Shattered World - A Worse World War : Part 9

Leipzig knew of war. The large and ancient city in eastern Germany had suffered six Soviet bombing raids to date. The bombs falling mostly around the city's industrial districts and railroad depots. A few stray bombs had leveled civilian housing and hundreds had been killed so far. To most of the city the war was nothing but the high pitched wail of air raid warnings and all-clears. The occasional thumps and black puffs high in the air amidst the tiny moving points of Soviet bombers. Several times bombers had crashed into the city but never, by sheer luck, into a highly populated area.

Today's raid was different. The alarms had been the same, the signs of antiaircraft fire were no different. But this time the Soviet bombers were numerous. And sticks of bombs were falling into the city's heart. Powerful blasts tear through buildings, shred apartments and houses, blast massive craters into streets and city blocks. Fires rage out of control as rescuers search through rubble and firemen try vainly to contain the spreading flames.

Finally the all-clears toll mournfully and the city sets about the business of recovery. Fires are brought under control. Rubble cleared from streets. Bodies brought to makeshift morgues. Thousands, tens of thousands of bodies. The war with the communists to the east has taken on a new twist. Terror bombing has been brought to the German Fatherland. Soviet cities will suffer in response, as will other German and Axis population centers.

Later that same day the air raid sirens sound again. More Soviet bombers are on their way. Antiaircraft guns hammer into clear night skies as search lights stab through empty space seeking targets. Now Leipzig truly knows war. And the city wishes it could forget.



First forced labor, or "concentration", camp enters operation south of Lodz. The large-scale liquidation of suspected Jews and Poles near Lodz has continued and increased in scale. Fearing that the Soviets might overrun the mass graves the Germans have begun to dig up the corpses and burn them. To date over 10,000 Jews and Poles have been killed at the site near Lodz and the pace of the liquidations is picking up. Soviet propaganda has exposed the massacres but the west has largely ignored the Soviet claims as war propaganda.


An attempt by the Alliance for Democracy to mediate a peace between the Axis Powers and Soviet Union is rejected immediately by both sides. The peace plan called for a cease-fire and the installing of Sweden and Poland as neutral buffer states. Germany and the Soviet Union both make counter proposals in which each would be allowed to gobble up Sweden and Poland. These proposals are rejected immediately by the opposing sides. Hitler and Stalin are not ready to end the war.


The Luftwaffe stages a daring raid against the Soviet Black Sea fleet which had been at port. Medium bombers operating out of Romania sink several destroyers and cruisers and cripple several other ships. The Black Sea Fleet is essentially no longer capable of any offensive actions and the remaining ships steam east to take up port in a location out of the range of the Luftwaffe. German aircraft losses were relatively high but smashing up the Soviet fleet was deemed worth the cost.


The German governor of occupied southern Poland issues an edict, under orders from Himmler, that all Jews in German occupied Poland will be relocated to Jewish districts within major cities. The forced relocation is to take place over the next month. Many Jews begin fleeing into Soviet occupied Poland or south into Hungary and Romania. Others choose to obey the edict, believing it to be a temporary measure or a scare tactic.


The Luftwaffe, largely on the defensive since the Soviet surge during the winter counter offensive, has begun to wrest control of the skies over the eastern front on the wings of superior aircraft and superior pilots. In Sweden the numerically superior Red Air Force continues to dominate the skies. Both the Germans and the Soviets continue to mount sporadic strategic bombing attacks on each other but neither side has the bombers or escort aircraft to really cause any significant damage.

German progress on its new "Ural" heavy bomber is coming slowly.


In parts of the Ukraine and throughout the Baltic states sporadic food and draft riots erupt into an anti-Communist rebellion. The rebels are spread far apart and poorly organized but Stalin and the communist party are in a near panic.


Some Ukrainian and Baltic divisions join the rebels and fighting erupts within the ranks of the Red Army. Fresh reserves from Siberia and the Soviet southern Republics begin to arrive in the Ukraine to help crush the uprising.


German air transport craft begin dropping supplies and weapons to some of the more organized rebel units. The Soviets have managed to halt the spread of the uprising but within the rebellious regions heavy sustained fighting has erupted. Soviet supply lines into Poland and East Prussia are being strained to their absolute limits.

The German general staff, sensing an opportunity, begins preparing to mount some kind of operation to take advantage of the chaos within the Soviet ranks. On German radio Hitler states that the Bolsheviks are falling apart and urges anti-Communist elements around the Soviet union to "rise in arms against your communist masters".


The first panzer divisions equipped entirely with the latest Mk4 model arrive on the eastern front along the Oder river theatre and in southern Poland. The new panzer, equipped with more armor and a heavier 75mm main cannon, is vastly superior to earlier German models and nearly the equal of the Soviet T-34 which has by now become the workhorse of the Red Army's armored forces.


The anti-Communist rebellion in the Ukraine and Baltic states is beginning to fade away under the pressure of relentless and brutal Soviet attacks on their strongholds. Kiev and Riga are virtually destroyed by Red Air Force bombers and Red Army artillery as the rebels fight on in the cities.


German infantry, ferried on merchant transports, come ashore on a strip of rebel-held coast in Soviet dominated Lithuania. With support from Luftwaffe bombers and rebel locals the German force begins moving south and east to tear up Soviet supply lines, lines of communications, and supply depots. On the same day, German special operations soldiers are air dropped into several rebel held strongholds to assist the rebels in any way possible.


After a week of rampaging through Lithuania the small German infantry force is surrounded and forced to surrender by Red Army units. Stalin orders the entire German force executed as spies in spite of Germany's outraged protests.


The anti-Communist rebellion in the Ukraine and Baltic states has essentially ended. A few partisans remain active in the countryside but on the whole the Soviets have regained control. Stalin begins a harsh purge of all Ukrainian and Baltic state party officials, soldiers, intellectuals, etc. Parts of the Ukraine and Baltic states lie in ruins and the Soviet supply transport system continues to reel in chaos. Morale in the Red Army and the Soviet Union in general has sunk to a dangerously low level and Stalin becomes deeply paranoid about the loyalty of the Red Army. He considers a massive new universal purge of all disloyal elements but decides to limit the purge to Ukrainians and Baltic state citizens. The Ukraine and the Baltic states, Stalin decides, will suffer through a long and hard time of virtual military occupation in which the NKVD and communist party will rule with an iron fist.

In Berlin Hitler rages against his generals, saying that they should have been able to take more advantage of the anti-Soviet uprising. Hitler vows to be ready if another such chance arises.


German efforts to put their economy onto a war footing are beginning to bear fruit. Production of aircraft and panzers has increased considerably although the Soviets continue to out produce the Germans by a considerable margin.


In Romania the Ploesti oil fields come under Soviet bombardment but survive with little damage. Red Air Force losses are heavy in the attack. Hitler, displeased by the vulnerability of his oil supply, orders the diplomatic office to secure oil from sources in the middle east. Iraq, already pro-German, is targeted as Germany's best chance for an oil supplier in the region.


Soviet northern fleet attacked and largely destroyed, near its main northern port of Archangel, after two days of fighting. German fleet suffers only minor damage and returns to its blockade patrol in the Barents sea before the Red Air Force can mount any serious counter attack. The German blockade has cut off virtually all Soviet shipping into and out of the northern Soviet ports. The effect of this is minimal since the Soviets continue to trade via overland routes in Asia.


The German general staff submits its plans, for an ambitious offensive towards Warsaw, to Hitler for final approving. Hitler agrees to the plan immediately. The plans begin to be put into motion and German forces begin building up to the east of Lodz.

Ironically, on the same day Stalin approves plans for a summer offensive across the Oder river into Germany proper. Soviet forces begin massing in northwest Poland in spite of the poor supply line situation.


Deep in the heart of the Ukraine three dozen ragged appearing men wait nervously amid the brush and trees surrounding a narrow dirt road. The nervous partisans clutch at weapons ranging from fifty year old bolt action rifles to captured Soviet machine guns. The rebels, a few of the remaining rebels in the anti-Communist uprising, have been informed from a source within the local communist party headquarters that a convoy of horse drawn wagons is supposed to roll by soon. A convoy carrying desperately needed food and ammunition. Enough to let the partisans operate for another month or more.

When the expected convoy did arrive the rebels tried hard to make themselves disappear into the local terrain. With months of hard fought experience they had become quite good at it. As they hoped the convoy came onward. When the convoy stopped fifty meters from the ambush point the partisans assumed that they had been seen. The order to open fire was about to be called out when another noise caught their attention.

Soldiers running through the brush. Ahead of them, behind them, around them. A trap! "Disperse!" the ragtag band's leader shouted in dismay. And disperse they did. At the same time the NKVD team that had surrounded the partisans began firing in a efficient, deadly, coordinated matter. Having caught the partisans in a perfect cross fire the NKVD professionals killed all but several of the partisans within two minutes.

The survivors would wish they were dead soon enough. Those the NKVD soldiers would take away for questioning. The informer within the small partisan band had himself been killed in the chaos of the trap. All the better the NKVD officer thought grimly. A traitor within a band of traitors who had gotten what he deserved.

Flicking a cigarette to the ground and extinguishing it beneath his heel, the NKVD officer slung his rifle over his back and walked smoothly towards the wagons which would transport his team back into town. One by one, NKVD teams like his were strangling out the last remnants of the treacherous uprising against the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union.

To Be Continued...

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