Chapter 100:
Chapter 100
After the successful assassination of Heydrich, the Comintern ordered a full-scale struggle to the communist parties of various countries.
[This is the voice of the Soviet Union. With the cooperation of the United States and the Soviet Union, the secret police of the fascists have lost their head. The great people’s masses have executed Reinhard Heydrich, a professor in Prague.]
“Is he really dead?”
“It seems so. If you listen to the broadcasts from Czechoslovakia…”
Communist party members in various parts of Europe listened to shortwave radio broadcasts in disguised places such as barns or attics of buildings, and murmured.
It was true that the Germans were quite shaken.
The resistance members who had sneaked into buildings as cleaners or cooks could see them muttering anxiously every day.
They could not know the exact details, though.
“What if the shortwave broadcast is a hoax…”
“I don’t think so. The broadcast content matches the codebook, right?”
“But where are they broadcasting from? If they have a base, the fascist bastards would have raided it by tracking the broadcast…”
The resistance members did not know. There was one radio station in each Western European country such as France, Italy, and Spain, as well as Eastern Europe, that broadcasted the news of the war and the Soviet position. They also sometimes threw bundles of money worth tens of thousands of marks and left.
Where and how they did it was unknown.
They were amazed by the mysterious and sudden actions of the Soviet Union, even though they were in the same communist party.
“If it’s true… it’s really time?”
“Hahaha, you pig-like German fascists. You’re scared and squealing without a master!”
The French Communist Party, nicknamed the daughter of the Kremlin, waged the most active and powerful armed struggle.
They had already attempted to assassinate almost all of the high-ranking officials of Vichy, and Marshal Petain, the head of state, had also narrowly escaped death.
The masses despised Petain’s pro-German line while understanding it, and rebelled massively against his decision to send France’s sons to the Eastern Front under German orders.
Behind this was the united front of the resistance.
The right-wing resistance organization with many former military officials, and the communist party that had created a dense network of cells among citizens, students, and youths cooperated with a common goal.
“We will not go to Germany’s war and die! Rise up, young people of France!”
“Rise up, children of the motherland, the day of glory has arrived!”
The gendarmerie offices and offices in various places were attacked by young people who refused conscription.
As soon as there was a gap, a lump of explosives flew into various government offices.
Even young children threw empty lunch boxes at government offices and watched adults panic with giggles.
Of course, the national gendarmerie and German secret police did not let this go.
But Marshal Petain did not want to see Germans fighting with Frenchmen in France either.
“Our cabinet has decided to withdraw our decision to send French troops to the Eastern Front.”
“What is this rebellion? Marshal Petain! The promise we made then…”
“But what if it’s not ‘French troops’ but ‘volunteer troops’ organized voluntarily by citizens? It’s not forcing young people who refuse conscription, but forming an army with those who volunteer to participate.”
Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German military administration in France, pondered Petain’s proposal.
It was clear that the current social unrest was caused by a mixture of resentment against Germany and conscription.
He finally made up his mind and nodded his head.
“Fine. There will be many volunteers in the French army too, right?”
“I promise you that.”
They could fill up some troops by taking out some officers and non-commissioned officers who were unhappy but would follow orders to join the ‘volunteer army’, and recruiting those who were less trained but willing.
They also pushed some prisoners or criminals who were arrested for political crimes into volunteer army with reduced sentences as bait.
That was Vichy’s plan.
Anyway, Germany only demanded a certain number of heads, not a certain quality of troops.
As far as France was concerned, they just had to send enough heads.
Whether they sabotaged Germans or defected to Soviets, was that our fault?
**
If Frenchmen preferred terror and destruction, British people were a nation of adventure as their nickname suggested. They did strange and creative things.
The British Communist Party (CPGB) was very creative.
They mostly hid in local clubs and pretended to cooperate in front while screwing them over behind.
“Okay, okay… get ready… throw!”
“One, two, three! Fire!”
Fluffy, balloons flew up. The club members at Port Talbot Fuzilier Club laughed and clapped their hands as they watched balloons faintly disappear into the night sky.
The members got on the truck one by one.
Vroom, the truck spewed out smoke and engine noise, rattled over the rough hill, and soon disappeared.
The balloons they launched had a very simple structure.
They filled the balloons with gas, and hung something that would be a suitable weight, such as a brick, below to adjust the balloon to fly at an appropriate height.
And they connected the balloon and the weight with a wire. It was a very simple structure.
“Oh… God! Another short circuit!”
“What are you guys doing with the power plant security?”
This thing was very simple but had a powerful effect.
The ‘balloons’ that flew with the wind cut off and short-circuited power plants and wires, paralyzing power production.
When the wire penetrated the wire, a short circuit occurred frequently, and this caused the factories that Nazi occupied and used as production facilities to stop.
Sometimes they even succeeded in setting fire to power plants, and Germany had to use copper, which was already scarce, to repair these power facilities.
“Damn it, we don’t have enough copper to make bullets in our country, but we have to send copper here to fix the wires that are cut off. Do you think your head will be intact while doing this?”
“I’m sorry…”
The Germans who learned that they could destroy strategic facilities with simple things made by local old ladies and old men in nearby mountains started to shoot down all suspicious objects with anti-aircraft machine guns.
“Just shoot them! Fuck!”
Tutatata tatata tatata! Tatata tatata!
The engineers and soldiers who lived near the power plant could not sleep well at night because of the gunshots, but they had to keep their mouths shut because of the higher-ups’ glare.
Of course, the British were not without any countermeasures.
“Hehehe… I wonder if they can see this in their eyes?”
“Anyway, throw it! We have nothing to lose!”
The British sent out black-painted devices at night to sabotage the power plant.
After another power plant accident, the Germans had to limp around with swollen legs.
Cutting off the electricity stopped the factory, and stopping the factory meant losing several times more productivity.
The conscripted workers expressed their dissatisfaction by subtly striking, and the German supervisors had to whip them harshly.
“Ugh… But why do I feel so bad?”
“I know, right? How do those British bastards live on this stuff?”
[All soldiers, gather at the infirmary. I repeat. All soldiers, gather at the infirmary.]
Dozens of German soldiers had to be stationed at each major factory for surveillance and security.
The Eastern Front Command was hysterical about wasting the already scarce manpower, but there was no choice.
And the British committed outrageous terrorism against them.
“Did you say… typhus?”
“No, why is that here?”
“Those filthy British bastards sabotaged us!”
A British cook who had to work for the German garrison in Britain mixed the feces and urine of his neighbor who had typhus with the German soldiers’ stew.
This attempt was exposed not because of the strange taste in the stew, but because typhus spread in the barracks and a general inspection was conducted on the sanitary conditions.
“Take this traitor away!”
“Spit, you fucking Germans. You’re quick to notice…”
The cook was eventually dragged to a concentration camp with his family, but many German soldiers who had to eat the food prepared by the British assistants were terrified.
“Fuck! Do you know what’s in there? How can you eat that?”
“It tastes like shit, and maybe there’s really shit mixed in it?”
Some refused to eat, and eventually it was decided that armed soldiers would guard the kitchen.
Even so, the British sabotaged by stepping on the ingredients with dirty shoes or cooking with dirty hands.
***
“…reports like these…”
“Stupid bastards.”
The Führer scolded them softly.
The restless resistance forces were paralyzing the production capacity of the Reich.
They had to face a dilemma between two choices.
The ‘Aryans’, that is, the Germans, were superior to the rest in many ways. German soldiers boasted overwhelming capabilities compared to allied soldiers, and showed much better performance in terms of loyalty, stamina, willpower, and fighting spirit.
Also, German workers had much higher productivity than slave workers of inferior races who worked under abuse or workers who suffered from sabotage in allied facilities.
But the Reich had to choose one of them. To send more German soldiers to the front line, the number of German workers inevitably had to decrease.
They did not want to fight against their incredible comrades, so the officers and commanders on the front line wanted more German reinforcements, but at the same time they demanded more supplies and materials. Without realizing that these two were contradictory.
To meet the demands of the front line, they forced slave workers to work three shifts and reduced their rations to a minimum to squeeze out materials, but that did not solve the supply problem.
There were roughly three stages to think about supply.
The supply of raw materials, the production of goods, and the delivery to the front line.
And Germany was having trouble in all three stages.
Coal, aluminum, magnesium and other raw materials produced in Germany were relatively good. But they lost all of Turkey and the Balkans to Soviet Union and lost access to chrome supply, and as Finland’s front line stalled and Northern Group Army retreated Sweden began to watch Soviet Union’s moves.
They exploited their neutral status and sold iron ore to Germany, but they gradually raised prices as they flirted with America and Soviet Union.
They said production costs went up or miners went on strike or mines collapsed and reduced supply.
About 30% of iron ore used by Germany was from Sweden.
As their supply fluctuated, Army Ordnance Department had to adjust production plans as conservatively as possible.
Production of goods was hampered by sabotage by workers.
Delivery to front line was hampered by lack of trucks and transport means and poor local road and rail conditions. There was no innovative way to solve this problem.
The best brains of Third Reich were involved in this matter but they did not have any clever solutions either.
“The chrome stock is only 16 months left. This is assuming current production levels and if production of military supplies increases then it will be less than that…”
“How about now we take over Britain’s African colonies…”
Especially chrome problem was like that.
Chrome was like a vitamin for industry.
It needed a small amount but without it industry could fall into a complete dysfunction.
Chrome was essential for wear-resistant bearings, steel plates and armor materials for tanks and aircraft, engines and so on.
And this chrome was produced in three places: Soviet Union, British Africa, and Turkey. And all three were out of Germany’s hands.
They used Balkan chrome ore as a substitute but supply of that was cut off by partisans’ activities and Bulgaria’s betrayal. Germany had to rely on stockpiled chrome.
Only 16 months of stock. In 16 months they had to cut off Soviet Union’s throat and crush Balkan partisans and go to Turkey… The generals quietly bowed their heads.
The Führer looked down at them with an annoyed eye and suddenly thundered.
“Bring me victory before I lock you all up in concentration camps! You incompetent bastards, traitors too. Crush those Russian inferior races!”
The time for the decisive battle was approaching.
In May, when the ground hardened, there was no excuse to avoid fighting.
The generals closed their mouths and bowed their heads.
Hoping that the Führer’s anger would not fall on them.
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