I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 159:

Chapter 159

“One, two, three…!”

“Long live the Red Army!”

“Moooom!”

Under the escort of dozens of fighter jets, dozens of transport planes flew across the darkening sky, leaving behind trails of smoke.

Thousands of paratroopers began to descend with their parachutes.

One by one, they screamed, shouted bravely, or looked for their mothers they left at home.

The Soviet army had deployed the paratroopers to turn the tide of the tense front line.

Out of the original ten airborne divisions, more than half had been reorganized into guard rifle divisions and consumed or lost in the battlefield, but they had no problem recruiting new trainees as they had plenty of manpower.

They had intended to keep them as a trump card, but Stalin himself gave the order.

“Use any means necessary to crush the German army. Minimize the casualties and capture the Oder River as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary!”

With this order, the generals who felt the fire on their heels decided to deploy the paratroopers.

Around Warsaw, there were already hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of tanks, and tens of thousands of artillery units.

Adding more troops would only cause confusion in supply and mobility.

But if they dropped the paratroopers behind the enemy lines and used the Soviet army’s strength, the armored units, to break through the front line and link up with the paratroopers, it would be easy to encircle and annihilate the enemy.

That’s how, for the first time since the toxin war, a large-scale Soviet airborne operation was launched.

***

The paratroopers carried only the minimum personal weapons to reduce the weight as they landed on the enemy territory.

“Damn it, where are we?”

“I… I don’t know either!”

The problem started as soon as the landing began.

The German army was not blind either.

They saw the parachutes and fired their anti-aircraft guns and machine guns to stop the landing as much as possible.

In the process, many of the elite Soviet paratroopers were injured, big and small.

Some died in the sky right after the deployment and fell to the ground, and some got caught in the trees or landed wrong and died.

Those who avoided all the misfortune and landed safely were not safe either.

“Ouch… my back…”

“Ugh… I think I sprained my leg.”

There were enemies everywhere, they didn’t know where they were, and their weapons were extremely poor.

In this state, if they met the enemy, they would be wiped out or captured.

They were just a little stronger than civilians.

That was how they exaggerated their current situation.

They were stronger and had pistols, so their combat power was a little higher than civilians, but they had the weakness of not knowing the local situation or geography.

“Well, this is the best environment for fighting! No matter where we shoot, they are enemies and they will die, right?”

But they were the most macho men in the Soviet Union, where testosterone overflowed.

With just one pistol and two magazines of ten rounds each, they laughed heartily.

Suddenly, something fell from the sky.

“Hey! There’s an armament capsule!”

“Where… ah! It’s coming!”

It wasn’t that the higher-ups just gave them a few bullets and threw them into the enemy territory.

They also knew the feeling of ‘regret’.

Just like they dropped boxes of various equipment with parachutes for the Warsaw insurgents, they also dropped armament equipment for the paratroopers.

The contents and types were more abundant and diverse than what they gave to the insurgents.

The paratroopers who landed safely ran towards the square boxes that fell slowly from the sky.

The German army was still busy stopping the parachute landing and could not deploy their troops aggressively.

They had to recover their weapons and build defensive positions as soon as possible.

‘The situation is not bad…’

The higher-ups had a simple request for the paratroopers.

“Hold on until you meet the armored units!”

The Soviet armored forces were overwhelming compared to the enemy. It was impossible to compare them with the Soviet army that operated hundreds of Budyonny tanks and thousands of T-34s.

They deployed this overwhelming force to break through the front line, and the paratroopers were to play the role of an anvil in the strategic unit, holding and disrupting the enemy reserves in the rear.

Of course, it was easier said than done.

If they made a mistake, they could be crushed between the hammer and the anvil. But the paratroopers carried out the operation anyway.

“Wow! It’s a rocket launcher!”

“Lucky us.”

The transport planes dropped various weapons for the paratroopers. For example, some assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, or machine guns, or rocket launchers like now.

The command didn’t tell them exactly what their role was, fearing that their morale would be broken, but their intention was to stop and delay the enemy’s armored units.

While they used the precious armored reserves to annihilate the scattered enemy forces of unknown size, the armored units would break through the front line. In other words, they meant to buy time by pitting the lightly armed paratroopers against the armored units.

Anyway, they couldn’t fight the tanks with their bare hands.

The higher-ups sent a lot of rocket-propelled grenades, which were simple anti-tank weapons that the infantry could use, to allow them to have at least some defense.

The rocket launcher was useful for infantry combat, anti-armor combat, or against vehicles, so the paratroopers who got it were happy, but the platoon leader had an inexplicable bad feeling and shivered his shoulders.

“Let’s… move.”

The day was getting darker.

They had to camouflage themselves somewhere, or at least make a place to lie down.

Now, every paratrooper was a valuable asset. One in the rear was more precious than ten in the front. They had to fight while preserving as much force as possible.

***

“What? Paratroopers? Tens of thousands?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn it… I got hit.”

The Soviet army had reorganized the original ten airborne divisions into six airborne brigades and dropped three of them behind the German defensive line that guarded Warsaw.

The Germans, who had also conducted a large-scale airborne operation, knew how difficult and devastating it was.

The Spetsnaz, who had infiltrated in small numbers, had already caused a lot of trouble for the German generals.

They blew up roads and railways, attacked supply vehicles, planted mines and killed dozens of unsuspecting infantrymen.

Now, there were tens of thousands of them in the rear.

Of course, it would be easier to identify and capture them as they grew in number, but it was fatal in a situation where they lacked even a single soldier.

“Split the armored and mechanized units of the 9th Panzer Grenadier Division into battalion-sized battle groups and deploy them. The lightly armed infantrymen will have limited means to resist the armored units. And…”

General Model held his forehead and bowed his head, but calmly ordered a countermeasure.

“Retreat the friendly forces along the Vistula River as soon as possible. After they retreat, blow up all the bridges across the river. Even if the Soviets deploy many pontoon bridges, they will be hindered without the bridges.”

“Yes, sir!”

“What are you doing! Go now! Time is urgent.”

Model’s staff saluted and ran out. They didn’t hear the general sighing as if he was about to break inside.

“Damn it… damn it, fuck!”

In the command post where only a young sentry remained, Model muttered a low curse.

As the commander-in-chief, he knew. This war was unwinnable.

The Soviets were just too many, and the Germans were too inferior in numbers and quality.

The Germans also had airborne units.

They had no use for them after losing their fighters and pilots and the air superiority.

The Germans were too reluctant to throw their troops into such a dangerous operation.

But the Soviets had no fear and threw in such a large-scale and expensive force.

He knew well that this proved that they had a lot of stakes.

Anyway, he was the commander-in-chief. He had to hold this front line somehow.

‘If we retreat any further, our civilians will be exposed to the Soviets…’

The Soviets had already advanced to the front of Königsberg, so the East Prussian civilians were as good as fallen into their hands.

And from now on, tens of thousands of them would be every time they took a step back. The front line was no longer a foreign land.

If only those bastards hadn’t been so cruel to the Soviet civilians, they wouldn’t have to worry so much… But there was no way to apologize for what they had done. No, there might be, but he couldn’t let the innocent civilians suffer.

“Let the blood of the warriors flow before the blood of the people…”

His eyes felt like they were about to close. He had read and ordered various reports from the front line until late at night several times.

He had to sleep for a while to endure. He closed his eyes and said a short prayer to God.

The soldiers and politicians were the ones who sinned.

The general public only sinned by supporting them. He didn’t know if the Soviets would leave them alone, but he didn’t want to see the horrors alive.

Suddenly, he remembered a pastor who was his friend.

Pastor Martin Niemöller. He was close enough to officiate his wedding, but… he was dragged away after the Nazi party came to power and he hadn’t heard from him for five or six years.

He felt guilty even for praying to God, as this regime had committed so many sins.

No one could stop the Führer’s madness, and in the meantime, there were those who followed and defended whatever the Führer said as if it was God’s revelation.

Propaganda Minister Goebbels, Party Secretary Bormann, SS Commander Himmler and the like.

The Führer was not sane either, but they blinded and deafened him and drove away anyone who spoke the truth as defeatists or anti-regime.

Model couldn’t believe that a true soldier like Rommel had plotted a coup against the Führer. He was sure that he was caught in some scheme.

Wasn’t it something that the Nazis or someone else who wanted to restrain the military had devised? He vaguely suspected that.

“…”

He didn’t want to think anymore. He repeated the words he had said to himself many times.

‘Soldiers do not interfere in politics…’

His command post was in a safe place, tens of kilometers away from the rear, but when he closed his eyes, he heard the roar and saw the city burning.

He suffered from nightmares every day, woke up soaked in sweat, and had to tremble in fear.

Which city was the burning city he saw in his dreams? Warsaw? Königsberg?

‘Or… Berlin?’