Doppelganger (24 page)

“If I had those tanks I would already be in Cairo,” said Rommel.

“I do not doubt it,” said Hitler. “You have done the best you could with what we gave you. Now we must do better. I am done with building battleships, much to Admiral Raeder’s chagrin. He has sent the entire navy gallivanting out into the Atlantic, and the British simply chased it back into French ports! Doenitz told me we would never have a surface fleet to match the Royal Navy, and he is another man I should have listened to. Yes, the British have these deadly new rockets. They have stolen a march on us with that, but we will catch up very soon. In the meantime, I do not think they can use this new naval rocket against our U-boats. I have already cancelled the H-Class battleship program, and the steel will be put to good use building more U-boats and these new heavy tanks. And what you have said about those
Stukas
has also been heard. I have underestimated the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe, and we will correct that matter. Rest assured, you will get all the air support you ask for in the desert.”

“Thank you, my Fuhrer,” said Rommel. “Yet it could take years before we get these new weapons into production. In the meantime, what am I supposed to fight with?”

“Not years, Rommel,
months
. The whole weight of the Reich is being committed to this, every engineer, every factory, all our resources. Yes, we will keep up a modest production on existing models to replace combat losses in Russia, but I have approved the new designs, and the bulk of our production is already gearing up for these new tanks and aircraft. If, by some miracle, the Soviets survive this winter, then by next spring, summer at the latest, things will be quite different. A year from today I expect to have at least three new tanks at the heart of all our panzer divisions, and soon after that, we will have these rockets that have been so troublesome. The British will see that two can play at this game. I hope to deliver the first prototypes to the Lehr units in a matter of months. Soon the big cats will be prowling the steppes of Mother Russia, and I assure you, they will have very sharp teeth and claws.”

Chapter 21

The
Situation on the Russian front had been very difficult in the early weeks of July. The Soviets had suffered severe losses in May and June, but had managed to make a stubborn retreat, though not without great cost. Many rifle divisions had been ill equipped in transport, and fuel was rationed to a point where most units were relegated to moving by foot. The rail system had collapsed under heavy German air attack in the early weeks of the campaign, but it had slowly recovered, and was now the life saver of the Soviet Army. Running on coal, it was not hobbled by fuel shortages, as the Soviets had sufficient stockpiles of rail coal for at least a year. So rail was the primary means of strategic transport, and the Soviet Generals had used it most efficiently to rush the endless supply of troops forming into new divisions to the front.

The Germans would overrun and destroy a rifle division, only to find two more detraining and marching sullenly up to the front to reinforce the line. Yet Minsk had fallen, Kiev was besieged, and the Red Army had been pushed back behind the wide marshy flows of the Dnieper. Now Sergei Kirov was meeting in the Red Archives again with his intelligence chief, Berzin, and receiving a full report on the deteriorating situation after this intensive German offensive activity.

“They are making every effort to break out before we get too deeply entrenched behind the river,” said Berzin.

“Give me the whole report, Grishin,” said Kirov, using the old code name Berzin had adopted when he operated undercover in the Spanish Civil War. Kirov always called him that, particularly in any personal matter. And now these affairs of state had become very personal, for it was not only the fate of the nation at stake, but their own hides as well. “What is happening in the north?”

“No further developments. Army Group North has pushed as far as the Dvina River, and stopped. Our line there is anchored on the Baltic coast at Riga, and while the Germans have a single bridgehead further east, it is well contained. There is only one panzer division assigned to this group, and it appears the Germans are not planning any offensive aimed at Leningrad.”

“That is a relief,” said Kirov. “We may avoid the misery of that thousand day siege that was so grimly depicted in the material.” He was referring to a cache of very secret documents he had collected during his numerous trips up the stairway at Ilanskiy during the revolution. With a history of WWII in hand, he had foreknowledge of how the Soviet Union would both suffer and yet prevail in the war against Germany, but this battle that had finally come was playing out much differently than in the material he had obtained.

“Yes,” said Berzin. “No thousand day siege, but that will also mean the resources the Germans threw at Leningrad will now be deployed elsewhere. There is a much heavier emphasis in the south, as we predicted.”

“And the center?”

“After Minsk fell, they have concentrated their panzer armies in a drive towards Smolensk. Unfortunately, Mogilev fell last night, and resources are becoming very strained. That counter offensive you ordered against Volkov has cost us. We’ve sent another fifty divisions to the Volga front, and for every one we send, he has managed to match us with reinforcements arriving from his outlying provinces.”

“Yet his forces there will be limited,” said Kirov.

“True, sir, but those were fifty divisions we could have used to save Minsk, and now it appears we may soon lose Kiev as well.”

“Can we stop the drive on Smolensk?”

“That remains to be seen. There is a big penetration south of Gomel now, and the entire center between Gomel and Mogilev is under pressure.”

“What about our secondary defensive line?”

“We still have troops digging in at Bryansk, but now we have more to worry about in the south.”

“The South? I thought we had contained the bridgehead over the Dnieper north of Zaporozhe?”

“We have, but the Germans forced another crossing west of Dnepropetrovsk. It’s that damnable SS Corps, their very best troops. They have spearheaded their entire effort in the south, once they get moving, they are very hard to contain. They broke out yesterday and pushed a strong attack north between Poltava and Krasnograd. A single brigade pushed all the way north to the outskirts of Karkhov, and today they have reinforced that penetration.”

“Kharkov? We cannot lose that industrial center—not at this stage. It must be held.”

“We’ve sent everything we could find there in the last two days. Zhukov managed to scrape up ten to twelve rifle divisions, pulling them from Orel, Voronezh, and as far north as the Leningrad sector. We’ve formed them into the 10th Field Army that was building at Penza. And we have also pulled the reserves slated to launch that offensive on the upper Volga.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Kirov. “That offensive will simply have to be delayed until we stabilize the main front against the Germans. But will it be enough to stop them?”

“Zhukov thinks we can, but now we must decide what to do with the troops along the Dnieper line. There are about 15 divisions holding from the breakthrough zone to Kiev, and another six to ten units at Kiev itself. Even if we do hold Kharkov, that German SS Corps could wheel west. Then the Panzer Army south of Gomel could act as the other pincer, and that entire force would soon be in a pocket. We cannot afford to lose another thirty or forty divisions in a cauldron battle. It would mean we would have to rebuild the entire front there between Kharkov and Bryansk, and we simply haven’t the troops and resources to do so at this time—they’re all on the Volga.”

“What about the new tank corps we’ve been forming.”

“It has been slow going,” said Berzin. “Two corps came out of the new factory sites in the Urals sector, and got pulled right into the buildup on the upper Volga for that offensive against Volkov’s 1st Army. Zhukov believes we are trying to do too much, too soon.”

“Yes,” said Kirov, “but Volkov has crossed the river north of Volgograd, and I will not allow him to push any farther into Soviet territory.”

“He is also pushing hard south of Rostov, though we’ve stopped him there—another seven rifle divisions that should be elsewhere, but at least our line has held.”

“And our counteroffensive?”

“We’ve certainly got his attention. That wedge he pushed towards the lower Don has been contained. We stopped him short of Serafimovich, but he crossed at Sirotinskaya further east. Yet as soon as we launched the pincer operation at the base of his penetration, he pulled all those troops north of the Don again. Now he is on the defensive, and our northern pincer is breaking through near Kamyshin. That said, he brought up five more Divisions from his 3rd Khazak Army. The situation is still undecided.”

“Don’t worry about Volkov,” said Kirov. “How many of his guard divisions have we identified in that sector?”

“Seven.”

“Then this is his main offensive. The drive in the Kuban is merely wishful thinking. I can raise another five rifle divisions in Rostov if need be, and that will be the end of it. And this offensive he’s launched to try and outflank Volgograd and cross the Don is mere theater as well.”

“That’s a deep penetration sir,” Berzin cautioned.

“And it will take him nowhere. It’s well contained. The attacks we’ve mounted at the base near the Volga have done just what I hoped, and he’s shifted reserves there. So now tell me how many Orenburg Guard divisions have been put on the line against our forces on the upper Volga?”

“None sir. He’s sent them all to the battle for that Don crossing.”

“See what I mean? Mark my words, the man will soon be pulling those seven guards divisions out of that operation and sending them up north, because his 1st Army hasn’t the manpower to hold us off for very long there.”

“That’s his biggest army sir, all of twenty divisions.”

“True, but it won’t be enough. They can hold the line of the Volga now simply because it can only be crossed in a few places, but that will change. The first real cold fronts will begin soon, and by September we might even get an early frost. Once that river freezes up, then the divisions he has doled out here and there to watch likely crossing points simply won’t be enough. He’ll have to break them down and disperse the regiments to cover more river frontage, and then we can hit them anywhere we wish. Face it, my friend. Volkov is having his fun now, and putting on a nice show for Berlin. Come winter things will be very different.”

“The Siberians have come down from Perm sir,” said Berzin.

“As expected and promised.”

“They aren’t well armed, but they fight very well. Hard men.”

“And we’ll put them to good use,” said Kirov. “On that note, when is Karpov due in for this meeting?”

“Three days from now.”

“He’ll want to talk about getting better weapons for his troops, and see about new armaments factories.”

“Most likely sir.”

“Well, we’ll need him. He controls all the locations in the southern Urals where we’ll have to relocate our mining and production centers, so we’ll have to throw him some red meat.”

“I expect so, but are we really going to give him what he will ask for? He’ll want tanks, aircraft, artillery.”

Kirov nodded. “Yes… and in exchange we get the Siberian Army. Yet I’ll need more than what he’s sent me thus far. Let’s see what he has under his hat. I’ll want to put on a nice show—better than the last time. Get the Moscow band up and ready, and roll out some good thick red carpet. Treat this like a state visit, because believe it or not, Grishin, that man may be the difference between victory and defeat for us in this damn war. If he had sided with Volkov….”

Berzin nodded, but said nothing more.

“Very well,” said Kirov. “And what of the British?”

“They stopped the Germans in Syria, and have consolidated in Lebanon. It appears their vaunted plans as expressed in Hitler’s latest Führer Directive are futile.”

“Another Directive? How many so far?”

“Thirty-Two, sir. This one referred to an ‘Operation Orient’ involving plans for the Middle East. We picked up some information on this earlier, and the German Brandenburg Commandos in Iraq have moved north to the oil regions near Kirkuk.”

“He needs the oil,” said Kirov, nodding his head.

“Unquestionably, as we do. Now that the Germans have taken Odessa on the Black Sea, their
Stukas
prohibit any movement of oil by sea to Constanta. They still get shipments over the Turkish rail system, but not enough to really matter. The Germans are still relying on Ploesti for most of their imports. To that end, we believe they will complete the occupation of the Eastern Mediterranean islands by attacking Crete soon. To leave that in British hands would mean they might soon have bombers there that could reach Ploesti.”

“Yes,” said Kirov, “but don’t hold your breath. The British only made a few small raids on Ploesti in 1941, with no more than five or ten planes each. The Americans aren’t in it yet, and their first major air raid there doesn’t come until August 1st of 1943, at least according to the material. Even that was considered a strategic failure. They started off calling it Operation Tidal Wave, until their bombers were shot to pieces. In the end the pilots referred to it as Black Sunday. So as to this German Operation Orient—what do we know?”

“Not much has developed, sir. They have even pulled 5th SS division out of Syria and moved it to join the SS Corps in the Dnieper Bend. The other crack units that were sent to Rommel have also been recalled. Both the Hermann Goering Brigade and the Grossdeutschland Brigade have been returned to France. They are being built up to full scale divisions for deployment against us.”

“Churchill must be happy now,” said Kirov with a half hearted smile. “The British complained they were alone in this war since 1939. Now they’ve simply handed it over to us. All but five of Germany’s divisions in active fronts are facing us. Face it, Grishin. This is our war now.”

“Yet the material indicates the Japanese will soon attack Pearl harbor.”