The doors of the Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin were ripped open with a thunderous bang, the sound echoing through the vast hallway. Attendants and officers froze mid-step, their gazes snapping toward the entrance and the man striding through it.
His blue and gold Luftwaffe uniform commanded immediate respect.
"General Kesselring!" two officers shouted, snapping to attention and saluting.
Kesselring merely nodded, not granting them so much as a glance. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, locked onto another door at the far end of the hall.
His arm was already raised when the door suddenly opened.
Kesselring halted abruptly, his brow furrowing as he nearly collided with an officer stepping out.
"General?" the man asked, his face coming into view.
"Richthofen?" Kesselring said, momentarily surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I tried to organize aerial support for Oberst Jeager," Richthofen replied. He paused, shaking his head in restrained fury. "But these fools… I was not successful."
Kesselring nodded once, briefly patting him on the shoulder, then pushed past him and entered the room without another word.
"Who is responsible here?!" he roared, slamming his fist down onto a nearby table.
The man seated behind it recoiled instantly, eyes wide, scrambling backward in his chair.
"I am," a hesitant voice called out.
Kesselring turned slowly.
"And who are you?" he asked, stepping closer.
"I am Oberst—"
Kesselring interrupted him, placing a firm hand on the man's shoulder.
"I don't care," he whispered, leaning in.
The Oberst stared up at him in shock, fear flickering across his face as the grip on his shoulder tightened.
"Sir, I—" he tried again.
"Shush," Kesselring said softly, raising a finger to the man's lips.
He leaned closer, his hair disheveled, his eyes cold and unyielding.
"I want thirty Messerschmitt fighters over central Poland within the hour," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I will tolerate no refusal. This is an order."
For a moment, the Oberst could only stare at him in silent panic. Then he swallowed and nodded sharply.
"Yes, sir," he muttered, turning and signaling to one of the soldiers nearby. He turned back toward Kesselring once more.
"This will have consequences. You know that. General Göring—"
"General Göring?" Kesselring cut in, laughing aloud.
The sound followed him as he left the room, his laughter still echoing faintly after the door slammed shut behind him.
Only five minutes later, a squadron of Messerschmitt fighters touched down at Königsberg Military Airport. Their engines were still hot when an attendant came running toward the gathered pilots, a piece of paper clutched in his hand.
One pilot turned, helmet still under his arm, and scanned the orders quickly.
"Another mission," he shouted. "Come on, boys!"
He waved toward the fighters that had landed only moments ago.
Soon, plane after plane roared down the runway and lifted into the air, heading south. They formed a menacing formation as they disappeared into the sky.
...
Paul looked up, his breathing ragged.
Above him, dozens of Polish aircraft circled the sky, their dark silhouettes more threatening than ever before. A single drop of blood slowly forced its way through the tangled strands of his hair, tracing a thin line down his forehead.
It fell to the ground.
The impact snapped him fully awake.
Beside him lay a Panzer, half-buried beneath bricks and debris, its hull still burning, flames licking along the steel.
"You did your job well," Paul muttered, turning his back on the wreck.
He faced the soldiers running toward him through the smoke.
"Sir!" one shouted as he approached.
"Are you hurt?" another yelled, scanning Paul from head to toe.
"Of course not," Paul replied calmly, ducking as another bomb detonated nearby, the shockwave rattling the street.
A single lucky Polish pilot could never kill me, he thought.
The bomb had narrowly missed another tank, instead slamming into a residential building beside it.
Paul clenched his fist as screams poured from within the ruins.
"First, we eliminate the remnants," he suddenly shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos.
The men around him froze, then turned toward him.
Within minutes, Paul managed to regroup around twenty tanks.
Hasso jumped down from one, searching desperately for cover.
"Here!" Paul shouted.
Hasso sprinted over and crouched beside him.
"Sir," he said.
"Status?" Paul asked.
"We've lost around ten Panzer IIs and two Panzer IIIs," he replied. "Many units are scattered across the city. This is all I could gather. Reicher is advancing toward us after defeating the first defensive line."
Paul nodded once.
"This is enough," he said, his gaze locking onto a large structure in the distance.
"The train station," he continued coldly. "We take it. Now."
He glanced up at the sky once more.
If this is all you amount to, then this city will fall, he thought, watching the planes circle above, no bombs hanging beneath their hulls.
Soon the tanks began to roll again, arrogant and unstoppable, grinding across the shattered streets. They opened fire on the old train station, unleashing hell upon the Polish soldiers still inside.
The building collapsed under thunderous explosions. Walls gave way. Floors caved in. Many were buried alive. Others fled, only to run straight into German lines that had already encircled the station.
There was no mercy.
The Wehrmacht gunned down every fleeing figure, inside and outside the ruins of Gniezno's train station, turning the entire area into a slaughterhouse.
Soon, a group of officers stumbled out of the shattered building with their hands raised. Their uniforms were torn, their faces pale, their eyes unfocused.
Before anyone could react, a sudden explosion tore through the air.
Every head turned skyward.
New aircraft flooded the sky. Dozens of them. The iron cross of the Wehrmacht was clearly visible on their hulls as they plunged straight into the Polish formation.
The air battle was short and merciless.
One Polish aircraft after another was shot down with cold efficiency, spiraling out of control and crashing into the city below. Fireballs bloomed between rooftops and streets as wreckage rained down.
Not a single Messerschmitt was lost.
Paul glanced at his wristwatch. A thin crack ran through the glass, spidering outward from the impact.
"Quite useful, such a Luftwaffe," he said calmly. "If only the men who command it were even slightly sane."
He turned back to the officers. Their faces had grown even whiter.
Paul stepped forward. Dozens of soldiers followed him instinctively. Then he stopped.
His head tilted slightly to the side.
From a nearby building came a sound. Soft. Wet. Broken.
Crying.
Paul looked back at the officers. They stared at him in confusion, unable to understand his gaze, yet fully aware that something had shifted.
"If you had at least won," Paul said quietly, "their deaths might have meant something."
He raised his pistol.
"But you lost. You bombed your own city. You killed your own people. And you still lost."
He pulled the trigger.
One officer collapsed instantly, his body hitting the ground with a dull, lifeless sound.
"Death without meaning," Paul continued, already turning the pistol toward the next man, "is the worst kind of death. It desecrates the dead. It turns sacrifice into filth."
Another shot rang out.
The remaining officers broke and ran, shouting something.
"Kill them," Paul said over his shoulder.
Gunshots echoed through the ruined streets.
Rain began to fall. Slow, heavy drops struck Paul's cheek, washing away blood, ash, and grime.
Soon the rain poured down over the city of Gniezno, or what remained of it.
Inside one of those ruined buildings, a woman was still crying. She was kneeling beside a bed, a man lying on it. It was Leon. His eyes slowly opened as raindrops splashed onto his face through the destroyed roof above.
The woman looked up, her eyes wide with shock.
Leon stared at her with unfocused eyes, his vision blurred and swimming. He tried to move, pushing the blanket away from his body.
"Anna?" he asked, his voice hoarse as fragments of memory began to return.
The woman froze for a moment, then broke down again, sobbing uncontrollably.
Leon did not understand. His mind was still clouded. He rubbed his eyes until his vision slowly sharpened.
"Anna, why are you…" He stopped. "Maria? Is that you? Where is your sister?" he asked, his gaze drifting down to his left leg, tightly wrapped in bandages.
Maria did not answer. She only cried harder, burying her face in the blanket.
Leon examined the bandages more closely.
"Did Anna do this? Did she give me something? Medicine from her work?" he murmured. "I feel dizzy…"
He leaned forward and gently grabbed Maria's shoulder.
"Maria, please. Answer me," Leon said quietly, squinting at her face.
Slowly, Maria lifted her head. She brushed her blonde hair aside, revealing eyes red from tears and emptied of emotion.
"Anna…" Her voice trembled. "She went to get medicine from the kitchen..."
"From the kitchen?" Leon repeated, tilting his head as he finally registered his surroundings. He was lying in a ruin. The walls were reduced to bare brick. The ceiling was torn open, rain pouring through. The kitchen was...
"She didn't come back," Maria whispered, her voice breaking again.
For a moment, everything faded for Leon. The world spun violently as his strength left him. His body sank back into the bed, the springs creaking loudly beneath his weight.
Then, suddenly, clarity returned.
He snapped back into the present brutally, his eyes sharp, his mind clearer than it had ever been.
"AHHH!" he screamed, gripping the bed with raw fury. He forced himself upright and slammed his fists down again and again, the mattress shaking beneath the terrifying strength of his blows. Tears streamed down his face, not weak, not helpless, but burning.
"FUCK! FUCK!" he shouted, throwing himself off the bed and staggering toward where the kitchen had once been, only to collapse to the ground.
He lay there for a moment, breathing hard, staring at the ruins with boundless rage and grief twisting inside his chest.
"These Germans!" he screamed, dragging himself forward across the rubble.
Then his voice fell quiet.
His eyes fixed on something in the distance.
"They will pay."
Between broken stones and shattered bricks, in a corner not far from him, the rain struck a small piece of metal that had somehow survived the blast.
Two stripes were still visible on it, white above red.The colors of a flag. Painted on.
Raindrops slid slowly down the twisted remains of what had once been a bomb.
A fragment.
Proof.
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"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."— Friedrich Nietzsche
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