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Page 242
Every night, the soldiers sleeping in these beds were sometimes awakened by a mysterious, chilling cold. Later, as more and more people in some occupied German towns discovered the word "euthanasia" and long lists of names on scraps of paper found on the ground, this terrifying chill sowed dark seeds in the dreams of many more.
Even today, Her Highness Elizabeth, accompanied by Colonel Andreiavich, dug up the ground beneath them.
……
"Infectious Disease No. 45"—this is the term the officers and soldiers have always used to refer to the existence of euthanasia, which exists in fragments of text. It is said by word of mouth that District 45 needed to "grant death" to so many civilians because of a terrible and malignant plague.
Upon seeing that everyone was wearing protective suits and carrying out excavation work under the watchful eyes of the princess and amidst the interplay of searchlights, the soldiers on patrol nearby had already prepared their gas masks with trepidation.
Everyone inside the hazmat suits was extremely nervous—imagine, a terrifying rumor was about to be revealed to the world right under their feet…
"Hey!" Suddenly someone felt their hoe hit something, and then a withered human hand emerged from the soil. Everyone was so frightened that they all took a step back.
"Calm down! Everyone, please calm down!" At this moment, Colonel Andreyavich ran over while shouting. He did not take any protective measures, not even a mask. "This is just an ordinary corpse. Please continue your digging."
"Ordinary?!" The soldiers angrily dug several times, peeling away the soil to reveal the still-unrotted body to everyone—they couldn't feel any muscle tissue at all; the deceased's skin was tightly wrapped around his body like a plastic film, vividly depicting the terror on the withered ribs and broken limbs.
"You're telling me? This is an 'ordinary corpse'?!"
“I’m not wrong, sir, there are countless corpses like this at your feet.” Andreyavich coughed lightly. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp of Nazi Germany.”
……
The soil was constantly being cleared away, and one dead body after another was carried to the open ground. Except for a few, none of the corpses were covered with cuts and stitches, which proved that they had become like withered rotten wood before they died—words such as "emaciated" and "skeletal" seemed so pale and powerless.
"You still dare to say that Germany in this world has never had infectious diseases, Colonel?!" everyone questioned.
"This is an infectious disease, folks, a terrorism-induced cancer called Nazi fascism." Andreyavich's calm demeanor couldn't hide the underlying turmoil. "Anyone who isn't recognized by the Nazis will contract this disease, and then you'll be brought here, where you'll experience various symptoms like endless labor and lack of food. Of course, you won't be able to leave here alive in the end."
"Who will be brought here?" Elizabeth looked around.
“Anyone not recognized in Nazi cult literature.” As he spoke, the colonel pointed to a warehouse in the distance and the blast furnace that was still burning garbage. “They might die from being shot by the guards along the way, or from extreme exhaustion, but more often they would be driven into the gas chamber to be killed after they were no longer of value to be exploited, and finally pushed into the crematorium used for cremation.”
"Among the dead were political prisoners, homosexuals, but even more were other ethnic groups they had invaded and enslaved. Poles, Jews, and captured Soviet soldiers... including my son."
"Use poison gas to kill them all in one go?!" Not only the soldiers, but even the high-ranking officers behind Elizabeth couldn't stand it anymore. However, after looking at the corpses, those faces still contorted in pain from inhaling cyanide when they died, they still believed the colonel's words with a chilling glint in their eyes.
“That…” The princess swallowed hard, rubbing the goosebumps on her wrists, and suddenly thought of Maribel, who was now being protected by former Nazi soldiers in Area 11. “You just mentioned Jews?”
“Yes, some Germans must have told you that, right?” Andreyavich wasn’t surprised. “Yes, those concentration camp guards said before they were executed that Jews were parasites in their society. Even if it’s true, do you think that’s a reason to tie an entire race to a factory assembly line and use them as targets for extermination?”
The princess looked back at the generals, who exchanged uneasy glances—yes, although they had occasionally cleaned up the slums and executed some people from Area 11 in the past few years, at least most of the time it was a real strategy of sentencing based on guilt and eliminating guerrillas.
"Allowing them to sleep was their only act of mercy." The colonel's eyes darkened. "Their beds were like morgue carts used to transport corpses, crammed into the long, narrow houses where you now live, like firewood wrapped in human skin being stuffed in, jostled and pressed against each other, enduring until the day they were pushed into the gas chambers..."
……
The excavation was halted that very day due to the compassion of the generals and high-ranking officials—they were unwilling to disturb these tormented souls any longer. Elizabeth stumbled back to her bed.
She slept fitfully for two days, constantly waking up from nightmares, while the soldiers of the expeditionary force were in an uproar.
Although the bodies of those who perished in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were reburied, images of the corpses spread rapidly throughout the entire army.
"20 people were imprisoned here. Apart from the remaining 2 who were rescued, they all died in this manner." Fear and rage spread like the Black Death among everyone who witnessed it, and many soldiers even seriously questioned the existence of this genocidal factory.
"This couldn't possibly be man-made! Look at this corpse, it's clearly drained by the disease! That Soviet colonel is lying to us, he wants to use the plague buried in the corpses to kill us all!"
Panic even briefly escalated into a small-scale outbreak of war-weariness within the army. While dealing with the rumor-mongers, the generals were also shocked to discover that these corpses had caused consequences more severe than an infectious disease. They had no choice but to order the military doctors to quickly collect some corpses for testing, and only by widely disseminating the "basically harmless" results could the situation be completely quelled.
"But to be honest," General Trosa said during her conversation with Count Hohenzollern, "if Sector 45 were to wage a gas war against us one day, it would be with the same old life-or-death intensity... We certainly wouldn't have a problem with the quantity of chemical protective suits and retaliatory agents, but the soldiers definitely wouldn't be psychologically prepared for that..."
……
Colonel Andreiavich waited for two days amidst the protests of the Imperial soldiers before Elizabeth asked him to take her out again.
They went to their second stop—north of Oranienburg, a town even smaller than the former, which the Britannian soldiers didn't even bother to use as a place to settle German civilians.
In a secluded woodland at the eastern end of the town, a clearing enclosed by barbed wire and machine gun towers, were some long houses, some even still retaining their gates—still bearing the German phrase "Arbeit macht frei," meaning "labor brings freedom."
The burial pit was quickly dug open with hoes and shovels. Inside were still withered, decaying mummies, still emaciated and gruesome, but as the excavation continued, a growing unease crept in.
"Strange, these skeletons... why are they all women?" The soldiers who were digging were increasingly astonished as they looked at the corpses with slightly narrow shoulders and slightly wide pelvises. What made them even more speechless was that next, they dug out an even smaller skeleton.
"Wait, why are there children here!"
Are underage children being locked up here? This completely quelled the soldiers' agitation, because they then unearthed the body of a woman, and even more horrifyingly, there was a fetus in her abdomen that had turned into fragments of bone!
"You still dare to say this isn't a plague?!" Elizabeth questioned her own eyes, shouting, "Do the Germans not even spare school children? And even pregnant women?!"
“Please believe me, madam, they really were slaves in the salt mines and military factories.” Andreyavich sighed. “This place is called Ravensbrück concentration camp, the only place where the Nazi fascists imprisoned only women and children. Here, all pregnant women were forced to have abortions, and as for this woman, she must have bled to death along with her child.”
"Nonsense!" Elizabeth paced back and forth a few times in agitation, unable to believe that these ghosts, who were also women, some even pregnant, had died under the same torture and cruelty as the men in Sachsenhausen.
“Wait, something’s not right…” She suddenly remembered that back in Area 11, she had argued with Suzaku and Nunnally about the Aryan Special Forces—the latter’s reason for strongly opposing the promotion of these German soldiers was precisely because of the photos of them massacring civilians in Area 11 in the Tokyo Concession.
Recalling the corpses hung under the overpasses, thinking of those dead men impaled on steel bars, unable to touch the ground. Could the Aryan Special Forces be these concentration camp guards who escaped capture by the US and the Soviet Union and infiltrated Area 11?
……
Meanwhile, the soldiers unearthed other things. Several iron buckets filled with hair were dug out of the ground, but unlike the men whose hair had been shaved before they died, the women's hair appeared to have been cut off after they were poisoned.
"What's going on?" everyone asked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Andreyavich sighed, “everyone in the concentration camps was required to strip naked under the pretext of taking a shower before being pushed into the gas chambers. Their clothes were sorted out and reused, and the gold and silver jewelry on each corpse was melted down and used to adorn these high-ranking guards.”
"Even the hair you see is the same. In the eyes of Nazi fascists, this is not hair, it is just like silk thread or cotton thread, a material for textiles... Similarly, in their eyes, the grease on a Jew's body is the same as animal fat. So, madam, do you know how soap is made?"
While everyone was shocked, several guards who had overheard these words suddenly turned around and began to kneel down and vomit.
No one knows what they went through—they were among the first to be taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and one day they happened to kick a wooden box in the dirt by the roadside.
At that time, the expeditionary force was a little short of supplies, but there was a blanket and four or five bars of soap with "RJS" written on them in the box. Overjoyed, the group immediately hid these things and used them secretly.
……
Even though they were used to the bloodshed of the battlefield, Elizabeth and the generals still felt nauseous. They had long lost the will to accuse the colonel of exaggeration. In fact, just stepping on this land filled with wronged souls made their legs go weak.
Yes, think about it. Even if the researchers who developed the portals had seen other worlds inhabited by demons, they never imagined that this seemingly peaceful land had given birth to countless beings more vicious than Satan—and that they were human beings just like them!
“The reason I insisted on inviting you here is, as you can see, because this place is very remote. In fact, before the Nazis were defeated, the German people were almost completely unaware of the existence of concentration camps until we brought them here and supervised the burial of every body. Of course, this also included hair and human oil products, which we buried as relics.”
"Therefore, you don't need to equate the officers and soldiers who are loyal to the Nazis with the Germans. As one of them, I can only do as the locals do with how you deal with the German civilians and thousands of prisoners of war you capture. But if you treat the fascists well, I'm sorry, even if we fall under the guns of the guards in the prisoner-of-war camp, we will try to rush out and bite their necks to pieces."
"Secondly, since you sympathize with the women and children who were massacred, I'd like to give you a heads-up, because it seems you're preparing to attack Czechoslovakia." The colonel coughed and pondered for a moment.
"Do you remember the man named Heydrich that I emphasized to you at the Berlin Veterans Cemetery? When you later approach Prague, there is a small village called Lidice, which has been razed to the ground, 16 kilometers to its northwest. If Soviet scouts see your soldiers visiting there with flowers, I believe they will not order them to open fire."
Chapter 332, Section 425: German Past (Part 2)
The news of the excavation of the sites of two German concentration camps inevitably spread quickly, even if the higher authorities intended to control it.
The photographs, videos, and written records of oral accounts were like a flaming cotton ball falling into the alcohol that the Expeditionary Force had spilled all over Berlin—difficult to extinguish.
Not only Elizabeth herself, but also her generals lost their enthusiasm for exploring German history for a while.
As the old saying goes, a nation or country without a bunch of mentally ill people would probably be living in a utopia long ago. The soldiers stationed around Berlin and the immigrants living in the city, perhaps out of panic, or perhaps because they were just looking for trouble, started spreading rumors like rebels running rampant in Area 11.
"Her Highness Elizabeth hasn't shown up since returning from the excavation site. What else could be the reason? The 'Infectious Disease No. 45' is out of control now. We need to find a way to break through the blockade and get back to Area 11!"
"It's all fake! My sister's son's subordinates are the infantrymen stationed there. He saw with his own eyes the moment those bodies were dug out. Everyone collapsed as if they had been poisoned, even those wearing gas masks! The officers and soldiers who participated in the excavation all fell ill or even died. The bodies were hauled out truckload after truckload!"
"I'll let you in on a secret: yesterday a military officer came to our family and gave us a lot of money as hush money!"
Who would have thought that the expeditionary force, which once faced the multinational attack from District 45 without hesitation, would today be plagued by rumors of internal strife and panic?
This was probably the first time the expeditionary force had been so ruthless towards its own civilians. Unable to bear it any longer, Elizabeth picked up the microphone that had been gathering dust for months and launched a broadcast address throughout the occupied territories. She ordered all officers and soldiers to be executed on the spot for spreading rumors about the concentration camps, regardless of their identity. Even the Marquis of Louis-Saëns, who had Schneizel as his backer, lost his nephew for not being able to control his tongue.
The princess personally informed everyone, and the army's iron-fisted intervention finally calmed these people down. These people, who had gradually become more like "family" than the people of District 45 since they stepped into District 45.
However, after the storm of the deadly infectious disease subsided, the clarified reality gave Elizabeth a major headache. With the confirmation of the genocide factory, the German civilians confined to villages and towns outside Berlin naturally became targets of verbal abuse from their own soldiers, and the number of incidents of beating German civilians began to steadily increase.
This includes ordinary people who had just moved from Area 11 and had just witnessed how well the Germans were doing in the Tokyo concessions, but now they see such a horrific tragedy in their hometown.
The only good news was that, thanks to the portal, news of the concentration camps wouldn't reach Area 11 for the time being. The resulting media frenzy was keeping Elizabeth up at night; if this mess reached Suzaku or even the Imperial Capital, the entire colonization plan would be ruined.
The generals naturally understood the princess's predicament, and in their tireless efforts day and night, they came up with an idea and immediately approached her to offer their advice.
"Your Highness, the public's aversion to Germans stems from fear, even terror, of their atrocities like concentration camps. They worry that Germans are inherently a bloodthirsty, cold-blooded, and ruthless demonic race, and the public certainly doesn't want to coexist with such a being. In that case, why don't we delve deeper into Germany's more distant history and establish a broader perspective on this nation? What do you think?"
This statement makes perfect sense. After all, the Germans who "guided" the way and the books from District 45 have made it clear that Berlin landmarks such as the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, and even the Invalides, were not created by that swastika flag. Before that, the German flag on the flagpole was a horizontal stripe of red, white and black or red, yellow and black, and you could even see a black eagle.
Then let's race against the collapse of public opinion. While ordering people to collect and compile German history, Elizabeth also summoned her guide and Colonel Andrejavik to explore places outside Berlin.
……
"Since your world includes Germany, Britain, and Europe, does it also include Napoleon?"
"Napoleon?" The name immediately caught Elizabeth's attention.
[Note 022: The following is the author's own deduction based on the timeline of the original CG provided by the official source material. The details do not completely match the original work.]
About 200 years ago, France, under the French Revolution, led a European alliance of countries that opposed feudal aristocratic monarchy and fought under the banner of liberation and freedom. This was the initial form of the EU – the Union of European Republics.
Napoleon Bonaparte was the Consul of the French Republic. At that time, Britannia was focused on developing the Americas, while the Mediterranean and even the whole of Africa were under the control of other European countries. Soon, in the Battle of Trafalgar, the French army quickly defeated the British army, which still retained the monarchy, and landed on the British Isles.
Napoleon became a hero for a time, hailed as the one who had eradicated the feudal aristocracy, but his reign was short-lived. In reality, many countries opposed the alliance, primarily in Eastern Europe, with Russia, in particular, significantly impacting the French Revolution. Napoleon then launched a ruthless eastward expedition, attempting to suppress all voices of opposition to France.
However, the truth of a vague historical period has been slow to be settled. In short, before the wheels of history reached 1830, the expedition failed and Napoleon's life soon came to an end.
Even the cause of his death remains shrouded in mystery. Some say that assassins sent by remnants of the Britannian army poisoned him on his return journey, while others record that he was sent to the guillotine by the people because he seemed to harbor ambitions of becoming emperor and restoring the monarchy.
Today, Napoleon is widely condemned in the world – the resurgent Britannian Empire sees him as the enemy who destroyed its former nation, and the people of the EU also portray him as a tyrant.
……
"Hmm? First of all, when did Napoleon cross the English Channel?" Listening to the stories told by the imperial officials, not to mention the German civilians, even Colonel Andreevich, who was born on the eve of World War I, couldn't stand it anymore.
"I know that the British here certainly didn't lose Trafalgar, so Napoleon must have been an unknown figure, right?"
The generals' words left everyone speechless, both amused and exasperated.
"In that case, we'll accompany you to Leipzig."
The group arrived at the city, which had been reduced to ruins last year, and came to a huge "beacon tower" standing in front of a square pool in the southeast of the city.
Covered in reliefs and angel statues, standing on a massive stepped base, this nearly 100-meter-high structure—the Leipzig Battle Memorial—records the history of the anti-French coalition's defeat of the First French Empire in one of the most brutal battles of the war.
Ironically, when the swastika flag began to fly, this place became the venue for the Führer's numerous speeches to incite the people. And when the monument, now an air-raid shelter, reached the end of the World War, 300 members of the Volkssturm and the fanatics of the Hitler Youth Division finally raised their hands under precise artillery fire, their backs to the ravaged walls and the city's last stand.
"No one could have stopped Napoleon by himself except the Strait and the old man of the cold." The German civilians led Elizabeth and the generals to the monument and told them the story.
"Once, the cheers of the people were the warhorses of France, the passionate arms of the youth were the sharp blades of France, and Napoleon was France itself, the France that once ruled over most of Europe, a force that made the whole world tremble."
"At that time, there was no unified Germany, but we had already linked the fate of the German nation together. We stood on the same front as the Russians, the British, and the Austrians. In Leipzig, our unity brought about the collapse of Napoleon's invincible myth, and it was because of this that we were able to achieve a unified Germany later on."
"So that means that although Napoleon was here and didn't make it to the British Isles, he was still a formidable general who could lead his army to sweep across Europe?" The generals behind Elizabeth looked at each other, somewhat expecting the result, but still somewhat surprised.
"However, is it really appropriate to constantly talk about one's own nation while praising Napoleon like this?" the princess questioned at this point, but it was clearly just a way to start a discussion.
"Later, our world intensified its conflicts, and a great war broke out between Germany and Britain, France, and Russia." An older man among the civilians did not directly answer Elizabeth's question, "Young people from all over the country who were loyal to their country rushed to the battlefield, regardless of their faith or ethnicity, including those Jews and Poles that you recently dug out of the concentration camps."
"That's what I wanted to say, Your Excellency. In fact, although we have lived under the slogan of anti-Semitism for more than 10 years, buried deep in our memories, we still remember the time we spent in the trenches, living together with people of different nationalities."
"Similarly, regarding your question: Although Napoleon was an enemy of our ancestors, he was indeed a brave and skilled warrior, not just a bloodthirsty butcher. He deserves the world's respect, and we have not forgotten the German hero Marshal Blücher who defeated him. As a noble and tolerant nation, why should we be so stingy with our praise?"
……
“Hmm, noble, tolerant…” Elizabeth nodded hesitantly. At that moment, an investigation report from District 11 was delivered to her.
"More than 90% of German civilians did not know that concentration camps were extermination factories before Germany's defeat. Although a small number of them were completely unaware of the concentration camps, most simply thought that they were similar to prisons."
The concentration camps were approved by their leader, and the unexpected reaction they showed when they discovered the dead in the camps must have confirmed that the swastika flag had lost its luster in their hearts.
After hesitating for a moment, the princess ordered someone to hand Andreavich a map of Europe and a pen.
The colonel understood this as well. After searching the map, he drew several red circles around several cities and towns:
Buchenwald, 15 kilometers east of Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany.
Dachau, 17 kilometers northwest of Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
Mauthausen, 18 kilometers southeast of Linz, Upper Austria.
Majdanek, 4 km southeast of Lublin city, Lublin Province, Poland.
Auschwitz, 52 kilometers west of Krakow, Krakow Province, Poland.
……
During this period, Madam Zeppelin was nowhere to be seen among the tourists. She remained imprisoned in a Berlin jail, awaiting her verdict.
Today, as Elizabeth's captain of the guard, Grafria entered with the former's authorization.