March 8, 1937
Central Spain, northeast of Madrid, Guadalajara The Nationalist faction High Command seed quite encouraged by Italy's trendous support.
They were all excited, saying that this ti they would retake Spain's capital, Madrid, and break the Republican faction's will to fight…
But whatever the thoughts of those high-ranking people—the bastards who ground soldiers to dust at Jarama—as soone who had to participate in the operation, I was seriously, very seriously, anxious.
The operation is fine. The military force is good, too.
Fifteen thousand of the Nationalist Army's most elite troops, plus 35,000 from the Italian Army, makes a whopping 50,000.
And not just 50,000 plain infantry; Mussolini had supposedly sent everything from his country's armored forces to artillery and fighter aircraft.
The Republican faction's military that participated in the last major battle, the Battle of Jarama, was about 30,000 at most.
Considering the devastating sacrifices made at Jarama, it was certain the Republican faction's available forces would be severely diminished.
Furthermore, it was known that the Republican faction's greatest force, the International Brigade—our Condor Legion's counterpart—had also suffered massive sacrifices in the last battle.
So, this was, in short, a battle that couldn't be lost.
That must be why Mussolini had poured so much into it with such ambition.
But the problem was—as far as I knew, Madrid didn't fall until the end of the Spanish Civil War, and the civil war itself continued until 1939.
The city southeast of Madrid, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, had already fallen.
They might have defended the supply line across the Jarama River, the Madrid-Valencia Road, but if Guadalajara to the northeast also fell, that defended road would be aningless, so the Republican faction should have given up on Madrid no matter how hard they tried.
So, this battle that couldn't be lost was a battle we were going to lose. The Italian Army is famous for its record of poorly-fought battles, but even so, this…?
Could there be a more miserable human being than a soldier going into a battle he knows he will lose?
Oh God, I know you have no conscience for dropping
here, but if you have even a sliver of conscience left, please let
live…
-
My prayers were in vain, as the operation showed bad signs from the start.
No, if he was the type to listen to prayers, he wouldn't have dropped
here in the first place.
When the air force aircraft of the Condor Legion and the Italian Army flew in like a swarm of bees to bomb the defenseless Republican faction's military, it seed the enemy hadn't predicted our offensive at all, and there were no fortified defensive positions.
The surprise advance was over in a flash. Although they were nothing more than tankettes (sothing like a micro-tank smaller than a light tank), the offensive led by Italy's CV-33 and our Panzer I instantly crushed the defenseless enemy military, and victory seed to be right before our eyes.
The problem was the lousy weather. During the Battle of Jarama, rain had helped the Republican faction at a critical mont, and this ti, even though winter was over, fog and sleet plagued our forces.
Still, the Italian Army, uncharacteristically, seed quite prepared; to capture the area where various towns and cities were mixed, they modified so of their tankettes and equipped them with flathrowers.
These were very effective for cleaning out the Republican faction soldiers hiding in buildings.
They would have been even more effective if not for that damn fog and sleet.
I got so goosebumps thinking of myself seeing Republican faction soldiers, hit by flathrowers and on fire, falling from buildings and thinking they were being 'cleaned out', but I couldn't deny that I, a modern person, was becoming numb as I turned into a German Military soldier in just a few months.
Anyway, thanks to the shitty weather, the air raids and offensive that Italy had prepared with such ambition beca sluggish. At best, they succeeded in capturing a few small towns, and as the fog grew thicker, they had no choice but to halt near the main objective, Brihuega.
While we were floundering like this, the effect of the surprise attack would have worn off, and Republican faction reinforcents would be rushing in.
I feel like I saw this exact situation just a month ago.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
The Italian Army commander, General Rota, must have been anxious since he received massive support from Mussolini, but even so, he couldn't attack in a fog where you couldn't see an inch ahead.
"Who was that guy who rambled on during the briefing about the Central Spain plateau being warm and dry?"
I wonder if that captain, whose face Dietrich's mories couldn't even properly recall, is living comfortably in Berlin right now?
Since we were in the middle of an operation, instead of strolling leisurely with an umbrella on the front line here, we were on standby, taking the lousy sleet, a mix of rain and snow, with our bodies.
If things were normal, I would have gotten my military discharge and be warm at ho in Seoul…
Ah, I feel like crying.
I want to eat the pizza my mom bought for .
The 21st Century South Korean Army military chow is lousy, so what do you think military chow from 80 years ago would be like? It's a relief that for a Korean, I was soone who lived well without eating things like kimchi; otherwise, I might have killed myself by now from the misery of eating.
"Ugh, I don't know, fuck. It's cold.
Fucking shit…"
Seeing Klens, who was at least colder than , hugging his arms and trembling, made
feel a little cheerful, and a laugh burst out.
The bastard, an officer with no prestige.
Whether it's the South Korean Army or the Wehrmacht, in the end, we were all the sa people.
"Company Adjutant, Platoon Leader. The Company Commander is looking for you."
"Ah.
Thank you, Sergeant Kocher."
The adjutant of the 1st Platoon commanded by Klens, Sergeant Kocher, gave a slight smile with his bandit-like face.
Unlike the image I had, the Wehrmacht wasn't such a rigid and formal organization.
Rather, it was a flexible organization that guaranteed quite a bit of autonomy, and the relationships between officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers were quite good.
You couldn't find any beatings for the sake of maintaining military discipline, no matter how hard you looked. Maybe just slapping soldiers suffering from shell shock during an operation to snap them out of it?
Looking at it this way, the Korean Army really has so useless bullshit discipline…
"Ugh, it's fucking cold. Dietrich! Let's go, quickly."
"Hehe, you happy?"
Klens excitedly headed with
to the tent where the Company Commander, Captain Kaufmann, was.
Whatever about the soldiers or young guys like us, we couldn't let the older Captain get soaked by the sleet, so we had put up a makeshift tent, and right now, this was the warst place in our company.
"Heil—"
"Ah, that's enough, that's enough. Co have so coffee."
"Thank you!"
The waiting Company Commander, Captain Kaufmann, waved his hands dismissively as he poured the coffee, and we all gratefully accepted it, blowing on the warm coffee as we drank.
"You're all going through a lot. If I could, I'd like to cut the soldiers so slack, but I can't…"
"Well, for now, it seems we have no choice but to wait for the weather to improve."
Even as I spoke to Captain Kaufmann, my thoughts turned to the German-Soviet War.
How many Germans had frozen to death in Russia's General Winter, which would make this cold seem like child's play?
Even as I ward my throat with the hot coffee, I felt a strange chill.
Captain Kaufmann watched us continuously blowing on and drinking our coffee with a fatherly smile, then went back to what he was writing.
"Are you writing a letter, Captain?"
"Yes, it's been almost a month since I got a reply from the missus, and I'm only writing now. I'll probably get an earful when I get back."
"Hahaha.
."
Both Klens and I burst out laughing at our superior officer's joke.
This reminds
of being nervous making my first call ho from the Nonsan Training Center.
Captain Kaufmann was a really good superior officer.
He had the guts to command a company on the front line, but at the sa ti, he guaranteed a fair amount of autonomy rather than running his subordinates ragged by the book.
If I could work with a person like this, get promoted together, and if we were lucky enough to be deployed together to the Western Europe or African Front, I could persuade him and we could surrender to the Allied Forces together…
And Klens, smiling brightly beside
as he blew on and drank his coffee, as if he was so happy.
If possible, Sergeant Kocher, too. And Second Lieutenant Heidmann, who is taciturn but carries out his duties without complaint, and Second Lieutenant Habenstein, who is still depressed after losing his adjutant…
We'd only been together for a month, but perhaps because of Dietrich's original mories, I found myself surprisingly attached to them.
Of course, I knew all too well that it wouldn't happen. When the German-Soviet War was in full swing, most of the Wehrmacht would be deployed to that hellish Eastern Front, and just as many—no, more than that—died.
The myth of the strongest German Military that shocked and terrified the world at the beginning of the war would crumble in the vast, cold lands of Russia, due to the repeated misjudgnts of the Wehrmacht and Hitler's blunders.
Excellent soldiers like us who built up experience and earned military rit in Spain, in Poland, in France, would all die, and they would scrape together boys who should be studying in school and old n to fill the gaps.
When I learned history, I just cursed the foolish Hitler and moved on, but now, it wasn't about the Germans in history books; the reality that my comrades, who stood back-to-back with
enduring the cold, would die like that was starting to hit ho.
If this was going to happen, I wish I'd entered a body that could do sothing.
If I were Hitler, or G??ring, or at least Himmler, Goebbels, or even Heydrich, I could have stopped World War II, or if that was impossible, I could have overthrown the Nazis or done sothing to change it into a sowhat normal organization…
I'm just a second lieutenant, and on top of that, I'm in Spain, not my ho country of Germany.
Nothing has happened yet, but starting next year, the Nazi madness will quickly drive Europe into war.
Anschluss. There was now exactly one year left until the annexation of Austria, when all of Germany would praise Hitler, not knowing that it was the beginning of their ruin.
-
As soon as the fog lifted, we crushed the nearly non-existent resistance and imdiately secured the fall of Brihuega, but we had no idea of the overall war situation.
The Italian Army's tanks, no, tankettes, that they brought calling them an armored unit, were at best the size of a passenger car I'd seen in Korea, no, even smaller! Even the Panzer I looks shabby, but to bring that crap and call it armor!
This ti, too, Enrique Líster and the 11th Division, leading with Soviet-made tanks T-26 and BT-5, were said to have shattered the Italian armored division—an armored unit in na only—and blocked their advance on the road.
He and the 11th Division were slowly becoming feared by everyone in the Nationalist faction. Imagine how it feels to see a war hero born on the enemy side of your battlefield.
It's not good at all.
But the real problem was that after that, we had no grasp of the war situation.
There were no portable radios like you'd associate with a military. This was still an era where ssengers traveled in person by bicycle, or by motorcycle if things were better!
Naturally, there were no orders or situation reports that should have been frequently delivered to each unit, and we were just blankly garrisoning Brihuega on standby for several days now.
The visibility was too limited due to the lousy weather with its frequent fog. The guy who said the Iberian midlands were high temperature and dry, aagh…
In the sky, the Luftwaffe, the Italian Air Force, and the Republican faction Air Force were tangled up in engagents or bombing each other, but aircraft weren't that advanced yet, and bombs rarely fell on our side, which wasn't even the main front line across the river.
"Well, I just can't get used to this dreadful fog."
"Tell
about it.
Captain, are there any orders from battalion headquarters?"
Captain Kaufmann and I were talking on the defense line spread out on the outskirts of Brihuega.
"They say there's nothing from the command post. I'm only telling you this because it's you, Second Lieutenant. There's also talk that Colonel Moscardó seems to be passive."
"Hmm, certainly.
Since achieving the original plan of a surprise attack to take it with few losses seems to have already failed, perhaps he doesn't want to exhaust the elite units."
Is that why our unit, under the command of the Nationalist faction's Colonel Moscardó, is also sitting here with nothing to do? The Italian Army has to fight anyway, since they've been stuffed with support from Mussolini.
But that story only works if the Italian Army can overwhelm the Republican faction on its own. The Italian Army may have a lot of military force, but I just can't bring myself to trust them.
At that mont, I saw a figure through the fog. What is it? An ally?
"Captain, was there a unit scheduled to join us from this direction?"
"No, nothing like that…"
The only units garrisoning Brihuega were our Condor Legion battalion and two Italian battalions.
Seeing the quick-witted captain swiftly run towards the city wall, I also slowly backed away and shouted in Spanish.
"Halt, right there! Who goes there!"
"D-Don't shoot! We're allies!"
The reply was in Spanish.
Oh fuck! I sprinted towards the wall with all my might and this ti shouted in the German language.
"Battle stations! Battle stations!"
"Gasp, what's going on?!"
The defense line instantly erupted in noise, and at that mont, a damn wind blew, and the fog began to lift.
"Fuck? We're screwed!"
In the suddenly cleared view, I could see several pontoon bridges set up on the river in the distance, and the Republican Army swarming across them.
"Hurry up! Dietrich!"
"Just shoot!"
No sooner had I answered Klens than gunshots began to erupt from both sides.
The sound of a shot slicing through the air right next to my ear sent goosebumps straight up my spine.
I squeezed out every last bit of strength I had, ran, and slid, barely managing to get behind the wall.
As I was coughing, a ss from the dirt and dust, the captain reached out a hand to help
up.
"Sorry, Second Lieutenant. I hope you understand."
Cough, as a commander, that was a wise decision, Captain.
Honestly, it's true I felt a bit resentful, but if the company commander gets shot and dies at the start of a battle, the battle is already lost.
The city was instantly thrown into chaos.
Soldiers were ringing bells everywhere, and from the crack of Kar98k rifles to the popcorn-like popping of the MG 34 machine gun, the firing of mortars, screams, and profanity—
And the roaring sound of sothing flying in.
"Get down!"
At the all-too-familiar damn sound, I yelled and flattened myself against the wall, and in less than a few seconds, I was covered in dust along with a deafening explosion.
Damn it, I really can't do this! Should I take solace in the fact that with a 21st Century artillery piece, I would have been instantly killed whether I ducked or not?!
"Ah, aaack, aaaaaack…!"
As I got up coughing, a mber of the 1st Platoon I'd seen several tis was screaming and thrashing on the ground right next to . Was it Private First Class Lerner? Judging by the amount of blood, he was a goner.
"Damn it, damn it all…! Dietrich! Are you alive?!"
"I'm fine!"
Klens was pressed flat against the wall, busy commanding his platoon, but at least he seed okay. But I couldn't see Captain Kaufmann.
I was about to shout for him but stopped myself. I shouldn't think it, but if, by so chance, he had been killed in action, it would do no good to cause a commotion.
Finding Captain Kaufmann was an incredibly difficult task. Right now, at this very mont, gunshots were incessantly ringing out, and every so often, an artillery bombardnt would fly in and shatter the city walls.
Cough, Schacht.
"Captain!"
It was a stroke of imnse luck that I caught his faint voice amidst all the noise of the battlefield.
But his condition was not so lucky.
A steel beam from who-knows-where was embedded in his chest, and the amount of blood that had flowed out was not small.
"Oh, my God…"
Cough, it hurts. Schacht, gasp.
…Will I… live?
Even as he asked, he didn't seem to expect a positive answer.
The superior officer I had painstakingly found after dodging artillery bombardnts and being covered in dust ti and again was dying.
"Captain Kaufmann… I wanted to serve under you for a long ti."
"Heh, hehehe… You say things even the missus wouldn't say…"
He wasn't the kind of person who deserved to die so aninglessly in a place like this.
"It hurts. Soday, if a mont like this ca… I wanted to go out coolly… It hurts, it hurts so much…"
Captain Kaufmann's trembling hand tried to reach into his chest pocket but fell limply.
I reached into his coat for him and pulled out a scrap of paper half-soaked in blood.
Cough, thank, you.
Sorry, please deliver that…
That was the end. Captain Kaufmann never moved again.
"Company Adjutant! The Platoon Leader, gasp…!"
As I stared down at him blankly, a ssenger from the 1st Platoon who had run over froze upon seeing the captain's body. This damn it battlefield doesn't give you any ti to be sentintal.
"Whew, you're Private First Class Kraut, right? Run to the battalion headquarters imdiately and report. Company Commander killed in action and nurous losses from enemy surprise attack across the river through the fog.
Unable to hold the front line, requesting permission to retreat!"
"Yes, sir!"
Even after seeing the company commander fall, Kraut tried to sprint off at my command, but with the sound of a bullet cutting through the wind, he splattered blood and collapsed.
Seeing the blood pouring from his head, it was an instant death.
Fuck, you fucking, fuck!
"I'm sorry, Captain. I'm sorry, Private First Class."
Knowing no one was listening, I muttered to myself as I shoved the captain's unfinished letter into my breast pocket and tore off the dog tags of the captain and the private.
Then I got up and picked up the rifle—a Kar98k—that the private had dropped.
The company commander is dead, so I'm the one responsible for this crappy situation.
First, let's send out several ssengers.
With no radios yet, I almost ended up like Soult, who screwed up Waterloo.
I can't die like this on this fucking crappy battlefield.
Never!
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