Chapter 229

< World War II - The Curtain of Winter (3) >

January 5, 1942

Madras, Southeastern India

With the Royal Navy having suffered heavy damage in the Battle of Ceylon, the Reichsmarine had arrived in India and was now on standby, anchored in Madras Port.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Asian Expeditionary Fleet, Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, was feeling bored with the situation.

Having done nothing but conduct a few training exercises, he had greeted the new year on standby.

When they first departed, the plan had been to coordinate with the Royal Navy, but that same Royal Navy had been battered by the Imperial Japanese Navy and was now immobilized, busy repairing its capital ships.

Yet for the Reichsmarine to move alone, the scale of the Japanese Navy was simply too powerful.

“Tsk, to think a day would come when I’d be envious of that fellow Dönitz.”

While Marschall waited, Karl Dönitz’s U-boat fleet was rampaging through the waters of the Indian Ocean and even near the Philippines, hunting down every Japanese convoy in sight.

No one in the Navy had thought that Dönitz, who had been such a sycophant to the Nazis, would be given a key position in the new government that had expelled them.

He had felt proud when he first set sail from Germany with the high expectations of the Minister of Defense, but now, to be just sitting idly by after coming all this way to this foreign land.

Marschall tried to shake off his increasingly gloomy mood.

In any case, Dönitz had reported suspicious movements from the Japanese Navy, and the home country had sent the Bismarck, the Scharnhorst, and the Graf Zeppelin with high expectations for his fleet.

To lift his spirits, Marschall opened the list of pilots submitted by Commander Neumann of the Graf Zeppelin’s carrier-based air wing.

The Reichsmarine, once filled with battleship purists, had wanted an aircraft carrier, but no one really knew how to utilize one.

Marschall himself didn’t know much about aircraft carriers, so he had already reviewed the combat report from the Battle of Ceylon several times.

He had initially set the report aside, wondering if an admiral really needed to know about expendable carrier-based pilots, but with nothing else to do, knowing was better than not knowing, right?

With that thought, Marschall began to check the pilots’ profiles and soon clicked his tongue.

The Luftwaffe, those damn bastards…

Fighter pilot Erich Hartmann.

On his first sortie, he panicked, mistook his pursuing flight leader for an enemy aircraft, and fled, only to make an emergency landing after running out of fuel. Treated as a white elephant and dispatched to the Naval Air Service.

Fighter pilot Hans-Joachim Marseille. Lost more fighters by running out of fuel than he shot down, treated as a white elephant and dispatched to the Naval Air Service.

Dive bomber pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Constantly boasted that the Nazi ideology of the Übermensch (superior human) was not wrong and that he himself was that Übermensch, causing him to fight with his comrades day in and day out.

Treated as a white elephant and dispatched to the Naval Air Service.

A significant number of them were like this.

Marschall felt his brow furrow automatically.

Of course, if he were in the Luftwaffe’s shoes, he wouldn’t have wanted to send his outstanding, trouble-free aces to the Navy either.

But even so, to so blatantly dump only the problem children on them like this?

Marschall let out a hollow laugh in disbelief and walked to the window, gazing out at the sea where the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin floated.

It was obvious the Japanese Navy was about to do something, yet Germany’s proud aircraft carrier, which was supposed to face them, was a den of ragtag mobs, a collection of only the worst problem children.

Marschall stared with worried eyes at the dark clouds approaching from the distant sea and clicked his tongue.

“Good heavens, I wonder if we can even put up a proper fight.”

---

January 7, 1942

Oryol, Central Soviet Union (East of Bryansk) – Soviet Army Billet

The weather was a severe cold, reaching twenty degrees below zero.

Amidst the swirling blizzard, Enrique Líster walked toward a barracks that glowed brightly in the darkness.

As he pushed aside the entrance flap, he saw a service in progress, with a cross of the Eastern Orthodox Church erected inside.

It was a service held to commemorate January 7th, the Christmas of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

“Gasp, Comrade Lieutenant Gen-”

Líster waved his hand at the subordinate who was startled to see him, gesturing for him to be quiet, and then sat down in the rearmost seat.

After the Soviet Union was established in Russia, the traditional national religion, the Orthodox Church, had been harshly oppressed, in accordance with Marx’s statement that religion is the opium of the people.

However, as the Soviet Union faced a crisis and internal discontent grew fiercer by the day, General Secretary Stalin began to formally acknowledge and encourage the Orthodox Church to unite the people under the name of Russia.

Thanks to this, priests of the Orthodox Church, who until just recently had been designated as enemies of the people and oppressed, were released from the Gulag and were now presiding over services.

The very people who had persecuted the Orthodox priests, calling religion the opium of the people, were now participating in the service as if they had always been devout believers.

Enrique Líster watched the scene with hazy eyes, then turned his head to see an agent from SMERSH, Stalin’s direct surveillance unit, positioned in a corner of the barracks.

To think they would promote the ‘opium of the people’ to suppress the growing dissent of the populace, yet not trust it enough to refrain from surveillance.

Was it not like a clown’s performance?

Líster stared at the Orthodox cross erected at the front of the barracks.

Although the shape was different from that of the Orthodox Church, one could easily see churches with crosses in Spain. They were common even in private homes.

The Reconquista. The history of reunifying the Iberian Peninsula under the name of Catholicism after fighting against the Islamic invasion was the pride of Spain, and as such, many Spaniards were Catholic.

Líster slowly closed his eyes.

A scream hit not his ears, but his mind.

The great father of Communism, Marx, said that religion is the opium of the people.

The father of the revolution, Lenin, said that those who speak of God are fools.

The Catholic Church is the seat of corruption and depravity, and thus deserves to be punished.

For those reasons, during the Spanish Civil War, the Catholic Church and its followers were targets of oppression by the Republican faction.

The screams of those who had suffered horribly at the hands of his subordinates, simply for being believers of the Catholic Church, had once sounded like a proud echo to Líster.

-I want to ask you, General.

Was the Republican faction justice? Were the Nationalists evil? Was the Spanish Civil War a war that could be concluded so simply?

He had not been able to answer Dietrich Schacht’s question. He had only argued that the Spanish Republic was a legitimate government elected by the people’s vote.

Now, seeing the heartland of Communism, the Soviet Union, promoting the ‘opium of the people’ out of necessity, he was finally certain.

That act, committed in the name of Communism, was by no means justice.

The struggle of him and his men, who had fought to establish Communism in Spain, was neither just nor noble.

But if that was the case, what of the deaths of his subordinates who had willingly shed blood, crying out for the justice of the people?

What of their pride, who said they fought for the freedom of Spain?

The Spanish Republic had ultimately collapsed.

Those who had sympathized with their cause met the fate of being miserably killed under the Franco regime.

After the Battle of the Dnieper River, Líster had tried to find out what happened to his old adjutant, Nikolayevich, but was told he was missing in action.

He couldn't blame Zhukov. Zhukov had at least taken notice of Líster’s will to fight and given him an opportunity.

He had even deployed his subordinates to the relative rear area of Belarus.

The operation that was drafted afterward was decided upon after discussion, and the Soviet Union's situation was not so lenient as to plan an operation while worrying about the safety of a penal battalion.

He knew this intellectually, but Líster could not suppress his anger and self-loathing.

The price of a choice.

As Dietrich Schacht had said, if he had stayed in the penal battalion, he too would have become one of the corpses piled up in Belarus. He couldn't have changed anything that way.

So he abandoned his subordinates, and as a result, they died. In this Soviet Union, he had once again lost an adjutant who had respected him as a human being.

Yet he had still changed nothing. He was merely a foreigner, just one Lieutenant General among the many generals of the Soviet Union.

Then what meaning did the sacrifice of his subordinates hold, those who had faded away after he had given up on them to seize the opportunity he desired?

What of the sacrifice of his subordinates who had fallen in Spain?

Was all that sacrifice worthless? Or, if not noble, was it at least a worthy sacrifice?

He could not answer.

Líster stared at the cross as if to burn a hole through it, then slowly rose to his feet and went outside.

The warmth of the barracks vanished in an instant, and the severe cold of the blizzard seized his body.

Líster staggered as he walked, then collapsed to his knees in the snow.

Unable to even ask the cross in the warm barracks, it was only after he had turned his back on the cross and been enveloped by the cold curtain of winter that he could open his mouth.

“God….”

Did he, who had been at the forefront of denying God in the name of Communism and oppressing those who sang of God, have the right to utter such words?

But he couldn't bear it without asking. What value was there in the deaths of those countless fallen?

…At the very least, could those who fell fighting for their beliefs find peace in God’s embrace?

Did he truly have the right to survive alone and feel the warmth of life, standing upon such a mountain of sacrifice without having brought about any change?

As he was battered by the flesh-tearingly cold blizzard, and snow began to slowly accumulate on his body, a voice reached him.

“Are you in pain, Comrade?”

Líster slowly turned his head.

A young man with glasses and a cold, grim impression, NKVD Chairman Yuri Andropov, was standing there.

Líster opened his mouth.

“When can we move, Comrade Chairman?”

Andropov looked down at Líster for a moment before speaking.

“The plan has changed from what was scheduled because the Allied Powers have recognized Free Russia. If we oust Stalin now, there is a great concern that the Soviet Union itself will collapse in the chaos and fall into their grasp.”

“Then when! How many more sacrifices must pile up before we wait!”

Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.

The sacrifice of the battlefield, the sacrifice of the workers thrown out to move factories in the severe cold, the sacrifice of the peasants to feed an army of millions.

As the war continues and Stalin remains on his throne, countless sacrifices accumulate.

Even while they do nothing, sacrifices are piling up like a snowdrift in the name of Communism.

The very Communism that Líster, his comrades in Spain, and his subordinates in the Soviet Union had risked their lives to protect was becoming a disaster.

“Please wait a while longer, Comrade Lieutenant General.

Stalin is the evil of the Soviet Union, but he has too much authority concentrated in his hands. A rash attempt to oust him could bring about an even greater disaster.”

Líster was not unaware. Andropov was a brilliant planner, far beyond what he could even fathom, but the war with the Allied Powers had too many variables.

He knew all too well that if he acted hastily now and a civil war broke out, it would lead directly to the ruin of the Soviet Union.

But if so many sacrifices were necessary, was it not more just for the Soviet Union to collapse?

Líster felt a sense of despair as he posed a question.

“Comrade Andropov, what are the people of the Soviet Union to you?”

A silence, carried on the curtain of winter and the blizzard, scattered.

After a long silence, Andropov answered.

“They are the driving force to sustain and move the Soviet Union.”

“…That’s just another word for ‘components.

’ What is the difference between you and the General Secretary?”

After another brief silence, Andropov spoke.

“The Soviet Union needs change.

Therefore, it needs people like you, Comrade. …That is the difference between the General Secretary and me.”

“Under the pretext of righting the Soviet Union, we are piling up yet another sin.”

“You are right, Comrade.

But if we do nothing, we can change nothing.”

Hearing Andropov’s words, Líster quietly turned his head and looked up at the night sky.

Under the sky veiled by the severe cold and the curtain of winter, even the moonlight was hard to see. Only pure white snowflakes, contrasting with the jet black, blurred his vision.

“Are we truly trying to change this situation? Are we not lost?”

After a moment of silence, Andropov spoke.

“We are moving forward, little by little.”

Konev, the commander most loyal to Stalin among the front-line commanders, had committed suicide.

A significant portion of the elite troops in the hands of Voroshilov and Budyonny had been annihilated.

Now, they were biding their time for the most opportune moment to oust Stalin.

Even if countless sacrifices were being made in the process, the plan Andropov spoke of was clearly in motion.

-I have chosen the path of righting it, even if it means dirtying my own hands. I cannot deny the sins I have accumulated in the process, but if I were to go back to that time, I would choose the same path again.

Dietrich Schacht. As a mere captain, that man had overthrown the Nazi regime and rebuilt Germany.

Líster stared intently at the jet-black sky.

To find the moonlight, which the curtain of winter had hidden.

When Schacht challenged Hitler, was the sky he saw the same as this?

“A message from Comrade Zhukov, Comrade Lieutenant General. After the Rasputitsa ends, your army, along with the armies of Voroshilov and Marshal Budyonny, will be ordered to face their Army Group North.”

Líster finally found the faint moonlight and reached out his hand.

“If possible, let Voroshilov and Budyonny deal with the Allied Forces, and you, General, should engage the Free Russian Army and inflict as much damage as possible.”

“…Soviet Ura.”

“Soviet Ura.”

Líster grasped that sliver of light.