Chapter 962: Another Plan

Just as Rein and Alice were at a loss for words, another voice suddenly sounded from behind her. “So… Captain Rein, you were so busy asking about Alice and your crew, did you forget something?”

Rein turned his head again, but this time much faster. “Markus? Wasn’t your tank hit? Are you okay?”

Markus, who emerged from behind Alice, was also covered in bandages, but it was clear his condition was much better than Rein’s. This ace tank commander of the 502nd, and also the battalion’s king of gossip, spoke with a grin, “Sounds like you were hoping something happened to me. Our tank ran out of ammo, so we all survived. Five men in the crew, four made it out.”

It wasn’t surprising. The place they had been hit was the rear of the tank. Although the engine had been destroyed, the crew compartment in front was clearly undamaged. But since someone had died, the actual situation was definitely not as casual as Markus made it out to be.

“Then why didn’t you answer when I called you?” Rein asked.

“Alright, shrapnel came through the engine compartment, flying everywhere. The whole cabin was a bloody mess…” Markus said with a bitter smile, then pointed with his good hand to his other arm, which was in a sling. “I lost two fingers, still have two pieces of shrapnel in me, and I cracked my head. My gunner was killed instantly, the loader lost both his legs, and the radio saved the radio operator’s life, only letting him ‘luckily’ lose an arm… that’s why I couldn’t answer your call.”

Some things didn’t not happen; it was just that the people involved didn’t want to bring them up again. The losses of Markus’s crew were no less severe than Rein’s. In this war, everyone would lose something. Some would lose their own fragile lives, while others would lose a piece of a beautiful memory.

Just as the panzer corps’ song went: If we overturn in a ditch, on such an unlucky day; if we cannot retreat, cannot return to the embrace of the motherland; if the artillery fire destroys us, and the god of fate summons us to heaven… then at least our loyal tank will give us a metal grave.

Kursk was a giant graveyard, littered with one steel coffin after another. And in these steel coffins lay the soldiers who had fought for their country, for their faith. Whether they were evil or righteous, they had all found their final resting place. For those who were still alive, all that was left was suffering and sorrow.

Rein was stunned for a moment, then apologized in a low, dejected voice, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t defeat Wolf…” In Rein’s heart, it wasn’t him who had defeated Wolf. He had had a more advanced weapon, more comprehensive battlefield support, and in the end, had relied on special forces to finish Wolf off. This victory was not well-deserved in his eyes; he had only barely completed his plan.

“Still the same old you, taking everything on your own shoulders,” Markus said with a smile. He then, with difficulty, took a step and walked to Rein’s window. “Your room is much better than my ward. Do you mind adding a bed here?”

Before Rein could answer, Markus continued, “This is war, Rein. We’re nothing in this war, no different from the soldiers who are moaning and dying downstairs. To have survived on such a brutal battlefield is already a blessing from heaven, isn’t it?”

“The commendation order from above has already come down. The Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords has also been awarded to me,” Markus said, raising his chin, showing off the highest honor he had received in this war. “They’re reorganizing the 502nd. The battalion commander was originally supposed to be you.”

Rein finally understood how Alice and Markus had found the hospital he was in. If they were reorganizing the 502nd and had intended for him to be the commander, then there was no reason they wouldn’t have found the “retirement application” he had submitted a few days ago.

“You… you should know I’ve already submitted my application,” Rein said, looking at Markus.

“Of course, I know you no longer have any intention of fighting in a frontline unit,” Markus nodded and then continued, “So they had us come and persuade you, hoping that after you return to the rear, you will still, in a military capacity, contribute to the training of the Third Reich’s special forces. This is also the reason we were able to come here from a field hospital dozens of kilometers away. And I will take your place as the new commander of the 502nd Panzer Battalion.”

Rein did not agree, but he did not refuse either. After a long while, he asked the question that was on his mind, not giving an answer of yes or no. “Will Alice still be in your battalion? Do me a favor and don’t let her go to the front again, okay?”

Hearing Rein mention her again, and with concern, the smile on Alice’s face grew even wider. She didn’t care about the war, nor did she care about the hardships she had been through. She was just a young girl whose heart was beginning to flutter, and that was all. To hear a hint of care and concern from the man she admired was the greatest comfort in a young girl’s heart.

Markus laughed heartily. “In fact, the stories about the two of you in the army group are already about to be published as a novel. I hear that because of your accumulated merits, you’ve been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel this time, an exceptional promotion. Alice will be going back to Berlin with you as your personal assistant and secretary. As for Andre… he’s really been discharged. There’s nothing I can do to help him. The G Army Group logistics department gave him a lot of subsidies. He’s probably already on a train back to his hometown.”

For the Soviet Union, for Moscow, it seemed that everything was already over. Everyone knew that Zhukov’s forces had not repulsed the enemy’s attack. They were bogged down in an entanglement with the enemy and had no ability to return to Moscow to defend their own capital. Although the defense line around Moscow had been in operation for a long time and could be considered strong, the tens of thousands of brave but numerically inferior main force units and the hundred thousand hastily assembled cannon fodder were simply unable to stop the German advance. What was even more terrifying was that these units had no external reinforcements and were running out of steam. Therefore, an indescribable look of dejection and confusion was on everyone’s face.

A gentle breeze blew through the open windows in the corridors of the Kremlin. The documents scattered on the floor fluttered with the wind. No one had picked them up. The empty rooms were filled with the acrid smell of burning paper and film. All kinds of documents of this country, the intelligence and materials that had been painstakingly collected, the data backups from various regions, and even some of the court records and royal property lists from the Tsarist Russian period had been ordered to be thrown into the fire and burned.

Also ordered to be destroyed was the entire living system of Moscow. The waterworks and power plants were barely maintained. No one would be surprised if the water and electricity were cut off at any time. The sewers and the subway had all been converted into underground shelters. Some of the sturdy underground air-raid facilities had been reinforced and expanded. Countless trenches had been dug in every street, and barbed wire and checkpoints were everywhere. All civilians were required to sew more than 10 cloth sacks a day, to be filled with sand and rubble and used as sandbags for building fortifications.

The food and medicine that had been collected in the city had all been concentrated by the army. All men under the age of 50 were required to join the army. All doctors were concentrated, and even the clergy in the churches were uniformly organized into the army to do some work of praying for the wounded and the dead. Women and children were all registered and had become a “reserve force” in the eyes of Stalin and his generals.

Many of the departments in the city of Moscow were already empty. Marginal functional institutions such as marriage registration and community services had stopped operating a month ago. The trucks that transported grain and vegetables were often looted, and some violent incidents and robberies were also not investigated—the police had all been conscripted as soldiers, and the ones maintaining public order were some old grandpas in their seventies and eighties, who really had no deterrent force against lawlessness.

It seemed that only the army was still operating normally in the entire city. Under Stalin’s insane order of “all the people are soldiers,” the entire Moscow had become a huge, chaotic fortress. Apart from resisting the German forces with this form of self-destruction in a desperate struggle, it had already lost all its other functions.

It was almost a desperate struggle with no way out. Everyone knew that the Soviet leader, Comrade Stalin, was going for mutual destruction, because even if the Soviet Union were to win this battle by a fluke, the collapse of the bureaucratic system and the management of archival documents would also make the Soviet Union lose its ability to control the local areas. In other words, no matter what, the behemoth of the Soviet Union was walking further and further down this road of self-destruction.

Compared to the German army, which was defeated but had a strong comeback potential, the Soviet Union, which had lost its mobilization advantage, was now under even greater pressure. A two-front war had made it impossible for the Soviet forces to coordinate between the head and the tail. The country’s mobilization capacity had already been lost, and it could no longer use its overwhelming national strength to offset the terrifying losses at the front.

The Leningrad defenders had been forced to retreat on all fronts. Finland and the German E Army Group had occupied this “city named after the former leader” without shedding a drop of blood. The German army in the city was toppling the statues of Lenin and hanging up the conspicuous German swastika flag everywhere. The news reporters were making a big deal out of this victory, as if to offset the embarrassment of Belgorod being retaken by the Soviet Union.

It seemed that the Soviet Union had been slapped in the face again. The ground they had just managed to regain in the Belgorod Oblast had been completely lost in the Battle of Leningrad. As for why Leningrad, which had been prepared to resist to the death, had ultimately ended in a surrender without a fight, that was a story for another operational plan.

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