The Eastern Front 1941 (Character IC)

[Snovatgatovia]

ACT 1:

The Berghof, South-east Germany
6/1/41
2200 hrs

Guderian sat on the edge of a wooden armchair listening intently to Engel recount the time he and his wife went boating on the Rhine during the Summer of '37. A light rain pattered against the darkened window and the fireplace cast an orange glow over the gray uniformed men fraternizing in the parlor room. Next to Guderian sat Von Bock and Halder who crossed their legs and also leaned towards Engel.

"...and the countryside was absolutely beautiful! There was a photographer, Hubermann was his name I think, he got the most magnificent shot of the Lorelei while Elsa and I were sipping wine with the captain."

"I've heard there are many castles along the Rhine" interjected Guderian.

"Oh yes, yes, as a matter of fact there was..." responded Engel but he was then interrupted by a knock at the door.

Von Bock called to a servant who was busy in the kitchen and politely asked him to let their visitor in. Stepping through the hard oak frame and into the orange light came a very young officer with piercing blue eyes and neatly combed over jet black hair. The servant stepped aside and allowed the stranger to approach the others.

"Ahhh yes this is one of my subordinates, Hauptmann Wolfgang Adler of the 12th infantry company." said Von Bock before dismissing the servant.

Each general stood and shook his hand before Engel offered him a seat on the couch. Adler could just make out the sounds of a casual conversation in the next room over and was eager to be among such decorated heroes of the fatherland....

[Torrocca]

The Berghof, South-east Germany
June 1st, 1941
10:00 P.M.
Wolfgang Adler

"Ah, Franz, this part of the German countryside certainly is beautiful, no?" the young, clean-shaven officer of the 3rd Infantry Division remarked to his driver, observing the landscape as they drove by it. It was quite the site indeed; nature flourished here, with trees, their leaves green and full of life, dotting the landscape covered by lush plants. The occasional animal scurrying across the terrain brought a sense of peace and life to the captain, greatly contrasting the countryside of France just a few months prior. Even at night, the moonlit landscape was full of beauty and serenity.

A few minutes later, the car arrived to The Berghof, a country villa currently occupied by the more highly-ranked officers of the division. The driver, Franz, an aspiring lieutenant in the Company, quickly shot out of the car and hurried over to the right-hand side, pulling the captain's door open and stepping aside for him. Stepping out, Wolfgang made a few adjustments to his uniform, mainly his cap, before turning to Franz and producing a bottle of alcohol. "For you," he merely said, nodding once as he handed it over. "It's... Kölsch! Sir, you certainly don't disappoint!" Grinning slightly, Wolfgang replied, "well, I know it's your favorite brand... just don't drink it all. I still need a driver, you know?" The lieutenant merely nodded, and shared a quick salute with the captain before he departed to the villa.

---

Adjusting his cap once more, the young man stepped up to the front door, and, wasting no time, knocked twice to alert the generals of his presence. A youngish servant was there to answer the door, and allowed him in with the generals. He quickly snapped a salute to the whole lot of them, then went to shaking hands soon after, before taking a seat on the couch. He was utterly overjoyed to be among his heroic superiors, and simply sat there in silence, mainly due to the nervousness he also felt at that moment.

[Snovatgatovia]

The Berghof, South-east Germany
6/1/41
2200 hrs

After Adler was settled the servant came back and relived him of the Kölsch bottle before returning with several glasses. The men continued to exchange pleasantries for nearly a half an hour, to an objective observer it seemed strange that a lowly company commander such as Wolfgang Adler would spend his evening consulting with the highest generals the third Reich had to offer but Von Bock had assured them that his presence was of the utmost importance. They didn't dare drink more than one glass each waiting for the conversation in the next room to conclude, each of them knew they were here for business and had no intention of looking incompetent.

From a dark hallway opposite the fireplace came two men. The one in front was a tall, skinny man perhaps in his early 30's wearing round-framed glasses and carrying a briefcase. The one looming behind him had an indistinguishable face but wore a devilishly hansom smile. The man in the glasses stepped briskly ahead and erected his right arm. Guderian, Engel, Von Bock and Halder followed in suit. Adler was taken for a moment, not quite sure who the mysterious man was but never the less joined the others in their formal military salute.

"Gentlemen...." said the smiling man from the darkness in an unmistakable, non-German accent as he was slowly revealed by the fire's light.

"...let us get to work downstairs."

It was the Führer himself.

The generals followed Hitler and they joined several more who were already chatting around a large rectangular table adorn with several maps. The man with the glasses hoisted the brief case onto the table and everybody took their seats. A very detailed regional map marked all over with bright red markers also featured several radii drawn with compasses extending across the Polish-Soviet border. Some later inquiry would reveal these to be potential artillery sites but the man with the glasses began to speak before Adler had a moment to question.

"I trust you have all received your copies of Generalplan Ost? Please join me on page 34 Article 7"

Each of them sifted through manila folders, Adler had a moment to look around and realized he wasn't the only low-ranking officer at the meeting.

The discussion started with idle musings about recent events in the field of politics but soon shifted to the real reason the men were all gathered there. Through a thick fog of cigarette smoke Von Bock began to speak on about Germany's next ambitious quest for glory; "Operation Barbarossa" Adler silently read staring down into his planner.

"The Führer and I have been discussing the mobilization of my unit: Army Group Center and tonight I propose that the group follow a route north of the Pripyat Marshes straight to Moscow during the early weeks of the coming operation in order to secure a quick and decisive victory before the Bolsheviks know what has hit them."

Hitler stood strait up from the chair at the end of the table and adjusted his hair, he took a sip of water and stared Von Bock right in the eye.

"The new task of Army Group Center is to drive towards the cities of Minsk and Smolensk, and in great encirclements destroy the Soviet armies stationed there." he said without the slightest hint of doubt.

Von Bock stared right back, wide-eyed, he had spent weeks working on these plans and had even given them to Hitler several hours prior to the meeting in the foolish hope that he would read them. He was slightly embarrassed but maintained his composure.

"I had a feeling that you may not be so keen on this strategy mein Führer, that is why I have brought a distinguished infantry commander here tonight. He has experienced first-hand how men react when placed into unnecessary combat situations on the western front and was recently assigned to the 3rd infantry division to support Guderian's 2nd panzer army." replied Von Bock looking now to Adler hoping that he may persuade their inflatable leader.

[Torrocca]

The meeting

The Führer himself! Wolfgang was quite shocked indeed by this, and was in complete silence because of this. All he could do was blink rapidly, as he thought his vision was broken, but soon discovered that it indeed wasn't. So, he merely followed quietly behind the Generals and the Führer, downstairs to the basement.

Downstairs, they began to discuss the plans of Generalplan Ost, which basically detailed the plans of Operation Barbarossa. He mostly ignored the idle chatter about politics and the like, focusing mainly on the details in the planner. Soon, the discussion turned to the plans, and his interests went away from the booklet to the talks of the other men in this room. The Führer himself made mention of a change to plans, switching a direct assault on Moscow by Army Group Center to assaulting Minsk and Smolensk, to destroy the Soviet armies there. General Von Bock quickly turned to Adler for help.

"Well... the Führer seems to have a good plan going, General. Directly going into Moscow would leave Army Group Center at risk of attack from the garrisons at Minsk and Smolensk, which could easily derail our entire operation," the captain stated, looking at a map showing Soviet army positions. "Our best course of action, of course, is to swiftly destroy those garrisons before they know what has even hit them. If successful, then we can take over Moscow, and, following that, the entirety of the Soviet Union." The young man was a tactician, not a strategist. He had no clue if he was correct, but assumed going against the Führer would be much, much worse than just going against the general. He could only pray he was actually correct...

[Snovatgatovia]

The Berghof, South-east Germany
6/1/41
2300 hrs

All eyes returned to Von Bock. Hitler's fiery rhetoric and unwavering self-confidence had conquered the room and left them all speechless. Indeed, it was common for field marshal Fedor Von Bock to doubt the Führer but to join him in his contradictory behavior certainly would have been inappropriate for someone such as Adler. The discussion carried on.

Though Hitler never directly addressed Adler as he secretly hoped, the mere thought of being in his presence filled him with exuberance. It wasn't quite clear what Guderian made of the situation. Adler remembered receiving a letter from Heinz Guderian himself just two weeks back summoning him to the present meeting. The message mentioned that Von Bock had assigned his division to support the 2nd panzer army in an operation to "safeguard Germany's gains in Poland" but he had never suspected that would involve participating in a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union, much less narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the supreme ruler of the third Reich. He watched Guderian's eyes carefully as they mulled over the maps.

Over the next few hours the skinny man with the glasses would explain in great detail a diagram of a Junkers JU-88 dive-bomber dropping its payload on a Soviet T-26 light tank. He had a wooden pointer much like a school teacher's and used the phrase "air superiority is absolutely vital" like a period at the end of his sentences. Next came chief of staff Franz Halder who gave an equally thorough lecture on maintaining logistical lines until the local population capitulated and began aiding the German war machine. Halder had convinced Hitler that local populations in places like Ukraine and the Baltic states would welcome the Wehrmacht as liberators and would quickly mobilize their young nationalists into pro-Nazi militias. The essay Halder produced published by Germany's leading Eugenicists entitled "The Slavic Mind" seemed very credible and drove his point home. The last speaker was somebody Adler did not recognize.

Guderian cocked his head to the left and whispered to Adler.

"This is the other man I mentioned in my letter, he is from a mechanized brigade within my panzer army. Von Bock also personally requested that he appear here tonight."

Generalmajor Alexander von Holzknecht rose from his seat and stood next to the flimsy wooden stand where all the visual aids were being presented. They expected him to give an overview of his past deployments and to prove the validity of using rapid mechanized assault tactics against an enemy so radically different from the Polish and French....

[Glovania]

Generalmajor Alexander Von Holzknecht
The Berghof, South-East Bavaria
6/1/1941, 2300hrs

---

Alexander rose from his seat, and approached the front of the room, where the others had spoken. His visual aids were primarily maps of hypothetical scenarios, as well as some real ones - those which he had planned to create on the eastern front.
"Good evening Gentlemen." He began. "Mein Führer." He said, bowing his head towards Hitler. "Some of you may doubt my tactics regarding rapid movement, but I feel it is the perfect solution against our enemy. For example:" Von Holzknecht paused to adjust the first of his visual aids. It showed a medium sized settlement, to the south west of which showed several soviet divisions positioned to defend. "As you can see, the Soviet forces are stationed to the south west of this hypothetical settlement, where they are dug in against our attacks. As such, they are immobilised unless they wish to give up their defensive positions. Therefore, a concentrated attack to the south of the town would create a breakthrough for our forces to exploit." As he said this, he brushed his hand upwards across the map, following the path he had described. The soft scratching sound of his hand on the paper being the only sound in the now-silent room.

"As you can see, the Russians would be forced to pull back to defend their rear. Obviously, this would expose them to our other forces. If they wanted to defend against our other forces then they would be open for my forces to attack their rear, or I could move into the settlement and seize their supplies and equipment. Then, my forces could simply hide their trucks in back alleyways and the like, and turn the town in a kill zone of cross fire and artillery. Thus, our forces could simply wait for our other forces to route the enemy. Then, as they retreat, my forces could cut off their escape and destroy them." Alexander finished his presentation with his hand behind his back, left wrist in his right hand. "Thank you for your time - any suggestions or criticism would be appreciated." He smiled at the men in front of him.

[Torrocca]

The meeting

Throughout the remainder of the meeting, Adler kept to himself, sitting there in silence. One man talked entirely of air superiority, which was of no concern to the lowly infantry officer, but the mention of logistics slightly peeked his interest. Obviously, if his unit was to survive the Operation, logistics would be entirely necessary to the company, as well as the rest of the armies attacking. He needed to know their logistical strategy for the invasion. Then, a new, unknown face, a man only mentioned in a letter, stepped up to discuss his own plans involving his motorized brigade.

He basically detailed a theoretical plan that involved the heavy entrenchment of Soviet forces and the encirclement of them. While, in theory, it could work, Wolfgang had quickly caught several flaws in this simple plan. Firstly, while a concentrated assault on the positions could break the line, it would come at a massive cost of life for the German forces, thus making the breakthrough likely in vain. Besides this, the plan didn't take into account the likelihood of there being reinforcements stationed close to the position, or positions set up within the town itself. So, even if they were to flank and attack in such a way, it could easily leave them vulnerable to attack from nearby Soviet forces that weren't accounted for, and entirely reverse the plan. Despite this, he remained entirely silent, as he figured the generals would figure this themselves.

Company Camp

While most of the men were away in their tents, sleeping through the night, a few patrolled the southern German fields, and a small group sat around a fireplace, chatting and laughing throughout the night. "Eh, Hans? Tell us that story again... that, that one about your cousin?" one said, chuckling slightly over a poor joke he made earlier. "Oh, ja!" another exclaimed, "tell us it once more! It was great!" "Alright, alright!" Hans replied, pausing for a moment before beginning with, "so, this one time... my dear co-" "Hey! Simmer down, you lot! Get back to your tents and sleep!" a grim, stern-faced sergeant barked, slipping out of the night into the lighted landscape.

"Jesus, commander!" one of the drunken men cried out, surprised by the sudden appearance of this grizzly man. The rest scattered, while one, a silent, tired, and unkempt man, remained. "Are you deaf or something, son? I said move!" the sergeant commanded, snarling as he stepped closer to the young man, who continued to sit there. He slowly looked up to the fast-approaching soldier, saying quietly, "sir?" "You're... you're one of the lads from the Captain's old unit, yes?" He simply nodded. "I'm... sorry. You can stay here, if that's what you'd like. I understand," the sergeant meekly said, walking away a moment later.