“I received a message from SS-Viking,” Weineck said. “They’re finally ready to move.”
“Glad to hear it,” Alfred said. There were four SS Panzer divisions on the border, but it had taken longer than he’d expected to whip them into shape. None of the troops had seriously expected a full-scale deployment, certainly not one that had to be put together in less than a fortnight. As it was, Alfred was surprised it hadn’t taken longer to get everything in place before the offensive began. “I trust that the officer commanding has been read the riot act?”
“He has, Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer,” Weineck said. “I warned him that he would be relieved for cause if he didn’t shape up in future.”
Alfred sighed. There was always someone who had been promoted above their level of competence, either through political connections or sheer bad luck. He’d been tempted to relieve SS-Viking’s commanding officer the moment his problems had first shown themselves, but he had no idea what would happen if the asshole made a fuss or complained to the Führer. There was no way to know what Karl Holliston would do.
“Good,” he said.
He studied the map for a long moment. A handful of commando teams had already crossed the border – there had been a number of shooting engagements between them and the defenders when they encountered armed patrols – but the remainder of the invasion force was hanging back, making the final preparations to advance. Four Panzer divisions, backed up by thirty infantry divisions – ranging from light armoured units to footsoldiers and mountain troops – and well over two thousand aircraft. The enemy might have an advantage in jet fighters, Alfred reluctantly conceded, but they didn’t have anything like as many CAS aircraft as the Waffen-SS could bring to bear. It would be a different story if they brought back the forces in South Africa, but the Fuhrer had been confident that those forces would remain out of play until the war was over, one way or the other. Alfred hoped he was right. There was no way to know which way those forces would jump either.
“The offensive is scheduled for 0600,” he mused. “Have the security precautions been maintained?”
“Yes, Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer,” Weineck assured him. “Our men have been very careful.”
Alfred snorted, rudely. He’d been one of the few officers allowed to review the vast collection of documents recovered from the Kremlin, after Moscow had fallen. It had been clear that there had been hundreds of leaks, in the run-up to Operation Barbarossa, ranging from men deserting their units and crossing the border to spies in high places within the Reich. If Stalin hadn’t been so intent on refusing to believe that Hitler intended to attack, the invasion of Russia might just have ended badly. No, someone would have leaked, whatever his officers said.
And even if they didn’t, the traitors know we’re coming, he thought. We’re running out of time to launch an offensive before winter.
“Then contact Germanica,” he ordered. “I want to speak to the Fuhrer.”
“Jawohl,” Weineck said.
Alfred watched him head to the secure telephone, then turned his attention back to the map. There had been no time to carry out a detailed study of the invasion plan, no time to run the troops through a whole series of exercises designed to identify weaknesses and deal with them before the fighting actually started. His men were a curious mixture of experienced – and tough – counterinsurgency fighters and reservists with varying levels of experience. Very few of them, outside exercises, had ever fought on a modern battlefield.
And some of them will treat the civilians as the enemy, he thought, morbidly. He’d already reprimanded two of his senior subordinates for encouraging hatred and contempt for the westerners. They’d been talking about giving the westerners a beating they would never forget, as if the westerners were nothing more than Slavic Untermenschen. And that will make it easier for the traitors to rally the rest of their population against us.
He shook his head, bitterly. Avoiding atrocities made good tactical sense, but very few units in the Waffen-SS gave a damn about civilian casualties. Indeed, they’d been trained to machine gun Untermensch women and children, just to keep them from breeding the next generation of insurgents. But what worked in the depths of Germany East would be a public relations disaster, if the outside media got hold of it. No one in Germanica gave a damn about American public opinion – not about massacres in South Africa – but they had encouraged the Americans to flatly refuse to sell anything to either the South Africans or the Reich. He couldn’t help wondering just how badly American sanctions had hurt the Reich.
“Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer,” Weineck said. “The Fuhrer is on the line.”
Alfred nodded, strode over to the table and took the handset. “Mein Fuhrer.”
“Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer,” Karl Holliston said. “Is everything in order?”
“Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” Alfred said. “We are still working to integrate Category B and Category C reservists, but the main body of the invasion force is ready to go.”
“Excellent,” Holliston said. “And the troops have been briefed? They have a complete list of traitors to arrest?”
“Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” Alfred said.
He kept his face expressionless. Personally, he thought it would be better to win the war before starting the mass purge of traitors, but Holliston had had years to build up a very detailed enemies list. The traitors, their families and their friends were already marked down for death, if they were caught. Alfred rather suspected that most of them wouldn’t be stupid enough to let themselves be taken alive. They had nothing to look forward to, if they were caught, apart from humiliation, torture, public confession and death. And then their bodies would be left hanging from meat hooks too, just to remind the Volk that public dissent would not be tolerated.
“Very good,” Holliston said. “I shall expect your forces to be entering Berlin within the week.”
“We will proceed with as much speed as possible,” Alfred assured him. “But we have to be prepared for the worst.”
He sighed, inwardly, at the explosion of irritation on the other end of the line. There was no way it would be anything like as easy as Holliston seemed to believe. The traitors had a number of good officers working for them, as well as much of the Luftwaffe and almost all of the Kriegsmarine. Getting to Berlin within a week would be difficult, if the traitors played it smart. They’d attended the same tactical schools, after all. They knew what to expect; an armoured thrust, mechanized infantry bringing up the rear and consolidating the gains as the armour prepared itself for another thrust…