Second Chance

Chapter Twenty-Three: Reflections on Evil

Undisclosed Location

Berlin

29^th August 1940

Berlin was different, these days. SS men were on every street corner, looking around with fierce eyes. The citizens, those handful that remained after the mass call-ups and brutal purges, walked the streets with their heads lowered; dozens of those who would serve in the future government of West and East Germany had been simply… disappeared. Not all of it was Night and Fog; the corpse of Admiral Canaris had hung from the roof of a public centre before a British missile reduced it to its component atoms and the centre to rubble.

The purge and the call-ups had affected everywhere. All over the Reich, the menfolk had almost disappeared, forced into the army or the air force, even the navy. In their place, Speer had ordered the unmarried and single women into the factories, already producing vast improvements in all fields. Idly, Roth wondered what the future would hold, with the women working to support the men in the armed forces. What would happen when the Reich won the wars and the men came back to discover that they had been supplemented?

“Papers,” an Unterscharfuehrer demanded. Roth bit down all the comments that came to mind and passed over his identification. His SS identity card, his special permission card signed by Himmler himself, his access to Hitler’s headquarters, and several that the mere Unterscharfuehrer would never have seen in his life. What he did see was enough; he paled remarkably fast for someone of his bulk.

“Herr Standartenfuehrer,” he said, with a salute that was almost perfect. Roth glared at him and he pulled himself up into tight attention. “I’m sorry for interfering…”

“Never mind, Unterscharfuehrer,” Roth said in exasperation. The SS guards on the street were supposed to be watching for draft-dodgers. “You may go.”

“Heil Hitler,” the Unterscharfuehrer snapped, and left without waiting for Roth’s reply. Roth let him go, watching him as he marched on, and then headed for the current centre of the SS; the original headquarters having met a British missile. It still spooked Roth, to understand very suddenly that they were an open book to their enemies and their targeting systems. The British didn’t seem to have as many of the super-weapons as their allies of 2015, the United States, had, but they were just as good at careful targeting. The first surge of cruise missiles, so precise when compared to the primitive V1, had seriously damaged the Reich.

If we hadn’t dispersed as much of possible of the government, they might have won in one blow, Roth thought, and shivered. He slipped under the awing and pulled on a cloak, leaving his SS jacket and cap in the false front. Thus convinced that no high-flying British plane could mistake him for an SS officer, Roth went back onto the streets and wandered through several blocks before reaching the real headquarters, hidden in a meat-processing facility.

Roth sniggered. The irony had always appealed to him.

“Your papers, Herr Standartenfuehrer,” the guards said. Unlike the poor Unterscharfuehrer on the streets, they knew who he was, but Himmler would have had them both executed if they had failed to check his papers. Roth passed them over without protest, allowing them to check everything. The SS had been busy once the captured documents had revealed dozens of new ways to forge documents.

“You may pass,” the leader said finally. “The Reichsführer will see you at once.”

Roth nodded and entered the facility. On the surface levels, it seemed just like a real facility, but once inside it changed dramatically. The basement, seven levels that had once held frozen meat, now held an entire SS command post. There were dozens more scattered through Germany, concealing the German command structure from the all-seeing British reconnaissance planes. Hitler himself had a fully refurbished bunker; the military had a deep series of rooms under Berlin, linked together by the landlines they’d thought to abandon.

“Heil Hitler,” Roth snapped, coming to attention. Himmler returned the salute, before waving Roth to a chair. “Reporting as ordered, Herr Reichsführer.”

“Heil,” Himmler said. “How is your life?”

Such concern on the part of Himmler was unusual, to say the least. Roth managed a noncommittal grunt. “I have just been talking with Goring,” Himmler said, which explained his odd behaviour. “The fat fool wants to know why we can’t give him a million Me-200s or whatever they were called back in the Jewish history.”

Roth sighed. “Herr Reichsführer, we have been given complete plans and diagrams for many aircraft, including the historical version of the jet plane we build before… well, you know.” And of the reason for the plane’s uselessness, he thought silently. “The problem is that we do not have the tools to make it, or in some cases the tools to make the tools that make the tools… and so on ad infinitum. For the Me-262, we require considerable advances in materials and production facilities; they are nowhere near as easy to build as a Me-109.

“In some cases, it was merely a matter of taking an idea from a book and copying it, such as the mobile launcher for the V1s. For the V1s themselves, we have something like a forty-percent launch failure rate, and pilots have observed them blowing up in mid-air. While we are hurting the British, I submit that that sort of failure rate would shortly wipe out the Luffwaffe more completely than even the British super-weapons could.”

He waved a hand absently at the laptop on Himmler’s desk. “That device, Herr Reichsführer, is at least thirty years away, and probably longer. The… situation with the future British will have resolved itself by then, I fear. We have managed wonders, but some things require time and more time.”

Himmler glared at him. “And if I order you to produce a Me-262?”

Roth met his eyes without flinching. “Then I’m dead,” he said flatly. Himmler deserved the truth; he’d led the SS through the… difficulties without flinching. “Herr Reichsführer, I cannot change natural law with a wave of my hand.”

Himmler nodded. “Tell me, what is the status of Project Kern?”

Roth took a moment to compose his thoughts before speaking. “We have gathered together the scientists in three different, heavily concealed locations,” he said. “The German scientists, and the… other ones.”

Both men knew he meant Jewish. “Research is proceeding, and we have a plan for a basic reactor,” he said. “Unfortunately, building the reactor will take nearly a year, the more so because we dare not let the British get even a sniff of the location. They must know that we have one; the heavy water program in Norway was smashed beyond recovery. After that, they believe that we might have a working device in another year.”

“So 1942 at the earliest,” Himmler said. “There’s no way to speed matters up?”

“None at all,” Roth said. “Two years, Herr Reichsführer, is a very optimistic estimation.”

“The Fuhrer wants one as soon as possible,” Himmler mused. “Is there any possibility that the Jews are sabotaging the project?”

“We believe not, Herr Reichsführer,” Roth said. “Everything contributed by a Jew is examined by a review board of Aryan scientists. Basic theory is understood now, although the scientists want to continue research into some areas. The dangerous part is building the reactor, and the Jews will be watched very carefully.”

“Good work,” Himmler said. “The sooner we can get on with destroying the menace of Stalin, the better.”

“Jawohl, Herr Reichsführer,” Roth said, and left.

“I brought you a cup of… well, I think its tea,” Jasmine said, passing Professor Horton a cup. He sipped it gratefully, feeling his wife’s body pressed against his. Nearly two months of captivity – and being stuck in the small suite of rooms with the girls – was taking its toll on both of them.

“Thank you,” he said grimly. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said airily. She slammed her fist down on the table. “I’m just stuck in a fucking bunker with fucking Nazis watching us all the time!”

Horton reached out and held her, feeling tears flicker in his eyes. Jasmine was taking the pressure badly; she knew that the only thing keeping her children from the concentration camps, or death, was the work that her husband – who would be stuffed in a gas chamber – was doing for Himmler. She didn’t take their total helplessness well; she knew that they were watched all the time under the burning white lights.

She started to cry into his arms. Horton glared at where he was certain one of the cameras was; Himmler had shown no interest in Jasmine’s other fits. Her undressing under the covers was a source of some amusement to the guards, who’d been told by the scary Standartenfuehrer Roth that Jasmine was off-limits – as long as Horton kept producing. He’d become nothing, but an oracle for Himmler and his cohorts.

Worst of all was the knowledge of what he’d kept from Himmler’s cronies. If they’d suspected that his knowledge was more detailed than he himself knew, they would have done whatever they thought necessary to force him to talk.

“He wants a complete report on why Japan lost the war,” Horton said, as Jasmine started to pull at his clothes desperately. In bed, she could pretend that the world was normal, but Horton had no such luxury. Even as he started to undress her, abandoning the laptop and its document, his mind worked over what it meant. As Jasmine fell to her knees and took him in her mouth, he figured it out; Germany must have informed Japan of the coming war.

And then Jasmine began her desperate motion and he forgot everything, but his wife.

“The accelerated training program for the workforce, including the two new additions to the workforce, proceeds apace,” Speer said. Sitting near Hitler, Himmler concealed his reaction; knowing that Speer would survive the war hadn’t strengthened his confidence in the man. “The prisoners, who are being fed on a standard diet that feeds them enough to be useable, are being trained in basic manufacturing techniques. Quality control is improving and prisoner sabotage is down seventy percent.

“Matters are considerably better with the female cadre,” he said, flinching. Only the knowledge of the future had prevented Hitler from cancelling female conscription altogether. “Unlike the prisoners, they show no inclination to sabotage the designs and once the handful of shirkers were weeded out, production increased rapidly. We have continued the program of incentives for individual workers, with a three-fold increase in production. In addition, we have been looking for likely candidates to receive more training in specialised tasks; we believe that development of skilled engineers, as opposed to build-by-numbers, will also increase. Unfortunately, training women for such a task is a long-term effort.

“Production of the modified tanks, aircraft, u-boats and anti-tank weapons proceeds,” he continued. Himmler concealed his boredom; the SS were keeping him aware of all Speer had said and what he hadn’t said, including the little detail of some of the male workers abusing their female counterparts. The SS guards handled such matters with a ruthlessness that shocked many; they cut the offender’s balls off! It had proven quite popular with the female workers.

“The Panther, a tank designed to match the Soviet design created by renegade Germans from the SA”- a lie to hide Soviet supremacy in tank design, Himmler knew – “is in the final stages of design,” Speer said. “Although it cannot match the tanks provisionally identified as Challenger-class, we are hopeful that sheer weight of numbers will prove decisive. Development of powerful anti-tank weapons proceeds apace; we hope that by the time they come to land in France, assuming that they do again, we will have a weapon capable of penetrating their hull.”

“In the event that we don’t, we have drawn up a contingency plan that will leave the tanks alone, and concentrate on their supply lines and support vehicles,” Kesselring injected.

“Yes,” Speer said, a little irritated. “Production of aircraft and pilot training continues, along with the development of jet aircraft. Unfortunately, a prototype jet of our own will be at least a year away; an aircraft that can match the British aircraft still further away. For the moment, General Galland assures me that with the improved training measures, we can swarm British targets and overwhelm them. In the Mediterranean, we have almost forced them out of the middle sea, and once Spain joins us…”

“Franco has finally gotten around to accepting that he has to declare war on the British,” Hitler proclaimed. “If the ungrateful Spanish pudding had had the courage to declare war in June, we would have evicted them from the Mediterranean well before the future arrived!”

“That is true,” Kesselring said. His new role as strategist was taking a toll upon his health. “For the moment, reducing Gibraltar will ensure that they cannot use the Mediterranean as a supply line to Egypt using their ships, although analysis suggests that they have fewer ships than they had anyway. Our use of French agents within French North Africa – now that Vichy has finally declared war on the British – suggests that they are concentrating on building a chain of airports across Africa, linking them with India. If they use aircraft like the one that crashed in France, we estimate that they could move troops back and forth within a couple of days.”

“I trust that you have warned our allies?” The Fuhrer asked. “We need to learn to coordinate with them, while watching them carefully.”

Everyone present knew that Hitler hadn’t given up on his objective of securing Russian territory for further expansion. Even the need to maintain an alliance with Stalin – as recommended by Professor Horton – didn’t distract from the overwhelming demand for living space.

“We have warned Stalin and the Japanese,” Kesselring confirmed. He coughed. “For the moment, driving them out of the Mediterranean Sea itself seems to be our only offensive option; we cannot hope to invade Britain directly or to even transport troops to North Africa. Once Turkey falls into line, we can perhaps mount a joint attack on the Middle East and destroy their oil wells there, or even use them for ourselves.”

Himmler nodded. Oil was the Reich’s great weakness. Now that Romania had been forcibly assimilated by Germany and Russia, he expected missiles to be striking the oil wells at any time. Still, research into synthetic oils was proceeding; much had been done before the future arrived and added its knowledge to the growing stockpile.

“Then we can proceed to ultimate victory,” Hitler said, and he smiled. The expression scared almost all of the grown men in the room. “Have no fear; destiny had allowed us a chance to change our path and walk towards total victory!”

Russian Army Headquarters

Poland

1^st September 1940

Molotov disliked the army base in Poland, even though it had been constructed in a manor house that – he was certain – had once belonged to the Polish aristocracy. The NKVD had secured the building, checked it carefully for unpleasant surprises, and had kept the staff on to keep it tidy. Polish servants, one and all, they had been corralled without warning a week before Molotov arrived, just to ensure that there was no trace of Polish resistance anywhere near the meeting point.

Molotov studied the map. The base sat at the centre of an expanding empty zone; the residents forced into working on defence lines, marched off to Siberia, or simply shot. Stalin had ordered the Poles wiped out, along with numerous other minorities, and the NKVD had leapt to obey. The streets of Polish towns had run red with blood as the killing went on and on; food sources were steadily destroyed. In a year or so, maybe longer, Stalin would start to colonise the region, leaving only Russians in the Polish regions. The Poles would never have the chance to revolt against the Soviet Union.

His guest’s car, a massive German vehicle, drove up outside. Ribbentrop, like Molotov himself, hadn’t been keen on sleeping inside an NKVD stronghold. Unlike Molotov, he’d had a choice; he’d stayed at a German base on the other side of the border in Warsaw. Molotov waited throughout the lengthy security process, before a guard ushered him into the meeting room.

“Good afternoon,” Molotov said in English, and turned around. The sight of the un-uniformed SS officer – clearly an SS man, for he had the same… tingle as the NKVD men – was a surprise. Was he here to support the Ambassador, or was he here to keep an eye on him. Molotov smiled; no one in his right mind would trust Ribbentrop with anything important.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Ribbentrop said, in flawless English. He’d studied in England, hadn’t he? Molotov could not remember. “How is life in Comrade Stalin’s paradise?”

Molotov, as aware as Ribbentrop that the entire conversation was being recorded, smiled non-committal. “It proceeds well,” he said. “One long-term problem is being wiped out; another will never get the chance to become a problem.”

“Poland and Afghanistan,” Ribbentrop said. Molotov nodded; the news of the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan had shocked Stalin to the core. “And your procedures for handing the problem?”

“The Poles are already being punished for their future defiance,” Molotov said. “Our forces are preparing, even now, to crush Afghanistan before it can become a problem. And, of course, Iran – as I’m sure you are aware. We will crush Islamic Fundamentalism before it ever becomes a problem to the Rodina.”

“Excellent,” Ribbentrop said. “The Fuhrer has sent me to offer to coordinate our actions. The capitalist powers will oppose an invasion of Iran; coordinating our efforts would limit what they could do to us.”

Molotov lifted an eyebrow. Stalin had given him very specific instructions for this eventuality. “You wish us to share information with you?”

Ribbentrop nodded. “I am at leisure to inform you that Operation Spinet will begin in two weeks, barring unforeseen circumstances,” he said.

Molotov was astounded. Had Hitler really authorised such information, or was Ribbentrop trying to impress him? “Our invasion of Iran will begin somewhere around that date,” he said. “However, we require something from you.”

Ribbentrop blanched. The SS officer showed no reaction. “What would you like?” He asked. “The Fuhrer has ordered me to be generous.”

“One coming problem is Finland,” Molotov said. “We intend to finish it off.”

Ribbentrop laughed more than the weak pun deserved. “I would have to consult with the Fuhrer,” he said, “but I can see no problem with it. Our relations with Finland are cordial, and correct, but hardly important.”

“Of course,” Molotov mused. Ribbentrop ignored the sarcasm; perhaps he didn’t recognise it. The SS man’s face darkened with sudden anger; he had recognised it. “So, shall we meet again in a week?”

“Of course,” Ribbentrop said. “I’m sure that the Fuhrer will recognise the legitimate claims of the Soviet Union.”

Molotov bowed politely and the NKVD man showed the two Germans to their rooms. They had been invited to dinner, but Molotov suspected that they would not appear. The presence of the SS man had been annoying; he had intended to pry into atomic science during the meeting. Germany apparently had some of the future knowledge, but they’d been careful not to share any of that with the USSR. Ribbentrop might have been tricked into revealing more than he had intended, but with a watchdog even he might guard his words.

None of them showed on his famous immobile face. Picking up a sheet of paper, Molotov sat down to draft his report to Stalin. One way or the other, the Soviet Union would emerge triumphant from the war.