Second Dundorfian Civil War

Die Zweite Bürgerkrieg von Dundorfreich (the Second Dundorfian Civil War) began on 16 March 2365 and ended on 7 January 2368 with the withdrawal of Right-wing forces from Dundorf. The conflict divided society by ideology and soon extended beyond the borders of Dundorf itself as neighboring nations intervened on behalf of the ideological self-interests.

The war lasted nearly three years and proved devastating to the Dundorfian people and economy. Infrastructure was destroyed, thousands of lives were lost and an era of general mistrust enveloped the nation. It would take nearly four decades to regain the unity of the nation.

Origin of the Conflict
The Second Dundorfian Civil War had its roots in a debate within Volkskammer, the representative body of Dundorf, between the majority Right-wing and minority Left-wing factions over intervention in the Second Kirlawan Civil War.

The Left-wing parties of the Volkskammer had been requested to give military aid to the alliance between the Free Union of Kirlawa and the Democratic Republic of Kirlawa; then engaged in the struggle against the Imperial Empire of Kirlawa for control of the divided nation. The Left-wing parties brought the issue to the Volksammer on 2 February in order to gain official governmental and military aid for the Alliance.

The Volkskammer Collapses
The Right-wing coalition Government refused to accept the measure, citing the need to stay neutral and not engage in the policing actions of another sovereign nation. One NSAP spokesmen stated the Right-wing position:

"It is not for Dundorfians to intervene in the conflicts of others ... Dundorf has not been threatened by any belligerent party; we are witnessing no great humanitarian crisis from the war zone ... [and] nor have we the strategic need to intervene as of now. But let us not forget the most paramount issue, Dundorf is a sovereign nation ... and the Kirlawan nations are equally. As far as this Government is concerned, this conflict is not a civil war, but a conflict between three sovereign nations ..."

- Ernst Orf, NSAP

The Left-wing parties disagreed. To them, the decision for non-intervention was not over sovereignty but was instead a silent form of support for the Imperial Empire of Kirlawa. The parties within the Volkskammer drew up sides but not before irreversible damage had been done.

The Left felt obligated to support the Alliance and within days (8 March)the Left-wing parties mobilized supporters to march in pro-war demonstrations and protests. A series of transportation strikes soon followed, bringing the nation to a standstill. The Government reacted with force, using the police to compel the strikers back to their jobs.

The February Crisis
Protests intensified, on 19 February. A few protests in Lutzenkamp and Bergengruber were inflitrated by SAP-D paramilitaries disguised as protesters in the hope of instigating violence and drawing more support. The government declared marshall law the following day and quickly cracked down on all protests. The Left-wing parties, led by the SAP-D, objected.

On 26 February the SAP-D, from its headquarters in Chontaloia, released a press-conference:

"The SAP-D will take violent action against the Government if marshall law is not lifted within the next 48-hours ... We invite other Left-wing parties to join us in our crusade for justice, equality and socialism."

- Hans Griess, SAP-D spokesman.

The Government refused to give in citing that it would not "be held hostage by disgruntled parties". Simultaneously, the Foreign Minister of the Rütanen Reich secretly offered aid to the Government in the case of a Leftist rebellion to which the Government immediately agreed.



The Government called the bluff of the Left-wing parties and for two tenuous weeks the nation sat at a standstill as news agencies from all over the world scrambled for every piece of information and speculated as to the outcome of the crisis.

Just as the crisis seemed to be winding down, the Government took a desperate gamble. On 15 March, with the permission of the Dundorfian Government, 31,000 Rütanen troops crossed the border into Chontaloia.

The Civil War
The SAP-D leadership, including Chairman Michael Volker, narrowly escaped capture by advanced elements of Rütanen troops and crossed into the Democratic Republic of Kirlawa. Other Left-wing and moderate parties immediately went into hiding. From his place of exile in the Democractic Republic of Kirlawa, Michael Volker and the SAP-D officialy declared war against the Government and the Rütanen Reich on 16 March. The Second Dundorfian Civil War had begun.

Nationale Volksarmee Crisis
After the official initation of hostilities the armed forces of Dundorf, the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) faced a crisis of its own. A large proportion of its personnel were Left in their ideology. Facing this conflict of interest, many refused to fight their fellow Leftists; many others simply refused to fight fellow Dundorfians.

On 18 March, the NVA General Staff released Order 132 stating:

"Any member of the Nationale Volksarmee who does not wish to fight for ideological or personal reasons may disclose their feelings in writing to their commanding officers and will subsequently be released from present duty, unarmed, without punishment or detainment upon their promise to abstain from armed conflict against the Government and State of Dundorf."



This generous order released thousands of soldiers from duty without conflict. The army began to split apart. Ground forces from Oderveld and Grozvic tended to remain loyal the Government while forces from Chontaloia and Julstoch faced the most defections. Regiments from Dunlake often tried to remain neutral or else defected en-masse. The capabilities of the NVA was greatly depleted as somewhere between a 35%-40% of its manpower was stricken inelligible for the front.

The Air Force remained generally loyal, as did the Special Forces Command.

While the army's Order 132 was a sincere jesture on the part of the armed forces, the Government felt no need to enforce such a promise when on 20 March more than 30,000 former-NVA soldiers were rounded up and imprisoned by Right-wing paramilitaries in several internment camps in lower Grozvic. These arrests were spearheaded by the Dundorfe Patriotische Streitkräfte (Dundorfian Patriotic Armed Forces), or Patrioten, the paramilitary force of the Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei (NSAP).

Despite the arrests and internments, around 8,000 former-NVA soldiers made it to Leftist lines and took up arms against the Government.

The Oderveld Offensive
With the aid of the Rütanen Expeditionary Force's (REF) 30,000-man force and Right-wing paramilitaries, the rump NVA put the first offensive of the war in action.

The General Staff plan to drive a wedge between the Left-wing rebel forces by driving through Oderveld to the Kirlawan border where the NVA would link up with the forces of the Imperial Republic of Kirlawa making their offensive to link up as well. Then the newly-linked NVA-REF-IRK army would simply need to conquer the divided Leftist forces through overwhelming strength of arms.

The offensive began at 4.30 a.m. on 25 March. With the NVA pushing north on the left and the REF running parallel on the right the attack made quick progress until the both forces had reached the suburbs of Unterschloss, only 60 kilometers from the Kirlawan border.

The Unterschloss Salient


Members of the SAP-D's Volksjager paramilitary force blocked the progress of the NVA ''3. Panzerdivision'' using mines and hasty defenses in the Unterschloss suburb of Hattingen. The ''3. Panzer'' bogged down while the rest of the NVA-REF forces enveloped the city and continued to push toward the Kirlawan border.

By 6 April Unterschloss was completely surrounded and the Volksjager units within were low on supplies and suffering terrible casualities. The offensive appeared to be working until the 2.Volksjager Regiment, made up of 5,000 NVA-veterans and deserters, counterattacked mid-morning on 12 April from bases in Kirlawa. The counterattack was preceded by a massive artillery barage, courtesy of the Democratic Republic of Kirlawa.

The counteroffensive suprised the NVA ''4. Infanterie-Division'' who had let their guard down upon reaching the border. One shellshocked NVA soldier remarked:

"The shells fell like rain. Anywhere, everywhere. The very ground shook like an earthquake must, no, worse ... [T]he fear within all of us was very great and our deaths seemed imminent ... After the bombardment hundreds of Commies sprang from the hills firing and screaming like banshees.  We fired back and killed dozens, but they just kept coming regardless of their losses."

They were pushed back after heavy fighting. The retreat of the ''4. Infanterie'' left an open route to Unterschloss for supplies and reinforcements. By 18 April nearly 3,000 Volksjager had bolstered the defense of Unterschloss, which had by this time been pushed to the last northernmost quarter of the city.



A combination of attacks against the salient by the NVA ''4. Infanterie-Division and REF "Reichswachen" Infanterie proved unsuccessful as Volksjager'' reinforcements rushed in. Meanwhile, the Leftists began a series of local counteroffensives bent on driving the NVA-REF forces from the Kirlawan border. This strategy was developed by Volksjager Generalfeldmarschall Leopold Scheintmann, a retired-NVA general with outspoken communist views. For the most part, his small offensives succeeded as supply lines opened and the Rightist forces were compelled to retreat to consolidate their overextended lines.

By 1 June both armies had stagnated and entrenched in the northern hills of Oderveld and Dunlake. The Oderveld Offensive had cost the NVA 4,561 casualties: 734 dead; 2,543 wounded; 1,284 captured or missing. The Volksjager suffered 12,043 (including nearly 2,000 of the elite 2.Volksjager Regiment): 4,985 killed; 5,421 wounded; 1,637 captured or missing. The REF suffered a totaly of 2,099 casualties of which roughly a quarter were killed.

The focus of the war would now changed from the hills of northern Oderveld to the ridges of Julstoch.

The Julstoch Offensive of the REF


With the collapse of the Oderveld Offensive the NVA-REF shifted the focus of their attack to the Kommunistische Einheitspartei Dundorf (KED) led militias in Julstoch. These forces were less trained than their Volksjager compatriots but made up for it with high morale.

The joint NVA-REF army shifted supplies and equipment to Julstoch. However, with the high casualties suffered and the lack of NVA forces the army was forced to back up the 27,000-man REF with 55,000 poorly trained and poorly equipped Dundorfe Patriotische Streitkräfte (Patrioten) paramilitaries led by NSAP officers.

On midnight on 10 June the sky lit up with tracer fire as primitive KED anti-aircraft fire plugged away at the NVA airforce's bombing sorties. More than 100 precision-guided bombs fell on pinpointed targets in less than twenty minutes. By 12:30 a.m. thousands of artillery shells and rockets fell on the remaining NBA positions.

Under the cover of a moving bombardment the REF-Patrioten offensive began. Using nightvision technologies the REF had crossed the entrenchments of the NBA and were barreling down the roads towards Lutzenkamp by 2 a.m. Several large pockets of KED forces were surrounded in the night and in the morning were forced to surrender to Patrioten units, costing the KED militias around 5,000 men.

The offensive was halted, just as the Oderveld Offensive had been, at the suburbs of a major city, in this case, Lutzenkamp. The REF decided to prevent the disaster from the previous offensive and concentrated on bypassing the city with its main forces; leaving the taking of the city to the Patrioten following behind.



However, the relatively flat land of leading to the city turned hilly and mountianous to its north. The REF began to founder on 13 June as KED resistance stiffened, bolstered by the defensive landscape. The REF continued to slog ahead regardless of mounting casualties. By 17 June the KED had been pushed to within just 6 kilometers of the Kirlawan border.

The REF wanted to prevent the bulk of the KED militia from escaping into Kirlawa, or using it to mount a counteroffensives like in Oderveld so they began to corral the KED towards the border with the Kundrati Union to the east. With this in mind, two REF infantry division attacked Hügel Haur (Haur Hill), a low mountain near the meeting of the Kirlawan-Kundtrati border.

The two sides battled viciously on the hill for four harrowing days before the KED lost possession. The KED counterattacked on 23 June with a disasterous human-wave attack by 3,500 militiamen. The REF used airstrikes and their superior firepower to all but annihilate the militiamen. No exact numbers of militiamen casualties are available but it is estimated that of the nearly 3,500 militamen roughly 3,000 were killed or wounded as only around 700 in any condition hobbled down the hill after the attack.

The REF had successfully cordoned off route to Kirlawa, effectively cutting off 12,000 KED militiamen. By the end of the summer, they were forced to surrender and were shipped to prisoner of war (POW) camps in Grozvic.

The Seige of Lutzenkamp
As the REF was cutting off the retreat of the KED in the north, the Patrioten militia was having difficulty coordinating their units and pushing into Lutzenkamp. As in Unterschloss months before, the KED militia had turned Lutzenkamp into a fortress.

Half-trained Patrioten units were finding it difficult to push into the city and finally resorted to pelting the suburbs of the city with constant airstrikes for a straight week starting on 15 June. One Patrioten commander is reported to have commented on the bombing with:

"To save Lutzenkamp, we will have to destroy her ... sometimes we must destroy the things we love to prevent them from becoming things we hate."

By 21st the NVA airforce was forced to suspend aistrikes as their aviation fuel reserves were dangerously low. This started the Patrioten push into the city. Within two days the NSAP militia had cut off the southwest quarter of the city but stopped short of advancing as casualties mounted. They were particularly disturbed by the forcing of Lutzenkamp levee battalions to engage in suicidal assaults by the KED forces in the city.



The sight of the utterly destroyed city also proved draining on Patrioten units and before long the Patrioten was content to sit and wait out the KED defenders. Many attempts were made to convince the KED to allow the civilians of the city to leave but they were refused. As a result, somewhere around 75,000 civilians in Lutzenkamp died from disease, malnutrition, and wounds.

From 28 June 2365 to 11 January 2366 the KED held out in the city before finally surrendering. Of the near 32,000 defenders only 23,000 in various conditions remained to surrender.

The Julstoch Offensive proved a success and was the highpoint of the Government campaign against the Left. It had come at a high price. Patrioten milita lost an overwhelming 9,344 of which 3,847 were killed; 3,854 wounded and 1,643 missing or captured. The REF suffered an ungodly 7,150 casualties: 1,698 killed; 5,402 wounded; 12 mission and 38 captured. The heaviest casualty for the REF was the wariness of its soldiers and public for continued intervention in Dundorf.

The KED militia suffered worse. It had started with a roster of around 68,000 men and was almost annihilated. Estimates of killed and wounded are as high as 20,000 while another 33,789 were captured by the REF or Patrioten. Only around 14,000 KED militiamen made it to friendly lines in Kirlawa.

The 2365 Fall Lull
The Left was crippled by the speed and ferocity of the Oderveld Offensive and devestatingly high casualties of the Justoch Offensive that followed. What they needed more than anything was breathing space to reorganize their forces and consolidate their positions. If the NVA-REF had been able to continue the pressure the Left may have collapsed within weeks.



The Left was saved by an unexpected source. Petroleum was runnign scarce in Dundorf as large proportions of it was confiscated by the military and the Government's reserves were exhausted. Most of the oil pipeline to Dundorf ran through Kirlawa and little petroleum was finding its way to the belligered country as the Leftists merely cut the lines.

The Government simply invested in a new pipeline through Ichrëdon but it would not be completed for months. The lack of fuel caused a halt in offenseive operations and gave the Left the break it so desperately needed.

The NVA-REF took the opportunity to strategically dig defenses along the 3,000 kilometer border with Kirlawa. At the same time, the Government began training and equipping volunteers, conscripts, and Patrioten recruits; swelling the ranks of the NVA to nearly 900,000 men (almost equalling its prewar total of 1 million) which it felt was adeqate to defeat the remaining Leftist rebels..

New organizations were also founded; a national police force, the Staatliche Schutzagentur, was created to root out Leftist fifth columns and provide auxilliary support to the NVA; along with the Nationale Sieg-Agentur (National Victory Agency) to coordinate and enforce rationing efforts throughout Government-controlled areas. For obvious reasons, these two organizations soon became the most hated elements of the Government and the cause of much dissent and grief.

Meanwhile, the Left used the time to raise troop levees and money for weapons and supplies. The disparate militias were reorganized as a unified army commanded by newly combat experienced officers farmed from within the ranks of the militias themselves. The move was by no means smooth as many units, especially self-defined "elite" Volksjager units, refused to join the newly-dubbed Vereinigte Armee des Links (United Army of the Left), or VAL.

As 2365 drew to a close, both sides had recovered sufficiently to quash any hope of a quick end to the conflit. The bloodiest year of the war was yet to come in 2366.

The Left Strikes Back