Chapter 4

Just as Karl suspected the disaster of the overreaching assault into the heartland of the Soviet Union in a madcap dash to Moscow hit the German Wehrmacht like a bolt of lightning from an angry God. He made sure all of his men were adequately clothed for the winter campaign with thick Bavarian wool and leather. They had tents with waterproofed seams and sturdy boots he had bartered from the Afrika Corps who didn't need them in the hot desert. However, most of the foot soldiers of the pincer attack in the middle of the wide-spread front line were poorly equipped and not adequately trained for "cold weather" fighting in difficult terrain.

After a disheartening stalemate that wore the troops down like corn in a grindstone, the resurgent Soviets counterattacked in several weak points forcing the entire army back on its heels and making the Officer Corps reconsider the entire affair. It was at this point that most of the high command began to see the foolishness of their position and made several attempts to suggest consolidation further west back at the Polish border. The two flanks in the Baltics and down in the Ukraine were holding their own and confused the push for full scale retreat. Eventually, Karl accepted the fact that the bulk of the forces would be eventually cut off and encircled by the Soviet enemy.

Since he was acting on orders from the Berlin Headquarters, Major Steiner collected his men into two groups of about ninety men each and leap-frogged in one hundred kilometer dashes from defensive point to defensive point using only eight trucks and two half-tracks with impressive firepower. Within a matter of a week, he had exfiltrated his entire unit with no losses. Right after crossing into German territory, he ran into difficulty in a small town near the border that was almost deserted and had no fuel supplies available. They were stranded without fuel unless they switched to the carts and horses still strangely in abundance in the area. They were being cared for by elderly people with little to say about anything related to the war and had no interest in anything except a deep rooted fear that the "Russians are coming!"

Steiner could see that the civilians were better informed about the Eastern Front situation than most of the soldiers fighting on the ground. They gathered food and water and started the long journey back to Berlin taking care to hide their "Deaths Head" insignias from view. His men were all well-trained and looked so forbidding to the various check-point personnel that his papers carrying the seal of the Great Leader were never questioned. As they made their way back to the Capitol, Karl was shocked to see the extent of the damage caused by the heavy bombing by the Allied Forces wiping out entire small towns and industrial centers. He was well-indoctrinated to the horrors of war on combat troops but it was different to see how much the war was affecting the civilian populace. It was one thing to see a destroyed village in Russia or in Poland and entirely different to see the same devastation in the Fatherland.

He moved his men into a partially deserted SS quadrangle and instructed them to stay low profile because there was some sort of vendetta being played out over recent attempts on the Great Leader's life. They understood the need to stay out of sight and avoided the other soldiers who were more like imitation soldiers in a uniform and no skills in combat.

Karl went immediately to his apartment to see his wife Heidi from whom he had never received a single letter. As soon as he turned the corner, he saw that the entire block in which his apartment was right in the center was no longer there. Only a pile of rubble stood jagged sentry duty with signs warning against looting. There were small children darting here and there begging for food or cigarettes but no sign of adult survivors. One small girl told him,

"There are some survivors over at the armory soup kitchen but I don't think any of them are called Heidi."

He saw the long line outside the stone block building with iron bars on the windows apparently waiting for some mid-day rations. The officer-in-charge was far too busy to see him according to the pimpled Corporal sitting behind a typewriter. He moved into the open meeting hall and saw the lined cots with elderly people and dazed looking females staring off into space. Some of them didn't even bother to respond to his simple questions almost as if he was speaking a foreign language. A thin female with hair cut almost like a man asked him for a cigarette and he gave one to her.

"No, there is no Heidi here. I was in the building next to your wife and I don't think anyone got out alive. Hopefully, she was not at home but that is unlikely since we got hit in the middle of the night."

Despite the circumstances, Karl could see the vitality of youth in the woman's eyes even though she looked middle-aged. She told him her name was Lisa and that her two children were killed in the blast. When he asked about her husband, she told him that he was taken prisoner when Rommel got overrun in Africa. She seemed pleased it was by the British and not by the Russians who had a policy of not letting German prisoners survive.

"Do you think the Russians will come all the way to Berlin? Surely, the Americans will get here first to save us from those animals."

Karl did not answer her directly because he had a premonition that there was already a done deal between the Communists and the other enemies surrounding them.

"They are still a long way away and there are a lot of German soldiers between Berlin and the Soviets. I don't think it is time to start studying Russian just yet."

Lisa took him down to the basement area below the first basement to show him the tunnels that stretched in almost every direction. She told him that the tunnels were the best way to travel if there was any danger of bombing. He thought that he knew Berlin pretty well but this was the first time he had heard about the tunnels.

When they were in a secluded section, the girl became animated and reached out to seize his shaft in her delicate hands. She fell to her knees and drew his cock into her mouth which was greedily sucking and licking him non-stop until he couldn't hold back his creamy load any longer. She was like a cat with a bowl of milk and looked at him in a way that told him she wanted even more if he was of a like mind.