Prologue
“Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second: surrender. Admittedly, there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the spectre our well-meaning liberals refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum, and what then?”
Ronald Reagan
“There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.”
Woodrow Wilson
PROLOGUE
Stalingrad, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
December 1942
Disaster and tragedy are often the results of the most passionate intentions. This was the case for a band of thirty-four savaged Russian farmers who savagely fought for their ardent beliefs in the blackest days of the Battle of Stalingrad. It was during the brutal winter of 1942 when the depths of the German Army, the Wehrmacht, advanced in the stalled campaign of Operation Barbarossa. Ambitiously designed, Barbarossa was an ultimate failure and lends itself to grand debate among the annals of military strategy as arguably the worst tactical loss ever suffered in combat. It is often considered blasphemous to prudent military leaders and strategists that such a daunting campaign was undertaken against an enemy of formidable numbers mere months before the long and hard Russian winter.
Success in conquering European Russia could only have happened for Nazi Germany if swift victory had been achieved. At the time, this made perfect sense to the Nazi general staff whose forces had executed viciously brilliant maneuvers throughout Europe, conquering and purging the unprepared enemies of the Third Reich. However, the Blitzkrieg strategy would never be victorious in Russia, for the Russians have historically been a hardened people not easily defeated in the defense of their nation. A spirit, however misguided it can be, cannot be discouraged by large numbers and evil acts. Such became the maxim of the galvanized Russian people toward the Nazi invasion armies as the Great Patriotic War commenced. The young Soviet Union was tasked by fate to repel the Germans as the Russian Empire of Tsar Alexander I was challenged by Napoleon in 1812. However, the strife of these belligerents raging to conclusion in 1945 became one of the darkest chapters in the deadliest, most destructive conflict in the history of human endeavor. Hatred would not cease from this point, but would evolve and continue to plague the world even after an estimated 20 million Russians, 6 million Jews, and an untold number of others had perished.
Nazi Germany suffered catastrophic defeats as the Second World War slugged ahead into an ill-fated future. Defeat for the Axis Powers was inevitable for a myriad of valid reasons, but in the case of the thirty-four Russian partisans, defeat came to the Wehrmacht by way of thirty-four Russian civilians who ambushed thirteen Wehrmacht soldiers on patrol in a loosely occupied area of the city of Stalingrad. The Germans were on patrol in the ravaged city streets, their guard down because they did not believe that the area they were passing through would harbor danger. They joked and carried their Maschinenpistole .28 submachine guns in an untrained manner, walking at a recklessly unwary pace.
Embedded in piles of rubble on both sides of the street lay the Russian fighters, poised for their attack. The war had so abruptly disturbed their lives, and now they lay in wait, not unlike a wounded animal ready to pounce with reckless abandon. Those who believed in God praised Him and thanked Him for such an opportunity. The rest regarded their Party beliefs and marveled at the chance to fight for the Rodina, for Mother Russia. Each member of the band was nearly dumbfounded at their good fortune.
“How could the Germans be so stupid?” one asked. “These surely are not the demons that have raided the Motherland.”
The eldest of the group, a seventy-six year old man turned to the younger man and leered, brimming with hate toward the German scum. That hate renewed a sense of pride that he had not felt since he fought side-by-side with Vladimir Lenin in the Red Guard of the Russian Revolution. He had taken part in the birth of the Soviet Union with his personal contribution of courageous carnage for the first Red Army during the fateful Krasny Oktabyr, Red October of 1917. He had no reservations about giving his life for his cause.
“We must set aside our petty judgments. These vermin are nothing but lambs for the slaughter.” The elder fighter then turned to regard his eight-year old grandson.
“Anatoly, mine dragotstennyy,” my precious, “look upon our prey and be ready. Now you shall see how we fought under Lenin against the Whites.”
Anatoly Gregurovich Kostin looked up to his grandfather. He was old and gaunt, but his grandfather was one of the first to receive the grand award of Hero of the Soviet Union for his valiant savagery in the Russian Civil War. He had led men in ambush attacks such as this before and had killed with brutal intent for the Bolshevik Party.
Eight-year-old Anatoly was fortunate to have been born into his particular family. Loyalty to his grandfather had saved him and his mother from Stalin’s purge of treason suspects, though his father did not approve of Anatoly listening with glee to his grandfather’s stories of war. This disagreement in upbringing had sealed his father’s fate. He was shot without remorse by an execution squad sent by Stalin himself at his grandfather’s bidding. Anatoly was of course shaken by what happened to his father, but love for his grandfather and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union overshadowed his love for his condemned father. If this had not been so, the same fate would likely have awaited him sooner or later.
Little Anatoly was by far the youngest of the thirty-four fighters. Some were about seventeen years of age; most of the rest were older than fifty. Every other available male had been called to service by the Red Army when the Wehrmacht hemmorrhaged through the border. Henceforth, a heady group of the too young and too old joined to pick apart the Fascist Reich’s presence in their city. Before the war, each of these fighters had been farmers and cheap labor for the steel industry in Stalingrad factories, though what factories had not been bombed by the Wehrmacht were used by the Red Army for barracks or makeshift hospitals. The fighters were armed with crude weapons and implements; knives, hacksaws, pieces of wood, and shards of glass. Even the state symbol of the Soviet Union was present among some of these brave, deranged partisans: hammers and sickles. Little Anatoly was armed with a small knife with a blade sharpened to the capability of slicing through small tree limbs. The young Bolshevik gripped his knife with a fist of iron, as Stalin ruled the Rodina and Lenin before him.
The German soldiers were almost in a state of easygoing drifting as they strolled unwittingly into the center of the planned ambush point. The moment had come. Anatoly’s grandfather rose from his concealed position and valiantly cried out the state motto of the Soviet Union, “Workers of the world unite!” The fighters answered with the loyal response of, “URRAH!” and converged on the unsuspecting Germans.
The soldiers were completely taken aback but reverted to their training quickly. Some were able to fire their Machinenpistoles but only a few were able to hit their targets. While the older fighters battled the Germans in close-quarter combat with their hammers, sickles, and wood blocks, Anatoly swiftly slipped in and between the deadly scuttle with courage far beyond his years. He targeted the hamstrings of the German soldiers and occasionally buried his blade into the obliques of the enemy soldiers and withdrew the blade as quickly as it had trespassed on his targets’ bodies. The cries of pain pleased him; they signified clearly how he, but a youth, was serving the Rodina in drawing blood from the enemies of his country.
The battle began with brilliant employ of the element of surprise, but the tactical advantage shifted back to the Germans as they fought off the Russian civilians with long riffs of gunfire, which became shorter, precise staccato bursts. Soon there stood in the street more live Germans than Russians, until Anatoly’s grandfather was able to pull a submachine gun away from a wounded German. He finished the wounded man, and felled all but one of the remaining soldiers, who fired on the old man though he was emotionally struck by his elder enemy’s zeal.
Little Anatoly had a clear view of the scene and fell to his knees at the sight of his beloved grandfather’s death. The last German soldier did not see him. Instead of clearing the scene of other potential enemies, he feverishly checked on his comrades in the vain hope that any were still alive.
Anatoly cringed as the German slowly turned toward him. He silently took a position next to a fallen German soldier and reached for the dead man’s sidearm. The boy’s hastened heartbeat was audible as he pulled the Luger .308 pistol from the holster and raised it with a trembling hand in the last soldier’s direction. He rose to lean himself against the dead German for support and clasped the pistol with his left hand over his right on the grip of the weapon.
The German heard Anatoly position himself on his fallen comrade but did not believe what he saw. A boy, no older than one of the children he used to teach in the schoolhouses of Hamburg. Only there was something different about this boy, other than the clearly defined Luger trained on him. The German was close enough to look into Anatoly’s eyes. He peered into the young lad and saw hate in its purest form. The pieces of this morbid puzzle came to him quickly. He had killed his friends. He had killed the old man, probably family to this boy. In any other time, in any other place, this German may well have gone out of his way to help this boy with his problems. However, this was war and he was living out the will of his Fuhrer. The teacher-turned-soldier attempted to take advantage of the pause in action. He swiftly dropped to one knee and swung his rifle to the young enemy in front of him.
Anatoly hesitated no further. His first shot missed on account of the German’s agility. Anatoly slightly lowered the pistol and indulged the index finger of his right hand three more times. The German never fired and the force of Anatoly’s shots sent him backward to the dirt mottled with German and Russian blood that had now mingled in the blasted street. Anatoly slowly rose from one expired soldier and went to the other. He saw that the German was still alive, writhing in pain from the bullets that hit his left shoulder, upper abdomen, and lower thigh.
The former teacher was bleeding out and would soon die, but Anatoly could not bear one second more of the man’s agony that he had inflicted. A raw wave of rage, fear, and angst compelled the boy to utilize the pistol once more to end the suffering caused by the battle. The silence of the battle-hardened street was palpable as Anatoly walked to where his grandfather lay.
Time stood still as Anatoly sat next to his grandfather. After a while, he stood and made several unsuccessful attempts to dry his tears. He then discovered that he was the only survivor of the fight. He was unsure exactly how many German lives he had taken, but he had contributed to what would become known as a victory of the Russian people over the dreaded Wehrmacht. In time, Anatoly would become feared and respected for what he did there in Stalingrad fighting the enemy of his country and what he would do in the future.
No victorious sentiment was felt by Anatoly Gregurovich Kostin as he stood next to the body of his grandfather. He was numb. He was enraged. He was devastated…but not broken. Anatoly Kostin was now and forever forged; molded by Fate and Chance. The young fighter looked upon the scene. The redness of the blood was starkly contrasted by the hazing falling snow.
The Russian winter was going to proceed with or without more killing. Anatoly went back to his original hiding place and waited for more German soldiers to arrive in the street. Then he berated himself for not being properly armed. Was he to kill more Germans with only his knife? He went back to the battleground and picked up a Machinenpistole .28. It was too big for him to fire alone, but against the ground it would suffice, he thought. He then hid and like a patient hunter, waited with unbridled discipline for his next opportunity to avenge the deaths of his comrades while earnestly trying to check his emotional reactions to what had happened.
