“We went into Poland and Russia behind the armies, Gudrun. We rounded up soldiers, political leaders, everyone on the hit-list... we marched them into the camps, at first, and then we killed them. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were killed - and, after they were dead, we stripped them bare; we even stole their teeth. The bodies were dumped in unmarked mass graves, which were soon wiped from the records. I watched as entire villages were given to the flames, their populations destroyed so that new German settlers could be moved eastwards. Germany East is built on a giant mass grave.”
Gudrun stared at him. She'd been told, at school, how Hitler had taken Russia as living space, but she’d never thought through the implications. What had happened to the original inhabitants? They’d been subhuman, she’d been taught; they’d deserved to be displaced...
“But it was in Warsaw that it happened,” Grandpa Frank said. “It was 1944; the Americans had invaded Japan, the Russian armies were being destroyed and we were clearing the city of Jews. I was in charge of one block... there was a Jewess living there. She was the mother of a little girl, but she was pretty. I made sure she got to remain there as long as she was my lover.”
“A Jewess,” Gudrun repeated, shocked. The pictures she’d seen of Jews had all shown misshapen figures, so dirty and filthy they could hardly pass for human. “You started an affair with a stinking Jewess?”
Her grandfather squeezed her wrist, hard. “You’ve been lied to,” he said harshly, as she winced in pain and tried to pull away. “They were human. They didn't have horns, or cloven feet, and they certainly didn't stink. You couldn't tell the difference between a Jew and a German if you met them in the streets. Tell me - how could the misshapen monsters you’re taught to recognise at school possibly pass for Germans?”
Gudrun swallowed. She’d never thought about it.
“That woman... I was her lover for nearly a year,” Grandpa Frank said. “Her child... she started to call me papa. I used to bring her little gifts as well as ration packs; I even fiddled the records so she’d be classed as a Pole, rather than a Jew. It wasn't much, but I thought it would keep them alive for longer. Maybe it did. But in the end they found out.”
He laughed harshly. “They weren’t too pleased at me sticking it in a Jewess, I can tell you,” he said, darkly. “I might have sired a child on her, you know; a half-German child. That really would have upset the Race Classification Bureau. They might even have had to class the child as something other than a Jew. But I didn’t get her pregnant. My CO told me that I had to take her to the camps myself. I had to sentence her to death to save myself. And I did, Gudrun. I bound her hands, put her in the car and drove her to the camps. All the way, the little girl was asking me where we were going, what had happened to her mother...”
“No,” Gudrun said.
“Yes,” Grandpa Frank said. “They took them both at once, of course; they added them to the next batch for extermination. I was forced to watch as they were both stripped naked and marched into the showers, accompanied by dozens of other Jewesses. And then the gas started pumping into the chamber and they started to die. The little girl kept looking at me, as if she couldn't believe what I’d done to her, until she collapsed and died. And after they were dead, we had to burn the bodies...”
He shuddered, violently. “Do you understand why I drink?”
Gudrun stared at him. She'd never imagined, not in her worst nightmares, that the state could do anything of the sort. Everything she’d been told had been curiously hygienic, as if the natives had merely disappeared after the Germans had arrived. And yet... it never occurred to her to doubt his words. They had the ring of truth and they chilled her to the bone.
She found her voice, somehow. “What happened to you?”
“Oh, they never trusted me after that,” Grandpa Frank said. “I had betrayed the Volk, you see, by making love to a Jewess. There was no hope of promotion. I took early retirement and went back to Berlin. Your grandmother was kind enough to marry me; I never told her the truth, of course, even when my nightmares drove her out of bed. We had the nastiest arguments before she fell pregnant and left her job. And then she died four years after your mother was born. I brought her up on my own. Never married again, either.”
He let go of Gudrun’s wrist. “Every time I close my eyes, I see her face,” he muttered, reaching for the bottle. “If I remain drunk all the time, it helps... I keep thinking about killing myself, but what good would that do?”
“I don’t know,” Gudrun said. It had been easy to dismiss Grandpa Frank when he’d just been a disgusting old man. Now... now she wasn't sure what to think. “But what else can you do?”
“I was taught that suicide was a mortal sin,” Grandpa Frank said. “And yet, surely what we did in the Einsatzgruppen was even worse.
“We told ourselves that they were subhuman. We told ourselves that we were strong and they were weak and the strong had rights to use the weak as they saw fit. We told ourselves that their mere existence was a threat to the Reich, that they had to be destroyed to save ourselves from certain destruction. And yet, after what I did, I can no longer believe it...”
His voice trailed off. “You wrote that leaflet,” Grandpa Frank said. “And you could possibly pass for a BDM girl if you wore your uniform and kept your eyes downcast.”
“I did,” Gudrun confirmed. There was no point in trying to deny it. “Grandpa...”
“The state isn't going to let you get away with it,” Grandpa Frank hissed. “They’ve buried so many would-be reformers over the years. Don’t ever underestimate how far they’re prepared to go to root out all opposition to their rule. But don’t stop. Don’t let them get away with it.”
He leaned back in his bed. “I told myself there was nothing I could do,” he whispered, as he closed his eyes. “And at the time, maybe I was right.”
Gudrun waited, her heart pounding in her chest, but he said nothing else. She checked his breathing - for a moment, she thought he’d finally let go of life and surrendered to death - and then relaxed as she realised it was stable. Rising to her feet, she walked out the door and headed down to her room. Suddenly, the threat of her father’s anger seemed unimportant, compared to what she’d been told. She felt sick to even consider her grandfather having an affair with anyone...
But he wasn't an old man at the time, she told herself, as she closed the door behind her - there was no point in locking it - and sat down on the bed. He wouldn't have been much older than Kurt.
Her thoughts were so jumbled up that it was a relief when she heard someone tapping at the door. She braced herself, grimly prepared to take whatever punishment her father decided to mete out, then blinked in surprise as Kurt opened the door and stepped into the room. He was holding the leaflet in one hand.
“You may as well read it,” he said, as he closed the door. “I managed to talk father out of beating you, but it would probably be better if you didn't show your face until tomorrow.”
Gudrun swallowed. “Thank you,” she said, as she took the leaflet. It was identical to the leaflets she’d handed out only a few hours ago. “What did you say to him?”
“Told him you’d jump to the worst possible conclusion, because that’s what girls do,” Kurt said. He ignored the rude gesture she aimed at him. “And that you probably thought Konrad was mentioned by name.”
He lowered his voice. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Gudrun.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. She looked up at him. “Are you going to betray me?”
“How could I without revealing that I sneaked into the hospital beside you?” Kurt asked, dryly. “You couldn't have done it without me.”
That was true, Gudrun knew. But betraying the person who’d helped write and distribute the leaflets would probably have won him forgiveness. He wasn't a student, after all; he was a Berlin Guardsman who was probably bound for South Africa soon...
“Thank you,” she said, instead. “I’m not going to stop.�
��
“I know,” Kurt said. “You’re as stubborn as father.”
“And if I wasn't a girl, he’d have something to be proud of,” Gudrun snarled.
“He’s had a bad day,” Kurt reminded her. “The girls he had to round up would have been very like you - some of them might only be a year or two younger. He didn't join the police for that.”
Gudrun shrugged as her brother patted her on the shoulder and rose, heading for the door. As far as she could tell, the Order Police were intended to push people around. Why else would anyone join up?
“Get some rest,” Kurt advised. “You have to go back to university tomorrow.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. “Thank you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Reichstag, Berlin
28 July 1985
It was not, Hans Krueger decided, going to be a particularly pleasant meeting.
He’d been expecting a vote on the deployment of additional troops to South Africa - his sources had told him that the SS was trying to strike a deal with the military - and had been preparing for a long argument when the news about the protest leaflets reached the Ministry of Finance, followed by an urgent demand for an immediate meeting. He’d obtained one of the leaflets from the security office, read it while walking to the Reichstag and made his way up to the central meeting room. The others had already arrived and were seated around the table.
“This is a crisis,” Karl Holliston said. The Reichsführer-SS had one of the leaflets unfolded in front of him and was glowering down at it. “Someone spread seditious propaganda in Berlin itself and escaped!”
Hans took a seat, forcing himself to remain calm. The SS - and the other security forces - would be embarrassed, if not humiliated, by the whole affair. He didn't blame them. It was physically impossible for them to patrol the entire Reich, let alone maintain a level of omnipresence second only to God’s. Their control rested on fear, rested on the population believing that they might be under surveillance at any moment, that anything they said might be recorded and used in evidence against them at a later date. To have someone - or a small group of traitors - pull off such a coup in the centre of Berlin would call their capabilities into doubt.
“Let us not turn this molehill into a mountain,” he said, as he dropped his own copy of the leaflet on the table. “Annoying as this is, it is a very minor issue.”
“Any defiance of the Reich is a major issue,” Holliston snapped. “By now, copies of this damnable tissue of lies are spreading through the city!”
Hans frowned. “They are?”
“Yes,” Holliston said. “Apparently, a number of copies were dropped into letterboxes all over Berlin. We’ve had at least a dozen handed in to the local police. This is not an isolated act of protest, but a calculated strike against the authority of the Reich!”
“So we track down the people responsible and eliminate them,” Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen said. “That should not be too difficult.”
“It may not be that easy,” Hans said. He hadn't had long to think about the implications, but he was a veteran of countless political wars. “We need to treat this very carefully.”
“We need to stamp on these traitors as hard as we can,” Holliston insisted.
“It isn't that simple,” Hans said. “How many leaflets were not handed in to the police?”
He pressed on before anyone could try to answer an unanswerable question. “This leaflet urges people to ask questions about other soldiers who have dropped out of contact, neither writing to their families nor returning home on leave,” he said. “How many civilians in Berlin have relatives in South Africa, relatives who have seemingly vanished because we have not told their families about their conditions? It will not be long before people start putting together the full story.”
“They are not encouraged to ask questions,” Holliston said.
Hans gave him a sharp look. “You plan to keep two mothers from talking about their children? Or two housewives from worrying about their husbands? Right now, I imagine, word is spreading, no matter what we do about it. There is no way we can deny everything and expect to be believed.”
“Radio Berlin can tell the Reich that the leaflets are talking nonsense,” Holliston insisted.
“But they’re not talking nonsense,” Hans snapped back. “And the population will know they’re not talking nonsense.”
“Then we tell the population that the soldiers died in a good cause,” Holliston said. “We shift our policy to honouring the dead and tending to the wounded!”
“That would add credence to the leaflet’s claims,” Field Marshal Gunter Voss said. “It would also make it look like we were allowing these... these rebels to dictate our actions.”
Holliston scowled at him, angrily. “And they also want free elections to the Reichstag,” he said. “Are we going to tamely surrender power?”
“We could give them what they want,” Hans pointed out. “The Reichstag hasn't had any real power since 1944.”
“The Nazi Party has governed this country since 1931,” Holliston said. “In fifty-four years, we have risen to a position of global dominance our forefathers couldn't possibly have imagined. Our armies are the strongest in the world; our settlers are turning the wastelands of Russia and the Middle East into new civilisations. There is no reason to give power to a bunch of whining civilians who have done nothing to earn it.”
Hans frowned, inwardly. There was a certain degree of social mobility in the Reich, either through the military, the SS or the Nazi Party bureaucracy. He’d started out as a young bureaucrat, after all, and Holliston - to give the devil his due - had been a brave stormtrooper who’d seen genuine action. But the odds of anyone reaching the Reich Council were staggeringly low and, by the time they actually reached high office, they would be so thoroughly ingrained with the ideals of their particular branch that they’d have trouble seeing anyone else’s point of view. There were far too many bureaucrats, after all, who couldn't understand why small businesses were complaining about the tax burden.
“I think we have to admit,” he said slowly, “that everything has just changed.”
He tapped the leaflet with one finger. “We have been using trickery to hide the fact that the death rate in South Africa is alarmingly high - and that isn't the only thing we've been trying to hide. The state of our economy...”
“To hell with the economy,” Holliston thundered.
“That’s precisely where it’s going,” Hans said, mildly. “We have been robbing Peter to pay Paul for the last decade, using the loot from our conquests and our captive markets to paper over the cracks in the system. Now, we are running out of time; now, people are going to be asking questions; now, our reaction to those questions will only give the charges against us” - he tapped the leaflet again - “more credence. You know as well as I do that people talk, that word is going to spread through the Reich...”
He forced himself to calm down with an effort. “And you ordered the BDM girls to be corralled in the square,” he added. “Just how many mothers do you think you panicked when they heard that their little girls were under arrest?”
“Those girls were helping to spread these damnable leaflets,” Holliston said.
“There isn't a shred of evidence that the official BDM girls were doing anything other than handing out the standard propaganda leaflets,” Hans said. That might have been a lucky break; he’d long suspected that no one actually bothered to read the leaflets, no matter what they might have been told at school. “They’re not Jews, Karl. You can't arrest - even for a couple of hours - fifty-seven schoolgirls and expect no one to comment on it.”
“I suggest,” Voss said, “that we focus on the issue at hand. Do we have any leads at all?”
“We’re working on it,” Holliston said. “There have been some... clashes between the different organisations involved in securing Berlin. The SS should take the lead, but the Gestapo and the Order Police think differently. I propose
that the SS should formally take command of the counter-rebel operation.”
Hans frowned. The SS had lost control of the Order Police in the fifties, after Himmler had overreached himself. No one outside the SS - and quite a few factions within the SS - had been keen to see Himmler in sole control of the security services. And he wasn't blind to the implications of handing Karl Holliston so much power. He’d take what he could and then make it permanent, perhaps even using it to boost himself into supreme power. Had he even started handing out the leaflets in the first place? Hans wouldn't have put the thought past him.
And he may think I started it, he thought, morbidly. But neither of us really wants to undermine the Reich itself.
“We can discuss that later,” he said. “What do we know?”
“The leaflets were distributed by at least three girls, all wearing BDM uniforms,” Holliston said. “Only a couple of the witnesses were paying close attention; one reported a girl with long dark hair, another insisted he’d seen a blonde with a very large chest.”
Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) Page 16
