by Bleedred (Toilinthefields)
Last updated: January 16th, 2012
Characters: Russia, Germany
Pairings: Russia - Germany
Rating: Teen
Genre: Tragedy/Drama
Warnings: unbeta'd, Russia, Germany, war, Russian language, German language, attachment and trust bordering on affection, blood, vague violence, emotional strain, human names, hinted destruction, potentially controversial portrayal of the Russo-German War, footnotes, bibliography
Summary:
Part of a series for the HetaChallenge Historical Table Challenge
Theme: Russia - Betrayal
Month: January 2012
Forward:
Hallo! This fic is the first in the linked saga of fics I'm doing for the HetaChallenge Historical Table Challenge. This series is going to be Russia-centric (if that wasn't obvious by this point XD), so... well, you know what you're getting into. This first one is going to center on Operation Barbarossa when Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front was carried out.
Yes, there will be footnotes and a bibliography. Yes, I do happen to have random Russian history books and documents lying around because of my major. I also did go out of my way to acquire some specific documents relevant to Operation Barbarossa and from the German side of the conflict as well, as who attacked whom is a big controversy with this particular war.
We can mostly blame a man named Suvorov for this, but that's neither here nor there. Because of this controversy, I couldn't go as in depth as I would have liked to avoid inciting anybody beyond necessary, so the fic is shorter and with much less interaction from Germany than I would have liked.
As always enjoy the fic! Catching typos and such are much appreciated. Please read the footnotes before commenting.
Fic:
The sound of the tone was taunting. Every time it sounded as knobs were turned, he was just reminded that it was still buzzing unanswered by his target as the headset was pressed snug up against his face. Why wasn't he picking up? He had to pick up! It was a bloody radio, how could he not hear it?
Something warm and red slipped out of bandages and painted the plastic of the radio knobs. His hand shook before he slammed the headset down, wincing the extremity back in pain. He stared at the poorly wrapped palm with red feathering across the cloth away from the outright leaks. He'd brought it on himself, this grotesque re-opening of a new wound. It was the price of eagerness... It was the price of complacent ignorance.
The tent wasn't much protection. It did not keep the cold out very well and neither was it much help to stifle the sounds of panic or gunshots as the men practiced in their fright. The officers had ordered everybody to make sure all of their guns were in working order and that there were plenty of supplies. They had to be as prepared as possible just in case this wasn't a one-time fluke incident. Russia didn't like the thought of that as he sat at the desk in the tent, doing his best to reach the one deemed responsible by those around him.
This shouldn't be happening... No... No... There must have been some sort of mistake. Germany was his friend!(1) There was no way he'd randomly attack him, right?
He bit his lip in frustration before forcing himself to take up fiddling with the machine once more. It was nearly impossible to force a smile to his face, something that used to be his normal behavior. Not today though...
"Германия!(2)" he called on the headset, trying the last frequency he'd known to reach his all- well, former ally at this point. "Людьвиг!(3)"
He'd had some suspicions before but... Stalin had assured him it was absolutely not possible! The Germans were far too concerned with their other theatre, he'd said, and that the Soviet appeasement concessions of parts of Poland would buy the Nazis' happiness(4)! Stalin said that they would be the arbiters in the European conflict(5). He'd hoped, naively, and wanted to believe that for once, Stalin knew what he was doing. Now this happened.
No sounds beyond the squeaking of the frequencies came from the radio as he continued trying to get attention through the device. He had to confirm what had happened... There had to be have been some sort of mistake. Those were indeed German troops from the other side of the river that morning(6). They were indeed shooting at his army. Maybe they had some sort of mass hallucination and thought the Red Army men were someone else's troops? Like the British or the Fre- there was no way there could be such confusion... No one else had tanks like he did. The T-34s were unmistakable(7)!
Luckily some of his men that clarity to shoot back across the river... not that it saved their position at all though. Russia hadn't had time to react from his temporary cot inside one of the buildings. A bullet gone through one of the open windows, ricocheted off a wall and right through the palm of his hand. According to reports, it had been over almost before it began... in the space between strained heartbeats.
The radio continued to buzz and squeal unanswered on the other end, regardless of how much he yelled into it. His hands slowly gave up and, instead of turning dials madly in desperation of hearing a familiar voice that could explain all of this way, they slipped away to flop across the rickety desk that gave the radio console a home.
He wished someone would tell him it was just a bad dream... that one of his few friends hadn't just attacked him... Russia hardly had any friends as it was and most of the ones he had, he'd forced to be his friends. That didn't count. Germany had least been his friend willingly, or at least that was what he'd thought. Had it all been a ploy? Some trick to lull Russia and his forces into contented slumber?
He'd given Germany land so he could be happy! That was all he wanted, for his friends to be happy. He figured if Germany was happy, he'd stop advancing east and maybe... stop trying to engulf the rest of Europe as well. Well, it didn't work. Nothing ever worked for him, did it? Not the tsars... Russia could feel forgotten lines tingle with imagined pain at the thought of that. Communism wasn't exactly going his way, but that was probably because of his boss... Now he'd tried to make friends and keep Germany from fighting and hurting the others in Eastern Europe. Nothing ever worked out as nicely and as simply as he wanted it to.
"H-hallo(8)?" The radio crackled with sound. In a second, Russia was holding the headset tightly to his ears, trying to chatter back only to stutter nonsense that vaguely sounded like Germany's name.
"Rußland(9)? Ivan?" That was Germany on the other end! He'd finally gotten a hold of him! Now Germany could tell him it was all a mistake, that nothing was wrong, that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was still holding strong, that he was sorry... All of these things that he wanted to hear from his friend, all of these things he was so sure he would hear. He stammered a response to the affirmative into the microphone. They were friends! Best friends! Everything would be alright now. He knew he trust Germany. How could he have ever doubted him! How silly of him that was to think...
There was silence beyond the sound of normal air-wave static for... longer than Russia would have liked. He felt an unsettling twinge in his stomach and tried to pass it off as discomfort from not having eaten yet combined with all of the excitement of the unexpected battle that morning.
There was an abrupt click and then nothing.
Russia pulled the headset off and held it in his hands, the one side getting coated once more in fresh blood to match what had been dripping down in his arm. He'd ignored the wound initially, but now it was trying to make everything look just like it. The man stared at the headset, confused and almost wanting to ask it what was going on. It wouldn't know, would it? No... probably not... He felt the need to sniff that came with holding back one of those... emotion things.
The headset smashed against the dirt... along with rest of the radio console... and the splitters of what may have been a desk at one point.
Footnotes:
1. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed that one would not attack the other, among other details. This was signed on August 1939. (Benn).
2. Германия (gyehr-mahn-ee-yah) = Germany in Russian, despite sounding like Germania
3. Людьвиг (lyood-veek) = Russified "Ludwig", with palatalization after the "д", but no one would probably notice the difference.
4. The Soviet Union practiced "appeasement" with Hitler in hopes of curbing his aggression and staying on his good side despite not aggreeing with Nazi ideals or policies. "[Stalin's] military errors impelled him to adopt a policy of appeasement towards Germany, which led inevitably towards disaster." (Erikson 17).
5. According to one text, which I shall quote for ease:
"No longer was Stalin the devious plotter or the 'outwitted bungler'. This ia a rational Stalin, a geopolitical operator, interested in negotiating for European peace, but his presumption of being a possible arbiter seduced him from awareness of the German threat." (Erikson 17).
6. Operation Barbarossa began in the morning in 1941. The battle referrenced is from one of the piece in the bibliography "Remembering BARBAROSSA." Some fictional liberties were taken with the Russian side of the story as I could only find this particular battle from the German view.
7. Indeed, the T-34's were unmistakable and at the time they were unmatched, even to the German brass which compared their Panzer IVs (the best model at the time of this battle). The T-34 was considered vastly superior in range and armor. (Mulcahy).
8. Hallo (hah-loh) = hello in German
9. Rußland (rooss-land) = Russia in German. Bonus points if you can roll that "r".
Bibliography:
Benn, David Wedgewood. "Russian Historians Defend The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact." International Affairs 87.3 (2011): 709-715. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Jan. 2012.
Erikson, John. "Barbarossa." History Today. 51.7 (2001): 11-17. Print.
Förster, Jürgen. "Barbarossa Revisited: Strategy And Ideology In The East." Jewish Social Studies 50.1/2 (1988): 21-36. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Jan. 2012.
Heyman, Neil M. Russian History. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993. Print.
Humpert, David. " Viktor Suvorov and Operation Barbarossa: Tukhachevskii Revisited.." Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 18.1 (2005): 59-74. Print.
Mulcahy, Robert. "Remembering BARBAROSSA." World War II 21.1 (2006): 34-40. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Jan. 2012.