"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
Chapter LXXVI
Communists do not in the least idealise methods of violence. But they, the Communists, do not want to be taken by surprise; they cannot count on the old world voluntarily departing from the stage; they see that the old system is violently defending itself, and that is why the Communists say to the working class: Answer violence with violence; do all you can to prevent the old dying order from crushing you, do not permit it to put manacles on your hands, on the hands with which you will overthrow the old system.
~ Joseph Stalin
~ Joseph Stalin
The air smelled of coal giving an impression of a fire despite the cool morning air. In the frost, the scene of villages and towns amidst a great forest might have seemed magical, a return to a simpler time around the hulks of dead factories, the relics of an industrial age.
The issue at hand was that their workers hadn’t gone alone with the program. Instead they had armed themselves.
Peter Klompf eyed the red flag fluttering above the prominent water tower that made up one of the landmarks of Lehrte. The United Front were here alright and soon he wouldn’t need binoculars to realise it.
“It’s almost time.” Franz reminded him before returning to the cupola of his armoured truck in a stance much the same as his. Peter’s colleague had been with him ever since their journey back from the Soviet Union, alongside the rest of their armour training school. It made the situation easier when surrounded by friends but the question of what to do weighed on him with just the sight of them.
Klaus, his friend who led the school’s underground reading group, looked as pensive as Peter felt but he too now commanded an armoured truck with a cow catcher-like device attached, designed for smashing through barricades. Here they were, being ordered to crush the sort of revolution they had once whispered about in the early hours of the morning.
They had read Hitler’s book, they had discussed it, and they had mostly agreed yet here they were fighting him. Peter’s father had hated Communists for as long as he could remember, perhaps that was why he had been so curious about what they were for in the first place but he could hardly defect now with the nation at war and his family at home waiting, expecting...
“Final checks then, wait for the whistle and we’ll follow in with the lead column,” he announed to his men, Reichswehr regulars who had been driving the armoured trucks when they had only been meant to be training stop-gaps for the sort of innovations Peter and his colleagues had been developing.
The Bussing armoured trucks had taken a bit of getting used to after the experimental devices that had played around with in Russia but they had proven their worth during the initial assaults in Berlin. Those who had experience of that charge were leading front now.
The village of Immensen made up their command post, the villagers having fled to safety. Or so was the story. With Hannover under Communist control the operation would need to be surgical, both to assure that the railway terminal would be captured quickly and relatively intact but also so that revolutionary forces couldn’t then retreat into Hannover to launch a counter-attack.
It was expected they would flee to do just that the moment the Reichswehr arrived in any force and for Peter that would also be the best thing for his moral dilemma. The armoured force would be circling around the town at any rate, to ensure any escape would be haphazard.
---
“It looks like they’ll be coming soon.” The factory worker panted whilst trying to recover his breath. He had just made a sprint between his home village and the outer barricade.
Johann nodded in acknowledgement but wished he could do more than hear the faint sounds of movement in the distance and see it for himself. He wondered where he might be able to get his hands on a good pair of binoculars. The roof of the giant cement factory on which he stood allowed a panorama of the town but not much beyond it from the naked eye. Thankfully most of the villagers from the surrounding towns had come to defend their factories and the more athletic of his newfound comrades could be used as runners to get a picture of the situation.
“You’re sure this will work?” Feder asked, although he was the notional commander of the town’s defence he was relying on Johann’s experience of what a Reichswehr attack might look like.
“They got through the barricades pretty quickly in Berlin, but that was without them being harassed from the buildings around. If we can bottle them up-”
“Then we get them to the killing zones, I know.”
The tactic of luring a superior foe into overlapping fields of fire had been used by Hitler himself during the defence of Munich and he had schooled his lieutenants regarding it in the Ruhr, here such lessons had been put into practice. With any luck, they might even work.
“Did you ever have to fight this many in the Ruhr?” Lars called out, and Johann realised the Social Democrat had managed to secure a good pair of binoculars from somewhere. Before he could ask we he meant however, there was a crump from the distance that brought everyone to a pause. Then another. And another. And-
---
Peter saw hundreds of grey blobs marching directly for the town whilst the first artillery shells impacted within it, the noise of their impacts dulled by the noise of armoured procession he was part of, looping around the town. All around him their own assigned Reicshwehr troops jogged alongside, trying to get in the habit of using the trucks for cover whilst eagerly trying to get a peak of what was unfolding from the other side as well.
Peter felt his stomach swelling and deflating even whilst maintaining a stern look from the armoured truck’s cupola.
They had by now circumvented the town, placing themselves between it and the city of Hannover, cutting off the main route of potential escape. The artillery fire had now stopped, indicating the main infantry assault had already begun but still no-one had fled from the town, not even any women or children.
The racket of gunfire grew in intensity from the other side of the town, indicating that something had gone badly wrong. Flags went up across the column, indicating the need to split up into individual units to break into the town. Peter attempted to sigh but ended up retching, his nerves getting the better of him. Whatever was going on, they were about to go in.
“You men stick behind me, keep low and covered until we’re into the town.” He yelled back at the Reichswehr infantry who in their steely determination put his own nerves to shame.
Perhaps they were just better actors.
The whistle blew and his driver revved the armoured trucks engine once more.
---
A thick dust of cement, ash and what looked like vapourised organs partially covered the mounting dead bodies filling up the lanes between the clayworks and the sugar warehouse.
The Reichswehr had been trying to spook whoever was defending the town it seemed, perhaps enough for them to flee or even just surrender outright but the revolutionaries assembled by Feder had held their nerve. This was much to Johann’s relief, he had merely been happy the roof had held when the first shells landed. Even though machine guns hammered away from pillboxes of broken stone and cement, and bullets swooshed over his head, he was mostly happy to be back on solid ground.
If the Reichswehr troops had been expecting a lightly defended town they had been disappointed and perhaps this explained they had poured in so eaglery rather than stick to the stricter discipline of cover and advance, cover and advance, that Johann was used to being on the other side of. It turned out defending a town whose main industry was a cement works had lent itself to constructing fortifications and the Reichswehr men left alive were now clambering to find cover in the face of interconnecting trenches and pillboxes of cement and mortar, slapped together in desperation but holding for the moment.
“They’re starting to get their act together.” Lars shouted from across the trench.
“Just hold them for as long as you can, we still have a trick up our sleeve remember.”
Lars smiled, “If we’re going to be swallowed whole we may as well give them the worst case of indigestion they’ve ever had!”
Johann laughed at the poor standard of the Social Democrat’s wit.
“I never fought I’d die fighting alongside a social fascist when the revolution came!” Johann tried to be as warm as possible in the heat of the battle.
“I just wanted a 40 hour week to be honest.” Lars shouted back before placing a struck match onto the kerosene soaked wick of a petrol bomb and hurling the flaming device down towards the huddled Reichswehr forces.
Flames spread across the road and those caught in it seemed stuck in a strange jig as their comrades attempted to fire past them. The rhythm of the dance, the melancholy of it, made Johann laugh harder, perhaps just a bit too hysterically. His mind sent him back to descending on Freikorps from the air and as he returned his hands to the warm MG08 Maxim gun.
Hammering away at the white guards, he was in the clouds once again.
---
The noise of the firing from afar grew more intense but the scene was still as Peter’s armoured truck landed on the paved road. Gliding smoothly after coursing over stony fields for so long only added to the calm of the scene.
Bang
A shot rang out, followed by more, Peter’s head had disappeared under the cupola at the sound of the shots but opted to pop back up for a moment so he could tell where the firing was coming from. The truck’s driver, to his credit, drove on towards the source of the shooting. From where they had been Peter could see a dead body in grey but was unable to dwell on it as he turned to face the barricade in front of the truck. It appeared there were four or five men with guns bobbing their heads up and down to take potshots at the more numerous force.
Peter tried to maintain some level of visibility whilst remaining covered, luckily for him the shots were tried to get at the men behind the truck, mostly. There were now more armoured cars queuing up behind him, the crossfire becoming intense. The tactic that had worked so well in Berlin had been to ram such barricades and spill through the gap but it wasn’t clear if that was all that was holding them up. Those behind him were growing agitated at the pause.
Crouching up and down he noticed a figure staring at them from the tenements towereing over the scene, their eyes locked for a moment before the head popped back in, alarmed at being seen. The calls to advance were growing, Peter tried to point upward.
A bullet ricocheted off the exterior of the truck and into his arm in a stab of hot, blistering pain. Peter bit into his other arm so not to scream but it appeared the rest of the crew were aware he had been hit. Crew members he now realised were beginning to lose patience with his dithering.
“Ram it!” He heard someone shout.
“Wait, no, I didn’t-” Gasping in pain, Peter’s protest was barely audible as the driver chose to obey whoever had given the order in his place. The armoured trucks engine whined and the tires screeched as with full force they hurtled toward the barricade. The stacks of crates and plywood and the shocked faces of those behind came closer and closer before he ducked for impact.
---
Johann felt himself be lifted off the ground and then being thrown back down amongst a mess of bloodied limbs. Winded as he was he tried to scream, before he realised none of them were his. The sudden surge of relief he felt was quickly quelled by the advancing troops ahead of them. Under a hail of bullets and mortar, the Reicshwehr had indeed gotten their act together quickly.
One pillbox was now being taken out at a time and it seemed he was next with so much fire being concentrated on it. He ordered his men to alert the others still holding out to retreat whilst he continued to blast away with the Maxim gun, spraying from side to side uncontrollably in a great waste of ammunition but also causing a temporary halt to the enemy advance, before jumping from the parapet himself and sprinting back to the next line of barricades and concrete blocks.
By the time he had been grabbed over the wall shots were already ringing out again. Stragglers who had been slow to follow were already being mowed down but only token resistance was being offered, maximum effect required maximum exposure. That was Hitler’s mantra for the killing zone and it meant inviting as many Reichswehr in as possible even if it meant being unable to cover your own comrades in the meantime. The cement factory and the town centre lay behind them.
Lars approached him once again, the man’s ruddy, bullish face smeared with blood and dirt. His eyes were ablaze with adrenaline. Johann realised he probably looked the same but hoped he had at least had his eyebrows intact.
“Nothing beyond this line for us. When they cross here it’s all over. Looks like your man has gotten us killed after all.”
The statement was matter-of-fact, there was no sense of anger or betrayal to it and Johann couldn’t respond even if he had been able to. All he could do was the same as Lars, grab a rifle and keep firing until they ran out of bullets.
The butt might be able to hold off a few if it came to that but Johann had long made his peace with the reality of his situation.
To be a communist was to be a corpse on holiday.
---
The painting is Our Locomotive by Revold Baryshnikov
The Reichswehr was somewhat short of artillery: a single regiment of 3 battalions per division, 2 initially of 77mm field guns (by this date probably replaced by 105s), and one of 150mm mediums. Nothing heavier, fortunately for the revolutionaries.
IIRC there were only seven such regiments available in 1930 (not sure if that would have been butterflied ITTL but the time to talk Reichswehr restructuring will soon be upon us) and this is somewhat exacerbated by the activation for the Black Reichswehr for crushing the revolt, which swells the ranks of the Reichswehr exponentially but doesn't provide any follow-up in regards to artillery cover. Naturally Lehrte is a priority so the division assaulting the town does have its proper accompliment but if you felt the preliminary bombardment was limited here* consider that in other cases reservists will be going in with no artillery cover whatsoever, giving them little advantage against the United Front beyond sheer numbers.
* There are other factors at play; the consideration that the town may only be lightly defended as mentioned in the update as well as the need to not completely destroy the town as a railway hub which makes it so important in the first place but the lack of ability to even do that effectively certainly played a major part in the Reichswehr going in without waiting for the place to be flattened first.
Correct, one regiment per infantry division. The three cavalry divisions would have had their own artillery assets, but probably only 77mm stuff. There were also a few batteries of mountain guns.
Chapter LXXVII
Liebknecht’s courage was the union of his love for every man and his discernment that in the period we live in individual suffering cannot be helped without beginning the life and death struggle for socialism. He fell in the raging struggle. And thousands will follow him to the martyr’s death until naked, hungering, wound-bedecked humanity will have the leisure to remember its martyrs with love.
~ Karl Radek, At the Martyr’s Graveside
~ Karl Radek, At the Martyr’s Graveside
Like many of the Hotel Furst Bismarck’s current denizens, Gerda Muller was well aware that she would never have been accepted into the hotel under normal circumstances, nor would she have expected to see revolutionary war orchestrated amongst crystal and china. But here she was, and such was the nature of the United Front’s operations room.
Gerda felt a burning sensation on her fingers and quickly crushed the remnants of her cigarette into one of the many ash trays placed within the operations room before leaning back on the desk where it sat, tapping her foot nervously whilst gazing at the chalkboards detailing the ongoing battles to the south.
Part of her wished she was there.
Having survived the crushing of the Spartacist revolt over a decade beforehand she knew it was an irrational thought to have when she was safe to observe the reports of the battle from a great distance with a better picture than anyone on the ground but still, she was also aware these battles might well decide everything; whether the revolution would succeed, whether the decade of her life spent fighting for Communism had meant anything, whether she would ever see her daughter again.
She didn’t want to dwell on leaving Rosa to one of the safehouses that might well have been compromised now Von Schleicher had seized control of Berlin. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if her daughter was caught alongside other Communists. The Reichswehr probably wouldn’t murder a child in cold blood but the Blackshirts…
It probably had been safer to leave her with Communist sympathisers who knew how to hide people than bring her here, that decision had been made now and she had to rely on it being the right one, but whilst updates on the battle remained sparse her mind was left to linger on such things.
“Time for a report!” Adolf Hitler shouted while striding into the room with a spring in his step.This was his moment.
At least for now,
Gerda shuddered at the thought.
If things went badly here then having to deal with Hitler lapsing into another panicked delirium would be the least of her worries but for now he seemed to be in his prime and in control. Everything that went on in the operations room was need-to-know in the newly assembled People’s Guard, as a Communist functionary Gerda wasn’t technically meant to even be present but here was someone who had the authority to demand to know what was going on without incurring protest.
“It seems that most of the Reichswehr forces in the central attacks are now engaged, and from what we can gather a large number of those forces trapped in the west are attacking alongside them. At any rate we’re holding on for the moment at the major rail heads although we haven’t heard anything from some smaller stations which likely means they’re either too heavily arrested to respond or they’ve already been overrun.”
That last comment sent a wave of discomfort across the room
“Still,” Kahle continued, “as long as there aren’t any large new arrivals of enemy reinforcements, and we haven’t had any signs of such, this is as bad as it’s going to get. It’s a matter of waiting to see who can continue to hold now, and for how long.”
Again, Kahle’s laconic description of the situation didn’t inspire much optimism. Gerda absentmindedly started clicking her fingers, and looked down at her yellowing hands to see they were shaking. She coughed before lighting another cigarette. Ernst Mehr was pacing up and down at the other side of the room and to her annoyance she noticed he was doing the same. Agitated as she was she didn’t want to share his worries, even if they belonged to everyone else gathered there. She swore under her breath as the units on the chalkboard were readjusted but in a way that was difficult to make any real sense of.
“Excellent, now we’ll have the decision at last!” Hitler announced confidently, apparently immune to the tension throughout the room or perhaps trying to alleviate it. Apparently content with the situation either way, he turned to Gerda.
“When can I get on the radio? We must spread this news across Germany.with the utmost urgency!”
“There’s a planned announcement at 12, you should be able to go on after that '' Having a hand in Radio Einheitsfront had been one of the many plates Gerda had needed to help spin since the relocation or creation of so many different operations in Hamburg. Goebbels had actually been doing an impressive job at the Billwerder-Moorflet transmitter she had had to admit but the programming remained somewhat erratic. She had left with a mix of people trying to encourage uprisings across the country and maintenance of the General Strike whilst also providing necessary news and continuing some popular programs from the previous operators of the transmitter such as the weekly Hamburg harbour concerts.
“There’s a special announcement planned at 12 in regards to the current situation on the basis that the Reichswehr attacks could be confirmed, which doesn’t seem to be in doubt any longer.” She shot a disapproving look at Kahle who had dithered on such updates all morning before Hitler had demanded them.
“It would probably be opportune to fit you in after then, Ten Minutes of Esperanto can always be rescheduled.”
“Are we sure it’s wise for you to make the broadcast? Perhaps a less partial figure would work better to emphasise how broad the fighting coalition is.” Gerda cursed inwardly again, she had tried to lighten the tension herself but Ernst had had to interject with his narrow party interests regardless.
“I made my broadcasts in the Ruhr.” Hitler snapped back.
“Yes but now we can summon a far greater legitimacy than you ever could in the Ruhr, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a voice but a less...objectionable figure might be better placed for-”
“I don’t think this is particularly relevant to the matter at hand,” Kahle interjected. At that moment his colleague Ludwig Renn rushed in from the radio room adjacent to the hall in which he stood, his face was fraught. It seemed whatever had happened had served to emphasise Kahle’s point.
“Our colleagues from the Rural People’s Movement in Holstein radioed in a few hours ago to warn us about what appeared to be a flotilla headed west on the coast. Our comrades in control of Cuxhaven have just confirmed several dozen large ships bearing the Reichsmarine flag approaching them but not engaging. It appears that they’re now headed further down the Elbe.”
“Are they coming here?” Kahle asked, somewhat frantically.
“We don’t know for certain but until we can confirm otherwise I’d say that has to be the presumption, but I’m not sure whether that helps to be honest,” Renn faded off as he looked to the chalkboard detailing the disposition of the forces currently battling for the railheads.
A battle, as far as Gerda understood, which they had sunk everything into.
The assembled union officials and militiamen that ran the operations room hastily dug out whatever maps they could find of the Elbe estuary and its route to Hamburg. The battle to their south had become peripheral all of a sudden.
Kahle looked to Ernst and Gerda, and then to Hitler, seeming to be about to question whether they should still be there. Gerda patted Hitler on the shoulder and whispered into his ear.
“I don’t trust Mehr to leave with this information.”
Hitler nodded in acknowledgement and waved his hand for Kahle to proceed without delay. If Ernst had been any the wiser he did not indicate it, fixating instead on the maps now in front of them.
“How much time would it take for them to get here?” He asked.
“A matter of hours,” Kahle replied.
“Not enough time to evacuate,” Gerda added, trying to second guess Ernst.
“Definitely not, we would lose almost everything in the attempt. Our entire apparatus.” Hitler muttered before looking to Renn.
“What forces do we have to hand in the city?”
“Almost nothing! Thanks to-thanks to the ongoing strategy,” Renn remained shaken by the news he had delivered, but was conscious enough to catch himself before saying something he might regret later. He was still a member of the KPD after all. “we’d be limited to a couple of thousand people we could arm and even then they couldn’t be properly organised by the time the flotilla is likely to arrive.”
“Hamburg is built for sieges, it has walls, mounts,” Kahle argued, “we can hold out in the city for some time until the situation develops to our advantage elsewhere.”
“No, once they’re grounded here it’s over, they’ll swarm over us until the city is theirs like they did in Berlin. Any move like this isn’t meant to be protracted, we would need to throw them back before however many troops those ships are carrying can disembark.” Renn smacked his hand on the Hamburg docks, as if trying to mentally envision such an assault.
“And you’ve just pointed out we don’t have the forces to carry out such an attack!” In the heat of the situation, Kahle was also beginning to lose his officer’s reserve.
“Not if we do to the docks what I did to Castle Wetter,” Hitler stated coolly, before turning to Ernst, “you do recall what else I did in the Ruhr, don’t you Comrade Mehr?”
---
---
Ernst Mehr stood aghast, saying little whilst the nature of the plan was laid out in front of him.
He imagined himself as Atlas with the weight of German history bearing down on him and considered the cruel joke his political career had been. He had been made witness to the birth of the republic that sharp November day in 1918 when everything was in chaos yet everything seemed possible and now here he was in November 1930; surrounded by Communists, with Fascists bearing down on them all. Republican dreams extinguished and the last bastion of the republic about to be burned to the ground in front of him.
It was all too much and he wanted to leave. His eyes darted across the room instinctively before he noticed that not everyone was distracted by the plans being put together.
The Communist woman, the one who had accused him of impregnating her and then leaving her to bring up their child alone was staring at him accusingly, he wondered if she might be waiting for him to try and leave before accusing him of desertion. Perhaps, in her vindictive Bolshevik mind, putting him up against the wall was the only passion to be pursued whilst her demagogue Hitler indulged in his own passion for arson.
Indeed, even as the others began to depart to put the scheme into action, she stood staring at him. Her face was worn, more weathered than it had been on the night they had spent together over a decade ago, her blonde hair had grown darker, her blue eyes geyer but a fire burned inside them which he couldn’t quite recall from them playfully arguing concepts in the carefree days of post-war Berlin. Her hands were,
In her hand was a gun.
Ernst wondered why she had a gun on her person but that was academic now, she had her finger on the trigger, pointed at him. In response he merely raised his hands gently towards her, unable to process what was happening.
“Remember when I promised you wouldn’t live to get the chance to survive on your knees if all of this fell apart?” Her voice was almost sing-song.
He could only nod, thinking back to the cheers at the United Front being proclaimed in the vagrant’s mission and how seething she had been with his presence then.
“Well, now we both have a chance to die on our feet.” She stretched out her other hand, and Ernst shook it weakly before watching her walk off to attend to the plans at hand with the others.
Ernst stood staring into space before an aide brushing past him brought him back to reality.
Back to purpose.
He began towards the offices of the SPD within the hotel but hearing the church bells were already starting to ring outside he began running, until, out of breath, he banged his fist on the open door to gain the attention of the bemused party members around him. It was at that moment he asked a question he had never quiered before in his political career,
“Does anyone here have any experience with demolitions or flammable materials?”
---
The painting is Conversation in a train compartment by Zoya Odaynik-Samoilenko
Thanks! Hopefully you won't have long to wait, one good thing about lockdown is a lot more time to write.
As mentioned previously I'm not exactly @Tsar of New Zealand but here's a rough outline of the situation up to the latest chapter. Emphasis on "rough" here, the coloured areas don't always mean direct control as compared to, say, "most influence". For example part of the Reichswehr is cut off in the northwest but some of those units are still active.
Chapter LXXVIII
Every single proletarian must feel like more than a mere wage slave, a plaything of the winds and storms of capitalism and of the powers that be. Proletarians must feel and understand themselves to be part of the revolutionary class, which will reforge the old state of the propertied into the new state of the soviet system. Only when we arouse revolutionary class consciousness in every worker and light the flame of class determination can we succeed in preparing and carrying out militarily the necessary overthrow of fascism. However brutal the offensive of world capital against the world proletariat may be for a time, however strongly it may rage, the proletariat will fight its way through to victory in the end.
~ Clara Zetkin, The Struggle Against Fascism
All were dead inside by the time Peter came to, the noise of the firefight outside helping to bring him to his senses.~ Clara Zetkin, The Struggle Against Fascism
By the time he had shaken the dust off of himself he had also realised everyone else inside the truck was dead, the collision having crumpled the vehicle like the inside of a tin can which had been kicked around far too many times. His position in the cupola at the time of the collision had seemed to prevent him from experiencing the severe trauma on impact that had done for the rest of the crew.
The noises of the battle were somewhat muffled by the interior of the armoured truck, which had a silence all of its own. It was a quiet of the sort one might expect after several individuals had been thrown between metal plates and themselves several times at 60 kilometres per hour.
No-one looked correct.
Peter decided he would take his chances outside, grasping his sidearm he was able to kick the truck’s battered door out before limping to a tenement’s covered entrance across the street from where they had impacted with the barricade. Bullets whooshed past him, impacting the pavement as he hopped. Landing in the doorway he groaned as all the force went on his wounded arm, he tried to calm his breathing whilst getting a better idea of the situation around him.
He could see what the problem had been now, what had seemed like a barricade made up of furniture and scrap was actually a wall of fresh concrete at least two metres thick dressed to look otherwise. The truck’s battering ram had partially smashed through it but not enough to prevent the full force of the kinetic impact from being experienced by the truck’s crew. It appeared that whilst Peter and his fellow young officers had been learning lessons of what had gone well for the Reichswehr in Berlin, someone amongst the revolutionaries had been working to correct what had gone wrong for them.
Those Reichswehr forces who followed behind him had attempted to storm over the barricade but were now being assailed by gunfire emanating from the buildings around them as well as what appeared to be some sort of petrol bombs the revolutionaries were throwing. With the barricade largely still standing the armoured trucks behind him hadn’t been able to advance and being bottled up in the streets appeared to make them easy targets for such bombs.
One man, an officer much like himself sat upright atop the cupola on one such truck, his entire body on fire. The figure sat there motionless whilst he burned and to his distress Peter realised it was his friend Franz, the older man they all had teased in Russia for having secret girlfriends despite his uptight attitude was now just another corpse.
Peter tried to avoid the sight of his former friend by looking down the street but all he could see was other armoured trucks bursting into flames from these bottle bombs whilst the infantry flailed around to find new cover. From the barricade a number of infantrymen appeared to be retreating, scrambling back over the exposed gap his truck had created. Clearly it hadn’t done much good.
Peter smashed the doorknob off of the front door of the building he had been using with his good arm and tried to ram the door open but it wouldn’t budge, at optimal strength it wouldn’t have caused him much trouble but now he was left worn out and cursing. The sound of a man firing his service revolver brought his attention back towards the barricade and he saw more troops retreating, one man led them, screaming for what was left of the regiment to follow him.
To his great surprise, his friend Klaus was leading them on foot. Despite the fact he was no longer wearing his officers jacket he had established himself as the one in charge of getting them out of this mess. His badly singed undershirt might have implied what had happened to his jacket, and his armoured truck for that matter. Peter’s eyes met Klaus’ and his friend pointed towards him.
Peter felt himself being pulled into the wind as a Reichswehr infantryman checked if he was able to stand before placing Peter’s arm over his shoulder and helping them forward. To his relief it seemed the town’s defenders had ceased firing upon witnessing the retreat but while being helped to limp past the still-burning body of his friend Peter began to lose consciousness when noticing the different smell emanating from the armoured truck. It stood out from the gunpowder and petrol smoke elsewhere.
Pushing the man assisting him aside he realised he was able to stand on his own two feet before the world began to spin around him. He began to stagger out of the town, almost drunkeningly, whilst his routed comrades fled around him.
---
Johann noticed the lack of recoil from the rifle on his already protesting torso and realised with another unsatisfying click he was out of bullets once again.
The Reichswehr advance had been partially forced and partially lured into another zone of overlapping fire and though many of them had been brought down in the hail of bullets, grenades and petrol bombs from all sides they continued to push on, establishing their own positions whilst their enemy ran out of bullets in desperately trying to throw them back. Johann cursed their cold dedication to the task at hand, even at the expense of their own lives. They had been ordered to take this town as quickly as possible and it didn’t seem to matter how many of them died in doing so.
The People’s Guard had dedicated themselves to defending it to the last man as part of a strategy that demanded the Reicshwehr be held back as long as possible but any academic reflection on the strength of the will power of either side was being brought down to how much ammunition was left, an argument it was clear the Reichswehr would win in short order.
This left the last stand; blowing up the railway lines that made the town valuable with pre-attached munitions and causing as much chaos as possible in the meantime. It was a simple enough plan but would ensure a good martyrdom story in the future, he was confident of that at least.
Behind him in the headquarters of the cement factory preparations should have already been underway for that contingency, but instead he saw Feder, his uniform now more singed than grey, waving over to him frantically. Patting Lars on the shoulder Johann jogged back, his legs in agony at having to kneel for cover whilst doing so.
“Come to join our last stand?” Johann asked wearily, happy as he was to see his old comrade he had more urgent matters to attend to.
“It’s a bit better than that,” Feder replied shakingly, grabbing Johann. “Their armour’s all burned up, they’re retreating. I’ve just seen it!”
Johann felt his stomach turn even as his friend grabbed him and he reciprocated the embrace. A moment ago everything had been so certain in his mind but now…
“The chaos bringers, we can use them to advance!” Johann exclaimed, breaking off from the hug only to see the earnest grin on the face of his perpetually sardonic friend indicate that the idea was already in motion.
The Reichswehr troops seemed to be sensing a drop in resistance and once again grew more reckless in their advance, even as the armoured monstrosities began to advance out into the square that had made up the killing zone alongside those troops who had driven back the Reichswehr’s own armour following behind them. The “chaos bringers” were on the march/
The contraptions were not a pretty sight compared to the sleek modifications the Reichswehr had made to the Bussing trucks as a prelude for real armoured vehicles; each of the so-called chaos bringers were a Frankenstein’s monster of sheet metal and corrugated iron fused together over the chassis of buses, cars and tractors, some of which were clearly having their suspension being reduced to breaking point,Johann smelled burning rubber as the advanced amongst the already familiar stench of blood and fire. They plodded forward nonetheless, rifles and even pistols protruding from makeshift holes firing at the bemused attackers, unsure of how to react.
A well placed grenade thrown underneath one of the machines caused it to collapse with a large pop, before the whole thing exploded sending shards of hot metal flying everywhere. Those advancing around the armoured car were forced to scatter momentarily but the other machines ground forward. With a shout from the barricade Johann shot his pistol into the air and called on what was left of the shattered defenders to rally, crossing over into the melee himself before helping Lars and others over alongside him, following behind the advancing columns.
The Reichswehr, caught confused and exposed by the rallied defenders with armour of their own, began an unorganised retreat out of the town. The People’s Guard were firing at their backs. Every street of the preceding battle, blackened with the carnage of killing zones and grinding advance, were now revisited by the same forces, the pursuers having switched places with the pursued. Unfolding in this way Johann couldn’t but think of a hierarchical society with a privileged few at the top, held up by their lackeys, suddenly being turned on its head by those kept down below for so long.
No rear guard was left to cover the retreat, as though the Reichswehr after hours of seeing their comrades die around them were broken to see the battle turn against them. Their disorderly withdrawal back towards Immensen was clearly visible and many of those amongst Johann cheered at the sight, others gasping in relief, embracing each other, some in tears. They had made it.
But this wasn’t over.
Lars wrapped him in a bear hug but Johann merely reciprocated with a pat on the back before gently pushing his comrade off of him.
“No, we can’t allow them to retreat!” Johann turned to see Feder addressing the assembled crowd, somehow he had made his way on top of one of the chaos bringers. “If we celebrate now, they’ll have artillery raining down on our heads in an hour. Forwards Genosse, onwards to Immensen, into the Reichswehr nest!”
The crowd was restive, a murmur of apprehension rippling through the assembled forces. Whether or not Feder noticed Johann couldn't tell but his friend merely stamped his foot hard on the armoured monster.
“We can do this!” He roared, before jumping off and setting off in pursuit of the retreating forces. It seemed for a moment he didn’t care if he was going by himself and perhaps it was this act that brought another cheer from the crowd. It was more reluctant in the knowledge the victory was not yet won and their lives were not yet safe but all the same, they seemed to acknowledge the point, and began to march once more.
“Dem morgenrot entgegen…” A young voice in the column sang out,
“Ihr Kampfgenossen all!”
Many in the crowd joined in the singing, an increasing number chanting the socialist anthem whilst marching towards the rising sun.
---
The drawing is Civil War by George Grosz
well, looks like the reds have gotten their first taste of real victory...now let's see if they can manage to exploit it
That kinda makes sense given how well travelled he was before the war. I had a friend who was learning it when we were at uni; for some reason the library had a really dedicated section to it. Ten Minutes of Esperanto was a realsegment for North-West German radio before the Nazis took over I should add, it probably wasn't as popular as some shows but I thought it was an interesting little snippet of "obscure cultural movements that were prominent in the past" to add in.
Thanks! In a letter from 1937 Carl Geiser, a volunteer with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, described seeing in Madrid "an excellent barricade, 5 feet thick of concrete and cement blocks right across the street." He didn't mention if it was camouflaged mind you but I thought Johann or someone else who had survived the Red Front collapse in Berlin might have realised it might make for a good trap as well as simply a stronger barricade.
Thanks!