June 28, 1937
Central-Western Spain, the Nationalist faction's main stronghold of Salamanca Colonel Walther Model was diligent.
No, he was a bit too diligent.
The Condor Legion, though only on paper, had been discharged from the Wehrmacht and dispatched to Spain as volunteer soldiers.
As a result, it was run rather loosely, and this was especially true for the Condor Legion's army, which had little combat power or military force, was dispatched for weapons tests and training, and was mainly deployed to the second line or rear area.
After the Battle of Guadalajara had depleted the forces of both the Nationalist and Republican factions, and the Nationalists gave up on capturing Madrid, the Central Front was in a lull, so there was no need to explain just how relaxed we had beco.
And the by-the-book Colonel Walther Model, flown in from the General Staff Headquarters in Berlin, was very displeased with this situation, and this capable but inflexible General Staff officer was not just full of, but overflowing with, the will to fix it.
“Hah, haaah, ugh, haah… I'm gonna die. Haaah… Dietrich, I'm dying…”
“Instead of, hah, talking, hah, just, hah, run.”
The officers of the Condor Legion's army dispatch unit were running on the parade ground since morning. Every single one of them, regardless of battalion or company.
Even my direct superior, Battalion Commander Major Beckers, was running with a beet-red face, panting heavily.
“Haa, the morning air, haa, isn't it fresh? Haa, a healthy body, haa, houses a healthy mind, haa!”
Colonel Model ran at the very front, chattering away as if it wasn't hard at all.
A colonel in his mid-40s was running with us, so what could we do? You do what you're told.
That man considered giving up being a soldier because he was too frail as an officer cadet? The human will is incredible, but still, isn't this going a bit too far?!
Ambitious, useless high-ranking officers usually run soldiers ragged with training, but this man was incredibly concerned with the soldiers' welfare while running the officers into the ground like crazy.
He wasn't a machine, but he'd spring up at 5 AM, drag all the officers out for a morning run, and spend all day visiting one unit after another to grasp the situation and hold discussions, and he was doing this not for a day or two, but every single day.
The head of the Condor Legion's army, Lieutenant General von Thoma, granted autonomy, to put it nicely, or had no presence, to put it badly.
But Colonel Model beca extrely famous among the entire officer corps before even a few days had passed since his arrival.
…Mostly in a bad way.
“Argh, I'm gonna die because of that damn Chief of Staff!”
“Hahaha…”
After finishing my duties, I was enjoying so beer and Sundae with Klens.
That's right, Sundae! When I first saw it, I couldn't believe my eyes, but no matter how I looked at it, it looked and tasted like Sundae, so I ate it while shedding tears of joy.
In Spain, it's called Morcilla, a local specialty dish, but who cares? It's Sundae. The chewy texture filling the intestine, ahhh…
It's the taste of Korea, which is now becoming a distant mory…
“I an, there's no engagent right now anyway, so what's wrong with resting a bit! Huh? We're the ones who give the orders, not the ones who get run ragged!”
“Uh, um.
Right…”
Usually, those are the kinds of officers that get called 'the main enemy is the cadres,' my friend. …But I can't say that.
Dietrich Schacht has never been an enlisted soldier…
But the majority of the Condor Legion officers thought this way, and Colonel Model was truly being cursed out left and right.
Honestly, if he hadn't been 'the' Walther Model, I probably would have cursed him out too, wondering why so inflexible by-the-book type had co to make our lives difficult, so I had nothing to say.
But…
“By the way, Klens. I applied for training with Colonel Model.”
Klens let the beer he was drinking dribble back into his glass. Ugh, gross.
“…You what?”
Looking at
with such a betrayed expression makes my conscience prickle a bit.
“I'm going to try so 88mm indirect fire training.”
“…Huh????”
It's no wonder Klens is full of question marks. Using an anti-aircraft gun for indirect fire is sothing no one does, at least not yet.
But the 88 can do it. It wasn't called the 'Almighty Cannon' during World War II for nothing.
The 88 is capable of not only anti-aircraft bombardnt using a tid fuze and low-angle direct fire, but by just adjusting the angle, it can achieve quite high accuracy with indirect fire.
No one knows this yet, and Roml will only figure it out and use it effectively later in the North African Campaign, but as soone who needs to get into the War Academy quickly by creating military rit out of thin air, I have to turn the knowledge I'm certain of into results.
Colonel Model is rciless to lazy or incompetent subordinates, but he's the type of personnel who doesn't snatch the military rits of hardworking subordinates, reports them properly, and doesn't forget the confernt of a decoration.
It was fortunate for
that Colonel Model happened to be here.
“Why are we doing sothing like that?!”
Well, I feel bad for Klens, but.
-
The original plan was for the Condor Legion to get permission from the Nationalist faction, then quietly conduct the training-slash-experint at the company level and report on it.
But why is Colonel Model here in person?
The training objective I submitted was an experint on the indirect fire performance of the Flak 37 version 88 anti-aircraft gun, which we had just received as a prototype and still had no data on.
“Hmm.
Indeed, it's useful. Is the effective range to guarantee accuracy about 2km?”
Firing the 88 all day long with Colonel Model in the sweltering heat, while receiving the resentnt of Klens and the platoon leaders, was quite an ordeal.
But he was Walther Model, after all. He observed the bombardnt point with a telescope right next to the 88 anti-aircraft gun, and if he couldn't see well, he'd drive back and forth himself, tap on a calculator, and create sothing similar to a firing table (a table used by even minimally trained artillery to land their shots, created through data from experintal firing and weather conditions) at an astonishing speed.
Normally, that's made by firing tens of thousands of rounds in a highly controlled environnt and plugging the results into complex formulas and calculation tables, but a human is doing this manually on the battlefield? In just one day?
I was the one who proposed the training, but Colonel Model was doing everything himself. He's such a monster, in a league of his own, that I'm at a loss for words.
I guess being one of the greatest fad commanders of World War II truly puts him in a different class…
As I stood there dumbfounded, Model approached , smiled brightly, and patted my shoulder.
“An excellent idea, First Lieutenant Schacht.
We'll need to do more experintal firing, but it seems to have plenty of practical application. I heard you proposed a significant number of improvents for this prototype.
I was skeptical, but it truly seems you have a good eye.”
“Th-Thank you…”
It feels like I didn't actually do anything, but I think I achieved my purpose.
I feel bad for Roml, whose future achievent I've stolen, but I've made a good impression on Colonel Model.
To beco part of the General Staff, a recomndation from the General Staff is the best way.
“Haha, at this rate, we might have to call this anti-aircraft gun the SS (Schacht-Schacht) instead of the 88 (Acht-acht).”
“…Ha.
Ha. Ha.”
“It's a joke, so don't make that face.”
Everything else is fine, but I just wish you wouldn't make these inopportune jokes, Colonel Model.
In any case, there isn't much ti. Soon, my father, Hjalmar Schacht, will be dismissed from his position as Minister.
Before that happens, if I don't secure a spot in the War Academy and receive the protection of the Wehrmacht, there's no guarantee the consequences won't reach .
Furthermore, the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria) is in March 1938, and from that point on, the world will begin to race towards World War II.
Fortunately, Hitler's Nazi Germany was a much more unstable regi than people commonly imagine, and there were several coup d'état crises.
Knowing at least that much, if I play my cards right, I might be able to turn that crisis into an actual coup d'état.
Overthrow the Nazi Regi and stop World War II!
Even if I can't stop the war itself, I must prevent a future where we beco a symbol of evil, fight the entire world, and are left with nothing but ashes.
Only half a year until the Anschluss.
So I must get back to Germany as quickly as possible.
At the latest, before the Munich Agreent in September 1938!
-
July 2, 1937
Central Spain, the Capital of Spain, Madrid - Republican Command Headquarters The Republican faction's hero who had made the Nationalist faction tremble in fear, the commander of the fad elite 11th Division, Colonel Enrique Líster, was attending an operation eting that only made him sigh.
“So you're saying we're going to launch an offensive in this sweltering heat? Right next to the Nationalist Central Army's headquarters in Salamanca?”
At Líster's words, his direct superior, and fellow colonel, Juan Modesto, openly shot him a look, but Líster didn't back down.
He may have been a colonel by rank thanks to his teoric rise, but it wasn't the first ti he hadn't been treated like one.
“That's right, Colonel Líster. We will capture Brunete this ti and put pressure on those Fascist traitors besieging Madrid.
If we succeed in cutting off the Extremadura Road, we can even expect the Madrid siege army to retreat altogether, with their supplies cut off!”
The Republican Central Army Commander, General José Miaja, babbled on about the operation's objective and its rosy blueprint, his chubby face twitching.
“Isn't that a story for when it's actually possible? We still haven't fully recovered from our losses at the Jarama and Guadalajara battles.”
Though he had to shut his mouth, his face imdiately turning red at Líster's blunt words.
“What, Colonel! How can you make such a defeatist statent? Are you suggesting we just stand by and watch the Nationalist faction take the Northern Region into its grasp? As long as Spain's freedom and the people's justice are alive, we cannot stand by and watch!”
At the words of his direct superior, Juan Modesto, Líster's face crumpled.
That damn defeatism. The results of branding opposing commanders as defeatists and ambitiously attacking were mostly disastrous.
The commanders in this eting room, aside from General Miaja, were almost all colonels. A colonel under a colonel under a colonel.
The reason for this cynical-laugh-inducing situation was that while the incompetent ones who had always been colonels were grinding down their subordinates, those of lower rank had diligently earned rits and risen to beco colonels.
And yet, that group of 'incompetent colonels' were still the superiors, and most of the operations were being drafted by them.
“Indeed, well said, Colonel Modesto! Their main forces will all be gathered in the north anyway. You think we can't beat the rest? Colonel Líster, you too should stop being so greedy for military rit and think about leading the battle well!”
He certainly was the type to be greedy for military rit.
After suffering under incompetent superiors, he had chased after military rit, grinding his teeth with the desire to have a say in this headquarters.
But even after becoming a colonel, not much had changed.
Seeing the 'incompetent colonels' eagerly siding with each other, Líster had to struggle to hide the sigh that was about to burst out.
The northern separatists weren't people who understood communism in the true sense, anyway.
They joined the cause to get autonomy, but now their inability to even protect their own region was forcing us to suffer losses?
At the very least, Líster did not want to spill the blood of his cherished subordinates on the scorching, dry earth to save them—not that he thought they could be saved.
“Ahem, that's right.
We must take Brunete this ti, no matter what, and show our comrades in the Soviet that the legitimacy and initiative in Spain lie with us!”
“That's right, General. If we can just succeed in this offensive, we'll be able to persuade those cowardly and opportunistic Frenchn to open the border and receive more support!”
The flow of the Republican faction's operations was usually like this.
Most of them focused not on the rationality or possibility of success of the offensive, but on the political gains it would bring if it succeeded.
Aren't those gains sothing you only get upon success? Enrique Líster was certainly a communist, and a pro-Soviet figure who had learned the Soviet's advanced military techniques at the Frunze Military Academy on Russian soil.
But the current Republic was becoming increasingly incomprehensible.
Are we, who are preparing for a battle to look good to the Soviet while exhausting all of Spain's capabilities, really fighting for Spain?
Enrique Líster himself was bleeding and fighting with the skills he had painstakingly learned at Frunze for the sake of Spain, not to turn his fatherland into a Soviet puppet state.
Even right now, the commanders of the anarchists and the International Brigades had their mouths shut tight, their faces showing their displeasure.
How long would the volunteer armies from democratic nations, who were watching soldiers being sacrificed to look good to the Soviet and get more aid, and the anarchists, who were fighting to gain freedom from the state's oppression, continue to fight for the Republican faction?
According to intelligence, the German Military had been heavily reinforced this ti.
The Republican High Command thinks their unit, the 'Condor Legion,' is on the sa level as their own International Brigades, but Líster's opinion was different.
They are qualitatively different.
Though small in scale, they were clearly stronger than the Nationalist faction's army or Italy's army, which just had large numbers.
The area where the Republican faction held a firm superiority over the Nationalist faction was the armored unit and air force provided by the Soviet, but even that was incurring continuous losses, and a significant part of that bleeding was caused by the Condor Legion.
“At the very least, I hope those German bastards don't show up in this attack…”
Watching the high command chatter away about their rosy grand strategy amongst themselves, Líster could do nothing but mutter lantingly.
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