Chapter 400154Chapter NaN

December 21, 1940

The capital of America, Washington D.C.

The White House

Loud voices were being exchanged in the White House.

“We must completely withdraw the profligate hand that the New Deal has extended into every corner of America!”

“But that’s different from our campaign promises, Senator Taft.”

“Campaign promises can always change during a term depending on the situation, President. The Republican Party’s core supporters are wealthy businessmen, and they despise that damn FDR’s socialist policies.

Even more so now that workers are getting a taste for the commie movement.”

Taft, a hardline conservative within the Republican Party, only pushed his own arguments, even against President Wendell Willkie.

“Right now, America is no different from a socialist state.

What’s left after launching all sorts of projects under the excuse of overcoming the Great Depression with our already scarce national finances and interfering with everything down to the color of businessmen’s underwear? The New Deal has failed.”

Finally, unable to watch any longer, Vice President Charles L.

McNary spoke up.

“But Senator, we only achieved a partial victory in this presidential election.

We only had a 6% advantage against a divided Democratic Party.”

The Republican Party had certainly won the presidential election.

But the approval ratings were 53% for the Republicans and 47% for the Democrats.

The fact that they had won by a hair’s breadth against a virtually self-destructed Democratic Party served as a wake-up call for the Republicans, and progressives within the party like Wendell Willkie and Thomas E.

Dewey argued that this was evidence that the Republican Party also needed to work for the common people.

“You haven’t forgotten the reason you won the party primary, have you, Mr.

President? This isn’t a situation where we can do everything to the Republican Party’s liking.”

Taft let out a hollow laugh.

“At this rate, I can’t tell if we’re the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Well, I suppose you were quite close with FDR, weren’t you, Mr.

President? I understand, seeing as you were once comrades.”

President Wendell Willkie, fed up with Taft's sarcasm, ordered him to leave.

“That’s enough. I’ve heard what you have to say, so if you have nothing more to add, would you please leave me alone?”

“President, we are the Republican Party.

You may have been elected on promises of interventionism and maintaining social policies to win the election, but remember that in the end, our party line is the minimization of government intervention and isolationism.”

“I am well aware of that.”

“Then I’m relieved. As it happens, Germany is doing well in Europe, so instead of needlessly getting involved and creating another Bonus Army incident, we should just abolish all regulations and make money through exports.”

After Taft left, Wendell Willkie slumped back into his chair, exhausted.

“It hasn’t been that long since I was elected, and I already want to run away.”

“You were elected in a difficult time.”

The Vice President’s words were of little comfort.

With a gloomy face, Wendell Willkie saw that Time Magazine’s December issue of ‘Person of the Year’ featured not himself, the man who became the President of America, but the young Vice-Chancellor of a Germany far away in Europe.

His position was so weak that even after being elected President, he couldn't even complain about the humiliation of not being chosen as Person of the Year.

Even he had to admit, this was an election he won, but it wasn’t a victory.

Willkie shifted his gaze again and saw an interview with FDR in his favorite newspaper, the New York Times.

The giant who had once moved America had a relaxed, smiling face, having set down his heavy burden.

“I’m envious.”

Wendell Willkie shook his head and turned his attention to a cable sent from the Japanese Embassy in the US.

“Let’s resolve the misunderstandings we had with the previous government, revive our old friendly relations, and build peace in the Pacific, it says.”

Willkie was dumbfounded by Japan’s cable.

“The shamelessness of these island monkeys is beyond words.”

Never mind the annexation of the Korean peninsula, which America had promised in the Taft-Katsura Agreement, but Manchuria, China, British Malaya, and now more than half of the Dutch East Indies had fallen into their hands.

Britain couldn’t even properly manage the European Front, and as Italy’s colonies fell to Britain, the French army in Algérie began to advance into British Africa through Libya.

“If we leave them be, even India, Australia, and New Zealand might fall into Japan’s hands.”

At Vice President McNary's statement, Wendell Willkie shook his head and replied.

“The Republican Party's stance is to put out the fire in our own house before worrying about our neighbor’s.”

After saying that, Willkie quickly added.

“But I will absolutely shatter Japan’s arrogant attitude and their absurd delusions. If not now, then someday, for sure.”

-

December 21, 1940

Königsberg, East Prussia, Northeast Germany

The battlefield is the worst.

The act of firing a bullet before you even think about what the opponent in front of you is, and then naturally pulling the bolt, is closer to an animal than a human.

After training a dog to sit using food as bait, is it any different from how the dog automatically sits when you say “sit” even without giving it food anymore?

The soldiers charging toward the machine gun, which emits a searing heat, don’t look like people either.

The way they collapse in an orderly line without even screaming, isn’t it more like toy soldiers?

The smoke that rises after a shell explodes in the city always brings with it the acrid smell of gunpowder and the screams of people.

That same sound from Spain, from Germany, from Poland, from everywhere, is so cliché it’s as if it were a rule of war.

The cry to be loyal to the nation and fight for the motherland as a soldier is also empty.

What good is any of that to a soldier lying dead?

And most decisively.

When you’re rolling around on the battlefield, you can’t date.

“This is unreasonable.”

“…”

At the muttering of Battalion Commander Major Clemens Fleck, his adjutant, Vinrich Behr, had a glazed look in his eyes, as if he had given up on everything, now used to it.

“Even that eunuch of a guy married a beauty, but I’m stuck rolling around on the battlefield and can’t even date!”

Come to think of it, that guy Dietrich wasn't a eunuch from the start.

He was a guy who enjoyed hanging out with him during officer training and early in his dispatch to Spain, but after one battle, he was sick and frail, and as soon as he got up, he turned into an ascetic.

No, wait, seeing how he successfully wooed a beauty and got married, maybe that's not it either?

“Aah~ I want to date! I want to get a pretty wife and have a sweet life too!”

Clemens had been quite serious about Rafaela Diaz, whom he dated in Spain, and before the Condor Legion returned home, he had proposed to her at a banquet in front of all the legionnaires, giving her a ring and asking her to come to Germany with him.

…And in front of all the legionnaires, Rafaela’s answer was this.

‘You’re a pretty decent guy, but I like this country. I can’t follow you all the way to Germany.

Farewell, Clemens. It was fun while it lasted.

’

It was one of the most embarrassing pasts of Clemens’s life. He thought she would obviously accept, but to be rejected in front of all the legionnaires…

“Sob! Rafaela! I loved you!!”

Of course, whatever Clemens was thinking, it was not a healthy sight for the mental well-being of Vinrich Behr, who was watching his superior’s seizure in real time.

What could he do? He was his direct superior.

Clemens, letting out his resentment, quickened his unwilling steps and finally set foot in the Army Group North Headquarters located in Königsberg.

In the command room he entered alone, leaving Behr behind, were the higher-ups Clemens never wanted to meet or get close to.

Putting aside his division commander, Lieutenant General Hans-Valentin Hube.

The sight of Army Group Commander Colonel General Günther von Kluge and Army Group North Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Friedrich Paulus waiting for him sent a shiver down Clemens's spine.

When he saw the dignified-looking but somehow subtly cunning Army Chief of Staff, Erich von Manstein, next to them, Clemens wanted to faint on the spot.

“Welcome, Major Clemens Fleck.”

Of course, the higher-up who spoke with a stern face, Army Group Commander General Günther von Kluge, couldn’t care less about Clemens’s feelings.

“Major Clemens Fleck, reporting as ordered!”

Clemens came to his senses at the call of his far-removed superior and saluted with a sharp posture.

Come to think of it, he had been so happy to be assigned to the rear that he had lost his mind and acted up even in front of Lieutenant General Hube.

He was lucky that Lieutenant General Hube looked favorably on him as a former subordinate of his friend, Model. Clemens swallowed hard, tense with the need not to make a mistake in front of these impossibly high-ranking men.

The stiff atmosphere broke at that moment.

“Haha, hahaha.

I’m glad to meet a promising young officer in person.”

As Manstein approached with a surprisingly friendly smile, Clemens…

almost had a fit.

According to a phone call from his friend, Roger, the one who sent him here after he had been coasting since thwarting the coup attempt was this damn Chief of the General Staff.

In fact, Clemens had a degree of faith that Dietrich wouldn't deliberately stick him in a hellish front line, but to see the very person who pushed him into hell right before his eyes!

“It is an honor to meet the esteemed Chief of the General Staff, Your Excellency!”

Of course, whatever his head was thinking, his mouth was polite.

To Clemens, who had answered reflexively, Manstein smiled brightly, came closer, and patted his shoulder.

“Ah, a friend who knows some basic courtesy.

Haha, hahaha…”

Manstein was just smiling, but Clemens’s nerves were sounding an alarm that a threat greater than anything he had ever faced on the battlefield was approaching.

“But then there’s a certain lieutenant colonel who, despite me catering to his every whim, slapped my hand away…”

At Manstein’s monologue, spoken loud enough to be heard, a cold sweat ran down Clemens’s back.

'Hey, this is all fine and good, but why are you doing this to me…'

“That’s enough. Why are you picking on an innocent friend? It wasn’t a bad thing for you either, was it?”

It was Kluge who rescued the cornered Clemens.

“Ahem, ahem. Not a bad thing, you say! You know very well how much I suffered from the failure of the last offensive! Anyone who hears this would think I’m happy that my authority has grown! It’s a misunderstanding!”

“Hardly.”

At Manstein’s sudden change of attitude and theatrics, Kluge just chuckled and let it pass.

Manstein was quite resentful of Dietrich Schacht, who had drawn a line with the military despite him catering to his every whim, but as a result, the authority of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army became nominal, and in return, the power of the General Staff grew stronger.

Moreover, although he was only a lieutenant colonel, the government's second-in-command had taken responsibility alongside Rundstedt and resigned from the military, so there were no disadvantages imposed on other army personnel.

It was certainly a rational and understandable measure.

As a high-ranking government official, he drew a line with the military and helped the government check military power, while also restraining the level of punishment to prevent the military from harboring excessive dissatisfaction. His skill could be seen as politically excellent.

It was certainly so, yet for some reason, Manstein found Dietrich Schacht detestable.

Of course, he didn't know that, coincidentally, the feelings Dietrich Schacht held for Manstein were similar.

Manstein, with a slightly sour expression, took out the medal Clemens was to receive, the Pour le Mérite, from its box.

“As you know, that is not a medal just anyone receives.

The fact that the division held out until the attacking force could regroup is thanks to Lieutenant General Hube’s recommendation that your contribution in successfully blocking the most intense attack on the salient was great.”

“Thank you…”

At Army Group Commander General Kluge’s words, Lieutenant General Hube gave a pleased smile, but Clemens wanted to cry.

'You don’t have to give me something like that, can’t you just move me to the rear…'

“Major Clemens Fleck, in recognition of your military merit for greatly contributing to the success of our army’s defense by maintaining a thorough defensive posture and appropriately operating reserves during the recent Defense of East Prussia, I award you this medal in the name of the Army High Command.”

“It is an honor, Your Excellency, Chief of the General Staff!”

Of course, Clemens knew well enough that if he let such words slip out, he wouldn’t even have bones left to bury.

'I’d rather just get this over with quickly and go back.'

But while Clemens was lost in such thoughts, Manstein personally took the medal out of the box and hung it around Clemens’s neck, startling him.

“I didn't pay close attention until I sent you to the Eastern Front to earn some merit, so I didn't know.”

“Ye-yes?”

“I found out that a while ago, you personally received a letter of recommendation from the Vice-Chancellor to get assigned to the rear, didn't you?”

Clemens felt goosebumps crawl all over his body.

To the speechless Clemens, Manstein leaned in close and smiled.

“A proud Prussian soldier shouldn't do such things.”

'I'm from Bavaria, though.'

“It-It’s a misunderstanding…”

Clemens tried to make an excuse with something resembling a stiff smile, but Manstein said with a pointed laugh.

“A capable friend like you should be placed where he is most needed. To be in the rear with such ability is preposterous.

Oh, and just so you know, this is absolutely not for any selfish reason. Isn't that right, Paulus?”

“…The Chief of Staff of the German Army would not use his personnel authority for selfish reasons.”

Although Paulus looked incredibly annoyed, Manstein, having heard the answer, smiled with satisfaction.

“Of course, of course! Would I really do this out of a selfish motive towards a young friend? A capable but lazy friend needs a superior who will work him hard.

Look forward to it, Major Fleck. You won’t have to worry about not being able to earn military merit.”

Clemens thought.

This life is ruined.

Maybe I should have just committed armed desertion and put a bullet in that bastard Dietrich’s gut…