Storm Front

Chapter Three

Reichstag, Berlin

17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

There were times, Hans Krueger thought as he walked into the meeting room, that it would probably be easier to handle decisions if the Big Three met in private, hammered out a set of compromises and then presented it to the rest of the Reich Council as a fait accompli. It would certainly take less time, with less outraged shouting. But it was impossible. The different branches of the military would certainly want their say, the different government ministries would have their own opinions about matters and even the SS, for all it tried to present a monolithic face to the world, had its dissidents. There was no way to accommodate them all, save for inviting all the principles to the meetings.

And that tends to mean that nothing gets done, he reminded himself sourly. The only consolation was that formal protocol was practically non-existent. By the time we’re finished arguing, it’s time for dinner and then we resume arguing after dinner.

He sighed, inwardly, as he sat down and accepted a cup of coffee from the attendants. The remainder of the seats were filling up fast; the uniformed heads of the military, the ministers wearing fancy suits and the SS, clumped together at one end of the table. Hitler might have been a great man – Hans knew better than to think otherwise, even in the privacy of his own mind – but he’d never established a formal governmental structure to handle the vastly expanding Reich. Instead of an organised system, where power and responsibility were roughly equal, he’d presided over a hundred different fiefdoms, keeping them at loggerheads so his rule remained unchallenged. And when Hitler died, the wheels had threatened to come off the whole ramshackle structure.

And it was sheer luck that Himmler was convinced not to try to seize power for himself, Hans thought, glancing down towards Karl Holliston. The Reichsführer-SS would happily seize supreme power, if he thought he could get away with it. Then, the military would have opposed the SS, purely out of instinct. Now… who knows which way everyone will jump.

The attendants finished pouring coffee and withdrew, closing the doors behind them with a loud thump. Hans allowed himself a grim smile. They were in the most secure room in the Reich – the security team protecting the complex was the most capable in Germany – and yet, the true threat lay within. Just how many of the men at the table would make a bid for power if they thought they could succeed? Hans wouldn’t – he knew how hard it would be to rule the Reich alone – but he had a feeling he was the only one. Everyone else? The lure of supreme power was very alluring.

He kept his face impassive as the Fuhrer rose to his feet. “This meeting is now called to order,” Adolf Bormann said, turning to face the giant portrait hanging from the wall. Hans had to admit Bormann could give pretty speeches, but little else. “Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” Hans echoed.

And everywhere else, it would be Heil Bormann, he thought, as Bormann sat back down. But not here, not where we can’t risk allowing his head to swell.

“I move we address the war in South Africa,” Holliston said, quickly. “Victory Day has, as always, given us a boost. We must take advantage of it before it is gone.”

Hans exchanged glances with Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen, Head of OKW, who nodded once. The military, therefore, wanted to discuss the war too. Hans had a whole folder of economic issues that had to be addressed, but there was no point fighting an unwinnable battle against both the military and the SS. Besides, it would give him an opportunity to let Holliston make his points and then undermine the bastard. The SS man simply didn’t understand the cold economic realities that were steadily undermining the Reich.

Holliston leaned forward. “The South African War is approaching a climax,” he said, as if he hadn’t said the same thing at the last four meetings of the Reich Council. “We have taken losses, but we are pressing the rebel insurgents hard and persistently weakening their grip on their fellow blacks. They are steadily being worn down.”

He paused, waiting to see if anyone would object. Hans, who had quite a few private agents reporting to him from South Africa, could have disputed that rosy picture, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Better to let the SS man store up trouble for himself. Besides, he knew all too well what lurked behind the cold figures. Men and women killed, children rounded up and herded into concentration camps, towns and villages burned to the ground for daring to hide insurgents… no wonder the blacks were fighting desperately. They were caught between freedom and total extermination.

And thousands of our own men are dead, he thought, coldly. The general public doesn’t have the slightest idea just how many soldiers have been killed – or wounded – in South Africa.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, he reflected. The Reich had no elections, no way for the civilians to express their feelings about the war. No one had quite realised just how badly public opinion, such as it was, would be shocked about the Balkan War. The public hadn’t given a damn about slaughtered Jews or Muslims, of course, but telling them just how many Germans had been killed in the fighting had been a mistake. It wasn’t one the SS intended to repeat.

“However, we have a major problem,” Holliston continued. “Pretoria is not as enthusiastic about the war as we would prefer.”

“Unsurprising,” Hans commented, dryly. “We are, after all, fighting a savage war of peace on their territory.”

Holliston gave him a sharp look. “We have gathered evidence that suggests the South Africans are on the verge of betraying us,” he snapped. “Pretoria has been in private communications with Oliver Tambo and, apparently, attempting to come to some sort of agreement. Furthermore, Tambo and his bunch of terrorists would not have escaped if Pretoria had acted swiftly to reinforce the parachutists who attacked the bastard’s territory. I believe they hesitated in the hopes that Tambo would escape.”

“And succeeded, if that were the case,” Field Marshal Gunter Voss commented.

“They would presumably not have wished to restart negotiations with a new leader,” Hans mused. “Tambo is hardly the worst they could have had to deal with.”

He scowled, inwardly. Pretoria’s apartheid system had a great deal in common with the Third Reich, but the white population of South Africa made up only a tenth of the population, even though Pretoria had been working hard to lure immigrants from Spain, Italy, France and even Greece. The whites were, quite simply, badly outnumbered and every year they failed to crush the rebels, every little rebel success that helped to bleed Pretoria white, worsened their position. It was hard to blame Pretoria for looking for a way out of the war that allowed them to salvage something.

But Holliston, of course, didn’t see it that way.

“I have two proposals,” he said. “First, we double the number of German troops fighting in South Africa. We can easily spare 200,000 troops for as long as it takes to crush the blacks and bring peace to the country. Second, that we strike first and eliminate the government in Pretoria.”

Hans blinked in surprise. He’d expected the proposal to double the number of troops in South Africa; it had, after all, been made before. But eliminating the South African Government? It was insane! Which planner in Wewelsburg Castle had come up with the whole idea?

Holliston pressed the idea as hard as he could. “There are factions in Pretoria who will be happy to support us, if we eliminate the current leadership,” he said. “These are the factions who have been pressing for a more pro-active solution to the problem…”

Hans gritted his teeth. Holliston alone couldn’t commit the Reich to a desperate gamble, but if he dragged the military along with him… it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to head the madcap scheme off at the pass. And it was madness, of that Hans was sure. The meaning of the facts and figures might be disputed, but the facts themselves could never be.

“The last time I checked,” he said, allowing his voice to drip with sarcasm, “we sent our soldiers into South Africa to support the local government. Did something change while I was sleeping?”

“Of course not,” Holliston said.

“Then perhaps you can explain to me,” Hans pressed, “why supporting the local government requires executing its members and installing a set of puppets?”

“The current government is unable to fight the war effectively,” Holliston snapped. “I…”

Hans took a long breath. “Whatever we may think of the government of South Africa, the fact remains that it holds legitimacy in the eyes of the South Africans themselves,” he said, coldly. “They will not take calmly to us stepping in and removing their government. I dare say, given that they are of good racial stock, that they will not accept whatever government we install in its place. We will be forced to occupy South Africa ourselves, to disarm the local military and fight a multi-sided war against two sets of insurgents.

“Furthermore, our logistics are already problematic,” he added. “Our supply lines from the Reich to Germany South are poor and road and rail links between Germany South and South Africa are worse, even without the insurgents taking pot-shots at our convoys…”

“We could drive the attackers away from the roads if we didn’t have to humour the local government,” Holliston hissed.

“And we would find it hard to make use of the local logistics network,” Hans added, relentlessly. The South Africans, damn them, had chosen to licence American or British weapons rather than German, a decision that had come back to haunt them when the war began in earnest. “Indeed, the white flight from South Africa will only get worse as the war spreads into formerly safe areas. Or have you not realised just how dependent South Africa is on black labour?”

He allowed his voice to rise. “They use black labour everywhere, even in the military,” he reminded the table. “What happens if – when – those blacks become convinced that they’re ultimately doomed to go into the gas chambers anyway?”

“They’re of inferior stock,” Holliston snapped.

“And if they’re so inferior,” Hans said, “why do you need an extra 200,000 troops to fight the war?”

He kept the smirk that threatened to appear off his face with an effort. He’d argued against becoming involved in South Africa, only to be overruled by the military and the SS. Now, the SS looked grossly incompetent, grasping at straws rather than swallowing their pride and admitting they’d made a mistake, while the military were concerned about ever-increasing casualty figures. Doubling the troops in South Africa, if they could be supported, might end the war, but it was equally possible that it would only increase the number of dead or wounded soldiers. And who knew what would happen when that little fact got out?

Holliston glared at him. “And you would propose ending the war?”

“I would propose that we find a way to avoid wasting blood and treasure on a petty pointless war,” Hans said. “It will not be long before the chaos starts making its way up into Germany South or French North Africa.”

“The frogs can take care of themselves,” Holliston growled.

“They might have some problems,” Hans observed. “We place some pretty strict limits on their military, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Voss said, flatly. “The last thing we want is a modern tank force within striking distance of Germany.”

Hans nodded in agreement. The terrain between Vichy France and Berlin was not conductive to deep strikes, but giving Vichy the power to stand up for itself would have dangerous implications. France had been in the economic doldrums for decades, despite a slow and steady advance into North Africa. The French Government might be more than willing to bend over and take whatever Berlin chose to dish out, but the French population loathed the Germans with a fiery passion. If the Reich ran into problems elsewhere, who knew which way the French would jump? And, to be fair, Spain and Italy didn’t like the Germans much either.

He cleared his throat. “The facts and figures make it clear, gentlemen, that we need to make some adjustments in our budget,” he warned. “We are spending more than we earn.”

“Then print more money,” Holliston said. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

“That’s what Weimer tried,” Hans reminded him. “And what happened to Weimer?”

Silence fell. Very few of the men in the room had been old enough to understand what was going on, back when they’d been children, but they remembered how the Weimer Republic had collapsed into chaos. And yet, Hans knew that most of them didn’t understand just how desperately Hitler had needed to keep adding new conquests to the Reich. It had taken years, after the end of the war, to put the Reich on a sound economic footing. Now, all that hard work was being wasted.

“The war in South Africa, alone, is costing us billions of Reichmarks,” Hans said. “Both directly, in weapons and equipment lost during the fighting, and indirectly, in taking care of the wounded. The economic lifeline we’ve tossed to Pretoria is worse, in a way; we’re simply not getting enough back from the mines in South Africa to pay for the war. But that isn’t the worst of it. Our total military budget is sucking up far too much money…”

“We have to prepare to fight the Americans,” Voss said. He tossed a sharp look at Grossadmiral Cajus Bekker. “Don’t we need to build more ships?”

“We can’t afford many more ships,” Hans said. “A single nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Field Marshal, costs over ten billion Reichmarks. Building enough to fight the Americans on even terms, which leaves the British out of the equation, will cost two hundred billion Reichmarks!”

“The Americans seem to be able to afford it,” Holliston said. “Are you sure you’re not mismanaging our money?”

“The Americans have several advantages,” Hans growled. “First, they have a larger GNP than ourselves. They can afford to build more carriers, missiles and spaceships without straining their economy. Second, they have a smaller budget for their other governmental functions. Third, their weapons production is standardised, not just between the different services, but also between their allies. A British soldier can fire American bullets from his gun and vice versa. Fourth, and perhaps the most important at the moment, the Americans offer much less social benefits than ourselves.”

“A mother’s benefit packet is less than a hundred Reichmarks per week,” Holliston said, tightly. The SS had been a big supporter of the scheme, although Holliston had been a lowly trooper at the time. “It is hardly a problem.”

“It mounts up,” Hans said. “There are roughly 1.5 million mothers in Berlin today. If each of them has two children, they can claim 160 Reichmarks each week from the government – and, I assure you, almost every mother in Berlin does. That means, each week, we spend somewhere around 240 million Reichmarks in Berlin alone.”

He looked around the table, willing them to understand. “That’s a very rough figure,” he said. “Right now, the average family size is four children; six in Germany East, despite the endless insurgency. Every single one of those mothers can claim eighty Reichmarks per child, per week. The cost is staggeringly high and we can’t afford it!”

“We need it,” Holliston said, into the silence. “The Volk must not be allowed to vanish from the earth!”

“The Volk are in no danger of fading away,” Hans said. “Indeed, our population is expanding rapidly. But every year we delay in dealing with this crisis, the worse it will be when it finally explodes. I can paper over the cracks for a while, but not for very long. Creative accounting will catch up with us sooner or later.”

He cursed under his breath. Holliston wouldn’t understand, of course. The SS was obsessed with children, to the point where it encouraged fine young German men to marry more than one wife. Hell, it had been Himmler himself who had started the original scheme. He’d noted, correctly, that cost was a major factor in bringing up children and come up with a simple idea to reduce the costs. But, like all such schemes, it had snowballed out of control and turned into a nightmare.

“We cannot make cuts,” Holliston said.

“We must,” Hans said. “Ending the war in South Africa alone would save a few billion Reichmarks per year.”

“We could sell more weapons,” Voss suggested.

“The world’s buyers prefer British or American weapons,” Luther Stresemann said. The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service looked concerned. “Our reputation for producing weapons took a pounding when the Royal Navy sank the Argentinean ships during the war.”

“The brown-skinned grafters didn’t know how to use them,” Holliston snapped.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hans said. Oddly, it was one of the few points where he found himself in agreement with Holliston. “All that matters is that sales of weapons are falling and unlikely to stabilise any time soon. The only people who buy exclusively from us are our captive markets and we don’t want to sell them the most advanced weapons.”

“Of course not,” Holliston said.

Hans sighed and glanced at the wall-mounted clock, silently resigning himself to another long and acrimonious meeting where nothing would be decided. If he could convince the military that eliminating Pretoria’s government was a potential disaster, he told himself, at least that would be something…

…But, as the meeting finally drew to an end, no decisions were taken at all.