Kyiv — October 1, 1941
The city didn't fall all at once. It cracked like a wall splintered from the inside. For every block liberated, another one burned. For every building secured, another exploded in a final act of defiance.
Falk, Helmut, and Ernst walked through rubble, their faces smeared with soot, their assault-camouflaged tanker uniforms stained with dried blood, ash, and dust. They weren't infantrymen—but for a few hours, they would be. Their Panzer was gone. Konrad and Lukas were out of action. Only the three of them remained. And they had a mission.
"Three targets," Falk repeated. "Parliament, the radio station, city hall. Albrecht wants flags up. Visibility. Propaganda and presence."
"Any escort?" Helmut asked, aware their sidearms and a few grenades wouldn't get them far.
"No escort. Just us."
**
The first building was easy. The old parliamentary seat was already secured by a Wehrmacht company. Falk spoke briefly with the officer in charge, showed his orders, and they climbed to the roof. Ernst unrolled the Ukrainian flag, tied it to a broken antenna, and Helmut snapped a photo with a borrowed camera.
"A picture's worth more than a division," Helmut said with a smirk.
"If they take it before you're shot," Ernst muttered.
**
The second site—the radio station—was a different story. When they arrived, it was empty… and silent. Too silent.
"Cover me," Falk ordered, pistol drawn as he moved in first.
Inside was chaos. Smashed equipment, blood on the floor. No bodies. But there was a surprise: a Soviet sniper still positioned in the belltower of a nearby church.
The first shot missed by inches.
"Down!"
They rolled for cover as bullets peppered the walls. Falk crawled to a window, spotted the flash, and returned fire with two quick shots. Ernst lobbed a fragmentation grenade that didn't kill the sniper but forced him to retreat.
Minutes later, Helmut was climbing the roof and planting the second flag, still catching his breath.
"They... didn't teach this in radio school," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
**
The last target—city hall—was already ablaze. Not from bombing, but sabotage. Falk saw civilians and retreating Soviet militiamen staggering out, some engulfed in flames. One of them, nearly blind from the smoke, fired a pistol at them before collapsing.
"Shit…" Ernst muttered as they pushed through a side stairwell.
They found one part still standing: the clock tower. They climbed quickly. There, under a brooding sky, they raised the last Ukrainian flag.
**
From the top, the view was desolate: a wounded city, still dangerous, but now in Axis hands.
"And now?" Helmut asked.
"Now we fall back," Falk said, as distant explosions echoed—"and wait for High Command to decide whether this was a victory… or just a pretty photo for the newspapers."
**
That night, the three of them slept in a makeshift crypt-turned-shelter, with the radio hissing static and the walls still trembling in the distance. None of them spoke. But in their dreams, the flags kept flying—not as symbols of glory, but as unanswered questions pinned to the rooftops of Kyiv.