Chapter 196: 196
Episode 196: Toward Victory (9)
September 22, 1942
New Fuhrer's Residence in Berlin, Germany
"This is truly a masterpiece in many ways."
Brauchitsch clicked his tongue after picking up Das Schwarz Corps today.
On the front page of the newspaper, there was a photo that was embarrassing to look at.
Tito is wearing clothes that a country woman would wear, staring straight ahead with dead eyes.
The title of the photo is 'The Ugly Reality of Partisan Leader Tito'.
Tito should have died on the spot. If that were the case, at least he wouldn't have been in such trouble as he is now.
However, perhaps by a twist of fate, he survived and was set up as a sacrifice to completely eradicate the partisans he had incited.
"If we just send Tito to the firing squad and hang him on the gallows, the communists will treat him as a martyr. Therefore, we need to properly destroy his image so that the communists do not turn him into a martyr."
In the West, communists had a strong image of wearing unfashionable civilian clothes, Russian fur hats such as ushankas, or flat caps with red stars, but Tito portrayed himself in a neatly trimmed uniform and clean-shaven face. Rather than being a common communist, he was portrayed as a stylish middle-aged American and gained the favor of the Allied citizens during the war.
In the opposite position, the leader of the Chetniks, Draja Mihajlovic, deliberately grew a bushy beard to win favor with Serbian farmers, but his appearance like the leader of a band of thieves did not give him a good image from the Allies.
In fact, the actions committed by the Chetniks also became a factor in the Allies stopping support for the Chetniks.
Therefore, in order to prevent him from being worshiped by the Communist Party, his image had to be ruined first.
No matter how hard you try to package it, the image is too bad to package it with an image that will only backfire.
"Let's start with cross-dressing first."
How would his admirers react if it were revealed that Tito, who was known as a warrior against fascism and a middle-aged partisan leader, was in fact captured while running away disguised as a woman?
Even people with quite broken heads would say, 'This is a bit...'
Even if you suck, you'll be lucky if you don't hear people criticizing people who run away dressed as women, and you may be misunderstood as having that kind of taste.
To increase the sense of realism, we took clothes that Croatian rural women usually wore, tore them to fit the mood, sprinkled pig blood on them, and put them on Tito.
As soon as he saw the clothes, he noticed and went crazy, but eventually a photo of him dressed as a woman was printed in the newspaper.
"Here we are reporting that Tito's private life was unspeakably scandalous. "Anyway, those who know the truth are either turned into beehives or imprisoned in the room next to Tito."
In the 21st century as well as the 20th century, pedophiles are a target of everyone's condemnation. What if we add homosexuality, which is socially despised?
'The communist leader's secret taste!'
'I usually dress up as a woman and enjoy interacting with children aged 7 to 12...'
'A declaration of conscience from a close associate! 'A shameful voice that echoes day and night!'
Testimonies from Tito's associates and bodyguards, which were made up at random, were added to make the story more realistic.
It would be even more complete if the soldiers who searched Tito's home base were found with hundreds of women's underwear and pornographic magazines and the soldiers were left speechless, and photos of the evidence were included as well.
In a world without the Internet, there is no way for the public to know the truth, so once you make something up and spread a rumor, that's it.
Soon there would be no one in Europe, beyond Germany, who would not know Tito's name.
However, rather than being a communist leader who led partisan activities against Germany, he will be remembered as an ugly, perverted psychopath who enjoyed cross-dressing, pedophilia, and bisexuality.
Now that the headache in the Balkans has been eliminated, it is time to turn our attention to the Eastern Front again.
Even after deploying new weapons such as the T-34/85 and La-5, the Soviet army was still being defeated.
Currently, our forces were passing through Gzatsk and advancing toward Mozhaisk. The distance from Mozhaisk to Moscow is 110 km.
"Mr. President. "Now is the time to bomb Moscow and demoralize the communists."
Göring and Richthofen requested an airstrike on Moscow.
Claiming that it was the right time to launch an air strike to destroy the enemy's defenses and lower their morale. Previously, these two called for an airstrike on Moscow, but I rejected it, saying it was premature.
There were many more important things than the Moscow airstrike.
However, now the Soviet Union's morale is at its worst since the start of the war, and our troops have advanced to the vicinity of Moscow.
Naturally, public sentiment and morale in Moscow would also be low, and if a friendly air strike were to be carried out in this situation, the impact would be enormous.
"Good. "I give permission."
***
September 24, 1942
Soviet Moscow
When news arrived that the German army was advancing toward Mozhaisk, fear, confusion, and disorder spread like an epidemic in Moscow.
Due to the evacuation ban issued by the Communist Party, citizens were unable to leave Moscow and had to remain in the city.
Because of this, some people tried to escape the city by paying bribes or secretly running away.
At Stalin's special order, the NKVD and Smercy went around hunting down escapees and summarily executing them on the spot, but the procession of people escaping continued.
Accordingly, Smersi did not stop at executions, but displayed those who had been shot dead by hanging them on trees or telephone poles as an example.
However, apart from Moscow citizens, foreign embassies residing in Moscow were urged to evacuate.
Diplomatic missions leaving Moscow settled in Kuybyshev. Government departments located in Moscow were also moved to Kuybyshev.
But Stalin remained in Moscow.
Stalin appeared on a Moscow broadcast and declared that he, too, would remain in Moscow with the Red Army to defend the capital.
Stalin's declaration raised the morale of Moscow citizens, albeit slightly.
At the same time, citizens were deployed to various construction projects to protect Moscow from German troops.
Everyone, except children and the elderly who were too young or too old to work, was assigned to build the camp and had to work from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Stalin worked from early morning until dawn and received reports on the construction status of the Moscow defense line.
Thanks to the deployment of 250,000 people, the construction of the defense line was progressing steadily, but there were unexpected problems.
"What do you mean, let's build a new defense line?"
"Comrade Secretary General, please look at the map. There is only one defense line between Mozhaisk and Moscow. "If we don't build an additional defense line in between-"
"no no. Why not reinforce the existing defense line with materials to build a new defense line? "If you create an additional defense line and deduct the materials and manpower for the existing defense line, it will end up in a mediocre state."
Stalin sabotaged Zhukov's plan at every turn.
Zhukov tried to persuade Stalin with all kinds of words, asking why he was wasting materials, manpower, and time by creating a separate defense line when he could have used the materials for the new defense line on the existing defense line to create a stronger defense line, but Stalin was stubborn.
Their opinions also differed sharply as to where to deploy the troops brought from Siberia.
Zhukov insisted that they be deployed to the defense line outside Moscow, but Stalin insisted that they be deployed to the Mozhaisk defense line.
The reason is the same as before. The question was whether more troops and supplies could be deployed to the Mozhaisk defense line to block the Germans, but why should they be deployed to the rear, in Moscow, and allow the Mozhaisk defense line to be breached?
Zhukov felt like he was talking to a stone, not a person. No matter how much he explained or tried to persuade, there was no response.
"Comrade Marshal, how could it not be possible?"
"I tried to persuade him, but he was so stubborn that there was no way."
Voroshilov, who was worse off, tried to persuade him, but even this did not work.
"Wouldn't it be better to focus on strengthening the Mosaisk defense line as Comrade Secretary General said?"
Even Voroshilov disagreed with Zhukov.
I'm going to turn around. Zhukov was about to throw a tantrum. Damn it, if you're not going to listen to what people say, why did you put me in this position!
He used his authority to the fullest to build a defense line at every opportunity, but due to a lack of supplies and equipment, it was only at a level where he could not be expected to play a proper role.
At least three more months were needed for the Baku oil field to operate, and because the amount of oil was small, there were many restrictions on the transportation of equipment and materials.
The biggest problem was oil, especially the lack of oil. Because of that damn oil, there were many cases where equipment that could be operated properly was abandoned or failed to be recovered and left on the battlefield.
It was common on the Eastern Front for the Germans to capture equipment abandoned by the Soviet Army due to lack of oil and use it against the Soviet Army.
If only that damn oil had been enough, we wouldn't have been pushed this far....
At that time, an air raid alarm sounded, and a second after the alarm sounded, an explosion sounded.
Zhukov reflexively got up from his seat and went to the window. A thin line of smoke was rising from a street somewhere in Moscow.
"Comrade Captain! It's an air raid! "You have to go to the bomb shelter quickly!"
Moscow was attacked by air for the first time since the start of the war.
***
Although the Soviet Army, especially the Soviet Air Force, had been repeatedly defeated by the German Air Force since the start of the war, the anti-aircraft network installed in Moscow was quite powerful.
However, under the orders of Stalin, who was concerned about additional German air raids on rear cities after the Magnitogorsk air raid, the Soviet Union's air and anti-aircraft forces were dispersed, and forces that were originally supposed to be deployed in Moscow were deployed to the rear.
The fact that Moscow had never been attacked by air raids since the start of the war also contributed to the Soviet military's lethargy and complacency.
The first to hit Moscow was the V2 rocket.
The German military installed a rocket launcher on a train, brought it close to the front line, and fired dozens of rockets, striking Moscow first.
For the Soviet military, who had expected an attack by bombers, the V2 air strike was an unexpected variable.
Above all, since it was a rocket and not a bomber, it was impossible to shoot it down, so there was nothing the anti-aircraft gunners could do.
The aircraft that were sortied at best were unable to do anything, so they just flew around in circles over Moscow and returned to base without doing anything.
However, the pilots who returned to the base had to get back into the cockpit about ten minutes after getting off.
This is because after the V2 bombing ended, bombers appeared over Moscow.
"The people who live down here are all commies. "Pour it all out."
"Get down, you communists."
Bombs rained down like hail on the heads of the Soviet soldiers and Moscow citizens who were caught off guard thinking that the air raid was over.
The fighter planes that arrived late over Moscow fought to the death with the German fighters that escorted the bombers.
Soviet pilots burned with the belief that they would protect the capital, but the enemies they had to deal with were monsters with deceptive performance such as the Me262 and Fw190D.
The performance of the La-5, the newest model of the Soviet Air Force, was at the maximum level similar to that of the Bf109G and Fw190A, but it was no match for German aircraft that were several levels above it.
The fighters that were supposed to shoot down the bombers were being chased and hunted by the escort planes, while the bombers leisurely focused on turning Moscow into a sea of fire.
When the two-hour long airstrike ended, major industrial facilities, railway stations, and many civilian residential areas in downtown Moscow were destroyed, and some of the Kremlin buildings were damaged.
Even after the air raid ended, the atmosphere in downtown Moscow was reminiscent of the middle of a battlefield.
The cries of citizens who lost their homes continued as firefighters tried to put out the fire and rescue workers rushed to save survivors from the remains of the collapsed building.
Due to the evacuation ban issued by Stalin, there were still more than 4 million citizens living in Moscow, and naturally the damage to civilians was bound to increase.
A common thought came to the minds of Moscow citizens as they looked at buildings destroyed by air raids, sunken roads, collapsed bridges, and factories engulfed in flames.
Perhaps this is a foreshadowing of the coming catastrophe and the future appearance of Moscow.
Not only citizens, but also soldiers of the Red Army and even some agents of the NKVD and Smersh, who were given the enormous task of protecting law and order in the Soviet Union from sabotage by reactionaries, had similar thoughts.
Is it really in the Soviet Union's interest to continue this war?
***
September 25, 1942
New Fuhrer's Residence in Berlin, Germany
The Moscow air raid ended successfully.
As a result of the air raid on Moscow with a total of 200 bombers and 80 fighter jets, our forces succeeded in inflicting significant damage on the downtown area of Moscow.
Our forces were not without damage, with 6 bombers and 9 fighter jets being shot down over Moscow, and dozens of aircraft suffering major and minor damage, but it was within the expected range and could be overlooked.
Göring, encouraged by the successful airstrikes, proposed launching airstrikes on Moscow every day, but considering the amount of fuel and ammunition our troops had, I thought it would be a bit burdensome, so I limited it to once a week until the fall of Mozhaisk.
Since we had the V2, there was no need to focus on direct air strikes using bombers.
"Winter will soon begin in Russia. "Winter equipment is essential to survive the four-month long Russian winter. Is the supply of winter supplies going well?"
"Of course, Mr. President. All front-line units have already been issued winter uniforms. "On the contrary, they are said to be inundated with requests to stop sending winter uniforms and provide more ammunition and fuel."
"Instead, the supply of allied troops is somewhat delayed, so we have requested help from our allies."
"Let's discuss that carefully and find an agreement. "Right now, supplying supplies to our Defense Forces and SS is the top priority."
"And the issue of the deployment of the Free Russian Army to the Eastern Front."
As Vlasov believed that the liberation of Russia should be achieved through the hands of the Russian people, he continued to request that the Free Russian Army under his command be sent to the Eastern Front, and especially hoped to be able to participate in the upcoming Battle of Moscow.
Vlasov's request was accepted, and the transfer of Free Russian troops to the Eastern Front began three days ago.
Not only did I wonder if there would be no idiots who would come all the way here and surrender to the Soviet army, but I also thought that since they were Russians, they would adapt better to winter than our troops.
A unit made up of Russians fight to open a road to Moscow, the capital of Russia.
Is there anything more ironic than this?
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