Storm Front

Chapter Six

Albert Speer University, Berlin

20 July 1985

Walking into the Albert Speer University for the first time, Gudrun recalled as she walked towards the doors, had been like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time in her life. Like every other child in the Reich, she had endured fifteen years of schooling where she’d been expected to regurgitate answers and otherwise do exactly as she was told. She’d quite lost count of the number of times she’d been forced to run laps around the school, stand in the corridor or undergo other humiliating punishments for daring to actually question the teacher’s words, let alone the letters they’d sent home to her parents. And yet, despite that, university had seemed a more attractive option at seventeen than trying to become a nurse, a housewife or entering one of the few careers open to women. It had been a surprise when she’d been told that the traits that had got her in trouble at school were precisely the traits the university wanted from its students.

“You have not been taught to think,” her first tutor had said, when he’d addressed the class on the very first day. It had been the first mixed-sex class Gudrun had ever had, but she’d been too fascinated to notice the presence of young men mixed in with the young women. “Here, we will attempt to teach you to think.”

Her first year at the university had been fascinating, to say the least. She’d learned how to use a computer, one of the blocky American-made machines that were imported into the Reich at great expense, and dozens of other skills that made up the background for STEM courses. She knew she had to choose a major by the time she turned twenty, when she would be expected to specialise in one particular field of study, but she was honestly tempted to try to delay that as long as she could. No one had shown her anything of the sort while she’d been at school, let alone allowed her to come to her own conclusions. Hell, she’d never heard of anyone being expelled from the university for asking questions. They were all too eager to learn to make trouble.

“We don’t take everyone,” the tutor had said, a year ago. “The exams we set look for the underlying potential for intelligence, not developed intelligence. You are here because we believe we can help your minds to flourish and, in return, you will advance the Reich.”

She took a moment to admire the statue of Albert Speer, architect, minister and one of the three guiding minds of the Reich after Hitler’s death, then hurried into the building. As always, it was packed; students who had been given the week off for Victory Day had hurried back as soon as they could, preparing for the exams they knew to be coming in three months, exams that would determine their future. Far too many of them actually lived on campus, sharing rooms in university accommodation that were strictly segregated and chaperoned; Gudrun remembered, with a flicker of envy, how she’d begged her mother and father to allow her to apply for one of the university rooms. But her mother had flatly refused to allow Gudrun to live away from home.

Probably thought I’d spend all my time in bed with Konrad, she thought, bitterly. There were housemothers, she’d been told, but they couldn’t hope to chaperone everyone. And abandon my studies completely if I fell pregnant.

She gritted her teeth at the thought as she hurried into the lecture hall. Some of her friends were already there, pens and paper at the ready; they knew better than to be late when a lecture was about to begin. The doors would be closed a minute after the deadline and anyone who failed to make it would be marked as absent, which would lead to a thoroughly unpleasant discussion with the dean. Gudrun had never faced the man himself, thankfully, but she’d heard rumours that anyone who missed more than two classes in a row was given a punishment so awful that no one ever spoke of it…

Which raises the question of just how people know that something happens, she thought, dryly. The dean probably started the rumours himself, just to keep us in line.

She took her seat and nudged Hilde Morgenstern, a dark-haired girl who’d been her friend ever since the first week at university. “Meeting in the private study room this afternoon after lunch,” she hissed. “Pass it on.”

Hilde gave her a sharp look – their private study group wasn’t exactly a formal organisation – and then nodded, turning to whisper in Sven’s ear. Gudrun hadn’t been entirely sure that a group composed of both males and females could work – the handful of dances she’d endured at school had been marred by male behaviour as they grew older – but she had to admit that Sven and the others were very focused on their work. Sven in particular was going to be a computer designer, or so he’d said. He already had an uncanny insight into how the computers they used at university actually worked.

“I think that’s everyone told,” Hilde muttered, once the whispered message had gone down the row. “Isn’t it a little early to be panicking over exams?”

“It’s not about the exams,” Gudrun muttered back. The tutor closed the doors with a loud thud and strode to the podium, his dark eyes searching for troublemakers. “I’ll tell you this afternoon.”

The lecture would have been interesting, she had to admit, if she hadn’t been thinking about Konrad and everything she’d deduced. Thankfully, the tutor didn’t call on her to answer questions – she’d barely heard half of what he’d said – and by the time the class finally came to an end, she’d reluctantly struck a deal with Hilde for a copy of her notes. She’d have to work extra hard, if she could muster the energy, to catch up. The tutors rarely showed any sympathy to anyone who attended the lectures and still needed to beg for advice and assistance.

“That’s not like you,” Hilde observed, as they headed for lunch. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll tell you in the study room,” Gudrun said. She caught Leopold’s arm as he passed. “Can you bring your stereo?”

Leopold blinked in surprise. “Of course I can,” he said. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

Hilde stuck with Gudrun all through lunch, but had the common sense to keep her questions under wraps while they joined the line for food and drink, then ate as quickly as they could at a small table. The refectory was crammed with students, some wearing uniforms from the nearby military college, others daringly wearing American jeans and t-shirts that had been either smuggled into the Reich or sold at an enormous mark-up in one of the few American stores in the city. Gudrun winced inwardly as she saw one girl swaying past, her jeans so tight around her buttocks that she thought they were going to split open at any moment, then followed Hilde up the stairs and into the study room. Leopold was already there, attaching his stereo to the socket.

“So,” he said, as he turned on the machine. “What’s all this about, then?”

“Wait and see,” Gudrun said.

She sat down and waited as the remainder of the study group – five girls, seven boys – entered the room, then waved to Hilde to close and lock the door. Konrad, the one time he’d visited, had shown her where the bug was hidden, within the spare power socket. She motioned for Leopold to put the stereo next to the bug, then tapped the table for attention. Konrad might never recover from his wounds, but at least he would have a little revenge. She hesitated, knowing that a single traitor within the group would spell her death, and then took the plunge.

“This isn’t about our studies,” she said. “It’s… it’s political. If any of you are uneasy, please leave now and we won’t mention it to you again.”

There was a long pause. No one left.

Gudrun shuddered, inwardly. No one said anything overtly, but everyone knew that the SS had eyes and ears everywhere. Anyone could be a spy, anyone. Children were induced to betray their parents, if they said something against the Reich; wives could be convinced that their duties to the Reich were more important than their duties to their husbands. The university might be a lair for free-thinkers, it might have been designed to allow young Germans to think, but that only meant the SS would have more invested in keeping an eye on it. Hell, the only reason she believed Konrad had been a genuine visitor to the university, the first time they’d met, was that he’d worn his uniform.

And I will not let him down, she thought, savagely. There were some risks that had to be taken, even if the consequences were severe. She was damned if she was letting them get away with crippling her boyfriend and then lying to his family. I will do whatever it takes to take revenge.

“As you know, my boyfriend was sent to South Africa,” she said. It was a nice easy way to start the conversation. “I received two letters from him after his deployment began, then nothing. His family heard nothing too. It was only through a friend in the medical office that I heard he’d actually been sent back to the Reich, that he is currently in hospital right here in Berlin.”

She swallowed hard, then outlined what she’d done, careful not to mention that Kurt had also been involved. His CO would be furious, at the very least; Kurt would probably find himself attached to a punishment battalion and sent to clear a minefield or chase insurgents in Russia, the insurgents who’d been defeated, according to the news, several times over. The more she looked at the news with a cynical eye, the more she saw the discrepancies. If Russia was safe, why were so many soldiers dying there?

“They lied to us,” she said.

“Konrad was nothing special,” Leopold said. He’d never liked Konrad. The SS was rarely popular outside Germany East. “Why would anyone bother to cover up his wounds?”

“They wouldn’t,” Gudrun said, and outlined what she’d deduced. “They must be lying about more than just one wounded soldier. How many others have died, or been wounded, in South Africa?”

“The news says that only a few hundred soldiers have been killed or wounded on deployment,” Hilde said. She sounded shaken. “My… my boyfriend… could he have been killed or wounded too?”

Gudrun winced. Hilde’s boyfriend was a tanker who’d been deployed to South Africa a month after Konrad. Martin had never seemed a decent guy to her, but Hilde had clearly liked him, even loved him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Has he been writing to you?”

“He sends letters, but they’re always delayed,” Hilde said. “I only get them two or three weeks after they’re posted.”

“They’re censored,” Sven said. Too late, Gudrun remembered that Sven’s older brother was a soldier too. It was rare to find a German family who didn’t have at least one member in the military. “The REMFs always insist on reading letters before they’re forwarded to their recipients.”

Hilde coloured. “But he wrote…”

Gudrun could guess. “I don’t think they really care about endearments,” she said. She had a feeling that Martin had written something a little more passionate than Konrad ever had, but the censors probably wouldn’t care. It wasn’t as if he was sending racy postcards of himself back to his girlfriend. “However, they probably do black out anything to do with the war itself.”

Leopold frowned. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this conversation is?”

“Yes,” Gudrun said, flatly. “Yes, I do.”

“She did offer to allow us to leave,” Hilde pointed out.

Gudrun shot her a grateful look. “We’re being lied to,” she said, bluntly. “And many of us have relatives who may already be dead or wounded – and we don’t know.”

“This could be just an absurd coincidence,” Leopold said, after a moment. “Konrad” – his face twisted for a moment – “might have been caught up in a covert operation of some kind.”

“This isn’t a story from one of those damned Otto Skorzeny books,” Sven snapped. “Konrad wasn’t a superhuman commando, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Gudrun hid a smile. She’d been forced to read the Otto Skorzeny books herself, at school; Otto Skorzeny, who apparently had been a real person, had pulled off hundreds of death-defying stunts that had reshaped the face of the world. Skorzeny had been pitted against a multitude of villains – Evil Jewish Bankers, Evil American Capitalists, Evil Russian Communists, Evil British Monarchists – and emerged triumphant every time. The books had practically drooled over how Skorzeny proved that National Socialism was the way forward; none could stand against Skorzeny, they’d claimed, because he was a true follower of Adolf Hitler.

And how many of those stories, Gudrun asked herself, were made up of whole cloth?

Hilde held up a hand. “If there’s one, as Gudrun said, there will be others,” she said. “And Martin could be among the dead.”

“Let’s assume that’s true,” Leopold said. “What do we do about it?”

“What can we do?” Isla Grasser asked. “It isn’t as if we have any real power.”

“The first thing we do is try and find out how widespread this is,” Gudrun said. She’d need more than a single wounded SS trooper to convince people that something was very badly wrong. “We all know people who are serving in South Africa. I want you all to ask questions, to find out when those people last wrote to their families, to find out when they last had leave from the front. We will all ask those questions.”

“Martin’s family won’t talk to me,” Hilde said. “They don’t think I’d make a good housewife.”

Leopold snickered. “Tell them you’re pregnant.”

Hilde glared at him. “I’ve bled three times since he left,” she snarled. “I don’t have any way to convince them I’m pregnant.”

Leopold turned red and started to splutter. Gudrun winked at Hilde. Sex education in the Reich was very limited, but they’d all been taught how their bodies worked and how to recognise a pregnancy. She’d always found it amusing how men turned deaf whenever the subject of female issues cropped up, although she was privately sure that men talked about them in private. Why not? She and her girlfriends often poked fun at male foibles.

“You can just tell them that you’re worried about him,” she said. “I think they’d appreciate that, you know.”

“I doubt it,” Hilde said. She looked downcast for a long moment. “They were trying to set him up with some brainless bitch who came top of the class in basic housewifery.”

“My mother is hardly brainless,” Gudrun said. “And I don’t think anyone else has a brainless mother either.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Hilde said.

Gudrun shrugged. “Are we all agreed on our first step?”

“Yeah,” Sven said. “But tell me, Gudrun; what are we going to do if we discover there are more soldiers who’ve lost contact with their families?”

“Then we decide what to do,” Gudrun said. She had half a plan already, but she needed them to understand what was going on before she could push them to commit to anything more than private discussions. “You can all think about it while we’re gathering data and then we can decide what to do.”

“Escape to America,” Horst said, quietly. “My brother says he isn’t planning to come back after his period in America comes to an end.”

Gudrun sucked in her breath. She’d applied for the chance to become an exchange student, but she wasn’t particularly hopeful. Even if she won one of the coveted slots, her parents would probably refuse to allow her to leave the country. But if she was allowed to leave… would she return? There was no shortage of whispered stories about students who tasted life in America, home of blue jeans, country music and freedom, and refused to come back to Germany.

“I don’t know,” she said. Without one of the slots, it was unlikely she could get to Vichy France, let alone Britain. She wouldn’t have a travel permit, for one thing, and an unaccompanied teenage girl would raise eyebrows. “We are supposed to be the smartest people in Germany. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“There were stories of student protests in America,” Isla said.

“Those students weren’t at risk of being gunned down like rampaging Gastarbeiters,” Horst snapped. “If we do anything with this information, we run a terrible risk.”

“Yes, we do,” Gudrun said. She took a breath. “Konrad was – is – an SS trooper – I know, some of you detested him for wearing the Sigrunen lightning bolts. But he is a brave and decent man and he has been betrayed by the men he serves. A dead war hero is meant to be given a hero’s funeral, a wounded war hero is meant to lack for nothing. And yet, what does he have? A hospital bed in a crowded ward and no hope of recovery, while his family thinks he’s still in South Africa! What will they tell his family when he is due to return from the war?”

She took a breath, looking from face to face. None of them had really known what they were getting into, not really. They certainly hadn’t realised what she intended to tell them.

“I’m not going to sit on my backside and do nothing,” she concluded. “We are going to find out the truth and then we’re going to work out what to do with it. It is our duty to our country. That is what we are going to do.”