Chapter 53:
Chapter 53
Model, the enemy of models, was tapping his desk with his temples pinched.
His head hurt.
He always tried to appear strong and cheerful in front of his subordinates, but he was fundamentally a contemplative person.
And what was bothering him now was not a problem that could be solved by contemplation.
First, the Soviet army was just coming in large numbers and kept coming.
Model had squeezed out the last drop of strength from the 6th Army, the 17th Army, and the 1st Armored Division, and fought with an overwhelming exchange rate, but the Soviet army was still being reinforced.
Despite the astonishing exchange rate of nearly 10:1, the estimated force ratio did not change much.
‘Other fronts wouldn’t be this bad...’
He was the commander of the Southern Army Group, but he also received reports on the trends from all fronts.
There were not so many Soviet troops bubbling in front of Guderian or Manstein.
On top of that, the quality of the forces he had was the lowest.
The Romanian army with low morale, anxious about the coup in the capital.
The Hungarian army that traditionally did not get along with Romania and growled at each other.
And the Slovakian and Italian armies, which also boasted low motivation.
It would have been much better if at least these personnel were German troops, but the reality given to him was harsh.
“So you’re saying that the medium artillery forces are still being reinforced?”
“...Yes, that’s right. Your Excellency.”
Damn it.
He couldn’t see an answer.
The skill level of the Soviet artillery was frankly poor.
In most factors such as cannon fire, observation, fire control, etc., the Soviet army was inferior to the German army.
But they overcame this inferiority with a much larger number.
If you shoot enough, you’ll hit something.
If one battery is destroyed, they push two more in its place.
The German army used a tactic of retreating after firing all at once to reduce the damage from counterattacks.
The Soviet army silently took all that fire and fumbled.
In a normal situation, such an exchange would lead to a great victory, but since there was a basic difference in numbers, the German army had to retreat one step at a time while giving a superior exchange rate.
“Eventually we’ll have to make a breakthrough.”
“Excuse me?”
The front line had to be reorganized eventually.
It wasn’t even a full-fledged winter yet.
Model did not want to fight against General Dongjanggun, who had defended Russia.
Even if he inflicted damage now, when winter came, supplies would get worse and reinforcements would decrease.
‘If General Rommel’s army that went to England came this way...’
He invested too much in the Western Front.
There were holes in the Eastern Front, and there was a shortage of strategic and tactical reserves to fill them.
He agreed to finish England first to avoid a two-front war, but... Why did he pick a fight with America?
The navy and air force, which received massive investments, just laughed and said it was good, but the army was staggering.
The initial strategy of striking a fatal blow to the giant with a huge weight called Soviet Union and knocking it down failed.
He gave them sharper weapons, ‘new weapons’, and said that this would do it? He had a warlike attitude...
He couldn’t turn over a country with just that.
“Your Excellency, the fatigue level of the soldiers is no longer tolerable.”
“...I know that well.”
General Model used his authority to release and protect the civilian women who were forcibly brought in for the sexual relief of the soldiers.
Nearly thousands of women were found throughout the Southern Army Group, and General Model was in contact with the Hungarian and Italian armies, which were less hostile to Jews.
Their families had mostly been dragged to forced labor camps, and the women had lost their will to live in the meantime, but anyway he thought that life outside this hell could change them.
But the problem was the soldiers.
The ‘comfort’ that was provided was gone, and they were exhausted by the psychological warfare of the Soviet army – rockets and horns, and occasional flyers – and fighting.
The former commander of the Southern Army Group, Rundstedt, that crazy old man, ordered civilian massacres during his tenure.
Many soldiers did not want to massacre civilians.
“The people I killed... keep coming in my dreams!”
“Please spare me... please spare me...”
The field hospital was full of such patients.
Soldiers who went crazy with shell shock, soldiers who gritted their teeth with red eyes saying that the civilians they killed came in their dreams, soldiers who shot themselves and ran away in battle...
The former commander and his subordinate officers ordered these soldiers to massacre.
And surprisingly, these soldiers obeyed that cruel order.
<I didn’t kill them because my comrades would have to get blood on their hands instead.>
That was what was written in a statement taken from a soldier who killed dozens.
The motive that led these young soldiers to massacre was surprisingly... comradeship.
If I don’t kill them, my comrades next to me will have to commit more sins.
So I won’t run away either! But this was only for a moment.
The soldiers were broken by nightmares, guilt, and delusions.
Some drank alcohol they found somewhere and got drunk, some became violent, and some even gave themselves up to madness.
“What is this... what is this doing!”
A company was assigned a mission to escort Soviet prisoners captured by the unit after a battle. And... they massacred them all.
The Soviet soldiers who were massacred had their hands and feet tied with straps made of torn Soviet uniforms, and each had a pistol bullet in the back of their head.
There were also traces of stabbing their carotid arteries with bayonets for confirmation kills on all corpses.
“It is irrational to share scarce resources for Greater Germany with inferior races!”
The excuse was simple.
He couldn’t share his scarce supplies with inferior races.
He used only one pistol bullet per person to minimize supply consumption, and used bayonets for confirmation kills.
He proudly told his act of saving supplies with his eyes filled with madness.
He was sentenced to death by a summary court-martial.
He seemed very frustrated.
Why couldn’t the headquarters understand this simple thing?
The lieutenant eventually committed suicide.
The guard who lent him a pistol delivered his last words.
“I’d rather kill myself than waste precious rifle bullets on execution and shock my comrades. Just lend me one pistol.”
The lieutenant despaired and angered at what headquarters did not understand, but Model was more shocked that his staff and subordinate commanders understood it.
Madness, madness flowed.
Those who got blood on their hands could never come back.
They justified it with comradeship and covered it with patriotism for their country, but killing humans by humans destroyed their values that they had built up until then.
The sons of Germany needed rest.
