary Force Commander Yi Jeong-yun mulled over His Excellency’s directives aboard the train bound for Moscow.
Excluding the overarching principle of keeping an eye on the Western Front, His Excellency’s objectives boiled down to three main goals.
First, protect German civilians from the Red Army to the greatest extent possible.
When he’d asked for the reason, His Excellency had replied:
“Even when we’re carving up Germany, we need to bestow some favors. That way, there’ll be less grumbling later, right?”
Second, build friendly relations with Red Army commanders.
No one knew how things would play out in the future, but for the time being, Daehan needed to stay on good terms with the Soviets.
To that end, His Excellency had advised forging ties with the Red Army’s power players who would wield influence in Soviet politics and the military going forward.
Third, load all captured Wehrmacht POWs (civilians too, if possible) onto trains and ship them back to Korea.
For the foreseeable future, more free labor (slaves) was always better.
His Excellency was a man with a voracious appetite for people.
Yi Jeong-yun repeated the directives in his mind over and over.
When Yi Jeong-yun arrived in Moscow, Soviet Supreme Commander Marshal Zhukov himself came out to Moscow Station to greet him.
“Comrade Yi Jeong-yun. Welcome to Russia.”
“Thank you for the warm reception, Comrade Zhukov.”
The Soviets treated the Korean forces with utmost courtesy.
Yi Jeong-yun spent half a day in pleasant conversation with Zhukov, meticulously confirming the Korean army’s status and frontline deployments, then set off straight for Pskov.
The battlefield where the Korean army would fight lay along the shores of Lake Peipus, south of Leningrad.
Gathering his staff officers, Yi Jeong-yun laid out the following objectives in his briefing.
“Our army’s primary goal is the liberation of Estonia and Latvia. There may be civilians who act hostile during our occupation, but we must not respond aggressively. The moment we show hostility toward civilians, the Germans and their allies will never surrender their weapons to Daehan’s soldiers. Exercise patience and tolerance. If the troops forget this, enforce strict discipline to drill it into them. That is your mission.”
Yi Jeong-yun lacked the talent for devising grand strategies, but one thing he knew for certain:
Botching the civil affairs could derail His Excellency’s grand plan.
That had to be avoided at all costs.
Daehan’s military had to earn respect and admiration, not become an object of fear and terror like the Ivans.
Once that perception took root, they’d end up fighting battles they didn’t need to.
“His Excellency’s words will be etched in our minds. Dismissed.”
The chief of staff disbanded the officers.
While the officers prepared for battle, the Korean army’s propaganda section launched psyops against the Germans across Lake Peipus.
The Koreans played to their strengths, sending propaganda leaflet balloons drifting over to the German lines at regular intervals.
The content wasn’t as explicit as on the Western Front, but the message was similar.
“Surrender to the Ivans, or surrender to the gentlemanly Korean army?”
At first, the German soldiers laughed off the leaflets as childish.
“What the hell are these inferior Oriental bastards babbling about?”
They’d tear them up on sight.
But the back side featured a full-page beer ad, a favorite of the Korean forces.
“Ha, these Korean bastards actually have some manners!”
With a svelte European model instead of the usual Oriental faces, the leaflets proved irresistible to the sex-starved German troops—they just couldn’t throw them away.
No, they went further.
The soldiers started subtly hunting for the leaflets and picking them up.
“Oh, this’ll do for today.”
Tank ace Otto Carius, famed near Leningrad, was one of the soldiers secretly collecting them.
He stashed the leaflets in a hidden spot inside his Tiger tank and made time each day to admire them.
“Don’t hog them all to yourself, Tank Commander.”
“Hey, you guys look too. I won’t wear them out, so quit griping.”
Of course, Carius didn’t monopolize them.
That day, as Carius pulled out a leaflet for his viewing session, a general wearing a monocle appeared before him.
He seemed like an ordinary general at first, but the voice sounded familiar.
“You’re all working hard. Any issues during your duties?”
“N-No, sir.”
Carius was flustered.
Then he jolted in shock.
‘M-Marshal Model.’
The man wasn’t just any general—he was one of the Wehrmacht’s top-ranking field marshals.
Carius tried to discreetly hide the leaflet, but Model’s sharp eyes spotted it.
‘I’m screwed.’
Surprisingly, Model said nothing about it.
“Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves recipient. You’ve done good work.”
He even offered praise.
“I was merely doing my duty, sir.”
“Keep it up. It’s the dedication of soldiers like you that protects Germany.”
Carius let out a sigh of relief and quickly crumpled the leaflet in his hand.
He felt bad for his comrades, but once it’d been spotted by the marshal, destroying it was the right call.
Model strode off toward the next inspection site.
His accompanying officers wisely trailed behind.
After walking some distance until Carius was out of sight, Model asked in a low voice:
“Since when?”
“Pardon?”
“Since when our soldiers started carrying those abominable things.”
“About a week, I believe. But don’t worry—it’s just some slackers with loose discipline.”
“And the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves recipient is one of those slackers?”
The officer fell silent.
“This isn’t a minor issue. Soldiers with leaflets are twice as likely to surrender at the last moment. You didn’t know that?”
“I-I’m sorry, sir.”
“Collect every visible leaflet and devise countermeasures. You have two days.”
Model always demanded the near-impossible from his subordinates.
“Understood.”
The Germans kicked up a huge fuss collecting the leaflets.
Still, they didn’t recover them all.
Some soldiers hid theirs in secret.
Max was one of them.
Max clutched the leaflet he’d picked up a week ago, lost in thought.
He’d started collecting for the beer ads, but eventually grew interested in the message itself.
‘Unlike the Ivans, Korea treats its prisoners well. Surrender.’
The Korean leaflets laid out logical reasons to surrender.
Germany was already doomed by the four great powers.
No single soldier’s struggling could save a collapsing fatherland.
Fighting on would just mean dying like a dog in the end.
What did a soldier gain from prolonged resistance?
Nothing but grief for the lovers and families left back home.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
And was Nazism truly worth sacrificing your life for?
The leaflets skewered Nazism’s contradictions with relish.
It preached that under National Socialism, all were family and community—yet why trample the Jews?
Weren’t Jews Germans too?
Max knew the answer.
They were.
Was invading other countries and getting millions of Germans killed the only way to build a Thousand-Year Reich?
That wasn’t it either.
Germany had a chance to become Europe’s top power peacefully.
The great powers had conceded Austria and Czechoslovakia.
If they’d stopped there, he wouldn’t have spent three years slogging through the brutal Russian winter, mired in a life of kill-or-be-killed.
His friends dragged from home into the army wouldn’t have died either.
The Nazis had just spouted pretty words while shoving Germans into hell.
With reckless incitement and gambles, they’d thrown away every German life.
Were such people truly worth loyalty?
The leaflet ended with a jab at the soldiers’ hearts:
‘So, has your devotion been rewarded?’
It hadn’t.
After long hesitation, Max set down his rifle and crept out of the trench.
Quite a few soldiers surrendered to the Koreans this way.
Not a huge number, but not insignificant either.
The Korean army organized these deserters who’d crossed over and put them on propaganda broadcasts.
“I’m Max from Bavaria. Yesterday, I came over to the Korean lines and was served hot canned soup, bread, and sausages. The Koreans don’t lie. They didn’t beat us, didn’t abuse us—they treated us politely. Dear comrades, let’s lay down our arms now. Let’s surrender to the Korean army. What reason do we have to fight for the Nazis?”
The Soviets had initially tsked at the Koreans focusing more on propaganda than assaults, chalking it up to not knowing what kind of dogs the Germans were.
But when defections piled up, they panicked.
“We run propaganda too with no results—why the hell are the Kareiskis swimming with turncoats?”
The generals harshly rebuked their propaganda chiefs.
But the propaganda officers had their own gripes.
‘Yeah, well, we keep telling them to torture and kill German POWs every chance they get.’
Of course, this wasn’t because the Soviets were uniquely brutal.
The Germans were worse.
Of Soviet POWs captured by the Germans, 55% died from horrific abuse.
Only 28% of German POWs in Soviet hands died—so it was hard to call the Soviets the bad guys.
In any case, the Soviets tried imitating the Koreans’ “success formula” in every way but saw no results.
“Better dead than surrender to the Ivans.”
“Good thinking. While you’re at it, come over to the Korean army.”
And so, from their first month on the Eastern Front, the Koreans made their presence felt to the Germans.
Not through combat prowess, but propaganda power.