April 30th..1945...as gasoline was poured onto the bodies of Eva and Adolph Hitler, a final Fuehrer directive was being carried out by Martin Bormann. In a final psychotic fit of rage, Hitler had issued a final order. This final order was to release a nerve gas known as the "Tod Geist Gift". Tod Geist was a purple tinged gas that was intended for use in Stalingrad. Special Pioneer Battalions were to use the gas to clear buildings and tunnels. The gas was used only once during Operation Hubertus...with disastrous results. On November 11th, 1942...a select Pioneer Squad of 18 grenadiers were equipped with small glass balls filled with a purple tinted gas. None of the men were certain of what the gas would do, but they understood that it was lethal and could be hurled like a grenade towards a target or into a confined space.
As the men entered the machinery halls of the Barrikady, one of the grenadiers set off a Soviet mine. The blast fractured many of the glass balls carried by the pioneers. The purplish gas slowly filled the air and within several minutes, the the grenadiers transformed into raving, psychotic lunatics and began attacking anyone in sight including their fellow Germans.
As other assault troops entered the hall, they were immediately attacked by crazed grenadiers. The fresh German troops quickly opened fire and killed all of their crazed comrades. In total, 18 German pioneers had been affected by the gas and then gunned down by their comrades.
Upon hearing of the gas and subsequent disaster, von Paulus flew into a rage and ordered all stocks of the gas to be destroyed immediately. Fortunately for the Germans, the Russians never learned about the attempted use of the Tod Geist Gift.
Only after the surrender of 6th Army, did the Russians come across confidential OKW communiques which mentioned something code-named: Tod Geist. This information was turned over to a special NKVD unit, which was specifically activated by Stalin to identify secret German weapons. Known as the "Spetsial'noye sledstvennoye otdeleniye", this unit would follow behind the advancing Russians all the way to Berlin...all the while following up on every clue towards solving the mystery of the Tod Geist.
The "Spetsial'noye sledstvennoye otdeleniye" was authorized by Stalin himself to use lethal force whenever necessary to secure the Nazi weapons. They would use violence liberally against Germans and Russians alike as they relentlessly followed up every clue regarding the Tod Geist. They would not get their breakthrough until the dark days of the fighting for Berlin....and it would be their undoing....
Fast forward to June 1945. The war in Europe was over and the Cold War had begun in earnest. The Soviets were not the only ones to discover information about Tod Geist. In Allied custody, Albert Speer had informed the Allied authorities that he had personally ordered the destruction of all Nazi poison gas stocks...including something called Tod Geist. The Allies, satisfied that Speer had been successful gave the no further thought to poison gases.
...that is until the Allies noticed a specific number of NKVD in uniforms different from other NKVD roaming Berlin searching for SS and other high profile Nazis. These NKVD seemed to have a different mission...they were looking for something...
Enter Captain Daniel Pierce, of G2 Staff on special assignment. Pierce was selected to find out what the Russians were looking for...scientist, war criminal...Hitler's body...whatever it might be.
Fluent in Russian, Pierce was disguised as Military Correspondent assigned to operate in all four of Berlin's Occupied Sectors.
It was a dangerous...deadly business to operate the lawless ruins of Berlin. Pierce was aware that the NKVD was watching him as they naturally assumed the Americans were up to no good...just like themselves. In fact, the NKVD believed that Pierce may even lead them to finding the secrets of the Tod Geist. In a strange twist...both sides were following each other...the blind leading the blind...to discover a truth that would leave them all horrified...
The leader of the NKVD unit had followed all the clues related to the Tod Geist for the past three years. In those three years, his detachment had not found any physical evidence of Tod Geist. Only tantalizing references in official German communications from the Office of Albert Speer ordering the transportation and "disposal" of something called Tod Geist.
With the fall of Berlin and the end of the war, The NKVD had only one last lead to follow and Pierce would lead them to it.
Pierce would have a chance encounter with a German boy near the ruins of Anhalter Station. Pierce had not had any luck up until that point in figuring out what the NKVD were looking for or why. He was going to ask the boy for information....when he noticed bite marks on the boys arms...and they appeared to be human...Pierce tried to ask the boy had he had come to have these bite marks. The boy was afraid to speak with Pierce. And soon the boy's mother appeared.
The woman agreed to answer Pierce's questions and explained that she and her son had been in the Berlin U-Bahn when it was flooded. Like thousands of other German civilians and soldiers, they had taken refuge in the subways. As they fighting raged above them, the woman and her son huddled in the dark subway tunnels with thousands of other Berliners, and German soldiers. On their third day in the tunnels there was a loud disturbance deep in the tunnels. Finally, the sound turned to screams as people began running towards them...chased by other people who seemed to be mad with rage and attacking people all around them. In the surge of people, the woman's son was knocked to the ground. A rage maddened man viciously began attacking the boy, biting him. Somehow the boy got free and together with his mother began running towards the platform stairs that would lead to the streets above. Behind them, the screams of both monster and victim were a ghastly cacophony of terror.
The woman and her son would succeed in escaping the tunnels as Soviet soldiers surrounded the subway entrances drawn to them by the screams echoing up from below.
Pierce also realized that NKVD were watching him. He was certain that he was close to discovering what they were looking for, but he was missing a huge piece of the puzzle. The woman and her son had escaped the subways before the Nazis flooded them. He needed to understand what had caused the madness in the tunnels and why were they flooded. It was clear that the NKVD were tying to piece together the same information. And that was very troubling indeed. Pierce needed to talk to German military who were in the tunnels. Maybe they could shed some light on the subject. Only problem...they were all in the Soviet sector and under lock and key...soon to be shipped to Siberia.
Pierce would have to find a Wehrmacht survivor who was in hiding...
Pierce would reach out to his contacts at the OSS HQ near Spichernstrasse. Word was that they had several mid-level SS officers in custody...who were eager to make a deal with the Americans to escape Soviet captivity.
Several cartons of Lucky Strikes later and one of the guards allowed Pierce access to none other than SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Wahl, commander of the SS-Regiment Anhalt. Wahl was the very man responsible for flooding the subway tunnels.
Pierce was able to interrogate Wahl for about a half-hour. Wahl told him all that he knew. As Pierce listened, Wahl explained the events that led up to the subway flooding.
...Wahl had been busy coordinating local counter-attacks against the Soviet, when several of his wounded men came to him from the subways. Wahl ordered them back to safety...but they quickly informed him that some sort of rabid madness was taking hold of the people in the subways. Thousands off crazed...murderous people were flooding the subways and finding their way into the streets. The wounded had been on one of the platforms when a herd of ravenous people attacked their wounded comrades. An orgy of bloodshed and violence sent them running for their lives
Wahl's survivors escaped and informed Wahl of what was happening in the subways. Wahl immediately told SS Brigadefuehrer Mohnke. The screams were audible even at Mohnke's HQ. Mohnke needed a solution...a way to seal or cutoff the subways. He telephoned Albert Speer for assistance.
Mohnke explained what was happening in the subways in his sector. His men were already embattled with crazed people at several nearby subway entrances. Mohnke couldn't fight them and the Russians at the same time.
He needed a solution.
Speer...horrifed...explained to Mohnke that secret stocks of a poison gas known as "Tod Geist" were hidden in the subways. Speer had been systematically destroying stocks of the poison throughout the Reich and ensuring that it was never used despited Hitler's attempts to use it in Warsaw...Konigsberg...and now apparently in Berlin...where he had been successful.
Mohnke was baffled as he was completely unaware of any poison gas. Speer informed him that the gas was designed to incapacitate hard to breach bunkers and the like. It had been designed for Stalingrad, but the failed attempt had revealed to the Germans that the gas didn't incapacitate...but instead turned people in rabid monsters. This is why Speer had fought so hard to destroy the deadly nerve agent. He feared it would destroy Germany. He told Mohnke that he had to flood the subways to eliminate the gas, which became inert with contact to water. The water would also kill all those infected with the poison. Mohnke hesitated...and asked Speer if there was another way with so many civilians still in the tunnels. Speer screamed at him to hurry and flood tunnels...there are no civilians in the tunnels anymore...only monsters.
Mohnke ordered Wahl to flood the subways. The flooding killed thousands...but also stopped the monsters and eliminated the Tod Geist from the subways as well.
A monstrous crime that might just have saved the people of Berlin including the thousands of Red Army soldiers soon to conquer it. His story concluded....Wahl was hustled back to his cell and Pierce made his exit.
Pierce had led the NKVD to the truth about Tod Geist. They already knew that Wahl had flooded the tunnels and now they suspected why. Wahl had flooded the tunnels to keep the Russians from gaining the last remaining stockpiles of the Tod Geist gas. The flooded subways held the secret.
Beria received the report from Berlin. His men were close to locating the elusive Tod Geist. Beria wanted all the loose ends taken care of. The American, Pierce and the German woman would have to be eliminated before they could reveal Tod Geist to the Allies...who so far were oblivious to its existence. Only Pierce seemed to have made the connection between the gas the events in the subway.
Stalin was unhappy with the shared occupation zones in Berlin. He could not tolerate a base for Allied operations in the heart of Soviet East Germany. He needed a solution that would cause the Allies to abandon their zones. Tod Geist was the solution.
Beria's operatives must locate the Tod Geist and unleash it in the Allied Zones.
Pierce would get the German woman to safety...she would escape via the subways once again...
Pierce would lead the NKVD away from the woman, but fail to get back to the American zone. He would be cornered at the River Spree.
Pierce would be tortured to disclose what he knew about the Tod Geist...but of course he actually knew nothing regarding its whereabouts.
Pierce would be killed and the news from Berlin would simply state that an American war correspondent had been found drowned in the River Spree.
Convinced that the subway tunnels held the location of the Tod Geist...the NKVD team prepared and entered the tunnels. They vanished without a trace. In the end...they had indeed found the secret of the Tod Geist...the Death Spirit...or rather it had found them.
In the streets above...Berlin would slowly return to normal...the horror of the subway flooding forgotten as the city returned to life. The flooded subways would be impassable for months. With the entire NKVD team missing...there was no further interest in the Tod Geist...now largely considered a myth in Soviet Intelligence circles.
Pierce had done the task assigned to him and his efforts would thwart a Soviet attempt to use a German nerve agent to secure control of the divided city of Berlin.
For nearly fifty years....the tunnels would remain sealed...retaining their dark secret.
But time does not stand still...and what was so long hidden...may be found once again....
The Annual Grumble Jones Halloween Scenario
GJ100 Ubahn Untoten
will be available in October...
until then...choose your tunnels carefully...
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