Devil’s Battalion: Himmler’s Gold

By Eric Meyer

Max Roth is imprisoned by the Germans for fighting in Spain as a soldier of the International Brigade. When World War II breaks out he is allowed out of prison, only on condition that he joins the Sonderbattalion Kurz, cut-throat, brutal SS partisan hunters.

Sent to Russia, the slaughterhouse of the Eastern Front, Reichsfuhrer Himmler commands the Sonderbattalion Kurz to hunt down and steal an occult artefact made of pure gold. The order sends Roth’s platoon behind enemy lines on a mission of grand theft and murder.

This is the first in a new and exciting series of stories that explodes the myth of the war on the Russian Front. The first in an exciting new series that mixes fact and fiction to show that while some men fought honourably and well, many others were little more than thieves and psychotic killers.

This is the reality of war at its most bloodthirsty and gruesome, a story of life, death and theft on a grand scale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swordworks Books
• Release date: Jun 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458005427

Eric Meyer

Eric A. Meyer started working on the web in late 1993. Since then, he's been a college webmaster, one of the original CSS Samurai, a standards evangelist at Netscape, the author of many books and online resources, an occasional code artist, the technical lead at Rebecca's Gift, and a cofounder of An Event Apart. He lives with his family in Cleveland.

Book preview

DEVIL'S BATTALION: HIMMLER’S GOLD

By Eric Meyer

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Swordworks

Copyright © 2011 by Eric Meyer

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

* * * * *

DEVIL'S BATTALION: HIMMLER’S GOLD

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

* * * * *

DEVIL'S BATTALION: HIMMLER’S GOLD

Chapter One

We were hurtling downhill in the dilapidated Renault TIB truck, one of the thousands of vehicles that we’d ‘confiscated’ from the French after they had surrendered their country to our rampaging Panzers almost exactly a year ago. The Renault jolted and almost overturned as the lumbering vehicle dropped into a pothole created by the recent Russian shelling. The barrage had diminished but still sporadic artillery fire was coming from an unseen battery to the east, enough to keep us alert as we drove forward. Behind us we were towing our 3.7cm PAK 36 anti-tank gun, the gun was originally designed to be horse drawn, thank God we were spared the added complication of horseflesh. The PAK 36 was an old design, dating from just after the Great War, but thankfully the General Staff issued us with new tungsten cored shells to fight the new, tougher Soviet armor. The standard armor piercing shells had proved to be worse than useless against modern tanks. The platoon was racing to link up with our battalion as they pushed forward to follow the initial Panzer thrusts that had devastated the Soviet defenses on the 22nd of June. On that day Adolf Hitler had launched his drive to crush the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. Our armor had smashed through the Russian border and our battalion was following three days behind them to mop up in the rear. Resistance had not been as hard as we’d expected, the Luftwaffe had seen to that with massive pre-emptive raids from Heinkel 111 bombers, Stuka fighter-bombers and Messerschmitt fighters that had destroyed the cream of the Red Air Force while most of it was still on the ground. As we drove through the bright morning under a crisp, clear blue sky we passed burnt out tanks, mostly Russian but some were ours. We hadn’t had it all our own way. There were bodies too, hundreds of bodies in ragged brown Soviet uniforms. Retreating armies rarely had time to bury their dead and invading armies had other priorities than attending to enemy corpses. A heavy machine gun abruptly started to fire at us from behind a destroyed building nearby, bullets whistled overhead, our driver skidded to a sharp halt and we tumbled out of the truck.

Scharfuhrer Goethe, split the men and work around to his right flank, I’ll take the rest and go to the left. Eberhard, get the MG34s into action, we’ll need a lot of covering fire, that sounds like a Maxim, it could be a bastard to take.

The Soviet Maxim 7.62mm heavy machine gun was mounted on wheels to make the heavy weapon mobile and a steel shield to protect the gun crew. I’d seen them in action in Spain, they were bastards to maneuver into position, but when they were deployed they could lay down a heavy curtain of fire that was difficult to combat without taking heavy losses. As I crouched behind the stonewall waiting for Goethe to get into position, I was reminded of my brief experiences during the Spanish Civil War.

My father, Werner Roth, was a communist and even though I’d joined Goering’s Luftwaffe as a member of the Officer Corps, proudly becoming Leutnant Max Roth, I’d never forgotten his left-wing teachings and his all-abiding hatred of the Nazis. I remembered his words.

They’re a bunch of animals, son. Brutal thugs who prey on weakness, have you seen how they continually attack our Jewish population in the streets? I’m proud of that uniform you’re wearing, the German Officer Corps is something to be proud of, but the Nazis? We all look forward to when Adolf Hitler can take his band of scum and get back into the holes they’ve climbed out of. Be proud of what you’ve achieved, but keep the Nazis at arm’s length.

I learned to fly on primitive gliders before moving on to proper aircraft, the HE59 biplane and then the more modern Junkers Ju52 three-motor monoplane. When civil war broke out in Spain in July 1936, I’d watched with only passing interest. But later that month, when Hitler started to send military aid to Franco, it became something of a crusade for me as the besieged Socialist government fought to defend itself from every Fascist sympathizer in Europe. The Republicans were broadcasting appeals for pilots to join them to fly aircraft to bring in supplies to their troops. Without a second thought I packed my bag and aided by the German socialist underground, left for Spain. There they assigned me an old British Dragon Rapide, a twin-engine biplane, which I flew with cargos of munitions to the beleaguered Republican and Communist defenders of Madrid. All good things come to an end and I was shot down behind enemy lines. It was a Nationalist Condor Legion aircraft, a Heinkel HE-51 and flown by a German. It was another biplane but not slow moving, the Heinkel was a well-armed fighter and its machine guns made short work of my lumbering, overloaded Dragon Rapide. By a stroke of luck I’d landed in a field surrounded by soldiers of the Thalmann Battalion, a German-Swiss detachment of the communist International Brigade, and I instantly offered to fight in their ranks until I could get back to my own airfield. Three months later I was still fighting for them as a platoon leader when my unit was surrounded by grinning black faces, bayonet-wielding Moroccan soldiers of Franco’s Spanish Foreign Legion. Fortunately my German accent puzzled them and the Africans assumed that I was one of their German allies, but after I was taken to headquarters they realized their mistake and I was thrown into prison.

I managed to escape three days after my incarceration, a German SD officer, a member of the Sicherheitsdienst or SS Intelligence attached to the Condor Legion, came to interrogate me. He sat staring at my identity card on his desk.

Max Roth, you are a German national. Yet you fight for the Communists, why are you so stupid? You know you can be executed for treason?

That’s strange, I thought the Republicans and Communists were the elected government. Isn’t it the Nationalists and their German friends that are committing treason?

He smiled, a cold, satisfied smile, he knew he was on the winning side and since the dawn of man, ‘might is right’ had been the philosophy of our violent civilization. We had hoped that communism would change things, but now I’d never find out. I had no illusions that my ultimate fate would be death. Besides, the Communists in Spain had not endeared themselves to many of us fighting at the front. It was becoming clear that they were capable of displaying just as much ruthless brutality as the Fascists.

"The Fuhrer has ordered that rebel Germans should be shot, it seems you joined the wrong side, my friend. Then he turned his back on me for one critical second. I lifted up a chair and brought it down on his skull, leaving him