Chương 132: Chapter 132: Overture of Destiny
Ding, ding, ding... The grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed twelve times. The young officer sitting at the desk glanced up at the old-fashioned clock with a wooden frame and glass mirror face, furrowing his brow slightly. He tore off the next page from the desk calendar, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the nearby trash can, which was already filled with discarded papers.
The new page on the calendar stand read April 24, 1945.
Ka-ka-ka!
The wooden door was lightly tapped, and the officer, still immersed in the documents under the desk lamp, absentmindedly said, "Come in!"
With a creak, the door opened, and a sharply dressed SS lieutenant walked in, standing at attention. "Sir! Colonel Kasman from the Chancellery has brought an important appointment!"
"Oh?" The young officer seemed surprised. He stood up, but before he could move, an army colonel hurried into the room. He walked straight to the desk and placed a sealed envelope in front of the officer.
"Congratulations, Colonel Laurentz Bach! The Führer has appointed you as the Commander of Berlin's City Defense. This is his personally signed commission!"
"Ah?" The young officer widened his eyes, as if thinking the other was simply joking. However, seeing the serious expression on the colonel's face, he had to believe the truth. He quickly opened the envelope and took out a thin sheet of paper with the Imperial eagle and the bold handwriting.
"Starting from midnight today, you can officially assume the duties of the City Defense Commander!" The colonel glanced at the clock on the table. "I apologize for perhaps being a minute late!"
"Oh, that's all right!" The young officer, with a much more humble tone despite sharing the same rank, put down the paper, and asked softly, "Why would the Führer suddenly make such an important decision?"
The gray-haired army colonel answered without a smile, "The Führer is very satisfied with the performance of the SS night combat units. He believes that the night combat elites are the most reliable warriors of the Empire, and as the overall commander of this unit, you are more capable than anyone else of defending the capital! Now, you can go directly to the City Defense Headquarters to take office, or you can send someone to summon your staff here. All information, including the current deployment of combat units and the Volkssturm in Berlin, will be unconditionally under your command!"
The words sounded somewhat disdainful and ironic. The young officer looked at the colonel with embarrassment, appearing hesitant to speak.
"Well, Your Excellency, if there's nothing else, I'll go back to report!" The army colonel said, turning to leave without waiting for any further questions from the young officer.
"Ah..." The young officer watched the departing figure of the colonel, feeling at a loss for a moment. When his adjutant closed the door, he slumped into his chair, rubbing his temples and murmuring to himself, "Appointing a colonel under 30 as the commander of the capital's defense... It seems like something that has never happened in German history! It's truly insane, too insane!"
After muttering in such a conflicted manner for a while, the young officer finally opened his eyes, picked up the phone on the desk, and dialed. "This is Laurentz Bach... Connect me to the Gestapo headquarters, everywhere!"
On the first morning back in Berlin, Lynn was startled awake from his sleep.
He heard the shrill whistle of shells and the dense explosions, one after another, suffocating!
The weather was not as cold as before, and the shelter had changed from trenches to indoor spaces that could provide shelter from wind and rain. However, the intense tremors still reminded him inevitably of his initial experience in this era. Everything seemed like an inescapable cycle, repeating itself over and over, enduring countless hardships only to return to a familiar starting point.
With anxiousness, he sat up and looked outside the loophole, but there was no sight of the dark masses of Soviet troops. His experience told him: the shells were coming from beyond his line of sight.
Helplessly glancing at the soldiers who still followed him, Lynn sighed, plugged his ears, and silently endured the enemy's remote artillery bombardment.
The days in Berlin seemed worse than in Orlaningrad.
After dozing off for a while, he woke up again to find that the shelling had ended, but he could still faintly hear the distant sounds of gunfire, far from here but close to Berlin.
Due to the interrogation and communication checks, when Lynn and his team entered the Berlin urban area yesterday, it was already night. Now, looking out through the observation holes in the window, they saw barricades, anti-tank obstacles, and concrete fortifications everywhere. Buildings such as railway stations, bridges, and intersections had been converted into defensive strongpoints. The areas along the canals were also designated as key defense zones. It could be said without exaggeration that the entire Berlin had turned into a huge defensive fortification – all of this was reminiscent of what the Soviet army had done earlier in Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow. However, the destinies of both sides destined them to be vastly different.
After tidying up his uniform, Lynn said to his soldiers, "I'm going to the defense area of the 'Nordland' Division to see if I can find my old friend!"
The soldiers watched their commander leave with trusting eyes. After the months spent in Orlaningrad, their attitude towards this young commander might be similar to how Lynn once felt about the "Butcher".
The building where they temporarily stayed was the Army Library located in the north of Berlin. The precious books and materials here had long been transported to safer places in the south. The spacious interior of the library now appeared empty. Its sturdy outer walls and tall staircases were valued by the Defense Headquarters, and all windows had been reinforced and sealed, leaving only firing ports to establish crossfire with the barricades and underground fortifications on the ground.
As one of the hastily formed 200 night assault combat groups, the 167th Combat Group might not have had the most outstanding performance, but the growth and performance of the soldiers were commendable. Combined with the specialized training they received and the expensive, advanced night vision equipment they were equipped with, no commander should ignore the role of such a unit in urban defense warfare. Therefore, Lynn and his team's mission was different from the other soldiers stationed in the building. They were incorporated into the Berlin Defense Headquarters Night Combat Assault Team, lurking at night and waiting for darkness to unleash their excellent nighttime combat capabilities, just like "vampires".
After leaving the building, Lynn headed eastward. Last night, from the officer in charge of arranging military supplies, he learned that the new defense area of the "Nordland" Division was adjacent to the Army Library. After the failure of the "Operation Counterattack", this elite Waffen-SS armored division first retreated to Stettin, then, after the fall of the city, they held out in Alden for half a month. The battle was extremely fierce, with more than half of the division's casualties. They later withdrew to Friedwald for reorganization, where they timely replenished some of the recovering wounded and combat personnel from the navy and air force, and retreated to the Berlin defensive line a week before the fall of Orlaningrad. Facing the fierce Soviet offensive, this Waffen-SS unit composed mainly of volunteers from Nordic countries fought for nearly a week. They only abandoned their outer positions and retreated into the Berlin urban area two days ago.
Learning about the legendary experience of the "Nordland" Division, Lynn couldn't tell whether he should feel regret or rejoice. Having such combat experience was undoubtedly something to be proud of, but the brutal casualty figures were there. No one could be sure they had such good luck from start to finish. If it weren't for joining the "vampire" assault team, he might have died early, slowly decaying under the soil by now. Because of this, he urgently wanted to know the situation of his former boss, the "Butcher".
Passing through the intersection with triangular anti-tank obstacles, Lynn entered the lateral defensive position based on roads and buildings. The soldiers here looked no different from the ordinary Waffen-SS units, except for the clear "norland" markings on their sleeves, which was why they were often referred to as the "Nordland" Division.
Having caught only a fleeting glimpse of the "Butcher" in the field hospital at the front line last time, more than a month had unknowingly passed. Lynn had no way of knowing the fate of his former boss, not even whether he had adjusted the platoon, just as he didn't know if he was alive or dead. In his usual manner, he asked the soldiers around him about "Sergeant Fane of the 2nd Company, 2nd Battalion of the 24th Regiment". Most of them shook their heads and said they didn't know, except for a young soldier who thoughtfully mentioned that the Fane he knew had died in action a month ago, but he wasn't a sergeant, he was a corporal. Hearing this, Lynn became even more anxious and conflicted. It was not uncommon for there to be people with the same surname in a unit, and he didn't want to give up so easily. Continuing to inquire along the defensive position took up most of the day, and he basically walked from one end of the "Nordland" Division's defense area to the other, but still found nothing. How could such a big person disappear into thin air?
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