I Don’t Need Nazis In My Germany Chapter 190

< World War II - Liberation(Wyzwolenie) (3) >

A table, on which lay an operations map depicting the vast battlefield.

The bloodshed and screams that littered the battlefield could not be felt here.

The roar of cannons and the acrid sll of gunpowder that wore down the soldiers’ minds did not reach this place.

But the choices that would decide their lives, deaths, and fates were certainly made right here.

The unit of a division, containing countless lives, was nothing more than a single flag on the map.

War, in the end, was a ga played with countless pieces.

The only differences were that the pieces didn't co back to life when the ga ended, and there was no fairness or equality for either side.

The player of that absurd ga, Erich von Manstein, took a deep drag of his cigar and then exhaled the smoke.

The ashtray before him was already piled with a mountain of cigars, and while many of his staff officers looked at him with weary eyes as he filled the command room with smoke, it mattered little to him.

At this mont, all that lay before him was the battlefield where he would display his masterpiece, and his rival.

Though no one was physically in front of him, his rival definitely existed on this board.

Manstein leisurely picked up a piece shaped like a fighter aircraft.

In the cruel ga of war, there was no need for such things as fair play.

He smiled sardonically, vividly imagining Georgy Zhukov, sitting across from him, furrowing his brow.

-

Air superiority had long since passed to the Allied Forces.

The Soviet Union, rather than sending out its already depleted air force to suffer further attrition, chose to conserve it as much as possible for the most critical battle.

For this very mont.

But the air force the Soviets had so painstakingly conserved t a sky that embodied destruction itself the mont it sortied.

“Third one! Haha, this is too easy!”

Hearing Douglas Bader's shout over the radio, Adolf Galland furrowed his brow slightly and maneuvered his cherished plane, a Bf109 painted with a cigarette-smoking Mickey Mouse, to tail a Soviet Yak-1 fighter.

The enemy aircraft, struggling desperately to survive, could not escape Galland's movents, and a smile crept onto Galland’s lips.

“With this, it'll be my third…”

But before Galland could even fire his machine gun, the enemy aircraft was riddled by another Bf109's guns and began to fall, engulfed in flas.

“Haha, my apologies, Commander!”

“Hey you bastard, Barkhorn! Have you no consideration for your superiors!”

An irked Galland unconsciously yelled into the radio, but Gerhard Barkhorn's Bf109 was already flying off in search of its next victim.

“Haven't you been steadily racking them up since Spain, Commander? Please give a little to your juniors.”

“Hmph, honestly.”

This ti, receiving a transmission from another subordinate, Günther Rall, Galland let out a hollow laugh and stuck a cigar in his mouth.

“Fourth one!”

Hearing his close friend Bader's transmission again, Galland took a drag from his cigar and blew out the smoke.

'I can't lose.'

He imdiately tried to chase an obsolete Soviet I-16 that ca into view, but this ti, a Bf109 bearing the Polish flag swiftly intercepted it.

Galland licked his lips and scanned his surroundings, but in a situation where three or four Allied fighters would swarm and competitively shoot down any Soviet aircraft that appeared, it was hard to even find an enemy aircraft.

In the end, Galland just grumbled while puffing on his cigar.

“Good grief, if I don't step it up, I'll beco a has-been.”

The sky was all but covered by the fighter aircraft of the Luftwaffe and the RAF (Royal Air Force).

The Soviet Air Force, having engaged the Allied Air Force until now, knew they were at a disadvantage and had sortied for the sake of the Union of People.

But in a disastrous situation where aces who had achieved triple-digit kill counts in the original history competitively pounced on every single one of them, even that resolve was rendered aningless.

In their absolute inferiority, they were nothing more and nothing less than military gains for the Allied Air Force.

The courage and dedication of the Soviet Air Force devolved into re bravado.

-

Georgy Zhukov scowled at the reports of the Soviet Air Force's losses, which were so high they were practically lting away.

He had known from the start that they were at a disadvantage, but with the Luftwaffe, previously dispersed on a two-front war, all gathered, and bringing the RAF with them, the result was more catastrophic than he could have imagined.

Zhukov stared at the operations map with an anxious face.

Radios and telegrams ca in ceaselessly.

Every ti a staff officer ca and went, the flags of the Soviet Army were pushed back a little more.

All of them, too, without exception in the north, central, and southern regions.

Casualties, losses, collapse, endangernt, defeat, rout, surrender, annihilation.

All sorts of tragic news flew in without rest.

The 4.2 million-strong Soviet Army, that massive force, was being pushed back.

Zhukov was well aware that for every inch the flags on the map retreated, a pile of corpses was being stacked.

Having stared at nothing but the operations map for days without proper sleep, Zhukov felt his palms grow sweaty.

No matter how many curses and bellows he threw at his general officers, no matter how he scread that retreat was absolutely forbidden, no matter how he executed the families of surrendered soldiers as an example, the front line kept being pushed back.

They had fought them twice already.

The German Army's strength was already assessed.

The Polish Army was fighting alongside them, but the blow they had taken must have been greater than what the Soviet Army had suffered.

They were being severely pushed back in air superiority, but a very small number had survived and were still buying ti.

But why? Just why, where was this difference coming from?

Because the Soviet Army was too exhausted?

Because their will to fight was already broken?

He had to make a move.

He had to respond.

His best hand, the T-34 dium tank armored unit led by Chuikov and Líster, and the final bastion of reserves composed of the heavy tank KV-1, were waiting only for his command.

But the enemy also had a final card left in their hand.

The Mobile ‘Army Group’.

No matter how they had achieved their breakthrough in the Ardennes, if an Army Group-scale armored unit were to traverse the forests between East Prussia and the Polish border, a traffic jam would be unavoidable.

Likewise, no matter how many pontoon bridges they built over the Bug River, it was impossible for that many armored units to cross the river all at once.

Therefore, it was all clearly a deception.

Zhukov was convinced that as long as the enemy's main thrust was an armored unit, the main thrust could only be in the south.

Nevertheless, just in case, Zhukov had concentrated his armored units in Pinsk so they could respond quickly in any direction.

But why, why weren't they moving?

The battle had already been going on for days.

But still, their ‘main thrust’ was nowhere to be seen.

The appearance of armored units was being reported on every front, but according to the German Army's organization, the Northern, Central, and Army Group South all possessed armored units.

Not a single one of the reports pouring in from the front lines announced the appearance of an Army Group-scale armored unit.

Their core, the Mobile Army Group, where on earth was it?

Why in the world had the NKVD still not been able to find that massive armored unit!

With eyes completely bloodshot from lack of sleep, Zhukov glared at the Manstein who would be on the other side.

At the fellow who, despite not being here, would be sneering at him with a vile smile.

“Comrade General! A telegram from STAVKA!”

Zhukov snatched the telegram from the approaching staff officer and unfolded it.

And then, he froze.

[According to the NKVD's report, their main thrust is not in the south, and they have no main thrust.

Their Mobile Army Group has already been dispersed across all fronts and is presud to be currently engaged in combat.]

Zhukov realized a chill was running down his entire body.

They didn't concentrate their armored units, but dispersed them?

He finally understood why the Soviet Army was continuously being pushed back across all fronts.

It wasn't that they had ignored the no-retreat order.

It wasn't that the Soviet Army lacked ability, or the will to fight.

A difference greater than all of that.

The enemy had been fighting with their full strength committed from the beginning, while the Soviet Union had not.

Since the Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Army had emphasized the concentrated operation of armored units under Tukhachevsky's Doctrine.

The Soviet Army, which struggled with coordinated operations due to the lack of radios in its tanks, could not have conceived of the idea of dispersing its main armored force across various fronts.

The German Army they had seen until now had always executed breakthroughs centered on armored units, so they naturally assud they would do so this ti as well.

Above all, was the Panzer Group not for a concentrated breakthrough! If they were going to fight like this, for what purpose did they even have the Panzer Group organization—

“C-Comrade General!”

But before Zhukov's thoughts could organize, the shout of the staff officer delivering the next report was almost a scream.

-

Manstein sat in his chair with his legs crossed at an angle, took a deep drag from the cigar in his mouth.

Stage one of the operation was a success.

They were lured by the trump card of the Panzer Group and failed to respond properly, and while the enemy's main armored force was tied down, the German Army launched its offensive freely.

The armored units belonging to the Panzer Group were dispersed across all fronts, supporting the offensives of each Army Group and forcing massive losses on the enemy.

And with that sense of crisis, they lured out and annihilated their air force.

But it couldn't end with just this.

They wouldn't be fooled by such a simple trick forever.

Manstein inhaled the cigar smoke deeply, then exhaled it.

While he was a supporter of Dietrich Schacht, things like the lives or freedom of soldiers were not particularly important values to him.

What he needed was only a war where he could display his ability.

A battlefield where he could reveal his genius.

He savored the heavy feel of the cigar in his hand.

He shuddered with awe at the results that would be brought about by the flags he moved so lightly.

This was the very power and Great War he had always dread of.

It was the ultimate pleasure of playing with countless lives and weapons like chess pieces, proving his own value.

“Ah, I'm curious. I can't stand the curiosity.”

If only he could see the face of the man who would be sitting across from him.

In the end, unable to hold it in, Manstein burst into laughter.

“Haha, hahaha, hahahaha!”

Roaring with laughter, Manstein haphazardly scattered the fighter and bomber pieces across the map, then gathered the flags of Roml, Guderian, Model, and Hube from the various fronts and pushed them forward in a single motion.

“Now, for Act 2.”

-

Wolfram von Richthofen, the Air Force Chief of Staff who was out at a frontline airbase, burst into hearty laughter as soon as he received the telegram.

“Uahahaha! Good, very good! It's finally our turn!”

Richthofen looked out the window of the command room he was in.

Outside the window, a vast airfield built by the Luftwaffe for this offensive stretched out.

Feeling a sense of imnse exhilaration, Wolfram von Richthofen picked up the radio.

“You've all worked hard carrying out trivial railway bombing missions until now, gentlen.”

Filling the vast airbase, the gentlen of the Luftwaffe were in their respective aircraft, awaiting only his command.

“But this ti it's the real thing, gentlen of the Luftwaffe. The Soviet Air Force has been effectively annihilated.

While millions clash on the ground, it ans we can pour a rain of fire on the enemy's heads without a single worry.”

Richthofen shuddered for a mont, as if imagining the scene.

“Gentlen, what our dear Minister of Defense has demanded of us is not to burn civilians and urban areas.”

Opening his mouth again, Richthofen twisted the corner of his lips upward.

-In other words, you are free to thoroughly destroy everything else! Turn those pathetic grunts into a hornet's nest! Blow up the tanks they cling to for hope in their terror! And when they finally turn their backs and flee miserably, make them burn and scream while still alive!

Adolf Galland let out a cynical laugh at Richthofen's excited voice coming over the radio.

“That fellow's off his leash again.”

It was truly a sha for the Minister of Defense, who had worked so hard and suffered much trying to fix the German Army's ntality.

But just because their justification was righteous did not an they had beco gentlemanly and noble warriors.

In the end, being a group of warmongers was also their true nature.

What Dietrich Schacht had managed to change was ultimately nothing more than placing minimal restrictions on them and enabling their power to be used in a war with, at least, a proper justification.

And at this mont, their ferocity bared its fangs at the enemy.

-rcy is not needed! Death to the invaders! Annihilation to the enemy! Luftwaffe, take flight!

Simultaneously with Richthofen's shout, the ground crews guiding the sortie moved in perfect order, and thousands of aircraft began to take off sequentially.

The Luftwaffe and RAF, having nearly wiped out the Soviet Air Force, sortied with even their fighter aircraft, save for a few, loaded with bombs.

Adolf Galland also flew his cherished plane, loaded with a bomb to be temporarily used as a fighter-bomber.

The Soviet Army, having endured the Allied Forces' all-out offensive for days without the help of its main armored force, was already in tatters.

To finish them off and break through, a total of 6,000 Allied Air Force planes from airbases scattered across the region covered the sky.

The true offensive of the Allied Forces had begun.