Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “My brother is a sailor on the Graf Zeppelin,” Schrupp said. “He says that life on the ocean waves can be just as dangerous as life in the Heer.”

  Kurt snorted. It was an article of faith among the soldiers - and the Waffen-SS, he suspected - that the Kriegsmarine sailors did nothing more than sit in port, scrub their decks and try to look good in their fancy uniforms. And it might even be true. The sea could be rough - he’d enjoyed sailing with the Hitler Youth, once he’d managed to recover from an unexpected bout of seasickness - but it wasn't as dangerous as being shot at by insurgents.

  “But that isn't the point,” Schrupp added, after a moment. “What happens to us when we get wounded in South Africa?”

  “Good question,” Kurt said. “Why don’t you ask the CO?”

  Schrupp gave him a sardonic look. “Do you think he’d give me a straight answer?”

  He turned and headed out of the tiny office before Kurt could formulate a response. Kurt watched him go, trying to understand what Schrupp was doing. Grumbling was one thing, but doing something - anything - that could be taken as trying to prepare the ground for a mutiny was quite another. Kurt could report him right away and Schrupp’s career would come to a screeching halt, even if he avoided anything worse than the punishment units in Germany East. It was Kurt’s duty to report him. And yet, betraying Schrupp would ensure that no one ever trusted him again...

  Maybe I should just leave him to get on with it, Kurt thought.

  But the thought kept nagging at his mind. He’d be leading a platoon into combat in South Africa, with a number of men under his command, men he’d be responsible for. What would happen when one of them died while under his command? Would the dead man’s family be informed or would they just be left in limbo?

  He shuddered. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn't accompanied Gudrun to the hospital, if he’d reported her to their father as soon as she asked for his help. But he hadn't and now he had to deal with his own doubts about the Reich.

  And we’re leaving for South Africa in three months, he reminded himself. By then, something may change…

  ***

  Volker Schulze knew, from hard experience, that life could be painful. He’d joined the SS as a young man, gone through a brutal training program that killed a handful of new recruits every year and served as a front-line Waffen-SS soldier for fifteen years before retiring and going to work in a factory. He had no illusions about the world; it was a brutal place and the Third Reich needed brutal men to dominate it. Loyalty had been hammered into him from birth.

  And yet, he was angry.

  He’d known that Konrad could end up dead or wounded. He had accepted that the moment Konrad insisted on following in his father’s footsteps and applying to join the Waffen-SS; Konrad might die in training, let alone in the field. Volker had accepted that, he told himself, and yet... he’d believed that his loyalty would always be returned. The SS would have told his parents if he had died, he was sure, and they should have told him when his son was brutally wounded, permanently crippled. But they hadn't. They’d lied to him. And even his contacts within the bureaucracy hadn't been able to locate his son.

  The thought had nagged at his mind ever since he’d discovered the truth. He’d given the best years of his life to the Reich. His son, it seemed, had lost his life for the Reich... and yet, the Reich hadn’t even tried to honour his death. Konrad should have been allowed to die with dignity, his family by his side, his body laid to rest in the ground. Instead, he was trapped on life support, eternally suspended on the brink of death, his hopes and dreams smashed along with his body. And they’d lied to him.

  He mulled the feeling over as he made his way slowly into the giant factory complex, nodding to a handful of men he recognised along the way. The giant complex produced vehicles, ranging from the handful of publicly-available cars to lorries and small armoured patrol vehicles for the military. He’d been proud to work in the factory, once upon a time; it had seemed a chance to make use of his experience even though he was no longer a Waffen-SS stormtrooper. Now... now it had all turned to ashes in his mouth.

  “Volker,” the secretary said, as he entered the office. “What can I do for you?”

  Volker sighed, inwardly. The secretary had never served. He’d gone straight into the corporate sphere as soon as he’d graduated from school, instead of volunteering for active service. Volker had always disliked him, but now... now he wished Konrad had chosen to do something - anything - else to prove he was a man. At least he’d still be alive.

  “I want you to arrange a meeting of everyone who has a relative in the military,” he said. The secretary would have no trouble putting together a list, just by consulting the files. “Have them assemble in the cafeteria after the next shift.”

  The secretary frowned. “I could only ask the workers on the current shift,” he said, after a moment. “Unless you wanted to put it off for a couple of days, so that everyone could be informed.”

  “Just inform as many as you can,” Volker said. “I intend to find a way to honour our serving men.”

  He turned and strode out, confident his orders would be obeyed. The secretary wouldn't defy him on such a minor matter, even though he’d probably report the meeting to higher management. He doubted his superiors would care, as long as he wasn't pulling workers away from their duties. Besides, corporate events honouring the troops were popular and suggested the corporation cared about the fighting men.

  Not that they do, Volker thought. He still shuddered at the thought of having to ride in one of the new jeeps a corporation had produced for the soldiers. They'd been so unprotected that a lunatic with a single pistol could do real damage. All they care about is money.

  The thought was a distraction, so he turned it over and over in his mind as the whistle blew and he went to work. They’d been working longer hours recently, turning out fewer civilian cars and more military vehicles; reading between the lines, he had a private suspicion that meant that the losses in South Africa were far higher than expected. Panzers would probably make short work of the insurgents, if the insurgents were fool enough to stand and fight. The Arabs had tried that in their rebellion and it had ended very badly, for them.

  He wasn't sure how many workers would turn up for his meeting, but when he entered the cafeteria he was relieved to discover that over fifty workers had attended. Chances were that some of them had thought attendance was compulsory - the secretary had probably made it so - and weren't too keen on anything other than getting home to their wives and children, but the meeting wouldn't take long. He strode over to the jukebox, turned on a recording of one of Wagner’s longer compositions - the only music they were allowed in the factory - and turned to face his audience. Thankfully, he knew most of them personally.

  And some of them have been grumbling over the increased hours, he thought. And about how little say we have in our own affairs.

  It was a risk, he admitted privately; he could be sacked on the spot for trying to form a non-governmental union, let alone discussing what had happened to Konrad. His bosses might be pleased with his work, but they wouldn’t tolerate anything that smacked of worker power. It would threaten their grip on power...

  “I’m sorry for asking you all to attend,” he said, curtly. Liana was too young to understand what was happening, but he had discussed his plans with Gerde and she’d agreed that they had to take the risk. “There is a matter I need to discuss with you.”

  He took a breath, then pulled one of the leaflets out of his pocket and held it up. “This is true,” he said. “My son is one of the wounded. My son was shipped back home to a hospital somewhere in Germany - and they never told me what happened to him. Now, I find out through my own contacts that he will probably never recover. There is nothing I can do.”

  A low rumble of anger ran through the cafeteria. Volker might have been an SS officer, once upon a time, but he was a popular and reasonable foreman who’d gone to bat for his subordi
nates more than once. None of his workers believed he deserved to lose a son...

  “It gets worse,” Volker added, once several workers had added their own stories. “The demands on our time are likely to increase.”

  He braced himself as he took the plunge. “I think it’s time to take our fate into our own hands.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Morgenstern Residence, Berlin

  5 August 1985

  Hilde Morgenstern would never have admitted it, at least not outside the privacy of her own mind, but there were times when she envied Gudrun and many of her other girlfriends. Their mothers might be strict, their mothers might insist that dinner and house chores came before their studies, their mothers might be willing to slap their faces if they talked back or disobeyed... and yet none of them came close to Frau Morgenstern for sheer overbearing obnoxiousness, let alone a burning desire to climb the social ladder until she was the mistress of Berlin’s social scene.

  “Hilde,” her mother called. “Bring out the refreshments!”

  Hilde groaned inwardly as she picked up the plate of homemade cakes and biscuits - she’d had to turn them out herself, while the foreign-born maids cleaned the house thoroughly even though there hadn't been a speck of dust in sight - and carried them into the dining room, where her mother was holding court in front of a gaggle of middle-aged ladies who had money and time on their hands. They eyed her doubtfully as she passed the plate of cakes around, then resumed their discussion. Hilde was only marginally surprised to hear that the topic of the discussion was the leaflets.

  “I’ve located seven families who have a son who has dropped out of touch,” one middle-aged lady said. Hilde had never tried to remember their names, if only because they came and went so quickly. “My husband says that one of the foremen at his factory has also lost a son, a son who was actually sent back to Germany - and no one told him!”

  “Shocking,” Frau Morgenstern said. “And what are we going to do about it?”

  Hilde found a seat and listened as the discussion raged around the table, genteel politeness mixed with a strange kind of fear and excitement. Frau Morgenstern and her friends did everything; they baked cakes for bake sales, they organised school trips for needy children, they even collected money for wounded soldiers or war widows. Hilde had long since learned to dread the days when her mother came up with another idea for poking her overly long nose into someone’s affairs; making friends had never been easy when her mother had seen Hilde’s friendships as just another foot in the door. She would have done anything to live on campus, as Sven and the boys did. At least she’d be a long way from her mother.

  “We need to support the mothers and wives who have lost sons and husbands,” Frau Morgenstern said, finally. “But we also need to learn the truth about what’s actually happening.”

  “The leaflet says that the government is lying to us,” one of her friends pointed out. She was someone important - her husband was a big wheel in the Ministry of Finance, Hilde had been told - and wasn't particularly scared of the SS. “We need to force them to tell the truth.”

  “So we need to get thousands of women to work with us,” Frau Morgenstern said. Her eyes were glinting with inspiration. “A full-sized protest movement, just like they have in America.”

  Hilde swallowed. She had no way to know for sure what happened in America, but she did have a good idea how the SS would react to a public demonstration. The women would be greeted with clubs, whips and machine guns. And yet, would the SS dare to fire on German womenfolk when German men had been taught it was their duty to protect the women? The SS might start a riot or mutiny just by giving the order to fire.

  “We already have strong ties to the Sisters of Mercy,” Frau Morgenstern added, after a moment. “There's no reason we can't use this to attract more people to the cause.”

  And get yourself some more power, Hilde thought, cynically. You don’t give a damn about the dead or wounded soldiers, you just want to use their fates for your own purposes.

  She scowled, inwardly. Her mother thought in terms of power and influence, rather than anything more feminine. No wonder her father spent as much time as he could at the office, working for the Ministry of Industry. When his wife wasn't building her own power base, she was nagging her husband to work on his. Hilde was sure that her mother’s pestering had been what had turned her father’s hair grey before his time.

  And yet, her mother’s concept might actually work. Frau Morgenstern sat in the centre of a spider’s web of tiny organisations, each of which might provide a core of women willing to help force the government to change. She smiled at the thought of her mother nagging the Reichstag - Frau Morgenstern was a hellishly efficient nagger - and then considered the possibilities more carefully. Gudrun and the rest of their tiny group might have started the ball rolling, but it was clear that events were already moving out of control.

  Which is a good thing, isn't it? She asked herself. We have to keep our heads down for a while, so if someone else takes up the cause...

  She rose as her mother gestured to her, then hurried back into the kitchen to pick up the next tray of snacks. One of the maids was hastily pulling another cake out of the oven, her pale face marred where Frau Morgenstern had slapped her hours ago. Hilde felt a stab of pity - no one would give a damn if the maids were beaten to death - but she knew there was nothing she could do. The poor girls were Untermenschen. If they died while working in the Reich, her mother would just be able to get a couple more from the Reich Labour Commission.

  And they have to sleep in the outhouse, Hilde thought, guiltily. She’d looked into the outhouse once, when she’d been younger. It was dark, dank and smelly; the maids had to take showers before they were allowed to enter the house. Mother can’t even give them a proper bedroom.

  She picked up the tray and hurried back into the dining room. The discussion had turned into a working party, Frau Morgenstern taking ideas from her friends and working them into a coherent whole. Hilde would have been impressed if she hadn't been so worried about just what her mother would do, once she had her protest groups organised. Or, for that matter, just what would happen if the SS arrested the women before they could do anything. Hilde had no illusions about her mother’s backstabbing tendencies and she had a nasty feeling that one or more of the well-dressed women sitting in the room shared them. A single word to the SS would be enough to bring Frau Morgenstern and her husband before a tribunal. And who knew what would happen then?

  A hand touched her shoulder. She flinched and looked up. A maid was standing just behind her, looking terrified.

  “My Lady, your father has returned home,” the maid said. Her voice was so quiet that Hilde had to force herself to listen just to make out the words. “He requests your presence in his study.”

  “I understand,” Hilde said. At least it was an excuse for not listening to the older women for the next few hours. “Thank you.”

  She saw a disapproving expression flicker across her mother’s face as she rose - one did not thank Untermenschen - and knew she’d be in trouble later, but she did her best to ignore it as she hurried out of the room and headed up the stairs. Her father rarely talked to her - Hilde was sometimes surprised that her parents had managed to produce a single child - and she was torn between a surprised delight and a gnawing fear at the sudden summons. Bracing herself, she tapped on the door and stepped into her father’s office.

  “Hilde,” her father said, looking up from his ledgers. “Sit.”

  Hilde nodded and sat down, resting her hands on her lap. She’d never been entirely sure of what her father did for a living, although she did know it was a high-paying job somewhere in the tangled web that made up the Ministry of Industry. And it granted social status as well, she knew, enough to turn her mother into a power on the social scene. It wasn't the kind of life Hilde wanted for herself - she hadn't gone to the university to become yet another gossipy housewife - but at least it made her mother happy.<
br />
  She studied her father thoughtfully as he reached the end of the page and closed the book with a resounding thud. Unlike her big mother, Arthur Morgenstern was actually quite a small man, with a tacky suit, greying hair and a face that - she thought privately - resembled a weasel. She had wondered, from time to time, why her father hadn't hired someone to give him a makeover, but she supposed he was rich and important enough not to need one.

  “Hilde,” Arthur Morgenstern said. “I trust your marks are as high as always?”

  Hilde hesitated, just for a second. Her father wasn't a strong man, not in her opinion, although in some ways that was actually a blessing. She’d had friends with strong fathers and they had all been married off as soon as they’d reached legal age, practically given to men their fathers had chosen. And he had never tried to discipline Hilde, leaving all such matters to her mother. She sometimes wondered if he really cared for either his daughter or his wife.

  “My marks are high,” she said, finally. “I’m still planning to study computers if I can get into the classes.”