Manstein eyed Blumentritt over his glasses. Not known for his vanity, the general could not resist the challenge of planning and leading the assault that would defeat the Soviet Union. “Your plan is available?”
“Yes.”
“My staff would need to study it and work out any problems as Jodl and his lackeys will be looking for any faults to undermine us.”
Blumentritt’s chest swelled. At last Zossen offered him an opportunity for planning military victory.
11
October 20, 1939
General Yermolayev turned out to be serious about the visit to the Kirov People’s Factory in Leningrad. The trip, though would not happen on August 10, 1939. Events in Poland distracted his Soviet friends. Over two months later, the Natasha was waiting for Reilly when he strode across the lobby, briefcase and suitcase in hand.
“Comrade Yermolayev has been summoned to Moscow on an important matter,” explained Natasha. The usually confident woman had changed, dark circles under her eyes and a few lines poking from the edges of her mouth. Natasha’s Her normally thick accent was not as intoxicating as in the past. “We will not leave Kharkov today.”
Reilly frowned “The trip is delayed again? We go tomorrow?”
“I do not know for certain, Jimmy. We will see.” Her words were drawn out and for some reason her use of the familiar nickname did not trigger the usual tingle.
“What is wrong, Natasha? He seemed so determined to make the trip. Is it the Germans?”
Natasha shook her head while she shrugged her shoulders. Reilly watched, puzzled by her meaning, but Natasha never again spoke of the cancelled trip.
Reilly lost interest in the conversation. The Russians were so damn secretive and there was nothing he could do to change their national character. He knew from experience further questions would not reveal anything useful. Instead, he admired Natasha’s figure. She was irresistible; Reilly was smitten. If only she could be his, thought Reilly.
Reilly stared at her blankly, wondering if she knew of his lust. It was hard to be subtle since Natasha was wearing the shapeless wool uniform of the Party. He hoped she noticed his interest, his feelings spilling out in his words, demeanor and expression.
0
“Jimmy, do you not hear?” hissed Natasha.
Reilly snapped back to the present. “I’m sorry, I was thinking of home.”
“You must continue to stay here. Comrade Yermolayev will call us when he needs you,” she apparently repeated. “I am sorry you miss your country.”
Reilly did as instructed. The next day the routine began again. Reilly spent all day at the tank factory. His nights were passed with bad food and harsh vodka. His only savior was the work, interesting in a professional sense.
In the fall of 1939, the Kharkov factory produced the BT-7 fast tank. Reilly challenged the factory overseer and leader of the Kharkov design bureau, Mikhail Koshkin. While not perfect, the “Beetle” was truly an impressive piece of equipment. The BT-7M retained the familiar Christie style removable track and wheel system, enabling it reach a speed of 40 miles per hour. More impressively, with the tracks removed, the BT-7 had a maximum road speed of 70 miles per hour. This level of performance was unmatched by equipment produced anywhere in the world. Reilly loved the Christie system.
Koshkin wanted to eliminate the removable track system. He felt that the dual system merely added weight and did not enhance the BT-7’s operational capabilities. Koshkin believed the better path was to design superior tracks.
The BT-7’s 45mm main gun was powerful in comparison to other nations’ tanks. It was the successor to the BT-5, which suffered breakdowns and problems when used by Republican forces in Spain and the Red Army in the Far East. The BT-5 crews soon learned the danger of thin armor and riveted construction.
When struck by anti-tank shells, the BT-5’s, its rivets failed, sending bolts ricocheting around the crew compartment with deadly results. Much of the work of the late 1930’s saw the evolution of the BT-5 into the BT-7. Armor thickness was almost doubled and rivets were replaced with welds. A German BMW aircraft engine was copied and installed as the power plant. Reilly spent countless hours adapting a Hispano-Suiza liquid cooled V-12 diesel engine for the newest variant, the BT-7M. The new engine extended the tank range by a third while it reduced risk of fire from an overheating motor. Reilly’s real passion, though was the removable track system. He blistered the ears of every Russian general and Koshkin to keep the dual system. The director tolerated Reilly’s arguments, but was not swayed by them.
Everyone at the factory was delighted by the news of General Georgi Zhukov’s recent victory over Japan in the Far East at Khalkin Gol. The Party specifically granted a share of the credit for the heroic success of the Red Army to the performance of the BT-7. The Japanese Kanto Army had boldly invaded and established positions on the Soviet side of the Mongolian Manchurian border. Zhukov held the Japanese with his infantry and launched his BT-7’s in a pincer attack. The Kanto Army was routed, and suffered nearly 20,000 casualties.
“Let the Fascists come!” was the cry of Kharkov Locomotive Factory nr. 183. It was not mere bravado but a realization from the lowest laborer to the highest party official that in the near future the Red Army would fight the Nazis. Thousands of BT fast tanks would surely destroy the Fascists. Even Reilly was swept away by their confidence and would be taught a bloody lesson by the German panzers.
II
November 2, 1939
Obertruppfuhrer Reichenau stretched his legs as he settled on the crest of a hill overlooking the Polish city of Brest Litovsk, the scene of the Russian surrender in the Great War. Brest Litovsk in fall 1939 had become a magnet for recalcitrant Poles and others who sought refuge from the German Army. The Polish war had officially ended, but some Poles refused to accept the end of their state. This forced Einsatzgruppen A to change its plans and send Captain Reichenau’s team further east.
Reichenau watched his men descend toward the buildings marking the edge of the city. The captain was in an expansive mood, his “soldiers” having become a cohesive force. Even Strauss had begun to work as part of a team, with his high pitched voice and poor aim.
Leaving his men to establish camp, the captain sought his orders for the next day. The mission in Brest Litovsk came from the troops of the Fourteenth Army, which needed the Einsatzgruppen’s aid in handling irregular forces who shot at regular soldiers. Hiding among civilians, the Polish terrorists and their Jewish allies were best handled by men like Reichenau. Aiding them was a company of Panzerkampfwagen III’s, their armor and 37mm guns, which were more than a match for civilians or the few armed Poles who threatened peace and order.
As Reichenau watched through viewing glasses, Strauss led to his team from the east, another team from the west. The panzers shielded Reichenau’s men as they approached a village where firing originated. He watched his men range across the fields, reaching the buildings, kicking in doors and rousting villagers, attacking before the residents summoned the courage to resist. Once outside and in the open, the villages faced the panzers, cowing all but the most suicidal peasant. Within an hour the fields around the buildings were packed with Poles trudging under the SS guns and tankers who flipped cigarettes in their direction, occasionally hitting cloth and sparking a fire much to their delight.
Reichenau took his staff car into the mass, needing to see those who plodded by his men. Since boyhood Reichenau had been seeing familiar faces among unfamiliar ones. In crowds he was certain he spotted Etta or Mena or Tilda, his grown sisters, alive safe and beautiful; the perfect image of their mother. The faces would rush by, and before he could snatch at them they disappeared into the crowd. Occasionally he launched into the crush of people, but had never found his sisters. As he aged the appearances became less frequent, and when he spotted them he no longer gave chase. Watching the huddled figures rousted from the Polish village, he saw Mena, his middle sister when she was fourteen the last time he saw her. She trud
ged through the rutted road, head down with a blanket protecting her from the fall chill. Reichenau blinked at the strong chin, green eyes, freckled cheeks and light hair. The girl looked up, gazes locked; he saw Mena, his closest friend after their mother died.
Drawing himself erect he motioned to one of the guards and had the girl brought to him. Sent stumbling toward the black clad figure, she bumped against the side of the staff car and was pulled to her feet by her hair and held in a standing position, head tilted back so the major could see her face. Reichenau grimaced at her. It was not Mena; the girl was well into her twenties, without freckles, and with hair nearly as dark as her eyes.
Reichenau waved her away; the girl was pushed, kicked and smacked back into line. The colonel lost interest in the procession as memories of Mena flooded his mind. The few years he could recall her had begun to dim in his memory as he entered middle age. Mena had disappeared within weeks of Albert turning eight, but he could recall that day with clarity thirty- five years later.
It was July and Mena was in one of her summer dresses borrowed from her older sister. The dress barely covered her knees, riding up on her arms and pressed against her chest as the fourteen year old made her final push toward womanhood. Albert and Mena were near the forest that bounded the rear of their father’s estate – passed down from Albert’s mother’s family after she was murdered – some four thousand acres east of Konigsberg. Albert and Mena were watching their pet rabbits, taken from their hutches and placed in the pen surrounded by chicken wire. The rabbits had been running about, colliding with each other, and evading the children’s attempts to snatch them.
Albert remembered the Mena was nervous that day and spent much of her time looking up at the distant house. Able to grab one of the rabbits she squeezed it while Albert stroked it. Her fingers wrapped around the creature’s neck as it struggled. Albert screamed and she released it back into the pen. Mena’s agitation had continued as she alternated from crying to sulking to smacking the dirt around the pen. She was always nervous when visitors came, and their father’s brothers and his friends were frequent visitors. Albert saw little of them, hustled from the house even during the cold and snow that marked East Prussian winters. He had not minded, at least one of his sisters were there to play with him. This time it was Mena, though after a short time with the rabbits, Tilda the oldest had arrived and taken the fourteen year old’s place.
The day had been pleasant; his father, uncle and their friends hunting in the forest along with drinking and the occasional fight that ended with more drinking. It had been a fun time until night fell and dinner came. Everyone was there except Mena. Albert noticed her absence but it seemed no one else did. When he asked Tilda the answer was sharp. Mena had been sent to her room without dinner, a punishment for a hateful attitude. Albert was not surprised, Mena had missed many meals because of her tongue.
The next day was different. Mena did not appear in the morning, and a search of her room found an open window and a tied sheet that allowed her to lower herself from the second story. A search followed the discovery, though Albert was never told if she was found. Instead the story had become she had been summoned to a better place and would not be returning. It was only after Tilda’s disappearance years later that the truth was told to then ten year Albert.
The story had Mena dating a Jewish boy against the wishes of her father. The fight the night before her disappearance had been about her continuing to see the boy. Her father had forbidden it, Mena had rebelled, and she had been locked in her room. Her escape was part of her plan to see him, and when she did he had killed her, but only after violating her repeatedly and leaving her naked in one of the many forests of the area. Justice had been performed quickly; trials only allowing Jews to trick their way out of trouble. The boy survived his victim by only a few hours. Albert had not forgotten Mena or what happened to her. It crushed any sympathy for the souls stumbling from their village to meet the loaded weapons of Strauss and the Irishman.
Some of the tankers climbed from their machines. They eyed the women who stumbled by, many barely dressed after grabbing what few possessions they could snatch in a few moments. The SS men patrolled the line; the occasional “schnell, schnell” hustled the Poles on their way. Strauss marched back and forth across the line, while shouting and threatening. He occasionally blocked them while making lewd comments before snatching at one of the women he found appealing. His Walther always at the ready, Strauss would wave it when some Polish soul either caught his eye or shuffled too slowly. Occasionally one would have the gall to meet his look and would be pulled aside; her belongings scattered in the mud, obscenities screamed in their face.
“Look at that one,” he sneered, nose twitching as he cuffed the ear of a teenage boy who tumbled into a muddy patch formed by a Panzerkampfwagen II. The boy, face streaked with mud, clothes drenched, struggled to rise. Strauss’s Walther connected with the boy’s chin, blood spurting from his mouth as the boy sprawled in the mud.
“Fucking scum,” Strauss shouted. “Stay there in the mud like all of the pigs.” He spit, missing the boy, further infuriating Strauss who stomped on the back of the boy’s leg. A sickening crack marked the breaking of bone, with the boy clutching the remains of his leg.
Strauss spit again hitting his mark and was joined by other SS men who spit and stomped, their boots snapped fingers and other bones with each blow. Their fun was interrupted by a cry; a girl no more than sixteen squeezing through the SS men and dropping to her knees to shield the boy.
Strauss’ mouth opened, hand reached to snatch a clump of hair. Tugging the girl to her feet he bent her backwards. She struggled and scratched at his arms until she was righted. Her struggles ceased at the sight of the Walther at eye level; stroking her cheek as it was worked down to her mouth.
“Let’s see what this Polish bitch can do.” He tapped her teeth with the barrel of his sidearm, but her mouth remained shut tight. Strauss laughed as he preferred the ones who struggled, and then gripped his gun drove it into her stomach. She gasped, mouth opening only to find the gun inserted, rattling around her teeth as her head was pulled back by her hair.
“How many you think she can do.” Strauss called to his men, who laughed and whistled while grabbing themselves. The girl, surrounded and in pain, realized the German’s intention; she began crying, tears slipping into her mouth.
“Let her go.”
Strauss cocked his head and spotted a soldier headed in his direction with a group of comrades. He laughed, wriggling the gun in her mouth. “This is SS property,” he called. “You panzer boys need to find your own entertainment.” He nodded at his men. “Find something appropriate for these horny boys.”
The search was soon joined, the SS men culled the line of refugees until finding the “appropriate” mate for the soldiers. It was a sixtyish heavyset woman, mouth spewing curses at the SS men as they dragged her from the line, her few teeth unable to contain spittle that came with her protests. The SS men held her then flung her at the gray clad soldier, nearly toppling him with her girth.
He struggled to keep his balance, steadying the women and sending her back to the line of refugees. “Enough,” he growled. “Let her go,” he repeated.
Strauss laughed. “Listen to that, some peasant boy giving orders to us.” He cocked his head at the tanker. “Who are you?”
“Feldwebel Rudi Schwarz.”
Strauss’ head wobbled. “Well Feldstabswebel Rudi Schwarz, go fuck yourself.” He tugged at the girl’s head, producing a squeal. “She assaulted a Rottenfuhrer, we will handle her as we see fit.” He plunged the Walther P38 further into her mouth. She gagged at the feel of metal.
Rudi glanced at his comrades and in a tactical blitzkrieg snatched the girl then gripped Strauss’ wrist and forced him to drop the Walther. The gun settled into the mud at his feet.
“I told you to let her go.” Rudi held the sobbing girl, relieved to be free of the gun but afraid her rescuers might demand their o
wn price.
Strauss’ face reddened, teeth ground as he bent to retrieve his Walther. Shaking with fury and humiliation he made faces at the soldier, but Rudi did not care. He released the girl and calmed her when he matched her gaze and used his broken Polish to promise her safety. She brightened and murmured, “Danke.”
Rudi smiled in return then tasted blood. The girl’s smile was gone, eye dangling from its socket, chasm replacing her features as she sank to her knees, sliding free of Rudi’s grasp. He jerked around at the ringing in his ears, the shock of sudden death making him dangerous. He faced another SS officer, smoking Walther in his hand, cold blue eyes unseeing.
“SS property,” he snorted. Rudi frowned at the clipped tone and dialect.
A whimper sounded from below; it was the boy, his broken jaw limiting him to guttural sounds. The gun moved then a single shot produced silence.
“These are all SS property. You are here to fight Polack soldiers. Get your ass back to your tank before you become SS property.”
Rudi, never one to retreat from a fight, swept the blood from his face and took one deliberate step toward those cold blue eyes. A standoff was in the making; the army with its tradition as a pillar of the German state: the SS, an organization that saw the gray clad soldiers as meat for the grinder, mere peasants with the wrong breeding.
It ended with a squeeze on Rudi’s shoulder, a signal that discretion was a better part of valor. The tankers could wait for their revenge; a poorly aimed shell, a jammed gun that fired an entire clip, accidents always happened on the battlefield and a Walther was no match for a Panzerkampfwagen III.
French Betrayal (Reich Triumphant Book 1) Page 13