Chapter 104:
Chapter 104
The next morning, I woke up with a hangover that felt like death. I clutched my head and groaned.
“Damn it… those bastards…”
The Russians drank like crazy.
They probably were still drinking to cure their hangovers.
Alcoholics, all of them.
I wanted to punish them for their drunkenness and cause them some trouble, but they were too many and too entrenched in their culture of binge drinking.
The Soviet Communist Party in the 1920s was a den of scoundrels.
The party, which started as a secret organization in the urban centers of Petrograd and Moscow, expanded its power across the country, but lacked the ability to govern.
They had to cooperate with the local revolutionaries who joined them to rule over the vast land of Russia.
And those people were of poor quality.
Thugs who drank with their friends and joined the enemy army with guns during the civil war.
They became the local cadres of the party and rose up to the ranks, hiding from Moscow’s eyes and sharing their interests among themselves.
In this situation, Stalin expelled 30% of the party members every year to improve the quality of the local organizations.
The main reason was alcoholism.
People who were drunk and rude during work hours would have been fired from public service in modern Korea, but such people came out by the tens of thousands every year in the Soviet Union.
Damn drunkards… Stalin himself was not much different. Once he started drinking, he kept pouring more and more.
“Did you wake up, Comrade Secretary?”
“Uh… yeah…”
Ah… my head hurts.
The guard, who seemed to be waiting outside my door, came in and greeted me.
On days like this when I was hungover, they brought me borscht.
It was effective for curing hangovers.
Was it because of the high demand for hangover remedies?
But I was Korean, and I craved spicy soup.
Ah… I want bean sprout soup, buckwheat soup, or blood soup.
I used to have a bowl of blood sausage soup with my friends on mornings after drinking, but there was no such thing in Soviet Russia in the 1940s.
The closest thing to blood soup was a spicy soup made with sausages from pig’s blood, which was quite tasty, but that was only in the Kremlin.
If I tried to find something like that here, I would only make these people uncomfortable.
I felt a little better after gulping down the soup.
I had some time before going back to Moscow, and I had to stop by some places on the way, but I thought I would feel much better if I slept well… I tried to console myself.
***
I waved my hand at the crowd that came out to see me off with a headache from the hangover.
They were poor and ragged compared to my standards, but they still cheered for me enthusiastically.
Was it because of propaganda? Or because of the threat of the party? Or because they had never had it so good before?
Maybe it was a combination of all three, but… ugh, my stomach was upset from the alcohol. Some of them smelled like alcohol from their hangover drinks.
Those bastards really need to sober up… sigh… let it go.
The Stalin inside me who whispered for purges wouldn’t do anything about this…
As I was having all kinds of thoughts, an old woman came out through the crowd. How did she get through with so many people? She brought a cow with her.
At first, I thought I was seeing things because of the alcohol, but when the cow mooed and dropped dung, I snapped out of it.
“What is this cow doing here?”
“It’s a cow, Comrade Secretary. Hehehe.”
The old woman had half her teeth missing and smiled as she stroked the cow.
No, that’s not what I meant. Why did you bring this cow to me?
The cow wagged its tail and chased away the flies around it, and kept dropping dung. Oh… please…
“This is a very good cow, Comrade Secretary. It’s the one that produces the most milk in our farm. Please accept this cow as a gift.”
The people looked dumbfounded but clapped hard.
The old woman smiled brightly and seemed to hope that I would take the cow.
She really respected me sincerely, I thought.
I got off the podium and took the old woman’s wrinkled hand.
It was a farmer’s hand with swollen joints and calluses.
The old woman was moved by the fact that the great secretary held her hand and her eyes reddened as if she would cry any moment.
“Madam, thank you for your gift.”
“Oh my, oh my… madam…”
“But I don’t need a cow because I don’t have a farm. I am fully employed by the state and I do my best to serve the people, but an employee doesn’t have a farm. Madam, I think you should keep the cow and remember me instead of giving it to me.”
As I said that, the cow mooed as if it understood.
The old woman sobbed and collapsed.
The people cheered even louder.
I didn’t need that cow.
What I needed more was the people’s support and love.
I felt like the fatigue of my work was washed away.
I had doubts while working on the paperwork late at night.
‘How do the people evaluate what I do? How will future generations evaluate me?’
Am I doing something helpful for the world? Will it be helpful for the future?
I hope I’m not making any mistakes.
There was no way to get feedback, and it was exhausting to make decisions based on personal conviction.
But at least this old woman seemed to respect me sincerely.
“Madam, thank you. Thank you…”
The local party newspaper reporters took pictures of me hugging the old woman gently.
Maybe in a few days, they would be published in newspapers across the country with headlines like ‘Comrade Stalin shows his love for the people during his field inspection’.
I didn’t mind if it was a show.
It was true that I wanted to make this country, and the future, a better place.
***
Armed SS squads roamed the streets of Berlin with a threatening attitude.
The citizens had to tremble in fear once again.
The SS replaced the SA (Stormtroopers) as the Nazi party’s political thugs after the purge of the Night of the Long Knives, but from the perspective of ordinary citizens, there was not much difference between them.
Many still remembered the days when the Stormtroopers and other political gangs ran wild and devoured the Weimar Republic.
The presence of armed guards in Berlin and other cities worried those who hated those unstable times.
The only consolation was that they did not unleash brutal violence on the citizens?
The SS were not much different from the SA in terms of their origins.
They were mostly dissatisfied with society and drank with their friends.
They joined the Nazi army with guns during the civil war.
They became a more disciplined group under the Nazi’s iron fist, but they were still scoundrels.
Of course, the violence was much more cruel to those who were targeted by it.
They raided the homes of the officers and generals who were labeled as ‘anti-national’, and captured their families.
Most of them had no idea what was going on, as their husbands were away at the front.
They cried out.
“Our son is an exemplary soldier! He received the Iron Cross twice… Ahh!”
“Shut up, old woman. I don’t care what your son-in-law does. The important thing is that he plotted against the state.”
An SS soldier in a black uniform threw an old man with white hair to the ground.
The old man groaned and lay on the ground, unable to get up. Other SS soldiers grabbed his arms and lifted him up, then threw him back into the truck.
She had never experienced anything like this before, and was treated like a sack of potatoes without any resistance.
There were many people shivering and trapped in the sealed truck.
As the door opened and closed with a bang, passers-by saw that there were at least a dozen people inside.
They had to pretend they didn’t see anything.
“What are you looking at! They are involved in anti-national groups. Do you want to be arrested for treason? Huh?”
“…”
The citizens turned their heads.
In front of the blatant violence, they were silent.
Anyway, there was no one in our family who was smart enough to plot against the state.
Our son is just an ordinary worker.
That’s what people said when someone was taken away.
It’s not me. It’s none of my business.
First, the communists and Jews were dragged away.
The neighbor who was a staunch supporter of the Social Democratic Party and a factory worker was also taken away.
The devout Catholic lady and the parish priest in front of our house also disappeared without a trace.
Germany was ruled by fear.
The citizens shouted louder to escape from fear.
“Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler! Long live victory!”
The young members of the Youth Corps, dressed in uniforms and armed with weapons, flocked around like ducklings, chanting slogans.
The SS often mobilized the Youth Corps members for their arrest operations.
And whenever they used violence, they always brought them along to teach them how to break human beings.
“Look, like this…”
Thud! Thud!
A young man’s face spun around from the kicks.
He fell to the ground, bleeding from his lips.
No one could help him up, even though sixteen SS soldiers and Youth Corps members were lynching the young men in broad daylight.
No one could stop them.
The traffic policeman at the nearby intersection ignored them and focused on his own job.
The college students who were dragged out for spreading flyers against the war and Hitler, and for belonging to a group that planned it, had to surrender to the illegal violence on their knees.
“Yeah! Good, shorter, make it shorter.”
“Hahaha!!”
The college students who were arrested like this were forcibly sent to the front.
As the real war was raging on the Eastern Front, being sent there as a soldier was practically a death sentence.
Even female college students could not avoid being drafted.
As front-line riflemen, as military nurses in field hospitals, they could not execute them on the spot for anti-regime activities, so they decided to let them die by Soviet bullets.
A young Youth Corps boy held a pair of scissors and grabbed a college student’s hair, cutting it randomly.
The SS guards in black uniforms sneered at the young man who was holding back his tears.
He had to shave his head to enlist, so they said they would give him a free haircut in advance and mocked those who were arrested in the square.
“Next!”
After cutting his hair roughly, they pushed him aside.
The Youth Corps member with a badge indicating he was a regional leader proudly smiled and grabbed another person’s hair and cut it off.
“Peter! What are you doing there!”
“!!!”
A woman ran out from the crowd and shouted.
The middle-aged woman with a gentle face ran up to the stage where the haircut was taking place with a pale expression of shock.
“What are you doing here? I wondered what you were up to these days and you’re doing this…”
“Mom…”
“Hey! Are you also in an anti-national group?”
The SS guards blocked her threateningly, but they could not hide the expression of the young Youth Corps boy who turned pale.
The boy who wore a badge proudly stepped back and dropped the scissors.
“Peter Schmidt, you come see me later. Take that woman away!”
“Peter! Peter!”
“…”
The Youth Corps boy bowed his head.
His mother was dragged away screaming.
My son! My son!
A young SS guard with a fierce face picked up the scissors and quickly cut off the hair of the remaining people.
Next! Next!
He called out to the person next to him in line and kicked their backs with his boots, pushing them to where the others who had already been shaved were.
The college students glared at the SS guards with hatred in their eyes.
“What? Are you jealous?”
“…You’re amazing.”
A college student who found an old classmate among the SS guards sneered bitterly.
He was a troublemaker who always gave the teachers a headache, and he met again with a model student who always received the teachers’ love in an unexpected place and in an unexpected situation.
The SS guard laughed.
“It’s not me who’s amazing, it’s you! I’m now a personal guard of the Führer and you’ll be a private on the front. Your mother must be so proud of you?”
The college student clenched his mouth.
In Berlin, in K?nigsberg, in Munich and Stuttgart, in Hamburg, in Frankfurt. Similar scenes were unfolding in cities across Germany.
Active/reserve soldiers and their families who were accused of being involved in anti-regime conspiracies, college students and workers, intellectuals, were all raided by the SS.
The SS men, who were originally thugs or gangsters, wore uniforms and weapons and roamed around.
We have caught the traitors of the nation!
It’s an order from above!
But many people knew.
Some of them were attacked by personal grudges, and many others were dragged away just on suspicion.
But most of them just kept silent. Hoping that they would not be the next target of the raid.
And some of the cunning ones took advantage of this.
“Hans Georg! Come out right now!”
“What, what! Aaah!”
The children screamed and ran out as they saw their father being dragged away.
The father who hugged the children was slapped in the face and fell to the floor of his own house with a boot on his neck.
The SS men who kicked the door and rushed into the house beat him mercilessly.
“We have received a report that you were involved in an anti-national conspiracy. We’re taking you away!”
“No, no. My husband is not that kind of person… Aaah!”
“Mom!”
One of the Eugenics agents slapped the woman who ran out hastily.
He was only six years older than the children at best?
With a venomous expression on his face, the Eugenics agent shouted.
“How dare you! Are you defending a national traitor! You are also guilty of treason!”
“Hans! Hans!”
The mother and children who collapsed and cried, the house that was turned upside down.
Similar things happened nationwide.
The cunning and vile ones reported to the SS people or rivals they hated or competed with.
The local party organizations that were looking for ways to show off their ‘public service’ by catching ‘rebels’ competed for loyalty by arresting people even on false reports.
“I’m not! There’s not a bit of lie… Aaah!”
“Cough, cough… Please…”
Of course, the higher party organizations were not completely stupid, so most of them were released. But the problem was the real ‘problematic’ ones and those who were somehow involved with them.
Those who were friendly with Jewish businessmen, or relatives of people who actually plotted anti-regime conspiracies, or those who had no evidence but seemed suspicious enough, were subjected to harsh interrogations.
The armed SS men who returned from the front line or guarded the labor camps, or the Gestapo who lost their leaders and became more venomous, showed no mercy to these people.
Many interrogators seemed to have lost some sense after being away from the ‘daily life’ of a modern state for too long.
The principles of modern criminal law, such as presumption of innocence and prohibition of torture against human beings, seemed like a distant country to them.
They copied what they did to prisoners in concentration camps, and those who could not withstand torture made ‘evidence’ themselves.
The tragedy repeated itself.
Various ‘evidence’ poured out.
Some stamped their fingerprints on confessions and ran away by selling out others who were arrested with them.
Some others indiscriminately named people they thought had pushed them.
The vicious cycle of torture and interrogation continued, and the snowball grew bigger.
***
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Citizens! The fifth column, the red Jewish-Bolsheviks’ minions are hiding among us, but we will decisively annihilate them!”
Goebbels’ shrill voice burst out from radios and speakers.
The fifth column extermination operation seemed successful according to the Nazi regime’s standards.
Especially if their standard was to scare the people.
Thousands of people were arrested for being involved in the assassination plot against the Führer within the military.
Many more people were arrested and interrogated on suspicion of being involved in anti-regime conspiracies in various places.
Former and current generals of the Wehrmacht disappeared as a family unit, and no one knew where they went.
No, at least they pretended not to know.
“The enemy is always angry.”
“Yes? What did you say, my Führer?”
The Führer waved his hand weakly.
The SS men just bowed their heads and showed respect.
Now there was no one who could dare to raise a flag against the Führer.
Those who had enough guts and courage to do so were all taken away.
Those who broke down were released, and those who did not seem to do so were sent to some ‘problem solvers’ somewhere in the east of the Reich.
Of course, some of those who once received the Führer’s favor did not have such a cruel fate waiting for them.
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