The Invasion of 1950

Epilogue

Berlin, Germany

The face of Adolph Hitler was frozen in a mask of pain.

He’d been raving at the unfortunate officer who brought him the story, screaming at him that Rommel would never surrender, would sooner die than surrender, and then he’d just stopped. Before Himmler could summon medical aid for the Fuhrer or clear the room, Hitler had fallen backwards with a strangled cry and collapsed on the floor. The SS doctor had pronounced it a massive stroke, and confirmed that it had not been an assassination attempt. The very relieved officer had been allowed to depart. Within minutes, the others in the room had departed as well. Kesselring and Speer, Himmler knew, would be preparing their own plans. When they met again, they would be competing for the throne.

Himmler left the doctor to move Hitler to somewhere where he could lie in state, although that might not be such a good idea if the doctor couldn’t alter his face. The building was already aware of what had happened, and word would have spread across the Reich by now; it would complicate an already-complex situation still further. There would be little room for a private strike for the throne, not with the eyes of everyone who mattered in Germany watching them. It would have to be a triumvirate, of course. The pressures of the war would demand no less; there was no room for a power struggle when Germany was fighting for its life.

He prided himself on his ability to think rationally under almost all circumstances, and even the defeat and Rommel’s surrender didn’t faze him. If nothing else, it was something that could be used to force some of Hitler’s other favourites out and it hardly meant the end of the war. The Kriegsmarine had taken a beating, the Luftwaffe had taken a beating but while the Reich’s ability to invade Britain had been wiped out, the British could hardly launch an invasion of the continent. The Americans had moved to support their British cousins, but that too only opened up new fields for the Reich. It was time to put Italy and Iran firmly in their place, either as subordinates to Germany or as more occupied states. Hitler’s affection for Mussolini and the Shah had kept them in power way past their usefulness. Now, without the Fuhrer, they could be brought to heel. Himmler suspected that they would see reason.

He had a trump card. The file sat in the SS castle, a file regarding science that Hitler himself had banned, because it had the taint of Jewish science around it. Himmler had no such prejudices, no real belief in the inherent failure of Jewish researchers. Besides, it would be simplicity itself to have the project reclassified as the work of German researchers. The only people who would know any better would be himself and the researchers, and both had strong incentives to remain silent. The author of the file had promised that they could have, with unlimited resources, a working model in less than a year, perhaps much less. With such a weapon, the world would be at Germany’s feet… and Himmler would become the master of Germany.

The war was far from over.