March 11, 1938
13th Military District, Nuremberg Sector, Southern Germany, Regensburg (near the German-Austrian border)
I'd barely slept, forcing my eyes shut on a train that felt like it would burst with people. I dragged my exhausted body to Regensburg, only to find even greater Chaos waiting for .
“30th Infantry Regint! Where is the 30th Infantry Regint!?”
“Out of the way! We need to unload the tanks!”
“Hey, how are we supposed to move in this ss!”
What is this… It's worse than a fish market.
The Urban Area of Regensburg, a small, beautiful, old, and quiet city in southern Germany, was overrun with swarming German Military and all sorts of Equipnt being hastily unloaded.
“By order of Lieutenant General Heinz Guderian, this car is being requisitioned for the 1st Panzer Division!”
“Hey, you rascals! I just bought that car!”
“Sorry, gramps, but we're just following orders! We're not stealing it! You'll get it back later, so take any complaints to the high-ranking people!”
anwhile, every single Vehicle in the Urban Area was being requisitioned. Hey, seriously.
…A Motorized Unit requisitioning Civilian Vehicles? Is this for real?…
I let out a hollow laugh, then grabbed one of the soldiers shouting in the Outcry next to .
“What's your unit?”
“Hey, who do you think you… Gasp.
My apologies, Captain! 46th Division, sir!”
The 46th Division, where did that belong… Was it part of the 4th Army Corps?
“Do you happen to know where the 11th Army Corps is?”
“S-Sorry, sir! This is the 14th Army Corps! I don't know about the 11th Army Corps! …B-By any chance, do you know where the 4th Army Corps is?”
“Hmm… Sorry, I just got here myself, so I don't know. My apologies, carry on.
Private First Class.”
Seriously, the Operation Start Date is tomorrow… Is this really okay?
This Great Chaos is already exhausting, and I can't help but sigh.
“You there, Captain! Do you know where the 11th Army Corps is?”
Just then, a Lieutenant Colonel grabbed
and asked.
Hey, I don't know either.
Is that a General Staff shoulder insignia? I'm jealous. Ah, wait.
11th Army Corps?
I imdiately snapped to Salute and answered him.
“My apologies, Lieutenant Colonel! I'm also with the 11th Army Corps but haven't located it yet! Captain Dietrich Schacht, sir!”
The lieutenant colonel gave a hollow laugh at my words and returned my salute.
“Well, what Pandemonium. Lieutenant Colonel Henning von Tresckow.”
Henning von Tresckow. A na I knew.
No, a na I couldn't possibly not know.
Before Colonel Stauffenberg, he was a Core mber of the Anti-Hitler Faction who attempted to assassinate Hitler several tis!
“It's an honor to et you, Lieutenant Colonel.
I'm assigned to the 18th Division, but…”
“Oh, excellent. I'm also with the 18th Division.
It's been a while since I've had a Field Position after being at the General Staff Headquarters. I'll be in your care, Captain Schacht.”
Ah, so he was part of Beck's Faction and got demoted… I didn't know that.
Then again, he was part of the Operation Valkyrie Conspiracy with Beck and Stauffenberg, so it's not surprising.
“The pleasure is all mine, Lieutenant Colonel! …First, we need to find our unit.”
“That we do.”
Lieutenant Colonel Tresckow and I wandered through the Urban Area of Regensburg for a long ti before finally managing to find the 11th Army Corps.
Along the way, we also picked up Second Lieutenant Winrich Behr, assigned to the sa division.
My god, what a ss.
“Reporting for Transfer to the unit, Division Commander! Lieutenant Colonel Henning von Tresckow!”
“Captain Dietrich Schacht!”
“Second Lieutenant Winrich Behr!”
The Major General receiving our salutes returned them with a half-bitter laugh.
“Welco, all of you. Now… hmm.
13 more to go. I am Major General Friedrich Karl Cranz.
In my entire Military Life, I've never seen such a chaotic Operation.”
At the major general's words, we couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh ourselves.
Yes, honestly, it would be hard to be this much of a Chaos.
“Tresckow, you're the Regint Commander of the 30th Infantry Regint, right? Head over imdiately.
Schacht, you'll be in charge of the 3rd Company of the 30th Infantry Regint. Behr, you're the 3rd Company's Adjutant.”
Huh? The 3rd Company? That's not what my Written orders said.
“With all due respect, Division Commander, the Written orders I received stated…”
The Major General scoffed and cut
off.
“Ha! The Superiors are screaming at us to move according to the Offensive plan, but who knows when the other officers will arrive? We have to get the units running, one by one.”
“…Yes, sir!”
…So, deploying units for the offensive according to plan is already a lost cause, aning they're just using the Haphazard thod to assign us as we gather and ordering us to Advance forward.
It's a good thing the German Military has a Tradition of Mission-type tactics; otherwise, with this kind of Haphazard thod and Improvisation, starting the offensive within three days would have been impossible…
“Then get going, Gentlen. Well… you probably got to know each other on the way here, so it'll work out sohow, won't it? Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir!”
Leaving the Tent set up as a Temporary Division Headquarters, we moved imdiately to the Regint, and before I could even properly introduce myself to the Company mbers I was seeing for the first ti, I was bombarded with all sorts of Grievances.
“Company Commander! Our Platoon's rifles aren't even standardized!”
“The Gewehr 98 and Karabiner 98 are similar enough and use the sa Ammunition, so just hand out what we have!”
“Company Commander! We don't have enough tents for shelter!”
“Second Lieutenant Behr, send a ssenger to Headquarters with a request.
No, go yourself! All the other units are bound to be in Chaos too, so go in person and get whatever you can!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“Company Commander…!”
Ah, damn it! I don't know either! I just got here myself!
If I were in a position to magically whip up Supplies, do you think I'd be here?
I wanted to cry.
-
March 12, 1938
13th Military District, Nuremberg Sector, Southern Germany, Regensburg (near the German-Austrian border)
Unable to tolerate the Riots by the Austrian Nazi Party, the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg had announced that a Referendum on Unification with Germany would be held on March 13th.
Moreover, he tried to use a Loophole by granting Voting Rights only to older people, excluding the youth in their teens and early twenties who had high support for the Nazi Party. Enraged, Hitler ordered the Invasion of Austria by the 12th as soon as he heard the news.
A panicked Austria tried to appease Hitler, with Schuschnigg even resigning after a broadcast that was essentially a Surrender, but Hitler, having already found a Pretext, secured a 'Request for Troop Dispatch' from the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and ordered the Advance into Austria to proceed.
That was the reason for our Hellish hardship.
We set out early in the morning with a unit that was sohow patched together with a Haphazard thod, but…
In the end, from my 11th Army Corps, only Major General Karl Cranz's 18th Division managed to depart on ti.
The 19th Division, led by Lieutenant General Schwantes, was reportedly not ready and would set out as soon as possible.
anwhile, the 18th Artillery Regint, part of the 18th Division, couldn't depart because its equipnt hadn't finished unloading.
So, to put it simply.
Most of the Heavy equipnt isn't ready, so they're telling the Plain infantry to just go and plant the flag.
Our target was Linz, Hitler's Hotown.
Thankfully, since it was located north of the Danube River, our Attack target didn't overlap with any other corps.
After crossing the Danube via the historic Steinerne Brücke, a bridge built in the Middle Ages, we marched along the Riverside, and the Great Chaos across the river ca into full view.
The roads were filled with requisitioned Civilian Vehicles and tanks, but broken-down tanks were blocking the roads everywhere, causing severe Traffic Congestion. The long, single-file column of Plain infantry stretched all the way back to Regensburg.
Seriously… Can they even all depart today? We're the lucky ones.
My company had begged local Private Houses to put up so n, but even then, there weren't enough tents, and the condition of the Troopers who had to squeeze in and sleep wherever they could looked terrible.
Thank God it's spring!
“Captain Schacht, how is it? There are surely… problems, but is the March possible?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel. Well, it'll work out sohow.”
To Regint Commander Tresckow, who was inspecting the Regint by car, I saluted and replied with a Bitter smile.
Lieutenant Colonel Tresckow looked as if he had aged five years overnight.
For a man who had worked for a long ti in the relatively comfortable Rear area at the General Staff Headquarters, yesterday's Great Chaos must have been exhausting.
I only had to worry about my company, but it was obvious how much the newly appointed Regint Commander had been tornted by this chaotic situation.
“…Trench Warfare in the last great war was a nightmare, but this is a nightmare in a different sense.”
“Hahahaha…”
“Well then, keep up the good work.”
“Yes, sir!”
After seeing Lieutenant Colonel Tresckow off, I sighed as I looked at my troopers, who were walking in a Complete ss, with no formation to speak of.
Back in Modern Tis, I'd read that the Italian Military Attachés had mocked the German Military for being a ss during the Anschluss, and I had thought, 'Look who's talking.
'
I admit it, this is a total ss.
To think this Ragtag mob is the sa German Military that wrote the Myth of Invincibility in the early days of World War II, my goodness!
At this point, instead of considering overthrowing the regi through an Anti-Hitler Conspiracy, wouldn't it have been easier to wage a dia war for Anti-Nazi public opinion in Austria and cause a Defeat in war against them to topple the regi?
Of course, the Austrian Nazi Party's power was too strong for that to be possible, and even if it had been, Germany would have descended into an uncontrollable Great Chaos, a veritable Hellgate…
It was a mont that made
miss the Condor Legion.
-
March 15, 1938
Linz, on the banks of the Danube River in Northern Austria Contrary to Regint Commander Tresckow's worries, we succeeded in our Triumphant Entry into Linz without firing a single shot.
The Austrian Army, far from blocking our way, cheered for us as we marched and cleared a path.
In the Urban Area of Linz, already adorned with Hakenkreuz flags, the Residents threw flowers and welcod us enthusiastically.
The soldiers, exhausted from the chaotic March, called this scene the War of Flowers (Blunkrieg) and were simply overjoyed.
Even I, who knew history, found my mood lifted by such an enthusiastic welco, so for the other German soldiers, it was a given.
These Austrians, who are so fervently welcoming the Nazi German Army now, will get thoroughly burned after being dragged into World War II, and then in modern tis, they will engage in ntal victory, blaming everything on Germany and the Nazis.
The Residents of Austria welcod the Nazi German Army so enthusiastically that even Hitler and G??ring, who stopped by on their way to Vienna, calling it their hotown, were surprised and passed through with broad smiles at the fervent welco.
We were in the garrisoning city of Linz, listening to Hitler's Speech being broadcast throughout Austria.
[As the Führer of the German Nation and Reich, I now declare with a joyful heart that my Holand has entered the German Empire! The oldest Eastern March (??sterreich) of The German People has now, at this mont, beco the newest Fortress of the German Empire!]
As the joyous Residents and we German soldiers listened intently to Hitler's speech in the Urban Area, the Brand of 'Jude' (Jewish people) could be seen painted in blood-red paint on the doors and windows of several houses.
[So in the Foreign Press may have thought that the Nazis would annex Austria through brutal ans! But the Austrians would have said that Reunification with Germany was only natural, even if it ant death!]
In the midst of an Era where no one felt any doubt and only praised the Führer's decisiveness and greatness at that chilling statent, my eyes t with a family looking anxiously out of a branded window.
[My political Struggle was won through the love of the People! The mont I crossed the border, I could feel that love firsthand! We have not co to rule, but as Liberators!]
In front of that girl's house, Nazi Party mbers had paused to listen to the speech of their beloved Führer.
[Now, no one will dare deny that Austria is German! Germany shall reign over the world! (Deutschland über Alles!)]
““Deutschland über Alles!””
As the Residents of Linz, the German Military, and all of Austria, now one, roared their unwavering belief that Germany would reign over the world and shouted the greatness of Germany, the Nazi Party mbers, who shared the sa belief, began to destroy the houses branded as Jewish and lynch them.
While everyone cheered fanatically and shouted 'Long live Germany and the Führer', I quietly approached the Regint Commander, Henning von Tresckow, who couldn't take his eyes off the Jewish family being dragged out into the street, Covered in Blood, by the Nazi Party mbers.
“…Our great Fatherland can be a Disaster for so.
Isn't that right, Lieutenant Colonel?”
Now, it was ti to move.
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