【 Chapter 16 – Interwar Period – Start Line 】
Franco, who treated Germany as one step below Italy, began to show great favor to Germany after the Condor Legion played a major role in the Battle of Brunete.
I’m not a Diplomat, so I don’t know the details, but if it’s the original history, it will get various rewards, such as resource mining rights.
Although the Nazis, who did not know the extent, sucked it up so much that it could be the culprit behind Franco’s refusal to join the Axis in World War II.
Time flows like water.
While I was recommended by Colonel Model and fought a few more small battles, my admission to the War College was confirmed, and I was promoted to Captain.
Despite being promoted to lieutenant less than a year ago, I was a bit surprised at the unusually fast promotion. Still, thanks to Colonel Model and Lieutenant Colonel Richthofen and other Condor Legion superiors who recognize my contribution at the Battle of Brunete due to the performance of the 88 anti-aircraft gun.
Even when I first saw Richthofen, I had the impression that it was a madman who threw incendiary bombs at civilians, but now that he did me a favor unexpectedly, I am more grateful.
If he is to remain a belligerent patriot, Germany will have to stop bombarding civilians.
And Colonel Walter Model.
I have been interested in him since modern times, so I wanted to look good, but I have benefited more than I thought.
As for me, the War College was just a means to return to Germany quickly, so I didn’t have much enthusiasm for it in itself, but I couldn’t think of dropping out of the general staff course as long as he recommended me.
Well, even if it wasn’t him, I desperately needed a point of contact with the military.
My father, Hjalmar Schacht, may have had his own voice at the anti-Hitler meeting, but he is only a marginal figure.
At a time when World War II was approaching and the future was uncertain, I was very afraid of what Colonel Model would react to if I was expelled from the War College for being negligent or used it as a ticket to Berlin.
I’m afraid of the consequences even if I succeed in overturning the Nazis only when I’m hated by one of the best masters in Germany.
The cold gaze beyond the monocle gives me goosebumps even when I think about it again.
After enduring the long and beggarly Spanish Civil War, the time has finally come to go to Germany.
October 24, 1937
The main stronghold of the Spanish Nationalists, Salamanca, Central-Western Spain
“For!”
Clement held the beer glass high and led the way.
“Captain!”
The company members all raised their beer glasses to toast.
It feels strange to see everyone enjoying it with a smile.
Just a few months ago, we were rolling on a hell of a battlefield…
“Yes, Captain. What’s wrong with your expression on a good day?”
Clement approached and asked, clinking his glass against mine, and I answered him with a grin.
“Haha… No, it’s nothing. Clement…. Company Commander?”
“Could you say it again? Captain.”
“Khuk, yes. I’ll call you over and over again Commander Fleck?”
“Hahahaha! It’s thanks to my comrades!”
Clement was promoted to Lieutenant in recognition of his achievements as an aide-de-camp and internal adjutant who had made majors, and he succeeded me as Company Commander of our company.
“By the way, don’t you like it too much, Clement?”
“Yes? If you don’t like it at times like this, when do you like it?”
“Gheuk… Now it’s a position where you have to face Chief of Staff Colonel Model, right? Personally I’ll run first, so do well, Company Commander.”
“Oh, my stomachache…!”
Watching Clement smirking, he smiled innocently and gulped down his beer.
Hey, this beer is good!
I’m going to Germany soon, so I won’t be with Clement or the crew.
I believe that Clement, who is self-reliant but secretly affectionate, will play the role of a Company Commander better than me, who easily gets hot in the head due to modern sensibility.
I looked around the crew while tasting morsilla, a specialty dish from central Spain that I call sundae by myself.
Well, I don’t know anything else about this crappy place, but I’ll miss this one. I can’t taste anything like this even if I go to Korea now.
However….
We spent a lot of time laughing and chatting, but everyone is busy enjoying themselves.
Usually, at times like this, don’t they do something special, even if it’s not a rolling paper of the 21st century?
However, no matter how much I sipped beer and looked at the atmosphere, there was no sign of that.
Pour it here and there, drink it, drink beer like water, chew food like a bunch of German lads and old men…
“Aah, what do I expect…”
What kind of impression did you expect from the people who are the bluntest in the world?
“Clement, there is only you…”
“What? What’s wrong with you, colleague?”
How can I explain Korean sensibility, huhu.
“…no. Let’s die today!”
Clement waved his hand as he tried to drink to death.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Huh? Why do you take it off at times like this?”
“Well, the promise… Ah. Here it is!”
As he turned his head, an attractive woman with tanned skin and brown hair approached with a smile.
“Dietrich, let me introduce you. It’s Rafaella Diaz. Haha. my girlfriend.”
“Hello, Captain Schacht? I’ve heard a lot about you from Clement.”
“Oh… Yes, hello…”
Rafaela has spoken in a quite fluent German, even with a slight Spanish accent.
…No, but…
“Haha, isn’t she pretty, my darling? We met at a banquet after the Battle of Jamara!”
Oh. The day I said I was…
“Ah, I’m embarrassed…”
“……”
Clement kissed Rafaella’s cheek, then put the beer he had drank and stood up with his arms folded with her.
“We decided to spend some time together today because we are going to the front line again tomorrow. I’ll go first. Enjoy it?”
“Oh, you too. It’s too urgent… Congratulations on your promotion, Captain!”
…..No, sir!
Did the Deputy fall in love while the Company Commander was busy thinking and rolling over as a company commander?! That guy?!
More than that, is it true that you abandoned your motivation to leave soon and went to date?!
“…haa…”
Looking around with salty eyes, I felt Lieutenant Ross and Lieutenant Beckerman, who made eye contact with me, flinch.
Sergeant Koher is… You’re already dead drunk.
The rest of the crew…
They’re all over the place trying to pour and drink among themselves.
I sighed and stood up from my seat, and said.
“I’ll go to the boss who’s leaving first, so have fun.”
“Oh, no, no! Thank you so much! Captain!”
“Thank you for your hard work!”
Even the platoon leaders and the members who noticed were enthusiastic, but no one told me not to go.
Why…. do I feel like crying?
…..The (former) Company Commander was very disappointed in you.
November 3, 1937
Hamburg, a port city in Northwestern Germany
I happily punished the traitor Clement and then returned to Germany by boat from the port of Cadiz Bay.
It’s a bit absurd to say that Dietrich came back because it’s his memory or because it’s his home country, but now that Dietrich is Yoon Sung-il and Yoon Sung-il is Dietrich, it’s like that.
When I got off the port, I saw Germany in the 20th century, which was quite different from Germany I visited on a trip in the 21st century.
The scene of Hamburg, which has been reborn as Germany’s richest city despite the Great Fire, completely differs from that of the 21st century.
According to the original history, the city is a ruin left only in ashes by Allied bombing, so it must be different from Hamburg, which modern Koreans visited.
Tracing Dietrich’s memory, I was going to catch the train, and in front of the crowd in the square, a man wearing a Hakenkreuz armband – probably a member of the Nazi party – was speaking passionately.
“Why did great Germany have to be defeated! Because we are weak?”
“No!”
“Yes! Everything is done by the Jewish-Bolsheviks! We would never have been defeated in the last war if the cursed devils had not been seriously wounded behind the scenes!”
“That’s right!”
When I was in Spain, I only had to adapt to the Nazi salute, but it imprinted it very well as a welcome home greeting. This place is really fucking Nazi Germany.
“Fortunately, God sent a truly great leader to save Germany in these dark days! Together with the Führer, our Germany, the fatherland of the Aryans, will regain the greatness it deserves! Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil!!”
“Sieg Heil!!”
Can those people who are shouting Sieg Heil (hail to victory) shout that even at the moment they die after being beaten by the Soviet Army as a national assault force?
Well, would they ever imagine such a future? Now that I’ve come to Germany to prevent it, I have to move quickly.
Soon, my father, Hjalmar Schacht, will be deprived of his post as Minister of Economy and Plenipotentiary for War Economics, and from the very next year, the events that will drive Germany and the world towards World War II will continue to unfold without time to breathe.
In January 1938, the Blomberg–Fritsch scandal, in which high-ranking military officials broke out, led to a massive change of leadership in the military, and the influence of the Nazis on the military leadership.
After that, the Anschluss (annexation of Austria), the Munich Agreement, the annexation of Czechoslovakia, and the invasion of Poland would follow in a flash.
I don’t know exactly when my father, Hjalmar Schacht, was expelled, but it happened because he lost in the competition with Hermann Göring, the second-in-command of the Nazis, so it’s not something I can do anything about.
On the other hand, the Blomberg–Fritsch case is a fabrication case organized by Göring, who wants to take control of the military, and Himmler, who wants to strengthen the power of the SS, to reduce the power of the Wehrmacht.
So I thought about preventing this, but regardless of whether it is possible for a Captain to prevent it, many of the main characters in the anti-Hitler plot join the anti-Hitler forces behind that incident.
The ringleaders of the anti-Hitler conspiracy did not have the rosy humanity to kill Hitler in order to save the Jews and set Germany right.
Well, there may be no such person at all, but most were the existing vested interests who were simply discontented with being alienated by Hitler, ousted the Nazis, and then tried to seize power in Germany.
They would not be heroes who tried to oust Hitler for democracy and the public, as they were later glorified in West Germany or movies.
Many of them are imperialists and aristocratic officers.
But it is still impossible to overthrow the Nazis without their power, and, ironically, a Nazi-induced military change must occur.
Even World War II was not caused by Hitler alone. Except for the Nazi lunatics, most of the German military…
No, a significant number of Germans were eager to regain the territory of Poland, once a German colony, and the Polish Corridor that would connect their homeland with Prussia.
They opposed the war because they were afraid of clashing with France and England before the rearmament was over, not because they wanted to avoid invading Poland.
On the contrary, if the preparations had been sufficient, the German military would have been a group that would have survived World War II without the Nazis.
“Haha… isn’t this too difficult?”
Survived the fucking Spanish Civil War-
‘Wow, you did it? Thank you for your efforts. But it’s a tutorial and it’s real from now on!’
….as if God were shouting.
The more I think about it, the more I look forward to it.
It’s only been 4 months until the Anschluss, the prelude to the express train heading to World War II.
Invasion of Poland – Less than two years are left before the outbreak of World War II.
【Interwar Period – Start Line】 – End
Thank you for reading!
