All Quiet on the Eastern Front
And So It Begins...
"Let's Go, forward gutt soldiers of das Reich! Gott erhalten das Vaterland!"
The German Wehrmacht had begun the long awaited advance into the Soviet Union once again, after three years of being pushed back out of the Motherland the German army is about to make their glorious or inglorious return to the Russian Motherland. The German army began their advance in Central Poland as a mear distraction and Russian soldiers began shifting north after the Battle of Warsaw which saw the death and capitulation of 400,000 Russian troops. In southern Ukraine, the muddy and water-filled terrain of many months have finally combed over and has become free of bad weather. German generals finally make the call, with Hitler in the Reichstag being ever more dramatic and having little tolerance at this point with his commanders, the invasion begins because the generals and field marshals fear for not only their command positions and more importantly their lives.
~ After the Battle of Stryj.
"Franz?"
"What's the matter Stephan?"
"Nick," the German soldier points to his fallen comrade laying on the battlefield dead, "Some time ago I promised that he would survive this war and return to his home, now I have broken that promise."
"Forget about it, you must learn to move on with your life."
"But he was my best friend, and he died because of me."
"Why you?"
"There stood a Russian grenade right beside him, I did nothing but hide and run, he had no idea and then..."
"It's not your fault, everything happens for a reason."
As the two men continue their conversation, the German soldiers and panzers push pass the fallen soldiers of both sides, and the destroyed and burning Russian vehicles and tanks. The plain tall grass is being transformed into a routing sack of dead men and burning machinery. Several hundreds of Russian soldiers can be seen being marched backwards to the German lines and the Wehrmacht positions itself and begins to look for the new Russian lines. The Red Army is in full retreat all across the Ukrainian Front, with Romanian and Bulgarian soldiers pushing out of Bessbaria and German and Hungarian soldiers pushing out of Southern Poland into Ukraine, the Russian High Command is in total shambles trying to figure out how in the world the German Military after being on the retreat for so long, suffering defeat after defeat was able to mount such a counter-offensive.
"At times Franz you come to
love your friends, ofcourse this a different love than with your wife or girlfriend, but it is just as strong, and can have long lasting effects as well."
"Stephan, we really must be going forward with the rest of the unit."
"Just think, if I'd done something else, act brave, yell, push him out of the way, toss the grenade back he'd still be here with us."
"God has a way of showing his will in the most obscure of manners."
"No, it was completely my fault. I truly don't want to die, but then again, what do I have to live for. I've been fighting for a cause that I no longer believe in. I no longer fight for Hitler or the Fatherland or my homeland. I no longer have the urge to fight for domination."
"Domination?"
"Fool, they've brainwashed you, the Germans in the Reichstag will stop at nothing short of complete world domination between either themselves or us and Japan. The world we live in no longer has a good meaning, and there's nothing left to live for. How much longer until war is finally gone? When will this bloodshed finally come to an end? I've seen fathers, sons and children killed, women and children too. If this is what war is about, then this is no war but butchery and murder."
"Stephan, lets go."
"I'm sorry Franz, I'm not going anywhere," Stephan pulls out his Luger and aims it at his head and says his final words, "I'm sorry," he pulls the trigger and the man falls down to the ground with a large hole of blood in his head, and his friend Franz can only stare in horror.
Franz looks down and says a prayer to his fallen friend, "Some say that suicide brings you straight to hell, I'm sure there are some exceptions. So long bud." Franz grabs his Kar-98 and begins to walk alone through the fields and joins with other soldiers of the German 198th Infantry Division and they march into the great unknown, the steppes of Greater Mother Russia. When will the war finally come to an end?
And with the Red Army in complete retreat the German Wehrmacht began a quick and devastating march across Ukraine. The invasion of Mother Russia has finally begun and the Red Army at this point is unable to match the might of the German war machine, just as it did in 1941.