Chapter 125:
Chapter 125
Horthy Miklós was once a naval admiral of Austria-Hungary, who rose to fame and glory.
He served as the emperor’s aide-de-camp, suppressed the naval rebellion, and became a rear admiral for his merits even before the defeat.
But Austria-Hungary lost the war. And he could no longer be a sailor.
The diplomats of the Allied Powers tore the empire apart with their cunning tongues.
The United Kingdom was dissolved, and Hungary lost its access to the sea.
An admiral of a landlocked country. He often muttered that and laughed bitterly.
By the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary was reduced to a third of its former size. The people were furious.
The war was started by Austria, but Hungary suffered the consequences.
The Hungarians were outraged, and some even participated in the communist uprising.
Admiral Horthy shuddered.
‘Dirty traitors to the nation.’
Of course, he himself was not so clean. Horthy knew it well.
He cooperated with Romania, who had taken Transylvania from him, to suppress the communist uprising. And he ‘usurped’ the throne.
“A regent of a kingless country and an admiral of a sealess country…”
People often laughed when they called him that.
He drove away the king and claimed to be the regent, and he lost the sea and called himself the admiral.
And now it seemed that another strange title would be added to him. Hmm, what would it be?
His wrinkled hand trembled as he rummaged through the documents sealed with a stamp. The times demanded his decision.
The Hungarian army had joined the war with the German army and suffered a terrible defeat together.
The Soviet Union sponsored a coup in Romania, and the neighboring Romania was ruled by a young king who was established by thugs.
The situation was similar in Yugoslavia, which was once part of the empire.
The king was driven away and only thugs controlled by the Soviet Union were rampant.
Hungary was now like a candle in front of the wind.
At any time, the red army and the army with red blood could march into the territory. Germany had sent its divisions northward, claiming to capture Leningrad.
In such a situation, a letter arrived.
<Bear the burden for Hungary -Joseph Stalin>
Now the Soviet Union demanded that Hungary surrender. Would he surrender after spilling more blood of the young? Or would he give up everything and let the country fall into the hands of thugs?
Of course, at the request of the Hungarian government, the German army was pouring into Budapest.
The pro-German military officers and the fascist scum of the Arrow Cross Party openly talked about the permanent stationing of the German army.
Horthy had no power to stop such a situation.
“Your Excellency? Your Excellency?”
Knock, knock, knock, someone knocked on his door.
The voice was familiar. It was the old butler who had served the family since he was a child.
He had brought the old butler with him even after he became the regent and lived in the official residence.
He had seen him for decades, so Horthy was more comfortable with him than anyone else.
But he had never heard him speak in such a voice in decades.
What was so urgent at this hour? If it was really urgent, maybe he would have called. He doubted that, but Horthy opened the door anyway.
“I’m sorry, Your Excellency…”
“!”
The old butler was trembling, holding a huge hand as big as a pot lid.
The owner of the hand had pointed a gun at the butler’s head, and now pointed it at Horthy.
Shocked and terrified, Horthy froze.
The giant who held the butler was hideously ugly. Not only was he so big that he had to look up, but he also had a huge scar across his left cheek, making him look like a warrior from a myth.
“Ah, Your Excellency. Could you… please be quiet?”
The giant cocked and loaded his gun, speaking in a soft voice.
Horthy finally realized what was going on. He was once a soldier, but now he was a politician.
He couldn’t not know about the Freudenthal Special Assault Unit, the hottest topic in the newspaper.
The appearance of their leader was so distinctive.
Even today, he had received a German newspaper with an exclusive interview with Skorzeny.
But why was the man who should be fussing in Berlin in the regent’s official residence in Budapest?
“Skorzeny… why are you?”
“Yes, that’s right. Senior Assault Leader, Otto Skorzeny, Your Excellency.”
He treated the old butler like a piece of paper.
No matter how old and thin he was, he couldn’t imagine anyone who could handle an adult male so easily with one hand. Until just now.
He tied the butler’s mouth and limbs and threw him on the bed, and then Skorzeny reached out his huge hand and grabbed Horthy, who was frozen.
“I just asked you to be quiet.”
“Uh! Uh!”
Skorzeny took out a huge sack from the backpack he was carrying behind him.
He skillfully put the regent, who couldn’t resist at all, into the sack and smiled.
“Mr. Butler, please be quiet.”
“Uh! Uh! Uh!”
The butler struggled, but the thick military rope only dug into his wrists and ankles. He shed tears as he watched his master, whom he had served for a long time, being taken away like a sack of potatoes.
The old butler was too powerless.
Just like Hungary.
***
“Hey, did you guys succeed?”
“Yep, captain. It was easy, you know?”
They left behind the unconscious guards and the Freudenthal Special Assault Unit members chattered.
The Führer ordered them to kidnap two people from Budapest.
One was Horthy Miklós, the current regent.
The other was Horthy Nicholas, the second son of the regent.
The eldest son István was in the Hungarian Air Force, so he was probably taken by the gendarmes.
“By the way, will this work if we kidnap them like this? Wouldn’t the Reds get excited?”
“Hmm… I don’t know about that.”
A soldier is someone who does what he is told, and does what he is told. Why do it, is it right, these thoughts are put aside for a moment.
Skorzeny muttered that. Horthy, who was slung over his shoulder, twitched.
The Führer himself asked them to bring the two men.
How can I know their intentions and worries?
The hard part was almost over.
People thought he was a ghost or a monster, since he was supposed to be in Berlin but showed up here.
“Let’s go! Home!”
“Yay!”
***
The second decapitation operation was also a great success for the Skorzeny unit.
After kidnapping Salazar from Portugal, they kidnapped the leader of Hungary, Horthy Miklós, and his sons.
It was possible with the cooperation of the local forces and the pro-German factions in Portugal and Hungary, but the Führer seemed to be ecstatic.
“It’s a great victory! Victory! Hahahahaha!”
“Congratulations!”
The Führer, who was thirsty for war and victory, was delighted by Skorzeny’s feat.
He seemed to be in a good mood for the first time in a while and gave orders briskly.
“Tell the Arrow Cross bastards to issue a conscription order. They have to defend the Balkans on their own. Well, they can keep the SS units they recruited from there.”
Germany filled Horthy’s vacancy with a puppet far-right regime, the Arrow Cross Party. They established a government with Szálasi Ferenc, who had been in exile in Germany, as the prime minister. They were doing all kinds of things to please Germany.
“If they conscript 200,000 or 300,000 people, they can stop the Reds from stirring up trouble in Yugoslavia, right? They should do the same in Croatia.”
Of course, there was no one in this place who could defy the Führer’s order.
No matter how unreasonable the order was, everyone agreed with it in front of the Führer.
At least, those who could do that were all in charge of the front lines.
No one asked how they would conscript 200,000 people from Croatia, which had a total population of less than 4 million, or what weapons they would arm them with.
Likewise, no one thought about whether the Hungarian army would accept and obey the coup that Germany intervened in, or tolerate the kidnapping of their soldiers without permission.
They just vaguely thought that if they deployed an additional 500,000 or 600,000 troops to the Balkans, they could stop the Partisans who were marching to Belgrade with a vengeance.
“By the way, have you dealt with the remnants of the ‘Habsburgs’ yet? What did General Manstein say?”
“Well, the city is so big that there are still rats hiding in every corner…”
Yeah? Hmm. He’ll handle it well. The Führer muttered that and took a sip of beer.
No matter how absolute his power was, the Führer did not interfere much with the operations of the generals he loved.
Maybe that was better. The audience thought so.
The Führer had predicted accurately what would happen in the big picture, as if he was prophesying.
And then he left the work to the generals under him.
As a result, Germany was enjoying the most prosperous period it had ever experienced!
They were a bit anxious, but wouldn’t the Führer lead them all?
It was the duty of the masses to obey and follow the leader of the nation absolutely.
They wanted to trust the Führer.
If not, the burden they would have to lose was too huge.
***
“Are they, they, they, crazy?”
“…I’m sorry, Comrade Secretary.”
Beria bowed his head with a stiff face. But I had no intention of punishing Beria yet. There was no reason for a sane person to be punished for not predicting the madman’s thoughts.
Of course, Beria was not a very sane person either… but there are many ways to be crazy.
“No, we at least set up a local collaborator, but they just took the guy who was in their country and put him in? Are they sane?”
“They don’t seem to be, since before…”
Ah, yes. They had been doing all kinds of weird things since before.
As they recovered the lost territories, the atrocities committed by the German army were revealed one by one, and it was clear that they were crazier than the actual history or more.
It was Hitler who changed, and he was responsible for everything. But… the problem was not at the level of Hungary.
I thought it was within the realm of common sense to terrorize and kidnap the leaders of the enemy countries during the war. As long as they didn’t use NBC or weapons of mass destruction.
The kidnapping of Horthy was just a matter of how to manage Hungary afterwards.
The real problem was the ‘SS Sanitation Unit’.
I felt a chill down my spine as soon as I saw that name in the German army’s material management.
Fuck, those crazy bastards.
“By the way, Comrade Secretary, why did you order us to investigate these units…?”
Beria had two folders in his hands. The only thing they had in common was that they were units that did sanitation work. People were puzzled.
Why did he link two units that were thousands of kilometers apart?
One was the sanitation unit of the German Armed SS, and the other was the Quarantine and Water Supply Unit of the Japanese Kwantung Army. What did they have to do with each other?
But my hand trembled as I looked through the folders. I knew the future, and I saw the list of materials that came and went.
“These crazy bastards…”
Crack. People shuddered at the sound of my teeth grinding.
Beria ordered his subordinates to distribute the copies, and they began to look through the documents to see what was going on.
“Um, why do they need so many people for the sanitation unit…”
“That’s what I’m saying. And Zyklon is a pesticide for horses, right? The Pasho SS doesn’t have a cavalry unit, as far as I know.”
The quick-witted ones pointed out the problems one by one. They seemed to be getting closer to the truth.
“Borosilov!”
“Yes! Comrade Secretary!”
But our sharp-eyed Borosilov just scratched his head and shook his head. Well, it was okay if he didn’t catch on.
“Can you… infiltrate Harbin and Riga and destroy the facilities there?”
“Y-yes?”
His eyes widened. So did the others. Harbin? Manchuria?
“But we have a non-aggression pact with the Japanese Empire… sir…”
One of the generals shrunk back at my glare.
Borosilov seemed to be wondering if it was possible or not. Spetsnaz was not something that could teleport and appear with a pop.
Harbin might be possible if he went around China and infiltrated, or went through Liaodong, but… Riga?
To get to Riga, the major city of the Baltic region, he had to break through the German army’s defense line.
They were pushing now, but it was a different matter to infiltrate dozens or hundreds of armed men and blow up the ‘facilities’.
“If you order me, I can do it, but…”
“Then do it. As soon as possible!”
“Yes!”
They had never seen me so angry before, and they saluted sharply. Beria followed me quietly as I left the meeting room with a swagger.
“Comrade Secretary, are these places…”
Beria seemed to understand at my glance. And he made a disgusted expression. I wanted to tell him that he was disgusting enough, but I didn’t say it out loud.
He interpreted that expression as disgust for the German and Japanese fascists, and bowed his head and retreated, saying he would do his best to support me.
Damn bastards. It seemed that something worse was happening, as the scale was much larger than what I knew. I wanted to declare war on Japan right away and switch sides, but… as a realpolitik, Stalin’s memory stopped me.
I had to tell Roosevelt. It was like a kid telling his brother to bite him, but that was the best I could do right now.
Would Roosevelt, or Wallace, do a back deal like Truman, who received the data and pardoned the criminals?
I didn’t know.
I wouldn’t let them go like that.
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