Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

Upon their return, Falkenstein and the men of his detachment were hailed for the mission’s audacity and success. A coup of this magnitude would earmark Falkenstein for promotion in no time at all. He’d been awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class when the division took part in the taking of Voronezh earlier in the summer offensive, during Operation Blue. Falkenstein had been in Russia since the beginning of the invasion and had proved himself quite remarkably. Born to a modestly affluent family from Thuringia, with aristocratic ties, the overly serious student of theology had entered the army soon after completing university. The rigors and deprivations of military life agreed with the young man. A natural talent for leadership was evident, and he was sent to officer’s school for further training, where he excelled. The ascetic officer was known to be a hard taskmaster by those under his command. But he was also known to be generous toward his men, and the morale of his unit was high. He saw that the men received furloughs when warranted, ample food, and the best equipment. He was respected, admired, and feared.

Several days after the Astrakhan mission, Falkenstein was again back out on routine patrol. Dust had appeared on the distant horizon, and Falkenstein wanted to personally investigate the cause. It could be a windstorm or a migrating herd, but it was never safe to assume. A column of Soviet tanks could just as easily be the cause. A small unit separated from the main reconnaissance detachment, Falkenstein’s command vehicle in the lead, and continued on further to the southeast. The last coherent transmission from the armored radio car described a stampede of the common steppe antelope, an enormous herd of hundreds, if not thousands, fleeing in an unusual panic. Like an archipelago in the great sea of animals, battle positions of the several heavy vehicles and dozen or so motorcycles were drawn. The radio transmissions that followed were fragmentary and confused. Signal operators with the detachment described what they monitored as voices in a state of absolute terror. Shortly thereafter, all communication ceased. Fearing the worst, another patrol was sent out. There was no sign of antelope or dust, but a tall, thin column of smoke could be seen rising into the bleached sky. The patrol raced to the site. Falkenstein’s unit had been obliterated. The rescue party, all combat-seasoned men, were horrified by the results. This was human destruction taken to a level of degradation never witnessed before. Even the material wreckage was described as “gleeful, almost celebratory” by one panzergrenadier who was at the scene. Another commented that it was “uniquely horrible.” At first it was believed Stormovik fighter planes committed the work, but the sky had been clear of aircraft that day. Then the deep impressions of tank tracks were noticed imbedded in the ground, and there was no longer any doubt. Upon careful examination, the track imprints appeared to indicate only one tank. One set of tracks followed behind the antelope hoof prints from the east and then returned back again. It almost seemed to be cleverly staged, by the way the impressions were made. The men were dumbfounded, yet again, by a seeming resurrection, as it seemed impossible for a human being to emerge alive from the smoldering heap of mangled corpses and twisted machinery. Face blackened by soot, hair singed close to a burned scalp, Falkenstein arose, torn and bloodied. The left side of his body had endured most of the torments. His left eye had been enucleated and his left knee shattered. The sole survivor attempted to speak, to give language to terrifying events, but the reconstruction was lost in a blood-constricted throat.

Falkenstein was taken to the field hospital at Elista, where he remained until out of danger. When he became well enough to travel, he was put on a hospital train bound for the occupied territories far to the rear for more surgery on his leg and, eventually, a medical furlough back to Germany.

He returned that February as the Greyhounds, in tandem with units from the Twenty-Third Panzers, were in the midst of counterattacking the repeated thrusts of the Soviet Fourth Guards Mechanized Corps at the Mius front. The captain, still recuperating from his injuries, was assigned to intelligence headquarters staff and remained at this post throughout the late winter counteroffensive. During this time, Voss’s own role caused him to be far too busy in the fighting to hear of any career moves the captain might have made. Besides, he was from a different regiment and did not know the man personally. By the end of March, the situation at the front had stabilized. General Hoth had retaken Kharkov, and the industrial region of the Donets Basin was once again under the control of the Wehrmacht. The southern front had been restored to its original starting position from the year before.

It was well into the month of April when Voss learned that the captain had since left the Greyhounds. Voss had been granted a three-day furlough, which he took advantage of by drinking himself to a prolonged stupor. He was in an officers’ club set up at some crumbling villa on the coast outside of Taganrog. There were several officers there, some from his division, who were drinking as well. During the course of their conversation, Falkenstein’s name came up. Voss’s interest was aroused, so he eavesdropped from his corner table. One officer, a major, had heard that Falkenstein had been given the opportunity of working on the intelligence staff at Army Group. Another contradicted with word that he had transferred to Hoth’s staff at the Fourth Panzer Army. Finally, a lieutenant colonel spoke up with assurance that he knew for a fact that the captain had organized a special tank-killing unit, which, due to the spring thaw, hadn’t quite gotten off the ground—or across it, to be more exact, as the lieutenant colonel added sarcastically. Falkenstein was traipsing around, knee-deep in the mud and getting nowhere. He had come by to headquarters begging for an assault gun, pestering the Twenty-Third Panzers for a tank, any armor he could get his hands on. Nothing could be done for him, the officer had remarked, as the equipment was stretched beyond the limit.

Voss could not remember when he had heard of Falkenstein’s connection to Foreign Armies East or in what capacity. It was after Operation Citadel, he was sure; and by that time, in early summer, the captain was referred to as being obsessed in some relentless pursuit of the ghost Russian tank that had been haunting panzer crews ever since the fall of Stalingrad. How was this possible, Voss wondered? Here was an officer with every opportunity for promotion, whose service record indicated an eventual position on the General Headquarters staff. At least the possibility existed, had he allowed himself to be groomed for such a role. Headquarters in Berlin loved to have a battle-scarred, half-crippled veteran on hand to lend an air of credibility as the entrenched military bureaucrats of the Reich reworked their strategies at winning a floundering war. What had happened to cause a highly decorated officer to be referred to, by his own peers, as “Mad Falkenstein”? And what was he doing now, headquartered at some nameless kolkhoz, a mere flyspeck on the map? Up until a few days earlier, Pavlograd and the environs were considered a rear area, well outside of the combat zone. Voss was interested in finding out. To discover Falkenstein alive would almost be worth the risks of the journey he’d been ordered to undertake.

A coded radio transmission from Blue Flower came over the receiver. Voss allowed Junger to decipher the message, secretly timing him to learn how fast and accurate the signalman’s performance was. Junger handed the message to Voss in record time. Panther reinforced tank battery of Twenty-Third Panzer Division intercepted supply column for enemy armored corps. Fuel, ammunition, transport vehicles totally destroyed. Be advised! Will impact enemy movement in the west.