Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  In a moment of mordant humor General Der Flieger Wilhelm Wimmer, once again Generalluftzeugmeister (Luftwaffe Director-General of Equipment), contemplated the National Socialist obsession with massive architecture. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium was the largest office building in Europe, at 2,800 rooms home to thousands of bureaucrats and their secretaries. Göring had the building erected in a mere 18 months to house his personal ministerial empire. At the time, Wimmer assumed the building was another example of an attempt to compensate for the deep-seated inferiority complex that gripped so many of the National Socialists. Today, with so much of not just Reich but also Europa business being run out of the building, there was use for the concrete and steel monstrosity.

  The right hand of Heydrich, Oberführer Schellenberg, was in the building to be briefed on Luftwaffe attempts to rationalize their production and development programs. One of the many meeting rooms was filled with Luftwaffe officers, Air and Armaments Ministries bureaucrats, and Schellenberg with his aide. General Otto Hoffmann had begun the briefing, leading off with the Luftwaffe’s presentation.

  Hoffmann was a Great War veteran, returned to the colors in the 1930’s but too old for a flying placement. The thrust of his presentation was: currently, Germany was building seventeen major types of aircraft and a bewildering array of sub-types. Observation aircraft, single- and twin-engine fighters, bombers, attack aircraft ... the list went on and on. The SS man had attended enough of these meetings to no longer be surprised at the lack of focus in war production and development.

  Hoffmann completed his summation, then looked meaningfully at Wimmer. His superior rose to speak. “Gentlemen, currently we are building three different twin-engine bombers, the Ju-88, He-111, and we have just started building the Do-217. The General-feldmarschall wants this reduced to one as soon as practical.” Wimmer leaned forward, locking eyes with several of the men in the room.

  The men the Generalluftzeugmeister took under his gaze knew why they were the subject of his attention. There had been rumors for several weeks that this directive was coming. The various aircraft firms had been using their contacts to try to get details on it, so they could take action to make sure their design was kept. Which was exactly why Wimmer wanted this discussion to not degenerate into a pissing contest between the oversized egos of firm directors. Not that their voices wouldn’t be heard; their contacts in the Luftwaffe or Air Ministry, the men in this room who acted as the go-between’s for government and industry, would see to that.

  The debate that followed centered on the strong and weak points of the different designs. The Do-217 could carry the heaviest internal bomb load; the He-111 was well-established; and the Ju-88 was a jack-of-all-trades. A glaring negative of the Heinkel workhorse, was that the He-111 design dated from 1933 and was showing its age, while the Ju-88 and Do-217 were much newer designs with the promise of further performance improvements down the line. Up until the new government was established, the military had favored specialized designs; this meant more models, and intentionally gave each manufacturer at least a small piece of the production pie. The new order of the day, however, was to now ruthlessly rationalize production by cutting down to just one design.

  With the debate clearly going the way of the general-purpose Ju-88, the man with connections to Dornier made a last plea: “Nothing else being produced that can carry a major bomb load, has the range that the 217 does.”

  “Until the Heinkel-177 enters service, that is,” the Luftwaffe officer overseeing the heavy bomber design sniped at the Air Ministry man.

  “If they stop bursting into flames.” At first glance the 177 appeared to be a twin-engine design, but in reality it was four - each wing had a single engine pod, the pod comprising two individual engines. Several of the test flights had ended with engines overheating, fires, and two prototypes lost so far to crashes.

  Schellenberg had been content to let the discussion ramble, but felt it was time to assert his boss’s interests. “You are all asking the wrong questions. What is the tradeoff in materials use and labor inputs between the two bombers? Both are constraints. Europa has fixed manpower and raw materials. Using more on one plane means less for other things. What is the ease of maintenance? What matters is a plane that can fly each day – rather than how many are produced. How easy is each plane to fly? I’m told you lose near as many planes to operational accidents as to combat. Start learning to think in these terms. If you cannot, reflect that we have executions at least weekly in Berlin. You will all answer for results, or lack thereof, with your lives should it come to that. The Reich is a revolutionary regime and we live in extraordinary times.”

  General Wimmer cleared his throat, and the bickering ended. “That’s an excellent point. The Reich needs the He-177 to be fielded successfully; and so we will put additional eyes on its issues, by getting other manufacturers involved. The Do-217 will stay in production until a suitable replacement is ready, and we will phase out the He-111 after its current orders. Next item: fighters.”

  Current production was just the Bf-109; after combat experience so far, only a very brave or very foolish man considered the Bf-110 a serious candidate as a dog-fighter.

  “Between reports on fighting in the Mediterranean, and directives from supreme command, a longer-ranged fighter is required. Even ferry flights from Italy to North Africa are difficult, with Tripoli the only possible destination as Benghazi is out of range.”

  Several of the men leaned forward; there were rumors on the range requirements the Air Ministry was thinking about.

  “A specification for a new fighter is to be issued - 1,500 KM range and at least 700 KM/H max speed. Other details will follow.”

  The room was silent other than the secretaries taking notes for their principals. The range and speed being asked for were well beyond the performance capabilities of any current single-engine fighter. Only the Me-210 twin-engine fighter-bomber came close to those performance requirements; it was by all accounts a flying coffin, and that was without the enemy shooting at it. Wimmer wanted a great deal out of German industry

  Schellenberg made a mental note to look into this requirement; the slack-jawed silence that had greeted it was concerning. Heydrich had made clear that war with the Soviets was coming. The East meant vast distances, extremes of weather, and primitive airfields as the battle line moved further towards the Volga and then the Urals. That said, quantity had a quality all its own. Germany had a sadly deserved reputation of going for cutting-edge, hand-crafted designs instead of mass producing good enough weapons in sufficient quantities.

  “Will this impact the Fw-190 project?” a voice along the table asked. Kurt Tank, the brilliant engineer at Focke-Wulf, had put a great deal of effort into the radial-powered fighter expected to enter service sometime next year.

  “No, this will be a new specification moving forward, and not a replacement for current projects.

  “Next item: There is a renewed request from the army for better ground support. General Hoffmann, please review the current state of affairs.”

  There were but two dedicated ground-attack designs - the principal one was the Ju-87 dive bomber, which was very effective and terribly short-ranged. The second was the Hs-123 bi-plane, a dive bomber; it had served very well and was rugged, but it was also even shorter-ranged than the Ju-87. Just about every other bomber and fighter had been forced to fill in at need for the army support role. The Bf-110, unable to face front-line fighters, was commonly tasked with ground attack.

  “General-feldmarschall Richthofen wanted to know about the possibility of restarting production of the Hs-123; they are very cheap, and can operate from the most primitive of airfields.”

  A nameless bureaucrat frowned. “I am sorry, General Wimmer, but Henschel broke down the tooling a few months ago. The plans still exist, but … ”

  Wimmer shrugged. “But time would be needed to set up all new tooling, I understand. No more 123’s. Now what about Henschel’s new project, the 129
?”

  The same bureaucrat smiled at drawing attention to the twin-engine ground-attack aircraft under development. It was heavily armored, with a steel bathtub around the nose and cockpit. Armed with light bombs, 20mm cannons, and machine-guns, the Henschel was intended to fly into the face of enemy anti-aircraft fire to strafe targets with high precision. The bad news was that the design had come in overweight and underpowered, resulting in very poor performance characteristics.

  The Generalluftzeugmeister began a debate on whether the Hs-129 program should be terminated altogether, and a ground-attack version of the Ju-88 produced instead. The ensuing debate was the most ferocious of the meeting, and quickly led to promises being made that the Ju-87’s range could be extended, and a ground-attack version of the Fw-190 could be produced. The argument against the special-purpose Henschel design, was that generalist designs like the Ju-88 and Fw-190 would better meet the production-rationalization dictates.

  Schellenberg heard this all through, thinking to himself how sad it was that no one focused on why producing something that worked now was better than trying to make workable some other marginally-better but currently ineffective plane. Researching for the next advance in aviation was all well and good, but that was a luxury compared to planes that could be ordered today, in squadron service in a year, and coming off the production lines in quantity to absorb large wartime losses in 1942. None of these fools seemed able to face up to the existing world situation. The British war would be over in a year at most. The core of the peace terms had already been generally accepted. The British were stalling in Lisbon. All that he and his master could guess, was that they were praying for American intervention once Roosevelt had been reelected.

  The little matter of each aircraft’s performance issues was hammered at again and again.

  There was hope that access to higher-performance French Gnome-Rhône radials, as opposed to the German inline Argus As-410, would help solve the performance issues.

  Schellenberg made a note to see that this hope was made a reality. Production should now be European. Yet no one here thought that way. He recalled the legend of Sisyphus. Without the Reichsführer, Germany would likely have lost this war already.

  What resolved the debate was that the Henschel aircraft had much greater range than any of the single-engine designs, and far better protection than any conversion of the Ju-88 would have. The army needed ground support aircraft. Wimmer, like Schellenberg, was party to the view that the Reich expected trouble from the Soviets – and they had a huge army, with tens of thousands of vehicles and tanks.

  “Very well. The points are all settled – for now, upgrades to the Ju-87, and further prototype ground-attack versions of the Fw-190 and Ju-88, are all approved. The Hs-129 can continue forward.” The Generalluftzeugmeister turned to another sheet.

  “Now, the next item is setting up an agenda for meeting with key French aircraft industry figures. Be aware that a similar meeting with the Italians will of course follow. So my French associates, if you wish to be involved in that phase of the cartel, please have a delegation ready to attend in about two weeks time. We will coordinate this through your Air Ministry. Don’t worry about how the small nations fit in. Coordination will be with the three European powers. The small nations will just be given orders by the new cartel management.” He could see that the Europa Cartel program for joint production of designs garnered little real interest from the conference participants. Fools. They were cutting themselves out of the market, and were too egotistical to realize it. He concluded. “A meeting is to be held in three weeks time. I want reports on our needs, and projections on what we can hope for from France.” No wonder France had lost their war in six weeks. They were unworthy heirs of their fathers from the Kaiserwar.

  The meeting continued on for some time.

  1900 hours Central Daylight Time, 15 October 1940

  0200 hours CET, 16 October, 1940

  Press conference before Lindbergh’s next speech, this time in St. Louis

  Lindy looked around the press gaggle. Sought out the Chicago Tribune’s guy, and recognized him for the first question. “Why is Willkie backing this new treason from Roosevelt and his interventionist gang?”

  “Same reason I am. It’s common sense.” He saw the heads of the press people come up. Lindy breaking with the Tribune was news. “Forget how much you hate Franklin, Hopkins and his whole crowd. The deal is continental defense, and no draftees dying for British imperialism. Some of the details are not to my liking. Omelets and eggs. Nothing comes out of Congress without at least a hundred members playing with the fine points just to show they can, that they have enough power to add that clause or move this comma. This is how representative democracy works.” He looked over and called on the man from the Detroit Free Press, ignoring the Tribune guy’s screams on follow-up.

  “So what don’t you like?”

  “Too much executive discretion. The limits of aid to the British aren’t airtight enough. I also disagree with Mr. Willkie on Liberia. It puts the American flag down in the midst of a war zone between two colonial powers. It’s a transparent appeal to the Negro press. I think our Negro citizens aren’t so lacking in patriotism as to need this sort of pandering.” He then called on the gentleman from the Associated Negro Press.

  “So the descendants of freed slaves are unworthy of protection, but white Irish Catholics are welcome here?”

  “Your words on Liberia, sir, not mine. I referenced a war zone. I am opposed to US servicemen dying on foreign soil. I have not been asked if I would oppose these sons and daughters of America returning to our shores. Then again, given our racial structure, why would they wish to? You campaign against Jim Crow. That is your cause and Mr. Willkie’s, not mine. I will support Willkie where his views coincide with mine. Neither of us has married the other. I wish your race no harm, but my people are white, as is my nation. I accept that your ancestors were brought here against their will. It was a mistake; but how long must America suffer for that error?”

  Over dozens of shouted questions, Lucky Lindy brought the session to an end. He had made his points. Indeed, the Irish point, which mattered greatly to the followers of Father Coughlin, had been made for him by the Negro journalist.

  0900 hours local; 0800 hours CET

  16 October 1940

  Headquarters area, Brigade Strauss, in the rear of Italian XXI Corps lines

  The overnight flight from Bari had been bumpy. Obersturmbannführer Siegel showed his exhaustion. He was burning the candle at both ends with a blowtorch. He was also an Obersturmbannführer now, with the possibilities of further advancement. He could sleep when he was old and retired.

  Brigadier Strauss had the necessary people in attendance. Bride, groom, bride’s family including uncle-by-adoption Ivan. Gregor was guarding the event with a Magyar company, and firm instructions not to interrupt for anyone whose first name wasn’t General. Siegel handed out the new family trees with the Aryan certificates. “Memorize these. Guard them with your lives.”

  Isaak was diffident about it, but had to ask the obvious questions. “My wife? My daughters? My other son?”

  “Delivered yesterday in Bari. They were instructed to mention all this to no one. They were always Aryans. Most all of what I did at that long family meeting, to prep your son Luke to lead his return convoy to Romania.”

  “Romania?” Isaak was frightened and trying not to show it. “What did he do wrong?”

  “The reverse. Berlin has retroactively decided that purging the oil fields was not the wisest decision they ever made. So your Luke will lead a large group of oil and technical workers back.”

  Peter snorted. “Ah, shit!”

  It was the SS officer’s turn to looked worried. “What’s the problem?”

  “My brother is a science guy. He hasn’t the hands-on experience running the work crews. That was my job.” He looked at Siegel expectantly. The answer seemed obvious.

  “Sorry. I cannot send y
ou all back. Your brother was as much of a risk as I could take. Berlin’s orders, and yes, it’s about the new family heritages. You are all too well known there.”

  Peter grabbed a writing tablet off Strauss’s desk. He handed pages to his father, brother Paul, and Uncle Ivan. “Everyone, start writing every name Luke should hire for this.” While Siegel watched with eyes growing ever wider, the four men started writing, calling out names of people and companies, which functions each was best at. Forty minutes later they had a full plan for who to put in charge of what, with Luke back to what he was best at, interfacing with the highly educated foreign petroleum specialists. When it was done, Peter handed a full plan for manning the oil fields to the bemused Obersturmbannführer. “Be prepared for us robbing this structure blind when we get Iraq’s oil. May I suggest overmanning? – so everyone of importance has a second, an apprentice. That way you get two functional producing fields, not two disasters for you to sort out. Oh, do you need who among the Romanian officials has to be paid off to make this all work?” The SS officer just nodded, thinking of how good this would look in Berlin. Ten minutes later he had who to pay off, how much, and which ones to just have shot because they were too inept or corrupt to stay bought.

  This brought matters back to Klaus and his magic Party Card. Schellenberg had added a present for Klaus and Gunter. They were now Sturmbannführers in the SS General Reserve. Gunter was effusively thankful. Klaus thanked him as well, but seemed subdued. Siegel asked what the matter was?

  “My parents. I’m sure you got my Aryan certificate from them. We are Aryan, or at least mostly are. I’m sure there’s a Germanized Slav or two back a few centuries. That’s the east – you speak good German and cheer for the flag. That’s Aryan enough for my parents’ generation. The problem is the rest of this. Half the parents in the Reich would be proud of me. They still haven’t gotten over me disappointing them by enlisting!”