I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 53

Model, the enemy of models, was tapping his desk with his temples pinched. 

His head hurt.

He always tried to appear strong and cheerful in front of his subordinates, but he was fundamentally a contemplative person. 

And what was bothering him now was not a problem that could be solved by contemplation.

First, the Soviet army was just coming in large numbers and kept coming.

Model had squeezed out the last drop of strength from the 6th Army, the 17th Army, and the 1st Armored Division, and fought with an overwhelming exchange rate, but the Soviet army was still being reinforced. 

Despite the astonishing exchange rate of nearly 10:1, the estimated force ratio did not change much.

‘Other fronts wouldn’t be this bad…’

He was the commander of the Southern Army Group, but he also received reports on the trends from all fronts. 

There were not so many Soviet troops bubbling in front of Guderian or Manstein.

On top of that, the quality of the forces he had was the lowest. 

The Romanian army with low morale, anxious about the coup in the capital. 

The Hungarian army that traditionally did not get along with Romania and growled at each other.

And the Slovakian and Italian armies, which also boasted low motivation.

It would have been much better if at least these personnel were German troops, but the reality given to him was harsh.

“So you’re saying that the medium artillery forces are still being reinforced?”

“…Yes, that’s right. Your Excellency.”

Damn it. 

He couldn’t see an answer.

The skill level of the Soviet artillery was frankly poor. 

In most factors such as cannon fire, observation, fire control, etc., the Soviet army was inferior to the German army.

But they overcame this inferiority with a much larger number. 

If you shoot enough, you’ll hit something. 

If one battery is destroyed, they push two more in its place. 

The German army used a tactic of retreating after firing all at once to reduce the damage from counterattacks.

The Soviet army silently took all that fire and fumbled. 

In a normal situation, such an exchange would lead to a great victory, but since there was a basic difference in numbers, the German army had to retreat one step at a time while giving a superior exchange rate.

“Eventually we’ll have to make a breakthrough.”

“Excuse me?”

The front line had to be reorganized eventually.

It wasn’t even a full-fledged winter yet. 

Model did not want to fight against General Dongjanggun, who had defended Russia.

Even if he inflicted damage now, when winter came, supplies would get worse and reinforcements would decrease.

‘If General Rommel’s army that went to England came this way…’

He invested too much in the Western Front. 

There were holes in the Eastern Front, and there was a shortage of strategic and tactical reserves to fill them.

He agreed to finish England first to avoid a two-front war, but… Why did he pick a fight with America? 

The navy and air force, which received massive investments, just laughed and said it was good, but the army was staggering.

The initial strategy of striking a fatal blow to the giant with a huge weight called Soviet Union and knocking it down failed. 

He gave them sharper weapons, ‘new weapons’, and said that this would do it? He had a warlike attitude…

He couldn’t turn over a country with just that.

“Summon the commanders.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Führer promised him reinforcements. Of course next spring or summer.

‘When I finish cleaning up the West, I’ll send reinforcements.’

After subduing England, he could return most of the air power to the Eastern Front, but anyway air power wasn’t very helpful in Soviet winter where snowstorms hit.

What he needed in the end was infantry and artillery. 

The Führer promised to conscript troops from Italy, Spain, and Vichy France.

The scale that Führer mentioned was a huge reinforcement of up to 2 million.

Of course, the reinforcements that came right away were just a few volunteer battalions from Baltics or Alsace-Lorraine.

There was almost no support for surviving this winter. Because of the initially optimistic plan that he could subdue Soviet Union in 20 weeks without any basis, winter equipment was only being produced hastily now, and manpower and budget were sucked into the swamp called navy and air force.

What’s the point of sending reinforcements after all these elite soldiers are dead?

The Führer wanted him to defend this area protruding toward Kiev as a spearhead for an offensive. 

It was obvious that he would suffer heavy losses if he tried to break through Soviet defense line again with poorly trained troops.

“General Model, I believe you can defend that area and use it for counterattack!”

But Model himself doubted whether he had to defend there. 

Did he have to throw tens of thousands of elite soldiers, the sons of Greater Germany, in front of the steel wave for a few chunks of useless land? 

It was not something he could say to those who had to block the iron with their bare hands and blood.

And even if he took Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, could he keep it there?

‘Only now we’ve cut across half of Ukraine…’

Soviet Union was wide. Terribly wide. 

He waged war to occupy this vast land, but it was hard to advance, let alone occupy.

The Soviet army stubbornly targeted the supply lines. 

They knew the weakness of their enemy.

The gauge conversion of the railway network was slower than in summer due to weather and surface problems. 

Only in the northern Baltic region, which was compatible with Germany, could he advance quickly, but in the south, supplies inevitably depended on vehicles and horses to some extent.

And the Soviet army – or rather, he didn’t know exactly – partisans and occasional Sturmoviks, and new ‘rocket weapons’ that spewed out horrible noises, continued to hit this point.

The partisans received various supplies through transport planes that flew at night. 

They attacked German supply trucks persistently with portable rocket launchers and machine guns. 

The accuracy of the rocket launcher was not very high, but if it hit, it could easily destroy a truck.

And depending on what was loaded on the truck, it was decided whether a large explosion would occur or it would end with destruction.

What if the truck that Soviet partisans hit was full of fuel or ammunition? 

Thanks to the explosive fuel and ammunition, nearby trucks were also swept away by the explosion. It was good to say that the road, which was not in good condition anyway, was also damaged.

Near Lwow, where the Southern Army Group headquarters was located, several trucks full of ammunition exploded at once, causing a hitch in the supply of 15cm artillery shells for a while.

‘It’s troublesome that partisans are active around here…’

Also, inspired by the horn of Stuka, the 2-ton rocket they fired made a weird tearing sound and hit German positions and supply depots without regard to time and place. 

The Soviet army especially sprayed a few rockets like carpet bombing from somewhere at night, and when reconnaissance planes and night fighters took off to retaliate against them, they soon ran away. 

The soldiers complained of neurosis.

“How can I sleep comfortably when I don’t know when and where that thing will fly?”

The accuracy itself was poor, but anyway when it fell, everything around it was smashed. 

The soldiers who witnessed their comrades in the next position being turned into meat pieces by a bomb that weighed nearly a ton were terrified and trembled with anxiety when they heard the horn sound.

And the vicious Soviet troops also introduced various deception tactics. Sometimes, rockets with horns attached flew much farther than usual, perhaps with very light warheads, and harassed a wide range of allies.

Other times, they flew quietly at night without horns and poured over the resting allies. 

Most of them had horns attached, so they realized that the air defense was prepared by the noise and mixed rockets without horns from time to time to disrupt the air defense network of the allies.

“Your Excellency, the fatigue level of the soldiers is no longer tolerable.”

“…I know that well.”

General Model used his authority to release and protect the civilian women who were forcibly brought in for the sexual relief of the soldiers. 

Nearly thousands of women were found throughout the Southern Army Group, and General Model was in contact with the Hungarian and Italian armies, which were less hostile to Jews.

Their families had mostly been dragged to forced labor camps, and the women had lost their will to live in the meantime, but anyway he thought that life outside this hell could change them.

But the problem was the soldiers. 

The ‘comfort’ that was provided was gone, and they were exhausted by the psychological warfare of the Soviet army – rockets and horns, and occasional flyers – and fighting.

The former commander of the Southern Army Group, Rundstedt, that crazy old man, ordered civilian massacres during his tenure.

Many soldiers did not want to massacre civilians.

“The people I killed… keep coming in my dreams!”

“Please spare me… please spare me…”

The field hospital was full of such patients. 

Soldiers who went crazy with shell shock, soldiers who gritted their teeth with red eyes saying that the civilians they killed came in their dreams, soldiers who shot themselves and ran away in battle…

The former commander and his subordinate officers ordered these soldiers to massacre. 

And surprisingly, these soldiers obeyed that cruel order.

<I didn’t kill them because my comrades would have to get blood on their hands instead.>

That was what was written in a statement taken from a soldier who killed dozens.

The motive that led these young soldiers to massacre was surprisingly… comradeship.

If I don’t kill them, my comrades next to me will have to commit more sins. 

So I won’t run away either! But this was only for a moment. 

The soldiers were broken by nightmares, guilt, and delusions. 

Some drank alcohol they found somewhere and got drunk, some became violent, and some even gave themselves up to madness.

“What is this… what is this doing!”

A company was assigned a mission to escort Soviet prisoners captured by the unit after a battle. And… they massacred them all.

The Soviet soldiers who were massacred had their hands and feet tied with straps made of torn Soviet uniforms, and each had a pistol bullet in the back of their head. 

There were also traces of stabbing their carotid arteries with bayonets for confirmation kills on all corpses.

“It is irrational to share scarce resources for Greater Germany with inferior races!”

The excuse was simple. 

He couldn’t share his scarce supplies with inferior races. 

He used only one pistol bullet per person to minimize supply consumption, and used bayonets for confirmation kills.

He proudly told his act of saving supplies with his eyes filled with madness.

He was sentenced to death by a summary court-martial. 

He seemed very frustrated. 

Why couldn’t the headquarters understand this simple thing? 

The lieutenant eventually committed suicide. 

The guard who lent him a pistol delivered his last words.

“I’d rather kill myself than waste precious rifle bullets on execution and shock my comrades. Just lend me one pistol.”

The lieutenant despaired and angered at what headquarters did not understand, but Model was more shocked that his staff and subordinate commanders understood it. 

Madness, madness flowed.

Those who got blood on their hands could never come back. 

They justified it with comradeship and covered it with patriotism for their country, but killing humans by humans destroyed their values that they had built up until then.

The sons of Germany needed rest.