One day, the phone rang in my house. When I went to the landline phone, of which there aren't many left these days, and answered, I heard a familiar voice: "Please be attentive."
-- Hello, Strange. Long time no see or hear from you.
“Oh, Phantom! How many years, how many winters?” I said happily and leaned against the nearest wall.
-- Yes, quite a while ago. But more about that later. I got my hands on a very interesting document. My team checked its authenticity.
“How much?” I asked with interest.
-- Ninety-seven percent. We'll drop three percent because it happened in the last century, and in the century of total censorship.
-- This is already an excellent result! What are you asking for the information?
“Hmm,” my old friend said thoughtfully. “This time at the old rate, but with a five percent premium.”
-- You're not stupid.
-- Well, listen, these are troubled times. The West is already planning some kind of total planetary military purge. We need to stock up on everything we need.
“That’s true. Okay, I agree,” I said, and immediately made a money transfer of the requested amount to my friend.
“Thank you! The documents are already waiting for you at the door,” he said and, without saying goodbye, hung up.
All I had to do was walk to the front door of my modest apartment and open the door. Indeed, my friend hadn't lied: a folder with documents bound with an elastic band was already waiting for me on the threshold. Knowing Phantom and his talent for finding such interesting things, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this document.
What I read shocked me. Thank God, the Great Patriotic War ended long ago, and many of its secrets still remain buried under a layer of earth and a certain number of corpses of both ours and Theirs, enemy soldiers. But I still want to tell you one such secret today. Just so that each of us remembers and does not forget what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers gave their lives for, and what our ancestors paid a huge price against.
Before I begin to reveal this secret to you, which the NKVD tried so hard to hide, I will have to give you a little historical background. Those who wish can skip this video to the main story.
But! I warn you that if you do this, you will miss important context, that is, the basis for why everything turned out the way it did.
The fact is that in Nazi Germany there was a special SS department that dealt with occult research, historical and ethnographic expeditions and the "Aryan heritage". It was called Ahnenerbe. It was founded in 1935 on the initiative of Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Wirth and Richard Walther Darré.
The name itself can be translated from German as "Heritage of the Ancestors". Officially it had the status of a scientific institute. But it was engaged in pseudoscientific research, including:
● search for evidence of the "Aryan" origin of the German people;
● expeditions to Tibet, the Caucasus, Scandinavia;
● research into the occult, runes, and ancient Germanic myths;
● archaeological excavations, mythologization of history.
It is known for certain that Himmler actively supervised the activities of this SS department, also encouraging the activities of the Ahnenerbe. He believed in the connection between mysticism, racial theory and the power of the Reich.
The occult activities of the SS, especially under Heinrich Himmler, took on rather dark and mystical forms. At the center of everything were the ideas of Aryan mysticism, esotericism, neo-paganism and attempts to create something like a "knightly order" within the SS. The most iconic place of this activity was the Wewelsburg castle.
During the war, the castle was converted by order of Himmler into a kind of SS headquarters. The headquarters for the ideological training of SS officers was also located there.
There were two iconic places on the castle grounds itself: the Black Sun and the Hall of the Dead. I want to focus on the latter, as the main narrative of the story concerns what was explored in this hall.
In the Hall of the Dead there was a memorial flame for the fallen SS officers, like an eternal flame.
In addition, although different sources differ in their data, they all claim that a "rebirth" ritual could have been held there, where SS officers underwent a symbolic initiation. Each of them took part in occult rituals that were intended to strengthen not only the physical, but also the spiritual component of the soldiers.
In this way, Himmler nurtured the unshakable pillars of the SS. According to his sophisticated plan, they were to carry out their duties no matter what.
The Ahnenerbe's activities were multifaceted. For example, the organization financed inhuman experiments in concentration camps (for example, in Dachau), conducted for "scientific purposes" - tests for hypothermia, survival in thin air, operations on corpses, etc.
I would also like to note, dear friends, that the Ahnenerbe often sent various expeditions. In particular to Scandinavia and occupied France. There, searches were conducted for "sacred relics", including myths about the Holy Grail, the Spear of Destiny and other artifacts that could strengthen the influence of the Third Reich during the war.
This desire was especially evident when Germany began to suffer defeat after defeat on the Eastern Front. At that time, Hitler put especially strong pressure on his subordinate Reichsführer Himmler to find something as soon as possible that could influence the outcome of the battles in favor of the Germans.
Unfortunately, Himmler succeeded.
Here and below I will provide a short reference that will briefly shed light on what exactly our Soviet soldiers had to face during the war. And after it, I will read a report of a Soviet officer whose rank was hidden for some reason.
So, at the end of 1943, deep in the forests of Belarus, a detachment of Soviet soldiers was sent on a mission not specified in any official order. According to classified intelligence, not far from the border with occupied Poland, German scientists and members of the Ahnenerbe were conducting some kind of experiments with the dead bodies of soldiers in an abandoned monastery.
At first, it was considered another occult myth, invented by German propagandists to frighten our soldiers. But soon reports came from the partisans: German patrols, killed a few days ago, were spotted again... and moving.
In order not to disperse their forces, in particular scouts who could be useful in other areas of the front, the special department of the NKVD for combating enemy propaganda and agents assembled a detachment consisting of well-trained reconnaissance fighters.
The detachment consisted of:
● Viktor Kuznetsov, machine gunner.
● Artem Makhnov, attack trooper.
● Terentiy Orlov, a stormtrooper with excellent knowledge of German.
● Nurzhan Mametov, specialist in field medicine
● Vyacheslav Kozlov, sniper.
● Maxim Kuzmenko, squad leader, author of the report.
It was this squad that was tasked not only to find out the truth of the rumors, but also to destroy the center for their dissemination. If, of course, such a center was discovered during the mission.
The army's morale continued to strengthen in heavy fighting. It was not in the command's interests for some horror stories to start to frighten the soldiers, so that they, in turn, would begin to doubt both their own actions and those of the command and officer staff.
Further, from the words of Maxim Kuzmenko: We were ordered to reconnoiter the situation near a small village, which was located not far from the Polish village of "Malye Ozerane". One of the reconnaissance squads, who reported on some incomprehensible devilry happening, was serving on the border with this village.
As far as we knew, there were no attempts to attack from the German side. Only occasionally did the artillerymen tickle each other's nerves, and that was all.
According to rumors, Germans rose from the dead. What really happened, we do not know.
That is why the squad entered the dark forest near the village at night. Each of us was camouflaged, and the squad was given a general order to maintain total radio silence.
So we moved through the forest. There was deathly silence. In a couple of places we managed to find small guard groups of Germans. We eliminated them quickly and without unnecessary noise. Fortunately, everyone in my squad was an expert in covert movement and infiltration. It was not for nothing that our squad had the call sign "Shadow".
We mined some of the corpses. This was done so that we would know if any of the enemy would suddenly come at us from behind. And although such measures were mainly characteristic of the Germans, we did not ignore them either. “In war, all means are good” - that’s what I told my subordinates. But I’ll be damned when this phrase acquired a much more terrible meaning than simply mining dead bodies.
As we moved deeper into the forest, we stopped finding patrols. The atmosphere felt gloomy, and we kept looking around because it felt like someone was constantly watching us.
The first problems came when we heard the first explosions far behind us. At first we thought the Germans had found the bodies of their patrols. But then… Then we realized that it was much worse.
There is one nuance in the tactics of mining corpses: you must always return to the place where the mining was done to clean up the tail. Which is what we did.
There were no corpses. We had definitely come to the place where the four soldiers had been killed. And there was no one there: no medics, no enemy soldiers with weapons at the ready. Only the trace of the grenade explosion indicated that my comrades and I had not imagined the explosion.
A few minutes later, we realized where the corpses had gone. They had risen from the dead. You may not believe it, of course. I still refuse to believe what we saw! The Germans, with their throats cut and bullet wounds, were slowly emerging from behind the thick foliage of the pine trees and walking towards us. Slava, our sniper, shot one of them. But the Fritz staggered slightly and continued on his way towards us.
Then we opened fire with the whole squad on the advancing enemies. Their bodies trembled from the bullets, but did not fall, as if they were living people. The living die immediately. The dead? They are already dead.
"Victor, suppressing fire!" I shouted, pointing in the direction of the creatures advancing towards us.
Kuznetsov lay on his belly and opened fire. The Degtyarev howled and the barrel was enveloped in steam. The heavy machine gun bullets had already begun to punch large holes in the bodies of the attackers.
I threw a grenade, and its explosion chopped up several creatures with shrapnel.
Do you know what was the scariest thing? They didn't make a sound. Not a scream, not a groan. Absolute silence.
One of the creatures tried to grab Nurzhan by the leg, but he stuck a bayonet into its throat and, screaming, turned around with a point-blank shot. The second one fell under the bullets of Viktor, who was covering his brother in arms.
- Retreat! We need to find cover! - I shouted. The soldiers obeyed my order and we quickly tried to retreat.
Even before we got here, I noticed a small oak house. We ran into it, trying to find shelter behind the walls. Besides, it was much easier to keep a few windows and one door under control than to stand in the open. Or so I thought.
Kozlov covered us from behind, firing short bursts, while the others one by one tumbled in. The floor rumbled underfoot, the walls exuded dampness and mold, but it was better than being in the forest among the dead.
- Maxim, I'm on the second floor, - Vyacheslav reported over the radio. - There's a view of the southern edge of the forest. It's clear for now... but, damn it, it seems like they hear something. They're standing. Waiting for something.
“They don’t go blind,” Nurzhan said, examining his leg for any damage. “They sense us. Like wolves. Like… worse. What the hell is this? Command didn’t tell us we’d have to deal with anything like this. And how do you even fight them?! You shoot at them, and they don’t even die!” Nurzhan’s voice was panicked. But it was understandable: we were all visibly nervous, trying to process what had just happened.
"Nurzhan, prepare everything you have. If someone gets hurt, there won't be time," I said. "We'll be fine. The Germans know about us. Even if these monsters are here for now, something tells me that their living colleagues are also somewhere nearby."
He nodded silently, already laying out bandages and ampoules of morphine.
Victor set up the DP by the window, checking the sectors. Artyom nervously clutched the machine gun with both hands. His eyes were glowing like a cornered animal. We were all like that.
"They're coming," Vyacheslav said quietly from above. "One by one. Without noise and at the edges. It's hard to spot, but possible. They're in no hurry."
I didn't answer and went to the door, stood next to him. Checked the ammunition and equipment. My instincts told me that the fight was expected to be harder than all the others we could have encountered before.
The house suddenly became cold. I lit the stove before the battle began, to warm up a little.
From the cracks in the logs came a smell of dampness and something... dead. Alien to us all.
“Commander...” Artyom whispered, looking out the window. “There’s someone standing there...”
I looked, and my heart stopped for a moment: in the clearing, fifty paces from the house, stood a figure. In an SS uniform, in a long cloak, with a silvered emblem unknown to me on the collar. He looked straight at us, without moving. His face was not visible - as if there was a shadow instead.
And around him - they. Dozens. Standing and waiting. Some without arms. Some with an open stomach. One - with a wooden cross pierced through the chest. Apparently, one of the villagers considered it a manifestation of evil spirits, and thus tried to stop the attack. Well, as I noticed, it had little effect.
It dawned on me: an officer was commanding them. These weren't just dead people. Not black magic, God forgive me. This was pure control. The experiment we'd been warned about.
"Commander, he raised his hand," said Terentiy, examining the clearing through binoculars. "Now he's let it go down. As if some kind of kno..."
And the next second hell began again, without giving Terenty a chance to finish.
They rushed at the house like wolves. We opened fire. Viktor poured fire on the approaches, I fired short bursts at their legs to slow them down somehow. Kozlov shot the approaching ones from above with filigree precision.
- Aim for the head! I've already taken out a couple this way, it looks like it works! - Vyacheslav shouted from above.
This news encouraged us and we began to try to shoot more accurately at the enemies approaching us. But there were too many of them.
One dead man climbed through the window - Nurzhan threw a bayonet into his chest and finished him off with a knife, right in the skull. The second one broke down the door, and Artyom, taken by surprise, emptied the entire magazine into him. We retreated deeper into the house, step by step.
- Slavka, get out! The house won't hold out for long! - I shouted.
- Okay! I see a path behind us! We can retreat through the kitchen!
I threw a smoke bomb - it screamed and enveloped the room in a gray curtain. It was a desperate measure, in the hope that it would somehow buy time. Meanwhile, the soldiers began to retreat one by one to the back door, covering each other's rears.
When I was the last one out, the cloaked figure was still standing there. He was smiling. And then a terrible picture came to me: we were surrounded.
The creatures surrounded us in a semicircle. Their eyes were dead, and there were at least twenty of them.
"What the fuck are they waiting for?" Victor couldn't help but curse as he changed another drum in the machine gun.
“It would be better to ask who they are waiting for,” a new voice was heard, in impeccable Russian. “Allow me to introduce myself, gentlemen officers. I am Obersturmführer Kurt Stahl. As I see, you have already had time to appreciate the power of my subordinates?”
- What the hell is this, Stahl? This is heresy. Inhuman heresy! - I asked him loudly. He shrugged and answered: - Inhuman heresy? Not at all. This is the power of our Third Reich. In war, all means are good, so why bury corpses when they can be used for a more direct purpose?
“You’re crazy!” I looked him straight in the eyes, even though I couldn’t see his face, hidden under the mask.
- Oh no, there is no place for madness in war, only cold calculation.
After a while, other soldiers emerged from the crowd of the dead. Living SS men, in full uniform. Confident, methodical. There were six of them.
Their machine guns did not tremble.
We raised our weapons, but someone shouted in German: "Don't talk! Don't talk! I'm afraid."
“We were ordered not to shoot, to drop our weapons and raise our hands up,” Terentiy quickly translated.
Before I could give the order, Artyom tried to shoot, but he was beaten to it. The bullet pierced his shoulder and he collapsed. That's when I realized they needed us alive. They didn't just want to take us prisoner. They needed us alive for something.
"Let's drop it," I ordered. No one resisted anymore. We were too exhausted, and some were even wounded. But deep down we wanted to know what kind of hell was coming our way.
They blindfolded us and tied our hands. They put stinking bags on our heads, tightly, without words. They led us somewhere along a rough road. I suspected that to the Monastery, which we were ordered to reconnoiter and, if possible, destroy.
The gravel crunched underfoot, someone coughed. One of the guards kept humming something old, German... without a melody, like a spell.
"I can't make out the meaning," Terentiy said to me in a low voice. He was nearby when they arrested us. "It's like a song, and also like some kind of prayer. Something about preserving one's mind after death."
I didn't feel any better after his words.
It smelled of incense and rot. We approached the monastery. After a while, the bags were torn off.
We found ourselves within the monastery walls. Torches were burning here and there, and candles were lit in some places.
Operating tables, stained with dried blood, stood everywhere, and people in doctors' coats walked among them.
Our attention was drawn to the voice of Kurt Stahl. He finally took off his mask and stood before us tall, pale, with a shaved head and sharp cheekbones.
"You were not brought here for questioning. You are witnesses. Eyewitnesses to a great event. Historians will quote your reports if any of you… survive this night." He laughed hollowly, coughing.
We remained silent.
— Do you know what can make our army truly invincible? Not numbers, not equipment. Not the fear of death.
He turned and gestured towards the opening iron gates.
- Come down. I will show you the new Wehrmacht. An army that is not afraid of bullets. Soldiers who do not get tired, do not desert, do not doubt. What is it? That's right. The dead serve longer!
We entered the iron gates and descended into the dungeon. There, too, torches were burning. The stone walls were covered with symbols that did not look Germanic. Rather, they were ancient, pagan, and very alien to anything I had ever seen in my life.
There were cages everywhere, with bodies moving in them.
— Former lively ones, like you. True, now more perfect. Without will. Without fear, without reproach. Ready to carry out any order.
Should we cover a pillbox with our bodies? They will do it. Should we eat the soldiers in the trenches? They will do that too. Should we lie under the tank tracks so that they get stuck in the guts and corpses? Ha, they will do that too. Isn't that wonderful, my friends?! - Stahl exclaimed, smiling and laughing at the same time.
He leaned towards me and whispered:
- And you, my dear friend... - he took the documents from my jacket and read my name, - so, Maxim. You will also become part of the great project. But first, let's go back upstairs.
When we returned to the main hall, a Russian soldier lay on an altar made of some black stone. His eyes were gouged out, his chest was crucified with hooks. But that wasn’t even the scariest thing: he was still breathing.
- Our army has already awakened. All you have to do is choose which side of the barricades you will be on when the offensive begins.
And Stahl smiled.
I noticed on his chest a silver pendant in the shape of an inverted "Odin", and under it a cross, not of a military type, without gilding, with the words engraved in Latin: "Mortem non timeo. Eam domo rego".
I knew a little Latin, I studied it at school when I wanted to become a military doctor. The inscription read: "I am not afraid of death. I command it."
It was clear from his voice that he was enjoying what was happening. And yet he never raised his voice to us. That was his threat. After all, his voice was soft, deep, with the slight intonation of a scientist or a doctor… someone who gives orders while watching a patient die slowly and painfully.
We were chained to stone columns. Closer to the pedestal was the operating table. Apparently it was specially installed there to create a certain sense of theatricality of everything that was happening.
After some time, the prisoner we had seen earlier was moved onto this table. He was alive, but half-delirious. Morphine, probably. Or something worse.
Three people in white coats approached the table and leaned over it. They seemed to be German doctors, their faces were hidden by black masks.
They worked in silence. They only whispered short phrases in Latin mixed with German. Their instruments glittered in the dim light of the lamps: scalpels, needles, glass cylinders filled with turbid liquids.
Officer Stahl watched from a raised platform, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes unblinking.
“Let’s begin,” he said. His voice was even, almost lulling.
The doctors began by opening the chest with the precision of jewelers. Blood flowed into a trough connected to a metal bowl with symbols. The vessels were cut, the lungs were compressed. But the heart was left.
Then one of the doctors pulled out an ampoule covered in runes. Inside was a black liquid, like oil, but with something moving in it. It was warm, judging by the steam, and it made a faint but distinct whisper.
- My friends, this is the true power of our Wehrmacht. Something that will change not only the course of the war, but of all history! The damned essence. The soul, in other words. But not just a soul... it's damned. It consists of all the basest human vices. But to a greater extent, it consists of an enormous desire to live... and some other secret ingredients. Great, isn't it?
The ampoule was injected directly into the skull. The body shuddered. The prisoner himself came to, his eyes wide open. The pupils disappeared - only the whites remained. His body arched, and the soldier himself tried to scream, but only a wet wheeze came out of his mouth.
Next they began to implant some strange plate of dark metal. The same color was inherent in the obelisk that stood near Stahl. The plate had a runic engraving, as well as the sign of the Ahnenerbe. All this was placed in the chest and secured with staples, screwed to the ribs.
After that, one of the doctors took out an iron rod with some kind of shape on the end. A brand was placed on the right forearm. A symbol resembling a combination of a swastika and the ancient Nordic sign of death.
“Finis humanitatis,” said one of the doctors.
“The end of humanity” - that’s how I translated it for myself.
And then the worst thing began.
The soldier went silent. He was dead, no doubt. Most likely his heart stopped, unable to bear the torment.
A minute passed.
Five. Maybe six.
The body suddenly inhaled. Sharply. As if someone had yanked its lungs from the inside. Then it sat up with a jerk.
The fingers creaked on the table. The soldier's spine arched. The eyes remained white, but suddenly began to glow with a dim yellow light. This was clearly not life, but something more alien.
He wasn't breathing, but he was moving. With each movement, it felt less human. More mechanical.
He didn't speak, didn't shout. He just looked into space.
Stahl walked up to him and put his palm to his forehead.
— Welcome, soldier.
He stood up abruptly, as if awaiting an order.
"Here it is. Our new army," Stahl said calmly, turning to us. "Without fear. Without memory. Without choice and regret. And soon - without borders."
Just imagine the potential of such an army! Right now they are brainless and stupid. But I plan to teach them to handle firearms, grenades, as well as aircraft and tanks. Then we won't have to sacrifice the lives of living soldiers and well-trained specialists.
Your command will have to nervously lock itself in its offices and await its inevitable fate,” Stahl said proudly.
We were silent. Someone was shaking. But not me, no. I just clenched my fists so hard that my nails painfully dug into my skin.
We had to stop it. Or die trying. Otherwise, not only was our great Soviet state under threat, but the whole world could be engulfed in a hell of the dead. This filth must not be allowed to win.
At the moment when one of Stahl's doctors decided to take Artyom for the next transformation, I just prayed to the Lord God to give me a hint on how to get out of this situation. How to save ourselves, and at the same time save the outcome of the war?
One of the SS officers approached me. He looked young, a little younger than Artem, he was about 30 years old. His eyes were grey-blue, cold, but alive. Not like Stahl's. This lit a small spark of hope in me.
"Sergeant Kuznetsov?" he asked with a slight Russian accent.
I didn't correct him then.
- Mörke. Oberleutnant. I am not an ally. But we may have a common enemy. - Stahl, - I said.
- This heretic has gone too far, discrediting the very idea of Aryan supremacy. After all, he did this - Mörke glanced at one of the dead men, the one with the cross sticking out of his belly - - well, he did this to my best friend and brother in arms. And he has a wife and a daughter waiting for him at home. What am I going to tell them? That their father became a dead man? Is that what we wanted?
We in the Ahnenerbe knew that magic was real. But we wanted to control it. He, Stahl, submitted to it. He is no longer an officer. He is a priest. A servant of death. If not God, in his opinion.
Merke looked me in the eye. Without fear, but also without sympathy. He quietly opened the lock on the ring to which my hands were tied with a key, and then handed me a small grenade and the key to the other locks.
- Create a diversion. Blow up the stone on which all these terrible rituals are performed, and from which the dark essence is extracted. And I will try to kill Stahl. You, too, try to kill everyone. As soon as I give the signal, act. Are you soldiers? Then act like soldiers, - and he went somewhere behind the column.
Meanwhile, Stahl raised his hands. His voice sounded like a bell - booming, dark, enchanting:
— Blood is our will. Death is our power. Through sacrifice a new order awakens!
It was at this moment that Mörke pulled out his pistol. “For the Empire... but not for the Hall!”
And he fired. The first shot hit one of the doctors. The second hit Stahl's right hand.
At that very second I pulled the pin and threw the grenade in the direction of the obelisk.
"For the Motherland, you bastards!" I shouted. In the confusion, I somehow opened all the locks of my comrades. They did not lose their heads and immediately knocked down the nearest SS men. They strangled some, stabbed others.
The wounded Artem threw me one of the German Mausers. That's how we broke free and were able to become part of Mörke's sabotage.
- Kill. Kill them all! - Stahl cried. The dead responded to his call and were already heading towards us, but we were already prepared for this battle, and quickly dealt with the dead. A good bullet to the head is always one dead Fritz.
We took grenades from the corpses.
- Vitya, quickly make a bundle and throw it to the obelisk. It needs to be razed to the ground! - Accepted! - he responded and hid behind one of the columns.
We spread out to cover him.
Somewhere near the pedestal next to the black obelisk, Stahl was groaning in pain. It looked like he had been wounded by shrapnel from the grenade I had thrown a while ago.
Other SS soldiers fired at us, but their fire was ineffective.
Victor finally finished the bundle, pulled the pin on one of the grenades, and threw it at the obelisk. He was always an excellent grenade thrower.
A few seconds later there was an explosion. I looked out from behind the column and saw that a huge crack had run across the obelisk.
Then I saw a huge radio on one of the fallen soldiers. This seemed to me to be our chance for both salvation and successful completion of the mission.
- Guys. We need to get to that radio that's on the right next to the operating room. See? Great. Let's take the radio and get out of here.
"What about Stahl?" asked Vyacheslav. "We can't leave him alive."
- True, we can't. But if we don't do something, no one will ever know about this new threat.
On the count of three, we run out. One, two, three! — and we ran out of cover. The guys were shooting back on the move. I kept the radio in sight, as the only possible instrument of help. Nurzhan rushed past me to the left, rolled behind a metal box, and shouted:
- I'll cover you! Quickly to the radio!
Vyacheslav, gritting his teeth, fired at the nearest fighter in a black uniform with an Ahnenerbe insignia. He fell, and we rushed past.
There were no more than ten meters left to the radio. My heart was pounding like crazy.
I jumped to the radio and turned it on. First, silence. Then a faint crackling sound, then more. I clutched the microphone and shouted:
— Headquarters! This is the "Shadow" squad. I repeat: the "Shadow" squad. We have data on the Monastery. We request fire on ourselves! I repeat, fire on ourselves, do you copy, over?!
The voice from the speaker barely made it through the noise of gunfire and the groans of wounded soldiers:
- Copy that, "Shadow". What are your coordinates?
— 52.1547° north latitude, 23.9052° east longitude.
“You have two minutes,” said the young voice of the signalman, and the connection was cut off.
"Guys, it's time to go!" I shouted.
The guys didn't respond, but I felt that they all heard me. We began to run towards the main entrance to the Monastery. There was no one to stop us.
What happened to Mörke and Stahl, I did not know. But as soon as we left the monastery and went deeper into the forest, we all heard the rumble of explosions behind us.
Nurzhan managed to take the binoculars from some Fritz and each of us in turn confirmed the work of our artillery. At least thirty shells were fired.
The monastery collapsed, something was burning inside. We stood there for a while to make sure there were no survivors. Then we went to the Belarusian border to meet our soldiers.
Thus ended our mission. I do not know whether it was successful. But I hope so. At least no one else reported dead Germans wandering around.
By the way, I then asked Terentiy Orlov what Mörke shouted in the heat of battle. He translated it as: “For the Reich... but not for hell!”
Did Stahl or Mörke survive? I have no idea. But I hope they both died. A dog's death for dogs.
Maxim Kuznetsov. The report is finished.