When Germany stumbles through the door, the blood and ice and dust of Stalingrad, Goddamn Stalingrad, coating his skin and his hair and his uniform, the last thing he expects is Veneziano flinging himself at him.
Well. He'd expected the flinging, but not the hugging. Honestly, Germany had thought more punching, and probably yelling- no supplies, they had no supplies and no training and you used them as a cover for your own army, and it didn't even work, nothing, my people died for nothing.
That is what he would say if he were Veneziano, but instead Veneziano throws himself at Germany and buries his face in his chest, knocking the both of them into the door. Germany slides down the door until he's sitting against it with Veneziano clinging to his grimy, cold jacket and sobbing, and he wraps his arms around him on reflex.
Sobbing is one thing Germany had expected.
Veneziano had been on an airlift out of Goddamn Stalingrad about a month and a half earlier, when Il Duce sent some sort of missive about how he was needed on the African front. Germany had received a few letters from him- Veneziano was good at sneaking things into the top-priority mail- and they'd all said mostly the same thing: the weather's nice here, it's very dusty and there are too many Englishmen but my boss and your boss both say we'll win even though England's very scary and America's helping him now, please stay safe and come home soon. Then Veneziano would go on about the food there, and how he missed Germany, and then Germany would take the letter that smelled of sun (somehow, even though they'd been in a tiny cargo hold, they kept that scent) and fold it and keep it inside his jacket while his men and Veneziano's men and Hungary's and Romania's and Russia's starved and froze and bled around him.
He'd been on one of the last planes out of Goddamn Stalingrad, because the Führer had eventually decided that Stand or Die orders probably shouldn't be applied to an entire nation, and then he'd staggered through the door expecting Veneziano to hate him, and now.
Now Veneziano clutches him and sniffles into his chilly Wehrmacht uniform and sobs oh thank God, you're alive and cries all the tears Germany can't, and Germany feels the Saharan sand in Veneziano's jacket and the dust of the Krasny Oktyabr factory in his own and wonders how he deserves such forgiveness.
Heehee short fic long notes.
Stalingrad was a completely horrible, awful, prolonged battle for the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) which would basically grant the oil fields in the Caucasus to whoever won. It lasted five months, completely destroyed the city, and killed roughly two million soldiers.
Italians, Hungarians, and Romanians also fought there on Germany's side; and the Italian army managed to distinguish itself very well, but was still not viewed favorably by the German army and was eventually used as a sort of cover to protect the Germans, which didn't work very well at all mostly because of the sheer size, craziness, and cold tolerance of the Red Army.
The African front was still pretty awful, but less so than the Russian one, and it was known as the more honorable front, although this is probably because of a general lack of civilians to commit atrocities against. By the time this fill takes place (January-ish), the Americans had landed in Africa and the Axis forces there were being pummeled.
Hitler's Stand or Die orders were just that: forbiddance of retreat. He used these often, and it generally led to the destruction of whatever force it applied to by the Allies. (Stalin also issued these, with similar effects, but the Red Army was so freaking enormous it didn't matter as much.)
The Krasny Oktyabr (Red October) factory was one of the major battlegrounds within Stalingrad, and it was completely destroyed by the end of the battle.