Opening Moves

Scrabbling at the packing around the small window, she snatched up a magazine lying on a box and wriggled her way out, in the end propelled by the force of three more grenades behind her.

Running for all she was worth, Helga found the small air-raid shelter at the junction of her street and Hafenstraße, and dived in quickly, narrowly avoiding a running Soviet officer heading back the way she had come.

Changing the magazine on her weapon as her father had demonstrated, she was calm, belying her nineteen years.

Now was the time.

She moved silently out of the bunker and turned right.

On the junction of Hafenstraße and Schillerstraße stood a small group of soldiers gathered round a vehicle, oblivious to her presence.

Russians.

She gathered herself and struggled for control as fear suddenly washed over her. Her bladder let go as she moved forward, tears in her eyes but still focused on the hated enemy to her front, her fear subjugated by her desire to kill.

One man looked up and realised the danger, snatching for his weapon but knowing he was too late.

The German sub-machine gun burst into life, sending twenty-one 9mm bullets in the direction of the Soviet officer group.

Only the first six were on target and the petrified Russian officer made contact with his weapon, bringing it on target and pulling the trigger.

The PPS43 sent its stream of bullets in return but all missed.

Again, both weapons lashed out and this time both were on target.

Helga Dein was dead before she hit the ground, metal ripping through her stomach, heart, liver and head.

The Captain, her target, sank slowly to the ground as his own throat wound spilled his lifeblood over the roadway in front of him.

Two of the men had remained untouched, and cautiously rose from their position of cover on the other side of the jeep. One even put another burst into the immobile girl, causing parts of the ruined corpse to disintegrate and spread themselves on the roadway.

The Colonel, 43rd Army’s Senior Artillery Officer, had taken four of the six bullets to strike flesh and lay dead, sightless eyes still carrying indignation at the mechanics of his end.

Major-General Boris Lenskii lay where he had been dropped by the two impacts, knowing that he was badly injured. The wound to his rectum was painful indeed, the metal having ripped through his anus and then moved on, removing most of his manhood. The second projectile took him under the right shoulder and, hitting bone, disintegrated into a number of small but devastating pieces, each one reducing sections of his liver to paste as they moved inexorably through his body.

As he slipped into merciful darkness, he knew his end was approaching.

Troops of his headquarters defence unit gathered up his shattered form and carried it into St Salvatoris Kirche where a small aid post had been established. He died four hours later to the minute, never having regained consciousness.

His vengeful troopers visited themselves upon the civilian populace and the small ruined town was bathed in the blood of innocents until darkness fell.

1500 hrs Wednesday 8th August 1945. Former Headquarters of SHAEF, Trianon Palace Hotel, Versailles, France.

At three o’clock precisely radios across Europe first went silent and then burst into life with an announcement, made first in English, then French, then German, calling for all citizens of Europe to be attentive and standby for an important message.

Listening to that broadcast, from prison of war camps to small farming communities across the continent, nations held their breath, expecting the very worst.

A detached voice announced General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of SHAEF.

A long pause.

The tape rolled.

Eisenhower’s voice cut the silence.

“People of Europe, the last six years have been dark indeed, and in May of this year we came to the end of a gigantic conflict, a conflict which cost many lives on all sides. Those lives were needlessly lost in a false cause; the pursuit of power and sovereignty by a small group of men.”

The extended pause was in place to permit translators to do their work, French and German over the radio, other languages done in the huddled groups listening all over the continent.

“I have no doubt that each of you has, as I have, made an oath to do all in our collective powers to ensure this never happens again in our lifetime, or that of our children and their offspring.”

“We are now called upon to discharge that oath as Europe finds itself again threatened by a small clique bent on extending their power and imposing their will upon the free.”

As the German speaker moved through his words, a keen ear could detect light coughing in the background.

“America stands with you in this struggle, and as we speak her sons are dying to preserve you, your nations and your ethnic groups, be you French or German, English or Austrian, Romany or Jew.”

“Forces of the Russian Empire, at the direct bidding of Dictator Joseph Stalin, have attacked along a broad front from the Baltic to the Adriatic.”