Sieg

Sieg. The German word for victory. This is the story of the German victory in the second Great War.

Sieg

Moscow, German Reich, 20.5.1945

Alexei Yazhovev wandered the streets of the conquered Soviet capital. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of the Nazi victory- the swastika banners draped from almost every building, the posters and billboards proclaiming Hitler to be a glorious liberator, the constant Wehrmacht patrols and the occasional SS officer. The Germans had arrested anyone even loosely related to the government and all former Red Army personnel and so as Yazhovev walked he passed empty home after empty home. 

The Russian reached Red Square. Near the metal carcass of a burned out T34 tank waited a woman “Comrade?” she inquired

“Yes?” Alexei replied tentatively

“The address is here.” She passed over a slip of paper “Come alone.” 

Alexei nodded and took the paper. Without saying anything else the woman disappeared into the shattered city. Yazhovev put the paper in his pocket and looked around Red square. Above him rose the damaged spires of the Kremlin, the stars that had once adorned them blasted off by artillery during the battle. In the centre of the square, was a giant circle of ash- the mainly communist books burned by the Nazis on their arrival on the orders of Axel Bauer- Joseph Goebbels’s  stooge in the former USSR and the probable future Gauleiter. A few brown shirted Nazi storm trooper thugs milled around at the edge of the circle, trying to look tough. 

It was late in the evening when Alexei approached the address he had been given. A two man Wehrmacht patrol ambled leisurely towards him “You!” called one of them “Present your papers for inspection at once!” he ordered in heavily accented terrible Russian.

Alexie cursed the soldier inwardly and took out his papers, issued days after the invasion. He had noted with curiosity that they had been stamped with a big red ‘M’- as had all cards issued to the remaining Muscovites. 

“Here you are.” He muttered

“Here you are…?” The German waited.

Alexei could scarcely contain his outrage at the soldier’s high handedness and spat out the word as if it was cyanide “Here you are…sir.”

The soldier nodded and took the papers. He glanced at them then up at Alexei several times whilst deliberately making several disapproving noises. Finally, he was done and returned the papers “Remember there is a curfew.” The patrol continued onwards. 

Alexei rolled his eyes and continued on to the house. He found the door locked so knocked loudly. The wooden door was opened on a chain and the woman he had met earlier looked out at him “Quickly!” she opened the door “Everyone is in the basement.” The women pointed down a flight of stairs and Alexei hurried down them.

In the room below there was a gathering of men and women of varying ages. At the centre of the group was a man in his mid-fifties talking with two other men. Alexei’s contact entered the room after several minutes with a thirty-five-year-old “This is the last one.” 

The man in the centre began to speak “I will cut straight to the chase. We are here to kill Nazis. The invaders have defeated our army and now resistance is all we have. Firstly I should say that we will go by number only and everyone will only be told what they need to know. I am fourteen.” As the man began numbering the people in the room Alexei took in details of them. There was a fairly even number of male and female. Everyone was either old or young with hardly any middle aged Russians in the room. “Three.” Fourteen gave Yazhovev his number “Okay that is everyone. We should strike first against the leaders of the occupation, we will go after Bauer, that will get Berlin’s attention.”

Alexei nodded and murmured agreement along with everyone else. Fourteen spoke again “We must discuss how we are to begin. First I would like to-” he paused when he heard movement up the stairs.

Without warning the door burst inwards with a shower of wooden splinters “ACHTUNG!” someone shouted down in German and then a garbled mix of German and Russian “On the floor! Get on the floor! Schnell! SCHNELL!” soldiers piled in armed with stg.44 assault rifles and dressed in Waffen SS combat fatigues. 

Unarmed and outnumbered Yazhovev could only comply. On the other side of the room Fourteen tried to reach for his Tokarev pistol tucked in his belt. He was dead before his fingertips brushed it “Get them up onto the street, one at a time.”

Back on the street outside the house Yazhovev found it had been cordoned off at each end by SS military police. Three opel blitzes and a kubelwagen had been parked with the engines running. Alexei and the other Russians were loaded onto the trucks.

Inside the Kubelwagen Standartenfuhrer Hans Steiner of the SD, the SS intelligence agency, watched through the windscreen the loading of the prisoners. “Those Slavs have no idea just how lucky they are.”

“What?!” Steiner turned to his second in command, Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl Richter “You think...going to a KZ is lucky?!” Steiner gave Richter a funny glance, he had passed through several concentration camps during the war and knew full well most of the new prisoners would be dead in a few weeks,

“They have a chance to survive what is coming Herr Standartenfuhrer the rest of the city does not.” Karl said.

“I would not say that makes them lucky. Oh! I forgot to ask back at HQ, is the temporary monitoring station operational yet?” Steiner changed the subject suddenly.

“Almost sir, they haven’t tapped Bauer’s office or Manstein’s command post yet.” Karl answered.

“I want them under surveillance, especially Bauer, he needs to be under watch twenty four seven.” Hans seemed distant

“Sir?” Karl didn’t understand “Herr Bauer is a friend of Minister Goebbels and an associate of the Fuhrer! Why do we need him covered?”

“Oberstgruppenfuhrer Heydrich.” Steiner replied with a name.

“Ah.” Karl understood then. Reinhardt Heydrich was head of the Reich Main Security Office, Himmler’s deputy and a cold hearted killer. He was responsible for most of the dead civilians east of Berlin and the architect of the final solution: the mass murder of Jews.

The pair watched in silence as the three Lorries left the street leaving them alone. Steiner looked at his adjutant “Karl, why are we still here?” 

“Sorry herr standartenfuhrer.” The SD lieutenant colonel put the kubelwagen into gear and drove off. 

Calais, German Reich, 23.5.1945

Veronique Chateau focused the crosshairs of her modified Lee Enfield (Smuggled in by the SOE) on a German Officer in the port in front of her. She was on the top floor of an abandoned warehouse and had an excellent line of sight into the newly built Kreigsmarine base- composed of mainly flat concrete buildings for the best protection against air raids but that was little cover from a hidden sniper.

“Adolf, I’ve been told Berlin’s planning on rebuilding the base.” Erich Frinz the base’s commander spoke to his subordinate Adolf Hiesler.

“Again sir? They’ve only just finished the current base!” Adolf exclaimed.

“I know, but do you think this base is a naval centre? It has been built with defence in mind-OKM wants to deepen the docks, build a flak tower, construct a new shipyard capable of building even the largest capital ships and also an airfield.” 

“An airfield?” Hiesler parroted his commander “Does that mean aircraft carriers?”

“Yes, with Russia defeated only Britain is left and we will need carriers to wrest the oceans from them.” Erich said “It will take time, and will need more ships. Our naval designers are working on a boat akin to landing craft used by the US navy.”

“We will use the inferior American designs?!” Adolf was shocked.

“They are a damn sight better than our plans to convert barges and smaller craft. Purpose built vessels will be much better. It’s not just the Americans, the Japs are assisting in the designs for the new Kreigsmarine. It’s the dawn of a new age Adolf, we will build the strongest and most versatile navy ever to set sail, part of the new base will entail a training centre for a new marine force.” 

At the mention of the Japanese Hiesler baulked “But sir, those narrow eyed b******s will surely try to put one over us?” Adolf asked. 

There was no reply and Adolf turned around “Sir?” the base commander was staring at Adolf strangely, his hands scrabbling at his neck. Crimson poured over his hands and he collapsed to the ground “HILFE! THE COMMANDANT HAS BEEN SHOT! HILFE!” a Kreigsmarine policeman came running.

Veronique was already dissembling her rifle. She finished packing it into a briefcase and left the warehouse building into the disused road round the back. A little way away a car was waiting, an old Citroen. 

“Lets go.” She said, getting into the front passenger seat, briefcase across her lap. 

“What took you so long?” the driver, a Frenchman called Francois Boulonger asked.

“Herr Frinz took his time leaving the command block.” Veronique shut the door “Let’s get back to the others, we need to finish preparing for tomorrow.”

The French car pulled away, heading further into Calais. In the distant naval base sirens and alarms of all sorts were blaring.

Pierre Chateau was in conversation with Alois Bernois and Joachim Jurgen when Veronique and Francois returned to the farm house just outside Calais that made a convenient base of operations “Frinz is dead!” Veronique announced as she put down the sniper rifle case.

“Now the Germans will be distracted for the next few hours, police HQ should be undermanned.” Bernois said “Veronique, help me bring up the uniforms.”

Pierre sat and poured himself a glass of water from a tin pitcher, he hated these missions, they were never as simple as they sounded and with just a pistol against the might of even an undermanned police headquarters, Pierre did not like their chances. New regulations saw police stations everywhere become fortresses and the Calais Police HQ was a prime example- it had been used in countless propaganda reels showing off the concrete bunker built into the steps outside, the MG.34s covering the entrance and the submachine guns kept little more than an arm’s reach out of any police officer. 

The four had a selection of stolen or copied uniforms carefully folded in a wooden crate in the coal cellar amongst their weaponry- the safe house held several rifles like Veronique’s, numerous sten and Thompson submachine guns, colt 1911s (some with built in silencers), a luger P08, two walther PPKs and an old C96 Mauser, crates of German stick grenades, one Panzerfaust,  crates of pencil timer explosives, a few Lee Enfields, two K.98s, five MP.40s, a single Stg.44 and for some reason that no one quite knew- an 88mm artillery shell with a live warhead- the artillery round just stood in the corner of the basement collecting dust.

 The quite extensive armoury was the work of five years of Calais resistance teams. Three such teams had lived in the farmhouse since the start of the occupation, including the current team. The other two had been killed on operations in Calais.