We were held in a cage, Volker thought, grimly. And now the bars are gone, some of us are leaving the cage.
He cursed the former Reich Council under his breath, wishing with all his heart that he’d been able to get his hands on the truly guilty men. Reichsführer-SS Karl Holliston had made his escape, while several of the other former councillors had fled to Germany East, rather than face the wrath of their fellow countrymen. Volker would have given a great deal for the chance to get his hands around Holliston’s neck and squeeze, even though he’d been an SS officer himself. The bastard had not only gotten Volker’s son mortally wounded; he’d had the gall to lie about it to the people. Volker wouldn't have known anything about his son’s injury - and death - if Gudrun hadn't sneaked into the hospital. It had been enough for Volker to switch sides and start a - highly-illegal - union. And now he was the head of the provisional government.
The thought made him smile, sourly, as he turned to face the table. His councillors - the new Reich Council - were slowly filling up the seats, looking as grim as he felt. Volker had no idea just how far any of them could be trusted, even though they were all under sentence of death if they were captured by the SS. Finance Minister Hans Krueger, at least, could be relied upon to try to mend the increasingly broken economy, but Volker had no illusions about some of the others. Two of them, at least, were ambitious enough to unseat him if they thought they could get away with it.
He surveyed the room, half-wishing that Gudrun was there. The mere presence of a woman - and a teenage girl, at that - was enough to agitate many of the older and more reactionary councillors. Volker hated to admit it, but he took a perverse pleasure in watching them being forced to take a woman seriously. Gudrun didn't hold a portfolio - there had been no way to justify giving her a ministry - yet she was the single most popular councillor in Germany. It gave her a power her older counterparts could neither deny nor subvert.
She would have made one hell of a daughter-in-law, Volker thought, as the doors were firmly closed. And Gerde would have had real problems trying to bully her.
He smiled at the thought as he strolled over to the table, nodding to the guards positioned against the walls. The Reichstag was guarded by heavily-armed soldiers these days, men drawn from the toughest regiments in the Heer. After the SS had dropped an assault force into the building and done their best to destroy the provisional government before it had formed, he wasn't inclined to take chances. Some of the councillors had insisted that the men posed a security risk, but they hadn't dared say it very loudly. They knew, all too well, that most of them would be dead if the Berlin Guard hadn't switched sides.
“Let us begin,” he said, sitting down and resting his elbows on the table. He had no time for elaborate formalities. “Field Marshal. What is our current state of readiness?”
Field Marshal Gunter Voss leaned forward. He’d taken up the post of Head of OKW - the uniformed head of the military - after Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen had resigned, citing a refusal to fight his fellow Germans. Volker had no idea if Stoffregen genuinely felt that way - or if the SS had somehow brought pressure to bear on him - but some of his advisors insisted that losing Stoffregen wasn't a bad thing. Voss was almost certainly high on the list of individuals the SS intended to purge, if they ever recovered Berlin. He’d opposed Holliston far too often.
“Better than I’d feared, but worse than I’d hoped,” Voss said, bluntly. “Much of our heavy armour was placed near the beaches, for fear of a British invasion. We’re starting to ship it back to the east now, but it’s going to take time before we have the divisions formed up and ready to go to war. The resignations and defections haven’t helped either. Right now, we barely have two scratch divisions digging in along the border with Germany East and two more held in reserve.”
He smiled, rather tightly. “We are recruiting as fast as we can, sir, and most of our recruits have some military experience, but it will still take weeks - if not months - before they’re ready for deployment. Until then, we will be committed to a mobile defence of the eastern border, slowing the SS down until we are ready to drive them back.”
Volker nodded. “And the men in South Africa?”
“Getting them back is going to be a nightmare, even if we trusted them,” Voss said. “Much of our heavy-lift capability was deployed to the south, which made them easy targets for American-designed missiles. And the South Africans aren't particularly keen to see them go.”
“Too bad,” Volker said, tiredly.
He shook his head. His son had been wounded in South Africa. He certainly had no love for the country. But even without that, he knew there was no way the Reich should have supported South Africa. Fighting to preserve white civilisation was one thing, but South Africa was right on the end of a very long logistics chain. Better to ship the South Africans to Germany East and invite them to blend in with the population. It wasn't as if Germany East was short of territory.
“Most commanding officers in South Africa have secured their bases, but there’s little else they can do,” Voss added. “A handful of officers have refused to answer my calls. I think we have to assume they’re on the other side.”
“Understood,” Volker said. The Wehrmacht was not used to civil wars. Soldiers fought for the Reich, not for factions within Germany. Now, with the country torn in two, everyone in uniform had to ask themselves where their loyalties lay. And not everyone was willing to fight for the provisional government. “Start making preparations to get the others home.”
“Of course, sir,” Voss said.
And hope to hell the French don’t decide to play games, Volker thought, privately. Vichy France had been restless for decades, before the Reich Council had collapsed. Now, the French might try to take advantage of the Reich’s troubles to reclaim their independence and recover the territory they’d lost. If they decide to shut down the airfields between South Africa and the Reich, getting those troops home will be impossible.
He shook his head - Gudrun had been dispatched on a diplomatic mission to France, in hopes of preventing the French from trying to take advantage of the chaos - and met Voss’s eyes. “How are our chances?”
“Mixed, sir,” Voss said. “The Waffen-SS has the armour and supporting elements they need to punch through our defence lines, even if they don’t have covert supporters within our ranks. I believe we will see a major offensive within two weeks, perhaps less. They have to know that matters will become a great deal harder if they give us time to mobilise. On the other hand, we can lure them into fighting grounds where their advantages are strongly reduced - urban conflict in Berlin, in particular.”
Volker winced. He was no stranger to combat. Military operations in built-up terrain - street-to-street fighting - were always nightmarish. But he knew Voss was right. The SS - and Holliston in particular - would want to recover Berlin as quickly as possible. Letting them overextend themselves, while gathering the forces necessary to cut their supply lines and crushing their advance elements ... Holliston was many things, but he was no Adolf Hitler. The first and greatest Führer would never have made such a deadly mistake.
“Very well,” he said. “Luther? How are they placed for an attack on Berlin?”
Luther Stresemann, Head of the Economic Intelligence Service, frowned. “Holliston has reshaped his ... cabinet, sir,” he said, “so many of our original sources within the SS have been reshuffled out of power. I don’t believe that was intentional - they still appear to be alive - but it makes it harder for us to get a window into their deliberations. However, many of our lower-level sources are still in play.”
He paused. “All their reports indicate that Holliston has called up both Category A and Category B reservists, both Heer and SS,” he continued. “As you know, the reservists in Germany East have often been called up at the drop of a hat, so we don’t anticipate it taking very long for them to brush up on their tactics and return to their units. However ... they will have problems securing many of the settl
ements if they call away their defenders. We believe that Untermenschen attacks on German settlements will increase rapidly, as the Untermenschen realise that there are fewer defenders in place.”
Volker frowned. “Is that likely to cause Holliston problems?”
“Not immediately,” Stresemann said. “In the long run, the reservists are unlikely to be pleased at marching away from their homes, with the Untermenschen ready to attack, but right now Holliston has all the tools he needs to render their opinions immaterial.”
“That was what the old council thought,” Voss pointed out, dryly.
“The old council was also worried about the knock-on effects of heavy repression,” Finance Minister Hans Krueger countered. “I doubt Holliston gives much of a damn about the side effects.”
Volker tapped the table before Krueger and Voss could start bickering. “How long can Germany East survive, economically?”
“It depends on what you mean by survive, sir,” Krueger said, bluntly. “My staff have run the figures but too much depends on factors that are unfortunately unpredictable. Germany East is perfectly capable of feeding itself, and of supplying its own wants in small-arms ammunition, but it doesn't have many factories capable of producing tanks, railway locomotives and heavy machinery. However, they do have massive stockpiles of everything they need for war. It may take years before they drain their stocks dry.”
“Maybe less than that,” Voss commented. “Ammunitions expenditures are always far - far - higher than predicted. I imagine that their logistics problems would turn into nightmares soon enough.”
Krueger nodded. “The problem, sir,” he added, looking directly at Volker, “is that we’re in a mess too.”
He went on before anyone could say a word. “Our industries were pushing the limits long before the ... the uprising,” he continued. “Machinery was becoming outdated, workers were working longer hours for less pay. We were robbing Peter to pay Paul right across the Reich, sir, and the real value of our currency was declining sharply. The push for unionising the workforce only made matters worse, as it added another factor to our considerations.”
“I believe I am aware of that,” Volker said, lightly.
“Then you have to face up to the implications,” Krueger said, bluntly. “There are just too many problems, deeply rooted within our industrial base, for a quick fix to work. We need to replace vast quantities of machinery and train up hundreds of thousands of new workers very - very - quickly, which will come at a staggering cost. Frankly, sir, we may have to concede that we have lost the arms race with the Americans.”
“Then the Americans will crush us,” Voss snapped.
“The Americans are hardly our problem at the moment,” Volker pointed out.
“Not now, no,” Krueger agreed. “Our best estimate is that it will cost upwards of a hundred billion Reichmarks to rebuild our economic base - and we don’t have a hundred billion Reichmarks. We'll have to start on a smaller scale ...”
“... During a war,” Voss reminded him.
“Exactly,” Krueger said. “We have a colossal shortage of money.”
Volker swallowed. A hundred billion Reichmarks? He couldn’t even begin to imagine such a vast sum of money. There was no way he’d ever be a millionaire on his salary, let alone a billionaire. And getting the money was only the start of the problem. The unions would resist, strongly, training up more than a handful of new workers. They’d see it as an attempt to undermine their power and they’d be right. Hell, Volker himself would have opposed it when he’d been a Union Chief.
And how can we do all that, he asked himself, when there is a war underway?
“Loot it from the French,” Voss suggested. “Or the Italians. They bend over to give us anything we want.”
“They don’t have the money or machinery we need,” Krueger snapped. “Their currencies are pegged to ours, so the real value of their money is declining too. The best we can hope for, from either of them, is more poorly-trained workers and food supplies. And looting them would mean drawing forces away from the eastern border!”
Volker held up his hand. “Can we supply the demands of the war?”
“Perhaps,” Krueger said. “But right now, even our ammunition plants are in trouble.”
“And without ammunition, we can't fight,” Voss said. He sounded tired and harassed. “Stop producing ladies underwear and start turning out more shells!”
“It isn’t that easy and you know it,” Krueger snapped. He sounded tired too. “A plant designed for producing one thing cannot easily be modified to produce something else!”
Volker took a long moment to think as the bickering began in earnest. On one hand, Krueger was right. The economy was in a mess. He had no real dislike for the Americans - both sides had supported rebels, insurgents and terrorists - but he had to worry about the long-term effects of an economic collapse. And yet, on the other hand, there was a war on. The economic issues were secondary to preserving the provisional government.
He tapped the table, again. “Hans,” he said. “How long can you paper over the cracks?”
“I’ve been doing that for the last five years,” Krueger said. He rubbed his eyes. “There are just too many variables, sir. I can do my best to freeze prices, but unless we manage to stop our money declining in value ... well, all we’d do is shift sales into the black market. I don’t think it will be easy to force farmers to sell at a loss.”
“Then confiscate their stocks,” Voss said.
“That would ensure we wouldn't get any harvests next year,” Krueger said. “The Russians learned - too late - that collectivism reduced yields. We don’t want to make the same mistake ourselves.”
He looked at Volker. “I think we might just be able to stretch matters out for another year, but a single major disaster will almost certainly set off a chain reaction that will bring our economies down,” he added. “As it is, we may have to go back to rationing food very quickly. We’re just not getting any additional supplies from Germany East - or the French.”
Gudrun will have to discuss that too, Volker thought. And hope to hell the French don’t demand too much in return.
“See to it,” he ordered. It wasn’t going to go down well with the population - it seemed as though everyone had a political opinion these days and was willing to share it - but there wasn't any choice. “I’ll announce it once you’ve got the groundwork in place and explain the problem. Maybe there won’t be too many objections.”
“Hah,” Voss commented.
Volker suspected he was right. The German population knew better than to believe what someone said on the radio, particularly now. They might be told that things were getting better - or they had been, before the uprising - but they could see that costs were steadily rising higher, when products were available at all. It was ironic, he had to admit, that people conditioned to disbelieve whatever they were told by the previous government wouldn't believe him either, yet it would just have to be endured. There was nothing that could be done to make the population trust him, save for carefully building up a reputation for telling the truth. But that would take years.
“I think a basic supply of food each week would be reassuring to most people,” Krueger said, bluntly. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“And we’re moving people from the east,” Voss added. “We’re going to have to feed them too.”
“I know,” Krueger said. It was yet another headache. “And people here aren't going to welcome them either.”
Volker sighed, inwardly. The refugees were unlikely to be welcomed, not by people who barely had enough to eat and drink themselves. But they had to be moved from their homes, if only to keep them safe. The SS was unlikely to be pleasant to anyone who hadn't already declared themselves for Germany East. Indeed, it was quite likely that any civilians they encountered would pay a steep price.
He sighed, again. He needed his sleep; he needed to lie beside his wife and pretend, if only
for a few hours, that he was nothing more than a simple factory worker. But there were too many things they needed to discuss - and hash out - before he could seek his bed. A mistake now might come back to haunt them when the SS finally started its advance.
At least Holliston has his own problems, he thought, dryly. But does he have so many bickering subordinates?
Chapter Four
Germanica (Moscow), Germany East
1 September 1985
Karl Holliston had always loved Germanica.
He stood on the balcony and gazed out over the city. Moscow - old Moscow - was gone, save for a handful of buildings that had once been the beating heart of the long-dead Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Schoolchildren were taken there every year, where they were told about how Stalin had been trying to flee Moscow when he’d been killed and just how much the Reich had done for the country. Russia was now the breadbasket of the Reich, the source of true Aryan greatness. The fact that the Russians themselves were a threatened minority in their own country was neither here nor there, as far as Holliston and his fellows were concerned. They were, after all, Untermenschen.
Chosen of the Valkyries (Twilight Of The Gods Book 2) Page 4
