Chapter 92:
Chapter 92
The dispatch of the special envoy and the temporary armistice agreement were smoothly processed.
Molotov, who had already visited Germany once for the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, was sent as the head of the special envoy to Germany, and I diligently buttered up the American delegation, including Wallace.
The dispatch of the special envoy had a hidden intention, but the Soviet Union would be screwed if the United States thought that Germany and the Soviet Union were trying to join hands behind their backs.
Well, it seemed that the United States already thought that the Soviet Union, who had been tricked once, had nothing to gain from teaming up with Germany.
And since we had an armistice agreement anyway… I decided to use some more tricks.
“Come on, come on, this way…!”
In March, dozens of Soviet trucks broke through the blizzard and entered the headquarters of the German Southern Army Group in Lublin.
The German soldiers looked at the trucks with curious expressions.
“What are those things…?”
The Soviet soldiers driving the trucks also looked around nervously with wary eyes. The German supply officer who walked past the soldiers and came out looked for the Soviet officer who escorted the trucks with a disbelief that it was an order from above.
“Chocolate… 150 tons, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, that’s right. There are 10,000 boxes loaded with 144 pieces of 15kg each. The unloading is supposed to be done by the German side…”
The Soviet officer spoke fluent German, but he seemed to have no idea what was going on.
What was the intention of sending 1.4 million chocolates as a ‘gift’ for the German soldiers?
It was only a fraction of what the Soviet army consumed in a week, not even enough for one piece per soldier among millions of Soviet soldiers.
Why send it to the Germans?
But he soon realized when he looked around.
Compared to the Soviet soldiers who ate well with canned meat, spam stew, American chocolate and so on, and gained weight, the German soldiers were skinny as if their eyes were sunken. Groups of people wrapped in uniforms with pale and black dirt stuck to their sunken cheeks popped out everywhere.
“Chocolate, they say it’s chocolate.”
“Food… give me food…”
“Hey! Get back, all of you!”
A murmuring sound spread among the soldiers who gathered around, and they looked at the boxes coming down from the truck with eyes shining with strange passion.
Soon, the German supply officers who noticed the disgraceful behavior of their soldiers drove them away, but even as they stepped back slowly, the German soldiers never took their eyes off the chocolate boxes.
The lower-ranking officers didn’t know, but Shcherbakovsky, the new commander of the Southwestern Front Army who was responsible for sending 1.4 million chocolates to the Germans, and his staff knew very well why they were doing this.
Near Lublin, where the headquarters of the German Southern Army Group was located, a shabby hut at the foot of a wild mountain guarded by a platoon of Soviet and German soldiers.
He met with his counterpart, General Model, and recalled in his mind the order from Stalin himself.
“Happy belated birthday! General Model. It is an honor to meet you in person.”
“Oh, thank you. How did you know my birthday…”
Model was genuinely surprised to receive a birthday greeting here.
Stalin admired General Model, who was responsible for stopping the ‘sexual slavery’ of German soldiers and punishing prisoners with justice.
He sent a pocket watch decorated with gold, platinum and 51 diamonds as a gift to celebrate his 51st birthday that passed recently.
Model wondered why Stalin was acting like this as he read his handwritten letter.
He couldn’t believe that such a flashy watch was made in Soviet Union, a country of workers.
Anyway, Model sent a polite reply to Stalin.
[I am a soldier and I am only doing what I have to do as a soldier.
Also, this watch is too luxurious for me to have as a soldier.
It is not right for me to receive such a watch from anyone when I have to live with my soldiers in combat.]
Then Stalin made another proposal.
[I am sincerely touched by your concern for your soldiers. If you don’t want a watch, how about something for your soldiers?]
Model was speechless at Stalin’s offer to send 150 tons of chocolate that his army ate. Why are they doing this?
“We will eat well with your chocolate.”
Of course he didn’t know if they would eat it or not. He didn’t know what they put in there.
There was no loss for them to receive it. Whether they burned or buried it or whatever they did with it. They received it anyway… But eating it was something they had to wait and see.
They would do some experiments first and see if there was anything wrong with it.
Then they could distribute it to the soldiers.
“Hahaha, don’t worry. Molotov, the deputy of Stalin, is visiting Germany right now. If we did something here, we don’t know what would happen to him…”
Shcherbakovsky smiled and trailed off, and Model could guess that there was something behind his words as he listened to the translation.
‘The Führer is crazy. He can’t make a normal judgment.’
He was the one who promoted him by three ranks and put him in the position of a general, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t insane.
Model sometimes muttered to himself.
‘This regime is a criminal regime.’
It was an honor beyond compare to lead the war as a commander of the German army. But this regime was a criminal regime and he was a traitor, a leader of traitors.
‘How will I be held responsible after the war?’
He had already become an enemy with too much, no, excessive glory.
Even the Soviet Union treated him as if they were flattering him.
But he thought it was naive to think that their attitude would not change when defeat approached.
“Haha, of course not. The soldiers must be looking forward to it.”
Chocolate was a hard offer to refuse.
The soldiers needed nutrition and joy. They just had to randomly pick some and feed them to prisoners or military dogs and judge them.
And as he said, Molotov, Stalin’s second-in-command, was visiting Germany. Would they do such a shallow trick?
Model knew very well how Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, ran rampant in diplomacy and put Germany in trouble.
Stalin would not easily abandon such an ace. Rather, he wondered if the president would harm him, but… Even his confidants like G?ring, who had recently come to his senses, or Himmler would not agree to such a thing.
***
Model and Chernyakhovsky exchanged pleasantries for a while.
The two-week temporary truce had given vitality to the soldiers of both armies who were exhausted by the war.
When the two commanders allowed their escorts to rest comfortably, the escorts began to chat with each other in corners.
“Um…? General Model, could you please introduce me to the officers who accompanied you?”
“Yes? Of course. This is my friend Hans-Valentin Hube. And this young colonel is…”
‘Klaus von Stauffenberg.’
Chernyakhovsky could remember his face.
In the handwritten order of the secretary-general, his face and name were recorded with two lines of underline, and he did not know why he paid so much attention to a young colonel who was the chief aide of the general, but there were some orders written.
Colonel Stauffenberg stood up and saluted the enemy general stiffly and awkwardly when his name was called.
“Ah, I see. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.”
When Chernyakhovsky asked for a handshake, Major Hube smiled awkwardly and accepted it.
Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg also accepted the enemy general’s handshake with a soldier-like rigid attitude. Chernyakhovsky grabbed his hand tightly and shook it for a long time.
“You are a very handsome young soldier. How old are you?”
“Ah, I was born in 07. General sir.”
“We are the same age. Hahaha.”
Chernyakhovsky laughed heartily and said so.
No, how could such a young person become a general? If he was born in 07, then… He would have been too young to enter the military during the Red-White Civil War when Soviet soldiers made rapid promotions, and he would have just become a junior officer during the Great Purge in the 30s.
How many merits did he achieve to skip four stars, become a general, and get the position of a frontline army commander in less than a year since the toxin war broke out?
Stauffenberg also seemed absurd, but he did not show it openly and maintained a business-like attitude.
To be honest, Chernyakhovsky himself did not know either.
Right after Operation Barbarossa, Secretary-General Stalin gave him a one-rank special promotion to major (1 star) and brigade commander position.
He did manage to get promoted to lieutenant general by earning military honors, but he never expected to skip major general and become a general.
He was appointed to that position after General Kirponos, the former commander of the Southwest Front Army, was seriously injured.
Others joked half-seriously that he might be the secretary-general’s hidden son, and even his father seemed to doubt his mother’s chastity.
‘He must have some purpose.’
He should have been a colonel or at most a brigadier like this handsome friend if it were normal, but he had to be humble because he made a lightning promotion.
Anyway, things seemed to go smoother than expected.
At the staff meeting, General Vasilevsky said this:
“We cannot know the secretary-general’s intentions or abilities. The most inferior among us gentlemen and generals will only be tools of the secretary-general, those who are slightly better will be his limbs, and even the best ones can only be his assistants.”
Chernyakhovsky did not overestimate his own abilities. He just tried to do what he was told.
To do what the secretary-general ordered him best right now, he had to get along well with General Model.
He remembered when he first met his wife.
The goal was less attractive than then.
Who wouldn’t want to talk to a young and beautiful woman rather than an aloof middle-aged German soldier?
‘But I have to get along if I have to. What can I do?’
“Colonel Stauffenberg, do you have any children? Hahaha!”
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