Part XXVIII: Im Südosten nichts Neues

April 6, 1941. Bucharest, Romania.

Ob Südosten, ob Westen, zu Hause ist's am Besten…

Hermann Neubacher sighed as he began to sort through the piles of papers on his desk after spending nearly ten weeks bouncing around the Balkans. Bucharest wasn't quite home, Vienna still lay tantalizingly out of reach for the time being, but it was a lot closer than Athens would ever be. Gesandter Victor Schönberg saw to that. Like so many aristocrats, the old Hessian resented Neubacher, and men like him, who had seized the opportunity presented to them by Hitler's rise to further their vision for the continent. Though he wasn't willing to stoop so low as to endanger the negotiations, Schönberg knew just how to get under Neubacher's skin and asked seemingly innocent questions about how Vienna was faring whenever he felt that his ego needed soothing. For some inane reason he seemed to derive a sick kind of satisfaction from his fellow Hessian Philip Jung occupying Neubacher's former post as Bürgermeister of Vienna. (1)

Hermann_Neubacher.png ​

Hermann Neubacher. Mayor of Vienna from March 13 1938- December 15,1940, Special Representative for Economic Questions in Bucharest from January, 1940- August 24, 1944.

For now…

​

Neubacher couldn't help but smirk at the thought. His involvement with the new agreements with Greece and Bulgaria would more than compensate for his faux pas with Sima and the Iron Guard. (2) The negotiations had gone swimmingly despite Schönberg's prevarications. Both Greece and Bulgaria now lay firmly within the Reich's sphere of influence and were even more tied to the German economy than ever before. Though nothing seemed to be able to make either monarch join the war at the moment, the new agreements would unleash the natural economic forces of the Balkans tying them to Germany and quickly put an end to this current attitude of political independence. And to think, all it really cost the Reich to achieve this state of geopolitical security was a few hundred French fighter aircraft and tanks! Once they were able to offer tangible territory, Macedonia to the Bulgarians and Epirus to the Greeks, Neubacher had little hope of the continued utility of either the Yugoslavs or the Italians in Albania, German dominance of the Southeast would be complete. (3)

Of course, there was still the chance that either Balkan country would choose to jump the other way and join the British, but he doubted it. As far as Neubacher could see, the ongoing fiasco in Albania demonstrated that the British had no appetite for continental engagements. Zog's out of the blue declaration of war in June 1940 had caused no small degree of consternation in Berlin, particularly after he threw back Mussolini's goons at Durres. Only months later, after the British had continually opted not to drag the Greeks into the war and reinforce the Albanians did the OKW abandon plans to send Rommel and some Mountain divisions to pacify the tribesmen. (4) The Reich had kept a wary eye on the situation there ever since, particularly given the Italians' continued difficulties in suppressing the royalist insurrection, but to date, the situation seemed relatively under control particularly as said difficulties prevented the Italians from further destabilizing the region.

Even if things did spiral out of control at some point in the future, like it had only weeks ago in Yugoslavia, Neubacher had full confidence that only minimal effort would be required to restore order. Given how handily the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe had dealt with the R-35s and MB-150s in France, a few dozen more of each in Greece would likely only prove to be a minor inconvenience. (5) Yet even that hypothetical military action presupposed the outbreak of a conflict in the first place. The fractious nature of Balkan politics meant that, like Yugoslavia, Greece had a substantial faction adamantly opposed to a war with the Reich. Should the King and his puppet Koryzis try to break away from the Reich and return to their previous pro-British alignment, they would face thousands of dispossessed Greek Republican Venezelists the leader of which, General Plastiras had already contacted German authorities about a potential pro-Axis coup. (6) Though certainly supporting a coup in Greece would prove much more difficult than defeating the recent Yugoslav coup attempt, Neubacher believed that it was well within the capabilities of the German troops presently allocated to maintain order in the Balkans.

Assuming any are left once we cross the Soviet border…

Neubacher scowled as he came across yet another request from Antonescu regarding the maintenance of Wehrmacht troops in Romania. As Hitler's Special Representative for Economic Questions in the Southeast he had been given the task of overseeing the negotiations surrounding exactly who paid for what. Dealing with both the Wehrmacht and the Romanians arguing for the other to take up more of the burden had been hard enough when it was just a few thousand Luftwaffe personnel. That was only going to get worse as more troops continued to arrive in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Neubacher could only hope that dangling the prospect of Bessarabia's return and further gains in the east and elsewhere would prove sufficient to the task ahead.

If not, there's always Transylvania to fall back on… for the time being.

The tactic of playing the Hungarian and Romanian claims in that region against each other had worked well for Neubacher and other German representatives seeking to secure greater concessions. At the present time, each country seemed to be willing to submit to anything if it meant a greater chance of either retaining or regaining the region. Exactly how well that tactic would work in the future remained to be seen. Given Romania's immense importance as "the Reich's Gas Station," Neubacher had serious reservations about its continued utility. As he saw it, his superiors were playing a dangerous game with this strategy. Given the immense importance of Romania's petroleum reserves, if it were up to him he would have done whatever it took to secure them. Try as he might, even he, one of the staunchest critics of the Versailles system, just could not justify the current level of deference given to Hungary and Bulgaria. As confident as he was about the Reich's coming success against the Soviets, he couldn't help but feel exposed by the lack of contingency plans in the Balkans.

Even the Iron Guard, long an effective vehicle for pushing German ambitions, was no longer a factor in Romanian politics following their failed putsch in January. Though Neubacher's worst fear, that he would lose his position due to his efforts to leverage the Guard's influence to his own benefit, did not come to pass, he worried about Antonescu's near total control of the Romanian political scene. Even with the promise of lands in Bessarabia and the Ukraine, securing further control over Romania would be difficult.

Still, things aren't too different than they were in 1940…

Even after he had negotiated the Provisional Oil-Arms Pact in March 1940, the whole German position in the Balkans remained decidedly uncertain up until their victory in France in May. Only then, with panzers rampaging through Northern France did the Romanians finally fully commit to returning to their natural relationship with Germany. He could only hope that future Wehrmacht victories in 1941 would provide the same support for German diplomatic efforts here in the Balkans. If, however, by some miracle the Soviets had managed to learn from their debacle in Finland, a part of Neubacher worried the events of 1940 did not repeat themselves, the whole German enterprise in the region would be fatally compromised. Without the threat of Wehrmacht coercion, the entire region stood on the brink of defecting to the British. Yet, as he continually reminded himself, that part had worried back in 1938 and 1940 as well only to be proven wrong decisively. Taking a deep breath, he consoled himself with the firm hope that in a few months German Panzers would be rampaging across the Ukraine in the same way they had rampaged through Northern France.

When combined with increasing oil shipments from Romania, and his pre-war experience dealing with the Soviet Union, these victories would grant the Reich a far more lucrative source of oil in the Caucauses and Neubacher's Balkan successes all but assured his nomination to run them. From there he would have his pick of any post in the Reich and Bürckel would finally get what he deserved. Hitler would have no choice but to recognize his mistake and return control of Vienna to his most loyal and effective Austrian servant. Then, just as Clodius left the Balkans to him, Neubacher would leave the Balkans to someone else, likely Klugkist, as he moved on to bigger and better things. (7)

Notes:

1. Hermann Neubacher is an OTL figure. In OTL he played a large part in the occupation of Greece from 1942-44. His penchant for rubbing aristocrats the wrong way is also from OTL. The conflict with Schonberg (also OTL) is imagined.

2. Neubacher is referring to this.

3. Neubacher's attitudes towards the Italians are from OTL. However, IMO his memoir, Sonderauftrag Suedost, points to a predilection to constantly see the grass as greener on the other side, hence his belief in TTL that the Bulgarians will be superior allies to the Yugoslavs.

4. Germany planned to do the exact same thing in OTL when the invasion of Greece went south only to scrap it in favour of a larger invasion. Given Italian difficulties in Albania, I doubt they wouldn't at least consider it and Neubacher was fairly well connected so I think he'd know about it.

5. This is the heart of the deals with both Greece and Bulgaria. Germany relied on arms exports with both countries to manage its clearing accounts and dominate their foreign trade however German rearmament complicated these measures by sucking up all available arms and associated materials. The fall of France changes all this by providing hundreds of French tanks and aircraft to use. In both TTL the majority of them were incorporated into the Wehrmacht, but many of them were sent to Axis allies including Bulgaria and Romania in OTL. R-35's were quite common and a number of MB-150s were sent or proposed to be sent as well.

6. I debated about Metaxas' successor in TTL but ultimately went with the OTL choice as even in OTL Koryzis was seen as a pick that attempted to thread the needle of Greek neutrality due to his ties to Germany. Plastiras' coup proposal happened in OTL and evidence of which brought a swift end to his stint as Prime Minister after WWII.

7. All of this is basically OTL. I included it to show that despite the massive change from OTL, Albania barely shows up on the Germans' radar at least at this point. This might change, but for now the ongoing quagmire in Albania remains helpful in German eyes as it prevents the Italians from destabilizing the Balkans. The Nazi's policy of dividing and conquering used so effectively with Transylvania in OTL will be also important later on in TTL.

(Excerpted from Walter Roberts' "The Chetniks" Rutgers University Press 1973)

Preface to the Second Edition​

History may be written by the victors, but, as demonstrated by the failure of Reconstruction in the United States as well as countless other historical examples, the victors of a conflict often fail to win the peace. The current state of the Kingdom of Serbia is yet another example of the victors failing to win the peace as, with the fall of Petar Stambolić's government, the ideological descendants of the formerly reviled Četnik rapidly swept into power and began the process of rehabilitating the movement under King Tomislav.(8) Though one would think the death of his brother during one of the movement's ill-fated raids might temper the restored monarch's attitudes, a lifetime spent being radicalized in exile proved to be far more influential. In an instant, new textbooks began rolling off the presses in which the relatively small movement took center stage in lessons on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in World War II.

Such developments make Walter Roberts' 1973 study all the more pertinent to our understanding of the Balkans. It remains to date, the most comprehensive study of the movement, tracing its development from the Kingdom of Serbia's origins to the Second World War and concluding in the postwar period. In contrast to many other scholars of the region who paint the Četnik's as a response to the failed coup of March 27, 1941, Roberts instead points to the signing of the Sporazum (Cvetković-Maček Agreement) on October 27, 1940. (9) Cleverly bringing to bear a multitude of primary sources, Roberts deftly shows how fears over declining Serbian power laid the tinder for the movement which the failed coup set aflame. Then, unlike his contemporaries who struggle to explain the complicated relationship between the Četniks the Axis which developed towards the end of the war, Roberts powerfully argues that these fears served as a powerful guiding throughline for the movement as it was transformed from a group of disaffected anti-German officers into a ferociously pro-Serbian movement.

In examining this transformation, Roberts also makes a key contribution to our understanding of the Balkans in World War II. For decades the continued focus on Albania and Greece distracted scholars from a very real phenomenon: German control over the rest of the Balkans. One of the reasons for his works' continued popularity is the fact that Roberts was one of the first to seriously grapple with how the Third Reich dominated the peninsula with minimal resources through its strategy of divide et impera. Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in Serbia where the same Abwehr officers whose critical warnings derailed the March 27 coup, mere months later are working with their former opponents to maintain German hegemony in the region.(10) Mobilizing fears of Maček's Croatia and Zog's Albania, these officers capitalized on the Četniks' decentralized nature to yoke it to the cause of the Third Reich and employ it against not only Kosovar Çetas but Tito's Partisans and Croatian forces as well. As a result, Četnik attacks on royalist forces went from being an existential threat to Stojadinović's "Government of National Salvation" to almost non-existent by the end of 1942…

…

Chapter 2

The Attempted Coup of March 27, 1940 and its Aftermath​

…

Though Nedić had initially wanted to pre-empt General Dušan Simović (11) by capturing him and the rest of the plotters at Zemun prior to the coup, the late nature of the German warnings coupled with concerns over the reliability of the forces currently in Belgrade prevented him from doing so. Instead, he opted to secretly bring in loyal formations to secure key positions around the city while evacuating Princess Olga and the rest of the Prince Regent's family from the city. (12) No greater testament exists to the Yugoslav population's ambivalent attitude towards the coup than the fact that none of these movements were brought to the attention of the plotters. It seems that few held the same optimism of Churchill that Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey's entry into the war could happen in one fell swoop and transform British fortunes in the war. (13)

Milan_Nedić_1939.jpg

Milan Nedić. Yugoslav Minister of the Army and Navy from October 30, 1940- August 15 1941

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Yet the few that did believe Captain H.H. MacDonald's bombastic rhetoric were not without strength of their own. (14) Buoyed by the disastrous reputation of the Regency even before the signing of the Tripartite pact, they were able to put together a sizeable force, including a handful of tanks, with which to affect their attempted coup. Marshalling at the Zemun airbase, they moved out at 2:15am to secure the vital bridges over the Sava and the rest of Belgrade only to find them barricaded and manned by troops loyal to the regency. (15) Despite calls to negotiate, Simović knew that every second wasted endangered the coup's success and ordered his armor to smash through the barricade. Unfortunately, their success would soon prove fleeting for as his forces were securing the vital bridges, all around the city his fellow plotters were being killed and arrested in droves as they attempted to take other vital positions. Furthermore, a detachment of Croatian troops loyal to Maček had almost completed their lightning march from Zagreb and were on the cusp of slamming into the unprotected flank of the plotter's forces at Zemun. (16)

As dawn approached, loyalist troops drove the plotters back to the same bridges where success seemed so imminent. With the rest of the city under martial law, the popular support Simović, Mirković, and Živan Knežević, had expected materialize disappeared. Only a handful of smaller demonstrations in Cetinje, Podgorica, Split, Skopje and Kragujevac occurred in the following days. Taking to the streets with cries of Bolje grob nego rob, Bolje rat nego pakt, (17) they successfully caught the government off guard but were ultimately suppressed by the authorities shortly thereafter. By 9:00 am, most of the plotters' tanks had been disabled and the remainder of the fighters had lost all hope of success. A runner with a handkerchief tied to his rifle emerged from the repurposed barricades to call for a cease fire. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was now fully committed to the Tripartite Pact…

…

…Despite the utter failure of the March 27 coup, the continued disorganization and disfunction of the Regency's government allowed many of the figures on the fringes of the conspiracy to escape arrest and flee to the mountains. One of these figures was none other than Draža Mihailović who, fearing that his pre-war clashes with Minister of the Army and Navy, Milan Nedić would result in his eventual arrest along with others adjacent to the plot, (18) deserted his post and fled to Ravna Gora with a few dozen likeminded men in the hopes of finding others who hated the idea of collaboration. Initially unsuccessful, they ended up becoming the nucleus of a growing movement which sought to oust the Regency in favour of Peter II and in so doing drag Serbia and the rest of Yugoslavia with it from the abyss…

Notes:

8. This guy.

9. The OTL Cvetković-Maček Agreement was signed roughly 5 months after the Italian invasion of Albania and was due in no small part to fears of Italian imperialism. The delayed date of TTL's agreement is reflective of this phenomenon. Roberts' book is from OTL but obviously has a bit more context and information due to the altered circumstances of TTL.

10. The German military attache in Belgrade, Lt. Toussaint had inklings about the coup in OTL but did not report them to his superiors. Whenever this omission comes up in German reports it seems to be regarded as one of the biggest mistakes of the war in the Balkans.

11. Head of the Yugoslav air force and fierce opponent of the government. Simović had been involved in discussions about a proposed coup since 1938. In OTL he became PM after the coup's success.

12. In OTL Paul was en route to a holiday while the rest of his family stayed behind in Belgrade. Their presence was a major reason behind his decision not to oppose the coup.

13. Though most scholars agree that the coup was largely driven by domestic factors, British agents played a large role in setting the stage. In TTL there is no Greek campaign to buoy Allied hopes of an allied front so interest is much more muted than OTL.

14. OTL leader of the SOE in Yugoslavia and main foreign instigator of the plot in OTL.

15. Same as OTL except no pro government troops on the bridges.

16. Maček was a major proponent of signing the Tripartite Pact in OTL, if Paul had decided to resist the coup more actively he surely would have been among the staunchest supporters of the pro-Regency forces.

17. "Better the Grave than a Slave, better war than the pact" OTL saying during the successful coup.

18. Mihailović's criticism of Nedić prior to the war meant that his career was going nowhere fast as long as the possibility of war remained distant. With the Regency rounding up everyone adjacent to the coup in TTL, his defection seems likely.

June 26, 1941. Jakobstadt, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.(19)

Ach scheisse, jetzt geht es wieder los…

So many of his friends and family thought him a fool when he, a fifty-one year old man, successfully qualified as a Fallschirmjäger. Here, now, in the midst of one of the most striking examples of what the French called déjà vu, Hermann Bernhard Ramcke couldn't help but agree with them. (20) As he took cover behind a stone wall, he couldn't help but notice an old bullet hole, dull and faded by time, standing in stark contrast to the white marks made by the bullets the Soviets were showering his position with.

For a brief moment he stared at the old hole and in that moment felt his age in a new and profound way. He'd fought this battle before, twenty years ago, in the same city, against the same foes, using by and large the same weapons. Despite its name, the Russian Army of the West was comprised almost entirely of Germans, and they'd had precious little artillery back then, just like now. He'd been so young then, so sure of victory, so naïve about what was about to happen.(21)

Hopefully this will be the last time…

They'd driven the Soviets back in 1919, only for them to come storming back in 1939. That Hitler had seemingly let it happen still stung. Ramcke understood that it had been a necessary evil, the Anglo-French plutocrats needed to be driven back across the Channel, but it still hurt him nonetheless to see the achievements of 1919 rolled back. Yet if they could succeed here, perhaps it would all be worth it. Having paid the price of just over a year of Soviet oppression, Jakobstadt now stood on the verge of being liberated in perpetuity.

Another hail of bullets cascaded all around him, reminding Ramcke that a good deal of work lay between that moment and the present. Fortunately, he and the rest of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Regiment didn't have to do this on their own. They'd taken so many casualties over the past three days, he didn't know if they could. All they had to do was hold the bridge long enough for the Panzers to arrive.(22) That had been a welcome change from 1919. What he wouldn't have given to have a Panzer IV back in 1919! Better late than never he supposed.

Popping up, Ramcke squeezed the trigger and worked the bolt of his rifle with mechanical efficiency, sending an entire clip downrange and ducking down before the Soviets could respond. His men needed to keep the Soviet infantry suppressed in order for this whole plan to work. The vibrating ground alerted him to the steel behemoth's proximity. It wouldn't be long now. All they needed to do was immobilize one of the tracks with their satchel charges. After that, it would be a relatively simple, albeit expensive, process to neutralize the tank. Though some of his men were wishing for the vaunted 88's that had stopped the Chars and Matildas in France, from the looks of the armour, Ramcke doubted that even the converted AA guns would have been sufficient.(23)

Yet another point in Malta's favour

For months the men of the 7th Flieger and the 22nd Air Landing division had anticipated an assault on Malta, only to receive orders at the very last minute, diverting them to the attack on the Soviet Union. As much as all of them appreciated the opportunity to engage in what was to be the most climatic battle of the 20th century and the last great Crusade, the inevitable complaints that sprang from any operation took the form of comparisons to the sunny Mediterranean island. Besides the relative lack of armour, the weather was the most common refrain from his men. Still, Ramcke knew enough that he never seriously engaged in that kind of speculation.

Had the Fallschirmjäger tried to take Malta on their own like Göring and Student wanted, it would have been the death of all of them. With the Italian navy still crippled from the Raid on Taranto and the operations which followed, the axis would have been almost completely reliant on airpower to take the island. Even if their Ju-52s did somehow make it past the RAF, they'd have faced an island fortress with scant cover and no backup save for the odd bomber. The lucky ones would have been shipped to a POW camp in Canada…(24)

"JETZT!"

A single cry punctuated through the din, leading the nearby men of the 7th Flieger to rise and open fire as one. Private Fetzer, one of their fastest runners and an eager volunteer, surged out of his foxhole towards the Soviet tank. Despite his comrades' best efforts, the Soviet infantry were unwilling to abandon their men inside the tank and seemed willing to pay with their lives to ensure that Jakobstadt's crucial bridge over the Dvina didn't fall without a fight.(24) They'd already been given a gift in this year's late spring thaw which delayed the German attack, every day that they stalled the Wehrmacht was another day closer to the unforgiving winter which they were counting on to save them from Hitler just as it had from Napoleon.(25)

Unfortunately for Fetzer, the arcane gods of war saw fit to reward the Reds, and a bullet from one of their Moisins punched through his leg and left him writhing in agony on the ground. In that moment Ramcke knew what he must do. He may have been 52, but he knew that in that moment he could be the equal of any man present there. He would finish what he started twenty years ago here today.

With one eye on the satchel charge's slow burning fuse, Ramcke dropped his empty rifle and surged forward with a speed that surprised him. Adrenalin pumped through his veins and drove his legs with machine like efficiency. With bullets swarming around him, he covered the ground between him and Fetzer in what seemed like an instant before bending over and scooping up the satchel charge. From there it was only a few more steps, the poor boy had been so close to his goal.

One foot in front of the other, then plant, then with his hips and shoulders he threw the bag of explosives coated in grease. He barely noticed the spreading pain in his chest as he watched the charge fly through the air in a beautiful parabolic trajectory before landing squarely on one of the Soviet tank's rear wheels. Though he was unable to see the final victory of the Thousand Year Reich nor the destruction of world Jewry, as his heart took its final beats and spilled the final drops of his blood onto the Baltic soil, Ramcke took a measure of comfort in seeing the charge detonate and send the track flying through the air.(26)

KV-1.jpg

A pair of German soldiers inspect KV-1 tank Ramcke helped destroy at Jëkabpils, Latvia following the arrival of Battlegroup Krüger on June 26, 1941.​

Notes:

19. Jëkabpils, Latvia.

20. This guy.

21. Ramcke's experiences in the region are from OTL.

22. Everything I've read points to the original plans for Barbarossa featuring German paratroops taking key bridges and roads in the vicinity of the Dvina River. These plans were only abandoned after the invasion of Greece which obviously doesn't happen in TTL. In OTL the Germans were able to take one crossing at Daugavpils but failed to take the one at Jekabpils. In TTL they take both. However Student still follows his "oil drop" approach rather than concentrate due to the sheer number of objectives preventing the saner heads in the room from forcing him to concentrate his forces like he did at Crete. As a result, German paratroopers take heavy losses.

23. Soviet heavy tanks gave the Germans fits in both OTL and TTL. Satchel charges were really the only effective solution at hand most times in June and July 1941.

24. Both Student and Göring were big proponents of taking Malta in OTL. However, TTL's more effective raid on Taranto only amplifies the reasons which dissuaded them from launching an attack in OTL. In TTL there's even less Italian support on the table and the Maltese garrison is even stronger, thus Germany's airborne troops are shuttled off to the Eastern Front.

25. As you may have guessed I side with Weinberg and Blau's interpretation of the importance of the Balkan campaign of 1941 on the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. Though some of the German units in TTL's invasion are better equipped, I am convinced that the primary cause for the delay into June was the late spring thaw.

26. …and nothing of value was lost. Part of the rationale behind this POV/this update is to signal that so far Zog's been fighting the "B" team in Albania. Larger events are in motion that are going to bring some very evil, very brave, and very skilled foes to his doorstep. This is not to say that the Germans were some kind of invincible Teutonic war machine by any stretch of the imagination, but just to remind readers that, despite early successes, the war is very far from over.

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Alright, I know that was a bit different than what people usually expected, but I felt it was necessary. Next update we're back to the Mediterranean to cover developments primarily in North Africa and the Middle East.

For those of you who aren't massive WWII nerds a quick TL;DR version

1. Greece remains neutral well into 1941 despite large segments of the population leaning towards the UK. After Metaxas death, his OTL successor still takes over and negotiates an arms deal that continues the pre-war trend of tying the Greek economy to the German one in exchange for looted French Aircraft (MB-150s) and Tanks (R-35s). A similar but distinct deal also occurs between Bulgaria and Germany replacing the OTL deal that took shape prior to the invasion of Greece.

2. German intelligence is a bit more on the ball in TTL and the Yugoslav coup of March 27, 1941 is defeated by pro-Regency forces. As a result Yugoslavia joins the Tripartite pact and is not invaded in April 1941. More on this later.

3. After briefly considering an airborne assault on Malta just like they did in OTL, the Luftwaffe instead opts to send their airborne troops to participate in Operation to Barbarossa where they are employed primarily in support of Army Group North to take key passes/bridges such as the one featured in the vignette. They planned to do this in OTL before the Greek campaign as far as I can see from the documents available to me